Robert burns brevard county

Memorial Day - a day to remember those that gave the ultimate sacrifice for us

2023.05.29 16:41 OneSecond13 Memorial Day - a day to remember those that gave the ultimate sacrifice for us

Raymond Virgil Ashburn was born November 7, 1922 in Gurley, Alabama. His parents Robert and Ola (Gray) were also born in Alabama. His father worked as a merchant and later as a farmer. Raymond had two older brothers, one of whom passed away as an infant, a younger sister, and a younger brother. In 1940, he had completed eighth grade and was working on the family farm.
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Raymond enlisted in the Navy in February 1940 and after completing six weeks of training at Norfolk Naval Training Station served as a Seaman Second Class aboard the heavy cruiser USS Quincy (CA-39). From January to March 1942, Quincy operated in convoy duty off Iceland, then returned to the States for an overhaul at the New York Navy Yard that lasted until the end of May, and then sailed for San Diego.
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In July 1942, Quincy got underway for the South Pacific with other vessels assembling for the invasion of Guadalcanal, the first major American counteroffensive against the Japanese Empire. Prior to the Marine assault on Guadalcanal on 7 August, Quincy destroyed several Japanese installations and an oil depot during her bombardment of Lunga Point, and later provided close fire support for the Marines during the landing.
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In the early hours of 9 August 1942, Quincy and several other American cruisers were patrolling the channel between Florida Island and Savo Island, tasked to protect the northern approach to the Guadalcanal beachhead. In the pre-dawn darkness, the American ships were surprised to find themselves suddenly lit up by aerial flares and searchlights of an Imperial Japanese Navy task force of seven cruisers that were intent on destroying the American transports still unloading supplies for the Marine invasion force onto the beachhead. Within a few minutes, Quincy was caught in a vicious crossfire between three enemy cruisers and was set afire from multiple direct hits and torpedoes. The Quincy fought back valiantly, but less than an hour after the battle began the Quincy slipped beneath the waves, taking S2c Ashburn and 369 of the 807 sailors and marines onboard to their deaths.
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While it was a decisive tactical victory for the Japanese, the Battle of Savo Island was a strategic loss as the IJN task force, in fear of being discovered by American carrier aircraft upon daylight, withdrew without attacking the invasion transports, thus improving the American chances for victory on Guadalcanal.
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Raymond Virgil Ashburn is memorialized in the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial in Manila, Philippines, in Huntsville Memory Garden in Huntsville, Alabama, and at the Huntsville Madison County Veterans Memorial.
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Raymond’s brother Cecil Ashburn served in the Army Corps of Engineers during WW2 and after the war ran one of North Alabama's most successful road-building companies.
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Thank you S2c Ashburn for your service and your sacrifice, you will not be forgotten.
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Source:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/116582131/raymond-virgil-ashburn
Bob Fuerst and the Stories Behind the Stars project (www.storiesbehindthestars.org)
https://www.fold3.com/memorial/529941238/raymond-v-ashburn/stories
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2023.05.29 15:31 Gumbybum Lore Discovery Part 3/3: Fishbones, Flatwoods, and Colonel's Burning Secret

Disclaimer: This post is long, so you may want to save it and read it later. Also, I put a lot of time into both researching this and writing it up. So if all you have is negative feedback, kindly keep it to yourself. Finally, there’s a lot more that I’ve been looking into beyond the scope of this write-up. If you’d like to join my exp-LORE-ation efforts, please let me know.
Recap: Part 1 establishes that Colonel is the same kid who was playing with his “baer frends” at the Palace of the Winding Path. Part 2 establishes that Darius Angler was the author of the 4 Untitled Poems.
Edit: Hyperlinks don't seem to be working so I'm manually pasting my references to parts 1 and 2.
https://www.reddit.com/fo76/comments/1327e9a/lore_discovery_responder_colonel_flatwoods_was/
https://www.reddit.com/fo76/comments/135xf3y/lore_discovery_part_2_responder_colonels_postwa
TLDR (mad spoilers up in here): Fishbones led the raid that killed Colonel and all the Responders in Flatwoods, and he could very well be Darius Angler’s brother. Colonel may have been up to something nefarious with the children of Flatwoods (but not in that way). Ra Ra might be Ward’s granddaughter. And it looks like mole rat teeth are used to craft Day Tripper.
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We Begin at the End: November 2096. 13 Bridge Street, Flatwoods, WV. Responder Colonel died in the raider attack on Flatwoods, along with just about every other Responder that resided there. The raiders attacked because a Chem Addict stole all their food and chems and fled to Flatwoods. You can find her body and holotape just West of the river. But before we get to that, we need to look at what Colonel was up to before he died. Most people probably overlooked this detail because they haven’t explored Flatwoods since they were level 3, and at that point they didn’t have a jetpack or the Marsupial mutation. But Colonel’s front AND back porches are completely railed off. If you make it over the front railing, you’ll find the corpses of Colonel and (likely) the raider that killed him, Colonel’s second “Survivor Story,” and a stroller with an intact doll in it. Colonel was the “caregiver for children” in Flatwoods, so the stroller may have once been for an actual baby.
But on the back porch, Colonel was burning books, files, documents, and the contents of a mysterious duffel back on his grill. Colonel definitely had a secret and he was literally trying to burn the evidence. And that secret was his past with the Diehards and Darius Angler. If you follow the road West out of Flatwoods, you’ll eventually arrive at Hillfolk Hotdogs, which is the site of Untitled Poem #3 and the former home of Colonel when he lived with Angler as a child (you can find one of his “baer frends” on the kid-sized bunk bed). But inside the bus(?) at Hillfolk’s, you’ll also find similar documents and a duffel bag, just like the kind Colonel was burning in Flatwoods when he died. As a matter of fact, there are other similarly suspicious duffel bags and file caches along the Ohio River. And this takes us to Ohio River Adventures.
Fishbones is a Dirty Rat Bastard: In the exact same way that the Diehards returned to Crater, a former territory of theirs (and site of Untitled Poem #2), the Diehards also returned to Ohio River Adventures. Now, O.R.A. gets overlooked because there is no main quest line that keeps you returning to this area (maybe the grind for Raider Rep), but this place is former Diehard territory too. Now, it is critically important to know that both Fishbones (Bones) and Blackeye are O.G. Diehards. Blackeye was almost certainly Colonel’s 1st grade teacher back at the Palace of the Winding Path. But what about Bones? Well, my friends, I bet I’m about to tell you something you didn’t already know:
When Margie McClintock died in 2096 (as inferred what Rose tells us during the main quest), Meg Groberg took over and soon thereafter led the Diehards out of Appalachia before returning years later (that, you already knew). You probably also already knew that before Margie died, Meg and the other Diehards went against protocol and “shot first” when robbing people. Meg was a true raider in all the ways that Margie was not. But what you probably didn’t put together is that Margie died around the time that Flatwoods was attacked. According to the Chem Addict from Flatwoods:
“Chems Addict: Well, this is it I guess. Rock bottom I think they call it. I still miss him. Billy. I knew he was too young for me, but he made me feel good. Though it's the old Billy I really miss. The one who used to do nothing all day with me but listen to the radio and drink. I shoulda got out sooner when Billy and his buddies started torturing little cats and dogs. His friends... were no good. But that didn't stop me anyway. I can't believe my wake up call was watching people's heads... get stuck on spikes. So... what is an old gal like me to do? Steal all the food. Steal all the chems. And get the hell out of there. *laughs* I'd trade my last bite of food just to see the look on their faces. Oh, I know it's going to piss off Billy's friends, but I don't give a damn. I tell myself I should feel sorry for the little town across the river. But if I'm being honest, and that's what this tape is for, I don't really care. I call myself an addict, but it ain't the chems that finally got me. It was always Billy.”
I want to emphasize the “heads on spikes” part, because that’s something Margie would never tolerate. But Meg on the other hand let raiders be raiders. The other thing that I want to point out is “Billy.” I’m not saying for certain that this Billy is the same as Darius Angler’s brother, but I am saying that technically no body was ever recovered from the molten steel, and Angler didn’t see the accident happen because he didn’t work at Grafton Steel anymore. It’s possible that “Billy Angler,” who didn’t quit because “he needs the money,” could have taken out some kind of insurance policy, named his chem addict girlfriend as the beneficiary, faked his own death, and skipped town. Do I know for certain that this happened? Of course not. But what I do know is this: FISHBONES’S REAL NAME IS BILLY!!! The reason he’s obsessed with the letter B is because that’s his first initial. You see, at first I thought the raiders that wrecked Flatwoods were Cutthroats because of their whole feud with the Responders. But then I learned that the Flatwoods attack was caused by a bunch of chems that the Addict stole, and the Diehards were Appalachia’s great chems supplier (thanks to Angler). Furthermore, Fishbones’s current operation is spiking Mirelurk meat with an addictive substance (chems). And since Bones is an OG Diehard, it means he was the piece-of-shit raider that attacked Flatwoods and killed Colonel.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fishbones
A Bit About Bruiser: I found a few interesting details about Bruiser at Ohio River Adventures, but nothing too profound. We know that he used to play football, his mascot was a “battle bear,” and that he spent some time in a vault. The likeliest conclusion from this information is that he’s from Grafton, given that’s the only high school in the region with a football field and it’s next to the makeshift vault that formerly housed a few raiders before the BOS took over. If you look up the IRL Grafton High School, you’ll find that it’s on Yates Ave (likely the namesake of Sofie Yates, a Responder turned Raider in Flatwoods) and their mascot is the “Bearcat.” Also, all the varsity jackets in FO76 have the letter B on them, but that’s more Fishbones’s thing. But none of this has anything to do with Colonel or Angler, so let’s move on.
The Charleston Cartel (2079-2082): From the Charleston Capitol Building terminal entries, we know there was a massive chem trade happening in Charleston at this time:
“Name: Matoukas, George
Date of Crime: 10.09.81
Description:
300 Block of Oak. Based on anonymous tip, Responder Atkins found subject peddling vast amounts of illegal chems out of his home. Over 300lbs of illegal chems found in the subject's basement.
Resolution:
Matoukas sentenced to 5 years hard labor under close supervision, with possibility of parole for good behavior. Chems were seized and destroyed.”
Since the Diehards’ operation at the Palace of the Winding Path effectively ended with the great rapture of ‘79, it only makes sense that the Diehards would have to adapt their drug trade elsewhere. If you actually look for raider activity in Charleston (outside of the courthouse), you won’t find a lot, but what you will find is very telling of their operations. You’ll find a dead raider at the chemistry workbench inside Hornwright Industrial Headquarters. You’ll find a few dead raiders in/above the pharmacy on the south side of town. And you’ll find a dead raider lurking outside the doctors’ offices (which is NOT the hospital) to the north. And this takes us to Dr. Joseph.
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Joseph_(Fallout_76))
Dr. Joseph was a psychiatrist in Charleston who practiced both before AND after the Great War. He had the authority to refer patients to Allegheny Asylum and write prescriptions; Prescriptions that would be filled at the pharmacy on the south side of Charleston. To one patient, P. Davis, he prescribed Day Tripper. This insightful detail is why the Diehards were operating in Charleston in the first place. As many seasoned players have observed, Day Tripper is not craftable in this game; You can only find it out in the wild. Consider the following terminal entry from the Palace of the Winding Path:
“Log: 12.29.77 Since the war, incense ingredients have been hard to come by. We started rationing weeks ago, in anticipation of this, and doses are much lower. The sedative effects of the incense are a priority, to keep people from freaking out.
I've begun to improvise with some other ingredients and found some creative ways of stretching the supply, at least until things return to relative normal. Other chem supplies are plentiful.”
So here’s what I think happened. If the Diehards were in dire need of Day Tripper to make their custom chems (see: Making Incense), and the Responders had a healthy supply of Day Tripper locked inside a pharmacy in Charleston, and there was also a doctor who wrote prescriptions for Day Tripper, then all the Diehards needed to do was register a new patient with Dr. Joseph. Enter: Darius Angler.
Darius Angler was batshit crazy (if in doubt, refer to his manifesto). Angler, who now resided at Hillfolk Hotdogs, was also just a short trip up the New River from Charleston. He would periodically visit Dr. Joseph, get his prescription filled like a meth-head scoring Sudafed, and used the trip as a cover to smuggle the refined chems into the city. Essentially, I think he just made a loop around the southwest “island” of the Forest (area surrounded on all sides by 3 rivers, referred to as “Zone D”). The loop around Zone D functioned as a supply chain/assembly line for producing the chems that were being smuggled into Charleston. There’s a lot of suspicious stuff happening around here: Raider activity, duffel bags/files, bridge control, coffin conspiracies, etc. that I had to edit out for length, but I’ll try to summarize it here.
Hillfolk Hotdogs is where Angler and Colonel raised mole rats for reasons I’ll explain later. Follow the Ohio River south and you’ll soon come to a boat that’s not far away from a crashed truck loaded up with industrial chemical barrels (useful for producing industrial quantities of chems). South of that is a tent with a duffel bag. Further south you’ll find a 3-story house with suspicious files and a duffle bag hidden in the attic (just like at Hillfolk’s). South of that are some dry-docked boats with a chem box and a duffel bag. Even further south is Ohio River Adventure (a current Raider base of operation that served a similar purpose back then). Southeast of there, by Lewis & Sons, is a little “boat” with 2 stuffed bears, which I think was left behind by Colonel as he reenacted his river adventures with Angler using his bears. Southeast of there is a floating Nuka-Cola structure with a submerged safe guarded by 2 more bears, one of which has a liquor bottle. I think this is a dead drop and the bears are another work of Colonel’s. Heading East up the River you’ll find a raider-operated “store” at the end of a questionable bridge. Further east is Charleston, where George Matoukas was distributing the chems. And on the return trip down the New River is another dead drop directly beneath the Bridge on the west side. It’s a safe by a couch with a bear and Jangles (I think Jangles is supposed to represent George). Again, I think that this big loop is a supply chain/assembly line for moving chems and the components needed to make chems.
The smuggling operation also deviously involved Colonel and his “Baer Frends.” If you jetpack up to the very top of AVR Medical Center, you’ll find two people who OD’ed on chems, each with a stuffed bear next to them. So I think that either the Diehards were sewing chems inside Colonel’s stuffed bears and using them as drug mules to smuggle chems into Charleston, or that Colonel just climbed to the highest point on the hospital (as he did at the Palace and later in Flatwoods) and left two bears as a memorial. But I’m leaning toward the former because of an unmarked location in the Savage Divide that I found. It’s southeast of Bastion Park right at the bend of the monorail line. It’s essentially a fire pit with a bunch of stuffed bears thrown in it with a few dead party-goers around the area. I think this is the location where the Responders destroyed all of the Chems, bears and all, that they confiscated from George Matoukas. Speaking of George Matoukas….
Curious George and the Rocket: According to the above-mentioned terminal entry, George Matoukas was apparently the only criminal who the Responders sentenced to hard labor rather than exile. If you go to Rollins Labor Camp (formerly Rollins Work Camp), you won’t find a whole lot there other than Blood Eagles. But what you WILL find at the very top of the crane structure are two stuffed bears and a Jangles. Colonel, as a child, had a thing for playing with “baer frends in high places.” I can’t say with any certainty what happened here, but maybe Angler was the one who gave the responders that “anonymous tip” because Matoukas was starting to rub off on Colonel, and Angler didn’t want him growing up to be a Raider. Matoukas gets sentenced to hard labor rather than exile, with a change of parole pending “good behavior,” which means “snitching.” So maybe Angler took Colonel to visit his “friend” at the labor camp (visiting hours are a thing), Angler introduced George to a “rocket,” and Colonel used his toys to recreate the scene. Or not. Who knows? But what I do know is that the shitty poet (Angler) moved on from Hillfolk Hotdogs to go to the Cranberry Bog, and I think the Christmas Flood gave him the perfect reason to leave.
Untitled Poem #3: I’m intentionally skipping Untitled Poem #2, partly because I haven’t found much deeper meaning to it, but mostly because what I think it means is little more than conjecture. #3, on the other hand, I feel like I can make sense of it:
“white cedar leaning against the shadow of our river
peeling like asylum walls
hobbled together around dignity that died long ago
simple things to jumpstart fogged memories
holed as teeth hidden in tin
we leave our things pinned
winning only the stuck wings”
I think the phrase “white cedar leaning against the shadow of our river” is the title of the painting in Dr. Joseph’s office. Or at least that’s how Darius Angler would describe it as if it was some kind of Rorschach test. “Peeling like asylum walls, hobbled together around dignity that died long ago” is a reference to the office wallpaper, and perhaps another one of Dr. Joseph’s clients, Daniel Boone.
“Patient: "Boone, D"
Observations:
Interesting case.
Patient responds only to "Daniel Boone" and indeed seems to believe himself to be the historical figure by the same name. I'd heard that some of the hillfolk can end up a bit off after lack of socialization, but I'd not expected to see such a case.
Advised that he be sent to Allegheny rather than the Penitentiary for further observation.”
There’s only a VERY narrow window of plausibility to suggest that Angler is Daniel Boone, so I won’t. But this entry seems to refer back to Untitled Poem #3, with worlds like “hillfolk” (as in Hillfolk Hotdogs), “Allegheny” (as in asylum), and “the historical figure” (as in dignity that died long ago). I think the line “simple things to jumpstart fogged memories'' refers to the Souvenir Magnet on the fridge at Hillfolk Hotdogs, and I think it came from Lady Janet’s Soft Serve (not Cow Spot Creamery). “Holed as teeth hidden in tin” refers to the mole rats that he was raising with Colonel at Hillfolk’s (the cat bowl on the floor is for the mole rat that walks around the trailer like Fry’s dog from Futurama, just waiting for Colonel to come home). And “we leave our things pinned, winning only the stuck wings,” refers to Angler’s (and Colonel’s) escape from the Diehards. I’m assuming this event took place just after the Christmas flood, once the chem operation in Charleston was destroyed with the rest of the city. But if you remember those dead raiders I mentioned earlier, there are a few more. Outside of Dr. Joseph’s office is a dead raider next to an ammo box. Well, next to him is a makeshift bridge that goes over the highway. And if you keep going in the same direction once you step off the bridge you’ll hit the southwest corner of Wade Airport. Immediately in that corner past the fence is a locked truck-trailer (watch out for the mine) with 2 more dead raiders and a power armor chassis (sometimes). I think the last line of the poem refers to this exact event, leaving his power armor (and compatriots) pinned in the back of the trailer so he can steal yet another Vertibird. Angler flew the automated aircraft to Watoga. Why? I don’t know. But it explains how he got to the Cranberry Bog and why his body can be found just a short distance south of the city.
Untitled Poem #4: Just like #2, I don’t have any deep insight into the specifics so all I can do is speculate. I’ll spare you the details. But what I think it’s about is the very end of his relationship with Colonel. I think the time Angler and Colonel spent together in the unmarked cabin southeast of Sunrise Field was just Angler teaching Colonel to be self-sufficient (hunting, trapping, maintaining weapons and whatnot). I think that when the scorched attacked Harper’s Ferry in 2086 that there was also generally increased scorched activity in the eastern half of Appalachia. The poem describes Angler providing cover fire to, or perhaps just drawing fire away from Colonel as escaped through Big Bend Tunnel, later to be found by the Responders. But again, like with #2, all I can do with this poem is speculate.
The Mysterious Mole Rats: This is a question I’ve had for almost 2 years now, and I think I finally figured it out. Back at the Palace of the Winding Path, there’s a lonely mole rat that lives in the computer room by the garden. There’s also a dead mole rat next to a dead raider pilot by a downed plane that was headed to the Palace from the north. I didn’t know what the Diehards needed mole rats for because I was only looking at the Palace itself. But the answer to this question is found at Lady Janet’s. Everyone thinks that the two bears in gas masks by the chemistry is just a Breaking Bad easter egg. But I think it’s yet another “baer frend” reenactment left behind by Colonel. Do you remember how the cultists at the Palace ran out of ingredients to make the “spiritual incense” and had to improvise? Well, one of the substitute ingredients they used, and the reason they were importing mole rats, and the reason the Diehards took care of the children like they did, is found in the baby carriage at Lady Janet’s.
A basket full of human jaw bones? Yeah…. Teeth. Or more precisely, “baby teeth.” I suppose mole rat teeth would do in a pinch, but as messed up as it sounds human baby teeth were preferred. This is why the Diehards at the Palace were taking care of those first-graders; because six-year-olds shed baby teeth like it’s raining molars! This also answers a question you didn’t even know you had, and it takes us back to Flatwoods. Here’s a note written by Jeremiah Ward who lived in trailer in the town (and the Ransacked Bunker before that):
“I, Jeremiah Ward, resident in the town of Flatwoods, county of... not sure.
Being of sound mind, and not acting under... duress. Mostly.
Hereby declare this letter to be my last will and testament.
Mia gets the house, and everything in it.
It ain't much but that's all I got to give and... she's all I got.
I know she's still alive.
The Responders say the dogs got her, but I know it ain't true.
They been real good to us. Teaching an old geezer like me how to really cook is something. I'll give em that.
But I know they lyin about those dogs. I seen em in the hills. There's some bad folks scoping us out. They took my granddaughter, I just know it.
I'll get you back, Mia. I promise.”
Mia, a baby who slept in the crib in that trailer, was abducted by raiders. And the only raider gang that ever had any interest in kids was the Diehards. And when you remember that the Responders had a foster care program that would later be run by Colonel once he was older, you’ll remember that a shit load of children went “missing” when Billy (Fishbones) attacked Flatwoods. And if teeth (baby, mole rat, or otherwise) was the secret ingredient in Angler’s chem recipe… and Colonel was Angler’s apprentice for a number of years before he joined the Responders… and Colonel was the caretaker of all of the children of Flatwoods… then exactly what was in those documents that Colonel was burning on his back porch?
Full Circle: So after everything, the Diehards lost their crop of children at the Palace of the Winding Path in 2079, but took the children of Flatwoods and left Appalachia. When they came back, they put Fishbones (Billy) in charge of the Ohio River Adventures operation, who is now spiking the mirelurk meat with a potent chem. It’s totally possible that Ra Ra is actually Mia Ward (Jeremiah Ward’s granddaughter). Hell, it’s even possible that Jeremiah Ward is somehow Ward from Foundation. Since Colonel was obviously keeping, and subsequently burning, secrets, I’d say he was also inclined to keep his raider past a secret as well as the truth about his adoptive father. Like he said in his Survivor’s Story, “he was bad.” Perhaps the reason he kept his Diehard history a secret from the Dassa and the other Responders was because he knew that the Responders were the ones punishing and exiling people back in Charleston. But this whole story began the day Darius Angler decided to get revenge on Grafton Steel. And if his brother hadn’t actually died after all, then it would explain why Angler stayed with the Diehards for as long as he did rather than returning to the Free states. Regardless, this entire story began and ended with Billy. “It was always Billy.”
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2023.05.29 15:00 stonescoldtakes NFL Update: 05/22/2023 - 05/28/2023 - OTAs are Back!!!

