I'm 26 but still quite immature and impulsive (yay trauma), trying to decide on name change, at the moment I'm pre everything trans masc/non binary, my vibe is like a mixture of flamboyant/moody/vampire, but my personality can shift a lot and sometimes I am quite reserved and 'normal' too.
I'm just worried the names I'm landing on right now (I'm looking to change all of my names including last, I have 2 middle names as well and want to keep the flow and rhythm of my full name similar to what it is now) are going to be a bit too 'edgy' or just something that I might really regret it when I get older and want to be taken seriously as an older person. I'm not going to be young forever and I don't want to pick a name that seems silly, or just doesn't suit who I become as I age.
Right now I don't want to be taken seriously, I don't have a proper career yet as I've only just become stable in my mental health and haven't yet been able to 'grow up'. Maybe I'm overthinking it and if I like it I should just do it.

WHO ARE YOU?

Born out of the ashes of the Total Eclipse alliance, Order of the Eclipse is an EU/US TZ, PvP-focused, tight-knit group based in Triumvirate alliance.
We're not the F1 monkey corp. You'll find us pinging fleets, organizing caps, flying cynos, running links, anchoring logi, doing recons, running intelligence and otherwise ensuring that operations go to plan. There are a million n+1 corps in every alliance, but we aim to be the force multiplier on whatever grid we're involved in.
Because of this, we attract active pilots who want a deeper understanding of the game. We range from newer to more experienced pilots, but the hunger is there for all of us.

WHY JOIN?

Because you're tired of running a TFI in a fleet of 400 TFIs, taking a titan bridge and then 7 Ansiblexes to get into a 10% TiDi slugfest if you're lucky and get blueballed if you're not. You're bored of dread fights that don't happen, of having a CEO who doesn't log in and probably doesn't even know your name, and of having to climb the greasy pole to be able to actually do anything in your alliance.
You want to be a part of the operation. Whether your goal is to FC, to fly important roles, to build things, to be in the room where the discussions happen, to improve your mechanics, to be a spy, to import things onto the market, to dominate small gang grids or to multibox 4 caps in a dread brawl, you'll be surrounded by other people who think like you do.
And if you're not there yet, you'll be surrounded by people who have been there and done it, and can help you to reach your goals.

CORP REQUIREMENTS

Good question, and the answer is that you don't need to have been playing since 2003, a titan alt, or a 99% zKillboard efficiency (though you are very welcome if you have any or all of the above). We look for:

• A good attitude
• A working mic
• Killboard activity (ideally at least 1,000 kills, but don't be put off applying if it's a little less)
• Two Omega accounts
• The ability to fly useful PvP ships (ceptors, dictors & bombers at a minimum)
• Time & desire to play with the corp

LET'S DO THIS

Does Order of the Eclipse sound like the corp for you? If so, join us on Discord and read the #join-us channel. Feel free to hang around, get to know us, and ask questions.
You can also check out our zKillboard, EveWho, and DotLAN.

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.

Initially started playing CS2 with an R7 5800X + RTX 3080 + 32GB RAM (3200 MHz), average 230-250~ average FPS on Dust 2, closer to 140-170~ on Ancient. (Dust 2 best performing map, Ancient worst performing map). Originally 350-400~ FPS on CSGO on most maps; I don't have those numbers anymore. First thing I noticed was that CS2 improperly utilizes the CPU, stacking all of the GPU rendering load onto 1 core, causing the CPU to only be at 5-10% utilization (1 core maxed out) with my GPU sitting pretty at 30-40% usage and my FPS barely at my refresh-rate (240 Hz). CSGO had this problem as well, but not nearly as bad. Obviously, this is a problem that thousands of people have run into.
Fast-forward; I got a job that requires me to be out of state 2-3 weeks out of every month, so I sold my desktop and bought a reasonably-priced Alienware M15 R5 laptop (Win10, 1080p, 360 Hz (excessive), R9 5900HX, RTX 3070 (80%~ performance compared to desktop version), 32GB RAM (2667 MHz). The 5900HX is not really comparable to my previous 5800X, obviously. Still, I expected it to be able to play eSports titles reasonably well. CSGO played perfectly fine, 250-300 FPS generally. Valorant currently gets the same, 250-300 FPS (Valorant actually uses all of my cores. Hah).
Out of the box with no launch options, CS2 gets 50-100 FPS depending on the map with this laptop (Inferno and Ancient are especially terrible), only using 5-10% of the CPU (1 core maxed out), 20-30% GPU usage. These FPS stats do not get better by lowering any settings (because of the intentionally-designed CPU bottleneck), but input latency somewhat improves by playing on lowest settings (with FidelityFX disabled). This is, pardon my French, fucking ridiculous. Entirely foreseeable and preventable during engine development, and completely insane to be overlooked without more context. Secondly, Source 2 is over a decade old, so really it's a miracle that anyone thought it was a good idea to release a modern sequel title on this ancient technology.
Before anyone asks, I've done everything possible after 20+ hours of research to try to increase FPS on this system. My best results have been with the "performance" power plan in Windows these launch options (if anyone says "that one doesn't work anymore" I literally don't care, I'm over it and decided to throw everything at it, and these all seem to improve my FPS through a lot of split-testing): -dx11 -coop_fullscreen -force_allow_coop_fullscreen -mainthreadpriority 2 -disable_affinity_preferences -r_max_device_threads 64 -threads 17 -set_power_qos_disable -favor_consistent_framerate +engine_low_latency_sleep_after_client_tick 1 +r_low_latency 2
My FPS has since improved to something resembling a playable experience (90-190 FPS depending on map). I'm aware that I could replace my RAM with a higher clockspeed to further improve performance with a single core, but I have other priorities than spending more time or money trying to improve this. Regardless, I wanted to share what worked for me because there was a huge lack of infomation anywhere in one place. I found these launch options from user Aveyo. Here's his original post; +Rep to that guy: https://www.reddit.com/GlobalOffensive/comments/1ah3eas/comment/kolwa1g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Either way, this is as good as forcing low-spec players to flock to this game's main competitor just so that they can have a vaguely similar experience with playable FPS. No, sub-100 FPS is not playable for anyone who can tell the difference between 144hz and 240hz and wants a somewhat competitive experience. I can't yet justify spending over $2k on a laptop with a reasonable CPU/GPU combo that would meet my standard because of a single game whose devs are basically telling me they don't care enough to add reasonable multithreading and that I should get over it. Especially when this PC works completely fine for everything else, including playing their competitor's game instead (begrudgingly).

Prompt: The Variants of Vampires. Think of an alternative vampire that survives on something other than blood. Write a story or scene based on this character.
As the sun faded over the horizon, Vlad’s eyes opened slowly. A sigh escaped his cold lips, and he stretched his long legs onto the red velvet lining of his coffin. Another day has come. He thought sadly, as he had everyday for last 206 years.
He checked his timepiece in the left chest pocket of his silk pajamas, 8:36 p.m. Thankful for the spring sun that set earlier than it would in the coming months, he pushed on the heavy hardwood lid of his resting place. With a creak the wood swung open, landing heavily to the side. While a modern coffin would no doubt be lighter, and easier to open every evening, this one was sentimental to him. As he had been buried in this exact coffin 206 years ago, at 35 years old.
With a heavy sigh, Vlad rose and climbed onto the step that sat beside his coffin. His stomach rumbled, and he knew he had no choice but to venture to the kitchen of his estate home. With his head hung low, he began to undress.
You see, Vlad was not like other vampires. His long life was full of loneliness, even for one who was undead. When he had first been turned by his Maker he was optimistic, excited even, for the wonders of the world he would be able to see. With no time limit, no fear of death, and an infinite supply of food walking the earth- the possibilities stretched before him like the vastness of the night sky.
However, Vlad was unable to satiate the hunger that filled him, that turned him into a ravenous beast, night after night. The mere thought of blood churned his stomach, much to his Maker’s chagrin.
Isabel was her name. Even the thought of her filled him with longing. Her had loved her once, and she him, until they learned the truth: Vlad could not be sustained by blood, but one of the things that all Vampires feared: Garlic. Of all things. The thought still flooded him with embarrassment, even after more than two centuries of living as a Vampire.
He climbed the steps from his dirt cellar, whose entrance lay hidden behind a false door that led into the Master bedroom of his estate. He lifted the heavy wooden lever that would propel the door open to his closet. The clever vault disguised by many shelves of his expensive leather shoes. He kept an armoire near his coffin for convenience, as sometimes he awoke before the sun had set. A terrible habit he picked up 50 years prior.
He wound his way from the closet into the room, down the long hallway, and the curved staircase to the first floor. His heavy footsteps echoed eerily in his quiet manse, as his staff had already left at the end of their workday, thinking that he was abroad on business. A ruse which was quickly growing thin. Soon I shall have to replace my staff again, how much easier this dreary life would be if I could simply drink from them. He mused.
Vlad had no excitement for the night, as even the mere smell of his skin repulsed those of his kind. He was unable to rejoin his coven, the one that he had briefly reveled in. Expensive goblets of crisp red blood he could not drink, dances and guests from around the globe each night, the women with their necks adorned with jewels, some thought long lost to the mortals of the world, but safely stashed in the secret rooms of the elites of the Vampire world. The men in their black tuxedos, fashionable hairstyles and long white teeth often exposed in laughter. His tenure in his coven had been short, merely days, but it had been a lifestyle he mourned. He and Isabel had tried to make things work… But this train of thought was far too painful, and his stomach panged once again, so he quickened his steps and focused once again on his coming meal.
He made his way into the back kitchen, not the formal kitchen he would have likely entertained Isabel in (if he was a “normal” Vampire), but into the staff kitchen where the fridges were, and food was prepared and stored. Rows and rows of dried garlic bundles hung from the exposed wooden beams, all harvested from the garden on the grounds.
Vlad once again rued his life, as he wished the preparation of his meal didn’t fall to him each night. But he reached up and took down a bundle, released a corm from its tight knot, and sat at the stool at the quartz countertop, grabbing for one of his Japanese Damascus knives that made his task of slicing his garlic head easy.
Briefly inspired, Vlad decided a garlic comfit would be nice, and he got to work.

