I understand that this is highly unlikely, but I figured it doesn't hurt to throw the idea out there.
There was a very obvious mismatch with supply and demand with the convention this year. In the weekly update, Brandon said that in the first hour alone they had 10000 people trying to get 7500 tickets. This is just the number of people who showed up in the first hour, not including others who may have been working or asleep at the time.
As we have learned, the current convention dates are constrained by whatever other events are going on at Salt Palace on Dec 5-7. Adding more people to the current schedule will be over capacity and is not an option. Additionally, adding too many people could diminish the experience if it gets too crowded.
But what if instead of adding more people, we added more days? While it's still unclear what the schedule is for the other event(s) at Salt Palace that weekend, there may be some gap in the event schedule in the following week. For example, if the event space is not booked on the Monday and Tuesday of the following week, those days could be booked and another round of tickets could be sold for the "Dragonsteel B" days. Perhaps another "release party" for Wind and Truth could even be held for those that couldn't make it to the original "Dragonsteel A" convention.
Benefits to this:
More sales for Dragonsteel - Considering there were at least 2500 other people just at the initial ticket drop who couldn't get tickets, it would be very easy to sell a large number of tickets for Dragonsteel Nexus B days, possibly doubling revenue from tickets alone.
More sales for vendors - More days means more customers, which means more sales
More tourism dollars for SLC - encouraging more people to travel to SLC during this time will help boost the local economy
More concrete numbers to know future demand for Dragonsteel Nexus - This would be a better way to gauge how much space will be needed in future years.
Possibilities to trade tickets between the original date tickets and B date tickets for the people who wanted to go as a group and got split up - I have been seeing a lot of posts on the subreddit about people who wanted to go with friends, but the group got split up because some people were able to get tickets while others weren't. In these situations, people could trade A day and B day tickets via the escrow service so that they can go together with their friends and family.
Crowds - Adding extra days prevents the overcrowding problem that Brandon mentioned in his weekly update.
Discourage scams - If more tickets are available, this will lessen the likelihood of people who are desperate to get tickets from falling for scams.
Compensate for technical difficulties with tabletop.events - Even if you showed up at the initial ticket release, you may not have gotten tickets because of technical difficulties with the website. This will give those people another chance.
Encourage positive relationship with Salt Palace - Fans would be incredibly grateful to the convention center if they were given an opportunity like this.
More happy fans - Since we all want to be there to experience such a big event for this community.
Possible Downsides:
Planning - Would definitely require more planning, but hopefully the additional revenue from the extra tickets and merchandise sales would compensate for this
Availability of Panelists - Inevitably, not all panelists would be able to make it for the extra days. This could be remedied by making the B day convention shorter (ie make Dragonsteel B just 2 days instead of 3)
Labor - Adding on extra days would require extra labor hours. However, given how important this event is, it would not be surprising if there are a large number of people willing to volunteer at the convention to make this work.
Inventory - some goods might get sold out during Dragonsteel A that people from Dragonsteel B would want. Perhaps there is time between now and the actual convention to make extra inventory to accommodate for more people? Additionally, while buying the goods is great, I am sure that many people would be happy just to be there even if there was not as large of a selection of merchandise.
Convention Space Bottleneck - All this would still hinge on the availability of space at Salt Palace and whether they would be willing to have that space be used.
Conclusion:
Can't pretend that this is a perfect solution to the current problem. However, given the circumstances, there really was no perfect solution. That being said, adding extra days for a "Dragonsteel B" would lead to thousands of satisfied fans, more revenue for all parties hosting and selling at the event, more flexibility for people wanting to go in groups, and more concrete information to predict the number of people attending in future years. While it would be tricky logistically, flexibility with the scheduling and inventory could account for this. Overall, this solution would require some flexibility on the part of Salt Palace and those in charge of the convention, but it will undoubtedly be a profitable move that will satisfy thousands of fans.

I’m planning to get a Kensui EZ vest (pro V2) in order to progress my calisthenics workouts eventually. What I’m concerned about is that while the sleeves holding the weight are removable if you want to keep ROM on pushups and rows, it seems like it’ll be unable to carry as much weight. I’d like to be able to keep the ability to progress my workouts even further, so I’m thinking I’ll get some kind of raised platforms for my hands, feet, and the dip bars I use for rowing and dips, so that I can maintain my ROM even with the sleeves so I can keep adding weight. I’m just wondering what would be the best thing to use for that. I’ve seen FitnessFAQs use plyo boxes so he can do pushups with a dip belt, but since I’m not going to use such low hanging weight I don’t think I need it that high. I’m even thinking a few planks of wood from some home improvement store could do the trick for cheap (the sleeves seem to only be 7cm long). Also, for the dip bars, I row on them lined up instead of parallel (I do some pronated and some supinated work), and they do rock around a bit, and I don’t want to risk them slipping and falling off the platforms while I’m working out. Any ideas to attach/secure them to the platforms?

The concept of blue zones is usually distorted by carnivore advocates who claim all the blue zones were based on diets high in animal fats and proteins or nonsense from keto quacks like Steven Gundry who claim it is because the old people in these zones were smoking or drinking sheep's milk.
The truth is, there isn't any scientific evidence to support the blue zones concept, the idea has never been embraced by the medical and scientific communities. The blue zones was a research project not a scientific study, modern diet influencers promoting this idea on social media are unaware about how the concept was developed. If you read the original papers, the idea of diet hardly came up.
There are no controlled studies, no long-term epidemiological studies. Much of the evidence is anecdotal due to lack of records and is second-hand taken from interviews of relatives.

The problem with trying to determine how many very old people are alive in an area is that the further back you look to verify ages, the worse the records get. It’s reasonably easy to figure out where and when a person was born if they are 80. But when we’re talking about 110-year-olds, the records are decidedly patchier. (The supercentenarians at the start of the Blue Zones study were born in the late 1800s.)

https://slate.com/technology/2023/11/centenarian-blue-zone-health-long-life-netflix.html
In regard to alleged supercentenarians in these zones, there is a recent article that notes the likelihood of fraud

These pockets of extreme longevity seem to occur in areas with “greater poverty, higher illiteracy, higher crime rates, and worse population health” than the norm, according to Oxford scientist Saul Newman. Data from the United Nations even suggests that Cambodia was a blue zone of sorts during the genocide of the Khmer Rouge. These hotspots can be chiefly explained by welfare fraud, identity theft, name-saking and criminal abuse of the pension system, or by genuine confusion over dates or lack of birth certificates. Some are banal in any case.

https://archive.is/d9beK
Another issue is the abuse of the pension system

“Whenever you get an investigation of the pensions system, the rate of centenarians suddenly collapses. That is what happened in Greece after the financial crisis,” said Dr Newman, now at Oxford University’s Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science.
The Greek labour ministry concluded that 200,000 pensions were being paid to fraudulent claimants. Most of the country’s 9,000 centenarians were dead. The same happened in Japan in 2010 after the mummified corpse of Tokyo’s “oldest” man was discovered. His family had been drawing the pension from his bank account for 32 years. The inquiry discovered that 238,000 people listed as aged 100 or more were unaccounted for. Some had died in the Second World War.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018708179/dr-saul-newman-debunking-the-blue-zone-longevity-myth

Only 18% of ‘exhaustively’ validated supercentenarians have a birth certificate, falling to zero percent in the USA, and supercentenarian birthdates are concentrated on days divisible by five: a pattern indicative of widespread fraud and error. Finally, the designated ‘blue zones’ of Sardinia, Okinawa, and Ikaria corresponded to regions with low incomes, low literacy, high crime rate and short life expectancy relative to their national average. As such, relative poverty and short lifespan constitute unexpected predictors of centenarian and supercentenarian status and support a primary role of fraud and error in generating remarkable human age records.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/704080v3
Saul Newman who wrote the above received a lot of abuse for questioning the blue zones.
The blue zones concept is mostly a marketing myth to sells books and ideas about diets. Dan Buettner is most well known for this. There was a recent series on Netflix about the blue zones.
Michel Poulain who originally proposed the blue zones published a paper in 2011 in which he was unable to verify the claims of longevity in Okinawa due to lack of records surviving WW2.
https://www.demographic-research.org/articles/volume/25/7/
Since 2011 no new evidence has come to light.
If we actually look at the oldest people in the world right now whose birth certificates have been validated
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_living_people
They are mostly from Japan, Spain and Brazil. None of these are blue zones.
I realise that all sorts of diet gurus promote the blue zones online but if you go looking there isn't any good scientific evidence to support this concept. The concept has now just become a marketing myth to promote diets.
If you read Michel Poulain's original research he hardly mentions diet, it's literally mentioned twice in passing yet online influencers only talk about this topic.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200302043123/http://austriaca.at/0xc1aa500e_0x00307bb6.pdf
Interestingly if you read Poulain's work, he says

In Okinawa, as elsewhere in Japan, the individual validation of age is based on the koseki, a family register containing records of all members of a family, including gender, dates and places of birth, names of parents, dates of marriage and divorce if any, date and place of death. Unfortunately, for privacy reasons, data extracted from the koseki such as birth and death records are only accessible by directly asking the relatives of the concerned persons or for official legal proceedings.

In conclusion the blue zones lacks scientific evidence. The concept is best explained through welfare fraud, pension abuse, identity theft and confusion due to lack of birth records.

What is Reality Shifting?

Reality shifting refers to the phenomenon where your consciousness becomes aware of and transitions into another reality. Picture falling asleep and awakening in a completely different world; it's basically you moving your consciousness from one reality to another. Just as you experience this reality, another version of you exists in a different one. By "tuning the antenna" through intention and possibly specific methods, you can become aware of that other existence. Though the concept of reality shifting gained popularity on TikTok in late 2020, it has existed under various names for much longer, including mind surfing, interdimensional traveling, Theta journeying, the Gateway process, and dimensional jumping, etc..
At its essence, reality shifting ties closely to the Multiverse theory, the idea that infinite realities branch out from every decision we make. Reality shifting posits that we can consciously transfer our awareness to any desired part of the multiverse.

The Gateway Project

A notable document in the shifting community is the CIA's "Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process," created on June 9, 1983, and declassified on September 9, 2003. This document explores theoretical topics framed in physical science terms, including biofeedback, transcendental meditation, and hypnosis—all techniques related to reality shifting. Biofeedback, in particular, involves visualizing a desired outcome through affirmation and repetition, mirroring practices used by shifters.

Things That People Believe to Be True but Are Not

It's important to clarify what reality shifting is not. Reality shifting is not the same as lucid dreaming, maladaptive daydreaming, astral projection, hallucinations, etc. These phenomena are distinct and should not be confused with the concept of shifting realities.

Terminology’s Used

In the shifting community, certain terms are used to describe key concepts. The most common are CR (Current Reality) and DR (Desired Reality). CR is the reality we currently inhabit, while DR is the reality shifters aim to move to. Desired Realities can vary widely, from fantastical worlds where one can fly, to alternate versions of our own world, or even settings inspired by favorite movies or shows.

Methods

Shifters use various methods to facilitate their transition to a Desired Reality. Here are a few: the Fallen method, the Pillow method, the Raven method, the Tea Party method, the Hug method, etc. However, you don’t necessarily need a specific method to shift your reality; you just need a clear intention and one affirmation.
There are both 'awake' and 'sleeping' methods for shifting. Awake methods often involve meditation, while sleeping methods utilize the period when you are asleep. Although some compare reality shifting to lucid dreaming or astral projection, it remains distinct; these states can be used as tools to facilitate shifting, but they are not the same thing.

Theta Reality Shifting

The Theta Method involves reaching a deep meditative state known as the theta state, where brain waves slow down, making the mind more receptive to exploring other realities.

"Clones" & Stand-Ins

The terms "clone" and "stand-in" refer to different concepts within reality shifting. A clone is simply another version of yourself that continues your daily life while you are in another reality. They are not separate entities but alternate versions of you and are unaware of the shift. In contrast, a stand-in is a different soul or person who can occupy your body if given permission. This typically occurs when someone no longer wants to inhabit their body and allows another soul to take over.

