Found this article after doing a quick deep-dive after this post from u/evilez:
https://www.reddit.com/UFOs/comments/1d33m4l/does_anybody_remember_what_podcast_this_was/
"Hello fine ladies and gentlemen! I remember listening to a podcast less than a year ago. The main subject of the podcast was UFOs (I think)... anyways the guest told a story that a congressman or senator wrote a bill that was against the CIA or going to defund the CIA, in the 80's... and shortly thereafter, someone broke into his home, dragged his wife out into the street and stuck a gun in her mouth and told her to kill the bill."
Some light Googling brought up this article about the history of the CIA, the OSS, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan's attempts at defunding the agency in the 90s.
Here's an article about that attempt brought by Moynihan published on the Carnegie Endowment Website on December 20, 2005.
https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2005/12/the-case-for-abolishing-the-cia?lang=en
Here's the New Yorker piece about all of this from October 3rd, 2022.

Spooked -- What’s wrong with the C.I.A.? -- By Amy Davidson Sorkin -- October 3, 2022

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/10/has-the-cia-done-more-harm-than-good
According to the article regarding the resuscitation of the OSS as the CIA immediately following Roswell and the Twining Memo:
"Many of its officers moved straight to the new C.I.A. Most consequentially, perhaps, four future directors of the C.I.A. were O.S.S. veterans: Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey."
Here's the New Yorker article in full:
"On January 4, 1995, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, of New York, introduced a bill called the Abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency Act. It had been a rough stretch for the C.I.A. The year before, Aldrich Ames, a longtime officer, had been convicted of being a longtime mole for Soviet (and then Russian) intelligence. Despite having a reputation among his colleagues as a problem drinker who appeared to live far beyond his means, Ames had been given high-level assignments with access to the names of American sources in the U.S.S.R. When the F.B.I. finally arrested him, he was in the Jaguar he used for commuting to work at Langley; by then, he was responsible for the death of at least ten agents. Moynihan said that the case was such a flamboyant display of incompetence that it might actually be a distraction from “the most fundamental defects of the C.I.A.” He meant that the agency—in what he considered to be its “defining failure”—had both missed the fact that the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse and done little to hasten its end.
He gave a diagnosis for what had gone wrong. “Secrecy keeps mistakes secret,” he said. “Secrecy is a disease. It causes a hardening of the arteries of the mind.” He quoted John le Carré on that point, adding that the best information actually came from the likes of area specialists, diplomats, historians, and journalists. If the C.I.A. was disbanded, he said, the State Department could pick up the intelligence work, and do a better job.
Moynihan was, in some respects, being disingenuous. As he well knew, even if his bill had passed, spies and spying wouldn’t have gone away. The State Department already had its own mini agency, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The Departments of Energy and Treasury each had one, too. The Defense Intelligence Agency conducted clandestine operations; U.S. Army Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, and the Office of Naval Intelligence kept themselves busy as well. The National Security Agency was nearly two decades away from the revelation, by Edward Snowden, a contractor and a former C.I.A. employee, that it had collected information about the phone calls of most Americans, but it was a behemoth even in Moynihan’s time. So was the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There were about a dozen agencies then; now, after reforms that were supposed to streamline things, there are eighteen, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (O.D.N.I.), a sort of meta-C.I.A. that has a couple of thousand employees, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis. The Drug Enforcement Administration (which currently has foreign offices in sixty-nine countries) has an Office of National Security Intelligence. Four million people in the United States now have security clearances.
It can be hard to sort out which agencies do what; players in the espionage business aren’t always good with boundaries. Both the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. make use of satellite resources, including commercial ones, but there is a separate agency in charge of a spy-satellite fleet, the National Reconnaissance Office—not to be confused with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which deals with both space-based and ground-level imaging, or with Space Delta 18, the nation’s newest intelligence agency, which is attached to the Space Force. Abolishing the C.I.A. might do nothing more than reconfigure the turf wars.
[NOTE: both Sean Kirkpatrick and David Grusch worked for the NRO and at least Grusch worked for the NGA]
As the senator from New York also knew, a large proportion of the C.I.A.’s resources are devoted not to intelligence gathering but to covert operations, some of which look like military operations. In “Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence” (Princeton)—one of several recent books that coincide with the seventy-fifth anniversary of the agency’s founding—Amy B. Zegart, a political scientist at Stanford, writes that it’s “getting harder to know just where the CIA’s role ends and the military’s role begins.” Yet the agency’s paramilitary pursuits and related covert activities go back decades. They include the botched Bay of Pigs landing, the brutal Phoenix Program in Vietnam, and a long list of assassination attempts, coup plots, the mining of a harbor (with explosive devices the agency built itself), and drone strikes. These operations have very seldom ended well.
Moynihan’s bill had no more luck than another that he introduced the same day, aimed at ending Major League Baseball’s exemption from antitrust laws. In each case, people understood that there was a problem, but both institutions were protected by the sense that there was something essential, and perhaps authentically American, about them, including their very brokenness. A sudden turn of events can convince even the C.I.A.’s most sober critics that the agency will save us all, whether from terrorists or from Donald Trump. But, seventy-five years in, it’s far from clear whether the C.I.A. is good at its job, or what that job is or should be, or how we could get rid of the agency if we wanted to.
How did we end up with the C.I.A.? A familiar explanation is that the shock of Pearl Harbor made the United States realize it needed more spies; the Office of Strategic Services was formed and jumped into action; and, when the war ended, the O.S.S. evolved seamlessly into the C.I.A., ready to go out and win the Cold War. But that narrative isn’t quite right, particularly regarding the relationship between the O.S.S. and the C.I.A.
[NOTE: We know how ended up with the CIA. ROSWELL.]
The United States has always used spies of some sort. George Washington had a discretionary espionage budget for which he didn’t have to turn in receipts. In the early part of the twentieth century, the State Department had an intelligence-analysis unit, along with a cryptography group called the Black Chamber, which operated out of a brownstone in New York’s Murray Hill until it was shut down, in 1929. The Army and the Navy had cryptography and reconnaissance units, too. When the Second World War began, their operations ramped up dramatically, and, as Nicholas Reynolds recounts in “Need to Know: World War II and the Rise of American Intelligence” (Mariner), these units, not the O.S.S., handled most of the code-breaking. The problem became the volume of raw intelligence. The task of making sense of it and of turning it into something that policymakers could use went to an office within the Army’s military-intelligence division (or G-2), which, Reynolds says, produced “the country’s best strategic intelligence” during the war. That office’s work was directed by Alfred McCormack, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Harlan Stone and a partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Many of the people he brought in were young corporate lawyers; the theory was that their training in plowing through mountains of documents made them ideal intelligence analysts.
William J. Donovan, who led and largely conceived of the O.S.S., was also a Wall Street lawyer, but one with an aversion to the “legalistic.” What Donovan envisioned was essentially an array of commando units that would operate stealthily and behind enemy lines. In practice, what he tried to build, according to a colleague, was a “private army.” His escapades often risked too much and gained too little. In late 1943, one of his own officers wrote to him that “the set-up has been incredibly wasteful in manpower and, except for a few spotty accomplishments, has been a national failure.” And it had produced “chaos in the field.” Donovan’s nickname was Wild Bill, but his staff called him Seabiscuit, after the thoroughbred, because of his tendency to race around, engaging in what was basically war tourism. In the end, though, the O.S.S. made real contributions, including through its contacts with the French Resistance. But Donovan’s complaint about D Day was that there was “too much planning.” Counterintelligence and strategic thinking bored him, and the O.S.S.’s analysis division was seen as secondary to its operations.
When Harry Truman became President, in April, 1945, he took a look at the O.S.S. and, in September, 1945, abolished it. About two years later, he signed the National Security Act, which established the C.I.A. (and the Department of Defense), but he didn’t want the new agency to be like the group Donovan had run. Instead, it was supposed to do what its name suggested: centralize the intelligence that various agencies gathered, analyze it, and turn it into something the President could use.
[NOTE: I tried doing some research after reading something yesterday about how the NSA was developed in 1952 under Project Sigma to try and decode "alien" communications. If anyone can offer anything, you'd be helping humanity.]
“It was not intended as a ‘Cloak and Dagger’ Outfit!,” Truman later wrote. He also had to deal with public apprehensions that he might create what a Chicago Tribune headline called a “Super Gestapo Agency”—which is why, in its charter, the C.I.A. was banned from domestic spying.
Reynolds’s book is the best of the recent batch, and the most readable. It does not retrofit the history of the O.S.S. around the assumption that the C.I.A. was the inevitable lead postwar intelligence agency. There were other contenders, including a version of McCormack’s office in the State Department—something like what Moynihan wanted. J. Edgar Hoover argued that “World Wide Intelligence” should be turned over to the F.B.I., with military intelligence subservient to him. In some alternative history, he might have pulled that off; by 1943, he was running undercover operations in twenty Latin American countries. And so things could have been worse.
[WHAT UNDERCOVER OPERATIONS WERE WE RUNNING IN LATIN AMERICANS COUNTRIES IN 1943.]
Donovan was an adept publicist, but what mattered most, in the end, was that he was good, or lucky, when it came to hiring people. Despite the “pale, male, and Yale” stereotype, the O.S.S. was somewhat more diverse than other units, and certainly more eclectic. Among its ranks were Ralph Bunche, Herbert Marcuse, and Julia Child. Many of its officers moved straight to the new C.I.A. Most consequentially, perhaps, four future directors of the C.I.A. were O.S.S. veterans: Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey. Each seems to have had glory-day memories of the O.S.S., which is to say that each, in various ways, was afflicted with what a general in Army intelligence called “the screwball Donovan effect.” Casey, who put a picture of Donovan on his wall, said of his old boss, “We all glowed in his presence.” Wild Bill lost the bureaucratic fight but won the personnel and mythology wars.
And, of course, the agency found customers and collaborators in the White House. There was no mention of covert action in the law that chartered the C.I.A., but Presidents—starting with Truman—began using it that way. One of the agency’s first operations involved meddling in the 1948 Italian election, to insure the victory of the Christian Democrats. The subsidies and outright bribery of Italian politicians, some of them on the far, far right, continued into the nineteen-seventies.
Almost from its creation, though, there was a sense that something about the C.I.A. was off. The split between covert action and intelligence gathering and analysis was part of it. The director of the agency was also supposed to be the leader of U.S. intelligence as a whole, but, invariably, the person in the job seemed more invested in preëminence than in coördination. That setup remained in place until the establishment of the O.D.N.I., in 2004, a move that thus far has mostly continued a tradition of trying to deal with the C.I.A.’s dysfunction by setting up ever more agencies, offices, and centers. (The N.S.A. was established, in 1952, in response to a series of cryptography-related failures.) “Legacy of Ashes,” Tim Weiner’s 2008 history of the C.I.A.—and still an invaluable overview—takes its title from a lament by Eisenhower about what he’d be leaving his successors if the “faulty” structure of American intelligence wasn’t changed. Since Weiner’s book was published, the ashes, and the agencies, have only been piling up.
Zegart’s “Spies, Lies, and Algorithms” aims to bring that history to the present. Zegart has served as an adviser to intelligence agencies, and she provides a decent guide to our current bureaucracy. Throughout, her book is clear and well organized—maybe a little too well organized, one feels, after taking in the “Seven Deadly Biases” of intelligence analysis, the “Four Main Adversaries” and the “Five Types of Attack” in the crypto area, and the “Three Words, Four Types” that define covert action. (The covert-action words, incidentally, are “influence,” “acknowledged,” and “abroad.”) Not a few paragraphs read like PowerPoint charts; contradictions are displayed without really being reckoned with. She observes that the balance between “hunting” and “gathering” seems off, but, in her telling, the fact that Presidents of both parties regularly turn to the C.I.A. for paramilitary and other covert tasks constitutes proof that doing so is part of the order of things. The impression she leaves is that if it all goes wrong, it’s because some checklist has been missed. One of the top priorities of U.S. intelligence today, she thinks, should be persuading tech companies to get with the program and help out. She moots the creation of yet another agency, to deal with OSINT—open-source intelligence.
In one chapter, Zegart provides a list of scandals involving spying within the U.S. by various intelligence agencies—notably the N.S.A., the F.B.I., and the C.I.A. “All of these activities violated American law,” she writes. “But that’s the point: domestic laws forbid this kind of surveillance of Americans.” How is that the point, exactly? She depicts the Senate’s 2014 Torture Report, which detailed profound abuses in the C.I.A.’s so-called black sites, as a they-said, the-agency-said, who-knows case. She turns it into a parable about the problems with Congress—suggesting that, although the committee structure may have needed rejiggering, the moral compass of those involved in the program of torture was just fine.
Another new volume, “A Question of Standing: A History of the CIA” (Oxford), by Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Edinburgh, offers the insights of a more distant observer. He can be astute about how “false memories” of the O.S.S.’s accomplishments have led the C.I.A. astray. Part of his argument is that the agency has acted as if its influence depended on its standing with whoever is in the White House, thus motivating it to offer Presidents quick fixes that fix nothing. The net effect is to reduce its standing, and that of the U.S., with the public at home and abroad. But Jeffreys-Jones is prone to rash generalizations and pronouncements. He theorizes that, in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush’s national-security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, may have been susceptible to “war mongering” due to her status as “a descendant of slaves,” and that the working-class background of the C.I.A.’s director, George Tenet, made him more likely to vouch for the faulty intelligence on weapons of mass destruction used to justify the war. “Social mobility so often leads to conformity,” warns Jeffreys-Jones, himself the son of an academic historian.
During the Vietnam War, the C.I.A. had discouraging intelligence to offer, and, when successive Administrations didn’t want to hear it, focussed on being helpful by providing those supposedly quick fixes. That meant abetting a coup in 1963, spying on antiwar protesters, and launching the Phoenix Program, an anti-Vietcong campaign marked by torture and by arbitrary executions; in total, more than twenty thousand people were killed under Phoenix’s auspices.
Phoenix was run by William Colby, the O.S.S. alum, who was soon promoted to C.I.A. director. At lower levels, discontent about Vietnam fueled leaks. In December, 1974, the journalist Seymour Hersh told the agency that he was about to publish a story in the Times exposing its domestic spying. Whether in a miscalculation or (as Jeffreys-Jones somewhat breathlessly speculates) as an act of personal expiation, Colby gave Hersh partial confirmation. Amid the scandals and the Congressional hearings that followed, Colby angered some of his colleagues, and Henry Kissinger, by laying bare even more. It emerged that, in 1973, Colby’s predecessor had asked senior agency officials to produce a list of things the C.I.A. had done that might have been unlawful. The resulting document, covering just the prior fifteen years, was known in-house as “The Family Jewels,” and was almost seven hundred pages long.
The question of how much it matters who works at the C.I.A. is a perennial one. The influence of Donovan’s acolytes shows that decisions about whom you recruit can, in a formative period or at a critical juncture, make a big difference. But, once an institutional culture has become entrenched, it can be easier to see how the institution shapes the people within it than vice versa.
“Wise Gals: The Spies Who Built the CIA and Changed the Future of Espionage” (Putnam), by Nathalia Holt, comes at the question from a different angle. It’s about five women who worked for the early C.I.A.; three also worked at the O.S.S., and one, Eloise Page, began her career as Bill Donovan’s secretary. Holt is also the author of “Rise of the Rocket Girls,” about women in the early years of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and “The Queens of Animation,” about women at the Walt Disney Company. Her book contains fine material for a beautifully art-directed streaming series, with set pieces in postwar Paris, nineteen-fifties Baghdad, and nineteen-seventies Greece, where Page was the C.I.A.’s first woman station chief. It even has a framing device in the form of the “Petticoat Panel,” a working group of C.I.A. women that convened in 1953 to document their unequal pay and treatment. Holt quotes the transcript of the meeting at which the leadership of the agency summarily rejected their findings. Helms, the future director, says, “It is just nonsense for these gals to come on here and think that the government is going to fall apart because their brains aren’t going to be used to the maximum.” (In 1977, Helms was convicted of lying to Congress about the C.I.A.’s machinations in Chile.) What the book is not, unfortunately, is a coherent history of the C.I.A., of the era it depicts, or even of these women’s work.
Holt’s research does turn up evidence that Jane Burrell, one of her subjects, was the first C.I.A. officer to die in the line of duty, in a plane crash in France, in 1948, a fact that the agency itself apparently missed. Holt ends her book with a call for a star honoring Burrell to be added to the C.I.A.’s memorial wall. Of the hundred and thirty-seven officers represented there, she writes, forty-five died accidentally, the majority in plane crashes, meaning that Burrell’s case would be fairly typical. Burrell was on the return leg of a trip to Brussels, where she’d been sent to talk to war-crimes investigators about a mess the C.I.A. had created by relying on an agent who turned out to have worked with the S.S. and was now in custody. In that respect, too, Burrell, who had personally handled the agent, was typical of the C.I.A. (After Burrell vouched for him, the man was released.) The subject of the C.I.A.’s postwar relations with former Nazis—some of whom, like Reinhard Gehlen, it helped to install in West Germany’s new intelligence service—and with collaborationist émigré groups is, no doubt, a morass. Holt, alas, manages to make the story even more garbled than it has to be. In the end, she basically treats the whole sordid episode as a learning experience for the Gals.
The problem is that the agency doesn’t seem to learn much. Holt credits Mary Hutchison with helping to build a network of émigré Ukrainian nationalists. Beginning in 1949, the agency parachuted some of them (including one whom Hutchison apparently distrusted) behind the Soviet border, where they were quickly captured—and repeated the same procedure for a number of years. “Despite the catastrophe, the Ukraine operation would serve as a template moving forward,” Holt writes. “The C.I.A. had more success with back-to-back operations in Iran and Guatemala, where covert action was able to deftly oust leaders considered undesirable.” It’s odd to describe these coups as deft. One of Zegart’s handy lists is of the “unintended consequences” in Iran: “religious extremism, a revolutionary overthrow, the American hostage crisis, severed ties, regional instability, and today’s rising nuclear dangers.” Guatemala is still dealing with the violent legacy of the coup that the C.I.A. visited upon it. Then there’s the question of the intended consequences, which were, respectively, to elevate a shah and a military regime. Secret wars tend not to be so secret in the country where they take place.
It was, no doubt, frustrating for Hutchison when, a few years later, her colleagues on the Bay of Pigs task force failed to make use of her Spanish-language skills. But are we supposed to think that the whole misconceived enterprise would have gone off without a hitch were it not for the C.I.A.’s misogyny? One of Holt’s minor themes is that women in the C.I.A. were seen as more natural analysts than operatives—with analysis, in turn, seen as less manly, and less valuable, to everybody’s detriment. But she is more intent on showing that these women were also daring. The main point of “Wise Gals” is that it’s cool that women were in the early C.I.A., and therefore that the C.I.A. itself was cooler than we’d realized. Holt celebrates a big promotion Page got that afforded her access to the secret of a safe containing shellfish-derived poison. You don’t have to be pale, male, and Yale to be complicit in a bungled assassination plot, or, for that matter, a program of rendition and torture.
Why do so many books about the C.I.A. have trouble getting their story straight? It can’t just be the secrecy of the work itself, at least with regard to the earlier years, about which much has been declassified. (Much remains under wraps: Moynihan complained that classification created more than six million supposed secrets in 1993; Zegart writes that the number in 2016 was fifty-five million—not all of which can possibly have been critical.) The aura of secrecy, by contrast, probably does distort the judgment of its chroniclers. And the scope of the agency’s work is a challenge: it’s hard to write expertly on places as far-ranging as the Democratic Republic of Congo (where the agency initially planned to poison President Patrice Lumumba’s toothpaste, and instead ended up handing a quarter of a million dollars to Joseph Mobutu, the country’s future dictator, who facilitated the assassination) and Afghanistan (where the C.I.A. has had forty years of illusory gains and worse losses). But the biggest problem may be the agency’s own pattern of self-deception. Holt, for example, sometimes seems to go wrong when, rummaging through the archives, she gives too much credit to contemporaneous internal assessments of an agent’s or an operation’s worth.
In truth, the C.I.A. has had a “defining failure” for every decade of its existence—sometimes more than one. For Moynihan, in the nineteen-nineties, it was the lack of foresight about the Soviet Union; in the two-thousands, it was the phantom weapons of mass destruction, followed by torture and, in still evolving ways, by the drone-based program of targeted killings, with its high toll of civilian deaths. Barack Obama’s rapport with John Brennan, the C.I.A.’s director from 2013 to 2017, seems to have brought him to accept the view that the killing of American citizens abroad was acceptable, if managed prudently. The overuse of the agency on the battlefield is due not to a military-manpower shortage but to wishful thinking about the benefits of secrecy and of a lack of accountability.
It’s difficult to know, at this point, what the C.I.A.’s next defining failure—or, if one tries to be optimistic, its stabilizing success—will be. Donald Trump has had a complicated relationship with the intelligence community—increasingly capitalized and abbreviated to I.C.—which is presently conducting a damage assessment regarding documents with classified markings that he kept at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home. He might, of course, be reëlected, and have the C.I.A.’s tools at his disposal again. If the C.I.A. isn’t the place to turn for an expedient solution to foreign-policy problems, neither is it bound to be the place to turn for a solution to our democracy’s political problems.
“If you ask intelligence officers what misperceptions bother them most, odds are they’ll mention ethics,” Zegart writes. She quotes an official who complains that “people think we’re lawbreakers, we’re human rights violators.” She insists that “officers think about ethics a lot.” She portrays the agency as being filled with hardworking moms and dads who do a great deal of “agonizing.” No doubt she’s right. But if the C.I.A. keeps falling down all the same, something must be tragically amiss in the agency’s structure or culture, or both. All the talk of coups and assassination plots, Zegart worries, distracts people from understanding the C.I.A.’s more basic intelligence mission. In fact, the party most distracted by such activities—and by the military role it has taken on—seems to be the agency itself. ♦
An earlier version of this article misstated the numerical designation of the Space Force unit dedicated to intelligence.
Published in the print edition of the October 10, 2022, issue.

