I need advice because I am at a loss.
I've been scouring all sorts of resources, in hopes of finding more information about my great x3 grandmothers on both my parent's sides. One was born in Indian Territory, Oklahoma in 1874, the other in Polk County, Arkansas also in 1874. My grandmother from Indian Territory is on my mom's side, whereas the other is on my father's.
I cannot find any more information on these women. I've found extended family from my father's side (great uncles & aunties) and one of my great x5 grandfather's on the Dawes rolls, listed as Cherokee by blood, but the specific grandmothers I am looking for are not on them, nor are their parents or direct descendants. I've found names on census's, but not only are they few and far between; I have photos of both grandmothers, both obviously beautiful brown skinned women- but on census they are listed as white. I've seen some other confusing information that makes it hard to understand the dynamic of the household too. All of the women have little to no information, some information has even been changed.
I need to know if this is common with indigenous ancestors, and if there is anything I can do about it. I am new to genealogy and don't know very much about my own family. Could there be an error in my tree somewhere I'm missing? If adoption was involved, how would I know? I hate speculating. It's hard to navigate anything without a paywall, whether it be via apps or actually paying someone to do this for me. I just want to understand where I come from, why I am here from such a broken family.
It is just so strange to me that they existed and that my family & I are living proof of that, but I can barely find anything besides glimpses of them. I wish they were here today to guide me in the right direction. I feel very lucky to have the photos I do of them, so that they are not completely forgotten with time. My family has not been very good at keeping memories, tradition has not been their strong suit. Many have drank or smoked their memories away, don't want to talk about their lives or can't talk because they are dead. I know that my family carries a lot of trauma. I just want to feel connected to them, it's brought my grandmothers a lot of joy and curiosity about their families too, sharing what I've found so far. I want to keep doing this until it feels like I've really done something to make a difference in our lives.
I hope this isn't truly a brick wall, I appreciate anyone who takes the time to read this. 🙏

Blake was listening to his sister through his headphones while she ripped into him about his hopeless addiction to pornography. He rolled his eyes as she went on and on about his sexist attitudes and his distorted views on women and sex. If his sister had only known that he was scrolling through explicitly drawn versions of Marge Simpson and Lois Griffin in various poses with various props, she would have hung up the phone and given up.
As far as Blake was concerned there were no distortions in his mind about women. He had lived through so many interactions and had seen so many videos of women being terrible people that it only reinforced his bias.
Porn didn’t judge Blake. Porn didn’t make Blake do things that he didn’t want to do. He spent time with women the way he wanted to. If he wanted a woman to act a certain way, he could find a video where she did just that.
The way he saw it, women wanted a lot, and if they didn’t get what they wanted, they made everyone’s life hell until they did. Conversely, if a man wanted something, it was tough luck. He watched his mother treat his father like that until the day he died, overworked and unhappy.
Less than a year after his mother put his father in the ground, she was with someone else that she was all too happy to control. Porn gave Blake the control, and he liked it.
“Blake, I love you, but you’re going to waste your whole life in front of a screen holding your dick.”
“Don’t you have another kid that you should be working on squirting out?”
She hung up.

Blake was caught watching videos at work again, but this time he had a plan. He knew eventually that he would be caught, but after losing three jobs for the very same reason, he hatched a simple way of ensuring that he wouldn’t lose out on any money, and be able to stick it to the boss and company he hated for no other reason than employing him.
Blake was called into his manager’s office, but before anything could be said, Blake blurted out that he needed to take mental leave. He sobbed in front of his manager while he said that the job was giving him thoughts of hopelessness and self harm, but he was smiling on the inside. He was talking just loud enough for a few people outside of the office to hear him.
His manager's face was red.
“Cornered you, bitch.” Blake thought to himself. “Good luck firing someone who’s crying out for mental help.”
Blake figured that he’d be able to stretch this out for at least a month. A month of paid time off doing what he loved.

“It’s my phone!” he muttered to himself as he rode the elevator down to his new found freedom. “If people have a problem with the things I’m looking at, perhaps they shouldn’t be looking over my shoulder and mind their own fucking business.”
He didn’t mind the other people in the elevator, or their awkward expressions. They didn’t matter to him. No one really did.

Still on a high from manipulating his boss into a corner, Blake decided to do something new on the bus ride to his apartment building. He clicked on a video. He wasn’t exactly watching the video, rather he was watching people’s reactions out of the corners of his eyes.
He kept the volume low, but up just enough so the moaning could be heard.
At first, people around him were wondering if they were actually hearing what they thought they were hearing.
He was trying not to laugh at their reactions. People began to move to other seats, and soon enough, everyone was giving him disgusted looks.
“Fuck em.” he whispered.
He noticed one man sitting in the back of the bus who was giving him quite a different look than everyone else. The man was well dressed. Perfect hair. Perfect teeth.
He was smiling at Blake.
Blake, a self admitted and overly enthusiastic homophobe, turned off the video. He began to worry that he had attracted the wrong kind of attention.

Blake was all too eager to get out of the bus and hurry towards the doors to his building. He heard a voice behind him that caused him to catch a breath and lose his forward progress. He turned around. It was the beautiful man from the back of the bus.
“Excuse me! I’d like to have a word!”
Blake found his voice hypnotic, and his stride was elegant, almost like he was floating just above the cracked and cruddy sidewalk.
“I uh… couldn’t help but notice what you were doing on the bus young man. I think I have something you might be interested in.”
Blake was lost in that voice. He had never been attracted to another man, but he was feeling things inside himself that he’d never felt before, and he hated himself for it. After a long awkward silence, Blake finally found his voice.
“Look buddy, take your pixy dust and bother someone else. You’re not my type.”
“Oh, you’re definitely my type.” The beautiful man laughed and handed him a plain white business card with nothing but a web address on it. “In so many different ways, you’re exactly my type.”
“What is this?”
“It’s my business, Kid. You want videos you can’t tear yourself away from? Trust me. It’s the newest thing.”
He winked at Blake and walked away.
-
Blake was staring at his screen while he was riding in the elevator. There was a paywall. A dollar for the first month, then a hundred dollars a month after that.
No screenshots or thumbnails, just a form for a credit card. As the doors opened to his floor, he put his phone in his pocket and decided against any further investigation. He was sure that it was a scam of some kind.

Until ten o’clock that night, Blake engaged in his normal activities with one new addition he had begun almost two weeks prior. He built two shelves in front of two different air vents in his apartment, and he had placed speakers on the shelves. The tenants in his building got to experience all of the auditory pleasures of the thrusting and jiggling and smacking that he was watching.
Blake made sure he followed the rules, and nothing came out of those speakers after ten p.m., but it was fair game until that time.
He would laugh to himself thinking about the tenants having to listen. He wasn’t sure how far the sound traveled through the vents, but he figured that most people on his floor were getting a good chunk of it.
That night though, his usual joyful time in front of his phone, his 70 inch television, and his newly discovered fondness for Cerave was marred by the thought of something unique and dangerous out there that he hadn’t seen.
After several attempts at a satisfactory denouement in his masturbatory madness, Blake finally gave up, raised the white flag on its limp post, and went to bed.

Blake kept hearing the man’s siren-like voice in his head while he tried to sleep. After almost two hours of tossing and turning, he sat up and snatched his phone from the charger and typed his credit card information into the mysterious site. He just had to know.
The site opened up and he was instantly intrigued. There were no thumbnails on any of the videos, but the descriptions on each of them were so graphic, profane, and dehumanizing that it would do us all a great service if they were not repeated here. Blake’s favorite appendage however, jumped to a zealous attention at the graphic depictions that the perverse descriptions painted within his brain.
Blake stripped off his briefs and sat down on the edge of his bed. His left hand gripped the phone while his right hand eagerly gripped something else.
He clicked on the first video and it began to load.
Blake waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The video wasn’t loading, so Blake decided to try another one, only to find that his left thumb wouldn’t move. He realized that his entire body was stiff. Nothing would move with the exception of his eyes. He couldn’t even speak.
All he could do was stare at the glowing screen in the darkness of his apartment.
After a moment, his mind started to race while his body remained ridiculously rigid.

Three hours had passed. Blake had been able to see every minute tick by. He had watched his battery meter slowly run down to eighty percent. He had thought that his screen would eventually turn off, but it never did. It was still trying to load the video.
Something was tickling his nose and his face itched. His back had begun to ache and he felt some tiny pin pricks along his still turgid tool. He wanted to cry, but nothing would come. In fact, his eyes had begun to dry because he had not been able to blink.
Blake watched another hour go by before his body finally succumbed to exhaustion and fell into a deep sleep, in spite of the fact that he could not close his eyes.

He awoke six hours later and his vision was partially obscured. Still holding his phone and his phallus, Blake tried to scream. The sun was now coming through the window of his apartment. He could see his reflection in the mirror that was on the opposite wall. His hair was long, and it was white. A spotty and wiry beard had exploded out of his face and it hung down to just above his enlarged and sagging nipples set in a sagging and flabby chest.
His breaths were shorty and ragged; phlegm was gurgling with each inspiration.
His arms and legs were covered in large liver spots and all of his skin was a purple paper thin.
He was old.
The shock of seeing his hunched and rigid reflection had staved off the feeling of pain from his nether regions for only a moment. His fingernails were growing on his hands. Some of the yellow things were curling around his phone while the others were curling and jabbing into what now looked like a deflated balloon stretched too thin, that was desperately trying to retreat into his abdomen against his rigid grip.
The battery on his phone was blinking.
It was about to die. He wondered what happened when the battery ran out, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew exactly what would happen when that loading screen finally went dark.
His sister’s words were all he could think about as the screen and the world went dark.