You Can Shift Anywhere

Fictional Realities and Characters

You can shift to any reality you desire. Every concept and place comes from somewhere, whether it was subconsciously intercepted from another world and placed in your mind or inspired by real experiences. The settings we see in movies or read about in books often have roots in actual places that actors, directors, or writers have visited, and if they haven’t visit these places, it was intercepted from another world. If these places didn’t exist in some form, shifting to them wouldn’t be possible. The very fact that people can shift there suggests their existence in the multiverse.
Shifting allows you to access any reality, including those deemed fictional. These fictional settings and characters often have counterparts in other realities. For instance, J.K. Rowling mentioned that she dreamt the entire Harry Potter universe, but some believe she might have actually visited that reality. Even if through a dream, it suggests that people can experience different realities unconsciously, albeit with less awareness and immersion. Fictional characters, therefore, exist somewhere in the multiverse, and while they might appear different, if they do in our current reality, they are just as real as any other being.

Do Fictional Characters Exist in Our Current Reality?

Fictional characters, especially those from TV shows or movies, do exist in our reality as the actors who portray them. If you create a fictional character yourself, it might be that the character was subconsciously intercepted from another world and you unconsciously picked it up, even though you believe you invented them. These characters exist but may not look the same or be the same person in our reality. Fictional characters can shift between realities and exist in various forms. Though we label them as fictional, they are as real as we are. We are conditioned to think of them as fictional because they originate from our imagination, books, or TV shows.

Duration of Stay in a Shifted Reality

You can remain in a shifted reality for as long as you desire, whether that's a brief visit or an indefinite stay.

Shifting, Permashifting, & Respawning

Permashifting refers to shifting to a new reality and choosing never to return to your current reality. Respawning is the deliberate act of permanently cutting ties with your current reality to inhabit a new one.

So my partner and I have been in our current apt for about 4 years. We had a new upstair neighbor move in about 1year ago. Right away I began noticing tons of cigarette butts and ash on my balcony. For the first few weeks or so I would sweep them up myself (I dont like confrontation) but eventually it started getting worse, cigarette butts, lit cigarettes(one of which burned a hole in our chair cushion, a major fire hazard), teeth flossers, food items and other trash. Once when they were out on their deck my fiance shouted up to them, "can you please stop dumping your stuff down here?" They later talked to us and said they accidentally dropped them but we really didnt buy that because there were so many and the variety of stuff that was there. Fast forward to a couple months ago, we began seeing large bags full of trash being thrown down into the woods below often times trash would fall out of the bags and land on our porch. We were also getting tons of dry ceral on our porch(our balconies face thick woods with a creek about 100ft below) anyways we saw this happening pretty often, atleast once a week. We asked them again to please stop throwing trash. They denied it claiming they never threw trash, they're the top floor so unless someone is living on the roof, its them. I would also like to include that our downstairs neighbor also gets tons of garbage, cigarettes and cereal on their balcony. They are just as frustrated as we are. Anyways the upstairs completely denied throwing trash ever. The evidence is visible by looking down off our balcony. Bags, trash all kind of stuff. Plus our downstairs neighbor and us have seen it being thrown with our own eyes. The downstairs neighbor got really mad and went up and full on yelled at them. I dont condone this but I was really hoping they would finally stop. They had this big dramatic reaction, "OH im SO sorry! I had NO idea, it'll NEVER happen again!" Cue the next day we see trash being thrown off again, with some landing on our balcony. I finally sent a complaint to our apt manager because it was very frustrating and I was tired of interacting with them. That leads us to today. My partner and I get back from a date and they're outside packing things. They say to us, "just so you know Ive been given a 30 day notice to vacate, I told you I didnt throw anything."
Im really shocked. I didnt want them to get kicked out. More a fine or stern talking to just so they would finally stop. Before them we had a literal meth lab up there that management wouldn't do anything about. So im really dumbfounded that they would kick someone out over this. I never meant for this to happen and I feel really bad.

I LOVE the tower of terror ride so much! But… Universal is better and I would love if they made a similar ride.
I heard that there was a rumor for Luigi’s haunted mansion as an expansion to Super Nintendo world in Epic Universe and I thought this would be the perfect type of ride for the land!
If I had to make the ride, the story would be-
You are exploring a haunted mansion with Luigi and Polterpup (the ghost dog) in the first show scene when suddenly the floor under the cart starts floating to reveal King Boo and other ghosts. They start raising and shaking the cart. Luigi uses his vacuum against the ghosts which causes the ghosts to let go and stop the cart in the first drop scene.
After buying you some time, Luigi is now looking for an escape with Polterpup in the second show scene when King Boo and the other ghosts suddenly start surrounding you and Luigi/Polterpup. They are taunting, shaking, and (slightly) spinning the cart. Luigi raises his vacuum to attack when King Boo smacks Luigi to the ground and he doesn’t get up. When all hope seems lost and the boo’s are laughing, Polterpup uses a Gold Bone on Luigi, reviving him. Luigi uses his vacuum, killing all the ghosts and in his last moments, King Boo throws the cart, launching you up for the final drop scene. You drop heavily when Polterpup tries to reduce the fall by pushing you up multiple times after to imitate a leap frog effect for multiple other drops after.
The final scene of the ride is Luigi and Polterpup escorting you out of the mansion safely, resulting in a very satisfactory storyline, fun protagonists, and a cool villain.
The goal of this ride is to feel scary, but also have the well needed Nintendo charm that allows for kids to enjoy it as well. (Without holding back on the drops though.) Also, nothing like this is currently planned for Epic Universe!
I would prefer to not have 3D glasses on this ride, but it would be fine if they were required to truly give the best ride experience.
Tell me what you think! Do you like/dislike this idea? Would you want this ride to be in Universal?