Took a day trip and wrote this around 9:30PM. Enjoy.
Everyone has those dreams they want to accomplish in a lifetime. The ones that seem so far fetched but still obtainable. In my case it has always been on my bucket list to travel every corner of Texas. I have been blessed in my 27 years of life to have gone as far north to see the Panhandle plains near Amarillo and as far east to see Huntsville surrounded by the piney woods. I’ve been able to see the Third Coast from H-Town through Corpitos, down to McAllen and Harlingen. I’ve drank on 6th Street in ATX, and have had countless nights I couldn’t remember in San Anto. I’ve seen a Cowboys game in Arlington while staying in Dallas with family, and I’ve floated down the rivers in San Marcos with friends. I know the backroads of South Texas between Uvalde and Laredo, like the back of my hand, and if I needed too, I could probably drive between El Paso and Fort Stockton blindfolded. In the past 4 years, I’ve spent the majority of the 100,000 miles I’ve driven, on Texas highways and county roads. Passing through small towns that people would never know existed, such as Dryden, Camp Wood, Orla, Goliad, and Dilley, where my son lives. There’s so many other cities and towns I could name which would take up the majority of this story and bore you but there is one area of Texas that I’ve always wanted to see with my own eyes and be able to experience it all. This place is actually a lot closer than many of the places I mentioned. It’s pretty much the next door neighbor to my hometown of El Paso.
On December 28, 2023, I was finally able to see it. Big Bend and Terlingua. As I was driving into the national park I stopped at the park’s entrance sign and took a typical picture in front of it like everyone does, but after, I turned back down the road, made a right and drove 28 miles to La Linda. I did this all without having a GPS or signal on my phone after I lost it passing Marathon which about an hour or so from the park entrance. I followed the old green highway signs down a road that you could tell was hardly used because of all the weeds and brush growing in the middle and side of the road. I was probably the only truck on the road with the expection of two trucks going the opposite direction that had passed me. I kept going until the road ended at a blocked off bridge that only a small car could drive over. The only time I had ever seen this place was through Google Maps when I’d sit there looking at random places that you’d think no one would ever go. I got off my truck and look around, it was quiet but the sound of the river is what got me. It was surreal to say that across that bridge was Mexico and the river I heard was the Rio Grande, which surprisingly had water in it and wasn’t dry like the way it is in El Paso. As I was looking at the graffiti on the bridge I noticed a part of it said “Chuco Town” which I though was weird because why would some slang from El Paso be tagged on some random bridge literally in the middle of nowhere. So I got curious and ended up making my way down underneath the bridge where I found this clear box with a small notebook in it. Several people had written in it with their names and when they had visited the bridge. It was like an Easter egg. I wrote my name in the book, put it back and went to go look for a way to get to the river but I couldn’t because of all the bushes and trees. I spent like a good hour looking around before getting back to my truck. I ended up driving about two hours to the Big Bend National Park Headquarters where I finally got signal on my phone. The drive into the Chisos Basin was beautiful. The color of the rocks and trees made it feel as if it was still the Fall season. The canyons were huge, the road curved through the mountains, the air hitting me through the windows was fresh. Seeing the amount of trees, for the mountain range being in the middle of a desert was crazy. Again, I only spent about an hour or so before driving through the park and into Terilingua. As I drove to Terlingua, the scenery changed drastically. It went from mountains covered in trees to something out of a Mad Max scene. It was nothing but desert with little plant life. I ended up stopping at a gas station where two the highways met. One would take me to Alpine and the other to the Terlingua ghost town. After fueling up, I drove through the ghost town to find a couple of restaurants open. I ended up eating some green enchiladas that were good but nothing compared to the ones found in El Paso. I continued to drive down the highway towards Presidio as the sun started to set. About half way to Presidio, I turned back around to head back. By this time it was 7pm. The sun had almost set completely. I pulled over to the side of the road so I could look at the sky. I had heard so many stories and seen so many pictures of the Terlingua night sky. I wanted to see if it was real. As I stepped out and looked up I saw more stars than I could ever imagine. Everything around me was pitch black, except the sky. There were hundreds of stars, they were brighter than ever. There were no clouds. I stayed looking at them for a good minute, actually I stayed looking up so long I ended up laying in the bed of my truck trying to take it all in. I ended having to go back into my truck because of the cold. Even with a thick hoodie and thermals underneath I couldn’t stay out any longer. I continued my drive back to the gas station where I had first put gas so I could type this out before my plan to head back into Big Bend. I only arrived about 8 hours ago, drove down to the La Linda bridge, drove through the national park, drove through the ghost town and saw a night sky many wont get to see in their lifetime but maybe on this drive back, I’ll be able to find the moon.

I found elsewhere a reupload someone did solely the Wendigoon part of the video, I am currently going through it and will update this thread to basically sum up what is being said. Below I'll start by just copy pasting the comment I started to track this. This won't be refined at all; it's just my blind reaction here cause this is just insane stuff.
__________________-
This is the video people are upset he removed? I'm barely a minute in and already IPOS is coming across as incredibly condescending and completely unreasonable.
Like I have a degree in English literature, IPOS is just being snobbish from the off complaining that people who are in their twenties shouldn't be discussing classic literature.
Edit: Also just checked there and Wendigoon is currently 24, and was 23 at the release of the Blood Meridian video. So the opening statement is just blatnatly factually wrong. Context: IPOS claims Wendigoon is currently 21 years old.
Edit 2: WTF, he is now claiming that Wendigoon is part of a family ran crime organization. He provides no evidence for this bar a quote he claims came from Wendigoon. But he plays no clip of him making such a statement. According to IPOS Wendigoon's entire father's side of the family was part of a multi-million crime organisation that was busted by the FBI. IPOS brings this up to claim that Wendigoon has always been a millionaire his entire life.
Edit 3: He now is claiming Wendigoon can't make horror content cause his believes are contrary to what IPOS believes horror is about; the believes in question being "Gun usage" and "using his religion as a shield." I don't see how any of this is contrary to horror as a genre.
Edit 4: He has now went on to discuss the old Rittenhouse screenshots showing Wendigoon following him and tweeting about the trail. IPOS however claims these are only some in a series of tweets made by Wendigoon supporting far right individuals, he provides no screenshots of these tweets existence. He is now going on about the Boogaloo boy's thing while pointing to Wendigoon's reddit comment on the issue as evidence that he founded them as a hate group.
He is claiming that Wendigoon must secretly support the Boogaloo boys and be a racist cause he wears haiwan shirts and that's what some Boogaloo boys also wear. IPOS themselves is wearing a haiwan shirt the whole video. He also is claiming that Wendigoon must secretly be a member cause he became a horror youtuber afterwards.
Edit 5: Forwarded most of the next part, it's just him reading Wendigoon's comment and now analysing it. The "analyse" claims that Wendigoon is wrong about the term Boogaloo coming from Che Guavara (despite Wendigoon never saying that) and therefore is secretly racist. They also claim that the term Boogaloo only started being used online from 2010-2012 exlcusively among racists on the internet, as such Wendigoon is racist cause he can't possible be a founder of the movement. (Despite him never saying that.) Apparently because Wendigoon lied about founding the organisation he must be lying about other things too.
Edit 6: Now Wendigoon is secretly racist cause he used the term "Antifa members" rather than just "Antifa" and supposedly only the alt right do such a thing. Now he's addressing that Wendigoon couldn't possible have invented the term Boogaloo (despite Wendigoon never saying that, and just coming off a tangent of claiming that Wendigoon said they got the term from Che Guavara.)
Edit 7: He's now getting into Wendigoon's "Other far right" connections, listing among them Internt Historian. Again he provides no evidence whatsoever to show Wendigoon's "close friendships" with these people or what they supposedly had done. On the list he also mentions Nick Crowley and says that Wendigoon follows him and the Crowley is sick in the head for making true crime content and is suspicious cause he follows some of the same people Wendigoon does. WTAF! That's called a social circle! How tf is that suspicious!? (Also IPOS is a horror youtuber as well, why tf are they throwing shade at Crowley for doing true crime topics then?)
Edit 8: The next few minutes is just more stream of the above bizarre tangents. He just keeps listing people and for the most part fails to explain who they are and what they did, and provides no evidence for any statement he's making. If there is evidence it's like one tweet, and sometimes doesn't even seem related to his claim in anyway. The few names I recognised I know IPOS had to apologise too after getting the info wrong. I have to share one gem though where he says he can't find any evidence of a connection between Wendigoon and one youtuber, but people say they are and therefore they must be. WTF!
Edit 9: He references some controversy about the Faith video using fan art without permission and claims Wendigoon never took responsibility for it, while literally showing a tweet of Wendigoon taking responsibility for the mistake.
Edit 10: He's now going on about the Wendigo being mentioned by Wendigoon. He is claiming that Wendigoon is not of native American descent and that he's lying about that cause Wendigoon is racist and apparently racisits are known to lie about being Native Americans.
Edit 11: He now claims to know where Wendigoon lives, down to the exact town. But also states Wendigoon is in a completely different state and that they have multiple towns in between them plus a reservation. He claims everyone in the region is racist, and therefore Wendigoon is himself. (But IPOS isn't for some reason, depsite saying they live close enough for them to have intimate knowledge of Wendigoon's home town.)
Edit 12: Now Wendigoon is lying about his grandfather telling him local stories cause he wasn't raised on the reservation. Thus he can't have been told these stories as they aren't shared outside the reservation. Also he claims the nearest reservation doesn't have the Wendigo myth in them and therefore Wendigoon is lying cause his grandfather can't possible have moved; because Wendigoon never said he moved.
Edit 13: Now IPOS is going on a rant about how Wendigoon is lying about developing an interest in Cryptids in horror by being told such stories as a kid. IPOs says this must be a lie because he never had that experience, he is now saying Wendigoon is a bad person cause IPOS grew up in a poor town.
Edit 14: The above edit also means Wendigoon is racist now. Also we're a cult cause he's nicknamed "Dad." Then there's an anonymous conversation from 2 native Americans about Wendigoon; but no reference is given as to where this conversation came from or whose saying what. It's literally just IPOS talking to themselves.
Edit 15: He literally has a tweet pulled of Wendigoon saying he is not right wing or bigoted, and is claiming that is evidence that he is a racist cause why else would he say that. (Also he's racist for following less than 500 people on Twitter.)
Edit 16: So he just went on a long tangent saying he tweeted to Wendigoon once a while back complainging to him about all the above, and got people critiquing him on twitter for the next week as a result. He then proclaims the people critiquing him are also racist and homophobic for doing so, and that Wendigoon must also be so because he never acknowledged it.
Also Wendigoon followed IPOS on twitter after all this; and as a result must be racist and trying to intimidate IPOS. Apparently this entire video was made because of this one follow.
Edit 17: In order to demonstrate Wendigoon is a transphobe IPOS points to Wendigoon commenting support to a trans youtuber called Nyx Fears. This proves Wendi is a transphobe cause it means he's "watching her" and he did it to "undermine her channel." The screenshot he shows literally has the youtuber in question comment back happy for the boost. What world is this? Since when was supporting trans creators transphobic????
Edit 18: Now he's homophobic cause he once said he doesn't care for peoples sexualities. And cause someone put him in a meme once saying he supported gay rights???
He now concludes the video saying nothing of the above should be welcomed in horror as a result.
I have finished the entire video and genuinely all of it was unhinged and made 0 sense. Like most of it was just crazy logic or statements thrown at such speed to make schizo posters blush. It was actually wild, how did anyone see this and somehow think it looks good?
Edit 19: Okay In just going to finish on a note to say that genuinely I don't think there's any point to engage with the video or IPOS in general. Or8ginally I was going ti share the link I found for those that wanted it but won't now, (though it's still easy enough to find.)
After thinking a bit I genuinely believe that IPOS must be having some sort of breakdown. It's the only way any of this video makes any amount of sense to me. Like the way he's talking and discussing points genuinely come across as unhinged at points, I can only presume that somehow during a breakdown he wrote, recorded, and then shared this without realising how nuts it sounded.
Just don't bother, this thread here I think gives enough context as to what's in the video and I think should hopefully serve as enough testament that something is going on mental health wise here.

