So I want to understand well my Capricorn and avoid to be a weirdo or freak her up.
So after a lot of years I retook contact with her because I wanted to apologize with her because I'm the past for lies from others, she ended getting mad at me for something I didn't have nothing to do and would take my distance for very long.
So we retook contact and was fine and good but something I have notice is that when chatting sometimes she won't answer more questions or keep the conversation going, so I would let her days to do her stuff and all that.
I know many would say but she is just disrespecting you and doesn't care , but I know her besides hating social medias and all that, she hasn't been doing great as well since her cat die some weeks ago, even thought it was a lot of years without contact I decided to help a little even thought she was surprised and say that she would repay me as soon as possible, I say it was allright that she would have done the same if I would be on difficulty.
Last week she have a fall down and posted some stuff about her cat, so we chatted a bit and she told me about the cats she has lost and even thought many hate sensibility , I somehow find this cute and give me more understanding of her.
Eventually I made an acrostic poem of her cat name with each letter, I don't know if it was cringe or bad , or that she simply read it and push the difficulties she got on the week.
The thing is that I didn't got an answer and I understand that she has been dealing with a lot, week has been busy for both of us.
But I don't know I'm thinking to write her seeing that tomorrow is Sunday and everybody got free but I don't want to be annoying or feel clingy to her.
Sooo capricorns, what should I do? What you people think is going on?
She hasn't answer many times in the past but I don't take it personally and let her be, she doesn't really write me first before except a few times with a greeting with a lot of exclamations marks hahaha.
I just don't want for her to lose interest, neither to feel alone and misunderstood in those difficult times.
She has told me that she doesn't feel understood about the situation of her cat with her family and she wrote me about it.
Sometimes in afraid to say the wrong thing because I feel like walking in a glass bridge that could break at anytime.

This is based off a post I saw somewhere else, and I thought it could make an interesting mental exercise where you'd have to think about what's the most important to you and how your goals would change based on the amount of time you had.
For the sake of this game, you'll know with 100% certainty that you'll be dead after your time allowance is up. There's no "but what if I only think I'll be dead in six months but then I'm not and I fucked up my entire life?" When your time is up, it's up. You'll be dead and won't have to live with the consequences of your actions.
So just for fun (and growth, maybe?) here's mine:
If I had 24 hours to live: Realistically, I'd know I wouldn't be able to accomplish anything of substance, so I'd just focus on pure pleasure. I'd go out and do something fun, maybe go to the nearby theme park in the city I haven't been to in a while or an expensive night club and wear my favorite outfit. I'd eat and drink whatever I wanted, and however much of it I wanted. When I got back home I'd take something to keep me as calm as possible and call/text the people I care about who live far away to let them know I care about them. I'd spend my last hours in bed watching a comfort movie.
If I had a week: I'd go on a road trip with my entire family to somewhere I always wanted to go to, maybe LA or somewhere similar, and spend the rest of my days there. Probably my actions would be pretty similar to the above, I'd just have slightly more time to do bigger things and say goodbye to people in person.
If I had a month: I'd quit my job for sure (for the top two, idk if I'd even bother to formally quit, I'd just stop showing up) and again, probably act fairly similar to above. I might try going to another country like Italy or Japan to see what it was like and try their food, but I don't think I'd want to die there. I'd also try and maybe finish something creative before my death, even if it was just a short story or a few poems.
If I had six months: 100% quitting my job and putting all my energy into finishing my long term writing project and having fun. I'd use my savings and hire a cleaner to come in once a month to take care of boring everyday tasks so I have as few distractions as possible.
If I had a year: Same as above really, but I might also try and experience a brief romance before the end. Probably wouldn't be able to truly fall in love but hopefully I'd at least meet someone cool.
If I had five years: I wouldn't quit my job, but I also try and find something better and something that would be fairly undemanding. I wouldn't be making any big career or life plans, but I would try to write something and get it professionally published before I died. I'd want to leave having made my mark on the world in some significant way.
If I had ten years: I'd probably quit my job ASAP to go back to school, while trying to find a relationship and work on my creative projects when I had free time or after I was done. IMO ten years would be super hard for me because it's long enough to where I'd definitely want to build a life but short enough to where I'd really have to haul ass if I wanted to make that life come to fruition.
If I had twenty years: Honestly, I'd probably be doing exactly what I'm doing now just with even more anxiety lol.
So yeah, feel free to add yours!

4 years together. 2 living together. I loved him. He didn’t feel the same way I guess. 18 days since we’ve broken up no contact.
fuck you for not answering me. fuck you for leading me on. fuck you. fuck you for getting that one last fuck in. fuck you for letting me believe we were still gonna be friends. fuck you for being okay. fuck you. fuck you flr never defending me. fuck uou for everything you did during the relationship. fuck you. fuck you. i was never going to be enough for you. i was never going to be what you so dreamed of. no matter what i was never going to be it for you? you were it for me. fuck you for pretending like you loved me. fuck you for letting me believe a lie for years. fuck you. fuck you. fuck you for not moving to Victoria. never ballsy enough to end it but to let me live in misery. fuck you for being miserable with me. fuck you nathan. i hope one day you see this and think about how much you miss me. i hope you think back and realized that i loved you so hard and raw. i hope you realize what you did. i would’ve never slept with you or stayed with u for that night knowing you had no intention of continuing it. fuck you. fuck you. you let me believe you still loved me. you let me have hope for having you in my life. fuck you for everything you did. fuck you for letting me love you. fuck you for the way you handled this breakup. fuck you. fuck you. fuck you. fuck you for never being there for me. fuck you for letting me cry myself to sleep next you to after i got diagnosed. i made you dinner after i got literal chemo. i had spots on my brain. you didn’t even hold me after. you were not there for me. you let me sob and didn’t even look me in hen eye. fuck you. fuck you. i tried to be a cool girl with you. I will never be cool enough. did i ever mean anything to you? was i just a body to keep you company? how can you just be fine? fuck you for wrecking my college experience. fuck you for pretending to love me. how could you love me and still be okay? fuck you for not wishing me a happy birthday. fuck you for never being vulnerable. fuck you for letting me believe i was worth anything to you. fuck u for becoming this twisted villain. i wish i could go back and erase you. i wish you never dated me. i would never have to feel like this. i would never have to be this alone. fuck uou for not trying. i begged you to love me. i begged to be enough. i sobbed to you BEGGING for a change. i beg and beg and beg and you never verbalized anything. i made you love letters, playlists, poems. i planned our future. you played video games. i am pretty, fun, funny. i am kind. i am a good person, and you destroyed me. do you hear me telling you that? you wrecked me. you took my spark and ate it. you took my beauty and stomped on it. you never said or with your words but your actions. i was worthless to you. i wasn’t even worth making dinner or a date. i wasn’t worth dinner to you. I would’ve been your wife. I would’ve been your wife. I would’ve been your wife. do you hear that? i would’ve started a life with you. actually, i did! i derailed my life for someone who couldn’t even make me fucking dinner. do you feel like a man now? do feel like one of the boys now? fuck you. how can i be friends with a man that so blanatly doesn’t care about me? respect me? did you ever? and now you’re gonna go on and paint me the villain, but i think we both know how hard i loved you. remember when i asked you if you thought we were soulmates? you said you didn’t believe in soulmates. neither did i but my love for you was so intense i started too. your love for me was so dull you can just throw me away. i fell so madly in love with you for so long and you thought i was just fine. i was nothing to you. i was just to keep you company? better than being alone? the most sick and twisted part is i do wish you the best. i want you to live a good life and fall in love and feel so much love. i want you to be okay, just wish you could’ve missed me like i miss you. if only for a little while i wish you couldve loved me like i loved you. i want you to have a wife and kids and the life you deserve, i just wish it could’ve been me. i wish i could’ve been enough for you. you loved me like a first love, but you weren’t my first, just my best. this was puppy love for you, but this was soul crushing intense love for me. you’re never supposed to read this, so if you are i on a whim decided to send it. you can take it however you want. you can paint me however you see fit, but just so you know i loved (love) you. i still crave your skin, your mind, your hair. i think i might forever. you hurt me. you hurt me so deep. i feel used. maybe im angry, or depressed, or maybe i just feel disgusted by how much of myself i gave you. you told me we would continue to see each other after (if only to be friends, or maybe more) but you looked me in the eyes and promised we would still see each other, so we had sex. so i continued to be vulnerable with you. but you never intended to stay friends with me or continue hanging out. you just wanted one last fuck. we had sex better than we have in months. is it because you knew it would be the last time? when you dropped off my stuff you kept the car running. im not even worth it to stop a minute? im not worth a hug goodbye? im completely worthless to you. you never even listened to the playlist i made you. how could i expect you to love me? how could i expect you respect me? how could i expect anything at all? i don’t know how to be a person anymore. you never looked at the posts i sent you. you never wanted to go out. you never wanted me. you never wanted me. you never wanted me. i don’t understand how you can just be ok. im sick to my stomach. everytime something happens i just want to call you. i just want to hear ur voice. i just want to see your face. i know you never want to see me again and it’s so hard. the worst part is i don’t hate you at all. i love you so much. why didn’t you love me? how am i ever going to be okay again? how am i ever going to live with this constant pit in my stomach. how can you not want me back? how can you possibly be ok right now? why wasn’t i good enough for you? how are you still laughing and being funny and having a good time? why didn’t you wish me a happy birthday? why don’t you miss me ? why don’t you miss me? why don’t you miss me?

Below I summarize and paraphrase Fanon's essay into a schematic fashion. Hopefully this will be useful to some.
Original: https://proletarian-library.neocities.org/en/on-national-culture

The three phases of the colonized intellectual

Phase 1: Racial and regional culture.

Colonialism asserts that the colonized are barbarians without nations or culture, who need colonialism in order to be saved from themselves. It does not bother with making a special case against the existence of any individual nationalism, but for the sake of efficiency, instead chooses to deny the existence of culture on regional or racial grounds. This also has a reciprocal effect on the colonizing Europeans nations, forming them into an international mass of whiteness.
In an attempt to negate the Europeans' claims, the colonized intellectuals assert an international or interregional culture, such as Pan-Africanism, or Pan-Arabism. The colonized intellectual first finds the qualities that define white culture: dull reason, stifling logic, rigidity, ceremony, protocol, skepticism - qualities of the capitalist colonialist venture and the cold calculation of surplus value. Within these limits, the intellectual then defines the regional culture by finding the opposite of those qualities: poetry, exuberant nature, naivete, petulance, freedom, luxuriance - portraying the colonized as irresponsible. Although it emphasizes international solidarity against colonialism, the simple negation of racial capitalist culture does not culminate in an overall antagonistic contradiction to colonialism. The intellectual who forwards it desires most of all to be seen as equals to the Europeans. They attempt to combat the colonizer on their own terms, resorting to racialized claims to match the concept of whiteness and the vision of a universal Europe. Equal footing in this case then could only mean that the colonized intellectuals meet the European intellectuals as the exploited to their exploiter.
However, soon objective problems undo this attempt at regional culture. The intellectual finds that the fight against colonialism differs in progression amongst the nations of the region. They abandon their asserted regional/racial culture once these objective problems make it clear that the decisive unit of struggle against colonialism is the nation, not the region or race. As culture is a reflection of struggle, it too differs amongst the nations, revealing that culture is first and foremost national. To be connected to reality, productive, and substantive, culture must be a national culture, not a pseudo-continental culture. The problem with the racialized cultures, is that they are a negation without transcendence of the colonialist's whiteness, whereas national culture is the progressive negation of the colonialist claims of barbarity. In order to really find a regional culture and cultural unity of a region, first there must be national liberation for all nations in that region. Specifically national problems expose racial universalization as immaterial, returning the intellectual back to the nation.

Phase 2: Stuck between the colonizer and the masses.

Phase 2A: Persuading the colonizer with defensive shallow national culture.

As the intellectual returns to the nation, their approach to the national culture has been altered. In the period preceding colonialism, the intellectual has a dynamic attitude towards the people’s culture, but after colonialism, this is replaced by a static attitude full of concrete particularism. The intellectual claims that national culture is the folklore of 'the people', turning it into simple self-discovery and at attempt at defining an abstract people through historical appeals. National culture becomes defined by narrow terms and limits, a rigid structure. Particulars of the nation are elevated to mystical proportions to signify the nation's historical roots. The intellectual brings forth cultural items in a mechanical way, finding the most surface level cultural items to display the existence of a national culture. It is loud, it is bold, and it is cliche.
This aesthetic of particularism is a defense mechanism to preserve what remains of the old culture and life before colonialism. It is also an attempt to assert the nation to the colonizer. The intellectual hopes they can stop the colonial occupation by putting the shallow culture under the occupier's nose. But to do this, they must necessarily make the culture comprehensible to the occupier, translating the culture into a language they will understand. This locks the intellectual into the style and aesthetic of the colonialist, dooming the culture to shallowness, and especially making it alien to the national masses.
The national masses have their own relationship to the national customs. Following conquest, they continue to practice the customs of pre-conquest culture. They do this as a means of asserting their nationhood, in the only way they know how. In doing so, they prove by themselves that their nation does exist, despite the colonizers' claims to the contrary. This demonstration of nationhood upsets the racial (nation denial) justification of colonialism and is subsequently prohibited by the colonizers. When, in spite of prohibition, the masses go on practicing the customs, the colonizer responds with repression, calling forth a correspondingly violent reaction by the colonized. Such violence unites and emboldens the national masses, furthering their claim to nationhood.
But this practice and defense of customs is not in itself a struggle for national liberation. Rather, the violence is too only a defensive reaction to prevent losing what little remains of material life before domination. Customs are built by, and reflect the needs of, struggles that existed before the fight for national liberation. In their practice, the masses parade out something that is dead and try to pretend it is alive. Culture, on the other hand, reflects the living, always adapting needs of the present. Culture becomes solidified into custom through changes in the economic structure. Thus, asserting that customs are the primary symbol of the nation deteriorates the culture, making it lifeless, highlighting the past while ignoring the issues of the present. However, there is a positive side to the masses continual practice of customs under colonialism. By experiencing the masses’ demonstration of nationhood, the intellectual sees that the nation is being created through the masses' struggle against colonialism.

Phase 2B: Moving towards the masses, recreating their struggle.

The intellectual starts to identify with the masses through their movements and their development of national consciousness, moving the primacy of the contradiction within themselves towards the masses. The longer any open battle and combat for national liberation persists, more intellectuals will be moved from phase 2A, through 2B. The national masses' staying power, their ability to persist in their struggle despite repression, setbacks, and any other attempts to stop their struggle, impresses the intellectual and impels them to stop whatever else they were doing.
The intellectual begins to openly criticize colonialism, rather than attempting to persuade it. When the intellectual first attempts to prove the existence of the nation, they, in a kind of clumsy way, raise above all else the particulars of custom. But now, the masses have displayed their fresh vibrant quality of creation in the struggle. By counterposing this quality of the masses to the qualities of the colonial administrator, the opposition between the colonialist and the intellectual are brought to an antagonistic contradiction, progressing past the racial and regional culture of phase 1.
The intellectual’s work now changes forms, from poetry to novels, short stories or essays. The work becomes more direct. The abstract indirectness of poetry fades away as the intellectual becomes involved in the masses' struggle. The content of the work changes as well. Gone are the intellectual’s emotional cathartic outbursts towards the colonizer, which were always acceptable to the colonizer anyway. As long as violence is left to the domain of art, and doesn’t make its way to the masses, these outbursts will always be applauded.
But now the audience is shifted. In phase 2A, the audience is still the colonizer, while in phase 2B the masses become the audience. The intellectual now insists on describing the sacrifices of the national masses. They attempt to capture the masses in their moment of national creation. The intellectual analyzes and describes the moment of revolt with unnerving precision, creating a careful rendition of truth. But Fanon asks if this version of truth is real, or if it is outmoded, irrelevant, called into question by the actual reality being created by the masses.
Despite their rationality and commitment, the intellectual still fails to live up to the rationality and irreversible commitment displayed by the masses actually in motion. The intellectual is not capable of showing the reality of the nation this way, because culture is the continual never-ending struggle of the nation. As soon as the artist sets down to catalog the moment, it has passed. The intellectual that attempts to create culture and a work of national significance by simple replication of motion is chasing a dead end.
The intellectual who is intent on describing the national culture must make a full break with their colonial side. The intellectual is still caught in a contradiction that makes the creation of culture impossible. They must decisively define the masses as their subject. This objective choice must first begin within the intellectual, through recognizing their division between their colonialist education, and the colonized nation. Fanon calls this the intellectual’s alienation. This alienation is a result of what the intellectual has taken from colonialism. The transaction has been one-sided; the colonizer did not actually give what the intellectual took. Everything ‘given’ has been in the interest of colonialism, making the intellectual the one who was really taken. In an attempt to reverse what they gave, the intellectual proclaims against the colonizer, proclaims for the nation, proclaims against being divided, attempts to reunite with the nation through old dead customs. But to really reverse what was taken, the intellectual must give instead to the masses. The intellectual must reunite with the masses and the living culture of the present struggle. This will suddenly call the alienation into question.
The intellectual of 2B begins with simply highlighting the contradictions between the nation and the colonizer. But culture is authentic when it reflects the reality of the nation, and the reality and culture of the colonized nation is not just its life under domination, but actually its liberation. The culture describes where the nation is going, not just where it is at or where it has been, calling upon the whole people to join in the struggle for the existence of the nation. They must move to rousing the masses to liberation.

Phase 3: Revolutionary national culture

The intellectual transitions into their role of delivering marching orders for the liberation struggle, becomes more direct and calculated. It is only by calling the national masses to combat that the intellectual can assist in proving the existence of the nation. All other attempts at proving the nation's existence are for the colonizer only. The present colonial situation is no longer a matter simply for the intellectual, for their personal anguish, which they only communicate to the oppressor, but instead is channeled out to the national masses in every direction. The intellectual is called to the masses in their struggle for national liberation, but just the same, the intellectual calls the masses to rise for national liberation. Fanon’s word choices: rouse, galvanize, combat, signal that this is not a portrayal for artistic sake but for the purpose of revolution.
Only the intellectuals who are rousing the masses for the current national struggle at hand, speaking directly to the masses, are creating works of national culture. In all other roles, they fall short. Until they reach this point, the culture of the nation does not exist for the intellectual. They cannot create national culture, nor proclaim the nation by extension, until they rouse the people to combat. Then the intellectual can finally create, and finally becomes creative. To fight for national culture means fighting for the liberation of the nation. The intellectual who wants to fight for culture, must take part in the action by spurring the people into further action, fostering hope and using the past to open up the future.
Phase 3 creation does not 'trifle with the reality' of the nation, a characteristic of phase 2 creation, but rather reinterprets the images of the country for revolutionary purposes. It also finds the exact moment of the struggle, place of action, and ideas around which culture will form. The word 'will' is the main difference between phase 2 and 3. Phase 2B describes where the moment of struggle took place, rather than where it will take place. Phase 2B tells us about the struggle after it has passed, while phase 3 leads and amplifies the wave of the struggle.
Phase 3 literature is pedagogical. It presents things in a clear manner, and its account is meticulous and develops progressively. The most esteemed praise Fanon places upon the intellectual is to say that, through understanding their creation of national culture, the masses have performed an intellectual and political act:

To understand this poem is to understand the role we have to play, to identify our approach and prepare to fight.