You guys know what an alpine coaster is? They are like a small roller coaster you find in the mountains. They are also called summer toboggans or mountain coasters and I think there’s some long German compound word they are called in parts of Europe. They are like a roller coaster, but with much smaller one or two person sleds you just sit on instead of multi-person cars you ride in, and instead of being built with like a scaffolding or a framework the tracks are just on the ground, using the elevation of the mountain. Basically it’s a coaster track on the side of a mountain where you ride a sled down.
They are pretty fun. Or at least I used to think so. They are more “personal” than roller coasters and although you get nowhere near the speed on them that you do on a good traditional roller coaster and they can’t do corkscrews or loops or anything like that the openness and simplicity of the ride gives an impression of a much greater speed. You’re just sitting there with nothing but a little plastic sled and the track between you and the ground as it goes zooming by. It’s like the difference between how fast a go-cart feels compared to how fast a sports car feels. You know the sports car goes faster but the open, simpleness of a go-cart feels a different kind of fast. There’s plenty of POV Youtube videos if you want to get the basic idea of what they are.
I used to love alpine coasters. Used to.
My family used to go to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and up and down the Smokey Mountains for vacations when I was a kid and they are common in that area and I’d always rode them every chance I got.
But as with so many things after I grew up and went to college they just became part of my childhood that slipped away. They aren’t exactly common once you get away from the mountains.
Until one cool spring afternoon in 2004. I was in my final year at college and I was driving back to campus in Tennessee after a short visit to my folks in North Carolina. It was only like a 4 or 5 hour drive via the most efficient route and I had no need to be back at campus early so instead of taking the freeway all the way I got off and took part of my trip through the mountains. The scenery was nicer and I admit I liked pushing my Camaro just a little faster than I should through the twisty mountain roads.
Just after lunchtime happened upon one of those little by-the-highway tourist towns deep somewhere in the Smoky Mountains near the Carolina/Tennessee border. Nothing fancy, a gas station/truck stop, a diner, a couple of places selling tourist merch nestled deep in the mountains. I pulled into the gas station. My tank was getting low and I needed to stretch my legs, maybe grab something to eat. It was still early and I only had another couple of hours. I could kill an hour or so and still make it back to campus at a decent hour.
I pulled into the gas station and was filling my tank when I happened to glance across the road and… well I’ll be damned. There it was. “The Blue Ridge Alpine Coaster.” Nestled on the side of the mountain was a building, a mockup of a red barn, where a single railed track that led up into the mountains, where it soon got lost in the greenery. Wooden hand painted standees of cartoon character bears dressed in stereotypical “Hillbilly” getup stood around, some of them holding signs showing the ride hours and ticket costs and other info. I had to admit, as silly as it was, it made me smile.I finished pumping my gas and, well, nostalgia is a helluva thing. I decided then and there I could waste a little time riding an Alpine Coaster again after all these years before getting back on the road.
I parked my car in a corner of the truck stop's parking lot, put my phone in the center console, this being the days before smart phones when people didn’t keep their phones with them 24/7 and I didn’t want my old Nokia brick phone to fall out during the ride, locked my car and walked across the mountain highway to the Alpine Coaster building.
Getting closer, the place was less inviting. The half hearted attempt at a whimsical faux-Americana kitsch was far less effective when it brushed up against the actual decaying, run down wooden building. Hell calling it a building was generous. It was a wood frame holding up a long roof that covered the area where you got on the sleds. The wood boards creaked under my footsteps.
The only real enclosed structure was a shack that held, what I assumed, was a ticket booth. A door on the side had both a single occupancy bathroom with an out of order sign on it. An old Pepsi machine buzzed and glowed next to it.
Still the place looked alive. Ahead of me a bored looking attendant was helping a mother and her young son into one of the sleds while in a bored monotone repeating the safety brief. A few people were waiting in line at the ticket booth. Up in the mountains the playful shouts of people on the ride echoed down. Fond memories of my own childhood rides flooded my mind.10 minutes and 15 dollars later I was settling into the hard plastic seat of a bright red sled sat atop a simple aluminum rail.
I couldn’t help but grin as the sled slowly climbed the track up the mountains, making click-clack ratcheting sounds that hit my nostalgia centers hard. I felt good. The air was cool and crisp and smelled of pine.Higher and higher in the mountains we went. I don’t know if this is my mind trying to make sense of it after the fact but when I remember these moments, the last good moments, I sometimes think I remember a very slight, very subtle pit of fear in my stomach. I honestly don’t know if I felt it at the time or not or it’s just how my mind tries to make sense of it looking back at.
But either way mostly I was enjoying myself. I smiled. I was a kid again. I could hear riders in front of me let out that initial yell of terrified glee you get at the first drop of any good ride.
It peaked. I glanced around. I could see for miles, rolling hills and mountains. I the sled tipped over and zoomed down the mountain and I let out the same happy yell I heard from the other passengers.The ride zoomed down the mountain, catching speed. The mountain forest floor zoomed past, only a few feet under me. Trees zoomed past. I gave out a happy whoop as the ride banked hard around a curve and then looped back under itself.Another dip, another curve. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of the G-forces pulling me every which way.
There was no one exact single moment where things started to go “wrong.” The ride kept going. And going. At this point the first creeping thought entered my head.
The ride… was still going.
It just started to hit me… this ride was going on for a really long time. I had taken a dozen rides on various coasters of this type before that day and they topped out at about 5 minutes or so, and that was the long ones. Longer than a traditional roller coaster but not that long. This one had been going on for what felt like 10, maybe even 15 minutes.
I looked back over my shoulder and could only see trees, moving too fast to really get a bearing on where I was at in relation to anything.
I wasn't exactly really worried yet. Okay so I had found a particularly long alpine coaster. At the time I wasn’t 100% wasn't sure they didn’t exist or anything like that. I was a little… unnerved but nothing was happening that was impossible. Yet.
I was trying to talk myself back into just enjoying the ride and stop overthinking it, and halfway succeeded, when out of nowhere I suddenly banked hard, the track jutting out almost over a sheer cliffside. I gripped the sled more tightly as I was whipped around. The ride then dipped hard and picked up speed, barreling down the side of the mountain.
I was pushed back against the seat by the force of the drop. Jesus I didn’t remember them being this rough. I was feeling slightly nauseous. And where had this elevation drop come from I wondered? I was still in the foothills and I didn’t remember seeing anything but gentle rolling hills and light drops from looking at the ride’s route earlier. How the ride had managed such a long, steep drop in this area I didn’t know. . For the first time I hoped that the ride would be over soon. I had no idea then how much I would want that same hope to be true so much more as time went on.
With a whiplash motion I was whipped forward and then back as the ride leveled out on flat ground again, but by this point I was going fast, too fast. My neck hurt from the mild whiplash and I felt sour in my throat and for a moment the contents of my stomach threatened to come back up. For the first, but hardly the last time the ride felt unsafe. Alpine Coasters are tame affairs, much slower and gentler than full on roller coasters but this thing was throwing me around like no thrill ride I had ever been on.
I looked around. I mean I wasn’t that deep into the woods. I should have been able to see a glimpse of something; the highway, the gas station, the tourist shops, the Alpine Coaster office, something, anything. But nothing. Just trees.
I forced back some panic for the first time. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. The ride zoomed along. I counted to 60. I counted to 60 again. And again. Okay this was getting uncomfortably harder and harder to explain.
Suddenly I noticed that up ahead the track seemed to just end, for one brief, terrible moment I thought the track just ended but I was wrong. Almost without warning the track dipped in an almost vertical drop. I almost screamed as I plummeted for 20, maybe 30 seconds before flattening out again.
By this point the voice in my head that was telling me something was wrong was louder and I could no longer tell myself it was wrong. This ride could not have been this long. I tried to make sense of it, wondering if somehow I had gotten diverted onto some kind of maintenance track or, hell for one brief irrational moment even entertaining the idea that I had wound up on an actual train track somehow. But that was absurd. The rail below me was not a train track, it was still just the simple, aluminum rail of an alpine coaster and there had been no diversions or junctions in the track. I was still on the ride, as insane as that was starting to feel. Had the ride somehow looped? Again after having the thought I immediately dismissed it as crazy. There’s no way I could have missed the ride building where I got on. And what kind of ride loops over and over?
The sled zoomed through the forest, oddly never seeming to lose speed despite the relatively flat grade of the track. I cursed myself for leaving my phone in the car and not wearing a watch. I don’t know exactly how long I had been on the ride at that point but it felt like I had been on the ride for a half hour, maybe more. But time is a funny thing when you’re in a situation you’ve never been in. Could have been more, could have been less, at that point.
My pride finally failed me. I started to scream for help. I screamed out that the ride was broken, to stop it, that I needed help. I did that for about ten minutes or so I think. The ride kept going. Mostly flat, level track with occasional mild dips and turns. But the simple length of the ride grew more and more unnerving and unexplainable.
I thought about just bailing out. But the ride, impossibly, was still not slowing down and chunks of mountain rock and thick tree trunks were all around me. Bailing out without risking smashing into a rock or a tree seemed impossible.
The ride kept going.
Up ahead the forest was clearing out some, I could see the forest brightening, more sunlight making it through the canopy.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.
The trees stopped and I had just enough time to take in a flat, open area of rock maybe 40, 50 yards at most before another sheer cliff. The tracks twisted and turned and then shot straight down. But that wasn’t the worst of it. For a moment, a very short moment, I had a clear view for miles and the landscape was, to be blunt, totally impossible. Any possibility that I had just stumbled on some incredibly long ride was blasted out of my head. Barren, volcanic looking rock stretched for miles. Jagged, black rocky outcroppings as far as the eye could see. I was in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. They don’t look like that.
I had a few moments for the terror of that view to settle in before the cart plunged into another horrifying drop. I gripped the handles of the cheap plastic sled until my knuckles turned white. The drop felt completely vertical, like I was falling at terminal velocity. I screamed. My stomach dropped and turned. I imagined the sled coming away from the track and me just plummeting screaming to my death on the rocks below. But somehow the ride still functioned. I closed my eyes tightly and just waited for whatever was going to happen. Eventually after several what felt like a full minute of steep plunging the track again leveled out, and I opened my eyes to see myself moving at breakneck speed over that black, rocky landscape.
Now that I was moving on a more or less flat horizontal track again I took a few deep breaths. I looked over the edge of the track. Nothing but that black, jagged rock, almost looking like obsidian, zooming past. I had no idea how fast the sled was moving now. Fast. Faster than a gravity powered sled should be moving. And the track was higher off the ground now. Alpine slides usually stick pretty close to the ground, but I was 20 feet or so in the air, the track suspended in the air, a simple metal tube tower like a power pylon every few yards.
Without any immediate threat and the sled moving fast but steadily and level I was able to think about my situation again, for all the good that did me. Ahead of me the track just continued to the horizon, nothing but the same rocky landscape as far as I could see. I craned my neck to look back over my shoulder and looked back behind me and it looked the same. Even the mountains were but distant specs on the horizon behind me.
This was insane. There’s not a giant seemingly endless field of black jagged rock in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. There’s no cliff faces tall and steep enough for a multi-minute vertical drop. And alpine coasters were small affairs, not major engineering projects that span miles with pylons and vertical tracks. It made no sense.
Sadly it wasn’t going to start making any more sense anytime soon.
The ride kept going.
I was on this rocky landscape for several hours. I feel comfortable saying this because I could actually notice the sun getting lower in the sky. And the sled wasn’t slowing down despite the grade of the track being flat. I was getting cramped from sitting and stretched my legs and twisted my back as best I could. Didn’t do much help. My eyes were starting to get irritated from the constant wind in them. Worst of all it was starting to get chilly. I only had on a light jacket, a windbreaker, just something to keep the breeze off me, no real insulation. I was cold, my joints were stiff, I was hungry and thirsty. My eyes watered and my throat was so dry it was sore.
But none of that was as bad as just how little sense this all made. There’s nothing like this place anywhere near the Smoky Mountains. This was like some volcanic rock landscape. The more I thought about it the less sense it made.
The ride kept going.
My mind didn’t even try to process this. Whatever I was experiencing simply couldn’t be possible. I was crazy. I was dreaming. The CIA had kidnapped me and dosed me with some new version of LSD and I was in a straightjacket in a padded room at Area 51.
The sled kept zooming along as the sky turned to dusk. Soon the bridge disappeared from my view and I continued on along the endless, rocky, featureless landscape.
I sat back against the sled, mentally and physically numb. I was exhausted. I was thirsty. I was cramping up. I was hungry. I had to pee. I held it for as long as I could, then had no choice but just wet myself. I cried until I had no more tears left. Then I just sat there.
The ride kept going.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon my throat felt like sandpaper. I dug around in my jacket pockets hoping to find a stick of gum or piece of candy. Nothing. I checked again, having nothing else to do. Under a crumpled store receipt in the inner pocket of my jacket was a single old, forgotten cough drop. I unwrapped it from the paper and popped it in my mouth. Saliva flooded back into my mouth and I was overwhelmed by the methanol and medicine taste. It was something at least, although I knew it would be a brief and temporary fix at best.
I felt my eyes get heavy. It was getting colder. That mountain cold. That deep cold the mountains have even into the early spring when the sun goes down. That kind that just pulls the heat right out of you. I shivered. A terrible, horrible certainty came to me. I would ride until I passed out from exhaustion or the hypothermia set in. My body would tumble off the sled to fall and skip across the rocky ground like a stone skipping across a lake, my bones breaking as I tumbled until my body finally came to a stop. If I was lucky I would be killed and not have to lie for days, broken and bruised, on the ground until death took me.
The ride kept going. The ride kept going. The fucking ride kept going.
“Fuck you” I said to the ride, my voice a horse whisper. I pulled my jacket closer around me, for all the good it did. The cold wind was slowly but surely pulling my body heat away. My shivering got worse, crossing the line from a simple normal shiver into those deep, almost violent full body ones.. I wasn’t anything you could call an experienced outdoorsman, but I knew enough to know that wasn’t a good sign.
It was getting dark. There was a full moon at least so I wasn’t totally in the dark.
About then I noticed something. The landscape, what little I could see in the fading light, was changing. It was smoothing out, becoming less rocky and craggy. Up ahead an odd, shimmering light was starting to appear on the ground.
I was over it before I even realized what it was. The tracks were going over a smooth surface.
Water. It was a lake. The odd lights I had seen were the moon, reflected in ripples on the lake.
Within minutes I was out of the view of the land. After the nearly endless rocky landscape and everything else I had seen, it scared me how little I was shocked. I didn’t like how mentally numb I was getting. I leaned over. There was enough moonlight to see the water, 15 or 20 feet below the track. The pylons holding up the track went into the water, the light wasn’t good enough to even make a guess at how far they went down or how deep the water was.I leaned back in the sled. My eyes were red and bloodshot from the constant wind. I closed them. This was a mistake.I jerked awake. I don’t know if I dozed off for a split second or an hour. My weight had shifted and I caught myself as my center of gravity was in danger of sending me off the sled and into the water.
I screamed in anger. A deep primal scream. I hurt so bad. My joints felt like they were full of glass. My limbs were full of pins and needles. I glanced over at the water. For the first time on the very edges of my brain a tiny voice started to speak up, telling me that I could be all over if I just jumped. I shut the voice up, but it scared me still.
I sat there as the ride went on. It felt like hours. Eventually the lake ended in a rocky shore line. The damned ride. There was no safe place to bail out. If the ride slowed down, it was high in the air, if it moved toward the ground it sped up. Sharp rocks, big trees, nothing you could safely bail out into.
I kept having to force myself awake. I kept dozing off. Once I felt myself falling asleep and drove a vicious uppercut into my own nose to stave it off.
I seriously started to think about how much longer I could hang on. The voice came back again. This time I didn’t shut it up. I wasn’t admitting it to myself yet, but I was starting to think about the best way to land that would end it quickly if I needed to.
Something was ahead. The track seemed to dip into the ground. I was too tired, too beaten to even get scared. I was just resigned to whatever happened at this point.
With little warning the track took my sled into a tunnel in the ground. Everything went completely pitch black. After several moments even the dim moonlight was gone.
This was the worst part. The creepy forest, the immense rocky landscape, the eerie lake… those were bad. But this was just nothing. Nothing to look at, nothing to hear, nothing for reference or sense of where I was going. The walls of the tunnel felt like they were inches from me in every direction. The air felt thick, like there wasn’t enough oxygen.
With every moment I was in that tunnel I lost a little more hope. After a long, long time I made a decision. When I got out of this tunnel, I would jump. I didn’t care anymore. Hopefully there would be a spot where I could be certain the fall would instantly kill me. I was done. The ride had beaten me. I sat there, waiting for a chance to end this on my terms. That was all I had left.
Eventually up ahead, a tiny speck of light appeared. I gathered my strength, ready to end it. I sat up, getting my legs under me so I could jump as soon as we were clear. The sled burst out of the tunnel. The dim light of the full moon was enough to be momentarily blinding after the pitch black of the tunnel.. I gave my eyes a moment to adjust.
I was back in a normal looking Appalachian forest. Rolling hills, green trees. The air smelled of pine again. I heard an owl hoot off somewhere.
Slowly I lowered myself back into a setting position, in shock. At first I refused to believe it but the ride was slowing down. I held still, making sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, but no, the cheap plastic sled that had been my world for what felt like an eternity was slowing down.
Up ahead, a structure was visible, peeking out from among the trees in the dim lighting as the sled moved down the track.
It was the Alpine Slide building. The crappy fake red barn where I had boarded this cursed ride so long ago. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, sure it was either my mind or the cursed ride playing tricks with me. But the building stayed there.
It grew closer and closer. The track leveled completely out. The sled slowed down more. Before I had the time to really come to terms with it I arrived back at the building.
The sled slowed to a stop, gently pumping against another sled parked on the track. I sat there for a few moments, gasping in great big gulping fear breaths, trying to assure myself the ride didn’t have one last trick of its sleeve.
I looked around. The place was empty, deserted. The overhead lights were still on and the old Pepsi machine still glowed and buzzed, but the ticket booth was dark and empty, a metal gate pulled down over the ticket window.
Suddenly it hit me that I was free and I practically leapt out of the sled and onto the platform. I immediately collapsed. My legs were jelly and my head was spinning. I tried to stand up again and doubled over, dry heaving. Have you ever been out on a boat for a day and have that weird reverse motion sickness when you’re back on solid land? It was like that times a hundred. My inner ear was literally pounding, all the motion had really done a number on it.
I laid there for a few moments and eventually forced myself to stand up on my two wobbling legs. I looked around, a horrible certainty creeping into my mind that there would be no exit, no way off the platform but to my relief an exit turnstyle, one of those full height ones, was set into the fence that surrounded the ride property.
I went through it and found myself back on the main road. The truckstop was still there, still open but far less busy. My car sat in the same corner of the parking lot I had left it.
I allowed myself one look back, just one quick one. The metal skeleton of the Alpine Slide track sat there, dark and quiet but otherwise normal.
I stumbled-ran back to my car, dug the keys out of my pocket, and collapsed inside. When the door shut I let out a primal scream, the tons of fear and confusion and anger all fusing into a single, raw emotion. I screamed again and again.
After a few moments I felt like I was emotionally at least back to a place where I could act, although I wasn’t sure yet what to do next. Not really knowing what to do I cranked the car. The A/C had been on low when I shut off the car and it came roaring back to life and cold air blowing on me almost sent me back into a full on panic attack. I fumbled with the climate controls until the air stopped blowing directly on me, then calmed down enough to turn the heat on, helping to get the chill out of my bones. There was a half full bottle of water in the center console cup holder and I grabbed it and chugged it. Nothing ever tasted as good before or sense as that few ounces of water.
That was when I noticed the clock on the radio head unit. It was 4:17 in the morning. It had been about one, one thirty or so in the afternoon when I got on the accursed ride.
Over 15 hours. I had been on the goddamn ride for over 15 hours. Over half a day.
I just sat there. Warming up. Calming down. I was exhausted. I was dehydrated. I can’t even describe how my head felt. I probably had at least a minor case of hypothermia. I thought about going into the gas station and asking for help but what would I even say, and more than anything I just wanted to get away from this place. And I just wanted to get away. I wanted to be nowhere near that damn ride.
I put the Camaro in gear and pulled into the street and in panic I immediately slammed on the brakes. I was lucky there was no traffic on the road at that moment. The feeling of accelerating to just normal surface street speeds made me sick to my stomach. I gathered myself and very slowly accelerated the car I usually treated with a very heavy foot up to 30 miles an hour. Every time I tried to accelerate at a pace faster than “Old Lady Going to Church, Uphill” I would have a panic attack. I was okay once I was up to speed, but accelerating freaked me out after being on that ride.
I drove about 30 minutes, putting some arbitrary amount of distance between myself and the coaster. Eventually I made it back to where the twisty mountain road met back up with a major road that would eventually meet back up with the highway. After a few more minutes of driving I saw the onramp for the highway. There was one of those big truckstop travel plazas and pulled in, parking right up at the door. I smelled like pee and I can only imagine how I looked, but I didn’t care.
I kept a couple of emergency 20s in the back of my wallet and spent it on the biggest bottle of water the store had, an overpriced bottle of eye drops, and a huge travel mug of coffee. The clerk looked at me as if he was expecting me to either drop dead or rob him the entire time.
Back in my car I downed the coffee. I put a few eye drops in each of my eyes and sat there as the caffeine took effect until I felt like I could make it back to my apartment. The sun was just coming up when I finally pulled out of the truck stop and got on the freeway. I slowly, very slowly, accelerated up to highway speed, put the Camaro in cruise control, and let the miles start to drift away. I turned on the radio, I needed to hear human voices. Every time my mind went back to what had just happened I turned the radio up louder, eventually drowning it out with painful levels of rock music. I wasn’t ready to think about it yet. Yes looking back I know I was just in denial. I finally made it back to the crappy little apartment I had off campus, a little two story walk up studio. I let myself in and collapsed on the cheap couch. I was asleep before I even had the time to decide whether or not to do anything else. I woke up later that afternoon. I took a shower and ate a meal and didn’t think about the ride. I washed the pee stained filthy clothes I had been wearing and didn’t think about the ride. I went back to class and didn’t think about the ride. Every time I thought about the ride I forced it out of my head. I’m sure this wasn’t the most mentally healthy thing to do but what can you say?
I didn’t forget about it, don’t be silly. This isn’t the kind of thing you forget. One day while looking up something else in the university’s library my curiosity got the better of me and I looked up the Alpine Slide. No website but a few Google Map and Yelp mentions. None of them mentioned anything weird, certainly nothing even remotely like what I experienced. Near as I can tell it closed sometimes in the winter of 2012.
Life went on. I mean, that’s what it does. The next day was a little better. And the day after that a little better. And the day after that a little better still. I met a nice girl. Graduated. Got married. Got a nice house in the suburbs. Got a dog. Had a daughter. Spent a lot of time happy and not thinking about being trapped on an endless alpine coaster.And that was my life for many, many years after that.
Until a few weeks back when as a very different person I found myself driving a boring and safe mid sized family SUV through those same mountains. My wife Carol, 5 months pregnant, sat in the passenger seat, our 6 year old daughter Emily in a booster seat in the back, and Max our mixed breed mutt next to her. It had been a nice pleasant trip, driving back from visiting her folks.
I hadn’t thought about that fucking ride in so long I barely registered that I was in the same general area until it was too late. Suddenly I realized that little mountain tourist trap town was only a few minutes down the road. I swallowed hard and gripped the steering wheel hard. Carol was looking out the window at the scenery and Emily was deep into some kid’s Youtube video on an iPad. I forced myself to keep my breath steady as we rounded the corner.The town was still there, sorta. Time had not been kind to it. The gas station was still there, at some point it had been bought out by Shell. The tourist trap shops were still there. One of them was now a vape shop. The diner was closed, the building looking like it sat unused for a long time.
But of course that’s not what I cared about. A looked over at the site where the Alpine Coaster once stood. It was gone. The kitschy fake barn was gone. The site was just a bare concrete slab with a chainlink fence around it. Faded “no trespassing” and “for sale” signs hung off the fence. A pile of old, decaying lumber that might have once long ago been part of the structure covered part of the old lot. No sign of the track remained outside of some old concrete support posts dotting the side of the mountain.
I exhaled out a breath I hadn’t even realized I had been holding in. Soon the little town disappeared in my rear view mirror.
About a half hour later we stopped for gas. I pulled up to a gas pump across from a massive motorhome. Max stuck his head out the window and started barking at a little white dog, a toy breed of some kind, in the window of the motorhome. Carol and Emily immediately headed into the store to restock on snacks while I fueled up.
I stood there, a half smile on my lips as Max barked and wagged his tail in an attempt to attract the attention of the other dog while I filled up the tank, said dog doing an admirable job of ignoring him.
Right about the time I finished fueling up and cleaning the bugs off the windshield Carol returned from inside the store, Emily in tow, arms filled with two full sized bags of Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips and what looked to be a half dozen individually wrapped pickles.
I raised an eyebrow at the collection of food but knew better than to question a pregnant woman's snack choices.
“Should we take Max for a quick walk?” Carol asked. The travel plaza had a nice little gated dog walking area off to the side.
“Yeah probably not a bad idea, he’s been cooped up in the car for a few hours.” I said. Max, upon hearing his name and the word “walk” , forgot about the other dog and upgraded from wagging his tail to wagging his entire body while making whining sounds and staring right at me.
About this time I became half aware that the big motor home next to us was pulling away. I didn’t think much of it, outside of doing a quick automatic mental check to make sure Emily was well clear of the moving vehicle, but she was safely between me and our SUV, well out of the way.
But that was when Emily looked behind me and cheerfully yelled “Daddy look a roller coaster! Can I ride the coaster?”
It’s cliche as fuck I know but my blood went cold.
I turned around slowly, certain in my knowledge that terrible old decrepit Alpine Coaster would be there, having just popped into existence to trap me again.
That.. is not what I saw. Sure enough there was a coaster there, one I hadn’t noticed earlier because it had mostly been blocked by the motor home, but there it was. It was even an Alpine Coaster.
But it was not the same coaster I had encountered those years ago. That was immediately obvious. It was a small but modern and newish looking setup with neon lights and a bunch of people. There was an actual building where you bought tickets and a little snack stand.
“Daddy! Can we go on the coaster!” Emily asked again.
My mouth made motions but no words came out. I glanced over at Carol, hoping she’d say we didn’t have time but to my horror she smiled and said “You know what? That does sound like fun. Daddy will take you while I take Max for a walk.”
My mind raced, trying to think of a way to get out of it. But Emily was already dragging me across the parking lot to the entrance.
I patted my pocket, making sure my phone was in it. Every fiber of my being was screaming to run away. I slept walked through the line and the ticket booth while Emily bounced happily.
We got into a two seat plastic sled. This one was actually a lot nicer than the one my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about. It had two nice cushioned seats, big grab handles, even a nice rollbar.
The sled started up the track. I fought back the panic. I swerved my head around, keeping the building in my view. I was terrified of losing sight of it. We made it to the top and Emily did a happy squeal as we started down the side of the mountain.
My heart raced. Any second, any second my mind told me we’d lose sight of the building and then the ride would never end. The ride sped down the mountain. My mind tortured me with thoughts of not only going through it again, but seeing Emily go through it. The ride went around a big, banking turn. Emily kept shouting happily. How long before Carol reported us missing I wondered? Could I keep Emily calm? What if it lasted even longer this time? What if this time it never ended?
And then we were back at the start of the ride. The same attendant who had helped us into the sled was helping Emily out. I stepped out. The attendant gave me a brief look but said nothing. I guess I looked a little wild eyed.
I was fine. Emily was fine. It had been a perfectly normal, fun ride.
“That was fun Daddy! Thank you!” Emily said. I forced a smile back. “It was fun.” I responded, hoping like I sounded like I meant it.
I took Emily’s hand and we walked back to the car. Max saw us coming and barked happily. Carol looked up from the pint of Ben and Jerry’s she had somehow acquired and added to her snack collection while we were gone and smiled at us.
“Did you have fun?” she asked.
“It was so fun Mommy!” Emily said.
Carol smiled down at her, but then looked at me and frowned. “Are you okay?” Carol could read my face a lot better than the attendant could. “You’re pale.”
I smiled and this time the smile felt real. “Ya know what. Yeah, I think I am okay.”
Carol looked a little puzzled, but didn’t press it. We loaded Emily back in her booster seat, stopped Max from trying desperately to eat half a discarded gas station hot dog off the ground and got him back in the car. Carol and her small collection of snack food took her place in the passenger seat and I got in the driver's seat.I smiled. I cranked the car. I put it in gear. I pulled out of the gas station and back on the road, this time accelerating just a little faster than I had in years.