After several nights of peace, Blake’s neighbors noticed an awful smell emanating from the air vents. After several complaints, the building’s Super opened Blake’s apartment and found the withered, still rigid frame of a dead old man sitting upright on the edge of the bed.
After taking several photos that he would post later on social media and stealthily absconding with almost a full bottle of Cerave, the Super called the authorities.

Freshly back and awake after a twelve day stint for my first time there. I knew that I wanted to go in general, and while I didn't have a firm itinerary planned out, there was one main goal that I had in terms of sites within the country. The main video game that I play is Beatmania IIDX, and it has internal trophies which are represented as badges. Your profile allows you to assign up to five of them as visible when you start a new round, and there are badges to earn for playing at least one round in every prefecture in Japan, as well as every subregion. Getting the Kanto badge meant that I needed to play at least one round in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, and Chiba. After five days, I had that complete, and now I have a permanent record of this trip within the game itself. There was also a time-limited event to earn points in IIDX in order to exchange them for goods, such as a hat, or a towel, or a new account card and a poster, and I managed to get that taken care of in somewhat dramatic fashion. I did some other things too.
Primary general points
· Getting Suica set on the phone and using it was generally painless. There were only two times where I needed to summon the help of a resident JR employee to clear up an issue with the gate not reading the card for some reason.
· Most vocal interaction which I had was the opposite of painless, because I continuously kept trying to speak Japanese and failing, and most people would realize that I was completely failing at it and responded with English (some with full on sentences, others with just a few words). There were a few rare times that I was able to express my intent in Japanese, receive a response, understand the response, and reply as necessary, but that was rare. Once English was invoked, I would stay with it, because that's what they were expecting. I've been self-studying the language for more than twenty years in varying degrees of intensity, and while my reading comprehesion seemed sufficient enough for this trip, and while I didn't expect my speaking to be as good because I don't have any opportunity to practice speaking, I came away bitterly disappointed in my vocal and speaking comprehension in terms of my interaction with people there. Even within the trip I could at least overhear common chitchat better, but any time I needed to converse with someone for some reason, I usually needed to have things repeated several times and broken down before I finally realized what was being said.
· You are going to be asked about separately buying a bag with every non-food purchase. Accept or immediately present one that you are carrying to indicate how your purchase shall be bagged.
· I never once had my passport requested for presentation.
· Only once did a person volutnarily reach out to address me, and it was just to ask me where I was from in English. Otherwise, everyone left me alone the entire time.
· Weather through the period was ideal. Mid to upper 70F/25C range and only a few days where it was rainy, and even then it wasn't a downpour. A while ago I personally resolved to only wear suits in public and I purchased a new pair of Mephisto shoes after hearing reports of the extensive walking causing problems for traveller's feet and shoes. My attire help up well; there were only a few times that I needed to avoid sunlight to not get too hot, and I have no issues to report from the shoes.
· I only got X'd out of a restaurant one time, and I think it's only because I wandered into it before it was ready for service. Otherwise, I never once waited in line for food, I never once went to restaurant more than once, and all food was acceptably priced for the portion and excellent for the quality.
For these per-day recounts, I wrote them contemporaneously at the end of each day, so you'll need to forgive me for some writing being in present tense and other writing being in past tense.
Day 1 - Travel, Sugamo, Ikebukuro
Non stop flight from Chicago OHare to Haneda. 12 hours. Good thing I usually don't watch movies, because that just means that all I needed to do was binge a few to make the trip go by.
Pre-trip research led me to choose APA Sugamo as my home base for the visit, and I think that it was a very fortuitious choice. I'll have more to say about it later.
Some awkward encounters happened right away upon checking in here. I was at the nearby Family Mart to buy some things and I didn’t catch that he was making sure I wanted a bag until he repeated it five times. Yes, I’ll take it. Before getting there I was coming down to ground level after checking into my room, and when that person saw that I would have been the only other person going down to the ground, they ducked right back out. I was warned on both of these kinds of things happening, so I guess it’s good to have that immediately out of the way. It would turn out that people deliberately avoiding me was rare throughout the trip.
Despite not sleeping on the trip, I had freshly arrived and had no sense of being tired, so once I had my stuff down, I went off to Ikebukuro right away. No picture or video truly conveys how crowded these areas can get. It can only be experienced in person to be understood.
I soon found Round One Ikebukruo and went right in. So dense and loud. It’s entirely alien to me to see no less than ten IIDX machines in operation and all of them in use. I dumped the money into random tickets, as I foresaw doing, but now I have to wonder if that was the right thing to do, or if it’s tied to that location. I guess I’ll find out.
The forecast is for rain so I need to be in a hurry to figure out where I’m going to go. There might be only one day left for me to get my time limited toys.
Day 2 - Kawasaki, Kanagawa - Utsunomiya, Tochigi - Oomiya, Saitama
My body decided that it only needed four hours of sleep this morning. Without doing more research, I somehow decided to assume that more of the Round One locations were close to 24 hours of operation much like Ikebukuro. Answer: no. I hopped on the train early and went to Shibuya first, but it was very quiet, so I decided to get some of the travels out of the way today and headed south to Kawasaki. I still needed to dawdle for a while until Silk Hat opened at 900AM, and when I finally was able to get inside, I was only able to verify that their store had several allotments of the campaign goods and all allotments were out. Played one round on a monitor that was surprisingly blurry, and I don’t know why that would be the case with a lightning model, but it was, so that was enough.
After doing all of that, I resolved to try to go to Chiba and Ibaraki afterwards. I figured that with Kanagawa and Tokyo likely all out, going to the outskirts would make more sense. However, there was an injury on one of the rails that threw everything off normal, and the train I found myself riding was bound for Utsunomiya instead. Seeing as how I was going to go there eventually, I rolled with it.
It doesn’t take too long to move away from Tokyo metropolitan area before you encounter more forest like areas and rice paddy fields. Halfway through the trip I noticed that two older women suddenly hopped off while the train was waiting to go to the next stop, and I followed them when I realized they found the express line. Utsunomiya has a substantial size to its area and buildings but it was very quiet on the streets there in midday. Walked a mile to Sega GIGO, found that they didn’t even have the goods tracker up. All out. Interesting buliding for it having several neon signs, all vintage and authentic at that. Getting to there from the south meant cutting through Saitama, so I knew I had enough time to make one last attempt there. Research shown two stores being near Oomiya station, so that’s where I ended up. Taito Station was immediately visible upon exit, and they have two IIDX machines specifically with 20 gram springs, which is closer to my home setup and that much lighter than standard 50 gram springs. The final hour drew near and I made one last visit to that city’s Round One. Unlike nearly every other place I went to so far, it only had one IIDX machine. However, and maybe because of that, their goods listing didn’t show everything as out. One painful language exchange later, I was able to discern that what I wanted was available. When you spend more than 3000 yen in a single credit, the game wants to verify if you really want to proceed. It does it again at 6000 and 9000. Yes, I really do. But, having made that money dump I was able to get my hands on the e-amuse card and poster with fifteen minutes left before the deadline. Mission complete. By this point in the day it was exceedingly difficult to even look at the screen so I was ready to come home, but not before getting some goods at the Oomiya Book Off and redeeming what I could for points at Round One Ikebukuro. By the end of the day the only thing that I could tolerate doing was to buy some chicken and nigiri from the nearby train station. Good enough. At that point in the day my body felt like it wants to rock back and forth after all the train riding done today. But, it ended up being worthwhile after all.
One nostalgic feeling I had the most strongly in the day was at the Utsunomiya location where the smell of it triggered past buried memories of yesteryear. I think I want to attribute it to the stronger second hand cigarette smell but I’m not sure - all the same I felt its presence strongly there. Also, I don’t see Oomiya (or really Saitama itself) mentioned as a fun place to go, but it might serve as an acceptable alternative to Ikebukuro, only not as massive in scale of human quantity. Depending on how the trip goes in total I may end up back there for IIDX playing, at least if I don’t find any other place that has 20G springs.
Day 3 - Akihabara
With the travels out of the way, it was time to keep things more regionalized and stick to one area, and there is shopping that needs to be done, so it was off to Akihabara and to see how much of other posted tales hold true. The answer is that it is a lot of it. Kotobukiya can stand to open sooner than noon. Super Potato is indeed priced for a market which wants to snap up anything cheap - I at least found Xi for under 500 and felt that it would have been a bit silly to buy only that, but it didn’t make spending 2000 on one single issue of Arcadia any better. I had no idea that Hey Arcade was right next to both of them; while it was assuredly nice to be there and see the row of Cave shooters among everything else, something got messed up with my registration of my new eamuse card with everything else, so that quickly added to my stress. Having to carry around a few hundred dollars worth of crap with every step didn’t help matters. At least I was able to help a person recover their lost phone by applying a bit of logic to the situation and deducing it to belong to the only person there who looked French, as it was on the Lock Screen. They were relieved, yes. Then, rain came, and it was more than I was anticipating, and I left the umbrella at the room, particularly since I knew I’d be shopping this day. It also turns out to have not mattered much, because I went to visit Bic Camera so that I could get myself a hair trimmer while here, and that turned into me finding a bunch of Kit Kats available, so that meant a second bag. The wind kicked out the rain and my umbrella. In trying to get as many gifts secured as possible, I found some gachapon, but it needed 100Y coins, and I didn’t need paper money in the trip yet. After fighting with maps, I found an ATM to get cash, and got the gachapon. I came home late with feeling rather crushed about the day in that I couldn’t take pictures very well with having to juggle weather and bagging considerations. There were some nice parts of the experience to be sure but between that and more gawking at Super Potato pricing ($135 for PS3 Caladrius? $6000 for Pulstar?) and seeing similar markups on other goods, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that there is a reputation that this area carries and the pricing is there to go with it.
Day 4 - Laundry Day. Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku
I was so drained at the end of Day 3 that I fell asleep on the bed immediately after ending the night call, which meant that I woke up at 0200AM to a room that was fully lit. This meant that I needed to look up how to resolve my eamuse problem or else I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. I did both. Awake at 0800AM meant that I had time to do laundry while I figured out what to do with the rest of the day. This meant that I was able to get more of Sugamo in pictures, and it was nice to be able to walk among the actual residences, and do other things like come across a school as it was actually in session. With them being close by and all in succession, I figured to get Shibuya, Harajuku, and Shinjuku visited. It turns out to have been a good day for it, as the temperature was perfectly cool and no rain came, and the sun came out only for a little bit. Shibuya somehow doesn’t seem quite as large in scope in person but the crowds were definitely there, and it is much more hilly than I anticipated as well. After wandering around and not seeing any arcade for a bit, I came across a series of coffee and cookie shops and remained strong to not indulge. It was there while looking at a Disney store (which gets tourists to take pictures of it for some reason) that the song Alone Again came on through the nearby public speakers. What timing. It drove me to finally get a treat for myself, and the frozen latte (black sesame and houji) and croissant (dark chocolate filing) were certainly good, it ended up costing more than the dinner I’d have later this day. I found a seclusion with a garbage can to eat the food and not carry the trash around, then an arcade soon after, and it was time to determine if I could fix the problem. Just like an easy click, it was. New to trash. Old to new. Done. Why did it have to be this way. Harajuku came next, and the environment there was distinct. This one in particular felt like it was an extended carnival atmosphere with the single tight knit market street and emphasis on fashion. A conversation with a freelance artist in the subway actually went well enough that I didn’t feel dumb. The same sensation carried to Shinjuku as well, only it was more spread out. Kabuki street was interesting to see in person, and I didn’t get any unseemly vibes from the place. Maybe it’s different later at night. A return home at a reasonable time allowed me to go down Sugamo’s market street a bit; most of it was closed, but it was interesting to come across the few remaining stores that were open by 0800PM, and more so the one that wasn’t. Coming back to the hotel I found a 24 hour ramen shop with nobody inside. The chef didn’t want to speak and only pointed to the ordering kiosk when I addressed her. The food came through a slot in the obscured window. At least her thank you as I left was a bit more warm, and the food was certainly delicious. To match with the matcha dessert that I bought from Sugamo station, I swung by a 7Eleven to get a drink, and found a milk tea for cheaper than a vending machine. The overhead music in the store was an instrumental version of Alone Again.
Day 5. Ibaraki - Mount Tsukuba, Miraidaira. Kashiwa, Chiba. Akihabara 2.