It’s especially difficult for me because I’m listening to the audio books. He switches between different names in the long list of names that are given for a single person (or drone) and sometimes even has nicknames for the single names. I feel like he’s purposely playing a joke on us.

My friends and I are trying to compile a list of the most common nicknames (eg Man Of Steel, The Last Son of Krypton, Supes, etc.) and phrases that people associate the most with Superman ("It's a bird, it's a plane", 'Up Up and away" [maybe?]). We've gotten pretty stuck, so feel free to just dump your thoughts :)

I like old fashioned/classic names. Charlotte used to be my top runner for girls names but it is slowly moving down the list. At this moment in time I really like Penelope. I like the mouth feel of it, and the variety of nicknames (nell/nellie, pen/penny, poppy, polly, etc.) I liked it before Bridgerton, but now I'm worried that that would be the primary association. Thoughts?

So, you came across my roleplay info either by snooping or you were directed from my posts! Let's not waste time and get into the info. Firstly, this is mainly for romance. At certain points I may feel like I want to do a different rp genre, but this is the go to for romance
Firstly, I'm a bit of an odd ball when it comes to what characters I play. Aside from not playing Canon characters, I also don't play big strong dominat men. I perfer playing a more adorable, sub male and I enjoy it when my partner plays a flirty soft dom female, as I enjoy wholesome rps and gentle doms.
As for kinks, a few that I can list at the top of my head are as follows. Foreplay, hand jobs, blow jobs, flirty females, after care, praising, wholesome moments, cure nicknames.
As for limits. Hairy body parts, sweat, spit, anything rough, cheating.

I’m gonna get this out of the way right away, I’m a guy. On my last people I had toooons of people acting all friendly until they found out I was a guy and then they un friended me LOL. I had people berating other guys for not trying to be friends but more than that, only for them to do the same.
Anyways here’s the beginning to the actual post, btw I’ll make a mini version of it at the very end.
So! I’m Sara! That’s my nickname and not my actual name. I prefer to go by it because it’s easier for people to pronounce. My actual name is Sarthak, I’ve been told it sounds like the name of a Sithlord :) I am 21 and recently graduated from college! I’m a technical artist by profession (ask me about it, I essentially work in video games). I currently live in Canada, but I’m not sure where my job will take me. I’m applying for jobs all over the world.
Some of my hobbies include
Gaming: I’ve got a huge list of games on my profile so I’d definitely recommend you to check it out. Besides that I’ve been playing Genshin impact (EU servers) and F1 23 lately.
Music: I play electric guitar, have one of the most used Spotify accounts in the world and I’d also love if you picked a playlist which caught ur curiosity and ask me for the link. Here are your options

- She can fix me - She can’t fix me - Let the inner demons take control - Vengeance 

Video Media: I often have something running in the background on either Youtube or Netflix. Sometimes both. I should make a list of stuff I’ve watched on Netflix too so people can go through that if needed xD
Art: obviously! I’m an artist so I make art :) 3D more than 2D but I like to dabble in everything. I’ve also made a mural in the past and am in the process of making another one.
TDLR: Chill gamer artist boy in Canada looking for more chill people to vibe with.
Also! If you do decide to message me, I’d love a small introduction as well so I have something to work with.
EDIT: Yes I do have an NSFW profile because I commented in r4r Toronto which happens to be an NSFW sub.

I’m gonna get this out of the way right away, I’m a guy. On my last people I had toooons of people acting all friendly until they found out I was a guy and then they un friended me LOL. I had people berating other guys for not trying to be friends but more than that, only for them to do the same.
Anyways here’s the beginning to the actual post, btw I’ll make a mini version of it at the very end.
So! I’m Sara! That’s my nickname and not my actual name. I prefer to go by it because it’s easier for people to pronounce. My actual name is Sarthak, I’ve been told it sounds like the name of a Sithlord :) I am 21 and recently graduated from college! I’m a technical artist by profession (ask me about it, I essentially work in video games). I currently live in Canada, but I’m not sure where my job will take me. I’m applying for jobs all over the world.
Some of my hobbies include
Gaming: I’ve got a huge list of games on my profile so I’d definitely recommend you to check it out. Besides that I’ve been playing Genshin impact (EU servers) and F1 23 lately.
Music: I play electric guitar, have one of the most used Spotify accounts in the world and I’d also love if you picked a playlist which caught ur curiosity and ask me for the link. Here are your options

- She can fix me - She can’t fix me - Let the inner demons take control - Vengeance 

Video Media: I often have something running in the background on either Youtube or Netflix. Sometimes both. I should make a list of stuff I’ve watched on Netflix too so people can go through that if needed xD
Art: obviously! I’m an artist so I make art :) 3D more than 2D but I like to dabble in everything. I’ve also made a mural in the past and am in the process of making another one.
TDLR: Chill gamer artist boy in Canada looking for more chill people to vibe with.
Also! If you do decide to message me, I’d love a small introduction as well so I have something to work with.
EDIT: Yes I do have an NSFW profile because I commented in r4r Toronto which happens to be an NSFW sub.

I’m gonna get this out of the way right away, I’m a guy. On my last people I had toooons of people acting all friendly until they found out I was a guy and then they un friended me LOL. I had people berating other guys for not trying to be friends but more than that, only for them to do the same.
Anyways here’s the beginning to the actual post, btw I’ll make a mini version of it at the very end.
So! I’m Sara! That’s my nickname and not my actual name. I prefer to go by it because it’s easier for people to pronounce. My actual name is Sarthak, I’ve been told it sounds like the name of a Sithlord :) I am 21 and recently graduated from college! I’m a technical artist by profession (ask me about it, I essentially work in video games). I currently live in Canada, but I’m not sure where my job will take me. I’m applying for jobs all over the world.
Some of my hobbies include
Gaming: I’ve got a huge list of games on my profile so I’d definitely recommend you to check it out. Besides that I’ve been playing Genshin impact (EU servers) and F1 23 lately.
Music: I play electric guitar, have one of the most used Spotify accounts in the world and I’d also love if you picked a playlist which caught ur curiosity and ask me for the link. Here are your options

- She can fix me - She can’t fix me - Let the inner demons take control - Vengeance 

Video Media: I often have something running in the background on either Youtube or Netflix. Sometimes both. I should make a list of stuff I’ve watched on Netflix too so people can go through that if needed xD
Art: obviously! I’m an artist so I make art :) 3D more than 2D but I like to dabble in everything. I’ve also made a mural in the past and am in the process of making another one.
TDLR: Chill gamer artist boy in Canada looking for more chill people to vibe with.
Also! If you do decide to message me, I’d love a small introduction as well so I have something to work with.
EDIT: Yes I do have an NSFW profile because I commented in r4r Toronto which happens to be an NSFW sub.