I messed up. I messed up bad.
“Never get high on your own supply”. The human who sold me this data told me it was a saying from his world. But I had to be sure it was the real deal. After all, data drugs that worked on people without a brain interface installed? It was unheard of. But here I am [30 hours] later, and I no longer doubt. I feel utterly exhausted despite having barely moved. My every neuron feels fried. All 6 grasping appendages are sore from the repetitive motions, and my eyes are dry and unfocused from the long strain I have put them through. I feel intense pangs of hunger and thirst, as I haven’t eaten or drank since I started this test.
I still want more. But with a great effort of will I force myself away from the screen of my computing terminal and stumble to my pantry so I may attend to my body’s needs. As I gulp down nutrient drinks and chew some dried fruit, I reflect on the trance I’ve somehow barely managed to pull myself out of.
Simulations. A useful tool for engineers, scientists, and military strategists. We had never thought to teach storytellers or artists to use them. Humans had. And what they created was both miraculous and monstrous.
Humans decided to use simulation technology to create art and craft stories. It seemed that there was a human simulation… no, hundreds of human simulations, designed to invoke whatever feeling or emotion you could imagine. And possibly some you couldn’t.
I had started simple. A basic test of spatial reasoning, and later quick thinking, expressed through the medium of stacking colored blocks formed into geometric shapes. While comparable at first to a children's toy, as the speed and challenge increased I became increasingly hypnotized. The feeling of lining up and clearing four rows at once with the all too rare straight piece was intensely satisfying. Making a mistake, leaving a gap caused frustration and incompleteness like I had never felt before, and eventually fixing it gave a feeling of relief, of rightness. As the game sped up, I found myself more and more frantic to try and find places for every piece. The rush of success and agony of failure only increased as I prided and chided myself on my quick decisions.
Eventually, I could keep up no longer, leaving me only with a number. A score.
Could I push that score higher?
[4 hours] went by, and I barely noticed.
I should have stopped. I knew that what I had was genuine. But I wanted to know what else this data was capable of.
I navigated a colorful landscape, defying gravity with every action and finding joy in exploration and collection.
I slaughtered demons with a chaingun, turning the fear of being devoured into a rising sense of conquest and bloodlust.
I failed a single test of dexterity, sending me tumbling down a hole and erasing hours of progress, and I nearly knocked myself out from the shock of frustration.
I defeated a hulking warrior with a team of other adventurers, and the triumph of it was only amplified by the sting of failing several times before.
Freedom and entrapment.
Horror and domination.
Elation and sorrow.
Every new experience was an emotional high of a kind I’d never had before, and my hearts were racing with the myriad of feelings rushing through my mind. My imagination was going wild with the possibilities of all these new worlds of data and programming.
My self-reflection comes to a grinding halt. I need to stop. If I’m not careful I’ll get addicted and end up like one of those mindjackers, burning their brains out on data drugs. Supposedly these simulations can’t do that, but I wouldn’t have put it past the seller to lie about that kind of thing.
Well, one way or another, I’m gonna make a [alien animal that shares many traits with both giant squids and magpies]’s hoard selling these. Time to call my best clients…
[Time skip: approximately 25 solar years]
The Rise of the Galactic Game Industry: Fluke of the Black Market, or Human Marketing Genius? You Decide!
Dr’k-Nam, Head Investigative Critic for the Arts and Culture section of Twin Suns Newsgroup
Simulation games, also known as “video games”, have taken the galaxy by storm ever since their controversial introduction and subsequent series of bannings and legalizations across the galaxy. Simulation technology is nothing new of course, but galactic newcomers from the Sol system, Humans, used it in an extremely novel way: art and entertainment. According to their historical records, a significant amount of their entertainment industry is based around simulation games, and that portion has grown even further with their introduction to the galaxy at large.
At first, however, no one was interested. A simulation with little or no practical application, designed only to entertain? Most people preferred to stick with the entertainment they knew, or seek new experiences outside of sims. So what changed?
Simple: some anonymous human decided to sell them as data drugs instead of simulation games; data drugs usable by simply interacting with a computer program, rather than having to inject the data directly in through a neural interface. With this small, but completely false new branding, video games were ready to start spreading across virtual black markets like spoilers for the latest episode of Ace Flyer Kr’t-Kah on the galnet (side note: please have some courtesy to others and tag your spoilers).
Human governance and society at large had been reportedly as surprised to see a lack of simulation games from other species as they were that humans had them. But they were even more surprised when they started getting accused of pushing the latest data drug. This was an especially confusing accusation because neural interface technology was not widely adopted by humanity at the time, and only a fraction of a percent of their population even knew of the existence of data drugs in the first place. The revelation that most humans had video games of some sort on their PPDDs (personal portable data devices) threatened to cause an uproar in the galaxy, as paranoia around data drugs was at an all time high among many species.
After trying and failing to ignore the problem for long enough for it to go away, human governance, as well as human corporations producing video games, were forced to release statements, acknowledging that:

• Yes, video games were human productions.
• Yes, they could be addictive in the same way that any other pleasure-seeking activity could be addictive.
• Yes, there are games that even humans ban. Adult subject matter is restricted from youths, but additionally, games could be made manipulatively to exploit or develop gambling addictions, which is banned outright. Technically this ban isn’t even for games specifically, but instead falls under the purview of their laws against taking advantage of the mentally unstable.
• No, they did not “hack your brain” to cause neural impulses, unless you’re a a Syns-nah, who only partially exist in our dimension and are not used to any 3-dimensional sensory inputs, to the point where eating an unflavored [grain product resembling a cracker] can cause them vivid hallucinations.
• If other races want to ban them, go ahead, but humans can’t really stop data from spreading (their government has tried, believe me), and they’re not going to stop making or distributing them where it’s legal.

Ironically enough, the controversy made them much more popular, even in places that decided on banning them. The idea of a simulation that could act like a data drug without the risk of frying your mind like the real thing was enticing to many. The lack of side effects and ease with which the games could be distributed only increased both their spread and unregulatability. In short order, races throughout the galaxy were trying out a new pastime, and galnet connected multiplayer games were bridging the gaps between the stars. Now, several other races, including my own, are seeking advice from human developers in starting their own simulation game projects. Only time will tell what kind of games their unique perspectives will produce, but it’s unlikely that humans will lose their position as the most powerful and profitable storytellers through this new medium; they have generations of experience to draw upon, after all.
Rumors that the data drug sales pitch was a deliberate ploy by the human game industry (to drum up intergalactic sales) or by human governance (to spread human culture and influence) are still under investigation, but solid evidence for either has yet to emerge.
Edit: anyone posting untagged Ace Flyer Kr’t-Kah spoilers in the comments section of this article will receive an immediate, no-warning permaban.

I’ve been stressing myself out w my own timeline of needing to score a 170 by August or September in order to apply before the holidays this winter and it has been super unhealthy for me. I’ve been putting so much pressure on myself and anytime I get a question wrong or don’t study for as long as I feel I should’ve, I get super down on myself and burnt out and fear I’m in over my head or am unable to make this career change. For reference, I’ve been studying 5-6 days a week, 5+ hrs a day, for 3 weeks and am PTing in the mid 150s.
After taking this weekend off from studying, I decided I’m going to reshift my timeline such that I will apply to programs once I am able to score in the 170s. Instead of” needing to get to my goal score by this fall or else”, I’m reframing this process as “will apply after I reach my goal score”. This has given me such peace of mind and more freedom to learn and fail and have bad days that don’t feel like the end of the world. My app will be much stronger with a higher score, so there’s no need to rush the timeline. Of course it’s still ideal for me to hit 170s and apply this winter, but I’m more open to the idea of applying next year if I need more time to reach my goal score. Basically, LSAT first, timeline second. Not the other way around.
Sharing this in case anyone else is feeling this way, and would love to hear success stories from those who have gone through a similar mindset/timeline shift!

So I’m usually loathe to ask for advice from internet strangers, but I’m genuinely tweaking over this decision and I feel like I need advice and thoughts from people who aren’t connected to me.
I (20m) am a half-Japanese rising senior in college studying electrical engineering. No internship or research this summer, and an okay but very meh GPA (3.12). As this is probably the last summer break of my life, I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s coming next and I’m torn between two paths. I could either start relentlessly applying to jobs to try to get a job in engineering after I graduate, or I could do something completely different and try to move to Japan to teach English as a foreign language for the next year or two, before returning to engineering and beginning my career in earnest.
If I was to go with the latter, I’d apply through the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) program, a program facilitated by the Japanese government to set up English speaking foreigners in Japan to assist teachers in elementary through high school language classrooms. They pay you, set you up in an apartment, and cover the flight over if you’re selected.
There are a lot of reasons I want to do it, and also a lot of reasons the thought scares me.
I was born in Tokyo but my family moved to the US when I was around three years old, so I’ve been raised essentially American. However, half my family, including my dad, grandparents, aunt and uncle, and half sister all live in Japan. My family over there is actually larger than my family in the US, which is just my mom and little brother. They are the biggest reason why I want to go. I would love to become closer with my extended Japanese family and to connect more deeply with my culture. Of course, the idea of living is Japan is also sick as fuck, and it’s an opportunity that could actually be once in a lifetime. My Japanese, while not at all near fluent, is around low-intermediate conversational, and if I decided to pursue the JET program I would pick up some Japanese classes at my university next year. Additionally, I kind of feel like something needs to change in my life. I’ve lived in the same college town for 8 years now (high school and then college) relentlessly pursuing these crazy academic goals. I’ve thrown away friends and partners to focus more on school, and I would be lying if I said it all wasn’t starting to weigh on me. Not necessarily burnout but…I often fantasize about being able to escape the rat race, at least for a little.
But on the other hand, I fear that this decision could negatively impact my engineering career in the future. Being a rising senior who hasn’t gotten an internship yet, I already feel behind the curve and the thought of wasting my time and being left behind professionally is a really scary one. I worry that doing the JET program, although personally fulfilling, would be a frivolous diversion that shoots my career in the foot. I’ve been trying to hedge my bets slightly by working on projects on my own time that would be impressive on my resume (building an FM radio transmitter, a synthesizer, a generative art program, stuff like that). I’m just not sure that would be enough to stack up compared to people a year or two younger than me who’ve had internships at FAANG companies.
Since JET applications for 2025 (my grad year) don’t open until fall, I will most likely spend the summer applying for engineering jobs. But given the choice between the two, I don’t know which is the right decision. Both my parents have been strongly encouraging me to go for the JET program (my mom is an ESL teacher who met my dad while teaching English in Japan), and every time I talk about it with my friends they tell me I sound like I really want to do it but keep trying to convince myself not to. That’s probably true, but I want to be realistic. Of course, there’s no guarantee I’m even accepted into the JET program, and there’s a world where I neither get an engineering job nor have the opportunity to move to Japan. Hopefully that doesn’t happen though. Anyway at this point I’m rambling. I just want to get some advice from people with more life experience than me.