Mischief walks up to the blue crystal clock. She spins the the big hand with her magic and the little hand lands of three. A blue flame is lit. Mischief walks away into the darkness; the light from the blue clock making her look like a silhouette.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuZbmLLv1vM

A bead of sweat falls down Mischief head. Her hair on the ground and her back up august the wall. Mischief had been doing a headstand for the last thirty minutes. In her mind, doing this action once a week was a good way to keep her blood flowing and strength high. Sun walked outside and saw Mischief up august the wall. 

“Are you gonna stand there all day”, Sun asks, holding a peach in his hand.
“You should try it”, Mischief said under the pressure. She uses her feet to push off the rock and picks herself up. “It helps with strength endurance and it help you think.”
“Hard pass”, Sun says, biting the peach. “You know I’m not good with my arms.” Mischief smirks and says, “That’s not what I heard from Ne Zha~” Sun stopped walking and almost chocked on the chunk of peach in his mouth. He looked over at Mischief and said in embarrassment, “Could you not bring Him up?”
“Why? What’s the problem”, Mischief teased. “Oh right, you still like him.” Mischief laughs and then says, “After a millennia and you still haven't told him?” Mischief continues to laugh while Sun burns a bright red and shouts, “Can you shut up?!” Sun starts to hit Mischief head and she still laughs.
“Okay, Okay, I’ll stop”, Mischief says. Sun stops laughing and crosses his arms in annoyance. “Go train Mk. I’ll see you in a bit.” Sun walks out to the training dojo. Mischief smiles but then holds her head in pain with both of her hands. She keeps her eyes shut and feels herself being surrounded by darkness. Even when her eyes where shut, she could see a being covered in a moon themed cloak.
“No…! Why are you here?!” The being looks back; her eyes glowing a light blue. She turns and starts to walk over to Mischief. Mischief raises her hand and cast a spell, but the being covered in the moon cloak faces Mischief.
I am you, as you are me.
We are two become one.
Mischief opens her eyes once the pain subsides and sees that the world around her is normal. She looks around to see if anybody else is there. No one. Mischief looks at her hands and sees then shaking with fear.
“No…. not this night…! Please, not this night….!” Mischief walked back into the house and looked around for a quill and scroll.

Mischief walks back outside to see Mk and Sun training. She sits under a shady area near the entrance to the waterfall. Mk jumps back and lands on the mountains wall. She pushes himself off and charges at Sun from above. Sun smirks and jumps directly up while Mk crashed to the ground. 

“Missed me again”, Sun said. He picks up Mk with his tail and asks, “Now how did I win?”
“Misdirection”, Mk guesses.
“Correct”, Sun says.
“That seams like a shady lesson”, Mischief yells.
“Too soon sis.” Mk chuckles a bit.
“I’m just saying the truth”, Mischief says. She walks over and whispers, “And I bet Ne Zha would say the same thing if he was here.” Sun gets an annoyed look on his face and says, “Whatever. And plus, I was always better at fighting than you.”
“Oh really?”
“Wait a second”, Mk interrupted, “You two have fought before?”
“Yeah. But it was for training purposes”, Sun says.
“Now that you mention it, we haven't trained in a while”, Mischief says. “What do you say, but brother?” Sun smirks and says, “Your on.”

Mischief and Sun get into their fighting positions on each side of the training ground. Mk sits on the stairs in anticipation. 

“Not using your weapon sis?”
“I don’t need it”, Mischief said with a smirk on her face. Sun chuckles under his breath and says, “Your done if I land this.” Sun charges to Mischief at full speed. Mischief closes her eyes and smirks. She moves out of the way and pushes her brother to the wall. Sun blinks a few times in confusion and looks back to sees Mischief untouched.
“I’m waiting.” Sun runs over to Mischief and tried to hit her multiple times but each time, Mischief blocks his attacks over and over. “Wow, brother. Your getting rusty.”
“I’ll show you rusty”, Sun exclaims. He jumps back and starts to attack with his legs.
“Not really effective!” Mischief takes Sun’s leg and pins him down with her foot. “Moon: 1. Sun: 0. I win again.”
“Mischief, let me up”, Sun says. Mischief moved her foot off of Sun’s back and says, “I thought you fought celestial beings bigger than me. You sure your not getting rusty?”
“He’s not”, Mk says. “He beat Demon Bull King, Spider Queen, and More! He’s strong enough to fight the Jade Emperor!” Mischief could hear her thoughts snap in half. She chuckles to herself in annoyance and says under her breath, “Yeah…. Sure…” Mischief then holds her head in pain.
“Mischief, are you okay”, Sun asks. He holds her shoulders.
“I’m fine”, Mischief says. “It’s just a headache. And I don’t think I’ll be able to train Mk tonight.”
“It’s okay”, Mk says. “Plus, I promised Mei I would help her fix her bike”
“Thank you, Mk.”

The full moon shines from above the mountain; its rays passing the peek of the mountain. A being covered in a night themed cloak looks down on the city below. She turns back and jumps backward. She closes her eyes and summoned a portal under her. The portal was covered in shadows and it’s magic was a dark blue. The being fell thought the portal and landed on a roof with grace and elegance. She looks back and sees the lights on in each building from each block ahead. 

“Now… where are you?”

Mk walks down the street of the city. He was walking home from Mei’s bike shop and he was hoping to get some well needed rest. 

“This is the last time I stay out this late”, Mk thinks to himself. He looks up and sees a being silhouetted bu the light of the moon. “Who is that?” Mk squints his eyes and sees the being crying up at the moon. “Are they crying?” Before Mk could call to the person, they jumped to the next roof and vanish into the night. Mk runs to the end of the block but doesn’t see the being.
“That person….. Why where they crying?”

“I’m sorry, say that again?” 

“I saw a person last night”, Mk explains. “It looked like they where crying.” Mischief stopped in her tracks and hides behind the house. She looks to her right and back down to the floor.
“H-How, the, Hell, did he see me”, Mischief thought with worry, panicking in her mind. Her racing thoughts coming to a halt. Mischief touched her broach and thought, “He was with Mei that night. He must have been walking home when he saw me.” Mischief lied the back of her head on the house wall and says, “Damn you, Moon Maiden…!” Mischief sighs and thinks, “There’s no way I can control her at this rate.” Mischief walks back to the front and sees Mk and Sun walking to the top of the mountain.
“Where are you two going?”
“We’re going to train at the top of the mountain”, Sun says. “Wanna come?”
“Sorry, not this time”, Mischief says. “I still have a bit of a headache.”
“Oh… does that mean no training tonight either”, Mk asks.
“I’m sorry, Mk”, Mischief says.
“It’s alright. Take care of yourself. We can train when you feel better.” Mischief smiles. She then remembered how her mentor from years past was so understanding. She saw a lot of them in Mk. “Well see you later.” Mk and Sun walked up the path to the top of the mountain. Mischief looks off to the side is sadness. She hated lying to Mk and her brother, but she had to protect them at all cost. She could risk to lose them like she lost…… her….
Mischief sits on a rock near the edge of the cliff and looks up at the sky. It had almost been a month since she had been away from the celestial realm: her home. She wondered if the cheetah twins had been playing in the celestial forest around this time. She touches her broach and says, “I miss you, mother…..” Pink magic flew around Mischief and a scroll appeared. Mischief catches the scroll and looks at the wax seal. “This is Ne Zha’s crest.” Mischief opens the scroll and a necklace rolls into her lap. She looks at the necklace and then read the scroll as follows:
Mischief,

**It’s good to hear from you again. I heard from your mother that you moved to earth. I hope Sun hasn’t been giving you too much of a headache. I did some research on what you told me about and it lead me to this necklace. And I also found out that the reason your alter ego is coming out on her own is because she hasn’t been bound. One of your ancestors had the same problem and they had a solution. The necklace I set you is called the moon of Apithaea. It has the power to control your alter ego’s rage. It might help you. I hope you get a hendel on your powers.** 

Could you tell sun I said hi?
-Ne Zha
Mischief chuckles and says, “Looks like Ne Zha hasn’t changed one bit. Still the same helpful prince I know.” She smirks. “And his interest in Sun hasn’t left at all.” Mischief looks at the necklace and then placed it around her neck. “Thank you, Lotus.”