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There's two characters in Gnosis I'd like to poll your opinions of, specifically your moral judgements of. Feel free to explain your opinion in detail below, or just vote in the poll. These two aliens, who later civilizations granted the Occite (dead language, used similarly to how we use latin today) names Aeldymyga and Aeldyshana are part of the Haloborn offshoot the same people named "Aeldya" and two of the oldest living beings in the setting. The others are Aeldylumna, Aeldymalga, Aeldyfarsa, Aeldyvinza and Aeldydeita, yes there really was only ever seven of them. (The prefix "Aeldy-" roughly means "bizarre deity" and I'll be cutting it off from here on.) Their history is long, complex and deeply unpleasant, but at its core this is a question about whether or not atrocities on the scale of those the Aeldyans committed constitute a moral event horizon from which it is impossible for anybody to return.
Our story starts off over twenty thousand years before they arrived in this system, on the homeworld of the Haloborn. This world orbits a star that in turn orbits perpendicular to most of the stars in the galaxy and on its most recent (and only the most recent) pass its inhabitants were a technological civilization that specialized in biotech due to the metal-poor nature of their host star. These two, like nearly all Haloborn, were cripplingly impoverished in a post-scarcity society that refused to share its resources with its people. As automation reached the point where society didn't need workers at all anymore the elite of their society hatched a scheme to dispose of the poor and eliminate their greatest fear at the same time. See, they noticed that there was no sure signs of any other intelligent life in the galaxy, at least that they saw, a familiar issue we humans call the Fermi Paradox. Their solution to this was to assume something must be destroying the rest of them, not the truth which is that they were just early and the only earlier civilization was on the far side of the galaxy. We call this absurd conclusion built off the unchallenged assumptions of authoritarian ideology "The Dark Forest", and they decided to exploit and destroy the rest of their people to burn The Dark Forest to the ground. Their people were rounded up, forced into extreme longevity treatments that deliberately sterilized them and put in re-education camps off in very nearby uninhabited star systems over the course of several centuries. There entire star systems were being strip-mined to make a personal colony-constructor ship for every one of them while they each designed their own autonomous military and tested them against eachothers' in simulations before and after they were shoved into a million-tonne transport & factory ship and sent off to commit genocide against the entire galaxy. This is where Shana and Myga met, and when Shana was sent off with her parents and siblings Myga requested to go with her and lacking a group of her own was allowed to do so. This journey to Gnosis was only a couple hundred light years, but being so mechanically primitive they had to travel the full distance at <1% C instead of traveling millions or billions of times shorter of a distance with spatial compression technology. In the score of millenia it took them to arrive a new, third spacefaring civilization arose even closer, got hit by other Haloborn like them, investigated and discovered what the Haloborn's rulers did to their own people, built a star laser around a small red dwarf about thirty light years away and about thirty years later the entire Haloborn homeworld was melted, vaporized, ionized into plasma and driven into its parent star. (Too bad most of those responsible for what happened to its regular people had already left, the ultra-advanced Neo-Haloborn and the Wrath of the Rim have been waging war across the Milky Way ever since.) Most of this is greater-universe information unavailable in this setting, but it's available in another setting much earlier in the timeline so it's all still fair game.
When they launched for Gnosis, it was host to naught but microbes. When they arrived it was on its second interstellar civilization, its first (the Precursors, the only interstellar civilization that predates the Haloborn) having shown up and terraformed 4 planets and 9 moons then ditched this place in response to problems abroad, then a second one had shown up a few centuries before their arrival. Other than it being the civilization that brought humans here we know nothing about them because of Aeldya. When the seven arrived they sneakily deployed their colony-constructors in the outer system, building their invasion forces and nudging five kuiper belt objects onto trajectories that would all intersect with one of the inner worlds around the same time. When the defending fleets dispatched to redirect the comets they launched gargantuan missiles for all thirteen worlds I nicknamed "Extinction Engines", each accelerating 6 sub-missiles to ~173km/s (~C/1728, or "0.001C" as they'd write it), with each of those carrying six ~0.8 exajoule "Supernova" MIRVs (antimatter-enhanced nuclear weapons that fuse hydrogen until it produces nickel-56, hence "Supernova"). The parts of the fleet dispatched to deal with them found they were able to break up early to target warships, and not long thereafter the Aeldyan drone fleet hit them from behind, destroying their orbital defenses, their fleet and naval command stations, and not long after all military, industrial and government facilities in the entire system were annihilated along with all the key infrastructure the current inhabitants had built. At least in this star system their civilization was gone forever and retaliation never came, leaving humans and everybody else in the system as post-apocalyptic tribes. Myga and Shana were as involved in this as all the others, barely any gentler during the initial invasion than the others were and only in the sense that they only nova bombed the listed targets hard enough to ensure their destruction, not to destroy entire surrounding cities like their counterparts did. That said, afterwards they did prove to be the nice ones in the group, but "nice" is relative. Shana positioned her main compound at the south pole of the most verdant world since almost nobody lived on the ice cap, while Myga positioned hers on the planet's most populous and second largest continent to quietly watch the people there. Notably, they were the only Aeldyans to share a world, all the others took one or more as their domain exclusively.
After a few years Myga changed the RoE for her all her robots from "warning shots only unless attacked" (already gentler than how the rest had it set) to "no lethal force on sophonts under any circumstances", never to be changed back. Shana followed suit some time after, the first in a long series of behavioral changes Myga modeled and Shana followed. Soon they were building together all over the planet, partly building up a massive military presence and partly building units to make fight eachother's for fun, but mostly just making things to entertain themselves and eachother. This isn't unusual, Haloborn usually just play around with their tech after they take a star system over (would you do any different?), but what is unusual is that after a few centuries Myga started helping the local tribes. This was slow at first, early on she just had her units drop the carcass of any animal they killed at the nearest village, but in less than a millennium she started distributing small arms (mostly coilguns, good for hunting) to local villages, ordering units with less-lethal weapons to intervene in armed conflicts (too bad she stopped, shit's fucked right now) and sending out a handful of robots programmed to demonstrate useful techniques like irrigation to the locals. She also started building a lot of giant statues of herself and Shana, way more than the others built giant statues and that's really saying something. Shana soon joined in, and in no time they were climbing into humongous mecha and using them to see the progress of the locals in person (while remaining impervious to anything they'd have for centuries). I think you can see why ancient people thought of Aeldyans as deities, all things considered.
Then things fell apart. We're still not sure what happened, but we have a pretty basic timeline of events in the final century of Aeldya. First, Myga's statues... Changed. We're not sure exactly when, the oldest of the weird ones we found was dated to about a century before the explosions started give or take a few decades, but it and many more portrayed Myga's head swollen up larger than her entire thorax. (Haloborn have a two-segment body with four limbs attached to each a dimorphically-horned head and six digit appendages, except male haloborn have a seventh, extra-jumbo middle digit on all four forelimbs.) Not long after this, she built at least one statue where she and Shana were both like that. We don't know what she was trying to communicate and it seems doubtful the purpose of these statues was to communicate anything to us, but modern civilizations have been able to figure out from them that the four Aeldyans with the larger heads, downward-curving horns and six-digit hands were female, that their species gestates in their mother's head of all places, that their brain probably isn't in their head and what the males' extra digits are for. What we do know is that almost immediately thereafter one of the others nova'd Myga's central compound and everything she built on the entire continent. (And I'm not telling you who.) We thought for a while this probably killed her based on what happened next, we have reason now to believe she's still alive but the others didn't know that. Before the fallout had settled, Shana was at war with her father and siblings. Just a few short weeks later Shana killed her father Vinza so hard she gave Gnosis Vin a ring system; a ~13km ball of porous rock and ice struck his compound at ~35km/s with enough kinetic energy to dwarf The Chicxulub Impact. Without her father's involvement and with her kill-crazy lunatic sister attacking everybody, Shana was able to best both her brothers and while she didn't kill any of them she did destroy most of the other three's industrial capacity and their colony-constructor ships so they couldn't rebuild it. In the process, Gnosis Aelsif got nova'd to hell and back. We only just found a way to the moon-planets of the planet-star where her mother resides (Gnosis Dei is an odd, unnatural object) so we don't know if she was involved or not. Shana's next move was to nova everything she and Myga had built together over their time in Gnosis. (Curious...) Then Shana moved past "anger", skipped "bargaining" and went straight to "depression", and how! (No seriously, you don't understand, she was outright catatonic for millenia.)
Since then, the modern civilizations have developed in the shadow of Aeldya and the other civilizations that came before. We've seen signs Myga is alive, mostly that her units haven't changed behaviour at all where Vinza's CCAIs (command and control artificial intelligences) turned on eachother and his drones have been fighting a civil war ever since across his planet and the entire inner asteroid belt (with explosions so gargantuan you can see them from the planets) while ignoring everybody else. That screams "failsafe", we think it happens any time one of them dies (but our sample size is one.) Other than that we've found that her old compound (now known as the "Still City of the Storm's Eye") is now in the eye of a stationary blazing hypercane, the ground beneath melting into shards of flying glass with light from the Precursor dyson swarm which power the megameter an hour winds that reach clear into the stratosphere. (And send shards raining down hundreds of kilometers away.) If she's in there she sure doesn't seem to want visitors but it's not like there's any better explanations. We've also seen that the continent around it has gotten weirder and weirder ever since, invasive species somehow arriving from other planets and moons in the system, some we don't know where they're from, some might even be entirely new creatures never seen anywhere else and some we can't fathom occuring naturally, and yet it all thrives even in places where not much should be living. The new ecosystem is strong, stable and turned even desert and tundra into thriving, verdant wilderness teeming with life. These "Otherlands" CANNOT be natural. While we don't know of any technology that could produce all of the phenomena there, the Precursors brought life to these planets somehow so maybe Myga's hijacked whatever kind of world-seeding engines they had and that would at least explain the "unconventional" lifeforms. (IE: "Spirits", sexually reproducing machines made of bioplastic orbs and tubes surrounded by a hologram and an electroweak field that protects their fragile body.)
So far we've seen them move on from the worst atrocity in the history of the setting to (for a while) help the descendants of their victims and then after the Aeldyan civil war we've seen signs one of them is trying to repair the damage done to the environment by their horrific weapons. We haven't talked about why, because modern people don't know that, but here's the part where I ditch what IU people know: Myga's every action since the invasion was out of remorse and an effort to be seen by the people of the planet as a benevolent figure so she could see herself as less of a monster and she dragged Shana along with her. However, it was Shana who first created their greatest gift to the younger civilizations: Immortals, starting with immortal Folk (the humans physically most like us) known abroad as the "Children of Heaven". Immortals are what you get when you use Haloborn biotech to turn the unborn into supersoldiers, and while there's a LOT of ethical problems with the process (like the complete lack of consent from any party) the resulting people have insurmountable immune systems, hypermetabolism and healing factor, stop ageing at a pre-programmed point, can survive incredible physical trauma, the main downside is sterility, their only weakness is poison and the only unsurvivable physical trauma would be the destruction of the heart or brain, or decapitation if the head isn't reunited with the body within about a week. This isn't insurmountable by any means, it won't let them survive a direct strike from naval artillery for example, but it's pretty impressive to non-spacefaring people. She created the children of heaven as a hasty apology, she accidentally collapsed a building on an expedition to the south pole trying to scare them away from her compound, retrieved their leader's corpse after he crawled out with his one remaining limb and died, rebuilt him as the first Child of Heaven and proceeded to find him over a century later to create more immortals of this type. Warit Abn Alaliha is a... "complicated character" (plus she still doesn't know about his worst actions, and might be involved in his positive character arc in more ways than its length) so we'll skip evaluating his dubious morals. When she found him in the capital of his New Holy Empire she decided to "bless" the academy he built on the eponymous bay of Blessed Bay by installing a facility under one of the islands that would monitor the academy and ensure any folk girl who conceived there would become host to a pair of tiny symbiotic drones that would improve her health and modify her eggs so her children would be Children of Heaven and as she made immortals for new species she gradually made it so girls of all those species who conceived at the academy would give birth to immortals from then on. She also began monitoring other societies around the world around this time and when she saw giant empires stomping on tiny tribes she intervened by granting those tribes their own immortals. She's not the only creator of immortals anymore, both Myga and Shana's brothers have joined in, but only her and Myga remain true to the original goal of helping those unable to resist imperialist aggression defend themselves. For once it was Shana dragging Myga in a constructive direction, even though she doesn't know yet. Unfortunately the Elven Empire managed to steal some of her technology and make their own immortals to fuel their imperialist aggression, and while she didn't intend that particular outcome it wouldn't be an unreasonable opinion that it was forseeable and she's still responsible for it.
This is where we are today. Neither of them communicates with modern people as far as society at large knows, modern people aren't even 100% Myga's alive (even if us outside observers know better) and the assistance they've been providing from the sidelines has been very light-touch, indirect stuff to the little guys the big empires keep kicking around. They've helpfully rebuilt and abandoned some factories and then half-destroyed and aged them so they'd look like they'd been there since their civil war and let the powers that were less aggressive and more prone to sharing have some of their tech bit by bit over the years after seeing Warit Abn Alaliha's New Holy Empire had found and restarted one production line in one of Shana's kinetic warhead plants and figured out how to hard-start the missiles to use them against the Elven Empire as if they were ordinary semi-active laser homing weapons. They even intervened a few times more directly, such as the time they ran aground an Elven Empire Company cargo ship full of those small arms Myga once made for people on one of the largest islands of the Palisadean Realms said Elven Empire and all its companies had been ravaging (by which I mean wiping entire islands clean, killing all who resist and dragging the rest off as slaves or the subjects of unethical human experimentation) so the locals could use those weapons to defend themselves. The only times either one has been willing to be blatant is whenever the Elven Empire builds on the shores of Shana's ice cap she uses an EMP generated by a 29 petajoule upper-atmospheric nova bomb as a "warning shot" and if they won't take a hint she detonates a 38 terajoule nova 2/3 of a klick in the air, reducing their base to smoldering rubble beneath a mushroom cloud before they've even finished building it, and she's only willing to be that heavy-handed because nobody else is down there to be collateral damage. As it stands, it doesn't seem like they intend to get directly involved even now that the inner worlds have been consumed in a horrific great war so vicious it reached an 8-digit number of fatalities in six days. (That is NOT hyperbole.) This could be written off as "prime directive" bullshit, but really it's plain old, garden-variety guilt, shame and self-doubt. (Whether they'll change their mind remains to be seen.)
So have Aeldymyga and Aeldyshana managed to redeem themselves with their actions over the last eight thousand years? Is what they did so far beyond the pale that nothing can redeem them? Or can they be redeemed but they just haven't gotten there yet? That's all just an opinion, so let's hear yours.
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In an alternate world, there was once this man called Vladimir Branovic, an exceptionally bright and good looking fella coming from a not so prestigious, but wealthy dynasty. Growing up in the capital of Serbia, his family managed to help Vlad study stewardship at the royal court, becoming quite the fortune builder. During his study years, young Vlad made the most out of this opportunity and befriended as many important people as possible, such as courtiers, shop owners and even some council members. He knew one’s fate could change just like the weather, so he carefully planned his future – yet, little known to him, his life was about to change forever. Short before his 25^th birthday, the news of the heirless king getting the plague became the hottest gossip throughout the kingdom – and it being so small, they did spread like wildfire. Knowing that the Serbian king had no other relatives, he seized the moment and began making promises to prominent figures, as well as bribing important business owners from the capital. With the help of his parents, two wealthy merchants, Vlad quickly assembled a party that would ensure his position as the new king. And, as the much awaited day came to be, the council gathered and with an almost unanimous vote, they took the Serbian crown and placed it upon Vladimir’s head. As happy as any newly crowned king would be in his place, it was a bitter-sweet moment for his as his parents passed shortly just before they’d see their son on the throne.
First thing he’d do as the new Serbian king is to honor his promises, as he retrieved three titles and gave them to a party made of his biggest supporters: the Rectorate of Ragusa would fall into the hands of no else than a baby, a 2 year old Zdenka, Belgrad would be given to a commander named Rastko and Ras would go to Teodosije, a former steward from the court, who sadly passed away shortly and the title went to his son named after him. You might ask yourself, why would he give Ragusa to such a little baby? Well, as part of the deal with Zdenka’s mother, he did so because Zdenka was the only child of hers to not inherit any titles, so she wanted her little girl to become a lady and also be able to choose her own husband and live a different life than hers. Zdenka’s mom was a good woman.
1. King Vladimir of Serbia (born 1 Jan 744 - died 20^th of August, 789) The newly appointed king decided to focus on trade, hoping that his kids will never have to face the fear of not having enough resources to sustain themselves. Even if he was wealthy, mostly through inheriting his parents’ money, he realized that now, as king, he needs to step up and make a name for himself, and hopefully quickly, because his first ambition as ruler is to get married and have heirs – he learned, as he watched the former king, that any of his efforts won’t matter if there’s no one carrying his name after he kicks the bucket. Obviously, a considerable sum of money will be necessary for raising the many princes and princesses that will soon come to be.
But before all of this, he needed to appoint his council members. And there comes the first sacrifice for the wellbeing of his rule and kingdom – although he appointed Belgrad to Rastko, which made him an important vassal, Rastko wasn’t really talented at.. anything. Therefore, Vlad decided that it’s time to do something risky, so he dismissed Rastko from the council just a day after his coronation, which obviously upset the commander. Hopefully, no more bad feeling will ignite from this move.
He thought the council problem would be over after this incident, however Vlad realized that he’s surrounded by morons. He spent a few nights thinking about this, and came with a pretty nice conclusion: he started looking abroad for servants of the same Slavic faith like his, and wrote down a list of people he thought he could “convince” (with money) to join his court. In just a week, four people with remarkable skills joined his council and now Vlad would rest assured that his country is in actual capable hands. To keep these people happy, he’d ask to be presented 10 debutantes with every special occasion and he’d pick only the most talented and beautiful ones to be wives of his council members and sometimes other courtiers, a strategy that he’ll pass down to future generations.
And speaking of marriage, it was time for him to choose a wife. So as he was doing his homework on the new girls at the court, he asked his chancellor Zvonimir for his advice in regards of who to marry. After weeks of searching, the king was finally enticed by a certain lady Adelheid, the daughter of a chief from Saxony. What attracted him was her similar genius mind and her great skills in statemanship – he knew a lady like her would make an excellent mother and tutor too for his kids, and to be fair, she wasn’t bad looking either. There was only one concern about her which was mentioned by the king’s Diviner, that Adelheid was not part of their Slavic religion, but of the Germanic one. Obviously, they’d prefer if she was of their faith, however the king wafted a hand and sent his Chancellor to ask for the maiden’s hand in marriage. For the first time, Vlad was kinda punched into his male ego because even if he was a king now, his soon-to-be father in law still humble-flirted his way into getting some “attention” (a nice little gift, nothing else) from him. This infuriated Vlad a bit but he sighed and thought to himself “You know, even if this is coming from a chief, at least he’s not giving away his daughter easily.” And right he was, as she was 26, a year older than Vlad, and still a maiden. So he sent the money, and a day after she arrived in Serbia, the wedding took place.
Following the wedding, the king decided to hold a Great Tribal Festival in order to keep the good vibe on and also please his vassals and courtiers. During this time, a fortune teller came in the capital and the king wished for his fortune to be told – and to his surprise, the teller promised an extraordinary future for Vlad, which made him really ecstatic. In fact, considering his wedding took place just a few days before this, from this moment forward he started to look at his wife with more admiration, as he attributed her presence to this promised extreme luck. So much so, that he won’t bed other women and won’t be taking other concubines, a promised he made to himself, as he thought that she might be the woman of his life and he wouldn’t want to upset her in any way.
Yet, to everyone’s surprise, Adelheid was not named the Queen of the Festival, and actually kind of made a fool of herself, earning the nickname “the thin-minded”. Another girl from the court won the title, the wife of the Marshall, Neda. This cringed Vlad a bit, but he decided to ignore this, for the sake of his relationship with Adelheid. After the festival, the king decided to become a follower of Jarilo, the Slavic god of fertility, in hopes of him being granted the honor of becoming a father faster. He followed this by making a food offering to the Gods as he wished for companionship and affection… praying for this as he looking at his wife with the corner of his eye. And guess it worked, as of 13^th of June, Adelheid announced that she is with child.
The news made Vlad extremely happy, but quickly became stressed about money. Although his own struggles, he decided to be a gentleman to his wife and attended to her with everything he could, including hiring women so she could gossip with. On 13rd of January, the most awaited heir entered the world, a little baby boy that took his looks mostly after his Saxon mom. When Vlad first held his child, he looked into his eyes and saw mostly of his wife and little of him – however, this is not what disappointed him most. The wetnurses and other courtiers will later inform the king that his son inherited none of his traits, not even the couple’s common high intelligence… Vlad sighed and kept telling himself that he should be glad that he has a healthy baby, but in reality, there was a little bit of sadness in his heart that stick with him through his life. The king decided to shoot two rabbits with a single bullet, make his wife happy and give the middle finger to his dad-in-law by naming the child after his maternal grandfather… a child with no significant traits, at all. Engelhard is now Serbia’s heir. The child will be taught about stewardship, just like his father.
After spending time with his son and seeing just.. an ordinary kid and not some savant, the king made the mistake of drinking too much and instead of going to his wife.. he went to the wife of his Spymaster… and the product of that single night would be a baby girl named Jelena, that was just like the heir, born with no spectacular traits. Vlad knew this was a huge, immense mistake and he decided to do the right thing and break it off with Medeni, because he wouldn’t want any trouble with his own Spymaster, who believes the child is his. In the meantime, the queen also became pregnant, and on 13rd of June a girl was born, whose name was to be Antonia. From her birth, she was to be known for her beauty and for looking just like the king. This really did warm Vlad’s heart. In fact, he himself would tutor her in diplomacy… maybe he was meant to be a girl dad?
In order to gain some business connections of his own, and at the advice of his Spymaster, Vlad decided to start a nice business deal with the Sultan of Africa, a young 18 years old Aylal. As he couldn’t possibly refuse him, the king decided to take his Spymaster with him – the trip was painful and awkward, as Vlad had to look him in the eye and act like nothing happened between him and his wife, and the child he’s raising is not his… Luckily, he played it cool enough not to raise any suspicions. He also played it nicely regarding the business trip, as he bought merchant boats and a dozen strong warriors as gift for the sultan. Maybe the fortune teller was right, because both his Spymaster and his Steward made a show out of themselves, but the king was able to not only sign a very profitable contract, but also to become the sultan’s friend. The two will continue to write each other letters from now on.
Vlad is now thriving, and once he returned home he was welcomed not only by his wife and courtiers, but also by amazing news: a new royal baby is on the way! Yet, just a few days passed since Vlad returned home and he was met with a very uncomfortable situation – apparently, the Greek orthodox Despot sent a preacher to teach about their religion and while doing so, the preacher managed to insult everyone, calling the Slavic religion a dangerous and sinful cult. This angered Vlad, who placed the preacher into his dungeon – move which made the Greek Despot pretty unhappy.
Inspired by this incident, the Spymaster Yaropolk suggested the king shall erect a monument of Jarilo to not let the people of Slavic faith to be disheartened by the orthodox infidels. The king sighed but nodded to the suggestion, once again getting coin from his pockets and giving it away, but it was for the good of the realm. After all, better be safe than sorry.
The monument seemed to please the god of fertility, as not only a beautiful, but also a genius baby boy was born. The king hold the baby in his arms with such pride, that his good mood radiated in the whole castle. During that day, he was in such euphoria that he sent gifts not only to his wife, but to his dad-in-law, his council members too. He named his second son Vlastimir, and it was evident he saw himself in that child. Not only that he made himself his tutor too, in the arts of diplomacy, but also named him his heir. Little Engelhard is only six years old by this time and he doesn’t understand much of what is happening, and to be honest, no one has the heart to do so. But the king is happy and shines like the sun. So happy, that once his Spymaster told him of a disgusting plot of his wife, which was to kill the Rector of Ragusa, little Zdenka of ten years old now, he forgave her and just told her to stop putting her nose where it doesn’t belong, and did not imprison her. Afterall, she just delivered the son he always desired.
His good mood lasted for months and it made Vlad encourage a new hobby, gardening. Not only he built a gorgeous fountain, but also arranged a beautiful maze, planted exotic plants and placed statues of religious figures around his castle – his new interest will make him a pretty renowned gardener, and in this very same garden he will meet someone pretty interesting – a Breton young guy, that presents himself to be a court healer ready for employment. Yet, the Spymaster will soon find out he is in fact a missionary from Brittany that has been trying to preach the Christian faith to his people. Infuriated by his daring, Vlad gave the order for this man to be executed. Under no circumstance will he upset the Gods. Riualtr has been burned at stake, for all to see and to fear the wreath the king has for infidels that try to preach nonsense to his people!
Six months later, Jarilo blessed Vladimir once again as his wife comes to him and announce her fourth pregnancy, which makes something click in his mind – the more infidels he burns, perhaps… he will be more blessed. Therefore, that day he took the decision of offering the orthodox preacher as a sacrifice to the gods as soon as time permits it, as long as he won’t die by that time in prison. On the 13rd of November, a beautiful girl of Saxon looks has been born. Just like her sister, she will be tutored in diplomacy – but this time by another woman from the court, as Vlad is busy teaching his second and third children. He decided not to let Adelheid teach any of his kids despite her brilliant skills in diplomacy, fearing they might start believing in the Germanic faith and not correct one.
The day Vlad had to put on his armor and ride to battle for the first time came as orthodox neighbors from Dioclea decided to raid his lands. The man was fearless, and with the help of the Gods, he wins the first duel of his life against the High Chief of Dioclea, Godimir. He did not manage to kill him as he wished, but the man was never the same after the beating – he returned home with a black eye and a severe wound that would later get infected… Some people applaud Vlad for his first victory, but some others remained cynical as everybody knows Godimir is an old and fat lord, with no reputable fighting skills. Yet, Vlad returns home even more confident than ever, and to celebrate his victory he honors his promise and offers the orthodox preacher as sacrifice to the gods, as he prays for the wellbeing of his realm. And this decision didn’t go unrewarded, as a few months later the members of the council present the king with an incredible plan that will boost Serbia’s economical development like never before – moment in which Vladimir remembers the fortune teller’s words, about how he will be extremely lucky and thrive and his wishes will come true. This man was perhaps at the peak of his career right now, yet.. just two weeks later, he faces a harsh reality – he becomes impotent, as he is unable to “get up” anymore with his wife. A million questions pop into his head.. it is her? Surely, giving birth to four children won’t let anyone unchanged and she doesn’t have the same body as she had when they married. Is it him? Perhaps the stress that has been adding up these years have finally said their word after all. But this was a tragedy for Vlad… as he wanted nothing else than another child right now! And as a tribal leader, they do not have a place for a healer at the court… at least not a legit one. He knew he had to do something quick, so he assigned a commander that read a few more books than your average 780 AC courtier as his court healer and he’d immediately follow his treatment, which was drink made of several herbs that although tasted gross… they worked! Vlad is now back in business, and Vukasin is not only a court healer now, he’s a just married guy with his pocket full of gold.
Life tries Vladimir once again as he, in the same year as he had that private problem, he is haunted by nightmares in which he relives the many soldiers he slaughtered during the orthodox raids in his realm. In a winter morning he wakes up and starts throwing away with objects around his bedchamber, scaring his wife Adelheid. The stress and the bad memories made Vlad become pretty wrathful, and his new behavior started to show up during council meetings where he just sometime zaps, yet no one has the courage to say anything to him… For some reason, he decides to bully Vukasin, the same guy that gave him the cure for impotency, as he learned that he’s a follower of Morana and not of some other more masculine god. All of the court will have to listen to Vlad’s complaining about how his healer is a measly coward little guy, and as most believe the king, Vukasin’s reputation has to suffer and the ladies won’t like that at all… not even his own wife.
In 783, Engelhard is now 12 years old and is quite talented at intrigue, something that will certainly be useful for him in life. However, as he won’t top his little brother in his father’s eyes, all electors submitted to the king’s will and decided that Vlastimir will be heir instead. Yet, Vlad does everything within his power so that his first son marries well, so a betrothal takes place between Engelhard and the Princess of Vladimir, Slyugan’ka, nicknamed “the Heavenly” for her renowned beauty and surprisingly, also possessed quite the intellect too. Vlad hopes that at least she could give Engelhard children worthy of a royal dynasty.
Perhaps karma finally hit Vlad, or it was just bad luck, as his stress went away and made him become quite… strange. Lunatic even. When he was young, Vladimir was a charming and ambitious young man ready to face the world to fulfill his dreams, yet.. this massive change, going from pretty much a commoner to king, his first son not being the heir he wanted, him having an unwanted affair while drunk, with his spymaster’s wife and having a secret bastard, all the papers and duties, the fight that haunts and gives him nightmares… all of that made Vlad break down and he has lost his mind, for good, at only 40 years old.
Years passed by quick, and Antonia is now 12 years old. Being a decent student in diplomacy, her father wants her to be something even more prestigious than he could ever be – in an imperial court. Therefore, she is promised to the Polish Khagan, Maslaw, who falls in love immediately with her portrait. Vladimir is completely happy with her first princess, who will represent the dynasty in such a prestigious court, and who will give birth to a future Khagan.
In 786, the Arabian Sultan, the king’s friend sends word as he is desperate and needs help – the war against him is going incredibly bad and, at the advice of his new Chancellor, Vlad decides not to send troops, but money instead, as he shouldn’t be openly seen supporting someone of a religion outside his. Either way, the Sultan gladly accepts the money.
At 9^th of June 788, Engelhard becomes a full grown man and marries the princess of Vladimir. Although he showed some talent in intrigue, his skills are barely enough to ever be hired as a spymaster, who further disappoints Vlad. He hopes that at least his grandsons from him will become something better than Engelhard. For this occasion however, the king holds a second Great Tribal Festival, for the sake of his son and also to give a grand welcome to the princess. Vlad remembers how Rashka, his capital used to look like when he first hosted this event… and now it is unrecognizable, in the best sense of the word! Not only his capital city is flourishing, but his other counties as well. Surely, his stewardship skills and the Arabian trade contract had a lot of impact on this achievement. The festival is won by Adelheid the Queen, who amazed everyone with folk stories from her home country and, although everyone is in good spirits… Vlad looks at her with suspicion. What is this woman trying to do? Is she trying to promote her gods instead of ours? He is convinced he took a very wise decision by not letting her tutor their children, and from time to time he gives her doubting looks. And, just by the end of the festival, Antonia becomes 16 of age… however, she completely failed her education, which makes Vlad not disappointed in himself, as her tutor, or in her daughter… but into his wife. What if she had something to do with this? The king is convinced the queen secretly taught her daughter Saxon manners instead of the correct ones.. but there’s no proof. Even if he cannot even start a legitimate fight, he grows colder and colder to his wife, who was once a woman he deeply respected. Antonia stays just a few more days in Serbia before she is sent off to marry the Polish Khagan.
Vlastimir also has his 12nd birthday on 13rd on March 789, and for now he is neither a failure or a grand success in his studies. The king, feeling guilty that he isn’t that skilled in diplomacy and maybe this is why Vlastimir isn’t reaching his potential, hires a tutor to look after him. In addition, his father decided to also plan a betrothal for him, and will specifically look for someone of Slavic religion, so his future wife won’t try to do whatever Adelheid is trying to do. Katerina, the daughter of the deceased reigning Khatun of Bohemia and a Khan is promised to Vlastimir, and the king is especially pleased with this pairing, as Katerina is exceptionally gifted just like him and his heir.. and he seeds his wife in her, but… the young girl is a way better version of Adelheid, from Vlad’s perspective. The king of Serbia goes to sleep happy and relieved, knowing his much loved heir will marry someone worthy of him. He falls asleep… forever, as he dies in his sleep of severe sleep, at 45 years old, in 20^th of August, 789. He is remembered at the “Wise”, people probably wanting to remember his glorious younger days, and not his lunatic episodes.
The legend himself, pretty sigma if you ignore the lunacy
She used to be funnier before her menopause