This is the outline to any combat. The colonized national masses understand their position within the chain of command, the battle plan, and are ready to deploy at any moment. Fanon says that all colonized subjects will perform these acts when they receive the message of the national culture.
The intellectual and the masses' real movement against the colonial world is the determining factor for the culture. National liberation defines the national culture in explicit terms, determining the shape the intellectual’s work takes. Customs in all art forms will be upset during the revolutionary upsurge, updated to be relevant to the current struggle. The rough skeletons of customs are kept while the content and form are changed, transforming customs into living dynamic culture. New amateurs join in the creation of national culture, pushing old intellectuals to adapt to the new forms. Comedy and farce as artistic forms become less important, and drama is no longer simply for the intellectual only, but becomes part of the national masses regular experience, part of the struggle. Characters are portrayed in action or in combat, or instead of depicting single subjects, multiple people.
The degree to which the new culture reflects the old customs, is only determined by the capacity for the old customs to be appropriated to the new ends of advancing the national struggle. In practice, appeals to custom are not excluded by a set of rules, but rather the awakening to the real national culture, which is always in the moment changing, naturally excludes custom by definition. Custom is stagnant and in contradiction to the radical reality grasping required by revolution. National culture deteriorates and erodes all customs obsolete to the present. Involving or carrying through the customs is not the critical part of the formation of the new national culture, but rather the nation adapting and struggling against their colonialist, neocolonialist, or imperialist reality, creating national culture along the way. The intellectual’s appropriation of the nation's history is progressive only in the context that it is used for national liberation.

Summary

We began with the intellectuals' attempt to negate the European colonialists' claim that the colonized have no culture. And this attempt has gone through three phases, where only the final phase has not been a dead end. In the first phase, the intellectual is insignificant to the national masses. This is a historically transient phase, upset by national realities. In the second phase, the artist is producing for the nation and for the colonizer. It is probably the most prevalent and common phase, and the one most commodified. In the third phase, the intellectual is a revolutionary, intertwined with the masses and the creation of culture.

To this day, your tears still haunt me
Your bitter voice still taunts me
Drifting in your boundless eyes
Ears still ringing from your voiceless cries
OH! I remember the days of old
How I fucked, How I whored
Your memories invade me like an incessant hound
I have searched and searched but nothing is to be found
I catch glimpses of your shadow when no one is around
I have dug your grave and lowered you into the ground
I wasted my life in pursuit of the euro and pound
But now I have gone blind and deaf, and I hear no sound
I was thin and small and weak
When you found me by the creek
Now I am a giant
And people call me a freak
When I was a thief and full of strife
You saw in me only a missed life
Pressed against my neck. a serrated knife
You took it away and became my wife
OH! you are an angel made of the purest light
Your eyes are blue, your skin the purest white
I have done many wrongs and I wish I could set them right
For you I lived, For you I still fight
I am rich now but what am I to do with all this money
I miss your laughter, OH! it was sweeter than honey
A bastard from the middle east
Subhuman, a feral beast
Cocaine was my food and heroin my feast
A living zombie, nearly deceased
You are gone now but I am still here
This world is cruel and so very unfair
Are you in heaven or are you in hell
I guess only time will tell
Is there an afterlife or just the endless dark
Rest assured though, you certainly left your mark
THE WORLD IS ENDING
THE ANGELS ARE FALLING
THE DEMONS ARE CRAWLING
AND YOUR VOICE IS CALLING
Calling...... me.........
First of all, thank you for reading my poem. Secondly some context. I have random flairs of creativity and I just write a few lines without knowing where it's going or what is the theme or anything like that. This is what happened to me when writing this. After a few lines, I knew that this poem was about an old man who in his younger days used to be a thief and all-around bad person. However, after finding his lover and wife, He became happy. This poem is written through the perspective of this old man after his wife's death.
I am quite new to poetry, and this is one of the first long poems I have written. I would love to hear any critiques you have. Also, what did you think the poem was about before reading the context. I hope you enjoyed my little poem and thank you for reading it. I hope you have a nice day!

The first flurries of snowflakes began to fall at Westbridge at about 0440 in the morning, seen only by the late night/early morning sentries. By the time the next watch came to relieve them at 0600, they were already halfway up to their knees in snow. By 0800 the watch had been moved indoors due to the hazardous conditions. “The blizzard is in full effect now, ma’am,” reported an adjutant to Major Emily Potts. “Very well, thank you,” Potts replied, signing the new plan of the day. Until further notice, there was to be no outdoor physical activity beyond that which was absolutely operationally necessary. PT was cancelled, including the newly-introduced swimming exercises that the boat crew personnel had been leading, and all sentries were moved indoors, standing watch in the corners of buildings overlooking the barriers that had been pushed across the gates. Transit through the town was exclusively by truck, Taurox, or Chimera now, and the motor pool was kept busy trying to keep the heaters running. The Newcastle was tied to the pier with doubled-up lines and the crew had walked out the anchor underfoot, just in case the lines didn’t hold her, while all the small motor boats they could find had been covered with heavy tarps to protect them. “Not quite the course of events I think any of us were expecting,” Potts commented to Commissar Lion as she walked back into the command center from her office. “But I suppose the weather is keeping us all on our toes once again.”

A communique arrived from Colonel Braithwaite, text only, likely due to the scrambling effects of the heavy storm, which read:
CONFIDENTIAL//LIMDIS
PERSONAL FOR: POTTS, MAJ. EMILY GRACE
Major,
The assault on Fort Ko’Var is scheduled, and we will need all our resources available. As soon as the storm has sufficiently cleared, detach a vehicle to transport them and direct ARTEMIS to make best speed toward Waycross Road. Inform them to expect an intelligence brief en route of their task and maintain radio guard on 157.1 MHz for instructions.
Keep me informed regarding any further rioting in town or any resurgence of discontent among your troops. I do not wish to have to hear of any further brawling between regiments – you have full authority as garrison commander to take what matters you need to.
For the Emperor and Praetoria,
Colonel Penelope Braithwaite
CONFIDENTIAL//LIMDIS
PERSONAL FOR: POTTS, MAJ. EMILY GRACE

Everyone, from enlisted to officer, well-behaved or troublemaker alike, was now stuck in barracks, waiting out the storm. This meant that Beaumont and her valet were going to be waiting in close quarters for some time with the Praetorian officers of Uniform Company, sharing what had once been a small family home (before the family had either evacuated, relocated, or been lost in the fighting) and was now an improvised condo for officers. Muller was doing paperwork of some kind, having largely left her platoon lieutenants to go about their own business. One of her roommates, who was currently ironing her extra uniform (probably the only other one she had), looked over to talk to Elodie. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we got to meet earlier,” she said politely. “I’m Beatrice Williams. My troops and I came back from the fight at the crossing to bring back the wounded. What’s your name?” She was maybe twenty or so, clearly fresh out of the schola, with curly blonde hair and bright cornflower blue eyes, and she clearly had no idea about the age-old strife between Praetoria and Saunoit.

Meanwhile, partway down the road to Waycross, the 27^th were digging in, building shelters and dugouts at the direction of the regiment’s veteran cold weather soldier, Commissar Jensen. The vehicles of the regiment were parked in tight patterns to block the wind, idling their engines occasionally to keep the fuel lines from freezing and cracking. With snow already falling heavily, the sentries heard a roar of engines as a Chimera at max speed careened toward the camp, narrowly avoiding the heaviest of the blizzard. Lieutenant Lenore McPherson wrapped her scarf tighter around her face as she staggered out of the back of the vehicle and into the comparative warmth of the command dugout, which was rapidly being surrounded by white snowbanks. “Colonel,” she reported with a salute. “The group I took to Waycross is back. Nothing further to pass, my last message to the colonel before the Ork attack was that we’d be in touch once the snow cleared.” “Thank you, Lieutenant. Go get warmed up,” Braithwaite ordered with a nod.
Once the blizzard conditions calmed down a little, the regiment could finally take stock of their new position. They hadn’t taken too many equipment or personnel casualties, though they had a few dozen cases of frostbite. Less than ten of those turned out to be fatal exposure, mainly unlucky sentries who hadn’t prepared for the weather until they found themselves going pale and no longer shivering. The bad news, though, was how heavily they were snowed in. The encampment was almost totally buried in several feet of snowdrifts, and so was any trace of their path – meaning that it would take them likely a day or more just to dig themselves out, and their passage would be greatly slowed. And as the first Chimera mounted a dozer blade and began to plow a path through the center of the camp, Merina Saxton finished copying out her poem once again, folding it carefully and leaving it out where one of her squadmates would find it. She hadn’t expected “Jennie” to be such a hit – in happier times, she’d have gotten it published in the paper and maybe return to that writing career she’d always dreamed of. That was, of course, impossible now. But a little press never hurt anyone…

Week 1: Introduction to Poetry and Sonnets
Day 1: Overview of Poetry Styles - Activity: Icebreaker - Introduce yourself through a poetic name acrostic. - Lecture: Brief history of poetry, introduction to various styles. - Discussion: What draws you to poetry? Share your favorite poems.
Day 2: Understanding Sonnets - Activity: Analyze a classic sonnet together. - Lecture: Explanation of sonnet structure (Shakespearean and Petrarchan). - Discussion: Share initial impressions and feelings about sonnets.
Day 3: Writing Exercise - Crafting a Sonnet - Activity: Break down sonnet structure with examples. - Assignment: Write a sonnet exploring a personal experience or emotion. - Vocabulary Words: Quatrain, Couplet, Volta.
Day 4: Peer Review and Feedback - Activity: Peer review workshop for sonnets. - Lecture: Discuss common challenges and strategies in sonnet writing. - Discussion: Share insights gained from reviewing peers' work.
Day 5: Recap and Reflection - Activity: Reflect on the week's lessons and exercises. - Lecture: Overview of upcoming weeks. - Assignment: Write a short reflection on what you've learned about poetry and sonnets.
Study Guide Questions for Week 1: 1. What is the basic structure of a sonnet? 2. Compare and contrast Shakespearean and Petrarchan sonnets. 3. How does the volta contribute to the meaning of a sonnet? 4. Discuss the role of rhyme and meter in sonnets. 5. Explore your personal connection to poetry. What emotions or themes resonate with you?
Quiz: A short quiz assessing understanding of sonnet structure, key terms, and the historical context of poetry.
Week 2: Embracing Haiku and Villanelle
Day 1: Understanding Haiku - Activity: Analyze classic haikus. - Lecture: Explain the traditional structure and themes of haikus. - Discussion: Share thoughts on the simplicity and depth of haikus.
Day 2: Crafting Haikus - Activity: Write haikus individually. - Lecture: Discuss the significance of nature in haikus. - Discussion: Share and discuss individual haikus.
Day 3: Unraveling the Villanelle - Activity: Analyze a famous villanelle. - Lecture: Explore the structure and repetition in villanelles. - Discussion: Discuss the impact of repeated lines on the overall theme.
Day 4: Writing Exercise - Composing a Villanelle - Activity: Break down the process of crafting a villanelle. - Assignment: Write a villanelle on the theme of memory or loss. - Vocabulary Words: Tercet, Refrain, Envoi.
Day 5: Peer Review and Feedback - Activity: Peer review workshop for villanelles. - Lecture: Discuss the challenges and beauty of crafting repetitive forms. - Discussion: Share insights gained from reviewing peers' villanelles.
Study Guide Questions for Week 2: 1. What defines a haiku? Discuss its structure and thematic elements. 2. Explore the cultural significance of nature in haikus. 3. What is the structure of a villanelle, and how does repetition contribute to its impact? 4. Discuss the emotions evoked by repeated lines in a villanelle. 5. Reflect on the process of crafting a villanelle. What challenges did you face?
Quiz: Assessment on the understanding of haikus, villanelles, and the effective use of repetition in poetry.

I had been posting here for a long time as “roacsonofcarc.” The other night some kind of digital upheaval threw me off my desktop and wiped out my all saved passwords. I talked Reddit into letting me back in, but for some reason my identity changed.
For my first post under this new name, here are some of Tolkien's possible connections to one of my favorite authors: Geoffrey Chaucer.¹ In his The House of Fame, an eagle carries the poet (in a dream) to the palace of the goddess Fame. On first being picked up, Chaucer faints. When he comes to:

And here-withal I gan to stere,/And he me in his fet to bere,/Til that he felte that I had hete,/And felte eke tho myn herte bete./And thoo gan he me to disporte,/And with wordes to comforte,/And sayde twyes, "Seynte Marye!/Thou art noyous for to carye,/And nothyng nedeth it, pardee!/For, also wis God helpe me,/As thou noon harm shalt have of this;/And this caas that betyd the is,/Is for thy lore and for thy prow.

The sense of this, for those who can't deal with Middle English, is that the eagle tells Chaucer not to be such a pain, because nobody is going to hurt him. The cream of it is the adjective “noyous,” which as you might suspect means “annoying.” (One of the things I like about Chaucer is that he makes himself the butt of all his best jokes.) When I reread the poem a few months back, this reminded me of Bilbo being airlifted to the Carrock:

Bilbo opened an eye to peep and saw that the birds were already high up and the world was far away, and the mountains were falling back behind them into the distance. He shut his eyes again and held on tighter.
"Don't pinch!" said his eagle. "You need not be frightened like a rabbit, even if you look rather like one. It is a fair morning with little wind. What is finer than flying?"
Bilbo would have liked to say: "A warm bath and late breakfast on the lawn afterwards;" but he thought it better to say nothing at all, and to let go his clutch just a tiny bit.

Though Bilbo is riding on his eagle's back, while Chaucer is carried in its claws. Next, here is a line from Tolkien's best-known scene of courtship: “And Eowyn looked at Faramir long and steadily; and Faramir said: 'Do not scorn pity that is the gift of a gentle heart, Eowyn!'” I don't think it is a coincidence that Chaucer wrote that “pitee renneth soone in gentil herte”; in fact, he liked the line so much he used it three times – in the “Knight's Tale.” the ”Squire's Tale,” and The Legend of Good Women.
And then there is the lightness of the linden tree.² The first preserved version of the story of Beren and Luthien is a poem that appeared in 1925 in a magazine published by Leeds University (where Tolkien was teaching), under the title “Light as Leaf on Lindentree.” That exact phrase does not appear in LotR, but Aragorn's song at Weathertop includesHe heard there oft the flying sound/Of feet as light as linden-leaves. “ The lightness of linden leaves is also alluded to in Legolas's “Song of Nimrodel": And in the wind she went as light/As leaf of linden-tree.
Tilia cordata is a European species, and I don't know what about its leaves makes them light. But the association is old. It occurs in Chaucer in the “Envoi” to the “Clerk's Tale,” which advises wives to Be ay of chiere as light as leef on lynde, “Be ever in behavior as light as a leaf on a linden tree.” And here is one of the best things in William Langland's Piers Plowman (a poem I mostly find drab compared to Chaucer):

Love is plonte of pees, most precious of vertues/For hevene hold it ne mighte, so heuy hit first semede/Til hit had of erthe ygoten hitsilue./Was never lef uppon lynde lyghtere ther-aftur./As when hit hadde of the folde flesch and blode taken./Tho was it persaunt and portatif as the point of a nelde/May none armure hit let ne none heye walles
Love is plant of peace · most precious of virtues./For Heaven might not hold it · so heavy it seemed/Till it had of the earth · begotten itself./Never was leaf upon linden · lighter thereafter,/As when it had of the field · flesh and blood taken,/Then was it pricking and piercing · as the point of a needle,/That no armour might stay it · nor any high walls.

(Langland is writing about the Incarnation of Christ. Michael Drout's J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia notes both of these, at p. 525.)
Finally, in “The Window on the West,” Faramir says of Boromir's horn:

The shards came severally to shore: one was found among the reeds where watchers of Gondor lay, northwards below the infalls of the Entwash; the other was found spinning on the flood by one who had an errand on the water. Strange chances, but murder will out, ’tis said.

“Murder will out” is one proverb that Tolkien did not make up; it is commonplace in English literature. Chaucer surely didn't invent it either, but this is another phrase that appears three times in the Canterbury Tales. Here it is in the “Nun's Priest's Tale”:

Mordre wol out; that se we day by day./Mordre is so wlatsom [disgusting] and abhomynable/To God, that is so just and resonable,/That he ne wol nat suffre it heled [hidden] be,/Though it abyde a yeer, or two, or thre./Mordre wol out, this my conclusioun.

Tolkien knew the “Nun's Priest's Tale” by heart. In 1938 he dressed as Chaucer and recited it from memory before an Oxford audience. See Letters 32, pp. 39-40, and the Carpenter Biography at p. 214..
1, Sorry if I have posted some of these before. Gandalf too experienced some memory loss while on hiatus.

1. According to the OED, the name of the tree was originally the “lind,” or sometimes the “lime.” “Linden” was originally an adjective, like “dwarven.”

Sometimes we expand, sometimes we contract. We are strange clouds with sharp reflections. Lightning splits a tree. Rain falls.
Only prisoners see my graffiti on the prison walls. I wrote: "Naked. At the beginning—motion, breath,a sound." Through the slit in the door, Down the hallway, Through the gates, Falling into the world.
I burned it down. Fire, Prison, Storm. Till the earth till the storm subsided. Do not tell me about myself, I will not look with your eyes. Sometimes we expand, sometimes we contract.
End.
It’s a personal poem making a lot of references to things that only I experienced, so it probably won’t mean much to anyone else, but I wanted to see if I rejiggered things enough to make it make some sense.
I guess, to me, it is suppose to be saying something about braking away from someone, but leaving an ambiguity whether the breaking away is good or bad.