Awake at 0500AM on my own and knowing the current forecast meant that my envisioned plan for the day was quickly realized. Reaching the Tsukuba Express starting point from Akihabara needs you to get very far down into the ground before getting out into sunlight. I was on the ride early enough to see schoolchildren going about their commute, some of them being no older than ten and going about it unaccompanied. The people of Tsukuba seemed to be particularly helpful and cheerful that day, even despite my Suica issues at the gate. I didn’t ask his name at the counter but the man at the service desk was eager to speak with me about my career and what I was doing there. One asked where I was from on the way up to the summit and another caught my cable car ticket on the way down. There had to have been a few of them who saw my doing this climb in my business attire and thinking me to be a complete idiot if not outright mocking them for doing it that way while they employed the use of dual walking sticks and the like. I know I read some reports of the home stretch being difficult, but it did get pretty close to being an actual rock climb instead of a trail hike for that part of it. A quick stop to Miraidaira on the way back to get the Ibaraki play. The way the town center greets you upon leaving the rail gate struck me as incredible, as well as for how quiet it was. It was like walking onto a movie set. I did find the sweet shop after the play, and that was another painful interaction yet again. Oh well. Two quick stops down Tsukuba Express and one across from Tobu Urban Park line was enough to have a toe in Chiba, and I didn’t even need to leave the physical building of the train station to get to the basement level to find a machine for a play. Thank you, Kashiwa, you were great. Gunma is all that’s left. The descent from Tsukuba did take some earnest exertion, and after doing that the two stops, that put me back in Akihabara about when I anticipated; what I failed to anticipate is how much that place seems to drain on me. I think I just need to eat at an actual dinner time. Once I got back to Sugamo and had food it was a bit better, but while in Akihabara and being around that environment, and not finding things on a shopping list, I found myself just standing still and watching life pass me by. I hemmed and hawed a while for a maid girl’s hour of service for chitchat, but eventually I talked myself out of it because I just didn’t want potential trouble, just like her name. Komaru. I thought about doing this once just to say that I did, but I ultimately decided against it. You cannot go to this place with the expectation that you will find anything unless it is advertised and new. If you are looking for anything used, don’t count on it being there. You also cannot go there without having a strong resolve to not engage with the touts, because it becomes disheartening to see them do their job and blankly stare at the world when they're forced to stand out there and do nothing. Back to Sugamo to find a place that advertised Wagyu but the price they wanted was more than I wanted to spend. The ramen and seaweed & rice servings were fine, but they advertised endless drink and I didn’t receive that. All for $20? No, son. I did better than that elsewhere, I’ll know better now. Long day.
Day 6 - Tokyo Flea Market, Nakano Broadway, Ueno.
The weather couldn’t have been better for this weekend. I’ve read reports that the flea market held near the horse race track will be arbitrarily cancelled regardless of what is reported on the website, but my gut instinct told me that it would occur today, and it did. Turns out that a flea market is a flea market which is a flea market, no matter where it happens. Same allotment of clothes and stuff that few people really want to buy, although I was able to find myself some neckties at least. I probably overpaid based on what I saw later in the route, but that’s fine. They look nice. I settled on some shot glasses for a gift as well, but I’m surprised that I can’t ind something ornate that isn’t part of a sake set. Seated in the shade with a chocolate churro while rap music played in the background - it’s like I never left home. A woman came to sit across from me for the sake of sitting down; she was from Holland and today’s her last day in the country. Her husband came with food eventually. She had three weeks here and went to several places (allegedly, she didn’t list them out) and I asked her about Nakano Broadway. She didn’t make it there. It’s a good thing that I did - this is probably the kind of environment and market that people expect of Akihabara now, and maybe that’s how Aki was years ago, but it’s different from this. What’s more interesting is that Mandarake has a larger presence here than in Akihabara (so it seems to me), and their stores had floor after floor of any and every kind of pop culture product that’s been made in the past sixty years at least. Buttress that with extensive watch and jewelry stores and a slender arcade in the basement, and it’s a very well centralized microcosm of the country’s economy on the whole. I actually made a point to have dinner earlier than usual this time and found a place to serve some deep fried pork cuts served with rice and soup on the side. It was enough, and very well made. The day had not ended and my bag was heavy with several books purchased there, so I reported back to base briefly and decided to try visiting somewhere else, and settled on Ueno. Just as I arrived, a festival was underway where local teams of people made an elaborate show of carrying a home made shrine to a temple. Streets were officially blocked by police to allow the procession. In following the line I came up against makeshift food and amusement stands with the traditional toy gun shooting and goldfish catching. It appears that this is an official “start of summer” festival and I was able to watch it all happen in front of me. That was the good part of the day.
Day 7 - Tachikawa / Kunitachi. Shinjuku 2.
One of the games that I've never played is Beatmania III The Final. I've played some BM3 7th Mix years ago, but not The Final. I found a location that has one - World Game Circus in Tachikawa. In looking around that area before the trip, I saw that there was a nearby shinkansen museum, and not much else, so I figured that going to both places would make that walk worthwhile. Turns out that it wasn’t a museum in the proper sense of a dedicated building. Rather, it was a bullet train engine car on the side of a building that was unrelated, and that was it. A cute interaction happened here - when I approached the car, I heard some children running around inside, so I approached cautiously without knowing if I was encroaching upon someone else's alloted time or something. Once the children saw me, they gave a hearty irrashaimase as I entered, and the boy stamped a paper and presented it to me. Perfect. Despite it not being a typical musem, the card did have some interesting content, and it's good to see some kind of commemoration for their achievements and progression in that industry regardless. They have a lot to be proud about there. Off to WGC. Maps wasn’t lying about the walk taking twenty minutes. It's a good thing that I looked it up on streetview beforehand, because I otherwise would have walked right past it without knowing it was there. Then there it was, and there I confronted a past that I couldn’t visit again. Sure, I got to play BM3 The Final at last, but my timing was off, my hands were off, there wasn’t much I could do. Along with that I can say that I’ve played on a Beatmania II cabinet, and that was better than 5th Style at least. But that was it, that was all I could stand to do. It was right there and I couldn’t bear to put up with it more than a few rounds at best. Dream big, because only disappointment follows if your smaller dreams ever are fulfilled. I don’t know why finding IKEA back in Shinjuku was so difficult, but it took a while. I bought a bag, and then I bought a bag because the other bag was at the end of the register, which makes sense. I did feed myself before getting back to the Taito station to play some songs, but it still wasn’t good enough. All thumbs. Ended the day with laundry since the timing worked. Speaking of making dreams big, it’s time to cross another one off the list tomorrow. I can’t wait.
Day 8 - Takasaki, Gunma. Oomiya, Saitama 2.
It’s a good thing that I only needed to get to Ikebukuro to transfer over to the next stop, because that’s where that particular run ended for some reason. I wonder what was up. Speaking of things getting messed up on trains, I managed to find my way on a train that needed a separate ticket, which I didn't have. The conductor found me right away and had me disembark at Uraja for me to wait for the proper transfer. The weather forecast said there’d be rain, and the travel forecast said it would take two hours to get there, and neither lied. I feel like I had more people staring at me in Gunma than other places. I will say that I found the Takasaki station area to be rather charming, with the stores that it had inside and the emphasis on the music culture there. It’s one thing to offer a piano to the public to play, but it’s another to have a public willing to use it. This location had both. Having what was essentially a Bic Camera built into the facility was a nice touch too. The Leisure Land arcade was sandwiched between other floors that had its own offering of gaming stuff, so that was an unexpected bit of a fun thing to look through. The area was clean and sparsely populated, and it wasn’t picked clean of all matter of things that would normally get snapped up, so that was interesting. Finally, I made it over to the machine. They had separate fans for each location. I got the songs and then the medals came, and that’s that. Kantou Seiou. I would have stayed a bit longer but I wanted to have the medals show up right away, and my internet wasn’t cooperating, so that’s all I could do. I think there was an Internet cafe that I could have used in the facility, but I didn’t want to deal with an awkward conversation. I did get some Lawson on the way out, as well as some trinkets from the local Gunma-chan store as well as some mini croissants and some macademia cookie things. More vocal awkwardness. Omiya was one of the stops on the way back, and I found a place to serve omrice, so that’s another one off the list. No shoes allowed inside. The value wasn’t there but the service was good enough, as was the flavor. The machines with the 20G springs are indeed legit. Back home in time for some McDonalds, and that’s another food-checklist item marked off. Takoyaki mayo dipping sauce - somehow it’s both salty and sweet. While returning to the hotel, I did happen to encounter an argument amongst two teenaged locals where the guy ended up half-heartedly kicking the girl and getting her to cry. I wonder what their argument was about. I didn’t play hero, but someone else did so enough to prevent an escalation and called the police over.
Day 9 - Sugamo, Tokyo Sky Tree, Akihabara 3, Kanda
Up early enough to decide that I should at least visit the Sky Tree while I'm there just to say that I did, and that I should visit the Sugamo street market upon its open since it was right there in front of me. I'm glad to have done so. With everything open, this felt more like what one would think to expect from a flea market environment that's operated and supported by the local populace. Small stores were open both sides of the street that go on for many blocks, and some tents and tables were set up to sell second hand goods as well. I was able to find someone selling a US Morgan dollar and he wanted only 2000Y for it, so that was an easy buy. If I would have known better to anticipate this area, I wouldn't have felt compelled to buy kitchy tourist crap that is expected as gifts elsewhere. If you are looking for a place to idly shop around that doesn't get extremely crowded and has an authentic local feel to it, consider making a point to come here. Off to Sky Tree. Getting the combo ticket for the second deck was worth it just for the lack of crowds on the upper area. If you're going to come here, consider getting a phone selfie stick or something of the kind so that you can take pictures against the windows without the structure scaffolding obstructing your view. On the subject of shopping again, this might be another area to consider visiting just for the sake of the specialty stores to be found here, such as those for chopsticks or hairpins. To close out the day, my wife reminded me to look for something from the Square Enix cafe, so that meant swinging by Akihabara yet again. Since it is within a walkway, it was a bit of a pain to find this place even with using maps, but I eventually found it and got what she wanted to find. Played some IIDX at Game Panic, which was surprisingly small and the one machine that was avaialble to play had some 2P turntable issues, so that didn't last all that long. Dinner was at a nearby place that specalized in tofu, so that was a good ramen serving with that infused. For the evening, I wandered south to Kanda to get night pictures, and found it to feel pretty similar to Ueno.
Day 10 - Ginza, Tokyo, Kanda & Akihabara 4
Launrdry in the morning. I also wanted to say that I went to Ginza in my time here, and I didn't research anywhere to go to keep it a surprise. It was a bit warmer and sunnier than usual that day, and I stuck to the main road for most of the walk, so I can't say that I found too many points of the interest along the path that I walked starting from Yurakucho station and heading out that way. High class store for high class people, and that's too rich for my peasant blood. Similarly for Tokyo proper itself, I suppose I'd have to needed to wander far away from the Yamanote vicinity to find points of interest there, as I didn't encounter anything that was remarkably distinctive here in comparison to other areas that I have previously seen. Continuing north across Nihonbashi brought me to Kanda and eventually to Akihabara yet again, as if it was a magnet that pulled me inside every time. For the sake of trying a different place I chose to play some IIDX at the Leisure Land arcade there, and I'm glad to have done that, as those machines were probably in the best coniditon that I encountered within that area. Dinner was at Tenkaippin, which I didn't realize until after I placed the order was cash only. The clerk didn't request it beforehand but I voluntarily left my passport there to show that I would return, and promptly went to the same ATM that I had found days prior in order to get the cash to pay for the bill.
Day 11 - Haneda T3, Nishi Nippori, Nippori, Uguisuidani, Otsuka, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukruo, home.
The end. I resolved to take the subway over to Haneda today to get the one luggage over there and stored, and it’s a good thing that I did - there’s no easy solution for getting over there without encountering a crowd. If anything I wonder if Yamanote is actually better. Regardless, I got that much done. With the day left to go, I ventured to Nishi Nippori and I needed to summon the map several times to make sure I found the location, as it was as obscure as it could get. Just a sign on the ground for the third floor, a stairway that led to the back, an elevator that had no decoration, a single room that housed everything. Arcade PCB kits on shelves, joystick panels in exposed boxes, nicotine odor from years past - it was like I was transported to 1995 upon entry, beyond the fact that the games weren’t as old. Most of them, they did have a lot going for SF3 3rd yet. I was able to take care of some game business in a hurry since I was the only one there. It was a very pleasant respite for play in comparison to most of the other sessions. The region itself felt much the same as this arcade - old and well worn, as in well lived. Venturing south to Nippori led me to stumble upon a shrine and cemetery just by following some stairs. Usuigudani was cleaner but mostly had hotels as points of interest. Back home to buy some mochi while mochi was for sale in midday. Then to Otsuka, thinking that I would wander to Ikebukuro, but I ended up wandering back to Sugamo instead. Whoops. Meal at Sugamo, then back out to return to Shibuya and Shinjuku at night to catch evening shots, when I hadn’t done so before at these places. Good thing I did that to get Golden Gai area shots at night. With the night winding down, I decided to have one last IIDX play at Round 1 in Ikebukuro to symbolically end where I started.
Ending arcade comments
· Although the upkeep is generally better and more consistent than the US, some machines will have hardware issues here too. I was surprised by the blurriness with some of the LM IIDX machines.
· Densha De Go on the propert large cabinet is nice but quickly becomes very expensive.
· Bombergirl is OK enough and having the dedicated detonator button that pops up for hitting the base is a cute touch.
· Chase Chase Jokers feels rather clunky and I'm not sure what the game is trying to do. Interesting side screen concept at least.
· Nostalgia is delightful and would probably find a small fanbase worldwide if it had more exposure.
· Favorite IIDX locations are Taito Station in Oomiya for the light keys and Leisure Land Akihabara for the high quality of the LMs there. Honorable mention goes to the Game Versus loctation in Nishi Nihonbashi, but that might not be worth it for a dedicated trip unless you go there first thing in the morning.
Ending overall comments
This was a life altering trip for me, as would be expected. While I'm glad to have made the journey, as to be expected, I will only want to return after making an extensive redoubled effort into speaking and hearing comprehension, because I know that I came across like a blubbering idiot so many times, and it's truly aggravating because I generally know what I want to say and most of the words that are used to say it, but it just doesn't come out of my mouth properly when it needs to be done.
I welcome any questions you may have, as that will help for me to recall the memories and have me write them down.