INTRODUCTION

Hello there. As you may know, for the past couple of years we've been hearing a lot of complaints about how Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach was ruined by the cuts. While I don't deny that a lot has been removed, I feel like there is a lot of misinterpretation when it comes to what FNaF: SB was really meant to be.
I'll be working with a lot of the information that's already known in the datamining community, but for those who are new to cut content, I will still try and highlight the crucial points.
The actual description of what Security Breach was supposedly meant to be is listed in the paragraph "SANDBOX CUT", but before that we have to take apart the elements that are falsely perceived as cut content. It's important to know what we are working with.

THE FALSE PERCEPTION

Online, you can find a lot of videos about the version of SB's story that we never got to experience. Was Freddy meant to betray you? Did Vanny have a bigger impact on the story? A lot of it mainly comes from the trailers. And that's an important point to explore.
1. The Teaser Trailer
Altered or not, most of the areas in the teaser trailer are still in the game. But it's Vanny's dialogue that has caught everyone's attention.
More lines of hers can be heard in the NVIDIA RTX Demo as well. Minus "I See You". That one was confirmed to not be hers.
This version of Vanny was voiced by the actress Stacey Young. And during the casting Vanny was labeled as the Metal Femme Fatale. Hence the robotic undertones and alluring motif of her voice.
But the most important part is that Vanny's dialogue was never as extensive as Gregory's, Freddy's or even Vanessa's. As confirmed by Stacey Young herself, the script never exceeded a page. All the dialogue we hear in the trailers might as well be everything that Vanny has ever had.
https://preview.redd.it/im5dzbtfy13d1.png?width=735&format=png&auto=webp&s=a87bff97986c5dcd791d7e7aa9a9078925a14b78
With that in mind, "Gregory, your friends are worried about you" — the one line that has caused a lot of discussion — may not have much significance at all, as it is akin to the lines other characters say in the game — "I bet your family is worried about you", "Let me take you to your parents". When neither of these statements are true. And just exist to lure Gregory out.
But what about the children's roles on Voices.com? (For the record, Voices.com is the website Scott uses to hire actors.) Well, perhaps we should consider that it may not be a bunch of kids, but just one. Gregory.
Each name you see on Voices.com isn't a character, but a role title. And just because someone appears on the review board doesn't mean they were indeed casted or meant to stay. Take Vanny for instance. She had two different roles with different direction and casting. The "Reluctant Follower" by Jessica Tang who then became the "Metal Femme Fatale" by Stacey Young.
The children seem to be one and the same. Kid in the Box, which may be referring to Gregory in the stomach hatch. What a Sweet Kid, No Evil Intentions, who is described to be a little boy calling out to his friend. I've seen interpretations of this kid being Gregory's lost friend or Vanny trying to lure him away. But perhaps the truth is more simple. Calling out for his friend is what Gregory does the entire game — Freddy, are you there? Freddy, I'm trapped! Freddy, this. And Freddy that.
There is also "Kid on the Run! This is a bad situation", who certainly resembles Gregory with the title alone. But the important detail here is that there were not one, but two castings for Kid on the Run — Male and Female. Similar both in the title and the amount of dialogue. Bear in mind, Male and Female doesn't indicate a gender of the character, but the actor. It appears Scott couldn't find the proper match for the role, hence the amount child actors who were attempting to fill in the spot.
The idea that there were many kids was born as a combination of these roles as well as Vanny's statement in the trailer. But given that Vanny's dialogue was a one-liner with no further elaboration, like the ones other enemies have, this concept may be a misunderstanding, especially considering that the flow of the game was already set in stone.
In the trailer, we can note a few things. For one, the map was mostly complete. At the very least, structurally. And the key points of the game were already in works. You can see the compactor reserved for Chica's Boss Fight, Fazer Blast arena used in the minigame as well as the Winner's Lounge where you get the blaster. The catwalk and the stairwell of Vanny's Hideout are also included, which are a part of the Vanny Ending. Plus we are shown the Loading Dock and the Lobby Entrance, meaning the gameplay was always focused on looking for the exit.
https://preview.redd.it/l7qhcqekz13d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=c268ad86b36438580e149e6539ba763da4fa57a6
We will explore the building structure and how it ties into the gameplay further down. But to lock the discussion of the teaser trailer, I have to mention a few elements that were solely designed for the trailer.
• Vanny in the Loading Dock. The shadow you see in the Loading Dock scene isn't a part of the gameplay. It has been added for the trailer, as it is listed in the data for the cinematic camera. (Which produces a planning shot seen in the trailer.)
https://preview.redd.it/g4pmbpwqz13d1.png?width=209&format=png&auto=webp&s=a88dcff323153bb363dc8bd9734570d4bea48018
• Moon in the Kitchen. This one is easy to disprove, as this animation is literally in the files and is labeled "Marketing", implying it was only for the teaser. But did you know that this scene was initially supposed to tease Monty, with him walking past the kitchen?
https://preview.redd.it/kqcgg4bsz13d1.png?width=676&format=png&auto=webp&s=86033756652a8a9a5d017c3b9eeddc623aab188e

1. The Gameplay Trailer

Now we got to the more interesting part, but I guess I don't need to write an essay about its implications. You have Vanessa helping you, you have Burntrap's dialogue and many different cutscenes. So what's the debate here?
The important detail is this — the trailer was not made by Steel Wool. As confirmed by one of the workers, it was Scott who scripted it. The dialogue you hear may have never been in the game. It's certainly not in the files or any of the cut subtitles.
And the reason I'm highlighting the fact that it's made by Scott is because we've seen him add dialogue that never appears in the game and is just used as a teaser.
"You don't know what we've been through" and "Don't hold it against us" are the ones everyone has heard of. But did you know that Scott also planned the second Sister Location trailer that included a dialogue, which was never intended to be in the game, despite being crucial for the story? That's right, initially the cutscene with Afton's interview was just for the trailer. The only reason Scott put it in the game instead is because he thought it was too spoiler-heavy.
Even the trailer for RUIN has Gregory's monologue that never ever occurs in the actual game. Nor was it supposed to, seeing how the game has barely anything cut.
The trailer is also said to include cinematics, not just gameplay. And that's where we start dissecting the footage.
Specifically, the scene of Vanessa in the Prize Counter, leaning on the elevator. And what I am going to tell you is this scene could never occur in the game. It only existed to showcase Vanessa.
https://preview.redd.it/o9vpmggc023d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=fd020dc58597a92acf86c7bc8ccfdad56575a8ea
It's a bold statement. How do we know that? It is all in the movement of the elevator. Note where it's going, or rather from where. It goes past the Prize Counter, which would never be possible, given there was no fourth floor. Technically, there still isn't, despite what the current map and fakelevators try to convince you. There are no volumes, no lighting, nothing to imply there was anything physical above Prize Counter.
The point is that the elevator comes out of nowhere, going past the Prize Counter, indicating that it isn't a real in-game footage. In the next part we will cover more concerning Vanessa's status in the game.
Peepaw, you know you aren't allowed upstairs.
And let me bring up another scene that highlights how the trailer was never supposed to perfectly reflect the gameplay. That would be the scene of Burntrap in the West Arcade. Some may argue that perhaps his boss fight was meant to happen there, but no. From the concept stage, the Sinkhole has always existed at Roxy Raceway. Even in the trailer itself you can see that the Raceway has been damaged, just like in the final game.

1. Vanessa the Ally and Freddy the Traitor

The theme of many videos, explaining the story that has been lost. However, I would suggest to dive deeper and actually analyze the content in the trailers and in the files.
Starting with Vanessa, we hear her helping Gregory and trying to get him out of the Pizzaplex. But there are already inconsistencies present, including the scene right at the beginning of the game, with Gregory hiding from Vanessa. The same scene seen in the trailer.
The unedited maps and the location files dating as far back as 2020 suggest that the intro was the same. It is your main tutorial. And it sets up Vanessa as your enemy, despite her just doing the job of a security guard. She was never an ally to you.
https://preview.redd.it/82lgjxh8123d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=091610d3ac59a80ff06d7db774375b1c89b20799
But what about the dialogue in the files? She sounds kind, as if caring for your well-being. That is true, but I encourage you to read it, then you may realize something that doesn't add up — none of her friendly voice lines add up into a coherent conversation. She is just luring you out! "Gregory, I can keep you safe" and "Please come out, I am trying to help you." Unlike Freddy, she isn't directly speaking with you. She is hunting you down, just like everyone else.
As for the element that's never considered in these discussions, a lot of the gameplay is location-based. And Lost & Found exists both in the digital maps and older lighting scenarios. Vanessa was always meant to catch you and lock you up in the Lobby, where you'd face Vanny for the first time.
Other discussions include whether Vanessa was a playable character at some point. Once again, based on the dialogue. But it all comes to the same issue. None of these are real conversations. They are scripted and recorded in one take, meaning nobody is seen replying to Vanessa. Rather, it is something you eavesdrop on while she is in a different room.