Layout:
— Individual Team News + Stone’s Cold Takes
— Miscellaneous/Other NFL News
— Restaurant of the Week - Washington D.C.
Arizona Cardinals:
After some decent news the last couple weeks for this organization there wasn’t really anything great from this week besides maybe the fact that if WR DeAndre Hopkins was a distraction to the team he now no longer is one. It will be interesting to see how things play out this year.
Atlanta Falcons:
It sounds like the situation with Keith Smith should get resolved rather quickly and was more of a misunderstanding than anything else. It will be fun for this young team to have joint practices with Miami and it will be a good way for their defense to get an initial test from an elite offense. I am sure the Dolphins won’t reveal all of their tricks but either way they will have to worry about guarding an elite offense with elite playmakers.
Baltimore Ravens:
It is crazy to think about how just about a month ago the news around the Ravens was all negative and that it seemed like the relationship with Lamar was fractured. Now here we are and Lamar seems about as happy as can be and is excited about the offense that is being installed under new OC Todd Monken. It will be exciting for him as well to have WR Rashod Bateman back who I still think can be a key playmaker on the team. It appears the Ravens could be set for big things even in a tough division.
Buffalo Bills:
Great to see the that S Damar Hamlin was back out practicing. I know it has been some time since his collapse on the field but it still feels like yesterday that I was watching that game in complete shock at what I had witnessed and worry for him and his family. WR Stefon Diggs being absent at OTAs is not a big deal to me. QB Josh Allen has a lot of other guys he needs to get familiar and work in with anyways and a lot of star players don’t attend OTAs to either get rest/recovery or to do their own workouts with their private coaches. I imagine he and Kincaid will be deadly this year and who knows they may even have WR DeAndre Hopkins joining them as the Bills were one of two teams that inquired and had talks about a trade for him.
Carolina Panthers:
Not too much news here other than what we saw and heard from OTAs about Bryce Young getting to take most of the 1st team reps. It appears that he looked good and his teammates were saying great things about him. It is tough to judge any quarterback though in the offseason because no matter what folks always say their young or new quarterback is looking amazing and things are progressing nicely. I will say though I have heard the most good things coming out from camps about him and Anthony Richardson of the Colts.
Chicago Bears:
Good news for Chicago fans who are excited for their move. It seems that things are proceeding nicely with the process of moving to a new stadium. Also, great to hear that Chase Claypool may be able to make more of a difference this year. It would be hard to be less effective than what he was last year for this team. I still believe he can be a major impact player like many expected him to be when he entered the league. It will be key for him to become Fields’ go to receiver over some of the other talent they have on the team.
Cincinnati Bengals:
This team has a lot to do in terms of contracts that they need to get figured out. The team view Tee Higgins in very high regard and so does Joe Burrow as they should. They also really want to get Logan Wilson signed. However, what will come out to being the biggest of the contracts they do this offseason is that of Joe Burrow. What will continue to make things tough here is the longer it takes for Justin Hebert to get his deal done because Burrow will likely be the last of the 4 quarterbacks to sign his because it is presumed he will get the most money and has an agent who like to wait til the last minute.
Cleveland Browns:
All good news for Browns fans so far. The team is looking good and their appears to be a lot of good vibes coming out of practice. WR DeAndre Hopkins is even considering coming to Cleveland for the chance to play with his old QB. Also, WR Elijah Moore is looking crisp and at least for the moment it appears he is much happier. It will all depend on if he actually gets the ball thrown to him during the season though.
Dallas Cowboys:
Not too much news here which is good for this franchise because they are almost always the center of attention. The main thing I took away from this week was just that things seems to be going well with McCarthy and Dak working together on the offense but that there have been some growing pains at least initially getting used to new systems as expected.
Denver Broncos:
It appeared to shock just about everyone when the news broke about K Brandon McManus getting released because he had become a fan favorite over the years in Denver. QB Russell Wilson has lost a lot of weight and it is evident just from seeing him this offseason. I didn’t think his weight was the issue hindering him last year but hopefully he can feel he is playing at a healthier weight. What I think most Denver fans were excited to see was RB Javonte Williams back on the practice field. He is going to end up being the real difference maker this year and whether this team competes with the top of the AFC or not will largely depend on him making the rest of the offense’s life easy or not.
Detroit Lions:
A lot of news here. Let’s start with the bad news. It appears that they may be having more penalties come down on their team/players due to the league’s gambling policy as their is an ongoing investigation into a 5th player from the team. Also, David Montgomery and Malcolm Rodriguez left the field with injuries. It is still early though and they appear to be minor injuries so hopefully it won’t affect them in the long term. Now some good news. It sounds like WR Jameson Williams is progressing nicely and the team got a new kicker in Riley Patterson from the Jaguars who should help the improve there. Lastly and maybe the biggest news is that Calvin “Megatron” Johnson was at OTAs hanging out with coaches and players. Many are hoping those good vibes carry over into the season.
Green Bay Packers:
Exciting news that Green Bay will get the draft in 2025! I was thinking they would try and stick to more southern states but they clearly are willing to go North with Detroit and now Green Bay being the hosts of the next two. HC Matt LaFleur appears to be being honest with everything and trying to temper expectations a bit with Jordan Love taking over. This could be to help take pressure off of Love and also just be the flat out truth that with any young quarterback it is going to take some time.
Houston Texans:
I am not surprised about DeMeco Ryans hesitancy about pursuing Jadeveon Clowney. First of all he just may not want to reveal his cards to others in the league about what he is thinking. The other thing is that he is one that likes for his defense to have an identity and a really good work ethic. I am not saying that Clowney can’t fit that mold but it just makes the selection process for what Ryans wants on defense that much more thorough. The other news that surprised some but something I mentioned a couple of weeks ago is that QB Davis Mills will compete with Stroud for the starting job and is viewed as a desirable QB to other teams around the league. I know his stats haven’t been the best but I am not sure any of the young quarterbacks would have done well with what the Texans organization has been the last couple years. At the end of the day CJ Stroud will end up being the team’s starter due to draft status and probably will be the more talented, better option.
Indianapolis Colts:
Overall things seems to be good for the organization. The main thing we are all waiting on is when Shaq Leonard will be able to get back out there and start practicing. It makes sense not to have him practicing now since things are optional anyways. The hype has been there for QB Anthony Richardson thus far and it appears he may be closer to starting right away than a lot of people thought.
Jacksonville Jaguars:
Not too much news out of Jacksonville other than the change at the kicker position. Things got busy and they were able to trade K Riley Patterson to the Lions rather than release like the reports had said prior. Then they went out and got a proven veteran in K Brandon McManus who had just been released from the Broncos squad. This team is going to be interesting this year and will go as far QB Trevor Lawrence can take them. Does not hurt to have the veteran kicker for the big moments that could be coming for this organization.
Kansas City Chiefs:
HC Andy Reid who normally is pretty quiet and doesn’t get too involved was in front of the media a lot this week it felt like. First, he is not a fan of the new kickoff rule and it appears most coaches are not. Second, he talked about how the team will not be using a FB because they are being phased out of the NFL and he feels that the TEs they have on the team can play the role when needed. Overall it seems things are going well for the Chiefs and things could be a going a lot better here soon as they appear to be a top option for WR DeAndre Hopkins and one the few teams that had trade talks before he was released.
Las Vegas Raiders:
It appears there is never a dull week with the Raiders. The news this week about Jimmy seem to add context potentially to what Davante Adams’ comments were about recently. With Tom Brady recently joining the ownership group here it makes us all wonder if the injury is not cleared up is there a way for him to un-retire once again…only time will tell.
Los Angeles Chargers:
Big news here getting the deal done with Austin Ekeler even if it still only keeps him around for 1 year. Thankfully now he should be semi-happy for that one year before he can go out and chase a big contract if he wants to.
Los Angeles Rams:
Not much news here really. Sounds like Matthew Stafford has taken Stetson Bennett under his wing and started to work with him and help him learn more about the transition to the NFL compared to college.
Miami Dolphins:
I loved seeing Tua wearing the helmet cam. I had not thought about it before but it should be great for him to be able to show McDaniel exactly what he is/was seeing out on the field to add context and allow McDaniel to better coach him and understand what is going on. I think this should be something all quarterbacks do and especially the top ones because it could gives coaches that much more information and a better understanding of how to help young quarterbacks in the future.
Minnesota Vikings:
All signs appear to be pointing towards RB Dalvin Cook getting released. In other news it will be good for the defense to develop the aggressive mindset that Brian Flores wants and should bring in the attitude from Miami that wad established during his time there that was so effective and led to them winning games.
New England Patriots:
The Patriots seems to always be up to something. It sounds like they were penalized the 2 days of OTAs and fined because of a meeting that Joe Judge held that lasted more than the permitted amount of time. Other tough news came when Raekwon McMillan got injured.
New Orleans Saints:
What a story. TE Foster Moreau finds out he has cancer in a physical with the team a couple months and gets ahead of things and is now practicing with them at OTAs. Interesting story here about former HC Jon Gruden working with the team because during his time with the Raiders many said that he and Carr did not get along. This team has a big opportunity to take over the NFC South and is probably the bet setup to do it with the team they have.
New York Giants:
It seems that everything is going great except the Saquon Barkley situation. There isn’t much new insight into it either after HC Daboll refused to speak on anything contract related. In good news it seems like TE Darren Waller is really enjoying being with the team and working with QB Daniel Jones. This is a team to me that is going to play inspired football like they did last year no matter what is going on because their HC.
New York Jets:
I imagine Jets fans held their breath when they saw Aaron Rodgers get injured as well as Allen Lazard. The good news is that those are not going to be issues in the long run. However, it reminded us all that QB Aaron Rodgers is not a young guy anymore and there is always the possibility that he like any other player in the NFL can get hurt. Hopefully the deal with Quinnen Williams can get done sooner rather than later. I am looking forward to the joint practices with the Bucs because they have a solid defense and it will be fun to hear how they fare in the early phases of implementing a lot of things from both Nathaniel Hackett and Aaron Rodgers.
Philadelphia Eagles:
Jordan Davis is going to be a key piece for the team this year in my opinion so it is great to hear he has made major strides. He is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to his sheer size and the more he can be weaponized the better.
Pittsburgh Steelers:
Great move to get Markus Golden. He can be dangerous in this defense and is only one season removed from a double digit sack year. Also, good to see that Robinson and Pickett appear to be getting along. I am curious to see who shakes out to be the #1 receiver on this team but have a feeling it will end up being Pickens because of how good he was last year and the chemistry he and Pickett already have. A QB likes it when his receiver makes life easier and bails him out. Pickens has already done that on multiple occasions for him.
San Francisco 49ers:
It is official the 49ers will host the 2026 Super Bowl! After speculations and rumors it finally became official this past week. Also, there was a lot of good QB news this week with all 3 of the QBs on the roster. Sounds like Brock Purdy is healing properly and as expected, Trey Lance is looking really good in OTAs along with Sam Darnold. Once again this offseason no one is sure who will be starting for the team come week 1.
Seattle Seahawks:
Good news for Seahawks fan that Tariq Woolen will be back around training camp time after his procedure. Other than that there was not much news here. They got a solid rotational/depth player in Artie Burns though.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers:
Great to see that Tampa has joint practices with the Jets. They have a tough defense and it will be good for Baker and the offense to get some work against that defense early on. The Bucs have some great weapons on the offensive side of the ball to really compete with those top defenses and if they can all stay healthy this team could be a dark horse team to watch. Overall this should be a good all around team.
Tennessee Titans:
Interesting to see that S Kevin Byard was not at OTAs after earlier this offseason it was rumored he was asked to take a pay cut. Definitely a situation to watch. The main news that came from OTAs is that QB Will Levis appears to be looking good and some folks think he could be putting pressure on Tannehill early on and moving himself up the depth chart.
Washington Commanders:
Feels like a lot happened with the Commanders. First off, I think QB Sam Howell is in a great spot to learn and develop this year with mentors like Jacoby Brissett and then his OC Eric Bieniemy. They will hold him accountable like has already been happening and help bring out the best in him. Now it definitely is an organization surrounded by distractions. First off the trademark application for the team’s name was denied and they hope to get something figured out but could lead to another name change. Also, the team is still working through the Josh Harris bid and there need to be some adjustments in order for it to get accepted by the other NFL Owners and the league. These distractions even though they may not always be good for the team they probably do help a young quarterback because he is not the only thing to talk about at this point in the offseason.
Miscellaneous/Other NFL News:
​
Restaurant of the Week: (Washington D.C. - TACOS 5 DE MAYO)
Don’t really have a great picture of this place but that may be a good thing. Often times I find that the places least advertised and that are holes in the wall is typically where you get the best Mexican food. This place is about a 10 minute drive from the stadium and probably closer to 15-20 minutes on game days depending on the time you go. Personally I recommend the Tacos Al Pastor. Those are basically a marinated pork taco that is slightly spicy with some sweet pineapple flavor in it. You cannot go wrong with Tacos Al Pastor and are by far my favorite. The other thing to keep an eye on is the Pupusas. While Pupusas are from El Salvador this place actually does a pretty dang good job of making them. For those that don’t know what Pupusas are they kind of resemble a stuffed pancake but are made of corn in most cases stuffed with either just cheese, cheese and beans, or cheese and pork. My order here would be 3 tacos al pastor and a cheese and bean pupusa. Enjoy!
submitted by stonescoldtakes to nfl [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 11:14 tigglywitties Dealing with a mimic or something else?