I hope the mods keep this up, since that post was for some reason locked, i am posting my reply over here. I am a hindu, and i am a strict hindu, and rarely have i ever seen so much nonsense being spewed. in any case, here is my comment i wrote in reply to that person :
Are you a troll or something?
1)beastiality: visit hinduism and see the resources there, the ashvmedha yagna does NOT have beastiality in it. Proper scriptural citations have been provided and the propaganda translarions have been explained and exposed. This is THE most obvious propaganda by missionaries, and i seriously am doubting your research skills if you truly believed this.
2) rakshasa marriage is not recommended for kshatriyas at all(in fact it is in the damn name if you havent noticed) Different types of marriages are recognized simply because these things happened. For example, pishacha vivaah is the vivaah where an Intercourse happens when the woman is drunk. This is not encouraged, it is condemned, but it is recognized as a marriage to provide legal rights within the ancient framework of laws. Ralshasa vivaah is "legal" as in recognized, because it did happen especially among kshatriyas, however it is not recommended at all, again it is recognized for the sake of ensuring legal rights. The vivaah recommended for all is brahma vivaah.For your Varna related points, I am also going to ignore the fact that most important scriptures of Hindus lend themselves more naturally to a merit based interpretation of Varna, as opposed to birth based, this is FYI, also the opinion of most modern hindu saints , like swami vivekananda, yogananda , swami lakshmanjoo and etc etc. We also have plenty of examples, in both scriptures and in history of people jumping and switching between varnas.I am also going to ignore the fact that the smritis have been most likely altered during the medieval Era for the convenience of that time( for example manusmriti is very self contradictory), and are NOT accepted as the core religious texts by hindus. By their very nature the laws therein will be subject to change, to reflect society at that time, and they remain valid as far as they agree with shrutis.
3) charity is emphasized for brahmins, because the ancient laws mandated brahmins to live on charity, off of religious ceremonies. Charity to non brahmins is NOT discouraged, but charity to brahmins was encouraged because charity was the prescribed means for brahmins to live. All varnas were to live off their crafts, and the only way to live off religious ceremonies is to live off charity. This was a social institutions. For more clarifications regarding caste systems, I encourage everyone to visit hinduism and especially check the posts of u/pro-charlatan who clarifies the Varna ashrama system with very proper and irrefutable scriptural citations.
4)sati did happen, but it is not encouraged in scriptures, and plenty of recent evidence shows that it's occurrence was greatly exaggerated by Christian missionaries for the sake of propaganda for conversion. You don't have to listen to any hindutva defenders for this, check out the works of Gayatri Chakravarty spivak, who is a feminist critic and historian.
5)ignoring the fact that you glanced over the very crucial "no slaves exist" and assumed everyone is Muslim, and that there is massive conflict between Muslim denominations and how legal rights for women are far different than mens in islam, I will address your criticism of hinduism, which in the first case is not entirely true ,it is true that in certain historical places and instances, brahmins got off lighter than shudras, but, according to scriptures , punishments for brahmins are greater than other castes for the same crimes in many instances. Brahmins were exempt from death penalty, that is true but they could be fined 8 to 12 times as much as a shudra for damages, for instance. At many times in history, there were also little difference in the punishment doled out in case of theft, cheating or murder.Hindu law is not set in stone, it is based off of smritis, which are valid only as far as they agree with Shrutis, In the first place most hindus are not arguing for a return to the old laws, the fact that laws will change with time is well recognized by hindus. In fact these arrangements deal with the social order of the time, and not with the hindu religion per se.
6) I am going to ignore the fact that you have not provided any source for your claims. But it is a well known fact that most societies in the past preferred arranged marriage over love marriage and the average age was lower in ancient time, Abhimanyu was 16 at the time of his marriage, and his wife uttara was 15 most likely, very young by today's standards, but not at all unusual by ancient standards. Again if you are going to show me smritis, then please do refer to my paras after point 2, smritis HAVE been changed, to reflect the society at that time. This is well accepted by most, even western, scholars. During the time child marriage was prevalent, they were changed to reflect that. Now we know that child marriage is very unhealthy for The children, and should not happen , and we see opposition to it arrised among the hindus themselves. Swami vivekananda, and swami Dayanand Saraswati and many others, were staunchly hindus, but they were the first and fiercest voices against child marriage.
7) No it is not, and I Have explained why several times at this point. You cite the chandogya upanishad then I advise you to check your translation. Upanishads do not deal with varnas in the classical way at all, In fact if they do(and that is infact very rare) They state that it is merit based. Vajrasuchi upanishad is infact pretty clear that a brahmin is the one who has realized his atman.
8) .......just because alcohol was legal, does not mean alcoholism was encouraged. In the first place you are doing too much mental gymnastics, since all your above points basically come from smritis(and you ignore the vedas and upanishads, in favour of smritis, which is the reverse the way it should be) which are VERY strict against alcohol, so this I am assuming you get from the vedas and soma? In the first place most hindus won't agree that soma is alcohol, if is supposed to be a mystic plant of heavens, nothing akin to alcohol of earth. Not to mention the symbolic and poetic meaning of soma (I don't think that a person like yourselves could understand it, but you can try reading the "secret of the veda" by sri aurobindo for more information). As for drugs, they are associated with lord shiva, who embraces all outcastes and taboo things. the very reason they are associated with lord shiva is that they are taboo to the larger hindu society.
9)No...they quite clearly don't, you seem to be lying through your teeth. Hindu culture used to be far more open sexually than it is today, if a person wanted to have sex, it was quite common to just ask for it openly, by both men AND women (see how many women propositioned arjuna during his exile) . In fact I fail to recall any example of this happening anywhere at all.
I am having a hard time deciding whether you are a troll or not , you people are those who know absolutely nothing of the religion and are the first ones to criticize it.In fact for some reason, it seems you have learned hinduism from islamists and missionaries and communists. And I am very skeptical of your claims that you were a hindutva supporter.If you had followed politics even remotely you would know that most hindus, when they talk about hindu Rashtra are not talking about being ruled by smritis and what not, what most people mean is that the government will be more "openly " hindu (as In call itself hindu rather than secular) and discriminatory laws like govt control of temples, and wafq acts will be removed, and no minorities will get any special preferences simply for the sake of being minorities.You have a frankly pathetic understanding of hinduism and RW views of this country and I am amazed that you have the confidence to spew this much nonsense this confidently.
For context, I am not a BJP supporter, I do think they are the least shit of the options, but I have no special love for them at all, especially with Their activities in kamakhya and all. But I am a hindu, and being hindu is very important for me. Too many times I see these baseless claims being repeated on this sub, and in this reply are a few rebuttals, in no way am I very knowledgeable, and if you visit hinduism many users, like u/pro-charlatan and others will be able to give you far more sophisticated replies and rebuttals.