──────────────────────────

While there is more undeniable evidence for Freddy, the circumstances are unclear. Yes, Freddy is heard hunting you down and being evil, but people have different opinions as to when and where it happens.
The popular interpretation suggests Freddy was meant to betray you in the Vanny Ending. However, the other cut dialogue may contradict it, as Freddy is the one talking to you about using the console to defeat Vanny.
In actuality, Freddy's "betrayal" wasn't even cut. Thing is, it wasn't a betrayal at all. We see Freddy turning evil in the Burntrap Ending. And that's where the voice lines fit perfectly. The thing that sets it in stone are Evil Freddy's animations. Mainly the one where he searches under the tables. Remind you, the Vanny Ending doesn't have any tables at all. But the Burntrap one does.
https://reddit.com/link/1d277rq/video/3flrzaxy223d1/player

1. The Cut Maps Don't Matter

It's not like they don't at all, but we have to set the record straight. None of the cut areas are significant. That's why they were cut.
Most of them are just plain shortcuts or parts of extended challenges. Would being able to use a random corridor to go from the Lobby to Fazcade suddenly fix the game? Don't think so. And neither would getting the Faz-Cam by fixing a boiler in the Daycare basement.
But we can use older maps to see what did and didn't change in the progression through areas. And most of it is just the same things, only extended. The map didn't receive an overhaul, all the events are the same. Loading Dock and Kitchen, Prize Counter and East Arcade, the Backstage Office and Showtime, Parts & Service and the Endo Warehouse.
As we have addressed earlier, the game's story was never majorly altered. All down to Roxy Raceway being affected by the Sinkhole was planned from the concept stage.
https://preview.redd.it/u522e0ce323d1.png?width=1902&format=png&auto=webp&s=5e13a5e9c5881c0d338acd293533b2c8ae0bcf15

THE SANDBOX CUT

So what am I attempting to convey with the paragraph above? It sounds awfully like there was no oldebetter version of SB. Is that the point of the post?
Well, yes and no. The story and missions were practically the same, only with more steps at times. But most of the cut content breakdowns focus on the wrong thing, attempting to locate more events and scripted scenes that would expand on the story. But perhaps we should do the exact opposite.
What if I told you that the current version of SB is far more storydriven than anything that came prior?
So what is the Sandbox SB? Well, it's just a nickname for what appears to be the older version of Security Breach that had even more focus on gameplay than story. And its main distinction is lack of scripted progression. The Six Hour Countdown.
For the first time, it appeared in the gameplay trailer. You can see the Faz-Watch doing something that we never see in the final game — it's actually counting time. And not the scripted timestamps, but every single minute.
https://preview.redd.it/cgokc1qw423d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=81858d46d7277b1a1f57e914be02677db58fd42b
But wait, there is more. We have the Intercom's voice lines, recorded back in June, 2020. Months before we got our first trailer. And there you find the following announcements:

• Attention all personnel. This is your last opportunity to leave the building before the scheduled maintenance lockdown begins.
• I repeat. This is your last opportunity to leave the building before the scheduled maintenance lockdown begins.
• Lockdown complete. All animatronics, please remain at your recharge terminals until recharge cycle is complete.
• Recharge cycle complete. Building maintenance and other custodial activities may commence.
• Recharge cycle complete. Building maintenance and other custodial activities may resume.
• It is now fifteen minutes until the hour. All animatronics, please return to your recharge terminals.
• It is now ten minutes until the hour. All animatronics, please return to your recharge terminals.
• It is now five minutes until the hour. All animatronics, please return to your recharge terminals.
• All animatronics should now be at their recharge terminals.

At the start of the game you also see an instruction card with a piece of outdated information. Telling you that Freddy can't be used again if he's out of power and you can only charge him at the end of the hour.
https://preview.redd.it/a7o4r1ff523d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=502cfa1ff39c68069bc15e39ceabf3d18cd422e5
Which, obviously, is not true. Why would the tutorial teach you that? You can charge him anytime despite it practically colliding with the lore. Since we're told the recharge stations are specifically being powered at the end of the hour.
The game always reminded you about the time that's actively passing. This little detail — the active time flow — opens our Pandora's box of possibilities. It means that you could do virtually nothing and just wait for the gates to open.
But Steel Wool have thought of that, too. Not only do you need to pass the Daycare and meet Freddy not to fall victim to Moon, but you also have something else to care about, known as the Vanny Meter.
Well, some may recall Ray saying it was meant for Survival Mode. And he wouldn't be wrong, as it's the last place where it existed. But that's not the full truth, as the Vanny Meter is hardwired into the Story Mode as well. Ever seen Vanessa run away to the Atrium for no reason? That's the Vanny Meter in action.
https://preview.redd.it/8ffzwqed523d1.png?width=1507&format=png&auto=webp&s=701f7861d6c9229d5026d8ef85f56e73691f462b
Now, to those who don't know, Vanny Meter is a special feature that reacts to your movement. The more you idle, the more it fills up. If you stand still for a while, Vanessa gets triggered. She runs towards a large bathroom and there she becomes Vanny. For one, it implies Vanessa must have patrolled the map since at least 1 AM. For two, the main purpose of the Vanny Meter is to make sure you don't leave the game running in the background while you are gone doing chores. No cheating allowed. You survive 6 Hours fair and square.
There are a few more things linked to the timer besides the Vanny Meter. Some of you may know about the Night Mode. The dark red lighting that appears to be the early version of the starry filter Moon has. These are the emergency lights. Just as Freddy said, at the end of the hour all the power goes to recharge stations. But do you know what happens if you activate Night Mode at 12 AM? Time starts going. Not in the Survival Mode, but in the plain Story Mode. Activating on its own.
https://preview.redd.it/ikmkj9hp523d1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=8e8bc1c79d4bb3e6775a4812b6c241b1242857d7
One more thing that caused a lot of commotion was the Plan A pop-up if you died at 6 AM. If someone still wonders what it is, the answer is right there in the files. And right here below.
Plan A [Mission]

The main doors open at 6AM

• Try to survive the night until the main doors open at 6AM

The doors are open!

• The main doors are now open! Head to the main entrance quickly!

Plan C [Mission]

Find the prize counter security office on the 3rd floor

• The Prize counter is on the third level above the main entrance. You should be able to escape there.

Find the door to the Security Office

• Look for the door with a security badge symbol on it.

Find another way into the Security Office
Take the security badge from the Security Office
Survive until Freddy shuts down the alarm
Find the VIP room at the back of the Prize Counter

• That security bot wont let you pass unless you are a VIP member. If you collect enough prizes he may let you in.

Plan B...
Well, it doesn't have an official mission breakdown, but it's pretty obviously linked to Loading Dock. Plus the trigger for it is signed accordingly.
https://preview.redd.it/14nnl3a3823d1.png?width=809&format=png&auto=webp&s=8cdd51df3231058daea31ab3129ac7e3ddf86c25
Now. What makes these missions so special is the fact that they are no longer special at all. The idea of three plans implies you could follow one while neglecting the other, which is obviously impossible in the current game, since you are forced to follow Plan A in both cases. And nor can you decide to follow Plan A without collecting the badges for the Loading Dock Ending.
But what if it wasn't meant to be this way?
What if you could find a different exit before the 6 Hour mark? I believe this is the exact reason why these extra exits exist in the first place. If you are skilled enough, you could finish the game way sooner.
It wasn't a step-by-step story, like RUIN. It was a gigantic mall simulator where you are the moving force of the plot. This is the reason why everything feels so forced and unmotivated.

• Why do I have to go into the building if I can just wait for 6 hours?
• Why do I have to destroy the Glamrocks if that was never the plan?
• Why can't I just hide and wait?
• Why do I have to put myself in danger?

Well, you don't. And that's the true meaning of the Sandbox SB. The idea of surviving the night your way, while it's your curiosity, greed or bloodlust that push Gregory to survive, collect and fight.
It's a big sandbox puzzle where you look for anything that could aid in your motives, whether you just want to live till dawn or play detective and uncover all the secrets of the Pizzaplex.
Another important element of the Sandbox is the way enemies act. As you may have noticed, SB did something to the bots that changed them forever. Their pathing was limited. They can't walk away, even though that's their design. The natural state for the animatronics and Vanessa is to freely circulate around the map without obstacles.
Couldn't get a shot, but Chica is sometimes seen getting stuck in this corner. She wants to go outside. Through a phantom door.
That's why sometimes you can notice Chica get stuck at Customer Service locker room. She attempts to go off the rail and go through a shortcut that no longer exists. That's why Vanessa runs into a wall and disappears, as she can't reach the Daycare bathroom to become Vanny. That's the reason why the map is flooded with Security Bots, as the Glamrocks could walk to the far end of the building.
And that's why the map had so many various corridors, airlocks and passages. No elevators, no loading screens. Only the steady circulation of animatronics and Vanessa around the premises. The enemies could pick shortcuts and circle in on you. Or instead you could use a different exit and not end up in a dead end. That's why the large and interconnected web of Utility Tunnels used to exist. It was a reward. As you upgraded Freddy and opened more gates, you could then unlock more underground ways to reach your destination without the need to face the Glamrocks patrolling all the areas upstairs. Just like Freddy tells you at the start of the game: Utility Tunnels are the safest path. And they were intended to get you anywhere you want.
https://preview.redd.it/63gvpfata23d1.png?width=2500&format=png&auto=webp&s=452983eaf0a430358b5f3261a2e0bf4d0796fc34
https://preview.redd.it/43cfthuta23d1.png?width=2500&format=png&auto=webp&s=49b9796e2dc4161d17d1c79961a89bb1aa85ecab

RAY'S INTERFERENCE

So what exactly happened with this version of the game for it to just cease to exist? Well, if it wasn't obvious enough, it didn't run. Maybe it did without lighting and with the high end hardware Steel Wool tested it on, but once the last gen consoles and computers rolled into the picture, everything started crumbling. Though even the last gen appears to have a bit of a hard time with the game.
Steel Wool put all their eggs into one basket, so the handle snapped. And all they were left with was an omelet. The game was unable to seamlessly load the areas without stuttering, which led to the creation of the elevators and map division. Their most prized mechanic has fallen. The enemies and the player could no longer freely roam the building without being stopped. It's not like they didn't try to keep the map's integrity though. In the files, you can still find the special gates that you needed to push (E) to go through them and load the next area.
There's also high probability of other errors linked to the concept. Like what if the hour ends while you are in the Boss Fight? Besides it's very likely that a lot of the missions, dialogues and areas still weren't finalized. Time was scarce. And Steel Wool needed to do something fast. Perhaps that's where Ray McCaffrey comes in.
I don't consider myself a conspiracy theorist, but how strange is that that Steel Wool gets a new producer in June, and that's exactly when the game gets labeled a Pre-Alpha as opposed to V1.0 that it was called just at the end of last month, May. There are two possibilities.
May 20th 2021 - The game is Version 1.0.
August 19th 2021 - The game reverted to Pre-Alpha. What happened in those couple months?
A) They came to realization that the game was raw and unworthy of being called V1.0.
B) Or the version I consider more interesting. It changed, because this is no longer the same game. The game that was 1.0 is no more.
The Sandbox SB has been cancelled, be it by Ray McCaffrey, Jason Topolski, Andrew Dayton or the whole team. What was now born is The Scripted Security Breach. The linear gameplay formula with scripted events. Sandbox SB was in development for years, so it was a Version 1.0. Scripted SB was just born, so it became a Pre-Alpha.
Believe it or not, Ray may have saved SB from either being delayed again or being cancelled. For instance, he was the one to call and hire Marta Svetek (Gregory, Roxy, Vanny VA), whom Ray knew from previous work experience. But the development still wasn't in a good place, as the dialogue was being recorded even after the release date announcement. Not to mention that there was no public casting call for Gregory, Marta was asked to fill in this spot, despite not being interested in child roles. She still managed to pull it through and now nobody imagines these characters without her. But it is clear something is not right when you, without arranging the usual casting calls, get an actor to do three characters at once, left alone a character they didn't even want to voice.
https://preview.redd.it/bodcw5kxd23d1.png?width=4115&format=png&auto=webp&s=0a48191a120e0dd1e275c491f8b49f660b4c8827
Even then, Steel Wool never gave up on Sandbox SB. To some extent. They attempted to salvage what they had and revive it in what we now know as Survival Mode. Survival Mode isn't just a random feature. It is the remnants of what Security Breach was attempting to do, minus the story bits. The 6 Hour Sandbox mechanics were presented in a more simple mission to collect gifts scattered around the map. But even that has proven too much to handle. And thus, the tale of The Sandbox Cut ends here. The epic tale of love, hate, bloodshed and overambition.
Well, it had a bit of a continuation. Steel Wool wanted to include a Survival Mode in RUIN, but never went through with it. Whether it is for better or for worse is unclear, but only time will tell.

THE AFTERMATH

The Security Breach we have now feels incomplete not only because of the cut missions and mechanics, but because it's one game impersonating another. Trying to be something that it isn't.
While I do believe this old route of progression would've made the game feel more complete, I still wish for the series to focus more on the story and its underlying themes. Come on now, we have a series of amazing books and short stories with thought out characters and unraveling mysteries, while the games get only a fraction of that in a form of scavenger hunt. I feel like RUIN was a step in the right direction. Surely, it has a lot of kinks to work out, but if the trend continues, eventually we'll get something truly special.
I would like to thank everyone for reading. I would also like to mention the Technical FNaF Discussion, which is full of talented people who helped to build the steps to this possible solution to the biggest mystery of Security Breach. And thanks to Pizza Gamer for some of the illustrative content seen in this post. Much obliged. See you next time. Toodles.