I seem to have an ongoing problem hearing knocking on my door in the middle of the night, half the time I chalk it up to weird dreams, as I am usually half asleep when I hear something, and usually have a precursor of strange dreams beforehand.
Tonight was a little different though. Sure I was half asleep, when I heard my husband's keys jingle and the lock on the front door click, about that time the baby started fussing so I passed her a pacifier, awake enough now I could hear my husband walking around the living room. I head to the restroom, do what I gotta do, still hearing his keys jingle as he walks, then silence. I go to the living room, no husband, door locked, no car in the drive, front porch light off, i even texted him to see if he was still at work, he works 2 counties over, and he assured me he was still on patrol.
To clarify the whole carbon monoxide thing I keep seeing on similar posts, we live in a fully electric trailer in the county, no gas whatsoever.
To add, as far as I know, nobody has ever died in this trailer. Its from the 70s, however the previous owners were up to no good, mostly drug involvement, and I have suspicions that their 7 year old daughter may have been involved in unwanted acts, as when we moved in, they left belongings behind, including her toy box, which had very VERY small lingerie in it, as well as an exterior lock on her door and a window that opened only from the outside. Probably not relevant, but bad acts can bring bad energy.
We've had the house cleansed, I can't say for sure with what, but it wasn't sage. It was some bag of herbs now stapled to my sons wall, a few stones, incense, and some kind of fragrant wood was burned, but it hasn't stopped the dreams, the knocking, and now it sounds like whatever wanted in has finally made it inside. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and maybe some suggestions.
submitted by tigglywitties to TrueParanormal [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 07:57 imthewiseguy The “Racism was over from the 80s to 2000s” narrative reeks of ignorance and scapegoating

For some reason Conservatives keep pushing this narrative that “race relations were the best they ever were from the 80’s until the 2000’s and then OBAMA ruined it”.
Race relations were not great at all. There was an uptick in Klan violence in the 80’s, states were refusing to recognize MLK day, there was a whole thing with Forsyth County, GA trying to keep the town White; it was a whole segment on the Oprah show.
The 90’s had race related riots due to police brutality, the whole situation with OJ Simpson, and “gangster rap”, which dealt with race and police brutality (“F-ck The Police) becoming popular.
In the 2000’s hate crimes against Middle Eastern people/Muslims shot up exponentially following 9/11.
Anybody who claims that race relations were great despite all that is either playing dumb or had an extremely sheltered upbringing and didn’t have to deal with it.
And if anybody claims that Obama divided the nation, that didn’t happen. Obama just pissed a bunch of people off because he was a black man sitting in the Oval Office. Many of us have seen the pictures of people lynching/burning Obama in effigy and the racist memes made.
submitted by imthewiseguy to TrueUnpopularOpinion [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 07:40 Justwonderinif Post Conviction I

<< The Trials
Friday, February 25, 2000 / Trial 2 / Day 21
Saturday, February 26, 2000
Monday, February 28, 2000
Tuesday, February 29, 2000
Wednesday, March 1, 2000
Friday, March 3, 2000
Saturday, March 4, 2000
Monday, March 6, 2000
Wednesday, March 8, 2000
Friday, March 17, 2000
Saturday, March 25, 2000
Thursday, March 30, 2000
Friday, March 31, 2000
Saturday, April 1, 2000
Monday, April 3, 2000
Wednesday, April 5, 2000
Sunday, May 21, 2000
Monday, May 29, 2000
Tuesday, June 6, 2000
Wednesday, June 7, 2000
Wednesday, June 14, 2000
Thursday, July 6, 2000
Friday, July 28, 2000
Wednesday, August 2, 2000
August, 2000
September 13, 2000
Sunday, October 15, 2000
Monday, October 16, 2000
February 28, 2001
Monday, May 21, 2001
Thursday, May 24, 2001
June 2, 2001
Thursday, July 19, 2001
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Wednesday, September 19, 2001
Wednesday, September 25, 2001
Monday, October 15, 2001
January 15, 2002
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
Thursday, February 28, 2002
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
May 6, 2002
Spring, 2002
June 3, 2002
Tuesday, May 21, 2002
September, 2002
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
February 28, 2003
Monday, March 19, 2003
Date Unknown
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
June 20, 2003
August/September, 2003
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Approximate, 2004
February 28, 2004
March 1, 2004
Friday, May 21, 2004
July, 2004
July 27, 2004
Friday, September 24, 2004
Friday, October 15, 2004
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Thursday, December 2, 2004
Monday, December 6, 2004
December 24, 2004
January 2, 2005
February 28, 2005
April 20, 2005
April 21, 2005
April 28, 2005
May 2, 2005
Saturday, May 21, 2005
June 3, 2005
June, 2005
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Saturday, December 9, 2005
January, 2006
February 2, 2006
February 28, 2006
Sunday, May 21, 2006
September, 2006
Saturday, September 2, 2006
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Sunday, October 15, 2006
January, 2007
February 28, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
December 4, 2007
January 13, 2008
January/February, 2008
February 28, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Saturday, October 15, 2008
Saturday, December 13, 2008
February 28, 2009
May, 2009-Approximate
Thursday, May 21, 2009
June 9, 2009
June 20, 2009
July 14, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Winter, 2009
February 28, 2010
Early/Mid 2010
April 11, 2010
End of May, Approximate
Friday, May 21, 2010
[Post Conviction Timeline II>>]()
submitted by Justwonderinif to adnansyed [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 05:28 uhhlanae Does anyone know what town/county this is?

I know it's in Virginia, I thought it could be Westmoreland county but I'm not fully convinced. If it helps narrow it down he was born 1870 and this record is from 1895. There are numbers on the left side of the record, he is the second person after 350. I recommend looking at the top of the record first so you all can see how it's set up!
Robert E Lee in the U.S., Army, Register of Enlistments
submitted by uhhlanae to Genealogy [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 03:56 calidreamerxoxo Found This Other Mugshot of Jessi Lawless. She is One Scary Looking Bitch.

Found This Other Mugshot of Jessi Lawless. She is One Scary Looking Bitch. submitted by calidreamerxoxo to wtfjennajameson [link] [comments]

2023.05.29 00:40 RandomAppalachian468 Don't fly over Barron County Ohio.