(Premise: Kassandra stays loyal, she was helped with her condition regarding visions by her sister Sanguinia with whom she grew close.)

Feathers

“-andra! Kassandra, damn you, help me!” called Regalia. It was so unlike her.
Night Hauntress’ sister knelt next to their Father’s mutilated body. Ignoring all pleas, Kassandra went past the bleeding Emperor and came up to another body lying on the floor of Vengeful Spirit.
Constillation of rubies, Great Angel’s blood covered her blindingly white wings, horrifically decorated her beautiful face. Painting of gold, white and red, Kassandra Curze saw the world in wide strokes of brush, unable to perceive what she saw before her eyes. Unwilling to perceive. Night Hauntress stood there, staring at Sanguinia’s body, her eyes just gazing in nothingness. She never noticed as her Praetorian sister left, holding the Emperor of Mankind under arms.
Lagging units finally caught up to them, entering the sanctum. Warriors from Regalia’s Fists, their Father’s personal guard, Kassandra’s own Atramaentar.
Why did you come? she wanted to ask, The battle is over.
No one dared to come closer to the Night Hauntress as she froze over the Angel. Only Jago made a few steps, approaching the moveless figure of his Mother. Blood Angels were nowhere to be seen, while sounds of rampaging battle were coming closer to the sanctum.
Sudden scream of agony woke Kassandra from this trance. She turned to see the source of the sound. One man, whose height was so unnaturally smaller than that of super-humans he was surrounded by. Young man’s body twitched and squirmed in pain, as he grasped his head, covering eyes, as if trying not to see, pulling hair, as if trying not to think.
Ah, that mortal Sanguinia fancied, the thought was so mundane, it almost seemed as she simply met him in one of Red Tear’s golden corridors, she called him Dove, as I recall. Why is he weeping?
Figure of similar stature came up to Dove. Morgenstern placed a hand on the grieving man’s shoulder. Impression persisting on the assassin's face was impenetrable, but those standing close to him could notice as knuckles on his hand whitened.
Curze once again turned, returning gaze to her beloved sister. The only sister Kassandra could call beloved, even if she was shrugging, doing so. The only sister she wanted to call sister at all. Night Hauntress lowered herself, coming closer to Angel’s face.
You must be tired, she thought, your battle lasted for too long.
In one swift and tender motion Kassandra closed her sister’s eyes.
Night Hauntress stood up. Only now she noticed another figure lying on the deck. Her other sister sprawled dead in the puddle of liquefied flesh and blood, only her bare skull showing from terminator armor. As she slowly came up to Warmistress’ corpse, Kassandra's blank face finally changed, a mask of utter disdain and rage distorting Night Hauntress’ face. Long seconds passed until she moved again.
Loud crunch filled the sanctum, as Kassandra Curze lowered her boot.

***

“No.”
“Listen, you–”
“Ceremony protocol has already been decided. You’ll be near her as everyone else.”
Why, once in your damned life, why can’t you stop being an accursed wall of rockcreat bricks?! Kassandra Curze wanted to scream on top of her lungs, as she faced Praetorian of Terra. Night Hauntress wanted to strike her sister down right here and there, she wanted to keep punching this dull stone face, until it would turn into a bloody mush.
She could never understand, thought Kassandra bitterly, I doubt she ever tried.
Image of the past, image of Sanguinia, laughing at something that had seemed funny to her in Night Hauntress words, flashed Kassandra’s mind. She lowered her gaze, trying to hold her composure. Not for herself, but for someone who would be greatly disappointed in her, if she didn’t.
“If that’s all you wanted to talk about, then I shall leave”, Regalia turned, starting to walk away, “I have still many things to ate–”
“Wait!” Kassandra growled.
She dashed, catching her sister’s shoulder. Suddenly, an agonizing flash burned her mind. It was the second time her mind was attacked by a vision of a torn off hand, drifting in space among the debris. As Night Hauntress twitched in pain, she grabbed her head pushing nails deep into skin, trying to dull the vision.
Regalia turned back, embers of blazing anger started to appear in her eyes.
“Ngh–” Kassandra slightly groaned, trying to compose herself.
She managed to stand straight and, heavily breathing, looked in Regalia’s eyes.
“Re– Sister, please, it has to be me”, for the first time Unyielding One saw Night Hauntress to plead, and to plead so sincerely.
For some long moments they looked each other in the eyes, but now Regalia’s contained no fire. She saw something new in those purple eyes. Where previously lived only bitter irony and despair, now flickered determination.
Praetorian’s face softened up, enough only for the primarch to notice. Silent nod answered Kassandra’s plea.