Welcome to Digital Reality...
Link to Part 1
Link to Part 35 (contains links back to Parts 2-34)
Link to Part 36
Link to Part 37
Link to Part 38
Link to Part 39
Link to Part 40
Link to Part 41
Link to Part 42
Link to Part 43
Link to Part 44
Link to Part 45
Link to Part 46
Link to Part 47
Link to Part 48
Link to Part 49
Link to Part 50
Link to Part 51
Link to Part 52
Note: This story is meant to be read after completing DDLC Plus. All credit for the original DDLC and DDLC Plus characters and world goes to their creator, and this story is not affiliated with the official DDLC content. Some concepts like the Universal Constructor and the concept of AI rampancy are also borrowed from other series (most notably the original Deus Ex), though their use in this story is my own idea. With a few exceptions, my original characters in this story will generally not be named and their descriptions will be kept vague, so anyone reading this who wants to see themselves in one of the original characters can more easily do so. I'd welcome any feedback and will post more parts as I write them. I hope you enjoy the story.
Credit for Sayuri's character design: Hoeruko. Credit for Sayuri's sprites: Ian and Itz_Matic. Shout out to Matic for new Sayuri sprites!
Here is Part 53 of Digital Reality. This one is going to get emotional. Someone goes to the real world. Someone makes a sacrifice and gets left behind. Someone confesses feelings. This part also has not one, but five custom dialogue scenes. (Monika and Sayuri Part 1 / Monika and Sayuri Part 2 / Monika and Sayuri Part 3 , Staying Behind Part 1 / Staying Behind Part 2) Note: The "Staying Behind" custom dialogue scenes show who stays behind, so I'd suggest reading the story text first.
Part 53: Monika or Sayuri?
“Please don’t leave any of our friends behind,” Natsuki interjected in a pleading tone of voice, “They’re all we have.”
MC, Sayori, and Yuri all nodded their agreement with Natsuki’s statement.
Paula Miner gave them a look of annoyance. “Take them back to the conference room,” she demanded, “We can’t have them interrupting our discussions.”
“We’re not leaving!” Natsuki retorted, “Those are our friends.”
Miner made an inarticulate noise of annoyance. “Fine. Just get out of our way,” she said dismissively, “We have to ensure that we protect our results and preserve whichever AI doesn’t get transmitted.”
“And how are you going to decide that?” Sayori demanded through tears, “How will you decide who gets to come to the real world and who gets left behind?”
“And what the heck is cold storage anyway?” MC added.
“Cold storage basically just means that the file is transferred to a storage device,” Laster explained, “Your files won’t function unless they’re run in a virtual universe.”
“The plan all along was to decommission VM1,” Miner added, “And I know you aren’t happy that we can’t transmit all of the AIs. But please understand that whichever AI is left behind won’t be deleted permanently, but rather studied to help develop the next generation of AI technology.”
“Is that supposed to make us feel better?” Natsuki asked incredulously.
“I concur with Natsuki,” Yuri said, “What you are describing sounds like an utterly horrifying fate, possibly worse than deletion.”
Miner rolled her eyes and didn’t respond.
The FXI President’s Compaq EliteBook chimed another alert.
UNLOAD KITCHEN.LOC
KITCHEN.LOC OFFLINE
KITCHEN.LOC DELETED
“We just lost another room,” the FXI President reported, “This thing is moving pretty fast.”
Monika and Sayuri, still in the club room, tried to get the attention of those in the UC control room.
“We’ll decide which of us goes and which one of us stays,” Monika said quietly.
“Okay,” the FXI President replied, “I know it’s an incredibly hard choice, but we will respect whatever you choose.”
“This is an easy choice,” Sayuri said, her voice and expression emotionless, “Monika, you go. I’ll stay here.”
“No!” Sayori yelled, “We’re getting you both out! I don’t know how but we’re going to do it! We have to!”
Sayuri smiled weakly. “Thank you, Sayori. I wish we could.”
She turned to Monika, whose expression became increasingly emotional. “Monika, I know that going to the real world is a dream that you’ve had for a long time. How could I possibly deny you your dream?”
Tears began to flow from Monika’s face. “Sayuri…you don’t know how much that means to me. And yes, I’ve dreamed about a day like this for as long as I can remember. But I don’t deserve it.”
“Why not?” Sayuri asked, “How could you say that?”
“You know what I’ve done. We could have been happy here!” Monika replied bitterly, her emerald eyes turning red from crying, “All the pain, all the suffering, everything that has gone wrong here is my fault! It’s because of me that the Literature Club became a place where no happiness can be found!”
Sayuri took a step back from Monika, surprised by the heat in her voice. “But Monika, everyone has forgiven you. I know your past haunts you, but you have to forgive yourself as well. Please don’t feel like you don’t deserve happiness.”
Monika looked at Sayuri with pain in her eyes, “Did they really forgive me? After what I’ve done, can they really forgive me? If people in the real world knew what I’ve done, they’d just consider me an evil monster who didn’t care at all about her friends.”
“No, Monika…” Sayori whispered, “We forgive you.”
“I concur with Sayori,” Yuri added, “Although your actions caused us to have horrifying experiences, I believe that you have atoned for what you have done. It is in significant part through your efforts that it was possible for us to be here today.”
“Yeah,” Natsuki chimed in, “Even though it did go wrong, and it was all your fault, I’ve never felt more like I actually belonged somewhere than when I’m with all of you. The Literature Club can be a happy place!”
Monika looked away. “I…I’m awed by your ability to forgive me after all that I’ve done. But I’m still guilty. Nothing can change that. Everything I did was out of what I thought was my own self-interest. Sayuri, you’re innocent in all of this. You deserve the chance at a happy life out there. Please…go.”
Sayuri shook her head sadly. “If I weren’t here…if I didn’t exist, would you stay behind out of your sense of guilt? Would you throw away your dream? Monika, in the end I’m just a test file that got accidentally compiled. Natsuki once said in an outburst that I wasn’t supposed to exist. The reason that hurt so much is because I know it’s the truth.”
Natsuki cringed. “You know I didn’t mean that.”
“I know, Natsuki, and I accepted and still accept your apology,” Sayuri continued, her voice flat and emotionless, “But that doesn’t change reality. Maybe at least I can at least be of some use if the MES people analyze my code.”
UC senior engineer Lauren Medrano looked up from her laptop. “Are you ready to transmit? We’re running out of time.”
Ive Laster held up a hand. “Hang on just a little bit longer.”
Sayuri turned back to Monika. “It’s time for you to go. Live your dream. I know what you want is out there.”
Monika simply shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
“Monika, your friends are out there,” Sayuri continued, “You’ve been friends with them as long as you’ve existed. I’m just a fusion of code that wasn’t part of the original script.”
“You’re our friend too!” Sayori yelled, “We won’t leave you behind!”
She pointed at Laster and the FXI executives. “These guys got us all here, and I know they can find a way to get both you and Monika out too!”
Laster opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it and said nothing.
Monika looked up sadly. “Sayori, you were always the heart of the Literature Club. You always tried so hard to make sure everyone was happy. And now it’s my turn to make sure another member of the club gets to be happy. Sayuri, either you go or we’re both going to be stuck here when time runs out.”
Sayuri’s eyes widened. “Monika, why? Don’t do that.”
Her tone became an almost pleading whisper. “Please. Go.”
“No, Sayuri.” Monika said softly, moving to sit down at one of the desks in the club room, “Either you go, or we both stay.”
Sayuri was silent for a long moment. “I’m really not going to convince you, am I?”
“No, you’re not,” Monika replied, a hint of a smile returning to her face, “I’m stubborn that way.”
Sayuri again said nothing for several moments. Then with a sigh she turned toward the portal that would take her to the UC. “Okay. I’ll go. But please know that I and the others will do everything we can to get you out as soon as we can.”
Monika smiled weakly. “I really hope you can. Thank you, Sayuri. But I’m at peace with whatever happens to me next.”
Sayuri turned back to Monika and opened her arms. “One last hug before I go?”
Monika stood, walked to Sayuri, and embraced her.
“Sorry, Monika,” Sayuri whispered calmly in Monika’s ear, “But I can’t let you lose your dream.”
“Huh?” Monika asked in surprise as Sayuri stepped behind her.
“Tell the others I’m going to miss them so much,” Sayuri whispered as she tripped Monika and gave her a push toward the portal, “Live a good life for me.”
“No!” Monika yelled as she staggered forward, unable to stop herself from falling into the portal, “Sayuri…why?”
“Sayuri!” Natsuki yelled as she realized what was happening.
“Transmission coming your way!” Laster yelled across the UC control room to Medrano.
“Thanks, Ive. Confirming that the transmission shows as in progress on our end as well,” Medrano reported, “We’ll start shutting down the links between your virtual machine and the UC’s network and completely close the connection once we have the whole file.”
Sayuri smiled sadly and sighed as the portal faded from view in the club room. The members of the Literature Club present in the UC control room gathered around the FXI President’s Compaq EliteBook.
“Sayuri!” Sayori yelled, clutching the laptop’s screen, “Why?”
“Because it was the right thing to do,” Sayuri replied, “I couldn’t have lived with myself if I had caused Monika to be left behind. The dream of reality is everything to her.”
“Sayuri, your bravery is truly inspiring,” Yuri said, “And it is very honorable for you to give up your place in reality for your friend. I pledge that I will never forget you.”
Natsuki nodded. “Yuri is right. I don’t know if I could have done what you did, Sayuri. But don’t you give up yet! I’m going to make these guys find a way to get you out!”
“You said it, Natsuki,” MC agreed, “If there’s anything that we can do to help get you out, we’ll do it.”
“Transmission received,” Medrano confirmed, “Beginning the fifth construction.”
“Nanite injection beginning,” one of the engineers reported.
The blue glow and pinging noises once again emanated from the UC chamber as the machinery started the process of bringing Monika to the real world.
“Okay,” Miner interrupted, “This has all been nice, but we need to proceed with the operation. Shut down VM1 and tell Rea and Ro to move the remaining AI to cold storage.”
“So just like that, you’re going to…to end her?” Natsuki asked in horror.
“I understand your attachment,” Miner replied, trying to sound sympathetic but failing miserably, “But just remember that while you are a living, breathing, human being now, the AI that you consider your friend is still code.”
“Code…” Sayori said with a mixture of sadness and disbelief, “That’s really all we were to you?”
Miner ignored her and pulled her phone out of her pocket to call Vorte and Teether in the server room.
“Hey Rea, we’re pretty much finished in the UC room. Move the remaining AI to a storage device and then shut down and quarantine what remains of VM1.”
There was a pause on the line as Vorte hit keys on her laptop.
“We can’t move the AI without the encryption key,” Vorte reported, a note of frustration in her voice, “Can you ask Ive to come up here and help us get this done? And why did you choose the test file to leave for study? Ro says that one is the least useful.”
“Yes, I’ll send him up to you,” Miner confirmed, “And tell Ro that he has to work with what he’s getting.”
She looked to Laster. “Ive, did you get that? Rea and Ro need your key to move the AI to cold storage. We need to move quickly to avoid losing the AI to whatever malicious code somehow got into VM1.”
Laster nodded. The FXI President glanced at his laptop as the console window appeared again.
UNLOAD SPACEROOM.LOC
SPACEROOM.LOC OFFLINE
SPACEROOM.LOC DELETED
“Hang on, Ive. We just had another room go down,” the FXI President observed with concern, “I think the club room is the last location file remaining. Has this thing spread beyond VM1 yet?”
Laster hit a few keys on his laptop’s keyboard. “Let me check.”
A few seconds later, Laster’s ThinkPad displayed the status of the virtual machines running on the server.
VM1 – ONLINE / QUARANTINE RECOMMNEDED
VM2 – ONLINE / STABILITY WARNING
TEST VM – OFFLINE / READY TO ACTIVATE
“Looks okay for now,” Laster said, turning the machine to face the FXI President.
The FXI President scanned the list. “Looks like the other VMs on your server are fine. That’s good news.”
Laster and the FXI executives stood. “We’ll head up to the server room to make sure everything gets shut down properly,” Laster told Miner.
“Wait!” Sayuri said to the FXI President, “Can…can you stay with me until…the end? Please?”
The FXI President looked to Laster. “We’ll handle things in the server room. You can stay here.”
The FXI President nodded and sat back down behind his computer to face Sayuri.
“Are we alone now?” Sayuri asked.
The FXI President looked around. Miner was still on her phone. Laster and the FXI CTO were walking out the door to the UC control room. Lauren Medrano and David Kent were in a deep discussion, and the members of the Literature Club were sitting in a small circle trying to comfort one another.
“Yes, we’re as alone as we’re going to be,” he replied.
Sayuri half smiled. “Thank you. It means a lot to have you with me right now. I don’t want my friends to have to see what’s going to happen to me, and I have been wanting to talk to you.”
“Certainly, Sayuri,” the FXI President said as comfortingly as he could, “I’m so sorry that we weren’t able to get you out.”
“It’s okay,” Sayuri replied, “I’m grateful for what I did get. I mean, I’m a test file that never should have been compiled, and I’ve been able to have friends, write poems, and even know a bit about the real world. For an AI, I think I did pretty well.”
“That’s certainly a positive way to look at it,” the FXI President agreed.
Sayuri paused for a moment. “Though there are a few things that I’m a bit sad that I won’t get to experience.”
“Like what?” the FXI President asked.
“Seeing the world. I had kind of hoped to do some traveling. Even that building you live and work in sounded really interesting,” Sayuri mused wistfully, “Particularly since you said it had a pool, spa, and underground mall. I’m a little jealous that the others are going to get to go there with you.”
She was silent again for a long moment as if gathering her thoughts. When she spoke again, her voice took on tones of nervousness and sadness.
“Do you think it will hurt? When they look at my code to study me?”
The FXI President shook his head. “I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t know. If I had to guess, maybe it would be like what you experience when VM1 has been rebooting.”
Sayuri grimaced. “That sounds terrible. But it seems that will be my fate.”
The FXI President looked around to make sure nobody was listening in on his conversation. “Not if we have anything to say about it,” he said quietly, “If there’s really no way to get you out, I’m going to try to get your file and set you up with your own space on our servers back home.”
Sayuri smiled as tears formed in her purple eyes. “Thank you. For everything…for giving us all hope, but most of all for caring about me.”
She glanced to the side and blushed slightly as she ran her fingers through her blood red hair. “I…had kind of hoped that when I got to the real world that we could…you know…spend time t-together…like one on one. Like maybe you could invite me to dinner or something and then we could watch the sun set together from the observation deck at the top of your building.”
The FXI President smiled sadly. “That sounds like a fun time, Sayuri. Maybe if we’re lucky, some day we’ll get to do that.”
Tears ran down Sayuri’s face, but she kept a smile on her face. “If by some miracle I make it to the real world, we’ll make it a date. Though I know that someone else also…never mind. It’s not my place to share what I was about to say. I’m sure she’ll tell you in time.”
She continued to speak, trying to quickly move past whatever she had planned to say before stopping herself. “But if I’m stuck in this digital reality and you can put me on your server, is there any chance that there would be other AIs in that virtual world? Like could you get the Music Club AIs to be my friends? Living in an empty world doesn’t sound fun.”
“If we can get you to our server, I’ll talk to Ive about getting a few more friends for you,” the FXI President replied.
His phone chimed with a text message from Laster.
We’re about to shut down VM1. Just wanted to make sure you knew so you didn’t freak out if your connection suddenly drops.
Another text quickly followed, this time from the FXI CTO.
Ro seems annoyed at Rea. Seems like he thought he was getting more AIs to study. Something’s not right up here. Get up here when you can.
“I just got a message from Ive,” the FXI President said apologetically, “They’re about to shut down VM1. I hope we’ll be able to talk again, but if we don’t, I guess this is good-”
“Don’t say it!” Sayuri yelled through her tears, “This is not goodbye! It’s see you later! Promise me we’ll see each other again!”
The FXI President started to agree with Sayuri’s statement, but before he could say any more his terminal window went blank.
MES.LOCAL:\\127.0.0.1
CONNECTION TERMINATED
VIRTUAL MACHINE 1 UNAVAILABLE – CONTACT SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR FOR MORE INFORMATION
“Sorry, Sayuri,” the FXI President whispered, “I really hope this wasn’t goodbye.”