This is long to read if your on mobile (I am) any advice helps, thanks.
I, (17f) am about to be a senior in high school and I’ve kind of realized how behind I feel in life.
For background I have very strict parents, and one of them is emotionally absent (I think she’s a narcissist but we will never know) and I don’t think she likes me very much. That’s besides the point however, but she’s kind of hands off in my life not in the “I don’t care what you do” way, but in the “I don’t want you to do anything but school and home” way but she won’t help me do anything else.
My dad however he’s involved more with me and I really appreciate him, but he’s still strict in the sense that if I go somewhere he has to be the one to take me and bring me back, and I have to let him know weeks in advance. This makes it really inconvenient for me socially because we live in the middle of nowhere. Or not nowhere, but an EXTREMELY car dependent area. Like a shopping center a 10 minute drive away, but a 3 hour walk along a narrow empty road kind of nowhere. Meaning no public transport, and without him I’m physically stuck at home. (Ubers not allowed). My parents also don’t really do family bonding stuff to get new experiences. Every somewhat interesting experience I’ve had in my life thus far has come from my oldest brother and his fiance who I also consider my sister who are both twice my age. Meaning I can’t really relate to them on a personal level, but since my brother knows how my parents are he really makes and effort to be there and help me in basically everything. Like if I didn’t have him, I’d never know what an amusement park like six flags is like, I would never have been to Panera bread, I’d never see a movie, id be typing this on a leapfrog, and I’d literally never do anything. at all. That’s how mundane my parents lives are and since they’re older(60s), and come from a really rough life (they migrated here) they’re kind of content with work, home, eat, sleep, repeat. Maybe once in a blue moon go out to eat, or shop at a department store for furniture or something. My mom in particular has also kind of given up being a parent because of me and my siblings age gap, it’s like I’m a ghost to her. I do a lot of stuff myself not by choice. Like If I was told to pack only my things and go, I’d literally pack my entire room. Everything in it except for the mattress and major furniture was purchased by me, or my brother and sister (his fiance). All my shoes, 80% of my clothes, and all else have been bought by me/siblings since I was 15 i think?
I’ve never had a family trip/vacation even to like somewhere local/close. Everywhere we go has to have some sort of legitimate purpose, and when I bring this up to my parents they bring up those types of trips. “Remember when we went to Florida!” But we stayed for literally a day and a half soley for the purpose of attending my brother’s graduation when I was like 8. “Remember when we went to Canada” again for a day and a half just for some church program thing (super Christian). Again when I was like 12. I’m too young to do anything for fun in their eyes or take public transport, but I’m allowed to have my job. Even then I can’t work more than once a week because they’ll complain about having to take me and pick me up as I’m reliant on them for transportation. I’ve been pushing them to get my lisence, but they keep stalling for god knows why. And to knock this out, no they are not financially struggling. On top of that I have no family aside from them/my siblings in the US, so I literally have nobody. My brother, I love him and his help but I feel like I’m holding him back from truly being able to let them go and be free of constant contact with them for other reasons, because he still wants to be in my life and help me.
Earlier I said one of my parents is emotionally absent, it’s no secret but it’s my mom, pretty sure she hates me and I don’t know why, but I’m over it. Suddenly after I turned 11 she just has this constant need to argue with me, put me down, or literally do anything just to assume the worst of me or not be happy for me. The issue with that is, she also doesn’t DO anything. My dad does literally EVERYTHING. He cooks, he takes me to school, he picks me up, he takes me to the doctor, he goes to any ceremonies, everything. It’s so bad that some of my friends deliberately avoided bringing up mothers because they thought my dad was a single dad (my mom is hands off my life so I never bring her up and she’s never in a position to meet them). So I feel 10x guilty anytime I want to even go to the grocery store because I know it’s going to fall on my dad alone and I don’t want to make it harder for him when he does a lot already. I can’t go out with any friends, but when I want to do something alone I can’t do it because it’s suspicious that I want to do it alone. Relationships have always been out of the question, the romance isn’t worth the shit show aftermath at home. And as I get older when I see people my age driving, going out, getting piercings, dye jobs, tattoos, doing weekday shifts, relationships, it kind of hits me that I’m literally so behind and have accomplished nothing outside of academics. It’s led to “what’s the point” thoughts which I have to work through alone because just my luck in the eyes of my parents depression and sewerslidal thoughts are diseases. It’s so bad that when my mom (shocker) asked me if I was depressed a few days ago I instantly said no because I knew it was not genuine. It was 100% bait that would’ve turned into a long lecture as to why I’m wrong even though I hate to self diagnose but I honestly think I have been for a while. The constant isolation (not by choice) has gotten terrible to the point where I’m starting to hear shit and see shit when I’m alone and it’s kind of freaking me out. My one and only vice is impulsive spending online because I literally have nothing to look forward to having money for.
My brothers done so much for me. He bought me my first phone, everything. I keep telling myself to just wait until I’m 18 to live life, but I then think I’d still have missed a decent or somewhat normal high school experience. All that alone time gives me the opportunity to learn a lot of random stuff, and I always end up viewed as the “mature” or “smart-experienced-therapist-like” figure (key word figure because I’m NONE of that) in my friendships and it sucks because due to past experiences of opening up to my mom, I have trouble expressing how I feel to others. No im not mature and handling my own, I just have no idea how to talk about my issues/feelings to others in person. Like no I’m not some know it all fortune teller. Sometimes I literally just want to have someone to feel stupid with you know? Like I want to be able to leave my brain at home with someone and not feel like I’m breaking character or something. I hate being told I carry myself maturely, or I’m an old soul or down to earth by people older than me etc. I don’t want to be. I hate being looked at weird or with wide eyes when I laugh, smile, or joke because for some reason people think it’s not “like me”. I don’t even know what to do, or where to start. Everyone thinks I just have shit sorted and just make moves in silence or something when I’m literally in crisis. I feel weird to even cry, ME a 17 year old girl feels like it’s a crime to cry infront of anyone. None of my friends have ever seen me cry. And I almost did once infront of two of them because of a really bad moment of clarity that my life sucks. They just stared at me like I was some specimen because they didn’t know I was capable of crying I guess? If anyone even reads this I don’t even know what to do. I don’t even know if I make any sense. And I read this over and edited it in less detail because I think my feelings are corny and it sounds stupid and ik that’s my problem even on Reddit UGH.
And disclaimer, no I am not a danger to myself or anyone else, I’m not itching to kick the bucket it’s just a big “ugh” moment.

My partner and I are under 35. Testing showed no red flags with fertility, so just unknown infertility. Two failed IUIs. First IVF cycle showed 12 good sized follicles, retrieved only 7 eggs, and then only 3 mature. Then only 1 embryo that is now being tested and will be preparing for FET if it comes back “correct.” I feel so disheartened that I just seem to be falling on the wrong side statistics, when I have no idea why I’m infertile in the first place. These 2 weeks waiting for the testing to come back are really weighing on me. Just needed to rant.

Information upfront, this is my first story and it's not even finished yet, I have a couple ideas on how to finish it. I have not received any help from a person however I used "creative helper" from character.ai
For context: the story is about a woman being kidnapped by a man, she has no recolecction of the past. She is supposed to fall in love with him later on, how I end it, I'll have multiple ideas about it.
Now to the story, or at least the beginning of it:
I woke up in a room, it's cold, my vision is blurry. I lay on a metal bed covered in a thin white blanket. I stand up and notice the lack of natural light in the room, just a neon tube emitting sterile light. My head aches and as I walk to the heavy metal door I feel a pain radiating into my lower abdomen from below. I am shocked from the cold of the metal door, as I open it.
While I struggle through the door I look down on my body, I see that I wear a tight White crop-top, without sleeves and a white brief, both are revealing. I stumbled into a floor which feels surprisingly warm. This floor seems to be in the basement, I also notice that I am at the opposite end of the stairs. As I walk to the flight of stairs, I hold myself against the white walls, wondering about the anchors placed in the walls. I sigh a breath of relief as I look up, a window is at the upper end.
I stumble up the stair, even tripping a few times. I noticed I scratched myself while I look out the window. I see a deep forest. I then turn around seeing I must be in the main entrance. it's cozy, I can even hear a fireplace happily crackeling away. Then I notice the front door, I struggle my way towards it, hoping I could get out, but it was locked. As I tried to open the brown wooden front door I heard a voice, a deep voice of a man.
I immedeatly stopped, I felt my hard pounding, my breaths become frequent and heavy, my blurry vision went sharp, I might have even jumped and shrieked a Little. As I slowly turn around the man says "hey hun, you awoke. You've been sick lately I was worried." Scared to death I answered silently "I...I don't remember… anything." I finally turned around and saw two crystal blue eyes piercing me, they almost hurt.
And if you ask why I started writing, I told a close friend I started world building and thinking about stories and she encouraged me to write one, however this is not the genre I'm used to in terms of reading/watching. She also read, what I copied here, she loved it. I want feedback from anyone, be it positive or negative I also want tips on how to improve myself.
Edit: Spelling errors, at least those I've found

I will be more engaged and active in the fall as I'm busy with summer courses and work. My plan is to create a space where mulatto men can network, vent, and create new ideas.

(Repost because it wasn’t formatted correctly last time)
I think Isaac still tries to sleep. I don’t know why. Surely he’s realized it’s impossible by now.
No one sleeps anymore. We grow weary at times, though it takes much longer than it should. People comfortably go days without sleep. Weeks, if necessary. However, sooner or later fatigue will catch up to you. Most people just white knuckle it and keep going about their business. Because sleep simply will not come. The fatigue will pass, for the most part. But not because of sleep. It just sort of fades into the background
I once knew a man that was determined to sleep. He swore he wouldn’t get up until he’d had a good nights rest. He found a reasonably comfy spot, and stayed there for what must have been months. I will admit, I briefly entertained the notion that he might have succeeded. Until I heard him weeping softly, one night.
Isaac knows all of this, which is why it confuses me so when he does this. He sits there by the camp fire, eyes closed, head bowed, hunched over. Honestly, he almost looks like he’s asleep.
If this is how he chooses to deal with our lot in life then I suppose it’s his choice but it does perplex me to no end.
I’ll never try to sleep again. Never. Not just because I know it won’t work. Because truth be told, I’m afraid if I close my eyes I won’t want to open them again. Once I’ve closed my eyes, I think perhaps that would be the first step towards truly giving up.
So instead, I sit awake. Watching the rest of the group come and go, watching the fire, watching the sky. But most of all, I watch Isaac.
I won’t mince words. I watch Isaac because he is beautiful. In every way one could imagine.
He looks out for everyone here. Even those stronger than him. I don’t know how to explain it, but he has a quiet confidence that gives hope to everyone around him. He believes in himself, and he believes in each and everyone of us. I truly don’t think we would have made it this far if that wasn’t so.
I think perhaps under normal circumstances, I would fall for Isaac. However it’s hard to think of romance under our current circumstances. Early on, I told myself i would mention these possible feelings to him, once we returned to the things went back to normal. But then, who’s to say they ever will? Who’s to say normal even exists? The first time night lasted longer than a day, everyone thought the world was ending. But then the sun came back out, and we all thought life was back to normal. Then the sun didn’t set. For 7 days straight. When it did set, people said it would never rise again. Yet it did. Eventually.
I don’t even remember how long ago that was now. Maybe months. Maybe years. It’s been hard to keep track of the. But the sun still rises, and set. It just takes longer to do both. Never the same amount of time. But usually a month or more.
Some say time itself is breaking down. Stretching, and contracting, moving back and forth. It sounds like nonsense. Then again the idea of the sun not rising or setting when it should, also sounds like nonsense.
The hopeful ones around camp say there’s a way to reverse all of this, and set things back to normal. They say it’s a magic spell that’s caused this, and that if the spell is broken, life will be as it was.
Isaac says it’s true. He heard it from one of the other travelers. And they heard it from some other stranger. Sounds far fetched to me but what else is there to cling to? Isaac says we have to hold onto stories like that. Sometimes I can see in his eyes that he doesn’t believe it himself even when he tells others to believe. That’s what I mean when I say that Isaac is beautiful.
He strives to give be hope to others when he has none. Somehow he succeeds. People believe him. They feel he’s right. They know he’s right. Isaac continually achieves the miracle of pouring from an empty cup.
Maybe that’s why he tries so hard to sleep. Must take a lot of energy to be leaned on like that. He probably feels more tired than any of us.
You wouldn’t know it to look at him most of the time. He carries himself with a calm, quiet grace. He’s soothing to be around. Everyone says so. No matter how bad things get, Isaac always believes we’ll be okay, and when one talks to him, one tends to feel the same way.
Mind you, he’s not what you’d call optimistic. He doesn’t smile much. In fact he frequently looks a bit sad. He is not blind to how dire our situation is. He doesn’t try to lie to anyone, and convince them that things are good. They aren’t. Things are truly miserable. But they won’t always be. Isaac knows that. So we know that. And that’s why we need him. I wish I was the kind of person Isaac could needed.
The only 2 people Isaac ever seems to need are David and Edward. The 3 of them are practically inseparable. They’re our own holy trinity.
It’s easy to see why everyone looks to them. And easy to see why they get along so well. They all have the same utter unwillingness to quit, but they also each have their own strength that compliments one another
Isaac of course, is very gentle, and soft. People can talk to him. Cry to him, even.
David is fearless, and I mean that in the most literal way possible. He’s a small fellow, hardly looks like much of a fighter. Yet there’s not a damn thing in the world that scares David. I’ve never seen him flinch at anything. Never.
Edward is unshakably optimistic. To a fault, I’d argue. His constantly cheerful demeanor never falters, even in the worst of times. That may sound pleasant but can come across as quite uncanny at times. One might even call it unnerving. Regardless of what I think of Edward though, is Isaac is so fond of him I suppose he can’t be all bad.
On a battlefields they’re truly a force to be reckoned with. Between David and Isaac’s swords, and Edwards’s axe, they can make short work of even the larger foes. Even the Wrath demon which can’t be killed by human weapons. The three of them together can beat a Wrath demon senseless, cut its limbs off. A demon can’t maul a person to death very well without arms after all.
One time, I even saw Isaac keep a wrath demon at bay all in his own. Even tho it roared over him, at least twice his height and weight, the thing simply couldn’t get its claws on him. He covered the thing in cuts, all over its body. The way he whips that great sword of his around, you’d think he weighed little more than a dagger. Each time the demon tried to grab him, he would reward it with a fresh wound on its hand or arm. The thing was covered in its own blood by the end of the fight. The beast could have crushed Isaac in it’s bare hands if it got close enough, yet he scared it off. The thing actually ran from him. There isn’t much the wrath demons run from, but they run from Isaac when he fights for us. Of course I would have helped Isaac in the fight that day but my arm was broken at the time.
Anyway. Isaac is a hell of a man, and we’re lucky to have him around. Especially once the sun sets again. Night demons will be crawling all over the place once it’s dark. The fire will keep them at bay to some extent, but if we’re forced to fight, there’s no one I’d rather be lead by than Isaac.
That being said, I still worry about him. If he chases sleep long enough, I fear madness will take him to, eventually. Once it takes him, the whole group is next.

Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VNaYef_bHnj4s5-l5M28MkSfmskXtFBf/view?usp=sharing
Hey, guys. Idea's been buzzing around my head recently after watching A Bronx Tale again, and decided to revisit this. It's an animated film that's essentially supposed to be a mob movie. This cat is a low-level soldier in the Cat Distribution System (which is a front for a drug trafficking ring), but when he gets promoted to a procurer (they steal drugs from middle-class housewives who abuse prescription drugs), he falls for his mark, and struggles between his desire to have a family and to stay loyal to the Family.
Anyways, let me know what you guys think. If there's any weird plot inconsistencies (still unsure about his "job" at the start being to tend bar and do menial tasks), if it's entertaining, and most importantly, if you'd read on.

The Context:

A user posts to /BoomersBeingFools wondering if boomers don’t eat enough and are “starving” themselves, and by extension pushing their expectations unfairly onto others.
Many users quickly take issue with OOP’s premise. The discussion quickly devolves into multiple slapfights, insults over weight, and the war in Gaza.

The Drama:

Does metabolism change as people age?

People commenting it’s cause they’re older and don’t need to eat as much. Yes, I know that could be a part of it, but let’s be honest, it’s mostly them just being judgy/brainwashed by diet culture/think it’s absurd to spend money on eating out…

"Brainwashed by diet culture" ah so in other words you are obese and need to eat a lot and probably deeply into healthy at any size/fat acceptance.
No they just know they don't need 5000 calori3s a day to exist.

I’m obese for wanting to eat some lunch and dinner? 🤯

No I say that because of "brainwashed by diet culture" there's exactly one group that talks like that.

You must not get out much

[Continued:]

I do actually it's how I maintain not being fat. Limiting calories to under 2500 and being outside moving a lot.

I lost 140 pounds by eating more. 🤷 starving myself led to weight gain.

I'm sure you eat more but less calories in total. No one increases their calories and losses sorry.

You're wrong. Instunted my metabolism and my body was holding on to the weight to protect me.
I was eating skinless baked chicken and plain broccoli for 2 years and could not lose weight. I was sick and exhausted but worked out all the time.
Started eating carbs and the weight came melting off.
Sorry :)

[Continued:]

For sure. Thats why all the body builders are morbidly obese. They eat chicken and broccoli and their body just goes into starvation mode and holds all the fat. Same with like the concentration camps. All those poor morbidly obese starving people. Once we saved them and fed them the weight just shed off. It's the craziest thing.

It's almost like bodies are different, user name doesn't check out, a nerd would know that 🤔

Whatever you need to tell yourself.

[…]

i guess the law of thermodymanics doesnt apply to you.
You should get studied. Defying the laws of thermodynamics is pretty impressive!

[…]

Tell me you see someone fat in the store and cringe inside/judge them for no reason without ever speaking to them without telling me 😂
You dislike/hate fat people for the horrid crime of being fat when they don't think about you at all and haven't ever wronged you in any way at all.
Also, I can tell you have never struggled with your weight in the past due to not giving a shit how hating random people for looking a certain way effects them. That, or you did struggle once, and bought into the haters telling you you were worth less based on the number on the scale, in which case I am sorry you believe that.

Dude I was 350lbs at my heaviest. People love saying "oh he says weightloss is eat less move more? Clearly he wants to genocide fat people" but no that's not it at all. I lost tons and most of the people around me went from morbid obesity to overweight or a normal weight. We changed our lifestyles and got in shape. The people that didn't lose weight claim all kinds of medical issues but none of them changed their diet and not of them want to work out. It's pretty clear how to lose weight. That's all.
No more no less no hate.

Wanna know how I know you're a liar or incredibly ignorant of how you come off?
You say you don't dislike them but make fun of their physical disabilities like it's funny. It's not funny. You're making fun of them. It's not funny to make fun of people for having disabilities or for how they look. You perpetuate hate against them that makes them feel like crap for being alive. I don't care about your spiel about medical issues or dieting in general or the fat acceptance movement. When you make fun of disabled people who have trouble walking i'm going to call you out on it. That's exactly what you did. Whether they're fat or not I refuse to make fun of people for that.

I have never made fun of a single person. Only a movement that claims you can be healthy at any size. You can't be vastly under or over weight and be healthy.

Whatever you say buddy. Keep on making fun of people because they can't walk or cope some more that it wasn't directed at a specific person. Have fun with that.

[Continued:]

Shut the fuck up fatty

Insults are made, ending with accusations of sockpuppeting:

I don't think you realize how pathetic you sound. When my jaw was broken I went 6 weeks without solid food and I'm sitting here rolling my eyes at your propensity for letting your stomach color your opinions of other people. I'd bet dollars to dimes that your body mass index is over 30.

Hey.
You should know:
It costs $0 to not be a dick.

I'll pay that cover charge any day of the week. Especially when I'm dealing with a major league dipshit like [Candy_cane999]
Radagast was brown, nerd.

Wow, you’re disgusting. It’s not that deep

Says the person here gossiping about their relative's metabolism. "Not that deep" lol you made a judgment about an entire generation of people because your family member wasn't hungry..lol fuck off
I bet you are high as a kite right now from all the users here agreeing with you, even if they haven't a fucking clue what they are talking about.
Seriously, though, how fat are you? I'm guessing fat enough that you can't hide that stomach roll when you sit down.

High as a kite? Huh? Relax weirdo, it’s just Reddit

You still haven't told us how fat you are.

Damn this guy hates fat people !

I used to be one.

[Continued:]

So now you just hate fat people for fun?

People with no self control, ESPECIALLY when that self control would benefit their health, are people who are functionally useless as human beings. They are the pieces of shit who would hoard food while everyone else is starving.
It ain't for fun.
Do you comment on Reddit to be an annoying middle child?

Ahhh yes. The fat people are useless excuse. Okay bud have fun out there!

It seems you have to self control over your feelings little guy. Go out there and practice some self control!
Bitter, party of one.

[…]

Get a life, chill

Get a life, chill

Ah yes, the mating call of people who "have lives"...ohhhhhh the irony.

😂sounds like you’re projecting. What’s it like still living in your boomer mom’s basement?

lol "projecting", I see you have your masters in Reddit psychology.

What’s it like still living in your boomer mom’s basement?

Oooooof, sounds like someone is...................................................................................projecting.

You do realize calling someone fat is the easiest most insecure insult to throw out there. Classic textbook. Hypocrite

I used to be fat as fuck, 270lbs at 5'10. I'll judge you fatties all I damn well please.
You keep avoiding answering the question. You're a landwhale, aren't you?

Ahha! There it is. It’s because you hate yourself. Hope you’re in therapy

[Continued:]

The more you avoid this the more we know what kind of person we are dealing with.
You talk shit about people who have self control to excuse how fat and disgusting you are.

[…]

Dude why admit that, all you are showing is that you had become really fat, and rather than learn a healthy relationship with food even at that extreme point, you just chose to hate food in general. You took the easy way out because nobody ever taught you portion control. Your loss I guess.

I admit it because I was raised in a home where I couldn't get up until my plate was clean and my mother made sure there were never leftovers that way. I admit it because it is the truth and I don't lie or omit details to make myself sound better. I admit it to show I can relate to being a fatfuck. I admit it because being fat is a choice.
”why would you say something true about yourself!?" - if that isn't Reddit-in-a-nutshell I don't know what is.

I'm just saying it makes you look like you just hated yourself and were pushing that onto another person that may or may not have a healthier relationship with food than you, that's all.

[…]

They didn't answer did they?

After several attempts they've avoided even talking about their fat stores and are now trying the victim angle.

No doubt. Fatty McFat Fat can't comprehend people not being addicted to constant feedings.
Reddit in a nutshell.

Bro's talking to himself on an alt ​

Then, there’s this:

OP is a fat fuck

As a former fatass this was my immediate thought

I knew as soon as he said road trip to Florida

For wanting lunch and dinner? You’re sick
They’re someone whos whole identity is shoving food in their mouth. Look at their username

Eat shit.

One user thinks they’re speaking uncomfortable truths:

If StandardSafe isn’t willing to say it again, I will: grow up and get over it. 99% of the people who say they “aren’t heavy” actually are, your dad was probably just being a concerned parent. “unhealthy relationship with food”, LMAO. A first-world problem for sure

No, he was just a bully and abusive. But thanks for playing.
That’s a really weird thing to say to a stranger, dude
You ok bro? Did that make you feel good about yourself? To insult a stranger because you personally didn’t have to deal with abuse? Or let me guess, you did, but it made you a “strong man” who knows what’s best for everyone.
You don’t know me. You have no idea what my childhood and young adulthood was like and maybe it sounds like a “first world problem” (which by the way, is so fucking dismissive and gross to say to people when they an issue) to you, but for me it became an eating disorder that I still struggle with in my 40s.
I’m going to try to say this as politely as I can, please fuck off into the sun with your bullshit and go troll somewhere else. You’re an asshole who seems to get off on insulting people to get your pathetic dick hard. I hope you don’t have kids because I worry if you do how fucked up they are and if you’re married I feel terrible for your wife. But let’s be honest, you’re a sad, lonely, angry man who has nothing better to do.
Dumbass takes like this are part of the reason people develop eating disorders on both ends of the spectrum.
You're gonna tell me someone who is suffering from Anorexia/Bulimia just needs to "grow up and get over it"?
You need to grow up and take a biology class.

When did the commenter say she had anorexia/bulimia? Those are actual eating disorders…she just said she eats very little and blames her dad.
A biology class, really? Psychology sounds more like it. Or are you telling me you learned about eating disorders in a bio class? Where was that, at some sort of school that gives out certificates in self-actualization or holistic-healing?

Sorry -- from what school did you get a psychology degree that allows you to label Anoerixa/Bulimia as "actual" eating disorders but not what OP described?

The school of hard knocks 😂 he’s so superior to us that he can diagnose a stranger through the internet on Reddit based on a paragraph that seemed to make him bigly angry.
He’s just a sad man who needs to get off by insulting people. He can go live that life and we’ll be over on this said being human to each other.

Finally, the war in Gaza is brought up for some reason:

You know that on the other side of the apartheid wall Israel set up there are thousands of people who had access to the Dead Sea (and their homes), that was changed by the establishment of Israel. Millions of people around the world are coming to the decision to boycott any company that supports the Israeli Apartheid Occupation. Millions are urging their universities and employers to divest any money and programs with the genocidal force that is Israel. I urge you and your family to take a hard look at yourselves and learn what Israel really is made of. Then the logical decision will be to never visit or spend a dime in Israel until their genocide and apartheid ends. Ty

Take a walk off a short pier.

This response is unhinged.
“Learn about an ongoing genocide, with bombs falling through the air as we speak, that you knowingly or unknowingly support, that we can do something about”
“Your response”
Please just look someone in the eyes today and remember what it means to be a human. Each of us is a library of life, and we’re constantly diminishing the value of each other as “enemies”.
I’d rather that than share air with someone who supports the ongoing genocide. Not for me, not for you, but for the kids and our collective humanity: please learn something new today.