At Great-Aunt C's house.
I met cousin around my age.
J, one I allow to call me a specific nickname, because it makes you feel special. I havent seen you in over a decade, and I miss you terribly.
I hope you know it is not your fault we havent been able to see each other. It's not because of me not liking the presents you gave me for christmas, it's not because I felt awkward, it's not because you like trains and I don't. It''s not because of what the adults called "despite our differences", and it's not because of anything you did. It's not your fault.
Simply, Aunt C got divorced, which broke that connection of being "technically" cousins.
But I hope you know that, in my rationality, you are always my little cousin. I've kept the bop it smash and collapsable lightsaber you gave me as a long as I could. Even after I've begun to forget your name in the passing of time.
You're irreplaceable, J. I held onto all the memories. And in every memory I've recalled with a sigh, I speak of you with the utmost respect. Though, perhaps some things we both regret, I should keep secret. Hence I omit that in this letter.
I'll start chronologically. When I was about six or seven, I remember Great Papa had said something to, "You have a cousin about your age. You might think he's a little different, but please be respectful."
One time I asked someone about "my cousin J, I heard he's about my age and I'd like to meet him so we can play trains together." "Who?" said my Dad, "Ask suchandsuch, would know" So I asked suchandsuch, kindly, "What about my little cousin would be considered a little different? Such that I have to be respectful about it." And a man who knows you better than I do said, "Maybe it's because he really likes trains, and that's more of a boy's hobby." I added, a feminist since forever, "Well, did you know girls can like trains too? even if it's for boys."
Then I went to my Dad, "I think he's rather traditional, because he says only boys can like trains, can you please tell him that girls can like trains too? I want to play with him."
They had a conversation and agreed to let me play with J, so long as I'd be careful because I'm a bigger kid.
So I'd already learnt two rules by the time you could form memories when we met again a few years later.
One: Be careful not to hurt little kids because I'm bigger and stronger than them.
Two: Be respectful "because he's a little different". And I genuinely couldnt figure out that little different part either! I'm like, is it because he's younger than me? Is it because I'm a girl and he's a boy? Is it because I don't like trains as much?
And I was just like "cool, a little cousin I can play with!" Still am!
And sometimes adults were weird.
You might have heard from a friend of my Aunt's. (she is particularly loud and who I am not fond of but still invites herself to every family function Aunt is a part of), "Hey make sure he's included, because (my nickname) really likes him."
That "really likes him" part was a jump to conclusions. "She likes to play with her little cousin" Would be more accurate of my consideration.
I hope you got to hear, "Hey, he's a part of the family too."
Their deliberations didn't make sense to me.
You and me couldnt figure it out either. I thought maybe it was just because she'd recently gotten married and so family arrangements were difficult to figure out.
Later my Dad got married to his second wife. I'm not particularly fond of her for numerous things I don't care to list.
I was eating a slice of watermelon, the juice dripping down my elbows. I asked her "How do I eat this without making a mess?" She says "ask your cousin J, he's an expert at eating watermelon"
I replied suspiciously, "Wait really? I dont even know if he likes watermelon all that much."
She walked away without saying another peep on the matter. But because I trusted adults, I casually asked my little cousin, "hey could you teach me how to eat watermelon without making a big mess?"
and he said, a hint of betrayed feeling in his voice "Why would you ask me that? You know I don't like watermelon."
"I figured as much because I hadn't seen you enjoying them so much as I do. I only asked because (name of stepmom) said you were an expert and so I should ask you."
He left the room. I finished my slices and followed him outside to play.
"Hey don't you have a swimsuit?"
"Yeah these are swimtrunks your dad lent me. What about you?"
"I cant play in the water because I havent brought a swimsuit."
"Go ask your stepmom about it, because she's an expert."
"I don't know her that well, but so far I don't really like my dad's new girlfriend," I said, "I like you though."
"I like you too," he says.
I went inside. Expressed that I wanted to play but hadnt brought a swimsuit. The adults thought up a solution. It was suggested I could wear a big t-shirt over underwear because the jeans would get too soggy. I asked if I could get swimming shorts over those. They said if I could find a pair, yes. "A pair of shorts?" In a sarcastic tone, "Oh, yeah, shorts" (between the ladies was hushed and harsh jabber, "Don't be inappropriate!")
I was told to run upstairs ("no, walk!") and ask for a big t-shirt.
I was also told that I wasnt allowed to go out without putting on sunscreen first, and that I should reapply it every 45 minutes.
Annoyed, I halfway put on the sunscreen and impatiently sprinted out the door with the bottle in hand. I should note. On one side of my family is very pale and burns easily. The other side just gets darker in the sun and doesnt have to be as careful about sunburns. As you can guess, I was with the paler side at the time.
With the bottle in hand I parroted to my little cousin, "Hey, don't forget sunscreen!"
"I don't need sunscreen," he says.
"Wait really? But what about sunburns?"
"I'm black, I don't get sunburnt."
(I say with my best attempt at sarcasm), "What really? I had noo idea. I thought you were casper the ghost!"
"What? Oh. Was that your attempt at humor?" He said condescendingly.
"Ah, forget it."
"Cool. I'm gonna go slide now." He stands and says awkwardly, casually pointing to the slide with one thumb.
"Wait, what do you mean you don't need sunscreen? Everyone needs sunscreen It protects you from the sun."
"I told you, I don't need it. Why do you care?"
"Well, it's my responsiblity as your big cousin to keep you safe. Hence, you're not allowed to play on the slipnslide until you put on sunscreen."
"..."
"Don't worry, I'll wait with you too."
"You shouldn't have to wait for my dumbass to put on sunscreen."
"Okay, first off, it's not okay to call yourself a dumbass. And I was gonna wait anyway. Because if I hop in too early the water will get the sunscreen into my eyes and sting."
"Fine, I'll put on sunscreen if you'll stop telling me to do it. Can I have the bottle?"
"Yes, of course."
He holds the bottle, and thinks for a moment, "Wait, could you tell me how to put on sunscreen?"
"Oh, I don't know the words to tell how. But I can show you how I do it and you can copy me. That sound okay?"
"Sure."
"So first I pour this much onto my hand, then I rub it on my arms because I already did my legs. But you should also put it on the legs too. It's important to put sunscreen on both the arms and legs because the sun gets on them both."
"Wait, how much?"
"Just enough so that..." "Oh, I mentioned arms and legs. But it goes on the face too. Just use a little so it doesn't get in your eyes. Oh and, when my Dad does sunscreen he puts it over his ears and between the parts where the hair goes too (the proper word "scalp" was not added to my vocabulary yet), so it doesnt turn red either. He says not to forget little things like that when I am applying the sunscreen."
"Okay, ears and hair too?"
"Yes, you got it! Not too much up top though."
"Yeah I put on sunscreen now we can play!"
(chuckling), "Wait J we gotta wait for the sunscreen to soak in so it doesnt wash off in the water!--"
"Weee"
("Ope, there he goes.")
"It's your turn to ride the slipnslide."
"Thanks. I'm a little scared though."
"Why, what's wrong?"
"I don't know how to ride the slipnslide. I guess that it's your turn to teach me something."
"Sure, I can teach you, just run but not too fast or you'll trip over, then do a belly flop and say 'weee'."
"Oh, so like a penguin!"
"Yeah, like a penguin."
"Ok I'll try it. Weee," then, "Aaa, I did it! I really did it. Yay!"
He says in a cartoonish voice, "Cowabunga. Look out beloooow!"
(copying how he said that in jest) "Oh no! Don't crash into meee." (thunk)
We stare at each other, and just start laughing.
"You okay?" I hurredly ask him.
"Yeah, are you? Sorry I cowabunga'd on you."
"My dad says 'it's all fun and games til someone gets hurt.' So I'm just happy that neither of us got hurt."
We walked back up the hill.
He says, "Wait, do you pronounce it like knee-ther or nye-ther? I've heard it said like both."
I say, "Aw man, I have no idea. I think I say knee-ther, but nye-ther works too! I mean it doesnt work like a job, it just does in a sentence."
"Yeah I understand what you mean," he says, and spits onto the slipnslide.
"Okay good. Happy to hear we're on the same page, wait did you just spit onto the slipnslide?"
"Uh, I might've. What about it?"
"Why?"
"It's just something my _ does. He says something serious then spits down and when I asked why he said its for 'emphasis.' I don't know what emphasis means, though.
mw "I don't know what emphasis means either."
him "You wanna go first this time?"
me "First at what?"
him "The slipnslide. You're kinda thick, y'know."
me: "Thick? I think I'm thin."
him: "Exactly."
me: "I don't want to go."
him: "why?"
"well, because you spit on it. that's kinda gross y'know."
"You think I'm gross?"
"What? No. You're not gross. I think you're rather nice. I just think it's just kinda gross to spit on things. And I dont want you to get in trouble because there's spit on the slidnslide because I'm supposed to be setting a good example for a little kid, so they'll say you did it because I did."
"I didn't mean to spit on it." (he gets sad).
"Here, I'll spit on it too, now we're even. And you're just a little kid who doesn't know any better. I'm bigger than you, in years I mean, I am aware that we're about the same in height. The point being I should know better. So if anyone asks why there's spit on the slidnslide, I'll say it was my idea."
"You'd do that for me?"
"Why wouldn't I? (You said we should protect eachother.) You protect me, and I protect you. We're even."
~A

Lonely Castle in the Mirror, by Mizuki Tsujimura
"Lonely Castle in the Mirror" is a genre-savvy portal fantasy about junior high students who get drawn into a mysterious castle when they're supposed to be in school. Kokoro had a terrible experience early in the school year that's made her terrified of facing her classmates, and develops some kind of (psychosomatic?) illness that prevents her from attending either the normal school or a special alternative school for students who need more support. Shortly after this, her bedroom mirror turns into a portal to the castle with six other students who are also not in school during the normal hours. The "Wolf Queen" in charge--an elementary school girl who enjoys allusions to "Little Red Riding Hood"--tells them all that there's a secret key in the castle that can grant one wish, and they have a year to find it and, potentially, use it. Also, if anyone is caught in the castle outside of the 9-5 school day timeframe, they'll all be eaten by a wolf.
So, these painfully shy students have the opportunity to make friends and have a non-terrifying experience with kids their own age, and they all enjoy bonding and playing video games and drinking tea together, and for the most part nobody cares about finding the key, because that would make the castle close and prematurely end their new friendship. For most of the book, the contrived quest stuff doesn't play into it. And then when it does, it kind of lampshades "oh yeah I have to do this on speedrun mode."
There are a lot of takes pointing out that books where "the magic goes away"/"everyone loses their memories"/"we just have to move on with our lives and pretend like the portal fantasy never happened" can be pretty messed up. In this book, however, I couldn't find myself relating to the characters because it felt like a perverse incentives situation. Yes, middle school is an emotionally volatile, turbulent, unpleasant environment full of many immature people. This is a pretty common experience, actually. Kokoro just can't handle it, and as a response, the infinitely patient teacher at the alternative school reassures her mother that she's battling really hard and it's not her fault, she just can't go to school, and then she gets to go through a portal into fantasy world with people who play video games and eat snacks all day...? I understand there's more to it than that, but something has to change about this situation because otherwise this really isn't the message you want to send. (Once we learn about the backgrounds and life situations of some of the other students, I can imagine how it was easier for people like Subaru and Aki to fall through the cracks, but it feels like, eg, Masamune and Ureshino's junior high situation should have had some kind of guidance counselor or adult in the room. The readers' guide in the back of the book describes Kokoro as a "futoko," and I understand this is more pervasive in Japan than elsewhere, but I have a hard time accepting that seventh graders staying home for months on end with no apparent homeschooling or tutoring gets such a shrug.)
The prose didn't really grab me, sometimes it felt awkward ("That day, Fuka apparently enjoyed the chocolates back home, for she faithfully reported to Kokoro that 'they were delicious.'") and there were a several parts with very. short. one. line. paragraphs.

Kokoro tried to convince herself that she hadn't been at home that day. Miori and the others had simply pounded on the door of an empty house, trampled over the patio, gone round and round over outside of the house. But nothing actually happened. Nothing at all. She never was about to be killed. And yet the next day, she said, "I have a stomachache." And she really did. It was no lie. And her mother chimed in: "You do look pale. Are you OK?" And that's when Kokoro stopped going to school.

A few paragraphs later:

Would she be able to protect herself?
The only place she could now go to freely from her bedroom was the castle.
If I'm in the castle, she started to think, then I'll be safe.
Only the castle beyond the mirror could offer her complete protection.

Girl, I know your mental health isn't the greatest, but we're talking about the place where people threatened you with being eaten alive by a wolf. ??? Sorry, my suspension of belief does not extend this far.
There's also a random red herring with a neighbor student whose father has an interest in researching fairy tales, and like, maybe that "real world" location/characters are related in some way to the portal world? No, it's just a fortuitous coincidence that helps Kokoro have access to more Western fairy tale info.
The good news is, about halfway through the characters start developing some genre-savviness and realizing what they have in common, and towards the end, things pick up significantly in terms of how and why some of the arbitrary fairy-tale logic came about. So it definitely sticks the landing in that way.
Bingo: Prologue/Epilogue, Author of Color, Book Club
Promise of the Flame, by Sylvia Louise Engdahl
At the end of "Stewards of the Flame," to which this book is a sequel, our heroes Jesse, Carla, and Peter had hijacked a spaceship and jumped to an uninhabited planet to set up a colony where humans could develop psionic powers free from the medical bureaucracy of Undine. Jesse's hyperspace jump was rushed and not perfectly calculated, so in order to ensure their oxygen supply makes it all the way to planet Maclairn (named after their late founder), the Group had to confront their deepest fear and brave the stasis boxes that had been Chekhov-gunned several times in the last section. As the existence of the sequel implies, the protagonists and most of their comrades survive stasis. But while, in "Stewards," the hyperspace navigation "error"/imperfection sets up the Group's ultimate test, here it casts a long shadow as Jesse keeps wondering, "could we have picked a better landing site if I hadn't screwed it up?"
The early days on Maclairn are a struggle. The first part of the book is a recurring cycle of "should we do things this way or that way? Well, we came here to set up a society fully founded on mind powers, we pretty much have to commit to the bit or else what's the point." Repeat ad infinitum. Later, this broadens somewhat to "we have to have psi powers coexist with modern technology to fulfill Ian [Maclairn]'s dream, otherwise what's the point." There are clear parallels to (Engdahl's older trilogy) "Children of the Star"; that society represents the endpoint if they go down a path of giving up on modern technology--and the burdens of agrarian, high-population-growth societies fall disproportionately on women. If "Stewards" had motifs of baptism, this is more of an Exodus story, with the characters sulking about "why did you bring us out of Undine just to starve in the wilderness, at least there we had enough to eat." "My God, came Carla’s thought, we’re homesick! Homesick for Undine! I never admitted that to myself, it was so foolish, I’d wanted so much to leave . . . I guess I just pushed it down inside, into a place I didn’t dare go. . . ."
The consequences of the hyperspace jump being off are a minor tonal retcon/change in perspective on the events of the first book. A more significant one, to me, involves love triangle dynamics. In "Stewards," we learn that Carla and Peter both previously had spouses who died under the authoritarian Undine government. Fortunately, Jesse shows up just when Carla is ready to love again, and their relationship brings him into the Group and thus enables their escape from Undine. "Promise" adds that Peter has been silently pining for Carla all along, but needed Jesse's starship skills too much to say anything. We're told the Group's adult recruits skew slightly female, but that isn't represented among the main characters, and you're telling me that none of them are Peter's type? All three of them sigh and angst about "oh, we're such great friends, we can't let this love triangle come between us," and at times it feels like it's setting up for a polygamy plotline (they're all highly powerful telepaths, they can't keep secrets from each other!) And then it just...goes nowhere. As in the first book, I can accept that sex is probably great among telepaths; I can't buy that every single person has to have sex in order to fully level up their telepathic sensitivity!
The best parts of "Promise" involve the culture clashes between Jesse, who grew up on Earth; the rest of the adult Group members, from Undine; and the Maclairn-born generation. Undine's environment is so tightly regulated, they don't even have insects or lizards, so the planet's "collective unconsciousness" doesn't have a fear of creepy-crawlies; Jesse's initial revulsion risks "contaminating" the psyche until everyone faces their fear.

“Horror vids involving animal life aren’t permitted on colony worlds,” Peter told him. “Haven’t you ever wondered why starship libraries don’t contain any? Earth has always banned their export as a measure to protect extraterrestrial lifeforms. It’s one of the few government trade regulations I think is wise.” Of course, Jesse realized. The average Earth citizen’s reaction would have been to kill the crawlies—if possible, to exterminate them. That hadn’t occurred to anyone yesterday. And horror vids often portrayed even intelligent aliens as repulsive; what kind of precedent would that set if similar ones were ever encountered?
Traditionally, said the knowledgebase, small farmers had chopped chickens’ heads off with a hatchet. Wringing their necks was said to be more humane, but nobody wanted to experiment on live, squawking chickens despite the specific instructions provided. These warned that the hardest part, in the physical sense, would be catching a grown chicken in the first place—a fact soon borne out by experience, as chickens are not devoid of telepathic sensitivity and the pursuers were unconsciously broadcasting their intent to kill.
Kel, like many of the Group’s other children, had been slow in learning to talk. It had taken awhile before it dawned on the adults that this was because the kids’ telepathic bonds with their parents had been so strongly encouraged that they felt no need to communicate vocally. Speech could not be allowed to die out in a psi-based culture; it was essential not only to reading but to the framing and communication of complex ideas. Now, everyone realized that like the skills for volitional control of the body, telepathic conveyance of concepts, as distinguished from emotions, must wait until the kids were older.