The whirring blades of my MD-902 throbbed against the warm evening air, and I smiled.
From 5,000 feet, the ground flew by in a carpet of dark forests and kelly-green fields. The sun hung low on the horizon in a picturesque array of dazzling orange and gold, and I could make out the narrow strip of the Ohio River to my left, glistening in the fading daylight. This time of year, the trees would be full of the sweet aroma of fresh blossoms, and the frequent rains kept small pockets of fluffy white mist hanging in the treetops. It was a beautiful view, one that reminded me of why being a helicopter pilot trumped flying in a jumbo jet far above the clouds every day of the week.
Fourteen more days, and I’m debt free.
That made me grin even more. I’d been working as a charter pilot ever since I obtained my license at age 19, and after years of keeping my nose to the grindstone, I was closing on the final payment for real-estate in western Pennsylvania. With no debt, a fixer-upper house on 30 rural acres all to myself, and a respectable wage for a 26-year-old pilot, I looked forward to the financial freedom I could now enjoy. Maybe I’d take a vacation, somewhere exotic like Venice Italy, or the Dominican Republic. Or perhaps I’d sock the money back for the day I started a family.
“Remember kleineun, a real man looks after his own.”
My elderly ouma’s voice came back from the depths of my memories, her proud, sun-tanned face rising from the darkness. She and my Rhodesian grandfather had emigrated to the US when they were newlyweds, as the violence against white Boer descendants in South Africa spiraled out of control. My mother and father both died in a car crash when I was six, and it had been my grandparents who raised me. Due to this, I’d grown up with a slight accent that many of my classmates found amusing, and I could speak both English, and Afrikaans, the Boer tongue of our former home.
I shifted in my seat, stretched my back muscles, and glanced at the picture taped to my console. Both my parents flanked a grinning, gap-toothed six-year-old me, at the last Christmas we’d spent together. My mother beamed, her dark hair and Italian features a sharp contrast to my father’s sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. Sometimes, I liked to imagine they were smiling at me with pride at how well I flew the old silver-colored bird my company had assigned to me, and that made the long, lonely flights easier to bear.
A flicker caught my eye, and I broke my gaze away from the photograph.
Perched in its small cradle above the controls, my little black Garmin fuzzed over for a few seconds, its screen shifting from brightly colored maps to a barrage of grey static.
Did the power chord come loose?
I checked, ensuring the power-cable for the unit’s battery was plugged into the port on the control panel. It was a brand-new GPS unit, and I’d used it a few times already, so I knew it wasn’t defective. Granted, I could fly and navigate without it, but the Garmin made my time as a pilot so much easier that the thought of going blind was dreadful.
My fuel gauge danced, clicked to empty, then to full, in a bizarre jolt.
More of the gauges began to stutter, the entire panel seeming to develop terrets all at once, and my pulse began to race. Something was wrong, very wrong, and the sludge inside my bowels churned with sour fear.
“Come on, come on.” I flicked switches, turned dials, punched buttons, but nothing seemed to fix the spasming electronics. Every gauge failed, and without warning, I found myself plunged into inky darkness.
Outside, the sun surrendered to the pull of night, the sky darker than usual. A distant rumble of thunder reverberated above the roar of my helicopter’s engine, and I thought I glimpsed a streak of yellowish lightning on the far horizon to my left.
Calm down Chris. We’re still flying, so it must just be a blown fuse. Stay in control and find a place to set her down.
My sweaty palm slid on the cyclic stick, and both feet weighed heavy on the yaw pedals. The collective stuck to my other hand with a nervous vibration, and I squinted against the abyss outside.
Beep.
I jumped despite myself, as the little Garmin on my panel flared back to life, the static pulling aside to reveal a twitching display. Each time the screen glitched, it showed the colorful map detailing my flight path over the ground below, but I noticed that some of the lines changed, the names shifting, as if the device couldn’t decide between two different versions of the world.
One name jutted out at me, slate gray like most of the major county names, appearing with ghostly flickers from between two neighboring ones.
Barron County.
I stared, confused. I’d flown over this section of southeastern Ohio plenty of times, and I knew the counties by heart. At this point, I should have been over the southern end of Noble County, and maybe dipping lower into Washington. There was no Barron County in Ohio. I was sure of it.
And yet it shown back at me from the digital landscape, a strange, almost cigar-shaped chunk of terrain carved from the surrounding counties like a tumor, sometimes there, sometimes not, as my little Garmin struggled to find the correct map. Rain began to patter against my cockpit window, and the entire aircraft rattled from a strong gust of wind. Thick clouds closed over my field of vision like a sea of gray cotton.
The blood in my veins turned to ice, and I sucked in a nervous breath.
Land. I had to land. There was nothing else to do, my flight controls weren’t responding, and only my Garmin had managed to come back to life. Perhaps I’d been hit by lightning, and the electronics had been fried? Either way, it was too dark to tell, but a storm seemed to be brewing, and if I didn’t get my feet on the ground soon, I could be in real trouble.
“Better safe than sorry.” I pushed down on the collective to start my slow descent and clicked the talking button for my headset. “Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, over.”
Nothing.
“Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, requesting emergency assistance, over.”
Still nothing.
If the radio’s dead, I’m really up a creek.
With my hand shaking, I clicked on the mic one more time. “Any station, this is—”
Like a curtain pulling back, the fog cleared from around my window, and the words stuck in my throat.
Without my gauges, I couldn’t tell just how far I’d descended, but I was definitely very low. Thick trees poked up from the ground, and the hills rolled into high ridges with flat valley floors, fields and pastures pockmarking them. Rain fell all around in cold, silvery sheets, a normal feature for the mid spring in this part of Ohio.
What wasn’t normal, were the fires.
At first, I thought they were forest fires for the amount of smoke and flames that bellowed from each spot, but as I swooped lower, my eyes widened in horror.
They were houses.
Farms, cottages, little clusters that barely constituted villages, all of them belched orange flames and black pillars of sooty smoke. I couldn’t hear above the helicopter blades, but I could see the flashes on the ground, along the road, in between the trees, and even coming from the burning buildings, little jets of golden light that spat into the darkness with anger.
Gunfire. That’s rifle fire, a whole lot of it.
Tiny black figures darted through the shadows, barely discernable from where I sat, several hundred feet up. I couldn’t see much, but some were definitely running away, the streaks of yellow gunfire chasing them. A few dark gray vehicles rumbled down one of the gravel roads, and sprayed fire into the houses as it went. They were fighting, I realized, the people in the trucks and the locals. It was horrific, like something out of war-torn Afghanistan, but worse.
Then, I caught a glimpse of the others.
They didn’t move like the rest, who either fled from the dark vehicles, or fired back from behind cover. These skinny figures loped along with haphazard gaits, many running on all fours like animals, swarming from the trees by the dozens. They threw themselves into the gales of bullets without flinching, attacking anyone within range, and something about the way they moved, so fluid, so fearless, made my heart skip a beat.
What is that?
“Echo Four Actual to unknown caller, please respond, over.”
Choking back a cry of shock, I fumbled at the control panel with clumsy fingers, the man’s voice sharp and stern. I hadn’t realized that I’d let go of the talking button and clicked it down again. “Hello? Hello, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot out of Pittsburgh, over.”
An excruciating moment passed, and I continued to zoom over the trees, the fires falling away behind me as more silent forest took over.
“Roger that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, we read you loud and clear. Please identify yourself and any passengers or cargo you might be carrying, over.”
Swallowing hard, I eyed the treetops, which looked much closer than they should have been. How far had I descended? “Echo Four Actual, my name is Christopher Dekker, and I am alone. I’m a charter flight from PA, carrying medical equipment for OSU in Columbus. My controls have been damaged, and I am unable to safely carry on due to the storm. Requesting permission to land, over.”
I watched the landscape slide by underneath me, once catching sight of what looked like a little white church surrounded by smaller huts, dozens of figures in the yard staring up at me as I flew over a nearby ridgeline.
“Solid copy on that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot. Be advised, your transponder shows you to be inside a restricted zone. Please cease all radio traffic, reduce your speed, climb to 3,000 feet and proceed north. We’ll talk you in from there. How copy, over?”
My heart jumped, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Roger that Echo Four Actual, my altimeter is down, but I’ll do my best to eyeball the altitude, over.”
With that, I pulled the collective upward, and tried my best to gauge how far I was by eyesight in the gathering night, rain still coming down all around me. This had to be some kind of disaster or riot, I decided. After all, the voice over the radio sounded like military, and those vehicles seemed to have heavy weapons. Maybe there was some kind of unrest going on here that I hadn’t heard about yet?
Kind of weird for it to happen in rural areas though. Spoiled college kids I get, but never saw farmers get so worked up before. They usually love the military.
Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I turned out of reflex.
My mouth fell open, and I froze, unable to scream.
In the sky beside me, a huge shadow glided along, and its leathery wings effortlessly carved through the gloom, flapping only on occasion to keep it aloft. It was too dark for me to see what color it was, but from the way it moved, I knew it wasn’t another helicopter. No, this thing was alive, easily the size of a small plane, and more than twice the length of my little McDonald Douglass. A long tail trailed behind it, and bore a distinct arrow-shaped snout, with twig-like spines fanned out around the back of its head. Whatever legs it had were drawn up under it like a bird, yet its skin appeared rough and knobby, almost resembling tree bark. Without pause, the gigantic bat-winged entity flew along beside me, as if my presence was on par with an annoying fly buzzing about its head.
Gripping the microphone switch so tight, I thought I’d crack the plastic, I whispered into my headset, forgetting all radio protocol. “T-There’s something up here.”
Static crackled.
“Douglas Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, say again your last, you’re coming in weak and unreadable, over.”
“There’s something up here.” I snarled into the headset, still glued to the controls of the helicopter, afraid to deviate even an inch from my course in case the monstrosity decided to turn on me. “A freaking huge thing, right beside me. I swear, it looks like a bat or . . . I don’t know.”
“Calm down.” The man on the other end of the radio broke his rigorous discipline as well, his voice deep, but level. “It won’t attack if you don’t move too fast. Slowly ease away from it and follow that course until you’re out of sight.”
I didn’t have time to think about how wrong that sounded, how the man’s strict tone had changed to one of knowledge, how he hadn’t been the least surprised by what I’d said. Instead, I slowly turned the helicopter away from the huge menace and edged the speed higher in tiny increments.
As soon as I was roughly two football fields away, I let myself relax, and clicked the mic switch. “It’s not following.”
“You’re sure?”
Eyeing the huge flapping wings, I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, I’m well clear.”
“Good. Thank you, Mr. Dekker.”
Then, the radio went dead.
Something in my chest dropped, a weight that made my stomach roil. This wasn’t right, none of it. Who was that man? Why did he know about the thing I’d just seen? What was I supposed to—
A flash of light exploded from the trees to my right and shot into the air with a long finger of smoke.
What the . . .
On instinct, I jerked the cyclic stick to one side, and the helicopter swung to avoid the rocket.
Boom.
My world shook, metal screeched, and a dozen alarms began to go off inside the cockpit in a cacophony of beeps and sirens. Orange and red flames lit up the night sky just behind me, and the horizon started to spin wildly outside. Heat gushed from the cockpit door, and I smelled the greasy stench of burning oil. The safety belts dug into my shoulders, and with a final slip, the radio headset ripped free from my scalp.
I’m hit.
Desperate, I yanked on the controls, fought the bird even as she spun toward the ground in a wreath of flames, the inky black trees hurtling up to meet me. The helicopter went into full auto-rotation, the sky blurring past outside, and the alarms blared in a screech of doom. Panic slammed through my temples, I screamed at the top of my lungs, and for one brief second, my eyes locked on the little black Garmin still perched atop my control panel.
Its screen stopped twitching and settled on a map of the mysterious Barron County, with a little red arrow at the center of the screen, a few words popping up underneath it.
You are here.
Trees stabbed up into the sky, the belts crushed at my torso, glass shattered all around me, and the world went dark.
Copper, thick, warm, and tangy.
It filled my mouth, stank metallic in my nose, clogged my throat, choking me. In the murkiness, I fought for a surface, for a way out, blind and numb in the dark.
This way, kleineun.
My ouma’s voice echoed from somewhere in the shadows.
This way.
Both eyes flew open, and I gagged, spitting out a stream of red.
Pain throbbed in my ribs, and a heavy pressure sent a tingling numbness through my shoulders. Blood roared inside my temples, and stars danced before my eyes with a dizzying array. Humid night air kissed my skin, and something sticky coated my face, neck, and arms that hung straight up toward the ceiling.
Wait. Not up. Down.
I blinked at the wrinkled, torn ceiling of the cockpit, the glass all gone, the gray aluminum shredded like tissue paper. Just outside the broken windows, thick Appalachian bluegrass and stemmy underbrush swished in a feeble breeze, backlit by flashes of lightning from the thunderstorm overhead. Green and brown leaves covered everything in a wet carpet of triangles, and somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.
Turning my head from side to side, I realized that I hung upside down inside the ruined helicopter, the top half burrowed into the mud. I could hear the hissing and crackling of flames, the pattering of rain falling on the hot aluminum, and the smaller brush fires around the downed aircraft sizzling out in the damp long grass. Charred steel and burning oil tainted the air, almost as strong as the metallic, coppery stench in my aching nose.
They shot me down. That military dude shot me out of the sky.
It didn’t make sense. I’d followed their orders, done everything they’d said, and yet the instant I veered safely away from whatever that thing in the sky had been, they’d fired, not at it, but at me.
Looking down (or rather, up) at my chest, I sucked in a gasp, which was harder to do that before.
The navy-blue shirt stuck to my torso with several big splotches of dark, rusty red. Most were clean slashes, but two held bits of glass sticking out of them, one alarmingly bigger than the other. They dripped cherry red blood onto my upturned face, and a wave of nausea hit me.
I gotta get down.
I flexed my arms to try and work some feeling back into them, praying nothing was broken. Half-numb from hanging so long, I palmed along my aching body until I felt the buckled for the seat belts.
“Okay.” I hissed between gritted teeth, in an effort to stave off my panic. “You can do this. Just hold on tight. Nice and tight. Here we go . . .”
Click.
Everything seemed to lurch, and I slid off the seat to plummet towards the muck-filled hole in the cockpit ceiling. My fingers were slick with blood and slipped over the smooth faux-leather pilot’s seat with ease. The shoulder belt snagged on the bits of glass that lay just under the left lowest rib, and a flare of white-hot pain ripped through me.
Wham.
I screamed, my right knee caught the edge of the aluminum ceiling, and both hands dove into a mound of leaf-covered glass shards on the opposite side of the hole. My head swam, being right-side-up again enough to make shadows gnaw at the corner of my eyes.
Forcing myself to breath slowly, I fought the urge to faint and slid back to sit on the smooth ceiling. I turned my hands over to see half a dozen bits of clear glass burrowed into my skin like greedy parasites, red blood weeping around the new cuts.
“Screw you.” I spat at the rubbish with angry tears in my eyes. “Screw you, screw you, screw you.”
The shards came out easy enough, and the cuts weren’t that deep, but that wasn’t what worried me. On my chest, the single piece of cockpit glass that remined was almost as big as my palm, and it really hurt. Just touching it felt like self-inflicted torture, but I knew it had to come out sooner or later.
Please don’t nick a vein.
Wiping my hands dry on my jeans, I gripped the shard with both hands, and jerked.
Fire roared over my ribs, and hot blood tickled my already grimy pale skin. I clapped a hand over the wound, pressing down hard, and grunted out a string of hateful expletives that my ouma would have slapped me for.
Lying on my back, I stared around me at the messy cargo compartment of the MD-902. Most of the medical supplies had been in cardboard boxes strapped down with heavy nylon tow-straps, but several cases had ruptured with the force of the impact, spraying bandages, syringes, and pill bottles all over the cluttered interior. Orange flames chewed at the crate furthest to the rear, the tail section long gone, but the foremost part of the hold was intact. Easily a million-dollar mess, it would have made me faint on any other trip, but today it was a godsend.
Half-blind in the darkness, I crawled along with only the firelight and lightning bolts to guide me, my right knee aching. Like a crippled raccoon, I collected things as I went, conscious of the two pallets of intact supplies weighing right over my head. I’d taken several different first-aid courses with some hunting buddies of mine, and the mental reflexes kicked in to help soothe my frazzled mind.