You’re supporting the death of my family in Israel. Seriously, you’re a PoS

Before Israel was, there was Palestine. Palestine was for all. Muslims, Christians, and Jewish families all lived together. We all visited Jerusalem.
When Israel decided that only Jewish people would now be allowed in to these random borders drawn over Palestine, well, that should come off as racist. Now the Christian and Muslim Palestinians had their villages raided and their women raped by a well funded militia, before it became the IDF. This terrorised the Palestinians that lived in their homes, so they ran.
Then these homes were empty.
The land without people for the People without a land. Fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. The people that were born there were displaced by a terrorist militia, and now it was a land magically without a people.
And your family came in, and settled in “Israel”. A family out there has the keys to the very home your family lives in in Israel, although you’ve probably changed the locks by now.
But for generations this land fed them and protected them from the elements. All of a sudden it’s yours?
And the people Israel oppresses, the thousands of Palestinians that are in prison with no trial. Children and women Palestinians have been taken captive for over 70 years!! Where’s the outrage?
Are we not human?
When we say free Palestine from the river to the sea. It’s for everybody. Come by and buy my home. But please don’t show up with an armed force ready to exterminate me for refusing you the home my forefathers have called their own.
TLDR Israel is the fire nation in avatar the last airbender.
The best way I can put it is.. if a bunch of armed chickens showed up and kicked you and your family out of their homes, one day you might want to fight those armed chickens back instead of being homeless. Israel are the armed chickens

The Flairs:

• “We boomers don’t hungry as often as you gamers”
  
• “ok nerdguy 👍🏼”
  
• “Radagast was brown, nerd.”
  

Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road
With the coming of morning Rene found the earth enwreathed in a grey and sinuous fog that was so thick he felt like he was standing on the shores of an ocean of sky. Only the lapping edges of the wide pond he had located was visible beneath rolling tails of mist. He couldn’t even tell where the heavens ended and the water began—they had all joined together at the waist in one vague mass. It all had filthy, sooty smell to it too, like the inside of a baker’s oven. As through a clouded window pane he saw a red and malevolent haze glowing on faraway slopes to the southeast. Zildiz noted his bewilderment and taunted him:
“Don’t you recognized your own handiwork when you see it? An entire biome went up in smoke because of the Engine’s rampage. Not that I mind—all this is Leaper territory after all.”
“Cry me a river,” Rene scowled, dipping his boots into pond and wading into it. It was only knee height at the deepest point. What’s more, he could see the blurred outlines of small darting shapes below the surface that he hoped were fish.
He made Zildiz sit with her back against a sapling and bound her to it with the spool of webbing he’d collected.
“Don’t get any ideas,” he told her. He slipped off his boots and raggedy socks, rolling up the jumpsuit around his calves and getting back into the water.
At first he tried to get at the fishes with his bare hands. It would be just as easy as catching the milky cave species they raise in the aquaculture ponds back in Ulysses, he thought. All one had to do was slip one’s hand in with glacial patience so as not to disturb them, dipping the palm right under their bellies. Rene had gotten so good at it as a boy that he could even tickle them right in the gills and under the chin. But he soon discovered that the fish on the surface world were nothing like their subterranean cousins. For one thing, they weren’t blind, or stupid. The little rascals fled when he floundered after them, feet slipping on the mossy stones that covered the pond bed. Zildiz looked on with interest as the single worst attempt at hunting she had ever had the misfortune to witness began. This Rene-creature was as clumsy as it was slow-witted, splashing around in fruitless pursuit of its feeble prey. How had these animals ever managed to conquer the stars? Zildiz watched as Rene stubbed his toes on a sharp rock and howled, falling arse-backwards and losing his visor in the process. He then painstakingly dredged the pond bottom for it, turning it up some time later all covered in water lilies and mud. Rene angrily slung his backpack back on and cleared the gunk out of his mask before fitting it back on his face, only to begin yelling as a river crab he’d left inside tried to crawl up his nose. He tore the mask off again and doused it in the pond, finally ridding himself of the curious crustacean.
“Phew!” he sighed with relief.
“Toss it in again,” Zildiz suggested gaily, “At least that way you might catch another.”
“Shut up,” Rene glowered, face going purple with rage. He grabbed the biggest stick of driftwood he could find and began beating the surface of the water as if it owed him money.
Zildiz hid a smile at that. She was famished and events had definitely taken a turn for the worse, but at least someone else was suffering more than she was.
And while this halfwit is preoccupied, Zildiz schemed, I’ll go ahead and signal the god for help. She activated the magnetosynaptic organ behind her inner ear and tried all the usual frequencies.
Nothing but static. Either her organ had been knocked out of commission with the loss of her exomorph’s functions, or the heavy smog caused by the wildfire was getting in the way of reception.
But more than this, a greater part of the Vitalus would be preoccupied with containing the damage to its work. As a shared consciousness It had unimaginable processing power, yet It tended to deal with the world in a holistic fashion, neglecting the individual elements. This did not mean that the god could not be effectively omniscient—It merely had a wholly different perspective and hierarchy of priorities than did Its mortal servants.
For problems on the micro scale, it did however deploy Hollowores or other Inkarnids. Zildiz wasn’t vain enough to think it would send such an avatar of creation and destruction just to retrieve one lone Gallivant. No help would be forthcoming for a while. No matter; she was certain that she could outsmart the Fleet-man soon enough.
Then something happened which drastically altered her perception of him and his kind. Rene grabbed another stick and banged the two pieces together, frowning with concentration. Without a word he returned to the survival kit and combined them with the spool of webbing, twisting them together into the silk and rotating them to create something that was greater than the sum of its parts.
Grinning evilly, the Fleet man took the two sticks and the webbing strung between them and gently lowered them into the pond. He then waited, tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth as a fish approached him. When it refused to come any closer, he took one of the white cubes and crumbled it into pieces, which he sprinkled liberally into the water right above his new tool. Eventually the fish took the bait and swam in for a nibble. In a flash Rene pulled up the net and held up a wriggling, pinknosed carp with an ecstatic cry of victory. Chuckling at his own cleverness, Rene hauled his catch to the bank and dashed its brains out on the rocks. He then repeated the process until he caught three more carp with the exact same method. He gutted and descaled the carp with his clasp knife in a trice.
Zildiz was seeing the boundless cunning of these creatures firsthand. It bothered her more than she cared to admit. Granted, if her exomorph was up and running she could’ve killed him in a heartbeat, humming sword or not. But the rate at which he had adapted to his surroundings was concerning.
For comparison, say a Gallivant wished to specialize in the catching of fish. It would have had to ask the Vitalus to edit its gilt helix so that its exomorph could accept the grafting of an appendage designed solely to catch fish. This was assuming the Vitalus had calculated that the addition of this new capability would not lead to the eventual collapse of the riverine ecosystem in the next ten or twenty generations, or that the Gallivant in question could be entrusted with such a responsibility, assuming that its lineage’s previous contributions to the Great Game rendered it worthy of the sudden advantage.
Meanwhile, Rene had developed the net tool in less than the span of an hour, with absolutely zero regard for the consequences of his actions. Zildiz could only imagine what an entire nation of Renes could do if they were given time to multiply beyond Arachnea’s carrying capacity. Clearly this Fleet was a threat not to be taken lightly.
Rene finished cleaning the fish and skewered them on sharp sticks. He then found some pebbles and started banging them together to produce sparks above a pile of bark scrapings and twigs, careful placing one of the brown lumps from the kit inside. It was just as successful as his first attempts at fishing; he smacked the rocks together until he bruised his fingers, then hurled them cursing into the fog.
“Sonofa…” he swore, squatting next to Zildiz and looking at the raw fish dejectedly.
“What, you can manage all that but can’t get a fire going?” she asked, nodding at the blaze in the distance. Rene made no reply, too busy sucking on his thumb. Suddenly he unsheathed the sword and Zildiz nearly panicked, thinking that she had finally annoyed him to the point of violence. Instead, Rene picked up a chunk of quartz crystal off the ground and cut it in half, producing a shower of sparks as the edge met the mineral. Rene piled the fuel again and repeated the trick with the sword and the stone until the tinder caught and tiny streamers of smoke wafted up. Cupping his hands around the precious heart of flame, Rene blew on it lovingly and smiled as it grew into a merry, crackling cookfire.
Making sure to give Zildiz a smug look, Rene sat cross-legged next to it and began to barbeque his meal. Zildiz had built fires herself during the cold monsoon seasons as a special allowance granted by the Vitalus for extreme weather fluctuations, but those had been for warmth, not to burn food with.
The smell of the browning fish skin flooded Rene’s mouth with spit. He saw Zildiz licking her chops unconsciously, said:
“Don’t worry. You’ll get yours.”
Sure enough he held out first batch of carp for her to eat, blowing on it to cool it. Zildiz even forgot her hostility for a moment as she seized the fish with her jaws.
“I can feed myself, you know,” she told him between crunchy mouthfuls of bone and white flesh. It was delicious! An explosion of flavors that was at once both salty and slightly burnt, the meat firm yet succulent. Swallowing greedily, she pulled the fish off its stick and ate it whole, the fish’s head crackling under her molars. Rene watched her choke the thing down with a mix of amazement and alarm, then replied:
“I would consider giving you an arm free to eat with, but you’re a walking arsenal, lady. Is it good, though? My cooking?”
“Passable,” Zildiz lied with a shrug of her shoulders. Her affected disdain did not stop her from giving the rest of the carp a longing look. Rene knew she was hungry and tore the next fish in half, gorging himself and giving Zildiz the rest. Very soon all that was left of their breakfast was a pile of bones and scales that Rene kicked back into the pond. He sat back and propped his bare feet next to the fire to dry his toes.
“Uuurrpp!” Zildiz belched appreciatively.
“Bless you,” Rene commented, and settled down for a nap. He could only rest his eyes for a moment, as the woman would slit his throat as soon as he let his guard down. But the fatigue of the constant marching and fighting amassed on the edges of his consciousness. Slowly but surely, he was pulled down into the untroubled realm of sleep, free from the cares of his existence.
Link for all the chapters available here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road

Hi! I'm currently an undergraduate at sva considering transfering to risd at 2025 fall. I'm in illustration major and an international student. I need some suggestions to make my decision.
Reasons why I want to transfer:

1. risd used to be my dream school. I got rejected applying for it a year ago, which I know may be due to various causes that I failed to finish a satisfying portfolio.
   
2. The environment. I know nyc is a wonderful place for artists, full of inspirations, opportunities, and is vibrant! However I really got a bit overwhelmed by it🫠. As somebody super introverted and has been working on my social anxiety, I never enjoy activities with lots of people. I've been looking for a nice quiet park to sit and chill Since I got here. I also hate intense competitions with fast paced life. I'm really a slow person... And rents are insane here please.
   
3. The lack of challenges. I'm somebody really dislike bragging and I love my classmates many of them are potential and passionate... but I must admit my talent... Professors appreciate me on both my techniques and ideas while I actually learn not enough from my classmates' works. I'm looking for an environment that challenges me a bit more.
   
4. Campus life. Many colleges in nyc don't have a campus area. I take buses everyday feeling like commuting to work and only meeting very few people. I get a bit depressed as it's hard for me to make friends and to feel more settled. I ended up lonely and anxious at the end of the year.
   
5. Things I would like to do. I may want to be doing illustrations for children's books, being an art teacher for preschoolers or elementary school kids or whatever something like that, spending more time experimenting my art, concepts, or some studies. I was attracted to risd also because of the academic environment and the fine art style of teaching.
   

My concerns: 1. If I decide to transfer, I would be transfering as a junior. Would it be super hard? And what may likely happen?

1. Jobs and interns. Does risd really kind of suck at this like what I've heard from people?
   
2. The social life. I heard that risd has a ton of workload. Do you have time to socialize and make friends? Are people nice and supportive here?
   
3. Resources. How's Providence?
   

Thank you for your help in any ways!❤️

Hi! I’m planning on attending mcmaster for social sci this fall and doing PNB in second year. However I want to achieve a BSC and not a BA. I’ve applied to life sci and am waiting for a decision (green dot trauma 🥲) but it’s unlikely that i’ll get in. I recently discovered environmental sciences and I fell in love with the courses that the program offers and would love to go to that program.
I wanna know if I can

1. be considered for an alternative program rather than life sci - planning on calling and asking if my application could be considered for environmental sciences rather than life sci.
2. switch to environmental sciences in first year - I know I can in second year but I'd rather do it first year.

edit: shadowing the courses required it not my fav idea as my mom would be hesitant. she doesn't want me to go for social sciences even if I transfer later on.