***

Holding Angel in her arms, Kassandra Curze stepped into the biggest ceremonial hall on Terra. The biggest that wasn’t ruined by the Siege.
The hall seemed endless, countless caryatids supporting the enormous dome of the building, that became a new sky for all those present here. Images of marble and gold covered walls of the hall, images of the Emperor's most glorious victories, most fruitful of his conquests. Seeing them anywhere her eyes could reach, Kassandra felt sick.
What a jest.
She directed her gaze forward. As endless was this hall, as countless were people present here today. All those who fought and survived the Siege, all those who did not make it on time, standards for all those who fell. From simple guardsman to finest warrior of Adeptus Astartes, all these men and women were here today for the guard of honour. The last guard of honour for her who rested in Kassandra’s arms. Honour that could never be enough.
Complete silence. Complete silence surrounded Night Hauntress as she walked forward, only sounds echoing through the space being her own steps and steps of the two Astartes, Night Lord and Blood Angel, carrying Imperial and Blood Angel’s standards. Kassandra felt as if time slowed down the more steps she took.
As she went closer to the stairs of rockcreat podium, Imperial Guard at her sides changed with space-marine legions. Their halved number still seemed as something surreal to her. Night Hauntress knew her Father’s actions will lead to unspeakable tragedy, but to see it herself was something different.
The last of the Astartes were Blood Angels. Five hundred of the entire legion. All that left after the cursed insanity that consumed them. As Kassandra went past and came up to the stairs, with thunderous sound, five hundred warriors knelt in the final personal sign of honour to their Mother. Two Astartes behind Night Hauntress followed them, staying kneeling at the bottom of podium stairs.
Kassandra made a step up. And then another. As she made more steps up that damned stairs, she felt weaker and weaker, as if life itself was sucked out of her body. She did not understand this. All since the battle on Vengeful Spirit, Night Hauntress felt empty, and now an unfamiliar feeling was filling her, as she looked down at her sister's face.
Her sister was dead.
Kassandra felt a lump forming in her throat. She felt as if any other step she took could be the last before she collapses. But she could not allow herself this.
Fighting herself, Night Hauntress reached the top of the podium. She walked up to the stone bed, covered with finest silks, a red pillow laying on them looked as the softest and the most comfortable thing in the world. Kassandra never noticed other primarchs standing near.
Strength was leaving her, her whole existence trembled as she lowered Angel onto the crimson bed.Kneeling of the countless thousands of people shook the ceremonial hall. Kassandra held out a trembling hand to touch Angel’s face, to get one final moment with her sister.
And then she felt something. Something so familiar. Something so similar to Sanguinia playfully brushing Kassandra’s cheek with her wing, once again annoyed with her sister’s fatalistic nonsense.
Kassandra’s muscles finally gave in to her grief. She collapsed to her knees holding on to red silks.
And then the Dark Queen cried.

Long overdue. Half the delusional people in America would either have to wake up or shut up. Everybody feels their freedoms slowly slipping away in the states. I say this as I am traveling through the middle eastern countries.
All the awful politics, picking between two terrible candidates in their 80s. It’s a sick joke and Americans still think they don’t have a choice to go outside of red or blue. Stop signing up for people who tell you what you want to hear for a living just so they can let you down every election. Especially black folks. Jesus Christ….
Feminism….. So we are just going to act like the state of our women in America is sustainable? Screw it…let’s be Frank. Our women are too smart to have children and take instruction from their men, but still too dumb to recognize they are working twice as hard now for less pay as they say, as well as not knowing the dark side of what will happen when the men who put this civilization together decide “F it. Not worth the squeeze”
Is it a curse or gift to be a fool? I don’t blame females for going completely insane when left to their own devices. That’s what females will do if there is lack of guidance and instruction. Men learn about what LINES to cross early. Men all have a mutual respect for each other because they know better. We learn quick what is acceptable. Any form of disrespect or habitual line crossing will be met with severe consequences. Natural order. What we failed to factor into the equation was WOMEN and CHILDREN. Honestly, it was stupid to give rights to either from a logical standpoint. What wise men deemed it smart to grant full autonomy to two creatures who are not built for battle? Once again natural order.
….. of course all the propaganda and programming will now try to shame anyone with this clear view. It’s easier to take advantage of a whole village of single mother homes. How do you feel safe as a woman with children in a home by yourself? This is how you can tell Americans have never left the United States and visited other countries. Should honestly be mandatory study abroad at 18 or get recruited for the services.
Each year it becomes harder to afford living cost in America. Making 6 figures to survive as a single person is ridiculous. If I were the government, I would be laughing at this point on how people have that much faith and dependency on a system that has been royally ****** them raw since the 70s. Nope. These sheep get up everyday to sell their soul to a machine that doesn’t even know their name. Why do you think the highest rated film is The Godfather or Shawshank redemption? Easy…. Because they know the human psyche craves that kind of freedom, but would never take ANY risk for a better outcome.
These other countries have no guns, so when they revolt, they usually get what they were demanding. I get that a revolt in America would cause massive deaths because of the amount of firepower we have, but have you noticed how not one small militia of people have even attempted in modern day America? That’s some pretty impressive programming. I am not inciting violence. I’m just very surprised it has not happened once. 50 civilian men with rifles rolling through any major city raiding? Who would stop that? The police? National guard? Military? Prisoners in our own home….
Mental illness is mental illness… Don’t call homosexuality or body dysmorphia a psychological issue and then have children getting sex changes allowing them to gay parades as well as telling every girl with a big nose and small assets to start chopping/adding. Just like weed, when it became lucrative for the system, it wasn’t seen as negative anymore. I hear folks saying now “Well, that’s just how it is. It’s all business” … Oh yea? Was it business when all the major pharmaceutical companies orchestrated a complete shutdown of the world to administer a new vaccine they made record profits on because it was subsidized by the government? The people fought over mask and toilet paper. The virus only defeated .001 of the world population. I couldn’t even walk the stage my final semester of university 2020! I’m not too upset. These kids can’t even read getting promoted to the 6 grade. Missed proms.
Just say you lack the intestinal fortitude to fight back against this obvious oppressive system that your dumb enough to think is free or admit you don’t know who’s head exactly we should be coming for first. THE POLITICIANS….HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE
Make the rule that 90% of what they promised must be delivered or they literally get guillotined on live tv. GUARANTEE you won’t have too many career politicians anymore. The fact that they treat politics like a game show or sports team in the states is very telling about its people. It’s shameful to say the least. They know their average citizen is weak, stupid, and broken to pull what they do.
I’m not finished. Boomers have to go as well. That greedy generation is clogging up the center. F your grandpa. They were hoping Covid would gobble up your granny.
I’m not finished. They better bring those gas prices down before folks get to “politely” asking the gas attendant to press the button and I don’t mean for aiwater.
I’m not finished. Paying illegal immigrants less because you refuse to pay US citizens more is not an excuse to say Americans refuse to do this line of work. What do you think crackheads and college students were doing in the 80s? If they pay actual livable wages, the US citizens wouldn’t be in a state of desperation. They would have to be treated like actual humans and not wage slaves.
I’m not finished. No amount of time will pass on that American Slavery thing. The amount of trauma on black communities that came with that dark time will be repaid. If it is not repaid, then it will be known that the system was designed for them to fail(poor education, housing, medical, mental health) or transferring that level of wealth over would make America lose its advantage it created off free labor.
I’ll think of more to rant about later but I’m enjoying another country right now, so I have to go before the sun goes down