Mk and Sun fight along the mountain Plato. However, Mk couldn’t couldn’t really concentrate. He was worried about Mischief, and he was thinking about the person he saw the other night. Mk was so distracted that he didn’t realize that he had left an opening for Sun to hit him. Sun stops his attack midway. 

“You got distracted.” Mk lowers his staff and shudders, “S-Sorry.”
“Are you okay? You seam distracted”, Sun points out.
“I’m worried about Mischief”, Mk says. Sun looked at Mk and the to the side of him, thinking of how to help Mk. she smiles and says, “Kid, follow me. I wanna show you something.”
“What is it?” Sun taps on the ground and a hatch opens. “Now way! How long had this been here?”
“A long time”, Sun says. He jumps and and says, “Come on!” Mk jumps down the hole and lands in a cavern like cave.
“Whoa…. Had this always been down here”, Mk asks.
“Yup”, Sun says. Mk looks ahead and sees a crystal floating above a pedestal; it’s light casting along the floor. Mk walks up to the crystal and asks, “What is this?”
“This is the crystal of the sun”, Sun explains. “This crystal has protected this mountain for a very long time. It was made over three millennia ago.”
“It’s amazing.” Mk takes a closer look at and then gets a vision.
Mischief looks back at someone; her face angry and upset.
She says something but her words are distorted and scrambled.
“She was your mentor!”
Mk blinks a few times and moves his hand away from the crystal. Sun notice Mk’s discomfort and asks, “Are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m fine”, Mk reassures Sun.
“If you say so.” Sun says.
“Hey, Monkie King? Can I ask you something?”

Mk and Sun walk along the roof of a building. 

“Are you sure the person you saw the other night is gonna be here”, sun asked.
“I’m sure of it”, Mk says. The two look around. Mk looks to the north and sees the same person from the other night. “Hey!” Sun looks over to see Mk running over to the hooded person.
“Mk, wait!”
“Um. Excuse me?” The hooded figure looks back; her eyes covered in shadows. “I noticed you the other night and I wanted to meet you.” The hooded figure looks at Mk for a second.
“MK…..?”
“You know who I am?” Sun takes a closer look at the hooded woman and gains a surprised look on his face.
“Mischief?” The being blinks a few times and then says, “I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone by that name.” She tries to walk away, but Sun holds her by the solder which makes Mischief’s necklace break off. The necklace falls to the ground and Mischief’s head hands low.
“Mischief? Are you okay”, Sun asks. Mischief looks back with her glowing eyes piercing Sun’s soul from within. Sun could feel a chill go up his spine. “Um, Mischief?” Mischief rushes back and attacks Sun. “Sis! Stop! What are you doing?!”
“Anyone who get’s in my way will be destroyed”, She yells. Sun whips around and holds his sister down with all the strength he has within him.
“Mk, get the necklace”, he shouts. Mk looks over and sees the necklace. He runs over and picks it up. Mischief looks over in panic and rage.
“No!” She breaks free from her brothers hold and rushes over to Mk and holds him by his collar. Sun tries to rush over to Mischief, but she puts of a barrier. She looks up at Mk and says, “I will not be locked up like a prisoner!”
“What? I don’t get it. Who are you”, Mk asks, struggling to break free. Mischief chuckles to herself, looks up at Mk and says, “So she didn’t tell you? Your her apprentice. Surely you can tell the difference.”
“What?”
“You don’t know? I am–!” Before she could finish her sentence, A ghostly rendition of Mischief, the real Mischief, Holds back her own body. Mk falls to the ground and looks up to see the scene taking place before him.
“Mischief?”
“Mk, I’m sorry”, Mischief exclaims. “I got you and my brother rapped up in this!” Sun runs over and helps up Mk.
“Mischief, who is this”, Mk asks.
“Moon Maiden”, Mischief answers, struggling to hold her back. “She’s my alter ego. I can’t control her without the necklace! Get it!” Sun and Mk run over to the necklace. “You have gone out of control for the last time! You going back where you belong!” Moon maiden holds Mischief by her neck and says, You really think you can control me?! I am half of you that lingers in your shadow! The dark side of light! You can’t escape me, Mischief Wukong!” Mischief puts her hand on Moon Maiden’s arm and says, “No…”
“What?”
“Your right. You are part of me. But you are nothing but an alter ego! I have been through hell and back! I have lost my way over and over, but I never gave up! I have kept you back for over two damn millennia, and I’m not stopping now”, Mischief shouts, felling herself gaining power. Mischief breaks free and holds Moon Maiden with her magic. “NOW!” Mk and Sun put the necklace on Moon Maiden. Mischief lies up and forces herself back into her body. Mischief looks in the darkness and faces her alter ego. “I know you are part of me, and it’s time to make peace with the past”, Mischief says. She puts out her hand to her alter ego. “And I want you to face it with me. If you allow me to.” Moon Maiden looks down and says, “Then I guess we really are one in the same.” She takes Mischief hand.
“We are two become one. The shadow of the sun.”

Mischief gains breath and she holds herself up. 

“M, are you okay”, Sun asks.
“I’m alright”, Mischief says.

“Alter ego, Huh? That’s a new one”, Sun says. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her before”, Mischief says. “I though I could control her on my own, but I can’t even do that right.”
“Mischief, you can talk to us”, Mk says. “We’re here for you.” Mischief looks at both Mk and Sun and says, “You know, I think me coming down here was a blessing in disguise. I’m glad you two are here with me.” The trio smiles.

I did this (Cancelled rides after initially accepting) twice today and I thought I would share why so you might better understand what is going on. I know I will likely get downvoted for being "uppity" but here you go anyway, some honesty:

1 First ride was at a higher end Hotel here with a very small parking lot/dropoff pickup area. Valet parking is also in the same spot. It was absolutely pouring down rain and when I received the ping (offer for the trip)and as usual it just told me a nearby cross section of streets and didn't specify the hotel. The offer was for like $5.15. Had I known it was this hotel I never would have accepted the ride for several reasons:

1. The parking area as said is very small at is likely that you will get stuck in there for 5-10 minutes.
2. The valet there always come up to you and I just find it annoying having to interact with them all the time.
3. It's a higher end hotel and the people there tend to be wealthy. It annoys me a little bit that the pay is so low for the trip from there ($5). From such a place I prefer to get at least $10 because it seems to me the clientelle there are usually a bit "snooty" and picky about things. I also notice tips seem to be more rare from them versus the other nearby hotels...
4. It was pouring down rain and the road was beginning to moderately flood.
5. I could tell that the customer would be going to a destination which would require me to make a left turn out of this place and I always find making that left turn annoying because of the traffic and the small parking area. Today it was even worse due to the heavy rain. It's a very dangerous turn to make actually and I dislike doing it.

...but regardless I decided to go ahead and do it.... until I was able to see the hotel and until I saw a line of five or six cars backed up outside the entrance area waiting to pull into the tiny lot. At that point I just cancelled the ride because there was no way it was worth it for only $5. It easiliy could have taken 20 minutes just to get in and out of there alone.

2 This trip occurred right after the one above, strangely enough. It was still pouring down rain but not as bad as the previous trip. I get a ping (ride offer) for a little under $8. Again they only give me the cross sections of the road nearby it. They don't tell me the name of the business or even the exact address in the ping (ride offer). I see it and by the location figure that it is probably a nearby apartment. I see the cross section for the destination and see it is a hotel. I figure it is probably an employee at the hotel going to work.... NO! DAMN! After accepting it I see it is a pickup at a shuttle transportation service. And since this is Uber they don't tell em the exact destination until I pickup the customer but I figure out from the info they gave at the ping that it is likely going to a different high end hotel with a very small parking/dropoff area too. And also valet parking.

Of course I cancelled this one too! Why?

1. It was still pouring down rain. And the shuttle area does not have any cover. Plus it was a female passenger. So more than likely I would have to either get out (and get soaked) and help with luggage or else deal with a pissed off customer who might downrate me or do a false report because I am not willing to provide butler service for $7.80.
2. This shuttle service is usually used by people who are cheap. Combine this with someone going to this high end hotel and it implies that they are both wealthy and cheap. Basically the shuttle picks them up at the airport and either takes them to the hotel or just to the shuttle office. To go tot he hotel costs a bit extra. This passenger it seems didn't want to pay that money and instead got dropped off at the shuttle office-- they probably thought the Uber would be cheaper than the extra money the shuttle service would charge to take them to the hotel. So again wealthy (likely) AND cheap. VERY cheap. A horrible combination for getting a tip! On top of that such people tend to demand a lot more and complain more about things. Not to mention the odds are high that there is a lot of luggage.
3. Just like in #1 though a different hotel, this one also has a very small parking/dropoff area and it tends to get backed up. You can easily get stuck there for 15 minutes. Now the pay for this trip was barely worth it already but I had remembered how the other hotel was backed up and figured it was likely this one was backed up too. So I canceled.