Check for bleeds, stop the worst, then move on.
Aside from my battered chest and stomach, the rest of me remained mostly unharmed. I had nasty bruises from the seatbelts, my right knee swelled, my nose slightly crooked and crusted in blood, but otherwise I was intact. Dowsing every scratch and cut with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol I found, I used butterfly closures on the smaller lacerations that peppered my skin. I wrapped soft white gauze over my abused palms and probed at the big cut where the last shard had been, only stopping when I was sure there were no pieces of glass wedged inside my flesh.
“Not too bad.” I grunted to myself, trying to sound impassive like a doctor might. “Rib must have stopped it. Gonna need stitches though. That’ll be fun.”
Pawing through the broken cases, I couldn’t find any suture chord, but just as I was about to give up, I noticed a small box that read ‘medical skin stapler’.
Bingo.
I tore the small white plastic stapler free from its packaging and eyeballed the device. I’d never done this before, only seen it in movies, and even though the cut in my skin hurt, I wondered if this wouldn’t be worse.
You’ve gotta do it. That bleeding needs to stop. Besides, no one’s coming to rescue you, not with those rocket-launching psychos out there.
Taking a deep breath, I pinched the skin around the gash together, and pressed the mouth of the stapler to it.
Click.
A sharp sting, like that of a needle bit at the skin, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the cut itself. I worked my way across the two-inch laceration and gave out a sigh of relief when it was done.
“Not going to bleed to death today.” I daubed ointment around the staples before winding more bandages over the wound.
Popping a few low-grade painkillers that tumbled from the cargo, I crawled wriggled through the nearest shattered window into the wet grass.
Raindrops kissed my face, clean and cool on my sweaty skin. Despite the thick cloud cover, there was enough constant lightning strikes within the storm to let me get glimpses of the world around me. My helicopter lay on its back, the blades snapped like pencils, with bits and pieces of it burning in chunks all around the small break in the trees. Chest-high scrub brush grew all around the low-lying ground, with pockets of standing water in places. My ears still rang from the impact of the crash, but I could start to pick up more crickets, frogs, and even some nocturnal birds singing into the darkness, like they didn’t notice the huge the hulk of flaming metal that had fallen from the sky. Overhead, the thunder rumbled onward, the feeble wind whistling, and there were other flashes on the horizon, orange and red ones, with crackles that didn’t sound quite like lightning.
The guns. They’re still fighting.
Instinctively, I pulled out my cellphone, and tapped the screen.
It fluttered to life, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get through to anyone, not even with the emergency function designed to work around having no service. The complicated wonder of our modern world was little better than a glorified paperweight.
Stunned, I sat down with my back to the helicopter and rested my head against the aluminum skin of the craft. How I’d gone from a regular medical supply run to being marooned in this hellish parody of rural America, I didn’t know, but one thig was certain; I needed a plan. Whoever fired the missile could have already contacted my charter company and made up some excuse to keep them from coming to look for me. No one else knew I was here, and even though I now had six staples holding the worst of my injuries shut, I knew I needed proper medical attention. If I wanted to live, I’d have to rescue myself.
My bag. I need to get my go-bag, grab some gear and then . . . head somewhere else.
It took me a while to gather my green canvas paratrooper bag from its place behind the pilot’s seat and fill it with whatever supplies I could scrounge. My knee didn’t seem to be broken, but man did it hurt, and I dreaded the thought of walking on it for miles on end. I focused instead on inventorying my gear and trying to come up with a halfway intelligent plan of action.
I had a stainless-steel canteen with one of those detachable cups on the bottom, a little fishing kit, some duct tape, a lighter, a black LED flashlight with three spare batteries, a few tattered road maps with a compass, a spare pair of socks, medical supplies from the cargo, and a simple forest green plastic rain poncho. I also managed to unearth a functioning digital camcorder my ouma had gotten me for Christmas a few years back, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any filming in such a miserable state. Lastly, since it was a private supply run from a warehouse area near Pittsburgh to a direct hospital pad in Ohio, I’d been able to bring my K-Bar, a sturdy, and brutally simple knife designed for the Marine Corps that I used every time I went camping. It was pitiful in comparison to the rifle I wished I had with me, but that didn’t matter now. I had what I had, and I doubted my trusty Armalite would have alleviated my sore knee anyway.
Clicking on my flashlight, I huddled with the poncho around my shoulders inside the wreck of the chopper and peered at the dusty roadmaps. A small part of me hoped that a solution would jump out from the faded paper, but none came. These were all maps of western PA and eastern Ohio. None of them had a Barron County on them anywhere.
The man on the radio said to head north, right before they shot me down. That means they must be camped out to the north of here. South had that convoy and those burning houses, so that’s a no-go. Maybe I can backtrack eastward the way I came.
As if on cue, a soft pop echoed from over the eastern horizon, and I craned to look out the helicopter window, spotting more man-made flashes over the tree tops.
“Great.” I hissed between clenched teeth, aware of how the temperature dipped to a chilly 60 degrees, and how despite the conditions, my stomach had begun to growl. “Not going that way, are we? Westward it is.”
Walking away from my poor 902 proved to be harder than I’d anticipated. Despite the glass, the fizzling fires, and the darkness, it still held a familiar, human essence to it. Sitting inside it made me feel secure, safe, even calm about the situation. In any other circumstance, I would have just stayed with the downed aircraft to wait for help, but I knew the men who shot me down would likely find my crash site, and I didn’t want to be around when they did.
Unlike much of central and western Ohio, southeastern Ohio is hilly, brushy, and clogged with thick forests. Thorns snagged at my thin poncho and sliced at my pant legs. My knee throbbed, every step a form of self-inflicted torture. The rain never stopped, a steady drizzle from above just cold enough to be problematic as time went on, making me shiver. Mud slid under my tennis shoes, and every tree looked ten times bigger in the flickering beam of my cheap flashlight. Icy fear prickled at the back of my neck at some of the sounds that greeted me through the gloom. I’d been camping loads of times, both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, but these noises were something otherworldly to me.
Strange howls, screeches, and calls permeated the rain-soaked sky, some almost roars, while others bordered on human in their intonation. The more I walked, the softer the distant gunfire became, and the more prevalent the odd sounds, until the shadows seemed to fill with them. I didn’t dare turn off my flashlight, or I’d been completely blind in the dark, but a little voice in the back of my head screamed that I was too visible, crunching through the gloomy forest with my long beam of light stabbing into the abyss. It felt as though a million eyes were on me, studying me, hunting me from the surrounding brush, and I bitterly recalled how much I’d loved the old Survivor Man TV series as a kid.
Not so fun being out in the woods at night. Especially alone.
A twig snapped somewhere behind me, and I whirled on the spot, one trembling hand resting on the hilt of my K-Bar.
Nothing. Nothing but trees, bushes, and rain dripping down in the darkness.
“This is stupid.” I whispered to myself to keep my nerves in check as I slowly spun on the spot. “I should have went eastward anyway. God knows how long I’m going to have to—”
Creak.
A groan of metal-on-metal echoed from somewhere to my right, and I spun to face it, yanking the knife on my belt free from its scabbard. It felt so small and useless in my hand, and I choked down a wave of nauseas fear.
Ka-whump. Creak. K-whump. Creak.
Underbrush cracked and crunched, a few smaller saplings thrashed, and from deep within the gloom, two yellow orbs flared to life. They poked through the mist in the trees, forming into slender fingers of golden light that swept back and forth in the dark.
The soldiers . . . they must be looking for me.
I swallowed hard and turned to slink away.
Ice jammed through my blood, and I froze on the spot, biting my tongue to stop the scream.
It stood not yards away, a huge form that towered a good twelve feet tall in the swirling shadows. Unpolished chrome blended with flash-rusted spots in the faded red paint, and grime-smeared glass shone with dull hues in the flashes of lightning. Where the wheels should have been, the rounded steel axels curved like some enormous hand had bent them, and the tires lay face-down on the muddy ground like big round feet, their hubcaps buried in the dirt. Dents, scrapes, and chips covered the battered thing, and its crooked little radio antenna pointed straight up from the old metal fender like a mast. I could barely make out the mud-coated VW on the rounded hood, and my mind reeled in shock.
Is . . . is that a car?
Both yellow headlights bathed me in a circle of bright, blinding light, and neither I nor the strange vehicle moved.
Seconds ticked by, the screech-thumping in the background only growing closer. I realized that I couldn’t hear any engine noises and had yet to see any soldiers or guns pointed my way. This car looked old, really old, like one of those classic Volkswagen Beetles that collectors fought over at auctions. Try as I might, I couldn’t see a driver inside the murky, mold-smeared windows.
Because there wasn’t one.
Lightning arched across the sky overhead, and the car standing in front of me blinked.
Its headlights slid shut, as if little metal shades had crawled over the bulbs for a moment and flicked open again. Something about that movement was so primal, so real, so lifelike, that every ounce of self-control I had melted in an instant.
Cursing under my breath, I lunged into the shrubs, and the world erupted around me.
Under my shoes, the ground shook, and the car surged after me in a cacophony of ka-thumps that made my already racing heart skip several beats. A weather-beaten brown tow truck from the 50’s charged through the thorns to my left, it’s headlights ablaze, and a dilapidated yellow school bus rose from its hiding place in the weeds to stand tall on four down-turned axel-legs. They all flicked their headlights on like giants waking from their slumber, and as I dodged past them, they each blared their horn into the night in alarm.
My breaths came short and tight, my knee burned, and I crashed through thorns and briars without thought to how badly I was getting cut up.
The cheap poncho tore, and I ripped it away as it caught on a tree branch.
A purple 70’s Mustang shook off its blanket of creeping vines and bounded from a stand of trees just ahead, forcing me to swerve to avoid being run over, my adrenaline at all-time highs.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
Slipping and sliding, I pushed through a stand of multiflora rose, and stumbled out into a flat, dark expanse.
I almost skidded to a stop.
What had once been a rather large field stood no taller than my shoestrings, the grass charred, and burnt. The storm above illuminated huge pieces of wreckage that lay scattered over the nearly 40-acre plot, and I could just make out the fire-blackened hulk of a fuselage resting a hundred yards away. The plane had been brought down a while ago it seemed, as there weren’t any flames left burning, and I threw myself toward it in frenzied desperation.
Burned grass and greasy brown topsoil slushed underfoot, and I could hear the squelching of the cars pursing me. Rain soaked me to the bone, and my lungs ached from sucking down the damp night air. A painful stich crept into my side, and I cursed myself for not putting in more time for cardio at the gym.
Something caught my left shoelace, and I hurtled to the ground, tasting mud and blood in between my teeth.
They’ve got me now.
I clawed at the mud, rolled, and watched a tire slam down mere inches from where my head had been. The Mustang loomed over me and jostled for position with the red Volkswagen and brown tow truck, the school bus still a few yards behind them. They couldn’t seem to decide who would get the pleasure of stomping me to death, and like a herd of stampeding wildebeest, they locked bumpers in an epic shoving match.
On all fours, I scampered out from under the sparring brutes, and dashed for the crumpled airplane, a white-painted DC-3 that looked like it had been cut in half by a gargantuan knife blade. I passed a snapped wing section, the oily remains of a turbo-prop engine, and a mutilated wheel from the landing gear. Climbing over a heap of mud, I squeezed into the back of the ruined flight cabin and dropped down into the dark cargo hold.
Wham.
No sooner had my sneakers hit the cold metal floor, and the entire plane rocked from the impact of something heavy ramming it just outside. I tumbled to my knees, screaming in pain as, once again, I managed to bash the sore one off a bracket in the wall.
My hand smeared in something gooey, and I scrabbled for my flashlight.
It clicked on, a wavering ball of white light in the pitch darkness, and I fought the urge to gag. “Oh man . . .”
Three people, or what was left of them, lay strewn over the narrow cargo area. Claret red blood coated the walls, caked on the floor, and clotted under my mud-spattered shoes. Bits of flesh and viscera were stuck to everything, and tatters of cloth hung from exposed sections of broken bone. An eerie set of bloody handprints adorned the walls, and the only reason I could tell it had been three people were the shoes; all of them bore anklebones sticking out above blood-soaked socks. It smelled sickly sweet, a strange, nauseas odor that crept into my nose and settled on the back of my tongue like an alien parasite.
Something glinted in the beam of my flashlight, and my pulse quickened as I pried the object loose from the severed arm that still clung to it.
“Hail Mary full of Grace.” I would have grinned if it weren’t for the fact that the plane continued to buck and roll under the assault from the cars outside.
The pistol looked old, but well-maintained, aside from the light coating of dark blood that stained its round wooden handle. It felt heavy, but good in my hand, and I turned it over to read the words, Waffenfabrik Mauser stenciled into the frame, with a large red 9 carved into the grip. For some reason, it vaguely reminded me of the blasters from Star Wars.
I fumbled with a little switch that looked like a safety on the back of the gun and stumbled toward a gap in the plane’s dented fuselage to aim out at the surrounding headlights.
Bang.
The old gun bucked reliably in my hand, its long barrel spitting a little jet of flame into the night. I had no idea if I hit anything, but the attacking cars recoiled, their horns blaring in confusion.
They turned, and scuttled for the tree line as fast as their mechanical legs could go, the entire ordeal over as fast as it had begun.
Did I do that?
Perplexed, I stared down at the pistol in my hand.
Whoosh.
A large, inky black shadow glided down from the clouds, and the yellow school bus moved too slow to react in time.
With a crash, the kicking nightmarish vehicle was thrown onto its side, spraying glass and chrome trim across the muddy field. Its electro-synth horn blared with wails of mechanical agony, as two huge talon-like feet clamped down on it, and the enormous head of the flying creature lowered to rip open its engine compartment.
The horn cut out, and the enormous flying entity jerked its head back to gulp down a mass of what looked like sticky black vines from the interior of the shattered bus.
At this range, I could see now that the flying creature bore two legs and had its wings half-tucked like a vulture that had descended to feed on roadkill. Its head turned slightly, and in the glow of another lightning bolt, my jaw went slack at the realization of what it was.
A tree trunk. It’s a rotted tree trunk.
I couldn’t tell where the reptilian beast began, and where the organic tree components ended, the upper part of the head shaped like a log, while the lower jaw resembled something out of a dinosaur movie. Its skin looked identical to the outside of a shagbark hickory but flexed with a supple featheriness that denoted something closer to skin. Sharp branch-like spines ranged down its back, and out to the end of its tail, which bore a massive round club shaped like a diseased tree-knot. Crouched on both hind legs, it braced the hooked ends of its folded wings against the ground like a bat, towering higher than a semi-truck. Under the folds of its armored head, a bulging pair of chameleon-like eyes constantly spun in their sockets, probing the dark for threats while it ate.
One black pupil locked onto the window I peered through, and my heart stopped.
The beast regarded me for a moment, making a curious, sideways sniff.
With a proud, contemptful head-toss, the shadow from the sky parted rows of razor-sharp teeth to let out a roar that shook the earth beneath my feet. It was the triumphant war cry of a creature that sat at the very top of the food chain, one that felt no threat from the fragile two-legged beings that walked the earth all around it. It hunted whenever it wanted, ate whatever it wanted, and flew wherever it wanted. It didn’t need to rip the plane apart to devour me.
Like my hunter-gatherer ancestors from thousands of years ago, I wasn’t even worth the energy it would take to pounce.
I’m hiding in the remains of the cockpit now, which is half-buried under the mud of the field, enough to shield the light from my screen so that thing doesn’t see it. My service only now came back, and it’s been over an hour since the winged beast started in on the dead bus. I don’t know when, or how I’m going to get out of here. I don’t know when anyone will even see this post, or if it will upload at all. My phone battery is almost dead, and at this point, I’m probably going to have to sleep among the corpses until daylight comes.
A dead man sleeping amongst friends.
If you live in the Noble County area in southeastern Ohio, be careful where you drive, fly, and boat. I don’t know if it’s possible to stumble into this strange place by ground, but if so, then these things are definitely headed your way.
If that happens . . . pray that they don’t find you.
submitted by RandomAppalachian468 to nosleep [link] [comments]