[FIRST][LAST]
Atlantis Commission
Officer Report - Lieutenant Colonel John Shepard
CLEARANCE LEVEL 5
Well this had definitely been a very interesting couple of hours. This dimension and its people had very odd opinions and ideas. Apparently the prey species of this dimension were all obligate cowards, whose instincts compelled them to be non-violent and run from threats. At least according to themselves. There were apparently some of them who were “predator diseased” as they called it, a disease which often resulted in increased violence, aggression, lack of empathy, and unheard like behavior. It sounded to me like some form of infectious psychopathy, but the venlil assured us it shouldn't affect us since we were predators, which didn’t really ease my fears, but hopefully it was something we could figure out when we got home if it ever became a problem.
Gotta love mandatory quarantine periods woo hoo!
As scary as this odd disease sounded, my main concern at the moment was to try and turn a professed coward into someone who could at the very least defend themselves.
I looked down to the table of gear ahead of me and then over to the mostly naked Venlil to my side, and then even farther to Tiel’c who thought It would be a good idea to help oversee Farva’s rapid fire training course. I fiddled with the bluetooth earpiece which was rigged up to one of our handhelds to run a translation program to speak directly with the captain. A big step up from our unknowingly one sided communications earlier.
I stepped on the other side of the plastic table and placed my hands down upon it and looked on at my new student..
“Welcome Captain Farva to our very impromptu accelerated course on Human arms armor and basic infantry tactics.” I said gesturing to the hodge podge gear we had managed to assemble for the good captain. “Are we ready to begin?”.
She flicked her ears, somewhat nervously by the looks.
“I’d take it that's a yes then?”
“Oh yes sorry”
“Alright then, well given that most of our crew is human and the only other alien struts around naked all the time, the only gear we have on hand is for humans, So you're going to be running size smalls and it's all going to fit all a bit big” I say as I toss her the tactical vest. ”Here try this on, we can try to tighten it up if it's a bit loose anywhere”. The captain wrestles with the buckles a bit, and Teal'c helps her tighten up some of the top straps, as the Venil’s shoulders weren't as broad as humans. Farva gave Teal’c an odd look, but seemed appreciative none the less.Once finished, she grasped the vest in her paws with interest. “This armor seems quite lightweight, which is nice, weight is often an issue that causes us to forgo armor, since heavy armor would hurt our running ability.” Farva remarks. “Also the sheer amount of pockets seems quite excessive, what do you need all these for?”
“Well for starters it's currently missing these '' I hand Farva one of the armor plates which she looks over. “That is a depleted Naquadria ceramic composite plate. It’s designed to stop bullet impacts and dissipate energy weapon blasts. It slots into that chest compartment in the front and back of your armor.”
“This isn't quite what Id imagine for the armor of your kind”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well judging by your ships I would have imagined you would put more emphasis on defense Your predatory nature would make you less likely to run away from conflict allowing for more encompassing armor to cover more than just your chest, since you have less need to run.”
She would put it like that.
“Well there are a number of reasons for that, a lot to do with those excess pockets you mentioned. For starters you will not be carrying the same amount of gear that the standard infantry unit would normally be carrying, we are preparing you for a quick in and out op. Normally us expedition teams need to be deployed into unknown territory for extended periods of time, we need to carry everything we might need with us from food, bullets, weapons, to comms gear, sensors, repelling equipment etc. The weight from all that gear adds up fast; In order to stay sufficiently mobile and combat effective; we only carry enough armor to protect our vitals, head and torso, anything else can hopefully be patched up by a field medic.”
Tielc gave his piece as well. “It is important to know when to run both towards and aways from one's foes, not every battle can be won through strength alone, but by strategy and cunning. Being able to reposition oneself quickly is therefore highly advantageous”
Farva seemed to freeze at Teal'c's statement, not out of fear I think, she instead had a distant look in her eye. To snap her out of her slump I handed her a standard ballistic helmet.
Seeming to get the idea she looked at it oddly and tried it on. It confirmed to her head shape decently well but depressed her ears to either side of her head, kind of resembling what one might imagine a sad bunny rabbit to look like “I don't think this will be something I can bring with me” she said ” I can't use ear signals and this will muffle my hearing.”
“Why don’t you keep it on for the time being, I think any extra hearing protection might be useful considering what we are about to try next.” I hand Farva some ballistic ear protectors, slightly modified and somewhat ramshackle. “One of the corporals worked closely with Nurse Fila to get an idea for safe decibels levels for your kind, we were also able to get these earbuds molded to fit into your ear canal better”
Farva took them and slipped them in. “These are a bit uncomfortable, what do I need these for?”
“You'll need them for this” I say as I unsnap the clasps on the weapons case revealing its contents.
The content seems to capture Farva’s interest, getting a slight tail wave.
“Okay So this here is a p90, It carries a 50 round top loading magazine of teflon coated armor piercing ordnance. With a cyclical rate of fire of 900 rounds per minute.”
Farvas ears perk up at this. “This seems like an efficient design, I take it these are a flashlight and laser sight for accuracy?” She asked, pointing to the top of the weapon.
“Yes we also have holographic and acog optics which will help line up targets from farther away.” I look on as Farva picks up the weapon and inspects it, testing the weight as I note that it will weigh a fair bit more once loaded. But she doesn't seem to be struggling with the weight. I can't help but notice good firearm safety as well, she keeps her finger well off the trigger and takes care to keep her weapon pointed aways from anyone else.
“This seems like a solid design but I'm not sure how useful those weapon optics would be, as they are not designed for my side facing eyes”
“I'm sure our master at arms can figure something out, why don't we give it a test fire first tho, before we send it off to make adjustments.” I instruct her on how to load the weapon and turn the safety off. I warn her of the sound it makes. And while definitely taken aback by the recoil and sound at first, she quickly gets the hang of it, she has some respectable shot groupings in both single fire and in short bursts. And keeps the rounds reasonably centered while firing in full auto.
She did a whole lot better than I would have initially suspected given her performance in the hanger bay a day before.
“The rate of fire seems useful” Farva spoke “This would be useful for our soldiers, our accuracy falters when we are panicked, and the increased shot count should guarantee some hits based on volume of fire alone” she finished with a dejected expression.
She quickly places the weapon back in its case, as if it burned to touch.” I don't know if I should be armed for this mission, at least not with that weapon, I don't want to miss and hit one of you in the back!”
“What? Nonsense, you are a great shot, and this is just a precaution in case we get separated or flanked and need some covering fire. If our guys are doing their job right you shouldn't need to fire a single round anyways.”
Captain Farva’s breathing started to hasten, earlier I might have thought it was fear, but I was starting to get an idea of what the captain's issues were. I’ve seen this before.
“I.. I can’t be trusted with this responsibility, every time I am left in charge of something, every time people put their lives in my paws I ....”
“Farva, don’t you start with me now you hear.” I said sternly, swiftly capping off her inevitable spiral of self doubt.
“But.. no.. you don’t understand”
Stopping her again I spoke. “But nothing, what happened before on that ship, and back at that colony is in the past. I don’t know your whole situation, but from what I have gathered from the crew It was nothing good. You feel responsible and it's eating away at you, and frankly it doesn’t matter if that's true or not. Accidents happen, people make mistakes, and when that happens we need to learn, take those lessons to heart, and don't let it stop us from helping people in the present. If you let guilt, or fear of mistakes stop you, then bad guys have already won, all without having to have fired a shot”
Farva is quiet for a short time, I was hoping I got through to her, I'm not the best and pep talks and this certainly wasn’t your typical weapons demo, if only everyones could go as smoothly as Ronan’s.
Farva spoke quietly, arms pressed up against her chest, she looked so sad, defeated, and small. Well more than usual anyways. “We can't be strong like you humans, we are too emotional and when we are scared we run away or we lock up and...”
“And that is clearly not the case with you captain Farva” Teal’c finally reentered the conversation having heard enough. “You have shown courage with every action you have taken so far, your actions have saved the lives of many of your crew, every time you have been threatened you acted not just to protect yourself but others as well. You attempted to contend with beings many times your size without even thinking about it, all in the effort to protect others, and this is only in the time we have known you, this speaks nothing of your actions over the colony. You are a warrior of admirable courage Captain Farva, your self doubt is unearned.”
A single tear rolled down Farva’s eyes which she quickly wiped away. “That was very nice of you to say, but I'm not brave like you say, I was terrified out of my mind the whole time.”
Teal’c looked puzzled. “I did not call you brave, I said you were courageous.”
Farva shot back with the little venlil one up one down ear flick I had very quickly learned was confusion.” I'm confused you just said brave twice”
“Hmm it appears your language does not contain the word I am using, I apologize I am not used to speaking through a translator” Teal’c relented “ There are two words I am using admittedly in slightly different forms, bravery and courage. Bravery or to be brave is to lack fear, to not be afraid to begin with. Courage tho, Is a trait far more admirable. Courage is to be afraid, to have fear, to worry about one's own mortality and personal safety. It is to acknowledge risk, danger, to feel fear, but to act in spite of it.”
“Had I not met your kind before I would have thought predators don't feel fear.”
“Everyone fears feel Farva, It is how we overcome it that determines our worth as warriors”
Teal’c picks up the p90 and returns it to Farvas hands.
“Your people need a warrior Farva, a warrior who protects the innocent and guides the lost to safety. You have shown how collected you can be in the heat of battle, You have already proven your worth in our eyes Farva, now you must do the same in your own. The greatest enemy lies not without” Teal’c places his hand firmly on the venlil’s chest “But within”.
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Chief Engineer Donu
I fiddled with my holopad, Its small surface area proving to be a consistent source of annoyance in my current endeavor. Gone was the large workspace afforded to me by my holotable back in my office. Instead I had to work with the scaled down portable holotablet I was just fortunate enough to have strapped to my person when I was beamed away from our last ship. I was stuck with its smaller keyboard and slower rendering speeds.
An annoyed smooth skin alien looked over my shoulder at my device, attached to it was a jury rigged fiber optic cable, slotted into a terran silicon to crystal patch cable, which would convert the electrical signals broadcasted by my tablet into a bandwidth that the terrans crystalline based computers; which they used for highly complex tasks like hyperdrive and transporter systems; could use, and then It was patched again in a even stranger connector to patch into the odd asgard computer stones.
All in all it looked like someone tried to plug a regular computer into some crystal construct like you would find in a fantasy holonovel, and again plugged that into a harchen heat rock sauna lounge. Finally branching out from this conglomeration was a simple copper based wire that connects to a computer terminal at which currently sat the late Doctor Rodney Mckay. A title upon initially hearing led me to believe he was a medical doctor, which led to a flurry of medical questions that he had absolutely no means of answering.
While this odd alien nomenclature was interesting, what intrigued me more was his actual area of expertise, theoretical astrophysics, as well as a number of other diverse specialties and fields. Not to mention not only was he a great scientist who had he been raised in the more civilized portion of this galaxy, would have knowledge and aptitude that would put him alongside some of Aafas greatest minds, but he was also an engineer without peer, at least in this galaxy. His interactions with general Samantha Carter hinted at her possibly being his match if not more. For a species that was supposed to glorify violence the decision to have a scientist be arguably the most senior member of what was by their admission a military vessel spoke to their commitment to knowledge and understanding, a very noble prey-like goal.