After I cancelled this ride, I immediately got another ride for about the same amount. This one was picking up an employee at a house and taking them to restaurant where they worked. It was about half the distance and probably about 1/5th the amount of time as trip #2 would have been. Plus I never had to leave the car, there was no luggage to deal with and no backed up tiny parking areas to delay me and also risk getting into an accident due to all the people there chaotically moving all about.
So if you read this far, thank you. I thought I'd just explain what went on so some of you might understand better. How could it be solved and made better? Well for one thing if they just paid us fairly all of the above would be far less of an issue. You might be paying $20 for the ride but we might only be getting $5. And when it is like that, as you can see, anything negative about your ride makes us want to cancel it. The other thing would be the company giving us the FULL upfront details about the ride before we accept it. As it is now they basically give us limited info in order to try to "trick" us into accepting your ride. Then they figure we are less likely to cancel it because we "committed" already. But really you the customer would have FAR less problems if the company just gave us the details upfront and was honest about it.

Imagine being told the house would take 10-13 months to build. And then imagine being assigned a crappy construction manager named Kevin Thornton and waiting 18+ months for the completion of your home, who seemed to only been hired because his brother Chris Thornton was already a construction manager for the company.
Being told 4 false closing dates. Having to lose a good interest rate because they don’t know how to build a house within a reasonable time. I’ve seen whole apartment complexes built in the time we’ve been waiting.
Having to reach out to said construction manager and the sale consultant Zac Davidson every single month to get an update when you were told you would get an update roughly every two weeks. Being lied to every single month. Trish is also a dishonest unprofessional woman who constantly dodges phone calls and lies about everything.
Finding a crappy job being done in the primary bathroom shower and them having to rip it out and start over again, because part of the shower wall was bowing out into a triangle shape and the small square tiles were not flat and straight with tons of extra grout around them. Having a crappy grading job where 1/3 of the back yard is unusable. And nothing can be done about it, Holiday Builders just loves cheap labor.
Going through a full roll of blue painters tape to point out all the flaws in the construction, where the manager will run out of tape, but luckily we brought some to continue using half the roll. And they still didn’t fix everything the first go around, where we had to call them back multiple times to fix the issues described at the first walkthrough, after closing. You’ll find paint on every single door handle in the house. And paint splatter all over your floors. Different caulking colors used on the countertops right next to each other. You’ll ask them to paint the water access water into the home because it looked like crap the first time and then they’ll make it worse and also paint the grass and gutter runoff as well because they simple don’t give a hoot about anything.
They even had to rip up two parts of the yard to have water and septic lines in place inspected because they forgot and now we’re stuck with even more shitty grading and yard work because of that.
They’ll schedule exterior stuff after laying sod down that end up leaving the yard dug up and not manicured and looking like trash. And then you’ll wait weeks for them to come fix it.
They give you a smart door lock that’s supposed to come with the Rekeying tool, but they won’t give it to you for unspecified reasons, even though you paid for it. You’ll ask if the front door lock is a smart/Wi-Fi compatible one. They’ll say no, but after reading the manual you’ll find out it is. They don’t even know how the products they’re installing works!
Being told a shower door for the primary bathroom isn’t even included after finding out 1 week before closing, seems like their architects failed physics, because water still gets out the shower with a door there if it’s it recessed. Finding out that something as inexpensive as cabinet handles are not included and finding out after the first walkthrough that they’re an “expensive upgrade”, when it was never mentioned during the upgrades selection. Why would I upgrade to 42” upper cabinets and soft close but not op for handles, does that make sense to you. Paying nearly 400k for a house and they can’t even do these simple thing’s correctly or offer these simple things as standard. What if someone had a disability and opening cabinets without handles is extremely difficult for them. Holiday Builders doesn’t give a single hoot about you if that’s the case.
When blinds and a refrigerator and a washer and dryer and a garage door openers are already not included. I would expect the said things above be STANDARD! And a sales consultant that only cares about his paycheck and his ego, than the customer named Zac Davidson, who won’t let you know certain basic things are an upgrade. Zac Davidson is a man that gets his feelings hurt when he gets caught in a lie and starts to be disrespectful when he doesn’t agree with something you’re trying to explain to him.
Holiday builders doesn’t care about the customer. They only care about their wallets. They’ll rush to get the CO before having everything installed. In hopes of you signing before notice they put a hole in your drywall while installing your shelves. Or better yet the construction manager won’t even walkthrough the house prior to have any touch ups or fixes done before the first walk through. We found out our water heater wasn’t even hooked up correctly after closing. Holiday Builders are real comedians.
The trades that they hire can’t even get simple things done like paint and caulking and not painting the floor and door handles, we basically covered the whole house in blue tape and only 50% of it was taken care it. 50% of the trims around the door frames were missing paint and the other 50% looked like a blind man painted the door frames, thick goops of paint and splatter everywhere. They’ll even make sure the caulking where the base boards meet the dry wall has spider web cracking in every single ROOM. Every single one of these trades and construction managers need glasses because I do not honestly understand how you can be proud of your work and let customers find this type of garbage work.
We were so fed up with this process we ended up just fixing all of the issues ourselves. Don’t build with them unless you’re okay with paying for upgrades on basic things that should be standard and you’ll have to ask the construction managers like they’re a 4th grader if they completed their homework. And having to do all the basic touch ups yourselves. It’s extremely frustrating and sad that I can’t be excited about being my first home because of this shitty fucking experience. Also any response to this review will be taken as passive aggressive, if you state that this was taken care of because it wasn’t, everything still looks like shit.
The plumbers and septic company they use suck too. We’re still dealing with sewage smells in our home that they can’t figure out. Constant back ups due to poor plumbing ventilation and workmanship. The plumbers came to investigate and didn’t even have any of the right tools or equipment to do anything and had to borrow my equipment. If you’re wondering which clowns they use. Naber Plumbing and Brain David Septic.
They even under size the AC unit tonnage for the home. Your AC will run for 18 hours a day. I found that they didn’t even seal the area for where the cold air comes out the air handler. It was just blowing all the cold air into the AC room and into the attic. Mechanical One don’t know what they’re doing and Holiday Builder takes shortcuts everywhere they can with undersizing your AC unit and going with the cheapest labor.
Every single builder in the area builds homes faster than these clowns.
Holiday Builders suck. Ever heard the saying lazy people work twice. Everything about their workmanship is trash. The construction managers do not inspect work done by the trades after it is completed. Their scheduling sucks too. They lie about everything, every step of the way. Don’t build with them. We’re still finding issues every single damn day with this house. Don’t make the mistake of building with Holiday Builders. Build with Maronda or anyone else other than this clowns. Zac Davison sucks. Trish sucks. Chris Thornton sucks and his brother Kevin Thornton sucks even more, Steve Pettko sucks. Chris Cubillos Suck.

https://www.reddit.com/Trump666/comments/1coycd8/is_the_proposed_peace_plan_for_israel_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
This article says no to trump being AC.
Article paragraph in question:
Does the Trump plan fit what the Bible actually says? The simple answer is: No! Trump’s peace plan is intended to be a treaty between Israel and the Palestinians. It is to be signed by Israel and by the Palestinians and not by Israel and by Trump. If Israel does sign this covenant, it will not be because she puts her trust in the Palestinians to guarantee her military security. No Israeli leader—whether he is right wing, left wing, or centrist—will ever accept or trust any Arab leader to guarantee the military security of Israel.

I Can't see how He isn't and how people can pretend its ok to support that. There's so many red flag warnings. How close a top military super power is with Israel, And obviously have been for a long time. Especially Considering the times.
"The whole world will marvel after the beast. "Who can make war with the beast"." and many other warnings!
Stay vigilant and trust Jesus and ask for wisdom

1 Thessalonians 5

King James Version

5 But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
² For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
³ For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
⁴ But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
⁵ Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
⁶ Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
⁷ For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
⁸ But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.
⁹ For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
¹⁰ Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
¹¹ Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
¹² And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you;
¹³ And to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake. And be at peace among yourselves.
¹⁴ Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.
¹⁵ See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.
¹⁶ Rejoice evermore.
¹⁷ Pray without ceasing.
¹⁸ In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
¹⁹ Quench not the Spirit.
²⁰ Despise not prophesyings.
²¹ Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
²² Abstain from all appearance of evil.
²³ And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
²⁴ Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.
²⁵ Brethren, pray for us.
²⁶ Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss.
²⁷ I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren.
²⁸ The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.