2023.05.28 21:58 Unable_Principle_124 I've just read A Clash of Kings for the first time and I thought I'd share my thoughts!

(I'm still unsure if I'm using the right flair but I've only read the first two books and I would greatly appreciate no spoilers for the remaining books!)
That is A Clash of Kings done!
Wow!
Another fantastic read! Aaaahhh! I’m loving this story! The drama! The scheming! The politics! The absolute TERROR you face at the beginning of every chapter because anything could happen and if there is one thing I’ve learned so far, good things very rarely happen in this world! And even on the rare occasion something good does happen and you feel safe and happy, BANG! Something worse happens! My stress levels increase tenfold and my short-lived happiness becomes a distant memory! Which is a very new sensation for me. Because, call me crazy, but up until now, I’ve enjoyed stories were nice things could actually happen! Do you remember that concept? Nice things happening? Yeah, the memory is growing faint for me too….
Anyway, my blood pressure is hitting all time records but other than that, I can’t wait to continue this series! I’m sure I’ll be fine...…HAHAHAHAHA……
Now, let’s get into this! The prologue!
We finally meet Stannis Baratheon and wow! George really went out of his way to make him appear as unpleasant and dry as humanly possible! But I think I’ll leave my evaluation of him until I get to Davos. Instead, much like the prologue itself, I think I’ll focus my attentions on Cressen and the pussy-shadow maker herself, Melisandre.
I’m intrigued and terrified of her in equal measures. I think she has to be one of the most dangerously mysterious characters in this book because both her actions and motivations remain largely unknown to the reader, of course, you could say the same for Varys and Littlefinger, but, idk about you, but I find an all powerful zealot much more menacing!
Being a religious fanatic, I knew she wasn’t going to bring anything remotely positive to the picture, so I completely sympathised with Cressen and believed, (and continue to believe) he was justified in his concerns but this is ASOIAF, I knew things weren’t going to run smoothly but it’s incredibly unfortunate the poor man had to lose his life to try to protect the man he raised.
I remember being so disgusted with Stannis in his treatment of Cressen, this man raised you and loved you when apparently nobody else did, and you couldn’t even treat him with common decency! Ooooohhhh boy was I annoyed. Especially because I was so looking forward to finally meeting Roberts formidable brother, thinking this is the Baratheon I could root for and then had such a negative introduction to him! My opinion of him has certainly improved, but my initial impression was decidedly negative. Props again to George! He has a gift for understanding and portraying how subjective a characters perception can be, leaving the reader, to a certain extent, take the information we are given with a pinch of salt.
We also get a glimpse of Dragonstone! I must say, I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so, grim. Of course, the occupants are definitely a factor, looking at you Selyse, but the castle and island itself, it does not sound pleasant. It got me thinking about what Daenerys would think of it? I don’t really see this blending well with the beautiful, flowery aesthetic she is dreaming of. But then again, it’s built on a volcano, being the blood of the dragon and her fondness for heat, this could be the Valyrian equivalent of a cosy little cottage for her, who knows?
Also, that jester, Patchface creeps me the hell out! Why would you allow this crazy person near your child, Stannis??? Didn’t Cressen say he was the sole survivor of the wreck? So they really have no idea who this crazy person was? Yeah, that’s comforting…..
Now, lets get to the characters! Like before, I think I’ll just go in no particular order:
CATELYN: Remember when I said I had high hopes for this motheson team? Yeah, now I am extremely worried about this motheson team! I’m optimistic they will triumph in the long term but, presently, I’m certain more hurdles are going to be thrust in their direction! But, at the same time, what else could possibly go wrong for them at this point? Granted, Robb has won every battle, but everything outside of the battlefield has gone completely pear shaped! It’s extremely unfortunate that they’re doing everything right but that circumstance is getting in the way of their success!
It frustrated me in AGOT and continues to frustrate me in this book, that the Lannisters seem to have an unlimited supply of luck! Seriously! How tf are they succeeding??? Aaaahhhhh! Don’t get me wrong, I love Tyrion, and I continue to root for him, but the rest of this family needs to be taken out, immediately! Uuuuuggghhhh! I’m praying their rapid rise will soon come crashing down! We saw with Daenerys, George likes to strip his characters of everything before building them back up and I believe this is what he is doing with the Starks!
In the case of the Starks, however, it’s believing they’ve lost everything, in regards to Bran and Rickon, at least. But poor Catelyn! Discovering your children have been killed is horrendous enough, but believing their heads have been mounted on your castle walls? I just can’t even comprehend the levels of emotions she must be feeling!
I must say, I was not expecting the way Catelyns storyline played out in this book but I enjoyed it nonetheless! I thought she would become more of a leading figure in Robbs court but she seems to have taken a back seat and I’m very uncomfortable with that. I truly believe Robb will become a great ruler but age is not on his side. He needs the guidance and counsel only a parent can give their child, not that of a subject to their sovereign. There are things a ruler needs to be told that their followers wouldn’t be as forthcoming with as I believe Catelyn would be! Of course, I can understand, from Robbs perspective, asserting his leadership is challenge enough, given his young age, without his mother by his side, so I can understand his reluctance to have Catelyn close to him, but still, it frustrates me!
That reminds me, don’t ask me how, but I forgot to talk about Robb in my first post, it goes without saying, I love him and am rooting for him! But what I wanted to talk about was him being proclaimed King in the North! I’ll admit, it was a powerful, goosebump inducing scene but omg how tf did the Northerners and Rivermen/Riverlanders? think that was a good idea? Talk about adding fuel to the fire! But anyway, I just wanted to mention that before getting back to Catelyn.
I really admired her attempts at forming a truce between the Baratheon brothers, alas, to no avail, but still, good effort! I really don’t understand Renlys thought process though? Seriously, what sort of precedent are you setting here? Do you expect the realm to bleed after the death of every King? Each claimant fighting for their right to rule? He is/was, the embodiment of style over substance. Like Cressen mentions, it’s just a childs game to him and like a child, I don’t imagine him playing too long before growing bored and then Westeros would’ve been left with a Robert 2.0.!
I also have to talk about Brienne of Tarth! What a character! Of course she couldn’t be a badass knight, she had to be accused of murder and treason! She is a kind hearted character after all! Imagine nice things happening for her? If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry! Honestly! But at least her circumstances led her to Catelyn! I am fully on board for this partnership and I look forward to seeing where they go from here.
I should talk about where they left off. They didn’t kill Jaime. I know that because that’s what I would want them to do and since when do I get what I want in this series? But why ask for Briennes sword if not? Didn’t Brienne pick up Renlys sword when they fled the camp? Does this sword have some magical element from Renlys death or something? I’m definitely overthinking it. Most likely it was used to whack him with the handle or something haha.
TYRION: If AGOT was Neds book, ACOK certainly has to be Tyrions. What a journey we’ve had with Tyrion. Beginning as Hand of the King and ending as…..what is he now? Tywin has resumed his position as Hand, is Tyrion going to be shipped back to Casterly Rock? I can’t see that happening. Ooooohhhh, wait, maybe that’s how he could reunite with Catelyn? If he is left with nothing after everything he has done, perhaps this is the tipping point for him to finally abandon this screwed up family and join with the Starks? Perhaps turning the tide in the war? Yeah, now that I’ve written it out, it sounds too convenient for this series but I’m hoping some variation of the above isn’t beyond the realms of possibility?
I was extremely impressed with Tyrion in many ways in this book and extremely disappointed in him in others. Of course, on the politic side of events, he was in his element! Oh those chapters were a beauty to behold! Watching him outmanoeuvre Cersei and putting the little toad Joffrey (screw you) in his place! Beautiful! Puts a smile on my face even thinking about it.
Let’s start with Janos Slyntt, I think that’s how you spell it but I’m not taking the time to check because he deserves no such attention! Ha! Coy Tyrion. Very coy. Although I wish he had just gone on and killed him, rather than burdening the watch with him! But alas, I can’t have my cake and expect to eat it all, now can I? I’ll take the wins when I can!
Then the deception to lure Cerseis informant out in the open. I had no idea who it could’ve been but once it was revealed as Pycelle, I was not at all surprised! I’m guessing Tyrion already knew and used the ploy to confirm his suspicions, seeing as he went ahead with sending Myrcella to Dorne?
I really enjoyed Tyrion and Varys’…..I want to say friendship? But I think partnership would be more fitting, as I don’t think either would blink an eye at turning on each other. It truly was beautiful to read though, their interactions I mean. The dialogue! A constant duel of words, equally matched and equally prodding for weaknesses. Both walking on a continuous line of thin ice but boy did they glid through! Ah, I loved it!
I do agree with Cersei though, and I shudder at that, but Tyrion did rely heavily on Varys. In my first post I think I said Varys could be trustworthy, but now, I don’t think so. He was certainly helpful, but he is playing his own game and so far, I have no idea what that could be, but I feel like Varys is helpful because he wants to be but could very easily switch sides should he ever choose to do so. That said, he is certainly not as ruthless as he must outwardly appear. We’ve seen after all, his efforts to protect Ned, Roberts bastards, etc. So, despite public opinion, he's really quite a softy. Well, maybe not a softy, but has a certain level of humanity, which, imo, classifies as a softy in this world!
Tyrions relationship with Baelish was much more confusing for me. He knows Petyr was behind his arrest and seemingly does nothing? I understand, in uncertain times, maintaining the treasury is an essential service, but I expected more from Tyrion than, “haha, you thought you were getting Harrenhal, you’ll think twice about backstabbing me now!.” It’s even more frustrating that he actually acquired the castle regardless! Again, I must begrudgingly give props to Littlefinger for playing the game flawlessly, but man, is it annoying!
Tyrions relationship with Cersei, aside from the political intrigue, must have been one of the more intriguing aspects of his chapters. Clearly, they’re not close, at all, but there is a certain, idk, its not affection but perhaps there was a certain level of respect between them. I think I must have been as shocked as Tyrion when Cersei hugged him when they received the news of Stannis marching on Storms End. But I was just as shocked when Tyrion poisoned his sister. I legit thought he just killed Cersei for a second. Turns out it was just diarrhoea, lol.
I don’t understand why he antagonised her so much though? I don’t understand why it was necessary for him to kidnap Tommen, unless I missed something? I feel like that was just unnecessarily hostile. Then threaten her with Tommens safety, idk, I just don’t think it was necessary. I felt it would have been more beneficial for him to reassure Cersei rather than threaten her. I get that his authority was being challenged but I can’t help but think he shot himself in the foot with that. I really don’t see their relationship recovering from this. Obviously, they didn’t have much of a bond before, but I feel like, before, there was at least a small glimpse of comradery between them but with this, I think he cut all ties with her and that troubles me. Cersei doesn’t hold back when it comes to her enemies. Especially those who threaten her children!
Don’t get me wrong, I want Tyrion to abandon this family, so I know it sounds hypocritical of me to say he should be nice to his sister but that’s so long as they’re playing on the same team but I really am hoping Tyrion eventually abandons Team Lannister! I’m feeling less sure of this outcome than I did at the end of AGOT but I’m still optimistic it’s going to happen, ideally sooner rather than later!
I should also mention Shae. It’s clear she only wants his gold but for whatever reason, Tyrion has fallen in love with his own made up version of her and I don’t see this relationship ending well, for either of them…..
ARYA: There were three characters I was immensely nervous for, going into this book, Jon, Sansa and Arya. I KNEW Arya wasn’t going to reach the North but I was hoping she would at least reach Riverrun! I knew that was an optimistic belief but I wanted to dream!
On the flip side I was terrified she was going to be captured by the Lannisters. My fears came somewhat true as she was captured, fortunately the Lannisters captured Weasel rather than Arya Stark!
I swear, my heart was in my mouth going into each of her early chapters, as they were travelling up the Kingsroad, each chapter more unnerving than the last because nothing bad had happened but I KNEW that wasn’t going to last! RIP Yoren btw, you smelled sour but your heart was sweet!
Arya was really our eyes on the ground with the ongoing conflict in the Riverlands and boy was it gruesome! George really didn’t hold back with the brutality of war! Her chapters were an interesting study on the morality of the conflict. I understand that it’s the Lannisters sacking and pillaging the Riverlands, but Robb fought fire with fire and I don’t believe his actions caused any less destruction in the Westerlands. The commons suffer, regardless of how honourable the intent may be!
Despite the ordeals she went through, I’m somewhat relieved she got through it relatively unscathed. But can we please sign this girl up for some therapy sessions? Seriously! I’m really starting to worry for Aryas mental health. It is not healthy for a 9/10 year old to have a list of people they wish to kill and repeat it obsessively each night, just saying….
Also, What THE ACTUAL F is going on with Jaqen H’Aghar? What’s the significance of the coin? And wtf does “Valar Morghulis” mean? Soooo many questions! I’m conflicted. On one hand, I’m slightly disappointed Arya didn’t go off with whoever that was. Of course, I understand her wanting to return to her family but imagine returning as a badass magical face changing assassin? That would’ve been epic! But I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing Jaqen again!
Yet, on the other hand, I’m not sure that’s really what Arya needs right now, given her current thirst for vengeance. I think she’s approaching a slippery slope. Of course, I want Arya to become a badass knight, but her progressively cavalier attitude towards killing is certainly unsettling, to say the least!
Also, Arya. YOU HAD THREE LIVES IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND. THREE. WHHHHHYYYYYYY????? GEORGE. SERIOUSLY???? Granted, she’s 10 but come on Arya! Bigger picture and all! Tywin. The Mountain. Joffrey. You could have ended it all!!!!! O.M.G!!!!!
I want to scream at somebody.
Seriously.
Now that I’ve come to the end, I leave this book feeling no less anxious for her safety than I did at the end of AGOT! From the little we’ve seen of Lord Bolton, he doesn’t seem like the forgiving type and I dread to think what would happen should they get caught! So she enters the next book, on the run. Again. Arya, what are you doing to my blood pressure???
JON: I am shocked! Shocked, people! Shocked that the Watch hasn’t been completely annihilated by the dead people roaming about! Not that I don’t believe that is still a valid concern, but I’m honestly amazed they’ve gotten this far without so much as a glimpse of them! I don’t think we’ve seen them at all in this novel? That in itself came as a huge surprise!
But my god, that march sounded absolutely miserable! It would’ve been horrible putting up with the cold, but constant rain on top of that? Hell to the no! Grim. Just kill me now. I could never!
We are introduced to the charming Craster in this book. What a delight he is! Honestly, I gagged. He marries his daughters and they give him more daughters. What? Wtf is it with incest in this series? No more. Please. We have sufficient incest George. Enough!
I am baffled as to Mormonts cavalier attitude towards Craster “sacrificing” his sons, though. He’s offering them to the gods, aka the ice zombies? What do they do with the sons? Wouldn’t that be an important question to ask? Do they eat them or recruit them? Can dead babies grow? Hahaha, I’m sorry, I just got an image in my head of what Dolorous Edd would say about getting taken out by a dead baby. Ha! Sorry. I love that man with all my heart btw.
I have a feeling though that Crasters daughter, Gilly, managed to sneak away and followed the Nights Watch, I feel like we’ll be seeing her again, why single her out otherwise?
I’m curious what the significance of Ghosts little discovery will be. Dragonglass? Is this used against the dead? Oooooohhhhh. I’m so f**king stupid. Dragons. Daenerys is going to play a big role in the fight against the dead isn’t she? Well that’s embarrassing that it took me this long to realise that. Lets draw a veil over that embarrassingly late epiphany, shall we?
Anyway, dragonglass, aka obsidian, a real world property, I understand the usefulness of fire breathing dragons but I’m not sure what makes dragonglass more powerful than normal steel? Unless this obsidian was formed by dragon fire? Perhaps. I shall wait and see!
So Jon has now become a double agent. Interesting indeed. I’m nervous for him. It’ll be interesting to see how he can convince Mance and the rest of the wildlings of his loyalty. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume, as a son of Eddard Stark, forsaking his sworn word to the Nights Watch isn’t going to be an easy task for him…..
I honestly have no idea how he is going to come back from this, especially with nobody left to corroborate his story. Not to mention he was the one to kill the Halfhand. I feel like Mormont will believe him, but with this series? I can’t be too sure! I guess I’ll just have to hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Again. I’m leaving Jon in another stressful position!
SANSA: How tf has nobody slaughtered Joffrey yet? Seriously. This is book two and he is still King? What the actual F**K??? SCREW YOU TO THE EXTREME, YOU LITTLE TOAD! FFS, I just want him to die slowly, screaming in agony. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for?! Oh, it was a beauty to behold when the little toad cut himself on the Iron Throne, crying for his mommy in front of the entire court, HA! Loved it. Peak literature, George! Thank you!
Unsurprisingly, Sansas position remains just as, if not more, precarious, as it did at the end of AGOT, now that her betrothal has been annulled.
I’m honestly surprised the marriage didn’t go ahead tbh. Going in to this book, I was certain I was going to watch Sansa being forced to marry this little c**t and I’m a little disappointed this didn’t happen. OK. OK. Let me explain. Obviously it would’ve put Sansa in a horrific position as Joffreys wife but she would have been Queen and a decent one at that, I’d bet! Playing her cards right, she could have amassed a certain level of influence.
I know that was a highly ambitious dream, as I doubt Cersei or Tyrion would have allowed her the opportunity and it certainly didn’t take into account the level of abuse she would have been forced to endure with Joffrey, but I wanted to dream.
So now she is no longer destined to be Queen, I’m really anxious for her future in Kings Landing, and I’m really hoping Dontos will finally get his act together and GET HER TF OUT OF THIS GODFORSAKEN CITY!
Also, can I just take a moment here to vent?
Dontos? Seriously? All the knights in the city and we’re given Dontos? Don’t get me wrong, I admire him for wanting to help Sansa but come on, Dontos??? His intent may be honourable but his capabilities are….lacking. He’s more likely to get her killed than rescued and as someone who wants to see Sansa safe, this stresses me tf out!
I have to say, I was very impressed with Sansa in this book. Saving Dontos being a prime example. Deftly done, I must say. This is what I’m saying when I think she would’ve been a good Queen, soothing the brutality of the King where she could.
I don’t think I mentioned it when discussing Tyrion, but the Blackwater battle was so well written! That entire sequence of chapters were my all time favourites of the series thus far! The back and forth between the battle outside and those seeking refuge within the castle walls, it made for gripping reading! I loved it! Which is quite surprising, as I’m usually not a fan of reading battle sequences, idk, my eyes just start glazing over when I’m reading pages of “my sword hit hard, I stumbled back, I raise another arm, I get hit in the back of the head, I lunge at my opponent, etc”, idk, it just never appealed to me before and I’d usually skip through all that to reach the outcome, but I was hooked!
I’m conflicted on how I feel about the Hound leaving without Sansa. Because I know for a fact her situation isn’t going to remotely improve until she gets the hell away from the Lannisters and the sooner, the better! But I don’t trust the Hound around her. I also think he would be too conspicuous for her to make a successful escape. I have no doubt he would die to protect her, but there is only so many opponents one man could take on before ultimately falling and then Sansa would be left to face untold misery.
That being said, I’m deeply troubled that with the Hound gone, Sansa has lost a valuable, if not somewhat unstable, ally. Aaaahhhhhh! Again, my blood pressure cannot handle this stress!
Theon: Serves me right for trying to give someone the benefit of the doubt! I think I described Theon as “a dick but somewhat good intentioned”. Yeah. He’s just a dick. What an utter idiot.
I can’t even be angry with him, now, that is. I was furious with him when he captured Winterfell, but in the end, I only felt pity for him. It’s never a nice thing, to realise what you are is so far removed from what you thought you could be, but add that on top of your imminent demise, it left Theons final days full of shame and melancholy.
I do feel a certain level of empathy for him. It couldn’t have been easy, growing up not really belonging and to return to what he considered his home, only to find it just as alien and void of any affection. I can certainly see the conflict of loyalty he felt between his foster family and his true family but omfg he made the absolute worst decision ever!
The Starks raised him, taught him everything he knows, he even pledged himself to Robb but of course, his inferior complex took over, blinding him and look where it got him!
I honestly don’t understand what his plan was though? In what world did he imagine he could hold Winterfell, regardless of how many men his sister left him? Did he honestly think Robb would just bend over and allow the Ironborn to keep the North? Aaaaaahhhhh!!!! The stupidity! I just can’t fathom it! I honestly can’t!
Can I just take this opportunity to shit talk the Ironborn? Because how tf have Westeros put up with these people for so long? Do they have any redeeming qualities? As far as I can tell, they’re Westeros’ equivalent of the Dothraki. Lawless pirates who have, for some reason or other, been allowed to rape, raid and pillage to their hearts content. Yuck.
I will say though, putting the whole, allowing her brother to feel her up part aside, I quite enjoyed Asha, and not only because she knew exactly how to push Theons buttons, ha! She’s everything Theon believed himself to be, and more! If she wasn’t so loyal to her father and undermining the Starks, I think I could like her!
Something I’m confused by however, Roose Boltons bastard is Ramsey Snow, but who was Reek and why did they think Ramsey was him to begin with? I’ll have to go back and reread because I either missed or forgot the explanation, but nevertheless, I hate him. He sounds disgusting, and I don’t mean the smell. It broke my heart to find out Lady Hornwood died such a tragic death, she seemed so sweet! Omg there is so much added misery in this series, we have enough sorrow going on with the main characters George, I don’t need to cry over the minors too!
Ramsey appears to be insane but tactful and that my friends is what I call a terrifying combination! I’m honestly unsure of what his goal is? Everyone believes him to be dead, why return to Winterfell once Theon freed him and kill the besieging army, only to then betray Theon in turn? Why tf does every single character have a scheme up their sleeves? Enough!
BRAN: I’m conflicted. I’m happy to see Bran finally getting the chance to head out into the wild in search for answers but it stinks that Winterfell had to be wiped out in order for this to be achievable. I honestly can’t see a scenario where Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrick etc would have allowed Bran the opportunity had Winterfell remained strong.
So, while I detest the actions of Theon and Ramsey as it significantly damaged Robbs position and led to untold misery for the castles inhabitants, it appears as though they actually inadvertently aided Brans progression in “How to Warg 101”. That’s if they actually succeed in their mission though! I’m still confused as to what exactly they will find or how they will manage to find it but I’m certain this will be significant, not just for Bran but for the Starks in general.
We finally find out the significance of Brans wolf “dreams”! Bran is actually a warg! But apparently Jon is too? And there are suggestions so is Robb? Perhaps even Rickon? Interesting. Very interesting. And very cool too! Damn, imagine how awesome it would be to be able to possess the body of a wolf!
It's deeply upsetting to me though that Sansa and Arya apparently are left out of this beyond incredible magical family trait! I’m assuming it’s because they have lost their wolfs? Another thing I can thank the f**king Lannisters for! Aaaahhhhh!
I’m curious though, Aryas direwolf is still alive and apparently leading an army of common wolfs in the Riverlands? Which is utterly badass in and of itself but if they’re reunited, does this mean Arya could potentially control an army of wolves? Or has their connection been broken? Oh, I hope not! I refuse to believe Nymeria is out there amassing a large force of wolfs only for it to lead nowhere! Oooohhhh, wait, will they be reunited now that Arya has fled Harrenhal? Oh that would be incredible! Imagine her rocking up to Riverrun with an army of wolves at her back!
On a sad note, does that leave Sansa as the only Stark sibling without magical abilities? Boo! I hate that!
I must say, after all they’ve been through, I feel for Rickon the most. Poor baby! He just wants his family back and I have no idea how he is going to process the loss of his last remaining family member. He wasn’t handling the situation too well to begin with, but now? That child is gonna need a hell of a lot of therapy and can we please sign Shaggydog up for some anger management classes too? That wolf troubles me!
I’m very intrigued to learn more about the Reeds! As crannogmen, they appear to be somewhat disconnected from the rest of the North, with their own unique traits and customs. Seemingly more in touch with the environment around them, there are claims they are descended from the children of the forest. I have a feeling they will prove invaluable on the expedition North!
I should probably be concerned that they’re essentially a small group of children on a journey through a divided and hostile land but I’m feeling naively optimistic of their chances. I know that this has backfired on me in the past but I can’t give up hope! I refuse!
DAENERYS (DAY-EN-AIR-E-US?): I must say, the pace of Daenerys’ chapters took quite a slow turn in this book, didn’t they? Perhaps there were times I felt the story moved a little too slow for my liking but I knew going into this book, things weren’t going to fall onto her lap overnight
Although her dragons hatched, when we left Daenerys in AGOT, she was pretty much sitting at rock bottom, her husband and child dead, the vast majority of her people gone, along with all of Drogos wealth I imagine too! I knew it would take time for her to get back on her feet and that was essentially what her ACOK journey was.
We start off the book with the red comet and, although every character appears to take it as a sign of their coming, I feel like Daenerys was the obvious recipient. Heralding in the new era of dragons! They sounded adorable btw! “Who’s going to grow up to be big weapons of mass destruction? You are! Yes you are! Yes you are!!!” Cute but they’re gonna do some damage! I can’t wait to see Joffreys face when he gets burned to a crisp! Hehe, I can’t wait!
I’m surprised by the names she chose for them though. Drogon makes sense, he was her moon and stars after all, but I’m surprised she named the other two after her brothers, both of which don’t really have the greatest of reputations?
Sent by the comet, Daenerys spent most of her time in Qarth seeking out its leaders to fund her conquest of Westeros, frustratingly, to no avail. Even more frustratingly is that she had to sell all of her newly acquired wealth to fund her ultimately worthless bribes.
The only thing of note was her trip to the House of the Undying and it instantly humbled me of any belief that I was in any way wise because there is no way in hell I would’ve made it out of that maze alive!
I’m assuming these were hallucinations brought on by whatever it was she drank but obviously with some element of magic?
There were a lot of visions but the two that stood out to me were:
The wolf head with the Iron crown is obviously Robb. The feast with corpses, I’m guessing this is depicting the savagery of the war? Perhaps it signifies the walking dead? From my earlier embarrassingly late realisation, I’m guessing this references the need for Daenerys’ help against the dead?
Secondly, what Daenerys made out to be her brother Rhaegar with his wife and newborn son, “his is the song of ice and fire”, “there must be one more……the dragon has three heads”, Daenerys has three dragons, I’m assuming Rhaegar believed his son to be “the Prince that was promised”, but I’m guessing instead it’s Daenerys? My brain hurts trying to process this! In reality, I have absolutely no idea what the hell was going on but those are the only takes I could come up with! Like Daenerys, this sequence has left me with far more questions than answers!
My blood pressure is not having a good time with all of this, which is not helped with the knowledge that Daenerys has made a powerful enemy with regards to the warlocks! Especially now that their powers are getting stronger! That’s just perfect!
I’m glad to see her leaving Qarth, the further away the better, I say! But I’m honestly surprised Illyrio found her so quickly! Hopefully once she reaches Pentos she can gather forces and enhance her position while waiting for her dragons to grow bigger and stronger! Thinking about it, I’m pretty sure Daenerys is the only character leaving this book on a high lol!
DAVOS We have new players entering the game ladies and gents! I really liked Davos and I’m hoping we haven’t seen the last of him? I don’t think we have but I’m not sure how the man could possibly survive!
I really felt for him! To watch the man you serve fall into the arms (figuratively or perhaps literally) of a religious fanatic! I mean, come on George, zealots are bad enough without giving them magical powers!
Davos himself is an interesting character. He appears to be a decent, kind hearted man which took me a while to get used to as we’ve met so few of them in this series so far! Turning from a smuggler to a knight and right hand man to Stannis Baratheon, he is in quite a unique position within Westeros, as well as Stannis’ Court. I can’t imagine many commoners are given such a meteoric rise in fortunes! Stannis himself sees his true worth but he must endure the snobbery of his Lords bannermen, God forbid they had to listen to wisdom from a commoner! Gasp! The horror!
We got a glimpse of his backstory, apparently he smuggled onions into Storms End during Roberts Rebellion, making all the difference to the besieged, but it’s unclear as to how he was put in that position to begin with? I imagine he had some sort of relationship with Stannis beforehand in order for him to take such a risk? Especially when he allowed Stannis to mutilate him in return for his service? I get he was granted a keep and lands and everything, but my god, no wonder nobody ran to fight for Stannis!
Let’s actually talk about Stannis. I’m not sure how I feel about him. There are instances, mainly his interactions with Davos and his relationship with Devan, that I really like him and I can certainly see why a man like Davos supports him, but then there are aspects of his personality that I find grating. The grinding teeth habit aside, I just can’t get past the sulkiness. I swear, he remembers every single slight given it him since he was born and refuses to forgot or forgive! Perhaps I could overlook this aspect of his personality, had he not aligned himself with such a fanatic. I mean, from as far as I can tell, he has more or less sold his soul to the devil.
I can’t help but make the comparison here to Macbeth. They share many similarities and I can very well see them sharing the same fate because there is no way in hell Stannis is this "Azor Ahai”! I mean, it was a cool little trick and sounds like an amazing sword but that whole spectacle of retrieving it from the flames was an absolute farce!
Besides, Stannis has already been defeated. Alive, but backed into a corner! I don’t see him giving up, though! That man will fight until the bitter end! I admire him for that but allowing himself to so overtly ingratiate himself with this religious cult, I can’t say I’ll be sad to see him lose, which I believe, ultimately, he will, but with Melisandre by his side, I can see him causing a lot of damage before he falls. So long as that damage is contained solely towards the Lannisters though, I’ll be satisfied.
I will say, his assault on Kings Landing made for an unsettling array of emotions. Who tf was I supposed to root for??? Its no secret that I want Joffrey and Cersei to die, ideally painfully, but I was rooting for Tyrion to succeed!
At the same time, I really like Davos and I wouldn’t have an issue with Stannis as ruler but for Melisandre! In the end I gave up on choosing a side and just prayed my favourite characters survived!
I’m curious to see, should he survive, where Davos’ story goes from here. I have a feeling he has become a Lannister prisoner!
As for Stannis? “Double, double, toil and trouble.”
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2023.05.28 21:33 crew88 House was struck by lightning 150 years ago. A selling point for crazy century house folks? Think so.

House was struck by lightning 150 years ago. A selling point for crazy century house folks? Think so. submitted by crew88 to centuryhomes [link] [comments]

2023.05.28 20:25 yelpvinegar Notion AI for Writers

Notion has emerged as an essential writing tool over the past few years. It already allowed users to manage virtually every aspect of the content creation process in an easy to use interface. That’s why I was excited to see that Notion just lauched its AI tool, Notion AI. But what exact is Notion AI and what are the potential uses of Notion AI for writers? Read on to learn more!

What is Notion?

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Notion is a digital workspace that allows you to organize and manage various aspects of your life, including tasks, projects, notes, and more. It is a flexible, all-in-one platform that combines the functionality of various productivity tools, such as project management software, note-taking apps, and databases, into a single workspace.
Notion features a customizable interface that allows users to create pages, databases, and templates that suit their specific needs. It also supports a wide range of integrations with other tools and services, such as Google Drive, Trello, and Slack.
Notion is available on desktop and mobile devices, and it offers both free and paid plans with varying levels of features and capabilities. Its popularity has grown rapidly in recent years, making it a popular choice for individuals, teams, and businesses looking to streamline their workflows and increase productivity.

What is Notion AI?

Notion announced on February 22, 2023 that all users could access notion’s latest tool, Notion AI.
Notion AI is an artificial intelligence assistant that can be used natively within Notion documents, spreadsheets, or other Notion products. Notion AI uses the same GPT-3 language model that is behind ChatGPT.