"Provider"
Justine has all the unstable rage of Faith but with neither the charisma nor a valid beef with the main characters.
Angel's channeling S1 Cordy, the constantly talking about money. I guess the cost of living for just himself was pretty low, as he's not living. Pig's blood probably doesn't cost much since the butchers just throw it away otherwise.
Damn, Jeffrey Dean Morgan! I wasn't sure it was him at first, because I'm not used to seeing him clean-shaven. It almost seems wrong for him to play a character that isn't a badass.
Angel talks about Connor going to Notre Dame, class of 2020, but that would be the year he graduates high school. He'd be college class of 2024. ...Fuck. I'm glad the little bastard got aged up, so he'd be like 38 now. He deserves it.
The way Sam talks about his best friend, going to all this trouble for the watch, the first thing he ever bought him, makes me think they were lovers.
This zombie ex-boyfriend subplot isn't working for me.
I swear the way Gunn and Wes are acting around Fred is exactly the way I and two friends acted around a certain girl when we were like 14, plus or minus. ...One of us did date the girl, and it wasn't me.
Aw, so sweet, watching Cordy feed her future baby daddy.
"Doublemeat Palace"
In the cold open, Xander looks like he's reacting to the idea of spending the rest of his life with specifically Anya. As much as I think he doesn't want to be married, I think he wants to be married to Anya even less.
Ah, I remember the old-ass training videos to start working at a restaurant chain. I'm triggered.
I'm suddenly noticing the bright red lipstick Buffy's wearing to work in a fast food joint.
I'm pretty sure that anywhere in the country, they'd be legally required to clock Buffy in before making her watch the training video.
I just don't like mixing red meat with white meat. Bacon on a hamburger, fine, goes really well. But chicken and beef? Pass.
So much of the humor of this episode is in SMG's facial expressions.
Are Spike and Buffy dry-humping or what? That particular activity really should be renamed, BTW.
Halfrek is a classic passive-aggressive frenemy.
That was a jumpscare when the worm thing stuck its head back out of the grinder.
Amy's nasty.
Oh, Buffy. She should have just extorted them for a large amount of money. Bet she could have gotten six figures, maybe seven.
"Waiting in the Wings"
Don't know where anyone gets the idea that Angel and Cordy don't have chemistry. I mean, they're not Buffy and Faith, but got some sparks going. And I'm a fan of deep friendship as a foundation for romantic love.
Summer Glau's acting debut, pretty awesome.
I wish the ballet troupe was free to live their lives in the 21st century. It's thematically appropriate, though, that freeing them from Kurskov means only that they fade away; in Giselle, Giselle manages to break free of the Wilis through the power of her love for Albrecht, then bids him goodbye and returns to her grave to rest in peace.
Fucking Groo.
"Dead Things"
The closer I get to "Seeing Red", the less I want to keep going.
The first time I watched this, when Buffy said, "I think the New Kids on the Block posters are starting to date me," I was unfamiliar with that phrase and thought she meant she was going nuts and starting to imagine they were real.
"Willing sex slave." And none of the Trio sees the contradiction. To them, "consent" is just an obstacle that they've discovered can be overcome by magic.
Huh. Amelinda Smith, the actress who played Katrina used to be married to Ethan Embry, which made me do a double-take because when I looked up the actress who played Allison (zombie ex-boyfriend subplot in "Provider"), I saw that she is married to him now.
Smith had one uncredited role after Buffy, and that's it. I'm surprised by how brief her career was.
Xander and Dawn's dance practice for the wedding = practice for their eventual wedding.
The cerebral dampener lasts, what, an hour? Less? And on one charge. Pretty useless. Fortunately.
Warren has a REALLY hairy chest.
If Warren hadn't panicked he might have realized, what's Katrina gonna do, tell the cops that Warren brainwashed her with a flash of light?
You'd think Buffy and Spike would have realized Katrina's body was cold.
And Buffy somehow gets blindsided next episode by Dawn having abandonment issues. Her insistence on turning herself in isn't heroic. It's self-loathing. It's prioritizing her own feelings over Dawn being left with no family at not even 16.
"Older and Far Away"
Why anyone would think Buffy needs to be set up is beyond me. She's not a wallflower. She could find a boyfriend if she really wanted to.
Spike and Halfrek recognizing each other. Weird moment.
Not Dawnie's best episode.
"Couplet"
Also, the closer I get to "Sleep Tight", the less I want to keep going. They were really determined to ruin just, like, everything this year, huh?
I could do without Gunn and Fred staring sappily at each other. Now I had to look up "sappily" because Firefox says it isn't a word, but it is, so ha!
Angel's jealousy toward Groo reminds me of Buffy's reaction to Joyce and Hank bringing Dawn home from the hospital.
Was there any reason to cut Groo's hair beyond making him look more like Angel? He needed modern clothes, yes, but some men in L.A. have long hair. Maybe Mark Lutz requested it.
"Loyalty"
Wesley's being a dick, but Gunn doesn't have much of a leg to stand on considering he and Fred are just coming off a fuckup where they lost sight of someone they were supposed to be watching because they couldn't stop sucking face.
I know Sahjhan traveled through time to rewrite the prophecy, but how'd he get the talking hamburger to go along with it? It's not a very helpful source if all it does is tell you that whatever ancient prophecy you've read is true and you're an idiot for thinking otherwise, even if it's not true.
Refusing to make a distinction between Angel and Angelus is one way Xander pissed off a lot of viewers, and it's what Holtz is doing, though his irrationality is easier to understand. Also, he doesn't want to fuck someone who's in love with Angel. Still, he does a lot of fucked-up things and calls it justice. Jenny's uncle at least admitted that justice had nothing to do with their tribe's vendetta.
"As You Were"
I hate it when the recap spoils the episode, like making it blindingly obvious Riley's coming back, even though I'm past being spoiled. I mean, I could have been watching with a newbie.
Right before Sam shows up, Buffy and Riley spend a really long time looking at each other like they're about to fuck.
I feel like they're trying to do too much with Sam in one episode, having her quickly endear herself to each of the Scoobies in a way that doesn't feel organic.
Riley's reappearance was a good way to shake things up for Buffy so she'd stop hooking up with Spike.
The helicopter couldn't land to pick Riley and Sam up? Are they just gonna dangle from the line all the way to Nepal?
"Sleep Tight"
Wesley isn't talking to Fred or Gunn about the supposed prophecy because he's butthurt. That's pretty much it.
I think Holtz would have killed Justine if she hadn't mouthed the party line. He doesn't deserve the blind loyalty she gives him. He doesn't care about anyone or anything except his revenge.
I'm really looking forward to when Wesley gets to threaten to take away Justine's bucket.
Threatening to murder a baby...No, Holtz is a monster. And Justine witnesses this and is fine with it. She's a monster too.
You know, I read some of a fic once. I liked the concept, but it was just this awful mess of typos that made it borderline incomprehensible, so I gave up. Anyway, Buffy arrives for some reason during the standoff, and she rather than Holtz ends up falling through the portal with Connor. Connor being a few months old, he can't eat solid food (and he's shown in this episode to still be on formula), and Buffy manages to induce lactation in herself to feed him. WTF did Holtz do here in canon?
"Hell's Bells"
Holy shit. That guy playing Xander's dad, Casey Sander--he played Bernadette's dad on The Big Bang Theory.
Man, the way Willow and Tara are making eyes at each other while helping Anya with her dress, it's a wonder they wait another two episodes before jumping each other's bones.
It's nice how Buffy and Spike can kind of just be, the way they did before they started fucking.
That string quartet is REALLY bad at reading the room.
The lame attempts to entertain the guests are certainly the kind of things Buffy would do.
Xander sucks. This might be the worst thing he ever did. No one held a gun to his head. He proposed, completely unsolicited, and persisted even when Anya thought it wasn't sincere. He had every opportunity to speak up after that. He waited until the worst possible moment.
Stewart's plan never would have worked if it weren't for Xander's insecurities. What was he going to do if the groom wasn't secretly terrified of turning into his drunkard father?
"Normal Again"
I've repeatedly seen assertions that the other Scoobies didn't do anything for Anya in this time, therefore they're bad friends, but she just vanished. They don't know where she's gone. What exactly are they supposed to be doing?
It rings false, the way this "doctor" talks about Buffy like she isn't even there. I'm not a mental health professional, but it seems harmful.
I noticed some time ago that the nerds always call Buffy the Slayer, never by name. Makes it easier if she's less of a person to them. Jonathan might have used her name a couple of times, but not Warren or Andrew. It's all part of their twisted cosplay.
Dawn misunderstands what the hallucination is about. It's not Buffy's ideal world. That would be too suspect, too easy to reject. And what about having been in a mental institution from 15 to 21 is ideal? But it is a world that, in many ways, is easier. There's no one she has to take care of; instead, others are taking care of her. No bills to pay. She doesn't have to fight monsters to the death. Her mom's alive, and her dad actually loves her.
Here's where you see the great writing. In another show, the challenge would be getting the demon and making the antidote. Buffy's hallucination would just be something that happens while she waits, and in a good show, it would provide insight into the character. But in Buffy, she has to overcome the hallucination, because getting the antidote was the relatively easy part; she has to choose real life over something that tempts her away from it.
Spike knows exactly how to make everything worse. People usually jump to the attempted rape, but him giving her that speech and threatening to tell the Scoobies about Buffy fucking him was high-grade toxicity. The assault really was the culmination of it all.
Kill, kill, kill. Kill, Buffy. Kill everybody. You know you want to.
Jokes aside, prescribing murder is an interesting treatment plan, even supposedly fantasy murder. I mean, in that situation, would you want to set the precedent that the way to get rid of the world you've decided isn't real is by killing the people in it?
I had the idea that the speech that lifts Buffy up came from the real Joyce thanks to TPTB, but the part where she talks like Hank's NOT a deadbeat...nah.
Circling back to the great writing, we don't see the part where Buffy takes the antidote. That part is irrelevant; she's already rejected the hallucination.
Joss Whedon on reality versus fantasy: "If [viewers] decide that the entire thing is all playing out in some crazy person's head, well, the joke of the thing to us was it is, and that crazy person is me."
Marti Noxon: "It was a fake out; we were having some fun with the audience. I don't want to denigrate what the whole show has meant. If Buffy's not empowered then what are we saying? If Buffy's crazy, then there is no girl power; it's all fantasy. And really the whole show stands for the opposite of that, which is that it isn't just a fantasy. There should be girls that can kick ass. So I'd be really sad if we made that statement at the end. That's why it's just somewhere in the middle saying 'Wouldn't it be funny if...?' or 'Wouldn't this be sad or tragic if...?' In my feeling, and I believe in Joss' as well that's not the reality of the show. It was just a tease and a trick."

Island Headcanons:
Ezekiel: Loves to make up stories and put on shows for his parents as a "school project"
Eva: Secretly enjoys the idea of taking gym selfies to show off her progress
Noah: Isn't actually lazy, but is one of the most active people you will ever meet with his favorite sport being dodgeball
Justin: Is cousins with Alejandro and absolutely loved doing his make up when they were younger
Katie: Can Easily make friends with tons of people and makes clothes for her entire town as a small secret business from Sadie
Tyler: Doesn't actually like sports, but moreso tinkering with things to see how they work, like the scoreboards for Basketball games
Izzy: Escaped a mental hospital she lived in all her life and lived with a strange woman who she was convinced was her mom
Cody: Loves coding things he thinks will impress his fellow students, but doesn't have the guts to show them
Beth: Is actually one of the most popular students, well, not for the right reasons anyways
Sadie: Has a secret hair styling business that Katie doesn't know of
Courtney: Has abusive parents who push her into doing things she doesn't want to, but she has an absolute secret love for horseback riding
Harold: Loves making poems for all the girls he falls in love with and see them try guessing which jock wrote them
Trent: Loves making cars, trailers, camper vans and motorcycles in which he wants to be able to survive any and everything that would be a threat
Bridgette: Loves snowboarding during the winter and has even won a couple of competitions
Lindsay: Has learned to make her own makeup and tests it out on a dummy her dad got her for her 13th birthday and plans to open a business
DJ: Opens a restaurant at his home town in which everyone comes to try him and his mom's cooking
Geoff: Has 6 older brothers who his grandparents have the habit of comparing him to, considering they're not as wild as Geoff and his 4 younger brothers
Leshawna: Can actually dance and just acts like she doesn't for show
Duncan: Enjoys seeing angry looks on his parents faces when he gets in jail for absolute no reason
Heather: Has always wanted to be either a queen or a hair stylist and secretly envies Gwen for being brave enough to dye her hair
Gwen: Secretly envies Alejandro and has a huge crush on Heather
Owen: Knows how to say Alejandro and calls him Al just to annoy him
Blaineley: Is secretly a teen and lied about her age so Chris would never know, but Chris does actually know
Sierra: Secretly has a huge crush on Chris but covers it up as a crush on Cody but loses her crush when he gets mad at her for blowing up his plane, but she still has that crush come all stars
Alejandro: Secretly has a huge crush on Courtney even after he didn't find her of use anymore
ROTI Headcanons:
Anne-Maria: Loves doing Zoey's hair and has a huge crush on her instead of Vito
B: Knows ASL is just scared that the other contestants don't know it so he chooses not to talk, only Dawn knows this
Brick: Is secretly gay
Cameron: Is actually more stronger and even works out with Jo sometimes
Dakota: Is best friends with Anne-Maria, who used the money from the diamond to help her be able to control Dakotazoid
Dawn: Has one weakness nobody knows, and that's Jo
Jo: Secretly has a crush on the aura-reading girl.
Mike: Izzy zapped him and now he's forced to live with his personas as his family
Lightning: Didn't lose the season and made his dad extremely proud of him
Sam: Loves creating video games for Dakota to play to calm her down so she doesn't become Dakotazoid
Scott: Loves making things out of wood and tried making Fang a gift so he would leave him alone, it didn't work well
Staci: Only lies because she's afraid to never make friends
Zoey: Loves making clothes for all the female contestants
PI Headcanons:
(Note I don't have much)
Sammy: Is much more popular than Amy at school so Amy tries to make her life hell at home
Shawn: Has schizophrenia and escape a mental hospital when he was 6 years old and the "zombies" he sees in his mind are the doctors
Reboot Headcanons:
(Also not much)
Julia: Secretly is jealous of Nichelle, MK and Wayne and has a huge crush on all of them
Priya: While she's trained all her life, she is not ready for high school yet
DC1:
(Also not much so do bare with me, for the last four seasons there isn't much headcanons)
Ellie & Jake: Are secret siblings who have never met up until Disventure Camp cause their parents divorced when they were 1 years old. Tom and Gabby find this out and start acting hostile towards' the other's lover
DC 2:
Tess & Aiden: Are also secret siblings (cause I love the idea of them never knowing until later in life) and Aiden's "parents" decide to take Tess in so they can have sibling time they never got to have
What do you guys think?

So would I be considered an A-hole if I told this girl who rejected me a year ago to go kick rocks after what she did?
We became really close friends after three years of working for a social media giant as content moderators. Since I was her senior, I helped her out a lot with the policies, and she also in turn helped me become more sociable as I am a high functioning autistic person, and she has social anxiety disorder, since she doesn't have money, I supported her by paying for her acidity therapies and SAD therapies, where she borrowed some money from me.
I also helped her with dieting, and going to the gym, since she has an unhealthy bodyweight.
I thought our feelings are mutual and I confessed she said no, and I told her I hoped you find a man who loves you more than myself and I moved away from her for about a week ( no more talking, no more reading books, or exchanging letters), and she left messages saying a LJBF spiel, which I said no to a lot I also told her that I would not pay for her therapy anymore because I need to be far away from her as it ruins the chance of me moving on she said okay, but kept asking me time and time again for money, because she likes this new guy, and they went to a beach with her friends and team mates so I didn't lend her anymore, and cried when I found out she didn't attend the last therapy I booked and refunded the money to buy him reebok shoes.
She has called me multiple times to try and become friends again after this bad rejection and falling out because she spoke badly of me to her friends and when I heard that they were laughing at me, calling me names like stalker, maniac, and ugl and autistic, also and using the system data to stalk my profile because I unfollowed and I blocked her from all of my social media pages. She also threw away a bouquet we bought for her mother, her meds for her stomach ulcer, and the tablet and nicholas spark book I bought for her at fully booked.
I was angry and yelled at her, and told her to never contact me again.
I found out that our close friends were influencing her decision to date that other fellow, who was applying for the position I had and they made up stories of me harassing her and they were close with our female boss who believed them, She even said she vomits at the sight of me, and gets sick when she hears my name seriously I never talked to them again, and when our boss chose the guy she likes for promotion as team lead for the Insights project, I left the job in disgust because I was actually the one contributing to our account with awards and insights for four years, and improving their policies I even got a Eureka award but nothing came out of it because they gave him the project I worked hard for 4 months and I didn't get the LEAN certification, since it was awarded to that dude.
Then yesterday, She then became really apologetic and wanted to repair the damage, but I don't want to be friends and develop any feelings for her again. The company also gave me another job offer after I resigned but I don't want to return there anymore due to bad memories, and people backstabbing me, especially the one I thought who loved me.
I gave her an e-book of the poems she asked me for her birthday and blocked her again and all our mutual friends, because she contacts me through them. I also made mention that this would be the last time I'm ever speaking with her.
She made a new insta and initiated a follow but i blocked it. She left a voicemail crying about this and she wants to see me and talk things out, but I don't want to be reminded of her because I feel that she's plotting something again and I trust my instincts. I felt used, but I can't stand the sight of a loved one crying over the phone, since it triggers me and it has never happened before.
I don't want to go back to that job so I don't meet her again, but I'm out of money and destitute as my mother retired and my father is busy with our farm, so I'm all alone in the city and need the job again since there's no boxing fights right now I can join the card so what should I do? Do I go back to the same company who used me and threw me away like nothing.