Hi everyone,
I wanted to share with you my response to the introduction found in the only edition of Use of the Self currently in print. I believe it's a rather misleading intro to FM Alexander's work, so I'm sharing this in the hope that I can help clear up misconceptions people may have about the Alexander Technique, not derived only from Anthony Kingsley, but many bland blog posts one tends to encounter when researching the Alexander Technique. That said, this is not intended to be an introduction of its own, but rather something experienced students, teachers, and anyone enthusiastically learning the Technique may find useful. In the tradition of Alexander himself, I've included extensive footnotes, some painfully long. I'm happy to answer any questions or otherwise discuss what I've written. Understand these are my own interpretations and opinions about what some call "the work," so take them as you will. I've taken lessons for a number of years and currently am training as a teacher, so my view of the Technique is based on these experiences, as well as my interpretations of Alexander's writings. Some of these interpretations you may object to, but I hope you find my arguments reasonable.
Response to Anthony Kingsley's Introduction to The Use of the Self
The Use of the Self may be FM Alexander's most important work, since it contains his own account of how he developed what is now called the Alexander Technique. While Alexander's other volumes are available from Mouritz, the only edition of The Use of the Self currently in print is published by Orion Spring. This edition replaces the philosopher John Dewey's introduction—which praises the technique's "genuinely scientific character"—with one by the contemporary teacher Anthony Kingsley, who is heralded on the book's front cover as a "leading Alexander Technique teacher." Therefore it is probable that many readers' first impressions of the Alexander Technique will be framed by Mr. Kingsley's opinions. I submit this is problematic, since his introduction is in my view contradictory to fundamental principles of the Alexander Technique. I write this response to address the introduction's two most dire faults: Kingsley's misrepresentation of the concepts inhibition and direction, and his dismissal of the concept of the primary control. I'll begin with the second, since it is a more straightforward error.
Primary Control
Kingsley opens his paragraphs on the primary control with the opinion that the concept should be "recast," then describes Alexander's definition of the primary control as a "particular relationship of his head, neck and back [that] acted as a master reflex that conditioned his whole organism." Then he discards this definition, claiming the head-neck-back relativity should instead be "regarded as an indicator[sic] of overall health rather than an area considered in isolation." He concedes the "region of the neck and back is a [...] barometer of our state of being," but concludes that "no single element is actually primary," since our eyes, breath, digestive system, and all other psychophysical elements are "simultaneous and interdependent" and also like barometers. Finally, he reveals his "recast" of the primary control, defining it as "the unknown and unseen self-righting and self-healing mechanism that can be restored and vitalized."
In sum, Mr. Kingsley has presented the primary control—which Alexander wrote extensively about and considered central to his technique—with an ill-defined mystical force which, accordingly, Alexander must have unwittingly stumbled upon and mistaken for a certain relativity of the head, neck and back.
Ironically, it is in The Use of the Self where Alexander wrote of discovering the necessity to first free his neck in seeking a better condition for his vocal apparatus, since that was the sine qua non of taking his head forward and up, of widening the back, and so forth, which are in turn the necessary conditions of freedom and stability in the limbs. This is the genesis of Alexander's use of the word "primary" in describing the head-neck-back relationship, and in my experience, as in Alexander's, it holds true: the sequence of directions given to oneself matters greatly, since tense feet, for example, can hardly flatten on the floor if the head is taken back and down, whereas the head can be taken "forward and up"1 to a fine degree even if there is tension in the lower extremities, particularly while sitting. Further, and maybe most significantly, the relativity of the head-neck-back rarely need change during any manner of activity, whereas the arms and legs are constantly bending, rising, stretching, and so on. Small wonder Alexander considered this relativity primary.
Of course, Kingsley is not wrong to point out the interdependence of all processes in the body. It is certainly true that undue tension in the feet creates a downward pull on the head, neck and back. Yet what is crucial to understand here is that in the context of learning and teaching the Alexander Technique, the primary control is an indispensable concept. It instructs the pupil to guide his or her attention through the body in the sequence most fit to facilitate proper relativity of all the parts, and it names succinctly that natural, visible, dynamic yet enduring relativity of the head, neck and back observable in little children and animals as well as many great musicians and athletes. Thus Kingsley discards a practical concept in favor of a truism about "interdependence;" and so we come to his second, graver error.
Direction
Here it begins to seem that what Kingsley writes of in his introduction is not the Alexander Technique at all, but in fact the Kingsley Technique, since he has redefined not only the primary control, but two other conceptual pillars of the technique: inhibition and direction.
First, he takes aim at direction, neglecting to elucidate Alexander's own definition of the concept before setting out the axiom that "aiming for postural improvements using postural directions leads to a bodymind[sic] attitude of effort and trying, which simply reinforces the problem." Dismissing as superfluous all "ideas and images about heads, necks and backs," he declares that "the trying[sic] self is the obstacle, and the shift towards a non-trying[sic] self is the solution." Finally, he offers his own definition of the directions as "the natural flow of energy and vibrancy that exists within the organism," directions which are interfered with "when we are in a condition of stress and reactivity."
Here, again, Kingsley takes a practical concept which Alexander developed based on careful observation of his own muscular action, and replaces it with a kind of mystical or spiritual phenomenon which, implicitly, only the initiated can perceive.2 Thus the famous directions are not, as Alexander described repeatedly, a series of mental orders or intentions projected to oneself before and during muscular activity along lines one has reasoned out in advance, but a "natural flow of energy and vibrancy"—just as the primary control is not, as Alexander saw it, a concrete, observable relativity of the head, neck and back, but an "unknown and unseen self-righting and self-healing mechanism." These pseudo-spiritual definitions do a massive disservice to neophyte readers, and reveal Kingsley's muddled seeing in relation to the central problem addressed by the Alexander Technique: how to shed habit and coordinate the bodymind through reasoned conception and conscious awareness.
But for a moment let us leave aside direction, since a subtler and more misleading error still lurks in Kingsley's presentation: his dismissal of conception itself. He explicitly warns that "ideas, concepts and cognitive efforts reinforce the very mental instrument that is the problem in the first place," he advises us to simply trust that "the prevention or inhibition[sic] of reaction, maintains or liberates this stream of energy [or direction] in the body."
To understand Kingsley's error, we must return to Alexander. In Man's Supreme Inheritance, Alexander sets out four stages to the "performance of any muscular action by conscious guidance and control:"

1. The conception of the movement required;
2. The inhibition of erroneous preconceived ideas which subconsciously suggest the manner in which the movement or series of movements should be performed;
3. The new and conscious mental orders which will set in motion the muscular mechanism essential to the correct performance of the action;
4. The movements (contractions and expansions) of the muscles which carry out the mental orders.