What Are The Features of Notion AI?

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Notion AI contains a number of features designed to enhance productivity for writers within Notion.
Notion AI allow users to:
- Create a content calendar to plan ahead and stay organized with your blog posts.
- Write catchy headlines that will grab your readers’ attention and encourage them to read further.
- Use visuals, such as images and videos, to make your blog posts more engaging and memorable.
- Make sure your blog is mobile-friendly, as more and more people are accessing content on their smartphones and tablets.
- Use social media to promote your blog and reach a wider audience.
- Engage with your readers by responding to comments and encouraging discussion on your blog.
- Focus on a niche or specific topic to establish yourself as an expert in that area.
- Collaborate with other bloggers or brands to expand your reach and bring new perspectives to your blog.
- Use SEO techniques, such as keyword research and meta descriptions, to improve your blog’s visibility on search engines.
- Experiment with different types of content, such as listicles, how-to guides, and interviews, to keep your blog fresh and interesting.
You can see a full list of the current Notion AI features in the screenshots below:

Notion AI Pricing

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Anyone (including users with a free Notion plan) can try Notion AI for free, in order to test its capabilities before purchasing the add-on subscription.
However, once you’ve used all your complimentary Notion AI responses, you will see a message that a Notion AI add-on subscription is necessary to continue using AI features. You’ll then need to purchase the Notion AI add on.
The Notion AI add-on costs $8 per member / month for users choosing the annual plan (an additional $96 per year) if you already have a paid Notion account.
If you have a paid Notion plan and choose to purchase the Notion AI add-on but pay with monthly billing, or decide to keep your free Notion account and only upgrade to receive Notion AI, you will be charged $10 per member / month ($120 per year).

How Can Writers Use Notion AI?

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Having experimented with Notion AI (both as an early beta tester and using the plan currently available to all users), here are some of the top use cases demonstrating the value of Notion AI for writers:
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1. Summarizing Written Content

Notion AI offers an easy to use, one click command, that automatically summarizes a portion of text highlighted.
For the purposes of this example, I entered the text of a recent WSJ article, Fed Minutes Show Most Officials Favored Quarter-Point Rate Rise.
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The original article text is listed below:
Most Federal Reserve officials thought slowing the pace of interest-rate increases at their meeting three weeks ago offered the best way to balance the risks of doing too much or too little to combat inflation, but some warned against the hazards of slowing or stopping rate increases too soon.
“A number of participants observed that a policy stance that proved to be insufficiently restrictive could halt recent progress in moderating inflationary pressures,” said the minutes of the Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting, released Wednesday.
Fed officials unanimously approved raising their benchmark federal-funds rate by a quarter percentage point to a range between 4.5% and 4.75% on Feb. 1. That increase followed six larger increases, including a half percentage point in December.
Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday the central bank will raise interest rates a quarter-percentage-point. Powell said more increases will likely be needed to continue lowering inflation.
The minutes of the gathering said that “almost all participants agreed that it was appropriate” to raise rates by a quarter point, or 25 basis points. Many of these officials “observed that a further slowing in the pace of rate increases would better allow them to assess the economy’s progress… as they determine the extent of future policy tightening,” the minutes said.
But a few participants favored or would have also agreed to a larger half-point move, the minutes said. “The participants favoring a 50-basis-point increase noted that a larger increase would more quickly bring the target range close to the levels they believed would achieve a sufficiently restrictive stance,” the minutes said.
Their discussion suggested another increase of a quarter point was likely at their next meeting on March 21-22. Since then, new data indicated stronger economic activity and slower progress on inflation than previously expected, which could keep the Fed raising rates longer than anticipated before the latest reports.
At the time of the recent meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell was facing increasing skepticism from investors over whether the central bank would continue raising rates because economic activity had been mixed around year’s end, with signs that consumer spending had moderated and weakness in the hard-hit housing sector was spreading to manufacturing. Investors were also anticipating rate cuts later this year.
The Fed raises rates to combat inflation by slowing the economy through tighter financial conditions—such as higher borrowing costs, lower stock prices and a stronger dollar—that curb demand.
Most Fed officials projected in December that they would raise the fed-funds rate to 5.1% this year, which would imply quarter-point rate increases at their next two meetings, in March and May. More than a third of officials anticipated lifting the rate above 5.25%. No officials projected rate cuts this year.
Some officials at the meeting observed that any continued easing in financial conditions could require the Fed to raise rates to higher levels or keep them at higher levels for longer than anticipated.
In the three weeks since they met, fresh U.S. economic reports showed that hiring and retail spending surged in January. The unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, a 53-year low, surprising economists who have long anticipated that Fed rate increases would slow economic growth soon. Economic growth also has rebounded in Europe, further easing worries of a global recession this year.
As a result, investors now expect the Fed to lift the fed-funds rate to around 5.4% in June–more than central bank officials had projected in December.
Inflation’s swift decline late last year also stalled in January. The 12-month inflation rate edged down to 6.4% last month from 6.5% in December and a recent high of 9.1% in June, according to the Labor Department. The department’s widely followed gauge, the consumer-price index, rose a sturdy 0.5% in January from the month before, a sign of still strong price pressures.
Two Fed presidents said last week they would have supported a larger half-point rate rise at the last meeting, rather than the quarter-point increase approved. One of them, Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester, said officials aren’t limited to quarter-point steps. “We can move faster, and we can do bigger [increases] at any particular meeting.”
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard also said he would support moving as quickly as possible to raise the fed-funds rate to 5.4%. “I don’t see much merit in delaying our approach to that level,” he told reporters last week.
Most other Fed officials have expressed a preference for quarter-point increases. Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin told reporters last week he liked that approach “because I believe it gives us the flexibility to respond” depending on how the economy evolves.
Mr. Barkin said he didn’t favor moving rapidly to an estimated peak rate before pausing because he isn’t confident the central bank can gauge how much its past rate moves are slowing the economy. “That theory, to me, requires more confidence in understanding” the effectiveness of tighter rate policy “than I have,” he said.
Overall inflation had slowed in recent months largely because of falling prices of energy and other goods. Large increases in housing costs have slowed, but haven’t yet filtered through to official price gauges. Mr. Powell has nevertheless justified continued rate increases by pointing to still-tight labor markets, elevated wage pressures and high inflation for labor-intensive services.
Mr. Barkin noted the surprising strength in January spending and hiring, but said he wasn’t ready to substantially revise his economic outlook because of the potential for unusual seasonal volatility, including a longer holiday spending season in the fourth quarter, warmer weather and changes in how employers are managing their staffing given recent difficulties hiring workers.
Investors’ shifting expectations about the Fed could already be helping the central bank because interest-rate policies work through financial markets. Changes to the anticipated trajectory of rates, and not just what the Fed does at any meeting, can influence broader financial conditions.
Since November, anticipation of a milder interest-rate path led financial conditions to ease somewhat after tightening substantially last year. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate, for example, jumped from 4% one year ago to 7% in November. It then edged lower, to around 6% earlier this month.
Over the past two weeks, however, financial conditions have tightened again as investors anticipate an interval of higher short-term interest rates. Mortgage lenders have reported rates are returning back to 7% in recent days.
After a few seconds, Notion AI generated the following text summarizing the article:
The minutes of the Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting of the Federal Reserve show that most officials favored slowing the pace of interest-rate increases to balance the risks of doing too much or too little to combat inflation. However, some warned against slowing or stopping rate increases too soon. The minutes also suggest that another increase of a quarter point is likely at the next meeting on March 21-22. Fresh U.S. economic reports showed that hiring and retail spending surged in January, which could keep the Fed raising rates longer than anticipated before the latest reports.
Investors’ expectations about the Fed could already be helping the central bank, as interest-rate policies work through financial markets. Changes to the anticipated trajectory of rates, and not just what the Fed does at any meeting, can influence broader financial conditions. Since November, anticipation of a milder interest-rate path led financial conditions to ease somewhat after tightening substantially last year.
Over the past two weeks, however, financial conditions have tightened again as investors anticipate an interval of higher short-term interest rates. Mortgage lenders have reported rates are returning back to 7% in recent days. Two Fed presidents said last week they would have supported a larger half-point rate rise at the last meeting, rather than the quarter-point increase approved.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard also said he would support moving as quickly as possible to raise the fed-funds rate to 5.4%. Most other Fed officials have expressed a preference for quarter-point increases, as they believe it gives them the flexibility to respond depending on how the economy evolves.
Overall inflation had slowed in recent months largely because of falling prices of energy and other goods, but large increases in housing costs have slowed, but haven’t yet filtered through to official price gauges. Mr. Powell has nevertheless justified continued rate increases by pointing to still-tight labor markets, elevated wage pressures, and high inflation for labor-intensive services.
While not perfect, this is a really good summarization of a complex article/topic. And the Notion AI tool also provided options for further editing this text, including making the summary longer, rewriting the entire summary, or replacing a section of the article.

2. Changing Tone of Text

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Another great feature of Notion AI is its ability to change the tone of text.
For example, I used the following excerpt from a Washington Post article on winter weather:
A strong, intensifying storm system continued its trek across the Lower 48 early Wednesday, unleashing high-impact winter weather that could cause widespread power outages and grind travel to a halt. At least 75 million Americans are under winter storm, ice storm, blizzard warnings or winter weather advisories.
In addition to hefty precipitation in much of the Midwest and parts of the Plains, there could also be snow in notably low elevations — including in areas that rarely see measurable snowfall. Even the Los Angeles County mountains are included in a rare blizzard warning — the first issued by the National Weather Service office there since 1989. Snow levels could descend to below 1,000 feet elevation as extreme anomalous cold at high altitudes whips up a serious elevation storm.
That same lobe of frigid air aloft is also spawning a surface low that’s marching across the country. Over the Upper Midwest and the northern Plains, up to two feet of snow could fall in what the National Weather Service office in Minneapolis is calling a historic winter storm. It could prove to be a top-5 event in the Twin Cities, where blizzard warnings slice through the metro.
On the southern fringe of the snowfall, mild air a mile above the ground will favor freezing rain, with a quarter- to a half-inch of ice accumulation, or glaze, possible in some areas. Parts of the Corn Belt and Michigan are expected to be hardest hit, including places like Dubuque and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, or Lansing, Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor in Michigan.
The storm should finish its cross-country assault in the Northeast late Thursday into Friday, where additional winter storm warnings are in effect for northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
I then used the Notion AI change tone function, and selected the “casual option”:
The Notion AI tool then quickly generated the following text:
Wowza, we’ve got a major storm system heading across the US of A, bringing some serious winter weather that could knock out power and put a stop to travel plans. That’s no joke, folks! It looks like around 75 million Americans are under winter storm, ice storm, blizzard warnings or winter weather advisories, so you know this is serious business.
And get this, it’s not just heavy precipitation we’re talking about – parts of the Midwest and Plains could get snow, and we’re talking about areas that don’t usually see snowfall. The Los Angeles County mountains are even included in a rare blizzard warning – the first one issued by the National Weather Service office there in over 30 years! The snow could even come down to below 1,000 feet elevation. Yikes!
There’s a lobe of frigid air up high that’s causing all of this, and it’s also spawning a surface low that’s going across the country. In the Upper Midwest and the northern Plains, we’re talking up to two feet of snow in what the National Weather Service office in Minneapolis is calling a historic winter storm. That’s right, it could be a top-5 event in the Twin Cities, where blizzard warnings are all over the place.
On the southern edge of the snowfall, freezing rain is likely, and some areas could see a quarter- to a half-inch of ice accumulation. The Corn Belt and Michigan are expected to be hit hard, including places like Dubuque and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, or Lansing, Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor in Michigan.
This storm is going to finish up with a bang in the Northeast late Thursday into Friday, where more winter storm warnings are in effect for northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Stay safe out there, folks!
While perhaps a bit over the top, it definitely demonstrates the AI tools ability to create content using different tones.

3. Writing Social Media Posts

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While the previous two use cases demonstrate the Notion AI tool’s ability to synthesize and mimic different forms of text, this next example shows its power to create text based off of very short prompts. Specifically, how it can quickly generate social media posts.
I selected the option from the Notion AI menu to write a social media post. It asked for me to enter a prompt to complete this sentence:
Write a social media post about_____________
And I simply entered “spring cleaning.”
In response, it generated the following social media post (including the hashtags):
Spring is here and it’s time for some cleaning! Whether it’s decluttering your home, organizing your closet, or deep cleaning those hard-to-reach areas, now is the perfect time to get started. A little bit of cleaning can go a long way in making your space feel refreshed and renewed. Don’t forget to donate any items you no longer need to charity or recycle them responsibly. Let’s all welcome spring with a clean and organized home!
#springcleaning #declutter #organization #cleanhome #refreshed #renewed #donate #recycle
While not perfect, I didn’t give the AI tool much information, so I was fairly impressed with this output.

4. Writing a Blog Post

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Similar to the last use case, I wanted to further text the Notion AI tool’s ability to generate written content. So I selected the “write a blog post” option and entered the following prompt:
The tool generated the following blog post:

The Benefits of Jogging

Introduction

Jogging is a popular form of exercise that has numerous benefits for both physical and mental health. It is a low-impact exercise that can be done anytime and anywhere, making it a convenient choice for people of all ages and fitness levels. Jogging is also an affordable form of exercise, as it requires no special equipment or membership fees. In this blog post, we will discuss some of the benefits of jogging and how it can improve your overall health and well-being.

Physical Benefits

Jogging is an excellent way to improve cardiovascular health. It helps to strengthen the heart and lungs, lowers blood pressure, and reduces the risk of heart disease. Jogging also helps to build endurance and increase stamina, which can improve athletic performance in other activities.
In addition to its cardiovascular benefits, jogging can also help with weight loss and weight management. It is an effective way to burn calories and boost metabolism, which can help to shed excess pounds and maintain a healthy weight. Jogging also helps to build muscle and tone the body, giving you a leaner and more sculpted appearance.
Jogging is also good for bone health. It helps to strengthen bones and prevent osteoporosis, a condition that causes bones to become brittle and weak. Regular jogging can also improve joint health and flexibility, reducing the risk of injury and improving overall mobility.

Mental Benefits

Jogging is not just good for physical health, it also has many mental health benefits. It is an excellent way to reduce stress and anxiety, as it releases endorphins that promote feelings of happiness and relaxation. Jogging can also boost self-esteem and confidence, helping to improve overall mood and well-being.
Regular jogging can also improve cognitive function and brain health. It has been shown to improve memory, concentration, and overall brain function, reducing the risk of cognitive decline and dementia in later life. Jogging can also help to improve sleep quality, which is essential for overall health and well-being.

Social Benefits

Jogging can also provide social benefits, as it can be a great way to meet new people and make friends. Joining a jogging group or running club can provide a supportive and motivating environment, where you can connect with other like-minded individuals who share your passion for jogging.

Getting Started with Jogging

If you are new to jogging, it is important to start slowly and gradually build up your endurance. Begin with short, easy runs and gradually increase the distance and intensity over time. It is also important to wear proper shoes and clothing to prevent injury and ensure comfort while jogging.
To make jogging more enjoyable, try listening to music or a podcast while you run. You can also join a jogging group or find a jogging buddy to keep you motivated and accountable.

Conclusion

In conclusion, jogging is an excellent form of exercise that can benefit both physical and mental health. It can improve cardiovascular health, aid in weight management, strengthen bones and joints, reduce stress and anxiety, boost self-esteem and confidence, and improve cognitive function and brain health. Jogging can also provide social benefits, making it a great way to meet new people and make friends. If you are looking for an easy and convenient way to improve your health and well-being, jogging is a great place to start. So put on your running shoes, hit the pavement, and enjoy the many benefits of this simple yet effective form of exercise.
Overall, I was very impressed with how quickly it generated this grammatically correct and well written blog post. It’s worth noting that once the Notion AI tool finishes generating the text, there is a button you can click to make the article longer, which it also does with ease.