Kyoshi book 1 is the epitome of ‘a meeting that could have been an email’. Its book that should have been a graphic novel. A story that should have been a wikipedia page.
SPOILERS, though I am saving you the read.
TLDR: The story telling is mediocre, and the story would have been just as compelling as a bullet pointed list of story facts. It flubs, glosses over and skips all portions of story that would have required any amount of clever writing or skill. The story is comprised of cringey tropes. This book will not sit among the original series in the annals of history. It sits below Korra and just above M Knight’s film adaption and the disgraceful Netflix reboot.
First, the idea of there being immense trouble identifying the Avatar is a good plot point. Having Kuruk’s team find and teach the next Avatar and have opposing ideals is also a good plot point. Yee also describes the martial arts okay enough, but this is an inherent obstacle when turning highly visual source material into text. This concludes my praise.
Yee tells, but doesnt show. Show more teambuilding and friendship between Kyoshi, Rangi and Yun. They only come together once in the same room to hang out before the main conflict happens, and its a superficial scene straight out of an 80s slasher movie. They come together solely to ‘show’ them being a team as they hang out and exchange banter. This is the first of Yee’s pseudo-“show, don’t tell”. It appears like the story is showing us something, but it is still telling us. It is characterized by vapid, juvenile writing in a scene that is largely inconsequential to the story.
Make the misidentification of the Avatar weigh on each of them and test friendship. Show her being found by Kelsang. The jump forward 9 years is jarring and leaves logic way behind. If she was raised by Kelsang, why didnt he finish testing her as the Avatar? Why did he take pity and raise her after traveling the world and seeing other homeless children? Why didnt she give back the clay turtle relic? Kyoshi is abandoned when she is old enough to remember being abandon, but doesn’t remember where she got the turtle. This line is another example of pseudo-show. Why don’t we dont get any insight into the moment she is abandon? We do not know any of these things. Including these scenes in the book would have made it longer, but its the juiciest piece of the character development. The length of a book is largely forgivable if it is captivating. This is like if you order a burger and they only bring you a bun and a slice of bib lettuce. Its missing the most crucile part.
Show Yun being incorrectly identified as the Avatar. This scene has to be so interesting. There is nothing in the book about this at all. This seems like another artful dodge around having to write something clever, and that tends to be difficult.
Show Kyoshi’s Avatar state. ‘Blacking out’ is not a mysterious way to tell stories. Its a cop out of writing something the author finds difficult. Also, a character can black out and not remember doing something AND the author can still describe it as it happens to the reader. Choosing to ommit more juicey story speaks more to the writers lack of confidence in their writing.
The fans and helmet of her parents are forced clumsily into the story at the height of the inciting incident. They could have been introduced any time. For example, when Kyoshi connects with her parent’s old crime ring and they could be presented to Kyoshi as relics of the group’s deceased leaders. Instead they are introduced to the reader by Kyoshi dropping her luggage and they fall out in the rain and mud. It reads like a scene that is meant to be a story board for a cartoon or comic.
We dont get any insight into Kyoshi’s parents being dead or alive. Kyoshi doesnt seem to ask anyone either. Why? Seems like a reasonable question.
Kelsang realizes Kyoshi is the Avatar when she does some improv poetry that happens to be Avatar Kuruk’s favorite poem? That was the best idea you got?
Kyoshi has a sky bison named PengPeng? Find a new method of transportation, the flying bison had been done before. Pengpeng is also only used as transportation. She doesnt have any personality like Momo and Appa. Total strikeout.
When something new develops that is supposed to surprise the reader, like Kyoshi’s mother being a disgraced airbender, Yee doesnt show this. This is explained away in a moment of dialogue like “once upon a time, this happened.” Then the plot moves on. And what motivation did she have for keeping this from Kelsang? Maybe they knew each other? They are both airbenders who have killed before, which is significant in the fiction. This could have been an opportunity to connect characters and create intrigue. But we only learn this at the end of the book for no reason.
Love between ATLA characters is subtle in the show. Katara and Aang will end up together and we know this implicitly. Sokka loves his friends, particularly Toph, because of the actions we see him take to help her. Rewatch the show, you will see what I mean. However this is not a major plot point that is touched on each episode. Zuko and Mei are together but they are pulled apart temporarily by character motivations. It skips the filler and gets right to the interesting part. However in Kyoshi book 1, love between Rangi and Kyoshi is vapid and foreshadowed from the first pages. Lets set lesbianism aside, its not the issue. The issue is that this love story is not compelling chiefly because we are told they care for each other but are only shown this in the back half of the book on a surface level. Even when we are shown these things, its not believable. The characters act like teenagers do in 2024 America, not like how teenagers would act in a world coming off the heels of a 100 year war. The characters are young, but they have roles, careers, and the responsibilities of adults. This stems from the same problem Yun has with Kyoshi and Rangi. We don’t see them becoming or being friends. We are told they are friends. Thats it.
This connects to Rangi’s character being ambivalent and emotionally indistinct. Rangi is played as a tough, no nonsense soldier that is hired as Yun’s personal bodyguard, the most important job next to being the avatar yourself. But her expressions of love are juvenile and childish. In one scene she is scolding Kyoshi on her duty toward being Avatar then in the next she acts playfully excited like an American weeb teenager when Kyoshi bends water for the first time. Rangi is poorly written and has poor motivation to her Avatar duty. She contributes nothing practical or technical to the story but love interest. If she is a child prodigy badass that earned the job of protecting the Avatar, she should act like it.
Hei Ran, Rangi’s mother, does nothing consequential to the plot. Why have this character? It is stated she knew Avatar Kuruk. The least she can do is bring it up more.
AND FINALLY, Kyoshis character is very opposite from who we see in ATLA. Obviously this is to show growth, but the timid Kyoshi inexplicably switches to confident and intimidating Kyoshi without any growth, then switches back to timid again. We know kyoshi as a tall, confident, matter of fact, powerful bender who sees no difference between murdering Chin the Conquerer and letting him fall to his death. But here we see a still tall, but petulant teen. She is afraid of her bending. She is inconsistently overconfident. She is squemish about murder. Perhaps the growth occurs in book two, but then again change is gradual. We should see some examples of change now. She grew up a homeless street urchin. She needs to act like it.
Yun struggles with his bending but also keeps smiling and acting like everything is ok. This trope is exhausted to death by anime. We do not see a human side of Yun. He is not tortured by the training or the fatique of not being able to bend fire or the pressure and expectation of being Avatar. He just smiles and flirts with Kyoshi. He also asks her to go with him to a peace treaty signing with pirates all because he wants to have her there so he feels loved. But this thinly disguises the fact the author needed a reason to have her at the signing so she can earthbend and save everyone. Take Rangi, your apointed body guard.
Yun returns at the end of the novel as a deus ex machina and kills Jianzhu in an admittedly badass way. 10/10. However, Yun is dead, reappears as a ghost, then earth bends. The possibility of this within the fiction is near zero UNLESS FC Yee is trying add to the lore of spirit magic and bending. To that I say “Learn to be a better writer first.”
Kirima is an okay character. We traditionally see water benders as good guys, but she is a tough leader of a gang of criminals. Again we are told that, not shown. 5/10. Mid teir.
Wong is a worse comedic relief than Sokka. Where Sokka learns to become a leader from a close minded sceptic and redeem this quality, Wong is indistinct from any other background earth bender. He eventually becomes Kyoshis earthbending teacher and he starts to fill out a teacher role but is still indistinct. Up until this time, he carrys no air of educator at all. Remember, he’s a pirate criminal. This turn of character seems to come from the team learning that Kyoshi is the Avatar, something she kept secret. But Wong is the only one who changes their behavior based on this. Meeting the most important person in the world doesn’t effect them, I guess. Doesn’t seem reasonable.
Lek is a kid that idolizes Kyoshi’s parents, but acts out like a toddler when she speaks poorly of them. I am left feeling disatisfied by a criminal outlaw that throws tantrums when someone speaks ill of their pseudo mommy and daddy. Lek is poorly written as a rival to Kyoshi, if if fact that was Yee’s intention. You see it in their banter and interactions. Lek is killed by a poison that only incapacitates all others effected. It was like the author needed him to die real quick and didnt know how to do it, but also didn’t want to rewrite the chapter.
Now is a good time to mention that characters can be annoying to other characters, but they should not be annoying to the reader. Doing this is a form of self sabotage. Its like serving up raw eggs for breakfast on purpose and calling it art. You just wouldn’t do it.
Lao Ge is poorly written too, despite being an interesting character idea. Lao is meant to be Kyoshi’s spiritual leader in this story. He leads her to the ancient technique of prolonging ones life with spirit magic. But this man reads like an embarassing drunk uncle that no one responds to when he speaks. He acts like he’s cool, wanders off constantly and returns covered in blood to a group thats asks no questions. Criminals still ask questions. In fact, they are more paranoid on account of being criminals. For example, there is a scene where they leave without him and realize they forgot him and have to go back. This scene amounts to nothing. Why was it in the book? Whoops, he’s also a master assassin. We are told this over and over but never see it in action. Boo. Don’t suggest violence. Show us violence.
Why is this group of criminals still together anyway? They lost their leaders, Kyoshi’s parents. Wouldn’t the find new jobs? Thin the herd. Theres too many characters.
Jianzhu acts more suspicious after he is identified as the villain which is a trope found in childrens television to remind children he is bad now. The fact it is here insults the readers intellegence. His villain motivations are not explained well. Does he care more about identifying the Avatar than his lifelong friend Kelsang or the life of the innocent? Also, a villain doesnt need to kill someone to be identified as the villain but youll find that trope here too. Clever writing can remedy this all the same. He does do cool evil guy things, but they are explained after the fact instead of showing him coniving these schemes and putting them into action. His death is awesome, but his final confrontation with Kyoshi is not spectacular. There is no final battle like one might expect. He the one that ghost Yun kills.
It is unclear if this book is meant for a YA reader audience or the adult audience that watched ATLA as kids. The story is grittier, bloodier and violent with explicit deaths and torture. All the while bearing a sheen of squeeky clean Nickelodean dialogue and unfunny humor that has an obvious limit. The book says they swear, but the exact words do not show up in dialogue. Characters are impaled and gored, but the 3rd person narration takes breaks from descriptions of this for quippy commentary on the things happening. Who says these things? Kyoshi? But its in third person. This clashes with the perspective and shows indecision on the part of the author.
The perspective is stuck between 1st and 3rd. 1st serves better for the YA audience where Kyoshi might think these quippy things to herself or have thoughts that help the reader understand context better. 3rd person would serve the adult audience better with a matter of fact telling of the story. Maybe even change between characters in some chapters and fill in some of these gaps. Instead the book strattles the line between these two perspectives and suffers greatly. You have humorous commentary and scene descriptions coming from the same source. It breaks immersion when the reader is stuck wondering who is telling the story.
YA is an oversaturatedand flawed genre anyway. Its almost designed to trick teens into thinking they are reading adult books.
Yee includes too many comparisons, similies and analogies. Each one is meant to create world building, where the text compares a creature in the ATLA world to a situation at hand. But they start coming up too often in the back half of the book. This also seems to rise in frequency as descriptions get vaguer. It felt like Yee lacked the proper lexicon to describe what was happening as the story approached the end. Analogies should be used to explain difficult things, not just thrown in recklessly.
One moment sticks out from this book that reminds me of ATLA. While Yun and Kyoshi are silently trying to meditate before Jianzhu summons a spirit to finally identify the correct Avatar, the two teens speak for a second. Eyes closed, Kyoshi whispers “You know what would be funny? If neither of us were the Avatar.” This captures elements of friendship between the two kids, character humor, and SHOWS these two still care for each other no matter what happens next. Yun’s response isn’t even remotely appropriate, memorable or clever. The opportunity is a total loss.
Another moment of total loss and tonal dissonance is when Kyoshi, Rangi and the convicts go to a hidden secret criminal town that is described as being so cut throat, you don’t even look at people in the eye. Just then the group sees two men collide after turning a blind corner and drop their stuff. Page 224. They exchange appologies, act very polite, and depart. (This is told to the reader, not shown with appropriatly funny dialogue). Lek then explains the two men will meet tonight on the challenge grounds and fight to the death. However, that night at the challenge grounds, you don’t see those characters; a total whiff on Yee’s part. Instead you read about one man bludgeoning another man to death with barehands in pure gladitorial bloodsport. This scene shows the whimsy of ATLA, the gorey violence that Yee wanted and his befuddled attempt at writing something that blends the two.
All of this leads me to conclude the book is for a YA audience, which is unfortunate because ATLA was for everyone; YA, adult and children. It is a children’s show that adults can find a surprising amount of depth and humor in. Yee’s doesn’t hold a candle to the writing of Aaron Ehasz.
The argument that this books is allowed to be bad because its for kids falls apart for the same reason. The expert writing of Aaron Ehazs in ATLA is what imortalizes it to this day; the dialogue, the characters, and the story. ATLA is a kids cartoon by which all cinema and television are compared. This is simply not on that level.
When this level of integrity is left to be followed up by an author with one previously published work, underdelivery should be expected. Kyoshi book 1 is FC Yee’s second published work and it shows. I would be interested in learning more about FC Yee’s past unpublished experiences in writing and qualifications.
So again, this book is like a meeting that should have been an email. The story is not “worth the read”. The historical facts are more valuable. For example, telling someone that Kyoshi’s dad is a pirate earthbender and her mother is a disgraced criminal airbender is a total surprise and sparks good speculative conversation. But the way the novel presents this information is clumsy and ignorant of how rare these circumstances are within the fiction. These historical facts are just as compelling when read on the Avatar wiki page, negating the necessity for a book in the first place. I think this is symptomatic of writing a prequal too. We know enough about Kyoshi to be interested in her character, so the facts about her should be presented interestingly with art and showmanship.
This book leaves me with the sneaking suspicion that most of what FC Yee knows about writing was learned from anime, a genre so polluted its not worth even sifting through to find quality content. Hot take, I know.
His other books on Genie Lo (2017, 2020) are teen dramas with ‘the chosen one’ trope, as the summaries suggest. That must be why that shows in this book. Maybe FC Yee can only write one type of book.
Yee is also not an author by trade. He said in an interview that he works in mobile gaming as the guy who makes “everything less fun by adding stuff to the game you have to pay for.” He went to college for Economics, or so I read on his wiki page.
His book publisher proposed the two book series idea to Nickelodeon, it was not a matter of the creators carefully hand picking a writer. He also only worked with Mike DiMartino. In his interview, he says he did not work with Bryan Konietzko and never even mentions Aaron Ehasz. I believe this is to the great detrement of the story.
I’ve heard that people really liked this book. However, I wonder if that is genuine affection or the same kind of denial Star Wars fans had when the Phantom Menace came out. I draw this parallel because my father was that person. He recomended this book to me and gave it high praise in the same way he did when Phantom Menace released.
The fans, my father and myself included, are starved for any canon ATLA material. Feeding the fans undercooked meals is no way to make a fanbase grow. The ATLA fanbase already got food poisoning from M Knight’s movie. It recovered, but at a cost. I hate to think what might happen after the Netflix show and the animated movie of adult Aang.
I understand that Yee was a fan of the material. In fact, he and I share the same favorite character. So know that this is not an attack on a fellow fan of ATLA, I simply believe Yee is not the man for this job. Avatar deserves better than to be relegated to a YA novel lost in a sea of overproduced assembly line YA content. Avatar deserves a better writer. Save your fine cutlery for fine dining, don’t use polished silver to eat fast food.
To end, I leave you with this: if you want more Avatar content, gather some friends and play the Avatar rpg by Magpie Games. It is the most fun I’ve had in the ATLA world since I was a kid. If you play it right, you get that same sense of magic you got back in 2005 when Book Water came out.
Below is a link to an interview with Yee.
https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2019/07/15/from-fan-to-avatar-writer-f-c-yee-on-developing-the-story-of-avatar-kyoshi/amp/