Alexander considered "conception of the movement required" the very first stage in his technique, to precede even inhibition. Thus he made clear, if indirectly, that in the context of his technique, clear conception is essential to achieving a desired end. Incidentally, this is a fact any competent artist can attest to; if a composition is not unambiguously understood and organized within one's memory, it cannot be brought to fruition. Even the most simple act, such as extending one's arm to grasp a nearby object, requires a detailed conception of distance, weight, strength, and so forth; if the object turns out to be heavier than expected, the conception of these variables and their relation to one another, and hence the muscular action, must change. This is direction in action, albeit subconscious.
Yet Kingsley belittles conception, instead leaning on concepts like "ease," "letting go" "acceptance," and the like. He is not alone in this among teachers, but in my opinion, they overlook the influence of what Alexander termed "erroneous beliefs," a concept closely related to that of "unreliable sensory appreciation." Both could be read in the spiritual lexicon alongside "letting go," etc.; but that would place their referent outside the realm of what words and concepts can describe. On the contrary, Alexander was pointing to something concrete and empirically observable: to errors of spatio-motor perception able to be observed phenomenologically and in other people's behavior; not to transcendent truths about observation itself. Thus the classic example of an Alexandrian "erroneous belief" is a person who raises their arm and believes their shoulder has remained still when it has not. The key for the pupil in this instance is to gain an accurate conception5 of their own muscular action, in reference to bodily sensations; not to simply "let go" or "do nothing."3 And this conception must come about through active tutelage—e.g. Alexander Technique lessons—or, dare I say, the way Alexander himself did it: by reasoned experimentation, conceiving hypotheses based on careful register and analysis of his own sensations, and also by watching the behavior of others. John Dewey called the technique scientific for a reason.
All of this is not to understate the importance of concepts like "release" and "effortlessness," including in the context of the Alexander Technique. Seeing more or less what is meant by them is doubtless the key to mastery of all activities, all practices, all techniques. Yet those spiritual concepts should not blot out the very concrete technique Alexander developed for improving what he called "the use of the self:" that coordination of the muscular system, achieved through conscious reason, which influences for better or worse the functioning of the whole organism.4
Inhibition
So much for direction. What about inhibition? Under the heading "Inhibition and Non-Doing," Kingsley describes Alexander's understanding of inhibition as "an artificial pause between stimulus and reaction," after which he could "give directions to himself." Then he lays down the gauntlet, stating that in the "real world […] life does not offer us the choice to inhibit:" since according to neuroscience research, "neural reactions take milliseconds and are faster than conscious thought processes." In other words, "we either react to the stimulus, or not." So, with inhibition proven impossible, Kingsley is left with no choice but to "reformulate" another of Alexander's concepts, offering us a supposedly scientifically enlightened6 view that inhibition is really "a quality of non-doing[sic] that needs to be already available in the organism before the receipt of a stimulus." This is "a way of being[sic] rather than a way of doing[sic]."
This Kingsleyan inhibition turns out to be the essence of the technique, since it is this very "condition of non-doing[sic]" the teacher is supposed to transmit, through a touch Kingsley describes as "a dance of poetry and a symphony of silence." With it, the teacher imparts a "deep sense of acceptance" by which "change emerges in the pupil."7 He goes on to compare the Alexander Technique to "Zen Buddhism, mindfulness and the philosophy of non-duality," identifying the uniqueness of the Alexander Technique in "the transmission of immediate experience." In fact, there is no Alexander Technique as such, but only inhibition:
The Chinese Tao has a concept of Wu Wei[sic], which translates as surrendering to the effortless flow of life[sic], or non-doing[sic] action. Ultimately, the Alexander Technique needs to reinvent itself and relinquish the Technique. The Alexander Teacher really teaches nothing[sic!]. But this nothing or emptiness is in fact the deepest essence of being and the fullness of life. Like grace, it drops onto us and into us when the conditions are ripe.
The problem is that Alexander's own writings indicate that inhibition is not a "quality," a "condition," or a "surrendering to the effortless flow of life." On the contrary, according to Universal Constant in Living, it is "the act of refusing to respond to the primary desire to gain an end, [which] becomes the act of responding (volitionary act) to the conscious reasoned desire to employ the means whereby that end may be gained." As clear as day: inhibition is an action in response to the stimulus of conscious desire: a conscious, continuing refusal to do a thing the way one normally does it. Alexander saw that this inhibitory act had to precede in every instance any attempt to change his habits. Everyone is well familiar with the inhibitory act. The act of not indulging an immediate desire, however small, is it. So, inhibition is not an "artificial pause," but a phenomenologically observable process within the organism, a process that can be made habitual through practice. It is no more abstract and transcendent than blinking or moving one's finger.7
Here Kingsley again takes something ordinary and concrete and makes it mystical, going so far as to "relinquish the Technique." The trouble is that there is a good reason the Alexander Technique came to be known as such. A technique is a skillful way of doing something; a mental tool; a procedure. Ways of doing can be found everywhere: techniques for dance, for romance, for healing, even for attaining nirvana or enlightenment. Each has a goal in mind and is based on what worked in the past; each resorts to concepts to explain itself; each prescribes action, or doing something a certain way. Yet Kingsley dismisses the idea of doing anything at all. Equating the Alexander Technique with "nothing," he tosses out the concepts Alexander spent decades refining, when Alexander's genius was precisely to conceive a useful, coherent way of doing things through patient observation of the phenomena he termed inhibition, direction, primary control, and the rest.
So, the technique may encompass all the acts of living, but it is still a technique. Alexander often used the term "procedure" to describe it, and I think procedure is as apt a word as any to describe the application of his technique to the acts of living. He constantly stressed the technique's sequential, stepwise nature and recorded countless practical examples of it in action, both in hypotheticals and accounts of lessons. The technique is not a metaphysics or a philosophy like non-duality; it is a practical procedure with a clear purpose: restoring
advantageous, natural relativity of the head, neck and back.
Conclusion
The technique is blindingly simple but surprisingly subtle and difficult to master; and, as far as I am aware, it is unique. Unfortunately, Kingsley is not alone in overlooking the uniqueness and subtleties of the technique in favor of spiritual truisms and platitudes. I suspect there are two main reasons for this.
The first is the tendency of serious pupils of the technique to become more open to "spirituality," both philosophically (e.g. non-duality) and in terms of sadhana (e.g. meditation, yoga, self-inquiry). Many are enthusiastic about the similarities between the Alexander Technique and, for example, mindfulness practice. It is certainly true that the technique requires the pupil to have some degree of "mindfulness," or the ability to realize when the mind has wandered; and it is also true that a few people who devote themselves to the technique come upon some of the same insights one might find in spiritual practice. Yet spiritual insight is not the purpose of the technique. In my opinion, the Alexander Technique is a relative of energy practices such as Hatha yoga, qigong, and TRE (trauma release exercises). Such techniques are often used in tandem with spiritual practices meant for the cultivation of insight, but their purpose has traditionally been preparatory and salutary, not "spiritual." One need not stray too esoteric to encounter the idea that the real goal of spirituality has nothing to do with "ways of doing." On the other hand, Qigong explicitly aims to regulate qi in the body; kundalini yoga is concerned with the flow of prana; the Alexander Technique seeks to restore the good use of the primary control. More practically, the technique teaches mental discipline, and ultimately the ability of the nervous system to regulate itself. Such a practice may lay the groundwork for spiritual realization, but it is by no means indistinguishable from it.
While there is no point speculating about Alexander's private insights, one thing can be certain: he left us a definite procedure with a practical, concrete purpose—not a transcendental one. Yet Kingsley's introduction continually implies the Alexander Technique is an essentially spiritual practice with heavenly fruit. Disparaging the core concepts that constitute the Alexander Technique, he invites us instead to simply "surrender," "let go in faith," and blindly trust that its real essence—nothing less than Wu Wei—will be transmitted through the "rare, "unconditional" touch of the teacher.
The second, more obvious reason Alexander has been so misunderstood is that he rarely wrote concisely, and in any case, recognition and conception of the primary control can never be refined through words, but only through unfamiliar sensory experiences—either reasoned out, as Alexander did, or in the hands of a good teacher. Hence there is more than a kernel of truth to Kingsley's view of the "supreme value of guidance with the hands;" yet I differ from him in that I insist the Alexander Technique cannot be divorced from intellectual understanding and, indeed, conception.
The Use of the Self and Alexander's other works certainly were not without their flaws, but at their best they illuminate concepts which are nuanced, rich, and useful when applied. Primary control, direction and inhibition are three such concepts. Whatever their flaws, Alexander's books point the way to a wonderful technique, and they deserve thoughtful, probing introductions like Dewey's—not dismissals.
1 Like many other Alexandrian terms, the concrete meaning of "forward and up" seems incredibly controversial among Alexander Technique teachers. While I conceive it roughly as freedom of the atlanto-occipital joint, the term cannot be understood in isolation from the rest of the parts—namely, from one's conception of the primary control. It seems to experience it, one must discover it, as Alexander did, or be shown it by a teacher.
2 This is not to say there are not phenomena only some people perceive.
3An overemphasis on "letting go" and the like obscures the fact that Alexander always described the technique as consisting of stages or sequential steps, which in my opinion constitute the "means whereby" he wrote of.
4 "Use of the self" is another problematic term. Related to the concept of "good form" and "good technique" among athletes and musicians, it refers essentially to coordination of the musculature along reasoned lines, which is not separate from conception of the primary control. Equal and opposite is the term "misuse," since one's idea of misuse depends on one's idea of good use. Different teachers understand the term differently. Kingsley states that "bodily tensions and distortions become fixed and reinforced as we react to the general stimuli of living." True enough. Yet he goes on to imply it is associated only with fear, anxiety and distress. Again he couples this concept to the language of contemporary spirituality, trumpeting that it "alienates us from our own true nature." This is to completely ignore the point Alexander returned to again and again in his own writing: that the use of the self is inextricably linked with conception. No doubt, tension and imbalance are very often inextricable from fear. But there may be another class of misuse: one based on misconceptions about the body, unexamined movement patterns from childhood which have little or nothing to do with manifestations of stress or emotions in the body. I suspect one may experience profound psychophysical quietude yet still tend to throw their head back and down in relation to their neck and back, especially in movement.
5Kingsley writes that the teacher's touch indicates the "negation of trying and doing within the pupil." Even a token mention of guidance viz. the relativity of the body parts is nowhere to be found. Yet in my opinion this discussion of touch is misleading, since nothing like it can be found at all in Alexander's writings. On the contrary, Alexander stressed that the teacher's role was to demonstrate manually the proper relativity of the pupil's parts, with the means whereby of the technique; not to transmit "a way of being," nor indeed enlightenment or gnosis.
6 Neuroscientific findings relating to will and volition have proliferated in recent years. They may raise fundamental questions about the nature of self and will, but in my opinion they have little to do with the Alexander Technique, no more than they do with dancing or playing an instrument. If there are really recognizable activities Alexander termed "inhibition" and "direction," then his writings are timeless, since they speak from direct observation and experiment, not philosophy about "free will" and the like.
7 In spiritual literature one encounters, almost universally, the idea that there is no "doer" of action, or no "doer" but God. Hence Kingsley is implying that Alexandrian inhibition is somehow related to this concept, which Buddha famously summarized: "Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no doer thereof." In my opinion, the Alexander Technique has nothing more to do with this than does reading, writing, or playing a game. There may be "procedures followed, but no follower thereof."