On the other hand, the scope of "this is dangerous, but we must, to commit to the psionic bit" and "well, we've come through a lot of tough situations before, but this time really is the end...jk never mind we got out of it" got repetitive. There was one scene towards the end where it's like "okay, we're almost done, I can see how telepathy might be used to enable a permanent self-sacrifice...nope, we're still going, huh," and even though some of the resolutions were nice callbacks/tying up foreshadowing, it was still a lot.
Like in James P. Hogan's "Voyage to Yesteryear," the kids who were raised outside of Earth and Undine's prejudices are, overall, a great step forward for humankind, but there can be some values dissonance. In both cases, the desire for lots of population growth leads to a much lower age of consent than Earthlings are used to. Justified somewhat more in Maclairn's case; telepathy means almost everyone wouldn't fathom hurting each other and of course sex is consensual, as well as amazing. On the other hand, in both cases, there's no prison infrastructure; if someone is determined to be evil and is posing a grave threat to others, you just have to kill them. "Promise" gets a little more philosophical about the problem of evil--if it's not nature and it's not nurture, what causes it? Free will? Sure, but it seems as if some people are also evil from day one even if their DNA is just fine.
There are a couple shoutouts to Lord of the Rings and Star Trek that fit in nicely. I found "it's just like using the Force, you know, like in that old vid, Star Wars" to be more of a distraction. Similarly, Engdahl's commitment to showing her work ("in the twentieth century on Earth, you know, people experimented with remote viewing!") got to be a distraction. But the exploration of "okay, let's try a rain dance, even if it fails we're learning something and pushing knowledge forward" was a great use of the "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" trope, which is what I come to Engdahl for anyway.
Some people, like Peter, tend to believe in an afterlife; others, like Jesse, are more skeptical. Earth religions don't transfer well to other planets because the interstellar gap is too big for the collective unconsciousness to bridge. Despite this, characters use the word "God" (like in a telepathic context of "Carla . . . oh, God, Carla, answer me!") approximately 144 times. Do you have no one else's name to take in vain???
Criticisms aside, I do think that this is less heavy-handed than "Stewards" and at least as good a starting point!
Bingo: Dreams, Prologues/Epilogues, Self-Published, Survival. One prominent character acquires a physical disability midway through the story. Jesse and Peter's Criminal record on Undine is not very important (since the entire book is set on or around Maclairn), but it becomes more prominent in the last section.
The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, by Shannon Chakraborty
Once upon a time (1100s Indian Ocean) there was a notorious nakhudha (pirate captain) named Amina al-Sirafi. Ten years ago, she retired, and now she's a single mom with a bad knee and a leaky roof. However, a wealthy noblewoman who believes her granddaughter has been kidnapped by a Western European would-be sorcerer insists on having Amina rescue her, never mind Amina's own family responsibilities. So Amina has to put the band back together, staying one step ahead of the authorities while getting to the bottom of the mystery.
Amina and her crew are likable rogues. I found this easier to get into than Chakraborty's "City of Brass". That book focused more on a long-term conflict between two factions, neither of whom consistently seem like the "good guys"; maybe that's supposed to be sending a message about RL actually works, but I found it confusing at times. In contrast, the early sections of "Amina" are about tracking down individual allies, from a gay smuggler stuck in a prison in Aden, to a navigator and family man in Mogadishu, while researching the notorious Falco Palamenestra and speculating what he might be up to.
At first, Amina's Muslim identity comes through more in the ways characters talk, and some level of monster-fighting exorcism (like Catholicism in some horror movies), than actual practice. But gradually, we see more of how she's struggled to be a parent in her post-pirate life:

If the criminal past didn’t alert you, I have not always been a very good Muslim. Drinking and missing prayer were among my lesser sins, and if I tried to straighten myself up every year when Ramadan rolled around—a new life of piety easy to imagine while dazed with thirst and caught up in the communal joy of taraweeh—I typically lapsed into my usual behavior by the time the month of Shawwal had ended.
But then Marjana was born. And Asif was . . . lost. And if one of these events made me feel as though I had no right to ever call upon God again, the other filled with me a driving need I could not deny. So I keep my daily prayers, even if I feel unworthy the entire time.

To me, this rang true as a depiction of a complicated, realistic, person of faith.
This is a time and place that I knew very little about. For instance, one plotline involves the island of Socotra, an island off the coast of Somalia which is today part of Yemen. There are caves there with graffiti from sailors going back thousands of years, in Indian and Greek and Ethiopic scripts. This is a real place! I would not have been able to tell you anything about it before reading this book! So Chakraborty's vivid descriptions of places this, and of the diverse cultures and religious backgrounds of pirates who live and work alongside each other, is compelling. There's a danger in this as a reader, though, in that getting too caught up in the "worldbuilding" of the actual world can make it feel like its "foreignness" is what makes it speculative and fantastical, which is obviously inaccurate and beside the point. That's one reason why jumping in at the deep end with an honest-to-goodness sea monster in chapter one might have been a good choice, to remind us that there really are otherworldly things happening.
The themes of "rich people love to jerk poor people around" and "the male gaze sucks" are clear, but there's lots of quippy banter mixed in.

“That was you, was it not? The woman who poisoned the soldiers at the wali’s office, freed a crew of homicidal pirates, set a score of ships on fire, and fled the harbor in the middle of the night?” “I would never confirm such a thing and put you at risk of consorting with criminals. But it was two ships, not a score. I wouldn’t wish to encourage exaggeration.”
Sailing past its ancient breakwater—the stones said to have been set there by giants—you might feel as though you have entered a mythical port of magic from a sailor’s yarn. You would be sorely mistaken. Aden is where magic goes to be crushed by the muhtasib’s weights, and if wonder could be calculated, this city would require an ordinance taxing it.
“She knows you are a pirate?” “I am not a pirate,” Majed huffed. “I am a cartographer with a checkered past.” “Yes. A checkered past of piracy.”

The book contains a few chapters that are "in-universe documentation" or chronicles of the places and people in the main narrative. This is a trope I really enjoy at times. However, in this case, I didn't feel it added much, beyond underscoring the themes that "men feel threatened by powerful women, oh no."
The biggest issue for me was how all the diverse, sympathetic characters just kind of went along with developments that felt more reminiscent of 2020s Tumblr idiolect than 1100s Indian Ocean. How fortuitously convenient! (At least it got a Hugo nom.)
Smaller quibbles: the timeframe with Amina in her forties is appeSaling to the extent that it's a story about a working mother trying to follow her own dreams while also desperately missing her kid. But in order to make that work, the narrative sometimes withholds a lot of important information about the tragedies in Amina's past/her relationship with her child's father until it can be brought forward for dramatic effect, and it made me wonder what a story from the younger Amina's POV would look like without the artificial suspense problem.
More broadly, I felt like the second half's pace wasn't as crisp as the first--there's a dramatic near-death experience, then a bunch of fantastical creatures are introduced in quick succession as if to make up for the "worldbuilding via the actual world" stuff earlier, then we get a very contrived in-universe sequel hook, then we double back to a setting that had already been introduced. Whereas the first part was "we need to go to A to do B and then that gives us a clue that leads us to C."
Who wore it better?

“It is invalid!” I burst out. “Our nikah. It is not permissible for me to marry a non-Muslim.” Raksh frowned. “Is that why the man had me say all those words about God and prophets?” He returned to studying the contract. “Trust me, dear wife, I can be a vast number of things.” “But—but you are not a believer.” “Of course I am. Best to know the competition, yes?”

Compare "Alif the Unseen" (which is one of my favorites and I suspect I probably was harsh on "City of Brass" by comparison):

"But I told him I couldn't marry him even if I wanted to, because I can't marry an unbeliever. And he laughed and said he'd been a believer, 'for a the better part of a thousand years,' I believe were the exact words." "What?" said Alif. "Vikram? Vikram the madman who bites people?" "He might be those things," said the convert hastily, "but did you ever know him to do or say anything really blasphemous?" "I guess not."

Bingo: Alliterative Title, Criminals, Dreams, Reference Materials, Readalong! It's planned to be First in a Series but the sequels aren't out yet. (Statistics from last year just came out and this was the most popular book across all 2023 bingo cards, with ~200 reads!)
Spinning Silver, by Naomi Novik
When I read "Uprooted" and griped about the implausible romance and/or reactive plot, people's reactions were "try Spinning Silver, it's an improvement in some of those ways." And yeah, it is! I was aware that Spinning Silver was set in the same world as Uprooted, ~1700s Eastern Europe but with some fantasy elements, and that it was based on Rumplestiltskin.
But it's a lot more than a simple retelling. "Spinning Silver" teases out the individual trope elements of Rumplestiltskin--a mercenary father trying to get his daughter to marry up, the dead mother looming over the plot, a woman given the impossible task of making gold out of other elements, terrible bargains, aloof and unknowable beings from the fae world, the power of knowing someone's true name, the horror of a mother trading her child to inhuman creatures--and blows them all up, turning them inside-out, and creating something original.
It also does a lot with POV. For the first chunk, we have two young women from a small town who go back and forth telling the stories of their business dealings. But as the book goes on, we start jumping into more and more people's heads, and everyone's voice is very different. Sometimes this can be used for dramatic irony; we hear what character A thinks of their interaction with B, then we jump back and tell the same scene from B's POV and what was going through their head is very different than what A assumes. Once in a while, this makes the plot drag--there's a couple of scenes towards the end where we can't have any suspense about "oh no, will they find what they're looking for" because we've just seen the corresponding scene from another POV, and it would have been more effective to rearrange them--but overall, things are propelled forward much more intriguingly than "Uprooted."
Our POV characters are:

• Miryem, the daughter of the village moneylender. Miryem's family is Jewish, which means her father is one of the few people socially permitted to work as a moneylender--but he's more interested in currying favor with the neighbors than getting his debts repaid, so his family goes hungry. Miryem steps up, grows "cold" and "wintry," and takes on his job, to her parents' horror. But an offhand remark about "look, I can turn silver into gold" (metaphorically, because of, you know, capitalism) inadvertently catches the ear of the "Staryk," monstrous elven raiders who live in a parallel realm.
• Wanda, the daughter of an abusive alcoholic. Miryem is like "he can't pay off his debt because he's drunk everything away, I'll have them repay me by hiring Wanda to assist me with our work, I know this is cold and ruthless but I have to." Then when we see it from Wanda's POV she's like "you're giving me money to be out of the house and away from my father? And you'll even feed me? What an undeserved kindness!" Her reaction to "learning to manipulate numbers and do arithmetic is an amazing kind of magic!" felt cheesy and over-the-top, but the contrast between the literal phrasing of a royal decree and the way she "translates" it was more convincing.
• Irina, the daughter of the duke of Vysnia (Vilnius, Lithuania). Like Wanda, her mother is dead and her father is trying to arrange the most profitable marriage for her, never mind what she wants. When Miryem is compelled to turn magical Staryk silver into gold, she does so by having an acquaintance forge silver jewelry which the duke purchases--so when the gold takes on magical powers in the Staryk world, so does the silver with Irina, and brings her to the attention of a tsar. Despite her cold relationship with her father, she learns a lot from him and is a true politician, adept as anyone at cutting deals to keep her realm safe.
• Stepon, Wanda's younger brother. His narration is very simple and childlike (amazing cold open with "I like goats because I know what they will do.") It's possible he has some kind of sensory/mental health issues, or it's possible he's just eleven and overstimulated by unfamiliar crowds.
• Magreta, Irina's nurse/caretaker. She can be kind and supportive, but her casual antisemitism provides a contrast to how Miryem is treated by the villagers.
• Mirnatius, the tsar. For a while we mostly see him through Irina's POV ("this guy is so full of himself he requires a new outfit every day, that's no way to manage the economy"), but again, his narration provides a very different perspective on what's going on.

So I said the romance was better than "Uprooted," in that we didn't have the implausible "elderly magician berates young woman all the time but also they can't keep their hands off each other." In "Spinning Silver," both {Miryem and the Staryk king} and {Irina and Mirnatius} are paired off without much say-so on anybody's part, it's being manipulated by magic/higher-ups. So the timeframe of the book is mostly them all learning how to tolerate each other, and the romance is kind of left to your imagination in the future era.
The Staryk magic is kind of like...you can see their roads briefly if they make incursions in the human world, but as soon as they've disappeared, you start forgetting them and it really takes effort to remember. This means that if someone, like Miryem, disappears into the Staryk world, she's forgotten almost immediately except for little irregularities that don't seem right. These depictions were well-done. (Except that I was trying to remember if the Staryk were the same as the [jerk, mundane human] aristocrats in "Uprooted." They're not. I think I was half-remembering "Marek," the creepy prince, instead of "Staryk," the winter elves.)
There's a cool liminal space that sets up back-and-forth "communication" between the human and Staryk realms, and again, the multiple POVs are a good framework for this. On the other hand, there are some things, like, why do the Staryk want human gold, that are kind of chalked up to "magic idk" and not completely spelled out; for some of the confrontations at the end, again, it's better not to worry too much about hard magic systems and just go with the vibes. There's also an earlier plot that definitely plays the trope of "the less the audience knows about the plan, the more likely it is to succeed" trope straight.
Especially early on, it can be a very bleak "everyone sucks here" setting. Wanda and Stepon's father is horrific. Irina's father is mercenary and sets her up with Mirnatius, a dandy who abuses animals for fun. Nobody in the village respects Miryem's family, and when she tries to reclaim what she's due, her parents are horrified. The Staryk raid the village and carry off women and demand impossible tasks. There's a lot of "I have my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it" coming from all sides. Even though the plot is moving forward, it's hard to feel like there's anything to root for.
But cracks of light shine through. Miryem's mother, and her mother, defy the "dead moms" trope, and are able to be loving parental figures to Wanda, Stepon, and their brother Sergey. Miryem's grandfather is wise and conscientious, warning her of the risks that some of her choices pose not only to their family but to the Vysnia Jewish community as a whole, but still recognizing she's mature enough to make her own choices. They even make use of a real-world Jewish blessing for the first blossoming of trees in the spring. Even when people are trying to be cold, sometimes they're just too human!
Bingo: Alliterative Title, Under the Surface (not for most of the plot, but there is a secret tunnel that gets use), Multi-POV (and how!)
The Infinite Arena (edited by Terry Carr)
Anthology of SF short stories about sports, stumbled upon while browsing a used bookstore. I like sports and the first one was based on "Casey at the Bat," so okay, sold.
It's from 1977, and the stories were originally published in the 40s-70s timeframe. The sex ratio among writers appears to be nine men, zero women, which is pretty "impressive" considering there are only seven stories. Three of them are installments from series that feature the same recurring character(s), so maybe that explains some of the...paucity? I don't want to say they're "flat" or "shallow" or anything, most of the contemporary "deep" stuff isn't to my taste either, but it feels like there's "no 'there' there" for several of these. In some cases, it's like, "we have to raise the stakes by involving gambling/someone's fate being on the line"; in others, it's looking for parallels between sports and other aspects of life (warfare? weird alien insects?) that provide the impetus for two plots to intertwine.
-Joy in Mudville (Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson)--very impressionable and earnest teddy-bear-like alien species imprints on humans, and immediately become obsessed with baseball. One of the aliens names himself Mighty Casey, but unfortunately, opponents can rattle him by reminding him of how "Casey at the Bat" turned out. Fortunately, what poetry can break, poetry can also fix...

"You untentacled mammal! raged Ush Karuza. "You sslimeless conformation of bored flesh!" Alex had long ago discovered that mankind rarely reacts to insults couched in nonhuman terms. It did not offend him at all to be told that he was slimeless.

-Bullard Reflects (Malcolm Jameson)--Dazzle Dart is a sport played by bouncing light rays around with reflective gear and aiming for a goal at the opponents' end. Like American football, one team is designated on offense at a time, and the other is on defense, but you can "intercept" and score from on defense. In Dazzle Dart, this is worth bonus points. Except instead of normal goals and "turnover" goals being worth one and two points respectively, it's twenty-five and fifty. And you thought Quidditch was silly. (This is from 1941.)
-The Body Builders (Keith Laumer)--the best of the stories, in my opinion, in that it predicts both technological advancement and the social changes that will ensue in a clever way.

So it's a little artificial maybe--but what about the Orggies, riding around in custom-built cars that are nothing but substitute personalities, wearing padded shoulders, contact lenses, hearing aids, false teeth, cosmetics, elevator shoes, rugs to cover their bald domes? If you're going to wear false eyelashes, why not false eyes? Instead of a nose bob, why not bob the whole face? At least a fellow wearing a Servo is honest about it, which is more than you can say for an Orggie doll in a foam-rubber bra--not that Julie needed any help in that department.

-The Great Kladnar Race (Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett)--bored humans on an alien planet try introducing something like horse races that they can bet on. However, the aliens' concepts of sports and competition and betting don't necessarily align with the humans'.
-Mr. Meek Plays Polo (Clifford D. Simak)--guy who has only seen one space polo game in his life somehow accidentally stumbles into being the "expert" space polo coach, oops. Also there are weird alien bugs that are great at computation (a little like "The Circle").
-Sunjammer (Arthur C. Clarke, whose name is spelled wrong on the front cover)--a solar flare interrupts a solar sailboat race. Felt timely given the storm of a few days ago! (I did not get to see the aurora, alas.)
-Run to Starlight (George R. R. Martin)--short and slow but extremely muscular aliens enter an American football league and crush everyone, metaphorically and literally. However, the aliens' concepts of sports and competition don't necessarily align with the humans'. Too bad he never wrote anything else ;)
Bingo: 5+ short stories.