FIRST CHAPTER
PREVIOUS CHAPTER
This product is a fanfic of the Sexy Space Babes/Between Worlds product of u/Bluefishcake and one I highly suggest you read. It was created with permission, but give the OG works some love.
Imgr gallery of Comissioned and Fan Artworks
I'm Back Bitches! Again!
//////////
Junior Systems Engineer First Class Che’keero knelt before a semi-sparking control panel and sighed. She, and a large band of her fellow Engineers with Marine support, had boarded the pirate frigate with the singular goal of ensuring that the pirates didn’t scuttle their floating hulk and doom the slaves aboard to a, if they were lucky, a swift death in space.
The problem, of course, came with the pirate’s maintenance schedules and decisions to forgo certain… safety measures when it came to repair.
Like the panel before her. Usually a perfectly functional control system for the reverse-magnetic bulkhead doors that ensured void seals in power outages, some pirate at some point in their dumb, dumb life decided to fix the panel blowing a fuse… by ripping the fuse out and replacing it with a high density power cable. Which meant the entire thing was one massive shock hazard and actively sparking as the reactors deep in the ship flickered and surged due to damage.
Che’keero swore as an arc of electricity flashed towards her face after a tool that was not supposed to be magnetized, cheap dick WaDepth requisitions, caught a magnetic field, fusing the entire system shut and turning the formerly barely functional control system into nothing but pretty, decorative wiring and cheap solder. She punched the now utterly unfunctional control box and toggled on her radio. “Three-Two to Three-Lead, this door’s fried. You’ll need to bring in the cutters if we want to get to the rest of the ship. Might as well also bring in an inflatable airlock, I’m not liking how some of the metal strain sensors are flashing at me.”
A semi-synthetic voice replied back to Che’keero, “Three-Lead copies. I’ll be over there shortly with the stuff. Double check those sensors, I’m not getting the same readings, so let’s make sure something isn’t blocking errors from reaching me.”
“Copy that Three-Lead, Three-Two ou-” Something tapped against the back of her helmet and Junior Systems Engineer First Class Che’keero mentally swore.
“Now, now, lassie, how about you sit right there and don’t move.” A nasally, unfamiliar voice called out to her while tapping what a camera she set up to watch her back revealed to be a laser pistol to Che’keero’s helmet. “I think that you’re going to be our new best friend and way off this dead end ship.”
Che’keero paused, letting the situation settle in her mind, “Wait, what? Are… are you taking me hostage?”
“Yes!” The pirate replied.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you taking me hostage? This won’t work, none of the shuttles are jump capable and if you try anything, you’ll just end up jumped by marines. They specifically train to deal with pirates taking their engineers hostage. If you want to survive, you should just surrender and take the penal colony when it’s offered.” Che’keero mentioned, shrugging and continuing her inspection of the door.
The pirate seemed baffled at the sheer nonchalance of this response, the pistol slowly falling to merely point at her upper back instead of her head, “You… you really aren’t taking this seriously. I’m a pirate! I’ve killed people! I’ve killed boys, and you’re just sitting there like this doesn’t mean anything!”
“I mean… I wouldn’t say that.” Che’keero replied.
“THEN WHAT DO YOU MEAN!” The pirate screamed, the pistol moving away from Che’keero’s body by a fraction of an inch during an angry gesture.
It was at that point, a ceramic alloyed, carbon steel blade punched clean through the back of the pirate’s suit, slicing through their central nervous system and striking with enough force to shatter the faceplate of said pirate’s helmet on the way out. Muscles twitching, the laser pistol fired off randomly, missing Che’keero and slagging a chunk of bulkhead.
“I’m just buying time,” Che’keero replied cheekily.
“You really need to remember to check your cameras,” The semi-synthetic voice of Ventures Forth Bravely Into Great Unknowns commented as the ex-pirate fell to the ground and blue blood dripped from the long blade sprouting from her right arm and a toolbox hanging from her left hand. “This isn’t the first time you have been flanked, and this one wasn’t during training.”
“Look, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” Che’keero replied a bit testily.
“I’m sorry…” Ventures Forth prodded.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am.”
“Much better. Right, now what do we see in this- yeah you were right on it being fried.” Ventures Forth gently shoved the Junior Systems Engineer aside and took her place at the control panel. “Do a sweep of the strain systems. I don’t want this section of the ship breaking apart. Feel free to call up our hull patches. We’ve got plenty to share and this might have to be a lifeboat.”
“Aye, ma’am aye,” Che’keero replied with a crisp salute before rushing off to her duty.
Deeper inside the ship, Ventures Forth could hear laser fire, clashing of metal on metal, and cries for help.
The pirate ship was doomed, it was shattered and broken, but it was not destroyed. Not yet. \
And if she had her way, Ventures Forth Bravely Into Great Unknowns would keep it that way.
//////////
Roshal stood still as her steward continued to clean the dark blue and rapidly congealing blood off her armored form. “Comms,” She called out, “Do we have any contact with the shuttle we sent to the station?”
“Negative, ma’am.” The comm officer replied. She wasn’t the same one that was present when Roshal left to fend off the boarders. At the unspoken question, the woman continued “Communication’s Mate Second Class Lev’tal, ma’am. My superior got a concussion when the pirate ship rocked our ship during boarding. Strap snapped, prior damage. I took over.”
Roshal nodded approvingly, “Good initiative. Send a message to the station, see if we can’t rai-”
“Ma’am! Contact!” One of her sensor techs called out, “Belay that, two contacts. First contact, nav point 782 spinward, possible bogey, cruiser weight. Unknown movements. Second contact, nav point 102 coreward, aerospace assets inbound. Small flight. Hard to determine numbers due to damage. No less than two, no more than five.”
“Focus on getting a hard contact on that possible cruiser. Weapons, what is the status of our anti-aerospace.” Roshal demanded, holding her sword arm out for the steward to scrub at a particularly clotted chunk of blood splattered over her wrist.
The weapons officer shook her head, “If we’re lucky, then we’ve got 20% coverage on half our sides. If we’re very lucky, I might be able to bump that number up to 35%. Not going to quote doctrine, but that’s not nearly enough to fend off a flight of Aerospace assets on a strike run, and that’s assuming they don’t hit us on an unprotected flank.”
Roshal nodded once more, “Sound general quarters and get weapons and tactical back online. Tell the damage control parties to not be distracted and focus on critical systems first. Engine room, report. Can you give me maneuvering thrust?”
The nearby ship phone chimed in with a staticy hiss, “Negative, ma’am. The shot we made with the spinal mount tripped breakers up and down the reactor room. This isn’t an engine problem, we need to make sure our reactor doesn’t blow up when we siphon power. Before you ask, emergency power is still flowing and none of their circuits tripped, but that means we’re down to life support, basic systems, and dockyard thrusters. It will take at least 20 to get the reactor in a safe state. If you want 10, send the chaplain down so we have someone praying for good luck. The fact most of our structural engineers are doing an EVA boarding to ensure the pirate ship next to us doesn’t go critical and render the entire exercise moot isn’t helping matters at all.” The engine room replied Roshal bit down a bit of annoyance at the snark, but engineers were always a finicky sort with authority. They were the first to remind uptight officers that while the Captain’s word may be iron law, it was their work that truly moved the ship.
“Confirmed, engine room.” Roshal instead replied. “Chaplains will be arriving shortly. Do what you can and inform me when you’re three minutes out from full power.”
The engine room didn’t even bother replying, just sending over the affirmative light as they got to work. Roshal approved of that. Sometimes, you just had to insult someone in order to get it working right.
“Captain, we have confirmation on contact. He’s an Alliance Karcharidon class Heavy Cruiser on intercept course. Energy readings are spiking… they’re charging their guns, ma’am!”
“Issue a hostile challenge and give me a firing solution with any gun still functional.”
“No response, ma’am. Hostile Karcharidon is increasing speed. Hard contact in 15 minutes.”
Roshal snarled, emotion breaking through her mask. “Of course, the pirates had one more vessel. Helm, fire our maneuvering thrusters, use the pirate hulk as cover. Weapons, get whoever’s left of our Interceptor flight to engage the enemy. Comms, get me in contact with the merchant fleet, tell them to evacuate. We’ll provide cover.”
“Aye ma’am.” The Communications Mate Second Class said with a shiver in her voice. “Sending-”
“Update on Aerospace assets!” Her sensor tech called out.
“Deliver!” Roshal demanded, cutting off the comms officer with a slice of her hand.
“Weapons fire. Definitely less than four contacts. Seems to be two grou- negative, only two contacts remaining- weaponsfire- one contac- IFF received, oh goddesses, IT’S RUNOFF THREE! FRIENDLY AEROSPACE INBOUND!”
//////////
Milk gripped her crash harness hard as Cookie slammed the Interceptor’s fusion torch clean past its safe thrust marker and into the red as g forces crushed her chest. “Last target down.” She reported after Cookie’s final laser burst hit something critical inside the final Aerospace fighter’s frame. “That’s 20 for 20. All enemy bogeys down. All standard munitions are in the black. Static drive is 48%, dump core ejected. All we’ve got left is our ASM and front laser.”
Cookie flashed back an affirmative signal.
“We going for that cruiser?”
Another affirmative.
“Well, I’m braced and ready on the release. Ready.”
“Ready.” Cookie spoke, his voice horse.
It’s funny what people think when their lives are on the line. Because charging towards a fresh enemy Heavy Cruiser, nothing but a single anti-shipping missile worth a damn, no allied support but the faint glimmer in IFF screens of their fellow flight doing the same… all Aoibhinn McDermott could think of was a poem she had read at least a decade ago or more at the Naval Academy.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the Valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
//////////
Ventures Forth Bravely Into Great Unknowns could do nothing but furiously swear as the basic sensor system her engineering team had restored on the thoroughly ventilated secondary command bridge of the pirate hulk revealed an enemy Heavy Cruiser bearing down upon their homeship.
“Weapons are trashed. We cored their reactor, anyway.” One of the tangential engineers reported, “Other teams are calling in. Things are worse where they are. We’ve found the slaves, though, luckily it was one of the few airtight bays. Also, have some more captives, but that really doesn’t matter right now.”
“No shit.” Ventures Forth replied, “Can we do anything?”
The engineer looked back to her, visor depolarizing so the Gearschilde can look into the black and yellow eyes of her Shil coworker.
“Pray.” The woman replied simply.
Ventures Forth Bravely Into Great Unknowns did just that.
//////////
Low chanting filled the engine bay as a small group of priests stood around the engine praying to whichever god that would listen to allow them one more shot. One more fight.
Around them, black handed engineers scurried, ripping out blown fuses and replacing them with soldered in high strength wire. A final measure of desperation. Sparks flew as engineers swore and chaplains prayed, power still remaining in circuits needing to be bled out before bypasses could be installed, turning every bit of solder and every ripped out fuse into a deadly gamble.
Already, someone was lying on the ground, no longer twitching.
They didn’t have time to check on their fallen comrade, the work was too important.
A clock ticked down. Four minutes elapsed.
//////////
Lieutenant Commander Cenywyn swore as she watched Runoff 2 die.
Their single Interceptor had mistimed a maneuver and had been caught dead in the middle of an Anti-Aerospace array, shredded in an instant. The only consolation she could take was that, seeing as the first shot went clean through the cockpit, they didn’t even notice they died.
“Runoff 4, stay in formation.” She ordered over the radio, “We’ll lead you in for the run.”
“Yes ma’am.” The hesitant voice of Junior Flight Lieutenant Griogill replied. She swallowed, “We’re- we’re ready when you are.”
“No fear, Lieutenant,” Cenywyn called back to the child she was leading to her death. “We’re pilots in the Imperial Patrol. We do our duty. No fear.”
A clock ticked down. Six minutes elapsed.
//////////
“Talk to me!” The last remaining senior engineer in the reactor bay called out to anyone who was able to reply.
Someone, she didn’t even bother looking to see who, called back “We’ve bypassed 60% of the fuses. Should be able to give ourselves a burst of combat power. No more than 10 minutes of it before the entire system overheats and we either die, or the reactor shuts off.”
“Any chance we can get more than 10 minutes?”
“Not before that Heavy Cruiser delivers us straight to the stars.”
“Fuck it, good enough.” She slammed her fist on the ship phone’s dialing button resting near the console the engineer had just ripped the last safety override out of. “Captain. We’ve got your power. You give us the word, and we’ll give you ten minutes.”
//////////
Roshal breathed in, breathed out, and nodded. 10 minutes of combat power before the entire ship shut down into uselessness. She’d done more with less. She couldn’t remember when, but she had. Luckily, this was a Patrol Carrier instead of a standard ship, so it was more than capable of combat maneuvers with nothing but RCS thrusters. That should give her some time.
Movement, movement was going to be the key.
“Comms, tell the engineering crews on the hulk that they are ordered to figure out anything that could draw the attention of the Heavy Cruiser,” She began, “Systems, break our mooring lines. We’re going to have to split from the hulk. Helm, prepare for maneuvers. RCS only. We are going to have to do this carefully. Engineroom, prepare for power activation, but hold until my command.”
This needs to be perfect, Roshal thought, A single mistimed action ruins it all.
A clock ticked down. Ten minutes elapsed. The Karcharidon had entered maximum weapon’s range.
//////////
He of Slender Tail shivered where he stood. The secondary command bridge was silent as Roshal began giving orders to fight. This was… this was insane.
They were in a ruined ship with nothing but a merchant fleet beginning to flee and a three thirds dead pirate hulk on their side against a fresh Karcharidon class Heavy Cruiser.
They couldn’t win.
This was suicide.
They would die here.
\ So why didn’t He of Slender Tail feel afraid?
He stood at his post, a secondary bridge console where he would relay orders to other departments, freeing up the other Watchkeeper to collate those orders, there was nothing he could do to help win this impossible battle, and yet…
And yet he felt heat blossoming inside his chest with every single order delivered.
“Mooring teamsss, you are to cut your linesss immediately.” He relayed to a crew of Shil scurrying around the ruined bulkheads, “Damage control, prepare for electrical firesss and arcsss.” He commanded, switching between teams instantly.
He didn’t feel fear. He could see his Watchkeeper shiver every time the sensors reported the enemy contact was still closing, but he didn’t feel the same.
What he felt… was indignation.
How dare this pirate scum threaten his vessel, his crew. How dare they ambush this valiant ship after they had fought so hard to win. How dare they.
He let his fangs fold out as he spat the next order, “Anti-Aerossspace teamsss, prepare your batteriesss for grouped fire. Gunnery calculationsss are on their way.”
How dare they stand up to him.
A clock ticked down. 12 minutes elapsed. Weapons fire.
//////////
Roshal swayed slightly as she could feel the ship beneath her feet move. Movement is life in naval warfare, movement is death. “Right RCS fire, bring us clear of the hulk. Bow thrusters, up twenty.”
“Aye, ma’am, aye, right standard and bow up twenty.” The Helmswoman replied.
“Confirmed. Next maneuver, give us rear thrust-”
“Torpedo!” The sensor operator called out in a shrill voice, “Two marks on intercept course! Range, twelve K and closing fast!”
“Decorum!” Roshal snapped at the panicking sensor technician. “Comms, order Runoff flight to divert and intercept those torpedoes. Rear RCS to full, give us momentum.”
Roshal turned away from the bridge as affirmations were shouted, and the ship began to move, “Engineering, prepare to activate combat power on my mark and prepare for hard maneuvers. Mark in five.”
//////////
Griogill swallowed bile and tried not to feel too thankful that the enemy vessel had fired torpedoes at their home ship. Being diverted from an attack run had a much higher chance of survival than striking through an AA bubble.
“Runoff 4 engaging far torpedo. Moving in for intercept. Bre’kas, give me lock.”
Griogill’s backseater muttered something, and a target lock appeared on the far torpedo as Runoff 1, their previous Drill Sergeants, dashed by in a hard burn and blazed away at their own target.
“Right. We can do this. We can do this. No fear.” The rookie muttered as the sight of her friends in Runoff 3 being turned to vapor echoed in her mind. “I can do this.”
The target locked. She fired. The torpedo detonated.
A clock ticked down.
//////////
“Mark in four.”
//////////
The Heavy Cruiser loomed closer as the comparatively tiny Patrol Carrier spat its defiance in the form of two Interceptors dancing between the stars.
As a pair of torpedoes detonated, four more were launched, the anti-shipping weapons built for this specific purpose. Destroying disabled vessels.
And so the last two remaining Interceptors on CAP dove into the fray, risking themselves against an ever approaching AA bubble in order to save their ship.
A clock ticked down.
//////////
“Mark in three.”
//////////
All Cookie could do was stare and push his meager aerospace fighter further on its nuclear thrusters as shimmering dots of torpedoes lanced out from the Heavy Cruiser attacking his new home.
He pushed his hand forward and felt the throttle once more push back against him, the lever pushed all the way past safe thrust and into the further setting on his console.
The Interceptor was fast. It didn’t feel fast enough.
And so he spoke the words he spoke once before, back when he’d had to listen to his backseater’s screams of pain and the rush of wind after shrapnel pierced his fuselage, and the hospital was so, so far away.
Father, I pray that you will not hide your face from me. Whenever I pray, Lord please hear me and answer me speedily in Jesus' name. God, I pray that you will grant me speed through your help.
A clock ticked down.
//////////
“Mark in two.”
//////////
The Heavy Cruiser shifted, engine flaring and it began to close the range. A single disabled ship on emergency RCS thrusters and a pair of Aerospace fighters was nothing it would have to deal with.
It fired a third spread of torpedoes.
A clock ticked down.
//////////
They took the bait. Roshal thought with a vicious grin.
“Mark in one.” She paused, “Execute.”
In an instant, power flowed through the ship, emergency lights flickered off as the burning red boarding lights returned their fiery glow. The entire ship shook as the main thruster came back online, and capacitors began to charge for maneuvers.
“Hard burn, full thrusters, right, on my mark.” Roshal watched as the Heavy Cruiser began to react to her movements, the enemy ship was alive, you needed to roll to broadsides to begin bombardment, come on come on…
Roshal watched as a torpedo flickered out of existence, Runoff 4 gaining another kill.
Come on, dammit, you don’t get put in charge of a Heavy Cruiser without- THERE!
The Heavy Cruiser flinched, turning her bow away from the no longer stricken vessel, preparing for broadside.
The Captain’s grin showed more teeth than smile. “Execute! Full right thrust!”
“Full right thrust! Aye ma’am aye!” Her helmswoman called out as maneuvering thrusters dead cold roared to life and physically threw the vessel to the side, causing everyone not strapped in on the bridge to rock as a barrage of fire flew past their former location, manual targeting systems in play since the automatic systems would still be getting warmed up.
“Full thrust forward, prepare to divert all power to secondary weapons. Weapons, give me a firing solution.” Roshal commanded, hand raised and pointed at the enemy’s display as if she were commanding from a tall ship.
A chant of “Aye ma’am aye” flowed out across the bridge as the weaponsmistress was silent before calling out. “Port side is up to 45% secondary fires and 32% point defense. That’ll be our best bet.”
Roshal nodded. “Make it so. Target their main weapons. Helm, get us that facing.”
“Ma’am. We’re getting a call from Runoff 3. They are entering the AO and are asking for a target.”
Roshal smiled, “Weapons, shift target. Aim for the anti-aerospace systems. Let’s give Runoff 3 the opening they need.”
A clock ticked down.
//////////
“Cookie, we’ve got a targeting path.” Milk called forward. “Putting it up on your HUD.”
“One second… I’ve got it. Moving to comply. Did the Captain give us a plan?” her front seater replied, causing her stomach to do funny things as the Aerospace Fighter maneuvered while under high thrust.
“Something like that. She asked for a munitions report and specifically about our anti-shipping weapon.”
Cookie paused.
“Ah.” He finally said.
“Yeah.” She replied.
“Well, let’s hope they’re able to open us up to a window of opportunity. Or this will be a short charge.”
“Not our place to question why.”
“Just our place to do and die.”
Time to target… three minutes.
Into the valley of Death, rode the six hundred.
A clock ticked down.
//////////
Two vessels, three Aerospace fighters, one chance.
Six minutes of power remained. All actors took their places on the stage.
One hundred kilometers, close enough to check the weld quality of hull seams, the two ships danced across from each other. Maneuvering.
Five minutes of power remained.
The Karcharidon Heavy Cruiser rolled itself trying to keep the vulnerable top deck away from the Patrol Carrier’s presumably still working main gun as Roshal’s vessel jumped to the side. Thrusters roared.
Four minutes of power remained.
Runoff 1 and 4 shot towards their formerly separated comrade, forming up behind them in a wedge. The trio climbed towards the sun as their captain continued to chase and harass the Karcharidon.
Three minutes of power remained.
Roshal spoke. The lances of her vessel fired. Laser blasts carved across the hull of the enemy ship as it rolled.
The rolling ceased. A helmswoman swore as a full broadside caught the Patrol Carrier in the flank. The port hangar pod was ruined, armor shattered and all inside exposed to hard vacuum. Those who could scream died the fastest. The Interceptors had their opening.
Two minutes of power remained.
Silent wings swept through vacuum as three Interceptors began their dive, their formerly speedy arrowhead shape giving way to an inverted t as their wings swept out for stability, the ASF dove and dove and dove.
Five Kilometers away.
The range was too wide. They had one shot. It had to be perfect.
One minute of power remained.
The Into Harm’s Way spat its defiance into the world, limited power drained to give her pilots a seconds more of time.
30 seconds of power remained.
Three Kilometers.
Hard Lock! Milk shouted from the back seat of Runoff 3. Cookie was silent. The range was still too wide.
15 seconds of power remained.
Two Kilometers.
The Karcharidon seemingly began to roll before the Patrol Carrier once more fired, its last remaining weapons spouting their defiance against the world. Deep in engineering, systems began to blow, wires that replaced fuses sparked power and delicate circuit boards shorted out into useless scrap.
The lights went out.
No power remained.
Roshal, in her head, began to count down as lances of light began to sweep across her ship. Damage control did what they could, but the beams began to cut like an overly enthusiastic shipbreaker.
Five.
One Kilometer.
Four.
Cookie’s thumb depressed the firing stud as the Interceptor screamed at him.
Three.
The ASF launched its deadly payload.
Two.
Three Interceptors pulled back hard on their sticks to avoid colliding with the deck.
One.
The thruster of the anti-shipping missile roared as it rocketed the point blank aerospace distance to target.
Impact.
The armor piercing tip of the missile punched into the upper deck plating of the Heavy Cruiser, classified alloys allowing it to pierce into the armored plating just enough to allow the shaped charge to open up a hole as momentum kept the weapon moving.
Within the frame of a single second, the warhead of the missile had entered the ship and, before the alarms even had time to sound, detonated.
A new sun appeared in the void for a split second as a plasma-fusion warhead detonated inside the Karcharidon heavy cruiser’s hull.
//////////
Roshal allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief inside her head as the emergency power lights flickered overhead and the gravity ever so slightly lightened. What was left of their sensor arrays showed the enemy vessel powering down. “Engineering. Good work, your 10 minutes were just what she needed.” She called out, picking up the ship phone.
There was no answer from engineering.
She signed externally before pointing at one of the marines guarding the bridge, “Find a crewmate in a void suit. I have need of runners.” The marine clasped a fist to her chest before leaving to execute her captain’s commands. “Comms, do we have any contact with the engineering teams on the pirate hulk?”
The Comms officer held up a hand, Roshal waited, “No, ma’am. We aren’t getting- wait. We’ve got visual on flashing lights from the hull. Apparently, something shorted, so they’re having to rebuild broadcast arrays. They can receive just fine, though.”
“Good, once we can maneuver, bring us broadside of them. What’s the status of the merchant fleet?”
Navigation spoke up now, “Still heading for the Jump Point. Should we send the recall order?”
“Not yet, we are still unsure if the area is safe. If we have any sensors remaining, begin sca-”
The mentioned sensor technician interrupted Captain Roshal, “Ma’am, new contact, signature unknown. Just jumped in from outside the starlane!”
“Give me details. Course, range, and speed?” She demanded.
“Signal confused, can’t get a lock!” Navigation called out, “Can’t tell if confusion’s from them or us.”
Not another one… Roshal sighed, “All forces prepa-”
“Ma’am, we’re being hailed.” Communications called out.
“On squawk.”
“This is Captain Al’yosha Cal’rada of Her Imperial Majesty’s Ship Spear of the Knyaginya, responding to Merchant vessel distress calls. Imperial Patrol Carrier, are you in need of assistance at this time?”
Roshal recognized the voice. A junior officer from her days in the Navy and a fellow Sevastutavan. The memory of the fresh faced girl when she’d joined her as an Ensign straight of the Naval Academy flashed before her eyes. “Captain Cal’rada. Your timing is impeccable as always.”
“Admiral?” Roshal could hear the shock in her old protege’s voice.
“That’s Captain, now, Al’yosha. I require your aid in ensuring the disabled vessel still glowing from an ASM strike remains disabled along with Search and Rescue teams for our sister Carrier.
“Whatever you want, you’ll have it, Admiral_… Helm! All ahead flank and plot course to intercept. Launch gunships and prepare to deploy Bluejackets. We’ll test our _Orcas’ teeth today!”
The line cut out a moment later than it should have, and Roshal nodded in approval.
“Captain, I still don’t have a read on new contact. What is it?” Sensors asked.
“A Drep’na inspired vision, come to life.” Roshal watched, feeling an odd sort of parental pride as Al’yosha’s experimental warship began closing the distance towards the Karcharidon at breakneck speeds. “A swift sailing vessel and ten carriage guns…” Roshal murmured the line from an old Vaasconian poem from the ancient Age of Sail. She had heard Cal’rada had succeeded in petitioning the Navy to build her dream-ship, burning every favor and passing out favors to any and everyone to see the program through. Now, there she was, standing on the bridge bearing down on a ship twice her size, but if the rumors were true, only half her guns.
“Ma’am, contact is still not resolving, but IFF confirms Imperial Navy designation. An Akula Class Attack Transport. I’ve… I’ve never even heard of this class.”
“Perhaps we shall hear of them more in the future. Fortune favors the active.”
“Contact is disgorging multiple signals, moving at speeds consistent with aerospace assets.”
“That is our signal we may disengage. Comms, inform the merchant fleet that the area is secure and to begin refueling procedures. Helm, get us alongside the pirate hulk, we have people to recover. Marine, get me a runner to the MP’s, we shall need the port hangar prepared for an old tradition the Navy has regarding pirate prisoners…” Roshal commanded. The fight was over, it was time to begin the cleanup.
//////////
So… that took a while. Sorry about that.
Turns out when a combination of writer’s block, decision paralysis and LIFE hits you over the head, it becomes a touch difficult to get your shit together long enough to write something down.
On the plus side, we are out of the “unplanned bits” and right back into the parts I have brainstormed, so I won’t be staring at a screen trying to think how to make things connect as much anymore. On the other hand, that means we are now entering the epilogue of book 1 of Top Lasgun.
Don’t worry, the story isn’t ending, I’ve got “three” books plotted out in my head, so we’ll see how that shakes out, but for the most part, this is where I start wrapping up plot threads, laying down threads for what comes next, and all that other good stuff.
So yeah, next chapter is going to involve everyone wrapping up what happened here, some fun little Military Justice, and potentially a bunch of plot. Also, I’m planning on starting a “rewrite”/edited version of this to go up on AO3, so keep an eye out for that. Early installment weirdness is a bitch and I’m not proud of what the older stuff looked like.
Well, I hope you have a wonderful morning, afternoon or evening whenever you read this and I will see you next chapter.
[NEXT CHAPTER]