Hail, fellow Helldivers!
I’m a game dev with over 20 years experience, half of that on live service games or MMOs, all of it on core combat for action games, on game teams ranging from 10 people to over 600.
I play a ton of hard co-op action games, and I was a huge fan of Helldivers 1. I’m honestly in awe of how good Helldivers 2 is, even after the hundreds of hours I’ve put into it, and how they’ve sustained the pace of updates for so long after launch.
Yes, this is a throwaway Reddit account, I wanted to share some of my thoughts without inviting death threats.
Development
This game must have been in development since shortly after Arrowhead’s last released game, Helldivers 1 (plus whatever DLC and maintenance), so, 8 years give or take (I sent Pilestedt a congratulatory email, but presumably he’s drowning in them, haha).
I ran into the devs at GDC 2019, shared a few drinks and we talked shop about our similar games. They were super cagey but very excited about what they were working on, even moreso when they found out I was a huge fan of HD1. They were clearly already deep in development of HD2 at that point.
This has been discussed elsewhere, but it adds to how impressive this game is: this is the same engine (Autodesk Stingray) as Helldivers 1, a top-down game with 2D gameplay and much lower visual fidelity. Stingray is no longer supported by Autodesk as of sometime after 2018, so most of the features HD2 required would have been built in-house by Arrowhead. To my knowledge there’s only one other studio actively using the engine, and that’s Fat Shark, the developers of (most recently) Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.
The AH team has grown massively in size over the past 8 years. I don’t have the exact numbers, but it’s a 5x to 10x increase in size. Scaling up that fast and not ruining your company culture is super hard, and you can see plenty of other studios that have tried to grow so they can build bigger games and have fallen apart doing it.
Helldivers 2 easily has a AAA level of polish. I’ve gone back to HD1 recently, which at the time looked and played super well, and the improvements are night and day. HD2’s production values compare favorably to any random AAA game released in the last few years
Weapons
Building first or third person weapons to this level of quality is extremely expensive. A unique gun for a AAA first person shooter might take 4-6 weeks of artist time and the same (or more) of designer time to set up and tune the gameplay. For any completely new type of weapon, factor in around 6 months of animator time, and a few weeks for a variant that has a different reload animation or similar. E.g. all rifle-sized shotguns might use the same base shotgun animation set, but the continuous reload shotguns would have a different reload animation than the Breaker family. Then you need VFX and audio too.
Vehicles are even moreso, taking months for each, more if they can seat multiple players or have points that contact the ground (e.g. wheels).
Environments
Building environments that look this good is expensive even if you know what you want, having built a prototype version, you then have to iterate on it while you refine the gameplay and then build the final art. Building environments that look this good and are procedurally generated in as freeform a way as in HD2 is mind-boggling. Let alone doing that in a way that runs fast enough. Sure once it’s all up and running you have a ton of variety for relatively cheap, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the proc gen create a serious gameplay problem, and that indicates very clever design and thorough testing.
AI
AI that works as well as this is expensive to build, and typically computationally expensive at runtime too. In games like Call of Duty or whatever, you have a static environment, with maybe 10-20 active AI at a time, prebuilt navmesh (which is a hand-drawn or generated map that allows AI to move around the environment without having to calculate valid geometry constantly at runtime), and level or encounter designers have hand scripted a lot of what looks like emergent AI behavior. HD2 can’t do any of that; there can be hundreds of enemies active at once, the environments are procedurally generated, AND terrain can be deformed, buildings can be destroyed etc. The AI can’t be scripted to the same degree as on a static map, probably the devs have hints that are procedurally added to the world and not much more. It helps that all of the enemies we’ve seen so far are the “implacably advancing” kind, typically they don’t have any complex behaviors, and instead the design of the character themselves and their attacks carries the gameplay. Smart design. The Illuminate in HD1 were much sneakier, it’ll be interesting to see how that faction translates to a full 3D game with a lot more enemies active at once.
UI
This game has a lot of quality of life features that it’s easy to take for granted, but are hard to build, and hard to retrofit to an existing game, for example:
· A zoomable, pingable minimap (IMO this is a best-in-class minimap implementation)
· A ping system
· Battlepass implementation allowing for not expiring old battle passes.
And all of this is UI-heavy, where UI is one of the most expensive things to make in AAA games. Every project I’ve shipped, UI has been a bottleneck. It doesn’t help that every company basically builds a UI system from scratch, since engines rarely have something shippable built in, and Scaleform (the most prominent UI middleware) went away. And then it takes a ton of iteration to get to a point where a feature is powerful and intuitive to players.
Gamefeel
If you play much of the most highly-regarded AAA shooters, you might not like the feel of some of the weapons in Helldivers 2 by comparison. They often feel slow to use, hard to aim, and punishing of misses, bad timing or bad positioning. Some of this is a polish thing and probably isn’t intended, e.g. scopes that look janky in first person, misaligned reticles and similar stuff. Most of it though looks deliberate, and supports the gameplay they’re laser-focused on building. The weapons are largely useful in very specific situations, and are not power fantasy moments for the player. There are serious tradeoffs, including “if I’m caught by a melee enemy with a Recoilless Rifle out, I’m in trouble”, the most powerful support weapons preventing you from bringing a shield, the snappiest weapons typically only being useful against weak enemies, etc. Most mass-market shooters sacrifice this extreme level of tradeoff in service of making the game feel better to play, and can lack gameplay variety as a result.
Given all of the above, most of the content that Arrowhead has released post ship must have been built alongside the rest of the game. It’s unlikely that they’re able to turn around 3 new weapons, new giant enemies, new mission types etc every month for several months in a row building them from scratch since ship. And yet, the game at launch still felt complete. This is a hard balance to strike. I wonder how much near-shippable content they have in their war-chest, and whether they’ll be able to generate more quickly enough to satisfy the appetite of the community on an ongoing basis.
Balance
Typically on a live game, the same designers build gameplay, ship it, and then balance it in patches post-ship. Sometimes a studio will have a separate “live team”, either dedicated, or rotating members of the dev team through it, but this isn’t common and it doesn’t look like Arrowhead splits the team up like this.
In any case, players always ask why developers ever nerf anything, and it’s for three reasons:
· Typically only a small number of things (weapons, abilities, heroes) are dominant, and a very large number are OK or weak in the current meta – buffing everything else would be extremely expensive, and since it’s the same people doing this work and building new content, it’d reduce the amount of new content the team could make. So it’s much more efficient to tamp down the overpowered things as a priority, and buff some other options at the same time.
· “No nerf, only buff” results in player power creep over time, which makes the game easier, and eventually will require a correction either in the form of a large scale nerf pass or buffs to enemies – both of these are bad: players hate widespread nerfs, and buffing enemies can put the game in a degenerate state where lethality is skewed, or only the best players can compete because they have all the best gear, or you end up in an arms race between player design and enemy design as both teams try to react to player feedback or overall game difficulty.
· Having a small number of overpowered things is much more destructive to a varied meta than a small number of weak things. Say you have 100 abilities and 3 of them are overpowered. Well, now everyone’s only using 3% of the possible content. Say you have 100 abilities and 3 of them are too weak.The other 97% is viable. Overly simplistic, clearly there’s a gradient, but you get the idea.
BTW the pace at which Arrowhead has updated balance is extremely fast for a large PvE game. Some small PvP-only games can react this quickly to a developing meta, but on large-scale games it takes weeks or months of testing and platform certification to ship balance updates on consoles. And “hotfixes”, i.e. very quick responses to critical issues, have a high level of scrutiny on them, i.e. lots of justifiable red tape, and often require crunch.
Community Interaction
It’s extremely rare for developers from large studios at any level to talk directly to the community, mostly because the gaming community burned those bridges long ago, by doxing devs they don’t agree with, sending them death threats, or just generally abusing them publicly and anonymously. No way in hell would I be public facing, and no one at any studio should be required to unless it’s explicitly part of their job. And even then, I feel for community managers. Direct communication from devs is a precious thing, and not one that should be taken for granted or used as an avenue for abuse.
*Salutes* to Arrowhead
Huge, huge kudos to Arrowhead. This game is an absolute triumph. To go from a small team making top-down games, to a medium-sized AAA team that shipped a game that catapulted right to the top of the most-played charts and game of the year lists and has stayed there is a massive accomplishment. I hope you’re all seeing a big payday from this success!

I've come across this problem through some Google searching, but to add a complication, everything is running through my CenturyLink C2000T RouteModem which I had to configure to Bridge Mode (which CL does not make easy). All of this is for the 3x XE75's I bought as a triple pack starter kit.
After many trial and error attempts, I successfully managed to set up my Main Deco. I have two satellites that the app prompted me to plug in immediately (S1 and S2). While I was plugging those in, the app prompted a Firmware update. Main and S1 were successfully in the network. My network found S2 for a quick second, but then was unable to find it again, giving me the notification that S2 was no longer connected.
I tried everything. Resetting S2. Moving S2 so it was right next to Main. Connecting S2 to Main via an Ethernet cable. The last thing I tried was to remove S2 from my Network to see if I could add it back in manually. It has failed to find it.
From my Google searching, I believe the situation is that S2's firmware update failed, so now Main cannot find it when they were successfully updated to the latest version.
A past Reddit thread basically advised to set up a new dummy network with S2 as the Main Deco so that S2 can update its Firmware. However, when trying to create a new network and connect S2 as Main, my app still won't find it nor can I connect to S2's temporary Wifi for set-up purposes. The app refuses to find it, so I seemingly have no way to update its Firmware.
I'm not sure if this is an issue with S2 just being faulty (all the lights indicate that it's fine, and it DID initially connect to my Network for a hot minute before the whole firmware update mismatch kicked in). Or if it's the fact that my Bridge refuses to connect for some reason?
Is there a way I can manually update this stupid thing? I'm two steps away from pulling out my hair. Setting up this product alone with a CenturyLink Bridge Modem was painful enough (and took me a full week of testing and trying different options and wasting my time with CL tech support). But on top of this one of my network nodes is just straight up not working with seemingly no manual workaround.
Any help would be extremely appreciated.