I looked warily at the lines of code at my screen, the asguard translation program had earlier scanned our ship and was able to parse written languages, but complex files, like images and 3d design schematics were harder to encode and decode from our perspective systems. As is stands we have 3 completely separate computer architectures, the asguard can talk to human computers and the venlil computers can talk to the asguard computers, It sounds like we would have everything we need to get a human C.A.D schematic into a venlil holotablet right? Wrong! And you're stupid for entertaining such a idiotic notion! Parsing text from raw binary is relatively straight forward, you're just looking for patterns, repeating bit combinations that might infer letters and then iterating them over millions of times looking for patterns, letters, words, and then with a bit of help from some undecoded analog audio transmission, spoken language. This is a far cry from actual procedural communication protocols,the ones that allow for file transfers, exactly what we needed if we were to get Rodney's redesigned part schematics into a format and medium that can be plugged into a suitable fabricator. Assuming one still exists, which I can reasonably assume it does.
Speaking of which, I have just made something of a breakthrough. For upon my screen appears a simple geometric hydrogen cube, we’re talking vertices, planes, material data, everything we need for a usable design file.
I let out an excited pent up yip, the culmination of hours of frustrating software integration work. Unfortunately I startled Rodney, who lets out a panicked gasp and clutches his chest pelts with one of his paws.
“Oh god…..” He gasps, pointing at me “Please.. don’t do that”
“Sorry!” I say a bit meekly. I slowly approach him so as to not make him unnecessarily uncomfortable and show him my work.
“I got the file exchange set up, all we need from you is to finish any modifications to your part, upload them to my holopad, and then we can print away at any class 3 or above fabricator we can scrounge up on Brayga colony.”
“Ok.. um.. got it, I'm almost done i’m just you know” He points a lone grasping appendage at his screen,”Running some simulations, making sure everything is up to spec.” keeping his response kurt. “Sorry for freaking out there.”
I nod my head in the human display of affirmation and return to my workstation to further bug check my work, to test potentially problematic edge cases for when he finishes. Tho Rodney's continued odd behavior intruded on my thoughts.
I should have felt empowered, being able to intimidate this ‘massive beast’, but I didn't. I didn't like being feared, his people have been nice to me, Rodney himself courteous to a fault and desperate for positive attention.
I thought I could expect predators to be fearless but that clearly wasn't the case, rodney was fearful, nervous, had I not known better I would say defective, and while it annoyed his crew, they didn't berate him for it, or attempt to assert dominance, they encouraged it even with placating words and tried to help him through it, they encouraged and supported him like a proper herd, even if sometimes it took the form of what the human would call a playful ribbing. I supposed I could help him as well.
I approached him again, careful to make my approach known to him, making sure to approach from within his limited field of vision. He looks up at me with a wide eyed glare, had I not known him I might have assumed it was hunger, but I did and knew it to be concern.
“Uh high Donu.. um whats up?”
“Why are you afraid of us rodney?”
“Wa-What, me afraid?” he gives out a panicked laugh ”uh no no, I'm not afraid, you know just a bit weirded out I'm just getting used to you all, it's not a fear thing it's a a…. Just getting used to new aliens thing, ask Hermirod we went through this whole song and dance right buddy”
Hermirod furrowed his brow and gave an irritated sigh from across the room.
I reached out to take Rodney by the paw.
His whole body flinched at my mere touch, I quickly withdrew my paw.
“Oh.. um.. I didn't…”
“Rodney! It's okay, your crew doesn’t seem to care when you show fear, and neither do I. Why are you afraid of us? You are almost twice our size and surely double our strength, most venlil would scream and run in terror at the mere sight of you. What's wrong?”
Rodney let out a sigh. “Oh its, we don't have to talk about this, I can deal with this, I deal with scary situations all the time, it's fine, I'll be fine.”
“Rodney, my people are a very emotional, empathic people, we are open with our feelings and with our fear, and the fear of the one can affect the herd, please let me help you. I don’t know what to expect from your society but I promise I wont judge you for your fear or emotions, I mean look at many of my crew mates, we are no one to judge”
Rodney shot back “You didn't seem to be so bothered”
“I’m too old to care, I was about to retire, hell I was about to die as far as I knew, Brayga colony was supposed to be a quiet place to lay back, work on some hobbies, plant a garden and pester the young men of my colony until I either dropped dead of boredom or got lucky” I joked.
That seemed to raise Rodney's mood somewhat. He sighed and seemingly relented.
“It’s… a dumb story, I don't even know why it affected me so much, I come from a place on earth called Canada, people don't usually believe me when I say I am from there, us Canadians are notoriously friendly and I guess I haven’t exactly filled that mold for a lot of my life, but hey I'm working on it, people like me, I have lots of friends back at Atlantis” He says the last sentence in a way as if it isn't me he's trying to convince.
“I'm sure you do, Rodney, You seem like quite the charming individual when you're not cowering!”
“Ha ha thanks, maybe you could come and visit sometime. Tell that to doctor Becket, really nice guy, smart man, he would love to meet you, he loves investigating new species. But back on topic, oh boy, so me and my sister Jeannie were on a family trip to rural Vancouver to visit my grandpa's farm, he kept a lot of goats, not for eating or anything, they were essentially pets that he would use for milk”
“Wait hold on? You drink milk from other animals! Do your females not produce enough milk for their young?”
“Oh um no, we just sort of drink it or ferment it into cheese!”
“Ferment? You mean spoil?
“Yeh”
I reeled from this plasma blast of a statement, I like any right minded venlil had a number of nightmares about being an arxur’s cattle before, especially when I first learned about those things in primary school, but never once had it crossed my mind that we could be used for something so weird. What the speh was I supposed to do with that information?
“Maybe you should get back on topic”
“Yeh sorry about that uh.. Anyways the momma goat had just had a litter of babies, and their real cute when their little, so late in the day when my grandpa was asleep we snuck out to the pens so we can play with the little baby goats, our grandpa told us not to but you now how kids are.”
At this I think back to a young Nyan, as I teach him the inner working of the hyperdrive, I tell him he’s not cleared yet to operate in this engine compartment alone, but I could tell from the occasional caught black hairs and dropped writing implements, there had been a number of curious unauthorized expeditions into its inner workings, he didn't really listen either.
“My sister as always was trying to be the voice of reason, wanting to take it slow. If I was paying attention I might have noticed the angry moma goat who didn’t appreciate the strange human messing with her children.”
The color seemed to drain from his face.
“I uh…” He began to stutter again ”I screamed, a lot, it was rather undignified, she ran right at me, thank god it wasn't a male goat, one with horns, I tired to run but I was hit in the back and knocked over and kicked real good in the head, like wake up in the vet clinic a quarter mile down the road kind of bad”
“This goat was a prey animal?”
“That would be what your kind focuses on”
“Oh sorry”
“Anyways It seems dumb but I have just never been good with animals since then, especially ones that look like you; no offense; I'm getting better but when I first saw you guys in the hangar bay, I was just that dumb kid again, getting in way over my head, scared for my life. I guess there is something to be said about childhood trauma. I really should be over this, I'm getting better with it I swear it’s just”
I take his paw again, he doesn't flinch this time.
“I'm a venlil, a prey animal, I know fear, I know what it is to live in fear, It rattles your brain, it turns your paws to wet grains. It takes great strength to overcome it, to push it aside just long enough to protect the herd. Your herd relies on you Rodney and you are doing a great job in spite of your fear, in spite of having to work with those you fear. You have achieved intellectual feats that rival the greatest minds of the federation and all that while struggling with a traumatic experience. Fear isn’t dumb and there is nothing wrong with you for feeling it.”
“Thank you” Rodney says “That means a lot, I won't be like forever I promise, I just need some time.”
“We will laugh about this someday,” I assured. “Nothing as big and intelligent as you should be afraid of anything”
“Are you calling me fat?” Rodney exclaimed with fake offense.
We both chuckled.
My kind words had resulted in a more upright posture, and a more cheerful demeanor from the human, almost like when I congratulated Nyan on his work, and it got me a look at that happy snarl of his, that I was starting to grow quite fond of.
After Action Report - Venlil Colonial Defense Force
Subject : Apprentice Engineer Nyan
Oh wow! I get to write a report for this mission! I never get to write reports, Donu says they're too boring, but there’s so many interesting things going on all the time. Sometimes I sneakily write my own! Just for fun of course, nobody sees them, which is probably for the best as I sometimes get excited and embellish them slightly. One of the reports I wrote was about the time Donu used nothing but a wad of electrical tape, a bottle of high grain venlil alcohol and a pocket knife to repair a venlil medical ship just in time to get out of the way of a big scary space predator, with glowing red eyes and a million tentacles!
Anyways Im not sure If im suppose to write these In present tense first person or past tense. I asked the captain and she said it's whatever so long as I make sure any pertinent dialogues are properly quoted(“”).
“Nobody usually reads these things anyways.” She said, but this one is surely going to be so exciting, who could look away!
I mean who's gonna scoff at a chance to read about friendly predators from another dimension! A dimension of friendly predators who give warm head scratches and hand out yummy strayu not strayu treats called donuts, that are somehow fluffier than strayu, and have a nice moisture to them. I asked for the recipe but Samantha said we wouldn't have the ingredients back on Venili prime to make them, and Teal'c said the recipe is an old family secret. Its weird predators would be so protective of their plant snacks.
There are so many weird things about these predators, they have nurturing instincts that make them find us cute. They stay perfectly balanced even if they don’t have tails, swinging their arms and body all over the place to keep upright like a lopsided gyroscope, it's pretty funny looking!
They also wear artificial pelts all the time, which I thought was weird, I thought maybe the ships temperature was set by the angry gray alien since he’s the only crew member beside the venlil who walks around naked all the time, maybe he had a fit when it was to warm, and the humans obliged him cause they were worried they would make him even angrier, and wore clothes to make up for the cold. I thought this made sense, a lot of their technology does seem to come from the Asguard, maybe he has more say in the goings on of the ship because of that. But apparently humans just like wearing pelts all the time. They feel uncomfortable without them and don’t like it if you try to remove them or look up their upper artificial pelts they call shirts.
The humans are so weird, I don’t even have to embellish my reports to make it more interesting. Like that time with the big tentacled space predator. That may sound real compared to this stuff but it Isn't, Ha! I bet you fell for it at first, hook line and sinker! Like the humans would say. I think I used that saying right, I'm not sure what it means, but Shepard brought it up when he was telling a story about the wraith.
The humans are so nice, instead of exterminating their predators they try to cure them! Their doctors are working to modify the wraith so they don't have to eat humans anymore, so they can be friendly predators too.
Anyways I should probably get to the actual report part of this report. Farva says I should start after I went off with Samantha to work on some special astrophysics equations she said I would be good at. I kind of wanted to go with Donu to help Rodney get the new parts they needed, or Farva to help rescue our people, but the humans and even the angry gray alien got really weird when Farva mentioned taking me on the mission. Samantha seemed to want me to help her really badly so I didn’t mind. Samantha says I have the most important part to our mission. She's teaching me about how humans communicate through subspace, and about stellar drift equations. We are working on what she calls the exit strategy.