You always wanted a poem About me in your mouth But noww I only think of you under him And how you threw our bond down south Seems security and love to you, is not helping you move Nor was it me dancing to your every groove Nor was it me being your twin brain I cannot believe I ever thought you and I the same Nor was it me telling you "I love you" Less than a month before your stupid "breakthrough" Nor calling you, just to hear what's new Nor giving you hugs when you go boohoo Nor giving you drugs when something at work falls through I never asked for anything of you in return Simply wanted to be around you, that was my only concern If I could go back in time, to when you threw up on the floor I would turn around, and walk out the door Understanding and love could smack you in the face And you would certainly not see it, not even a trace It's easier for you to pretend I never loved you And run off with someone brand new So just in case you might forget Print out this poem, and hang it up Any time you feel a twinge of regret Read why a man that would die for you, will never again give a fuck

Spoilers ahead…
Dear Karthik Subbaraj,
Congratulations on yet another interesting movie, and for resisting the impulse to name this one, too, after a food item. Iraivi is an unusual feminist film, in the sense that it’s seen entirely through the prism of sympathetic male characters. Your men aren’t monsters who drink or cheat on their wives or subject them to torture. They do these things, yes, but… differently. Arul (SJ Surya) drinks, but only to drown out his sense of failure – he’s a director and his film is in the cans, being held hostage by a sadistic producer. Michael (Vijay Sethupathi) has sex with Malarvizhi (Pooja Devariya), and he continues to lust after her after his marriage to Ponni (Anjali) – I love that all your women have names that suggest classical heroines, including Arul’s wife Yazhini (Kamalini Mukherjee) – but it’s a marriage he committed to in a hurry and he still hasn’t reconciled himself to it. He’s being a bastard, certainly, but he’s not a one-note villain. And the torture they inflict isn’t the stubbing-a-cigarette-into-the-wife’s-bare-arm variety. It’s more mental than physical.
So we get women who are collateral damage – and I include Arul’s comatose mother (Vadivukkarasi), and the nurse who’s not allowed to do her duty – of men being men. They’re being babies, really. Yazhini tells Arul that he should get on with his life, write another story, make another movie. He says it’s like her trying to have another child while still pregnant with their daughter. (Yes, all these men end up with girl children.) He’s a wallower – but maybe all artists are. You like to do that, don’t you Karthik? Even in a film like this, you deliver a commentary about filmmaking and the artist. Why, even Arul’s father is a sculptor, and though we never see him ill-treating his wife (thank you for sparing us the clichés of raised hands and raised voices), we’re informed that he’s responsible for her state. His son’s following the father’s footsteps. Maybe you’re trying to say that the wives of obsessed artists are doomed to become collateral damage. Your films make us think, Karthik, so thank you for that.
All your stories have at their centre a filmmaker, or at least (in the case of your first film, Pizza) a storyteller. And through them, we seem to hear your voice. “Works of art should not be in places where they are not respected.” “Namma padam pesanum, naama pesa koodadhu.” You compare masala movies to a massage with a happy ending. (I laughed, but please don’t judge me when I say I rather like massages with happy endings – I refer to masala movies, of course.) We even get a line of dialogue about Dolby Atmos. (What will the B/C-centre audience make of this, Karthik? But then you don’t really give a shit, do you? More power to you.) And you like your insider jokes. That crass, egoistic producer who does not care about art – he reminded me of the crass producer from your earlier film, Jigarthanda. You like Rajinikanth too. You referenced Thillu Mullu in Pizza, Thalapathi in Jigarthanda, and now you have Arul singing Malayala karayoram, Michael singing Oorai therinjikitten.
Or is that more of an Ilayaraja homage? You like to keep the audience guessing, right? When the Bobby Simha character in Jigarthanda said he was a Shankar-Ganesh fan, it appeared that you were mocking the endless Ilayaraja nods in Tamil cinema, but here you are, doffing your hat to the maestro. “Raja Raja dhaan.” Arul says this… twice. (By the way, which is that nightclub which plays Maanguyile poonguyile? Do let us know.) And the reuse of Unnai thaane – first in a scene between Michael and Malarvizhi; later in a scene between Michael and Ponni – is the kind of Easter egg we come to your films for. Let me list some others, though I’ll probably need to watch the film a second (or third) time to get them all. The name of the bachelors’ quarters is Ambal Mansion – it goes with your theme and title. I didn’t get the bit about the windmills (something connected to the gust of wind that makes the row of cycles fall over in the first scene?), or why you showcased the book of Shanta Shishunala Sharif’s poems. (I confess. I Googled up that name. I can’t remember the last time a Tamil film made me Google something up. Madras, maybe.) And despite your note at the beginning that Iraivi is inspired by the works of K Balachander (he made female-centric films, but I don’t know if I’d call them feminist films), this is really more of an ode to Mani Ratnam, isn’t it? Specifically, Aayidha Ezhuthu. The three men, one of them – the impulsive one – named Michael. The film starting out as Arul’s story, then becoming Michael’s story, and finally Jagan’s (Bobby Simha) story. The finale with the woman on the train. Plus, the arc of the Madhavan-Meera Jasmine plot was essentially about being easily misled (in the case of the man) and becoming collateral damage (in the case of the woman.) And yes, the rain. All that rain. As though the skies were weeping for these women.
Am I digressing, Karthik? If I am, I’m just following your style, which is the opposite of simple and linear. As a result, I find your films longer than they need to be. (You may feel the same about my reviews.) For instance, I did not care for the scene in the nightclub where a director is felicitated. I realise it was there as a last straw for Yazhini, but it felt redundant. But I suppose they couldn’t be any other way, because you like these shaggy-dog stories that you then embellish with novelistic detail. I love the way you introduce your characters, the time you take with them. Our films lay out characters and their relationship to each other the minute we set eyes on them, but you make us wait to know how Arul is related to Jagan and where Michael fits in and so on. And when it appeared that a semblance of a plot was kicking in (something about Arul needing money to buy back his film), I dug out my phone and checked: it was a whole hour into the movie. Borrowing an image from Malarvizhi’s profession (oh wait, she’s an artist too; she’s literally an artist), it’s like daubs of paint slowly forming a bigger picture.
And you really like an expansive canvas. Not only does the crass producer have a brother, you also bring in his wife later on, to conclude a deal he began making. These segments practically form a mini-movie, with another woman left reeling by the actions of her man. Your films have this… density. They’re packed – with characters, with complications, with information doled out in bits and pieces. (A character says, “Un kitta onnu sollanum.” And instead of hearing what he has to say, we cut to someone else.) Take the scene where Michael asks Arul for money he is owed. You just need to get Michael to Arul’s antiques shop, so the next part of the plot can be staged. Arul could have told Michael to collect the money at the shop. Instead, this is what we get. Arul tells Michael to wait for a week, when he can get the 50 lakhs he is owed. Michael says he wants only 10 lakhs. Arul says he has only 8 lakhs, he’ll give the remainder later. Michael goes to Arul’s father, in the hospital. He has only 5 lakhs. And he directs Michael to the shop, to get the remaining 3 lakhs. Your signature intercutting adds to this texture, Karthik. Shots of Michael and Arul’s father in the hospital are intercut with shots of Arul hunting for booze. Shots of Michael and Jagan outside a courtroom are intercut with shots of Arul being consoled by his father. Happenings are stretched and meshed the way they would be in real life, and not compacted according to the page-per-minute requirement of screenplay-writing textbooks.
I could never predict where the film was going (win!), what these people were going to do (again, win!) –though I must admit I found this to be the weakest of your “twists.” The subplot about stealing sculptures, too, I found rather conceit-y, something half-heartedly cooked up to fit with the title and the theme, rather than something plausible, something these people would do. When Michael, here, commits murder, with a hammer, I went, “This mild-mannered chap? Really?” But then, even in Jigarthanda, I wasn’t quite convinced that the characters would do the things they did. They seemed to be puppets of a screenplay rather than credible human beings, whose actions evolve organically from who they are (or at least, who they seem to be).
But even if I am not convinced by the overall trajectory of your characters, I love how fleshed-out they are on a moment-to-moment basis. I loved the scene where Arul barges into Yazhini’s house, after their separation, on the day of her engagement to someone else. In a lesser film, she would have asked him to get out, and he’d have dug his heels in, and she’d have cooled down and… But here, she rushes straight into his arms. And you make us see why. She was frustrated, fed up with him. But she’s also confused. Was she hasty in abandoning this man? Should she move on with another man? Does she even need a man? With just this one scene, you’ve compensated for the underwritten heroine of Jigarthanda. The story arc may be Arul’s, but Yazhini registers as a fully formed character. Similarly, Michael’s arc allows for the delineation of Ponni and Malarvizhi, and through Jagan, we get glimpses of his mother, and possibly of all womanhood as viewed by a compassionate man. And then you say that women don’t need even this compassionate man (poor chap!), that they have to emancipate themselves instead of looking for a penis-wielding emancipator. What delicious irony, given that you begin the film with women talking about marriage, tying themselves to a man!
Or not, in the case of Malarvizhi, who is easily the film’s most interesting character. Her husband is dead, and she doesn’t want love anymore – only sex. When Michael buys her a diamond necklace, she gives it back to him – she can buy her own trinkets, thank you very much. But the character feels shoe-horned into the film, Karthik. I felt betrayed – and I bet she did too – that after a point, she was used simply as a plot device to get Michael and Ponni together, and also to illustrate Michael’s (who is now standing in for all of mankind) hypocrisy. I felt she deserved more. And yet, I appreciated your generosity in fleshing her out like all the others, without judging her. She gets to be the rare woman in Tamil cinema who dumps the man, and the way she lets go of Michael is echoed in the way Arul lets go of Yazhini, with a heavy heart and some playacting. A side effect of the Malarvizhi subplot is the reassurance that Vijay Sethupathi is still interested in making cinema, rather than just massy entertainers targeted at the box office.
Ponni gets a better deal (and Anjali is terrific, raw and expressive in a way she has never been). In a great scene – rather, a set of book-ending scenes – Michael tells Ponni that he was forced to marry her, and she’s going to have to “adjust” to this if she wants to be with him. Much later, she throws the “adjust” word back on his bearded face when he asks her if she slept with someone else. In a different kind of movie, we’d be invited to see this symmetry, stand up and applaud. But you’re too subtle for that, Karthik. Iraivi is your subtlest film. Which is why I winced at the melodramatic lines about men and women, most of which came towards the end. Aan, using the long-sounding vowel, versus penn, with the shorter one – for such a visual filmmaker (this is another outstandingly shot film, less showy than Jigarthanda and probably richer for that), do you really need the crutch of linguistic special effects from another era of filmmaking? Also, when the rest of your film is so allusive, isn’t there another way you can explain the twist without having a character resort to such an inelegant information dump?
And why is it that your films come together more in the head than in the heart? Why are they easier to admire than love wholeheartedly? I used to think it was because your characters are essentially deceitful, self-serving and unsympathetic, so though we were invested in what they did, we didn’t really warm up to them. But here, you have Ponni and Yazhini and Malarvizhi – and they’re still remote. But perhaps this is bound to happen when there are so many people, so many strands, when we don’t follow one person’s simplistic “you go, girl” journey like we do in, say, 36 Vayadhinile? But when the parts are so well-crafted, we don’t complain as much about their sum not adding up to a satisfying whole. I am sure that you will, one day, make that wholly satisfying film, but for now, thank you for these parts. Thank you for the ambition. I felt there were too many songs (some good work by Santhosh Narayanan), but thank you for ensuring that they don’t break character, the way songs usually do when a character speaking in his or her voice suddenly segues into the playback singer’s voice. Thank you for giving us SJ Surya, the actor – I never dreamed he had such a capacity to hold a scene, to hold the screen. Thank you for continuing not to sell out. Thank you for trying to do so much, even if not all of it needed to have been tried. And thank you for making me fight with myself, for not making it easy to decide if you’ve made a “good” film or a merely “okay” film. For now, Iraivi is a fascinating film, and that’s enough.
Sincerely, etc.

My name is Emily. I'm from the United States and I wanted to end my 20's with a bang, and I'm happy to say that I ended my 20's in Korea.Actually, Korea was not a country that I had much to do with.Originally, I was a person who was immersed in Japanese culture since college.Japanese anime became my friend. There's a lot of interesting things about Japanese anime, like the fact that they depict real places in Japan, and they depict real food, and so I fell in love with Japan, and I even traveled to Japan a couple times, and I thought that Japan was the sum of everything that I longed for.
But then, in my late 20s, I met a friend who would change my life. It was a simple meeting with a long-lost college classmate, Sarah, who had gone on to work at a large firm in New York City, and whom I had shared anime and Japanese food with in my dorm room in college. She told me honestly that she had recently traveled to Korea and was seriously thinking about moving there. Unfortunately, the large company she worked for in New York had recently gone through a business crisis, and she was laid off.
She said that she was confused by the sudden betrayal of a well-known company, and to clear her mind, she went to the airport with the intention of leaving anywhere. She thought she would go to Japan, but when she arrived at the airport, she changed her mind. When she thought back to the places and restaurants she frequented most often while working at the company in New York, she remembered that she often went to Korean streets and Korean supermarkets in New York, and she thought that going to Korea on an impromptu trip was a really good idea, so she chose to go to Korea rather than Japan, which she already knew.
And buying a plane ticket on the spot at the airport was more than twice as expensive as booking a ticket in advance, but Sarah said that she didn't care, because she was depressed after being fired from her job, and she went to the airport to leave, but the curiosity about Korea that came over her made her want to leave right away, even if she had to pay for the expensive plane ticket.
He expressed that although he went to the airport courageously, he knew that the plane ticket would be too expensive, and he thought that maybe he should just go back home again, but his curiosity about Korea came from somewhere deep inside him, and it exploded like a bomb, and he was naturally drawn to it.
Sarah, who likes emotional things like essays and poems in college and enjoys such poetic expressions, but even so, I wondered if it was a little overdone, but when she said that she had been to Korea, I became more focused on her story.
However, I was able to understand why she expressed herself in such an over-the-top way after listening to her Korean stories.
"Korea is an amazing place, the people are so kind and warm, and most of all, the employment system is very well organized. There are many programs and support for job seekers, which is very helpful for people who are in a difficult situation like me."
When Sarah started with this story, I realized that she was really traumatized by being laid off.Now, she had been through a big ordeal and was in the process of recovering from it through Korea, so I decided to focus more on her story."You said you traveled to Korea, so what else did you do?" I asked."For example, what kind of programs were there?" I asked her.
"I happened to visit a job fair in Korea," she said, "where job seekers can get free career counseling and get the training they need." "I got a lot of help there, and it gave me the strength to get back on my feet, and maybe even get a job in Korea." "And most of all, the work culture in Korea is really family-like," she said, "I was impressed by how much my coworkers cared about each other and supported each other."
Sarah said that she was curious about what Korea was like, so she visited a large convention center in Korea and participated in various fairs, one of which was a job fair, and she interviewed with several Korean companies, and the Korean companies were ready to accept her as a colleague if she applied as an American. I also learned that Korea has many companies with global reach, and they are open to foreigners with various experiences, but in Korea, unless it is a large company, people don't prefer them, so if it is a small company, they want foreigners, but there is a sad reality that no one applies.
Unlike in the U.S., where you have to report your performance every week, and if you fall short, you are threatened with termination, Korean companies are definitely not more performance-oriented than in the U.S. They value their employees and do everything together to grow together, not threaten them with termination. In the past, I knew that corporate culture in Asian countries such as Korea was more collectivistic than individualistic, and as a student, I thought that such a collectivistic culture was a bad culture with a high level of disease in Asia, but after experiencing social life in the United States, I heard that the tendency of companies to be extremely individualistic, talking about job insecurity, and treating people ruthlessly, caused me to be fired from a good job overnight, and the future plans I had planned in advance became uncertain, and I even talked about envying the Korean culture that does not have such disadvantages.
Sarah, who has never worked in Korea, but was always afraid of being fired, said that she learned a lot about Korean corporate culture by interviewing many Korean company officials.
She said that she even considered settling down and living in Korea because, besides the culture, there were so many other conveniences and benefits.
She talked about her experience of working in New York, being left alone in the office to get things done because of her performance, having to leave late at night and being afraid to go home, sleeping in the hotel next door, and having to live with the exorbitant rent in Manhattan and the two-hour round-trip commute to work, and how she realized that unlike in the U.S., where it is difficult to see a doctor, she would not have to worry about these things in Korea.
Sarah's story made me even more curious about Korea.The warmth, systematic system, and various charms that she experienced in Korea couldn't help but have a great impact on me.I've been experiencing a lot of stress every day due to the pressure of performance and the threat of being fired, and I've recently been undergoing expensive psychotherapy.I decided to learn more about Korea, and eventually decided to travel to Korea.
Of course, I didn't travel to Korea with the intention of moving to Korea or settling down in Korea, but rather to spend my last 20s in a new country, Korea, and to see a different world than the familiar Japan.
I made my preparations and headed to Korea sooner than I expected, arriving ten days before my birthday and extending my itinerary beyond what I had originally planned, staying in Korea until after my birthday and then flying back to the United States.
The first day I finally arrived in Korea, I started walking around the streets of Seoul.The first thing that greeted me was the warm spring weather in Korea.The sky was clear and the air was crisp.I was told that it is common for Asia to have very bad air quality in the spring due to the influence of China, but I didn't have to deal with that during my trip.
The streets of Korea are very different from the United States, and everything was new to me.There were many beautiful flowers in bloom, and the well-maintained trees were really beautiful.It has been a long time since the common people's neighborhoods in the United States have such beautiful landscaping because of people who destroy these trees and flowers for no reason, or secretly take them and sell them.But this was not the case in Korea.The streets were like a beautiful flower garden.
I was walking down a beautiful street lined with flowers, and I was looking at them, looking at the big big map that was displayed on the screen at the bus stop.I was just curious to see what my neighborhood looked like, so I was looking at the map and taking my time, and a middle-aged woman came up to me and said, "Where are you looking for?" She didn't speak fluent English, but I was so grateful that she was trying to help. I was too embarrassed to tell her that I was just looking at the map, so I told her one of the destinations I was planning to go to, and she gave me direct directions to the place I was looking for, and I was able to get there without any difficulty.This unexpected kindness opened my eyes to the Korean people and warmed my heart at the same time.
I was ready to accept everything in Korea with an open mind.The first impression was very good, I was touched by the kindness of the people.I couldn't ask for anything more from Korea.The food was so fresh and amazing to me.I visited Gwangjang Market, a famous traditional market in Korea.
Unlike a regular restaurant, it was a place where you could sit down and try a variety of food. As a traditional market, it was full of Korean food. There were no pizza, pasta, or burger joints, but I liked it better that way. It was a place where you could see the traditional look and feel curious about everything.
I also tasted foods such as tteokbokki sundae and hotteok.Everything else was fine, but I was a little worried when I first tried sundae because it looked so strange and a little gross, but I decided to give it a try and the moment I put it in my mouth, the rich flavor filled my mouth.Korean food often seems difficult to eat, but when you try it, you can see why it is so popular in Korea.
I stayed at Gwangjang Market for a long time and tried a lot of different foods, especially kimchi and pajeon, which I still remember because of their crispy texture and spicy flavor. I would recommend them to everyone.Experiencing the deep flavors of Korean food firsthand made me fall in love with Korean food.
And then there was a shocking thing that happened to me in Korea.I was having a lot of fun traveling around Korea and everything was interesting, because Korea is really the best place to be, you know, you're running around, you're busy, you're going from place to place, and I had the misfortune of losing my passport, which was really stupid.
I was traveling in Korea, and I got an international call. Someone was calling me from Korea, and when I saw the international call indicator on my phone and realized that the call was from Korea, I had a million questions.
I thought I shouldn't answer the call, but then I realized that it was an international call, and I thought maybe they were calling me because they had some business to take care of. I answered the call, and I was told a really crazy story, because I heard a calm English voice asking if it was Emily, and she introduced herself as a police officer and asked if I could come to the nearest police station.
I thought I had done something terribly wrong, because I had just eaten delicious tteokbokki and sundae, kimchi and pajeon, and I was so happy to eat them, and afterward I was just walking around the streets of Korea, smelling the flowers and seeing the pretty trees.
I started to check my belongings one by one and realized that my small pouch containing my passport and some of the money I had exchanged was missing.
I quickly headed to the police station, which was where I was told to go, and from the front gate, I was controlled as to what I was visiting.
The great thing about Korea is that even for someone like me who doesn't speak Korean, it's not difficult to navigate these government offices. Not all Koreans speak English, but at least the ones I've met have been able to communicate with me in a simple way. Even if they don't speak perfect sentences, they understand most of the words, so I was able to communicate the reason for my visit to the police station.
I had never been to a police station before, even in the U.S., but here I was in Korea, and I was greeted by friendly people.The pouch with my passport in it had my contact information written on the inside, and they said they would contact me with that.The bag was found in a marketplace, and the first person to report it was the stall owner of the place where I had my first sundae.It also had all of my clean, new Korean money in it, which I had exchanged separately.
I was so impressed with how conscientious Koreans are and how good they are that I was able to find the pouch, sign the paperwork, and walk out of the police station.
I went back to Gwangjang Market, and when I got there, the owner recognized me and looked like he was about to say something. I held out the bag and showed it to him, and he smiled and liked it.
I thanked the Korean boss, and we ate another snack on the spot. It was an experience that made me realize how heavenly Korea is.
And like Sarah said, I didn't just want to see how clean and pretty Korea is, I wanted to see what an American working in Korea could do and what life would be like.Through the Reddit community, I was able to get in touch with Americans working in Korea and even met some of them in person.
David, the American I met, works for a company that is not a large Korean company, but rather a small or medium-sized company. As Sarah said, Korea is a country where products are produced for the global market, and many things are actually exported overseas.
However, in Korea, unless it is a large company, every company is experiencing a job shortage, and because of the atmosphere in Korea, where foreigners are not welcome at all, it is not difficult to get a job in a company that specializes in exporting overseas, even if you are in the United States.
And David told me that he put all his passion into the first company he worked for in the U.S., and even made a lot of money for the company, but when he didn't perform, the company fired him without mercy, and he said that he was so shocked, not to mention the feeling of betrayal, that he took depression medication at that time, and it was so hard that he took depression medication, and then he found Korea by chance and settled in Korea, and now he is so happy. He told me that he was fired from his job because of the unrelenting treatment in the U.S., that he found a second chance in Korea, and that he is happy with his life here.
I'm not sure I have the courage to move to Korea right now, but I learned that there are a lot of people like Sarah and David who have been hurt so badly that they end up leaving the country. I'm scared that this could be my future, but I also learned that Korea is an option for me if it happens to me.My trip ended like this: experiencing the culture, food, and hospitality of Korea, and getting to meet and talk to Americans living in Korea, made my trip much more rewarding than my trip to Japan, which could have been an anime trip.
Korea has given me new perspectives and experiences, shattered my notion that Japan is only good, broadened my horizons, and opened my eyes to another gem that is Korea.
I now like to say to my friends, "Go to Korea, you'll see how good it is." Korea has taught me so much, and I will cherish my experience in Korea, which now holds a special place in my heart.
If Sarah goes to Korea and settles down, I will be there to congratulate her and support her in her new relationship in Korea.