My dad, after a consistent and very slow decline, finally had a pretty good memory day today. He has what I guess is a "run of the mill" vascular dementia. I'm far from an expert.
A bit more than 2 years ago his wife passed away in early 2022. I didn't know, at that time, that he had any unusual health problems. They didn't tell me about any mobility issues, they didn't tell me about some of the conditions he had developed, and they didn't tell me about the dementia diagnosis. When she passed my dad just stopped taking care of himself, and he spiraled pretty fast. He spent a couple of weeks in the hospital while we got him sorted out and I was finally clued in to how far he had declined in the previous couple of years. I was able to get POA for his health and finances to help make decisions. A couple of weeks later the doctors said that he was OK to go home on his own with help from some occupational therapy, and a nurse visiting a couple of times a week. This was in mid to late April of 2022. By early June he was getting some pretty serious notices from utilities, credit card companies, and others wanting to be paid. Dad thought everything was paid automatically (said his late wife had set that up), and had been ignoring every bill that came his way. This was when I really found out how bad things had become. There hadn't been a bill paid in months, his wife had been using HIS credit cards for HER purchases, and as I recall it there was about $11,500 in credit card debts that she had left for him. On HER OWN cards she had about $19,000 in credit card debt (I never paid that, my dad was not a guarantor on her accounts). My dad's credit score tanked, and was flirting with dipping into the 500s. So I stepped in and took over. I'd never had to take over someone else's finances before, and thus began a whole lot of change in both our lives. There were mysterious bills that were getting paid from his accounts, his cell phone bill was in the hundreds, there were debts she had created; some he knew about and some he didn't. I had to do some very basic financial forensics to figure out what was happening. The list of her dumb-fuckeries is sadly extensive, she was just a financial-fucking-idiot. He had a few thousand dollars remaining in his accounts, but he had a consistent pension and Social Security coming in. I started prioritizing the debt into utilities versus credit, and started getting him set right. It took about a year or year and a half, but my dad became debt free, and developed a substantial savings. His credit score is in the mid / high 700s again.
He is good enough to live mostly on his own still. I call most nights to check up on him, run through the list. "Did you eat enough? Did you take your medicine? Did you get any exercise? Did you visit with any friends? How you showered recently?" And on Saturdays I go over to his house to refill his medications, take him shopping, take a rudimentary inventory of his physical and mental condition, and I take him to lunch, usually with my wife and daughter. I take his blood pressure, and report it to his GP via an online portal. I do a bit of picking up in his house, maybe clean some things. Remind him about upcoming appointments. This takes up most of my Saturdays. I also get him to most of his medical and dental appointments, work with his doctors and nurses, and manage most of his life. But I also have a house, a demanding career (where I have a full team to manage and lead), a wife, a four year old, and pets. Everyone and everything deserves attention, of course, but these days I feel like I am constantly trying to pour from an empty container. I'm always exhausted, and I wake up nearly every night afraid that I missed something. Did dad take his pills? Did we miss any bills? Is my daughter OK? Did I hear her coughing? Did I miss something at work? Did I miss a page out? I have to get up and check my work phone. I'm just exhausted, and burnt out on all of it.
But today... He remembered my daughter's name, my brother's name, my wife's name, and even the names of cousins. He remembered his friends' names, he remembered his bills, and where he put them. He was even a bit spry when I took him shopping. He cracked jokes. He was in the best mood that I've seen him in in.... hell, maybe years? He understood everything that I was telling him, and HE TOLD ME about an upcoming appointment that he remembered. And man... I needed it. I needed an easier day. It is like a little bit of the weight lifted. I know that it is just one day, and he might be having these good days on the days when I am not over there to manage his home, but I usually see more difficult days. It isn't a whole lot, but tonight it feels like the vessel I am trying to pour from finally has a bit of something in it, it doesn't feel so empty.

Hi, I live with parents who are either always fighting each other ( I catch a break bc they don’t team up against me and my mom is suddenly wanting to be my bestie ) to them teaming up to provide their idea of constructive criticism which is insulting Really every aspect of myself. The worst part is that it’s been like this ever since the 7th grade, I’m in my 20s now and it’s no different. Nothing I ever do is good enough and again their idea of reverse psychology to motivate me is essentially insulting me like that I’m a slob bc I have clean laundry on my bed or that I don’t iron my clothes so I’m a bum, that my bf ( who is the sweetest ever) isn’t a real man bc he should be telling me what to do and that if I don’t want to do it he should abandon me that’s what they wish for me. To be with someone who in their eyes is “ masculine “ essentially an abusive man. They berate me for having taken a gap year for med school. They shame me for wanting to spend time with my friends, they tell me I have no friends and no one will be there for me. ALSO a lot of accusations, you name it prostitution, drinking drugs etc, as a kid till now still. That I’m incapable and incompetent ( I have 2 degrees already). I know the obvious answer is to cut them off and not allow them to speak to me that way but they’re my parents and my only family, I can’t manage to do that and also I can’t live like this anymore. I just wish to not be harassed for once for having my own desires opinions and feelings

I love running my family through the old 1E Tales of the Outer Planes. It's the first D&D book I ever purchased, so the nostalgia is great, but some parts need more than just a stat update. Some need to be completely gutted and rewritten. Case in point: The Castle at the Edge of Time, an adventure for low-level PC's in the Deep Ethereal.
SUMMARY
Centuries ago, the legendary Sapphire Mage Aionias and his apprentice Montgomery built a castle in the Ethereal, near a color curtain to the Demiplane of Time. In this way, they could conduct experiments without interruption and warn unwary travelers away from the dangerous demiplane. Eventually, Aionias pronounced Montgomery's training complete, departed beyond the veil of Time, and hasn't been seen since. Montgomery assumed the mantle of the Sapphire Mage and continued his mentor's investigations.
Recently, the castle and the curtain have begun drifting towards each other, necessitating a change of address. The Sapphire Mage has decided that the city of Arabel would make an ideal headquarters and has offered a considerable sum for it. The party is sent as bodyguards of the mayor's envoy Lady Cheodot to decline as diplomatically as possible.
But Cheodot is secretly working for the The Zhentarim, and begins negotiations for the sale, hoping the Mage will enforce his condition that Arabel's citizenry be removed. It is up to the party to convince the Mage to withdraw his offer, simultaneously protecting him from Cheodot's treachery and increasingly murderous intrigues.
TAKEAWAYS
I love this setting, I love the focus on diplomacy (this adventure actually introduces the idea of a diplomacy 'proficiency'!) but the central plot engine of a well-meaning archmage asking a capital city to just up and move their populace is just psychotic. It's only exacerbated by having the negotiations take place alone in the castle, so that when "someone" alters the Mage's summoning circle in an attempt to kill him, the suspect list is exactly two people, one of whom has been acting extremely sketchy.
Once I realized a rewrite is in order, I knew I wanted a LOT of diplomats, with a full murder mystery among them. I like homages, it's practically a private game with me to keep as much of the original material as possible, so I'll probably keep Lady Cheodot and the Zhentarim as the villains. My oldest son's PC is a skilled diplomat (Order of the eel cavalier) so I'll have one of the parties tap him as their representative.
Other things I might want to keep:
• Ether golems - ten of them, color coded for convenience, one of them is a passable cook, but WHAT ARE THEY??
• Aionias' return - he's apparently some kind of human-shaped "hole in the ether"? Mute? No stats, all pathos? Portent of warning?
• Jacktooth - a battered short sword from a previous adventure that awakens to a powerful enchantment on the Ethereal plane, because...sure.
• The Castle - Needs a map, badly. And if Monty earned the name Sapphire Mage a century ago, why are Aionias' rooms still off limits?
• The Sapphire Mage: supposedly an important title that we've never heard of before or since. Since the color curtain is silver and pearl, the title has nothing to do with that. Maybe there should be a sapphire artifact that they attune to?
• Death by Sabotage: I like the idea of Cheodot using acid to ruin a summoning circle, leading to combat with summoned creatures.
Things I want to add:
• Chronomancy connection: this is way before the chronomancy book, so it can't be faulted, but the Sapphire Mage is obviously a chronomancer role.
• Context: there ought to be references to how others have exploited chronomancy recently, especially Vecna. For their own time travel, someone might direct the PC's to the tomb of Chronos.
• Variety: the other diplomats and visitors should include sphinxes, spellweavers, mercane, devils, modrons, time dragons, royal dimensionals, geniekind, etc.
• Suspects: the Ravenloft netbook adventure Feasting With Falcons did it best. It's really my go-to for how to do a murder mystery.
Most of all, I need something for them to debate about, but I have only the basic shape for that. Something that would draw lots of factions together, and get them debating hotly enough to create logical suspects when someone dies. My youngest boy is playing a machinesmith, and the EULA I created for one of his magi-techno devices mentions the authority of "Astral Sea, the Rock of Bral, the City at the Edge of Time, the Shadow Proclamation, The City of Doors, the Midnight Market," so I'd love to see the formation of a City at the Edge of Time as a result of these negotiations.
Finally...the Chronomancy manual says there IS no Demiplane of Time, and that previous references to it were mistaken. So, if that's the case, what IS this place with the pearl-and-silver curtain, and why would it be mistaken for a Demiplane of Time? Whatever it is, could it be a resource that could be shared by a variety of factions, necessitating the creation of a city? If some part of Aionias returns as in the original, could he work with his apprentice to create a bulwark against the expanding curtain, to protect the incipient City?