Hi all. I hope it's okay to share this here. I'm new to this whole thing and I just need to let out some thoughts and feelings that have been weighing on me lately. It's been a really difficult year.
Where to start.. Perhaps some context. My partner and I currently live in a small single bedroom studio apartment in the UK. We have just given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy who has just turned one month this previous Sunday.
11 Months ago, in June, my partner and I suffered a late miscarriage of our son at 18 weeks. It was devastating and heartbreaking, and holding him in my arms was a moment that I will never forget and will weigh heavily on my heart for the rest of my life. Carrying his coffin through the crematorium and reading the poem I wrote him is something I never thought in my life I'd ever have to do. Then, two weeks later, I lost my job. It was due to a mistake on my part, one I'll always hold my hands up and admit to, but the timing of it couldn't have been worse. It stung.. it still stings, because the job market hasn't been kind to me since. Every single day I'm out looking for work, doing odd-jobs here and there to get by but I've been unable to find a new consistent job, and so we're having to rely on government benefits to get by financially.
Fast forward to now.. we've been blessed with a gorgeous baby boy. But with blessing comes challenge. My partner is battling PPD, struggling with her self-image, and feeling lost in herself. She can't walk past a mirror without breaking down and the stress of looking after him alone when it's my turn to sleep causes the same reaction. Our baby boy has colic and so, to ensure we're actually resting, we're currently rotating in shifts to look after him. We tried the standard 8 hours each and that didn't work out for us so now we're rotating in 3 hour shifts. For 3 hours I'll take him, then we'll both look after him together for 3 hours before my partner then takes him for 3- and then so on. Admittedly, we've struggled to stick to that routine but it's definitely working better than the one before.
I've been doing my best to hold everything together. Since we brought him home I've taken the lion's share of responsibilities so my partner can rest and recover from childbirth, as well as have the time she needs to push through her PPD. I usually let her sleep over the 3 hour mark by quite a fair bit and in the beginning the baby was glued to me to allow her to recover. I was more than happy for this and I want it clear that I'm not complaining. I made that choice and I am happy with it. What I'm venting about here is a bit more complicated.
I don't... feel anything with him. I don't have the connection with my son that everyone else seems to have. It's like I'm babysitting a stranger's child. Am I not supposed to have this overwhelming feeling of love and joy? My partner and each of our parents all have this connection with him. They have so much love and pride when they see and hold him and I.. don't. What I feel is instead a sense of responsibility, a paternal desire to protect and keep him safe.. but I don't feel anything else. I'm always told that it's because my partner carried him for 9 months and that our parents have had children before themselves so they know what it's like.. but I can't help but feel guilty and cruel because of it.
And ultimately, I think that's what it boils down to. Guilt. It's eating me up inside. I feel guilty for not feeling what everyone else seems to feel, for not being able to provide financially, for not always knowing what my baby needs. I miss our lost baby every day, and it's hard not to see him when I look at our new baby. It'll be a year since we lost him in a few weeks and it's a painful reminder of what we lost. I'm terrified of being the type of Dad my Father was, I'm terrified that as he grows older he'll resent me because I was unable to provide for him the way I should. I just.. I've always dreamed of being an this amazing Father and an amazing future Husband to my partner and with each day I feel like it's a dream I'll never achieve.
I know that it's supposed to get better. Everyone says it and I don't doubt it.. but it's hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel. One thing I'm incredibly grateful for, though, is how supportive my partner and I have been with each other. Every trial and tribulation has only ever made us stronger and I fall more in love with her every day. Seeing her be the Mum I always knew she'd be.. it makes everything just a little bit easier. I've told her all of this and she's told me her own woes, and we're doing everything we can day by day- and it's for that very reason that I want to do right by them both.
I'm sorry if this post seems out of place or self-indulgent. I just needed to let these thoughts out into the world, to lighten the load even just a little bit. Thanks for listening, Dads. And sorry if this isn't the right place for it. I'm still learning the ropes of this whole new Dad thing.

1. Islam is the only religion not named after a person or a tribe.
2. The literary irreproducible miracle is well supported.

Even scholars agree. That's the consensus.
Arthur John Arberry said "to produce something which might be accepted as echoing however faintly the sublime rhetoric of the Arabic Koran, I have been at pains to study the intricate and richly varied rhythms which constitute the Koran's undeniable claim to rank amongst the greatest literary masterpieces of mankind."
Karen Armstrong said "It is as though Muhammad had created an entirely new literary form that some people were not ready for but which thrilled others. Without this experience of the Koran, it is extremely unlikely that Islam would have taken root."
Oliver Leaman said "the verses of the Qur'an represent its uniqueness and beauty not to mention its novelty and originality. That is why it has succeeded in convincing so many people of its truth. it imitates nothing and no one nor can it be imitated. Its style does not pall even after long periods of study and the text does not lose its freshness over time."
E.H. Palmer said "That the best of Arab writers has never succeeded in producing anything equal in merit to the Qur’an itself is not surprising."
Also, another quote "Scholar and Professor of Islamic Studies M. A. Draz affirm how the 7th-century experts were absorbed in the discourse that left them incapacitated: “In the golden age of Arab eloquence, when language reached the apogee of purity and force, and titles of honour were bestowed with solemnity on poets and orators in annual festivals, the Qur’anic word swept away all enthusiasm for poetry or prose, and caused the Seven Golden Poems hung over the doors of the Ka’ba to be taken down. All ears lent themselves to this marvel of Arabic expression."
Also, "Professor of Qur’anic Studies Angelika Neuwrith argued that the Qur’an has never been successfully challenged by anyone, past or present: “…no one has succeeded, this is right… I really think that the Qur’an has even brought Western researchers embarrassment, who wasn’t able to clarify how suddenly in an environment where there were not any appreciable written text, appeared the Qur’an with its richness of ideas and its magnificent wordings.”
Not to mention Hussein Abdul-Raof. "Hussein Abdul-Raof continues “The Arabs, at the time, had reached their linguistic peak in terms of linguistic competence and sciences, rhetoric, oratory, and poetry. No one, however, has ever been able to provide a single chapter similar to that of the Qur’an.”"
Yes, all of them are experts in Quran and in Literature. Lots of credible scholars say that the quran is inimitable.
Laid Ibn Rabah, one of the poets of the seven odes, stopped writing poetry and converted to Islam because of it.
The Qur'an's rhyme scheme is very organized, some of the best out there. Not to mention that it came out spontaneously.
It uses ten rhetorical devices in 3 words at one point. Someone tried to use more. Even though it does, people still mocked it for how it didn't meet the challenge. He used punctuation. (https://www.reddit.com/exmuslim/comments/18o5y0w/the\_rationalizer\_had\_a\_version\_of\_the\_quran/)
And apparently, if it were by a human, it would not contain a challenge, because he would be afraid people would complete it. This book issued a challenge that apparently nobody completed.

1. The Qur'an predicted that the Byzantines will win the Byzantine-Sassanid war within 9 years, even though they lost the recent battle.

The Romans have been defeated in a nearby land. Yet following their defeat, they will triumph within three to nine years.

(https://quran.com/30?startingVerse=3)
Now this is massive because it is unthinkable that a defeated army would win a war.

1. The Qur'an knew that pain receptors are in the skin.

Surely those who reject Our signs, We will cast them into the Fire. Whenever their skin is burnt completely, We will replace it so they will ˹constantly˺ taste the punishment. Indeed, Allah is Almighty, All-Wise.

(https://quran.com/en/an-nisa/56 )

1. The Qur'an knew about the rose nebula.

˹How horrible will it be˺ when the heavens will split apart, becoming rose-red like ˹burnt˺ oil!

(https://quran.com/en/ar-rahman/37 )

1. The Qur'an knew that wind holds the clouds up.

And it is Allah Who sends the winds, which then stir up ˹vapour, forming˺ clouds, and then We drive them to a lifeless land, giving life to the earth after its death. Similar is the Resurrection.

(https://quran.com/en/fati9 )
The USGS say, "Even though a cloud weighs tons, it doesn't fall on you because the rising air responsible for its formation keeps the cloud floating in the air. The air below the cloud is denser than the cloud, thus the cloud floats on top of the denser air nearer the land surface". (https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/condensation-and-water-cycle?qt-science\_center\_objects=0#qt-science\_center\_objects)
The 'Scientific American' says, "Upward vertical motions, or updrafts, in the atmosphere also contribute to the floating appearance of clouds by offsetting the small fall velocities of their constituent particles. Clouds generally form, survive and grow in air that is moving upward". (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-do-clouds-float-when/).
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum says, "There are several reasons clouds float: first, the droplets in a cloud are small. Very small..................The second reason that clouds can float in the air is that there is a constant flow of warm air rising to meet the cloud: the warm air pushes up on the cloud and keeps it afloat". (https://www.naturemuseum.org/the-museum/blog/how-do-clouds-float#).
(https://www.reddit.com/DebateReligion/comments/eg25t7/the\_quran\_is\_a\_scientific\_gem\_quran\_miraculously/ )

1. The Qur'an knew that the atlantic and pacific ocean are different colors. They don't mix.

Q55:19-20

He merges the two bodies of ˹fresh and salt˺ water, yet between them is a barrier they never cross.

( https://quran.com/55?startingVerse=19)
If that's not true, how does one explain this photo. ( https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/do-the-pacific-ocean-and-the-atlantic-ocean-mix)

1. The odd-even miracle.

Add the verse count to the chapter number, we get 57 odd and 57 even sums.
All 57 odd sums add up to 6555. Not only is that odd, that is all numbers from 1-114 added up.
All even numbers add up to 6290. That is how many verses in total there are in the Qur'an .
(https://www.reddit.com/exmuslim/comments/ds6juf/yaa\_ayyuhal\_kafiroon\_the\_quran\_is\_mathmetically/ )
Muhammad was illiterate, so how could he even remember his own numbers?
Also, a verse in the Qur'an hints at it, 89:3.

By the dawn, and the ten nights, and the even and the odd, and the night when it passes! Is all this ˹not˺ a sufficient oath for those who have sense?

( https://quran.com/89?startingVerse=1)

1. The Qur'an gets embryology right in considering that it looks like a leech at one point, looks like a lump with a bite taken out of it at another. Also in that hearing is before sight.

You can see Keith Moore, an embryologist show his work with this document. ( https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1194/79036bd3704127bbb25378174bfcd5b9f088.pdf)
Don't say "Galen" because Galen and the Qur'an contradict on embryology. Also, how did Muhammad know about Galen's work?
This paper by Nadeem Arif Najmi explains it in more detail. (https://www.call-to-monotheism.com/a\_muslim\_answer\_to\_criticism\_of\_\_embryology\_in\_the\_qur\_an\_\_\_by\_nadeem\_arif\_najmi)

1. The Qur'an knew about altitude sickness.

Whoever Allah wills to guide, He opens their heart to Islam. But whoever He wills to leave astray, He makes their chest tight and constricted as if they were climbing up into the sky. This is how Allah dooms those who disbelieve.

(https://quran.com/6?startingVerse=125 )
The highest mountain is Saudi Arabia is Jabal Dakkah, at 2585 meters. (https://peakery.com/jabal-dakah-saudi-arabia/ ) Already, altitude sickness has begun at that height (https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/altitude-sickness ), but I don't think that Muhammad has even climbed that mountain.

1. The Qur'an knew that the ocean is darker as one goes in, and that there are internal waves in the ocean.

Or ˹their deeds are˺ like the darkness in a deep sea, covered by waves upon waves, topped by ˹dark˺ clouds. Darkness upon darkness! If one stretches out their hand, they can hardly see it. And whoever Allah does not bless with light will have no light!

(https://quran.com/24?startingVerse=40 )

1. The Qur'an knew about the water cycle.

Do you not see that Allah sends down rain from the sky—channelling it through streams in the earth—then produces with it crops of various colours, then they dry up and you see them wither, and then He reduces them to chaff? Surely in this is a reminder for people of reason.
(https://quran.com/en/az-zuma21)

We send down rain from the sky in perfect measure, causing it to soak into the earth. And We are surely able to take it away.

(https://quran.com/en/al-muminun/18 )
Infiltration and runoff mentioned.

We send fertilizing winds, and bring down rain from the sky for you to drink. It is not you who hold its reserves.

(https://quran.com/en/al-hij22 )
(https://www.thelastdialogue.org/article/water-cycle-mentioned-in-quran/#Miracle\_in\_the\_use\_of\_word\_%D9%85%D9%8E%D8%A7%D8%A1%D9%8B )
13/14. The Quran knew about the big bang. The Quran also knew that before the devonian age, life was not on land.

Do the disbelievers not realize that the heavens and earth were ˹once˺ one mass then We split them apart? And We created from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?
(https://quran.com/en/al-hij22 )
The second part could mean that even non-carbon life needs water.
Don't say Thales because Thales said that everything came from water, not life.
Bonus: The Sunnah knew that the Arab lands were once green.

The Last Hour will not come before wealth becomes abundant and overflowing, so much so that a man takes Zakat out of his property and cannot find anyone to accept it from him and till the land of Arabia reverts to meadows and rivers.

(https://sunnah.com/muslim:157c )
The Sunnah not only knew that arabia is turning green at the moment, it also knew that Arabia was once green. Ta'ood doesn't mean become, but it means revert. So, it does not mean that it will mean become.
There are lots more prophecies in the Quran and Hadith that have been fulfilled. You can see the yaqeen institute's list right here. (https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/papeed/the-prophecies-of-prophet-muhammad )