5. Finding Action Items

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Last, I wanted to test the “finding action items” tool. To do this, I found a publicly available copy of a county’s meeting minutes over their local water authority (see PDF here):
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I then ran the text through the AI tool, using the “find action items tool”:
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Notion AI generated the following:
Overall, I was very impressed with the ability of the AI tool to generate action items. Since many Notion users (students, office workers, etc.) use Notion for note taking, this seems like an extremely valuable feature.
Conclusion
The examples of Notion’s AI tool make a strong case for adding the Notion AI tool to your writer toolkit! And the examples above only represent a fraction of the total use cases. Notion is already one of the best productivity tools for bloggers, and the addition of Notion AI for writers further cements its place on this list!
submitted by yelpvinegar to bloggingandearning [link] [comments]

2023.05.28 19:56 21DRANKZ Promoting all of Brevard County Business

If you have your own business or know someone that's located in the Brevard area that provide services. Here's the place to promote it.
submitted by 21DRANKZ to 321Services [link] [comments]

2023.05.28 19:41 thisgingercake Environment - "Poison in the Air" - The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones” where residents breathe carcinogens.

please read the article in full here:
https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air
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The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones” where residents breathe carcinogens. ProPublica reveals where these places are in a first-of-its-kind map and data analysis.
by Lylla Younes, Ava Kofman, Al Shaw and Lisa Song, with additional reporting by Maya Miller, photography by Kathleen Flynn for ProPublica Nov. 2, 2021, 5 a.m. EDT
Leer en español.
From the urban sprawl of Houston to the riverways of Virginia, air pollution from industrial plants is elevating the cancer risk of an estimated quarter of a million Americans to a level the federal government considers unacceptable.
Some of these hot spots of toxic air are infamous. An 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River in Louisiana that’s thronged with oil refineries and chemical plants has earned the nickname Cancer Alley. Many other such areas remain unknown, even to residents breathing in the contaminated air.
Until now.
ProPublica undertook an analysis that has never been done before. Using advanced data processing software and a modeling tool developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, we mapped the spread of cancer-causing chemicals from thousands of sources of hazardous air pollution across the country between 2014 and 2018. The result is an unparalleled view of how toxic air blooms around industrial facilities and spreads into nearby neighborhoods.
📷 The Most Detailed Map of Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution in the U.S.
At the map’s intimate scale, it’s possible to see up close how a massive chemical plant near a high school in Port Neches, Texas, laces the air with benzene, an aromatic gas that can cause leukemia. Or how a manufacturing facility in New Castle, Delaware, for years blanketed a day care playground with ethylene oxide, a highly toxic chemical that can lead to lymphoma and breast cancer. Our analysis found that ethylene oxide is the biggest contributor to excess industrial cancer risk from air pollutants nationwide. Corporations across the United States, but especially in Texas and Louisiana, manufacture the colorless, odorless gas, which lingers in the air for months and is highly mutagenic, meaning it can alter DNA.
In all, ProPublica identified more than a thousand hot spots of cancer-causing air. They are not equally distributed across the country. A quarter of the 20 hot spots with the highest levels of excess risk are in Texas, and almost all of them are in Southern states known for having weaker environmental regulations. Census tracts where the majority of residents are people of color experience about 40% more cancer-causing industrial air pollution on average than tracts where the residents are mostly white. In predominantly Black census tracts, the estimated cancer risk from toxic air pollution is more than double that of majority-white tracts.
After reviewing ProPublica’s map, Wayne Davis, an environmental scientist formerly with the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said, “The public is going to learn that EPA allows a hell of a lot of pollution to occur that the public does not think is occurring.”
Our analysis comes at a critical juncture for the fate of America’s air. After decades of improvement, air quality has, by some metrics, begun to decline. In the last four years, the Trump administration rolled back more than a hundred environmental protections, including two dozen air pollution and emissions policies.
The EPA says it “strives to protect the greatest number of people possible” from an excess cancer risk worse than 1 in a million. That risk level means that if a million people in an area are continuously exposed to toxic air pollutants over a presumed lifetime of 70 years, there would likely be at least one case of cancer on top of those from other risks people already face. According to ProPublica’s analysis, 74 million Americans — more than a fifth of the population — are being exposed to estimated levels of risk higher than this.
EPA policy sets the upper limit of acceptable excess cancer risk at 1 in 10,000 — 100 times more than the EPA’s more aspirational goal and a level of exposure that numerous experts told ProPublica is too high. ProPublica found that an estimated 256,000 people are being exposed to risks beyond this threshold and that an estimated 43,000 people are being subjected to at least triple this level of risk. Still, the EPA sees crossing its risk threshold as more of a warning sign than a mandate for action: The law doesn’t require the agency to penalize polluters that, alone or in combination, raise the cancer risk in an area above the acceptable level.
In response to ProPublica’s findings, Joe Goffman, acting assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, said in an emailed statement, “Toxic air emissions from industrial facilities are a problem that must be addressed.” Under President Joe Biden’s administration, “the EPA has reinvigorated its commitment to protect public health from toxic air emissions from industrial facilities — especially in communities that have already suffered disproportionately from air pollution and other environmental burdens.”
ProPublica’s reporting exposes flaws with EPA’s implementation of the Clean Air Act, a landmark law that dramatically reduced air pollution across America but provided less protection to those who live closest to industrial polluters.
The 1970 law resulted in outdoor air quality standards for a handful of widespread “criteria” pollutants, including sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, which could be traced to exhaust pipes and smokestacks all over the country and were proven to aggravate asthma and lead to early deaths. But 187 other dangerous chemicals, now known as hazardous air pollutants or air toxics, never got this level of attention. At the time, the science demonstrating the harms of these compounds, which primarily impact people in neighborhoods that border industrial facilities — so-called fence line communities — was still in its early stages. The EPA did not receive enough funding to set the same strict limits, and industry lobbying weakened the agency’s emerging regulations.
In 1990, Congress settled on a different approach to regulating air toxics. Since then, the EPA has made companies install equipment to reduce their pollution and studied the remaining emissions to see if they pose an unacceptable health risk.
The way the agency assesses this risk vastly underestimates residents’ exposure, according to our analysis. Instead of looking at how cancer risk adds up when polluters are clustered together in a neighborhood, the EPA examines certain types of facilities and equipment in isolation. When the agency studies refineries, for example, it ignores a community’s exposure to pollution from nearby metal foundries or shipyards.
Matthew Tejada, director of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice, told ProPublica that tackling hot spots of toxic air will require “working back through 50 years of environmental regulation in the United States, and unpacking and untying a whole series of knots.”
Top Polluters
T​​he cancer-causing air emissions from these five corporations cover more populated square miles than the emissions from any other companies, according to our analysis.
Most of these companies did not comment; Eastman said, “Not all risk is due to industrial activity, however, we continue to do our part to reduce risk and emissions to ensure the safety of our local community.”
“The environmental regulatory system wasn’t set up to deal with these things,” he said. “All of the parts of the system have to be re-thought to address hot spots or places where we know there’s a disproportionate burden.”
The Clean Air Act rarely requires industry or the EPA to monitor for air toxics, leaving residents near these plants chronically uninformed about what they’re breathing in. And when companies report their emissions to the EPA, they’re allowed to estimate them using flawed formulas and monitoring methods.
“These fence line communities are sacrifice zones,” said Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics. “Before there was climate denial, there was cancer denial. We release millions of pounds of carcinogens into our air, water and food and act mystified when people start getting sick.”
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please read the full article here:
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The cancer risks from industrial pollution can be compounded by factors like age, diet, genetic predisposition and exposure to radiation; the knock-on effect of inhaling toxic air for decades might, for example, mean the difference between merely having a family history of breast cancer and actually developing the disease yourself. While the cancer and asthma rates in Houston’s Harris County are comparable with those in the rest of the state, Texas officials have identified cancer clusters in several of the city’s neighborhoods.
Large swaths of the Greater Houston area make up the third-biggest hot spot of cancer-causing air in the country, according to our analysis, after Louisiana’s Cancer Alley and an area around Port Arthur, Texas, which is on the Louisiana border. For many homes closest to the fence lines of petrochemical plants in cities like La Porte and Port Neches, Texas, the estimated excess risk of cancer ranges from three to six times the level that the EPA considers acceptable.
But because of the way that the EPA underestimates risk, the true dangers of living in a toxic hot spot are often invisible to regulators and residents.
The agency breaks things down into the smallest possible categories “to avoid addressing what we call cumulative risk,” said John Walke, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who formerly worked as an EPA lawyer advising the Office of Air and Radiation. “But our bodies do not parse out air pollution according to rule labels or industrial equipment or industrial source categories.” The cancer risk from each facility or type of equipment may be at levels the agency considers “acceptable,” but taken together, the potential harms can be substantial.
The EPA initially sent ProPublica a statement saying that it “ensures that risks from individual source categories are acceptable and that the standards provide an ample margin of safety to protect public health.”
In another statement sent after an interview, the agency added, “We understand that communities often confront multiple sources of toxic air pollution and face cumulative risks greater than the risk from a single source.” The EPA added that it was working both to better harness the science on cumulative risks and “to better understand risks for communities who are overburdened by numerous sources of multiple pollutants.”
Madison can’t help but notice that when her family travels, K’ryah’s asthma improves. “The first chance I get, I’m moving far away from Texas and never looking back,” she said. “I love being outside. I love seeing the stars. I don’t want to feel like someone is pumping gas onto our front porch.”
The locations of the hot spots identified by ProPublica are anything but random. Industrial giants tend to favor areas that confer strategic advantages: On the Gulf Coast, for instance, oil rigs abound, so it’s more convenient to build refineries along the shoreline. Corporations also favor places where land is cheap and regulations are few.
Under federal law, the EPA delegates the majority of its enforcement powers to state and local authorities, which means that the environmental protections afforded to Americans vary widely between states. Texas, which is home to some of the largest hot spots in the nation, has notoriously lax regulations.
Between 2008 and 2018, lawmakers cut funding for state pollution-control programs by 35% while boosting the state’s overall budget by 41%, according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project, an advocacy group founded by former EPA staffers. A Texas Tribune story from 2017 found that during the prior year, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had levied fines in fewer than 1% of the cases in which polluters exceeded emission limits. Even when penalties are issued, many polluters see these fines as part of the cost of doing business, said Craig Johnston, a former lawyer at the EPA and a professor of environmental law at Lewis and Clark Law School.
Gary Rasp, a TCEQ spokesperson, told ProPublica that the agency “has taken actions to monitor, mitigate, and improve the air quality in fence line communities.” The agency runs dozens of stationary air toxics monitors across the state, he added, and “by continuously evaluating air monitoring data, which is more accurate than modeling, TCEQ can identify issues.” The agency also inspects industrial facilities and “has an active enforcement program, referring particularly egregious cases to the Texas Office of the Attorney General.”
That the people living inside these hot spots are disproportionately Black is not a coincidence. Our findings build on decades of evidence demonstrating that pollution is segregated: People of color are exposed to far greater levels of air pollution than whites — a pattern that persists across income levels. These disparities are rooted in racist real estate practices like redlining and the designation of low-income neighborhoods and communities of color as mixed residential-industrial zones. In cities like Houston, for example, all-white zoning boards targeted Black neighborhoods for the siting of noxious facilities, like landfills, incinerators and garbage dumps. Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University, has called the practice “PIBBY” or “Place In Blacks’ Back Yard” — a spin on the acronym “NIMBY” (“Not In My Back Yard”).
📷 How We Created the Most Detailed Map Ever of Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution
Many of the neighborhoods that border chemical plants are low-income and lack the same resources, access to health care and political capital that wealthier neighborhoods can bring to fights against intrusive commercial activities. In places like Baytown, working-class people depend on the very companies that sicken them to earn a living. Over the years, the shadow of industry can permanently impair not just a neighborhood’s health but also its economic prospects and property values, fueling a cycle of disinvestment. “Industries rely on having these sinks — these sacrifice zones — for polluting,” said Ana Baptista, an environmental policy professor at The New School. “That political calculus has kept in place a regulatory system that allows for the continued concentration of industry. We sacrifice these low-income, African American, Indigenous communities for the economic benefit of the region or state or country.”
Tejada, the EPA’s director of environmental justice, said that the Biden administration and the EPA are focused on confronting these disparities. “These places didn’t happen by accident. The disproportionality of the impacts that they face, the generations of disinvestment and lack of access are not coincidences. These places were created. And it is the responsibility of everyone, including the government — chiefly the government — to do something about it.”
The federal government has long had the information it would need to take on these hot spots. The EPA collects emissions data from more than 20,000 industrial facilities across the country and has even developed its own state-of-the-art tool — the Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators model — to estimate the impact of toxic emissions on human health. The model, known as RSEI, was designed to help regulators and lawmakers pinpoint where to target further air-monitoring efforts, data-quality inspections or, if necessary, enforcement actions. Researchers and journalists have used this model for various investigations over the years, including this one.
And yet the agency’s own use of its powerful modeling tool has been limited. There’s been a lack of funding for and a dearth of interest in RSEI’s more ambitious applications, according to several former and current EPA employees. Wayne Davis, the former EPA scientist, managed the RSEI program under the Trump administration. He said that some of his supervisors were hesitant about publishing information that would directly implicate a facility. “They always told us, ‘Don’t make a big deal of it, don’t market it, and hopefully you’ll continue to get funding next year.’ They didn’t want to make anything public that would raise questions about why the EPA hadn’t done anything to regulate that facility.”
Nicolaas Bouwes, a former senior analyst at the EPA and a chief architect of the RSEI model, recalled the occasional battle to get colleagues to accept the screening tool, let alone share its findings with the public. “There’s often been pushback from having this rich data sheet too readily available because it could make headlines,” he said. “What I find annoying is that the EPA has the same information at their disposal and they don’t use it. If ProPublica can do this, so can the EPA.”
In its statement, the EPA said that it plans to improve its approach for sharing air toxics data faster and more regularly with the public. “EPA has not published calculated cancer risks using RSEI modeled results,” it continued. “RSEI results are not designed as a substitute for more comprehensive, inclusive, or site specific risk assessments,” but as a potential starting point that should only be used “to identify situations of potential concern that may warrant further investigation.”
Indeed, our map works as a screening tool, not as a site-specific risk assessment. It cannot be used to tie individual cancer cases to emissions from specific industrial facilities, but it can be used to diagnose what the EPA calls “situations of potential concern.”
Our analysis arrives as America faces new threats to its air quality. The downstream effects of climate change, like warmer temperatures and massive wildfires, have created more smoke and smog. The Trump administration diluted, scuttled or reversed dozens of air pollution protections — actions estimated to lead to thousands of additional premature deaths. In 2018, then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt created a massive air toxics loophole when he rolled back a key provision of the Clean Air Act, known as “Once In, Always In,” allowing thousands of large polluters to relax their use of pollution-controlling equipment.
Biden has yet to close this loophole, but he has signaled plans to alleviate the disproportionate impacts borne by the people who live in these hot spots. Within his first few days in office, he established two White House councils to address environmental injustice. And in March, Congress confirmed his appointment of EPA administrator Michael Regan, who has directed the agency to strengthen its enforcement of violations “in communities overburdened by pollution.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air
Over the years, Sullivan Ramirez herself has struggled with nerve degeneration and scleroderma, a rare condition that involves the tightening of the skin and connective tissues. While it can be difficult to link specific cases of disease to pollution exposure, the evidence in Mossville has accumulated: In a 1998 health survey conducted by the University of Texas, 84% of Mossville residents reported having headaches, dizziness, tremors and seizures. An EPA study from the same year found that the average level of dioxins in the blood of Mossville residents was dangerously high — triple that of the general U.S. population. Even small amounts of dioxin, one of the most poisonous chemicals released by facilities, can cause developmental problems, damage the immune system and lead to cancer. A 2007 report found that the types of dioxin compounds in the blood of Mossville residents matched those emitted by local industrial facilities.
In an emailed statement, Sasol noted that its property buyout stemmed from direct requests from Mossville residents and that the company offered owners more than the appraised value of their homes. “Sasol and its predecessor have produced or handled chemicals at our Lake Charles complex for more than 60 years. We understand the science and have controls in place to ensure our operations are safe, protective of the environment, compliant with regulations and sustainable over the long term,” wrote Sarah Hughes, a spokesperson for Sasol. “Sasol is proud of our engagement with our neighbors in Mossville and the positive impact it has had on many of its residents.”
📷 Can Air Pollution Cause Cancer? What You Need to Know About the Risks.
Sullivan Ramirez is wary of too much talk. She knows that the new administration has promised something more for communities like hers, but she doesn’t want to get her hopes up. The presentations from captains of industry, the listening sessions with earnest bureaucrats, the proposals from slick attorneys, the promises tossed off by politicians — over the years, she’s heard it all.
The people of Mossville are right to be skeptical, the EPA’s Tejada acknowledged. “I would be skeptical if I was from Mossville,” he added. “They should be skeptical until we actually show up and do the things that they’ve been asking us to do for a long time. But there’s now a level of commitment to actually tangling with these issues in a really serious, substantive way.”
After years of activism in Mossville, Sullivan Ramirez moved to Lake Charles, just a short drive away. But she worries the industrial sprawl will one day overtake her new home. To Sullivan Ramirez, Mossville is “the key” — a warning of what the future holds for America’s other hot spots if business continues as usual.
“This is the 21st century,” she said. “The act of polluting our lands and robbing our communities — when will enough be enough?”
​
please read this article in full here:
https://www.propublica.org/article/toxmap-poison-in-the-air
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2023.05.28 19:19 AutoModerator Here's How To Watch ‘Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves’ Online Free: Is D&D (2023) Streaming Online reddit

D&D Movie! Here are options for downloading or watching Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves streaming the full movie online for free on 123movies & Reddit, including where to watch the anticipated Adventure movie at home. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves 2023 available to stream? Is watching Dungeons & Dragons 2023 on Disney Plus, HBO Max, Netflix or Amazon Prime? Yes, we have found an authentic streaming option/service.
🎬Watch Now ➡Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Online Free
🎬Watch Now ➡Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Online Free
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IT SEEMS DUNGEONS & Dragons is practically everywhere these days, with the popular tabletop role-playing game garnering a buzzy film adaptation in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which hits theaters March 31, 2023.
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Helmed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (who had previously directed Game Night), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves features a must-see, all-star cast including Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Hugh Grant. This new high-fantasy adventure sees a charming bard and a party of unlikely adventurers embarking on an epic quest to retrieve a long-lost artifact that could destroy the world in the wrong hands. But their adventure goes dangerously awry when they run afoul of the wrong people — and, of course, a dragon or two.
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So you want to gather up your party and watch Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves? Good news: the film might be coming to streaming sooner than you might think. Read on to see where you can watch Dungeons & Dragons 2023, and how to get started playing D&D yourself.
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieve Release Date
Despite the success of several streaming services choosing to release their films online same-day, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will be released exclusively in theaters. Paramount has not yet announced a streaming release date for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, so as of now, the only way to watch Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is in theaters, when it’s released on Friday March 31, 2023.
Can You Stream Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Online?
After Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves initial cinematic release, we might see the film come to Paramount+ about one and a half to two months after March 31, so we could see it online as early as mid-May (since many Paramount films start streaming 46-60 days after their theatrical release). Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is currently not available on Netflix, HBO Max or Hulu, but Pararmount+ is expected to be the streaming home of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves online.
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When Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves does become available for streaming, you’re going to need a Paramount+ subscription. Pricing for Paramount+ plans include Limited Commercials for $4.99/month or Commercial Free for $9.99/month. Currently enrolled in university? Students can also get 25% off your subscription if you provide an “edu” email address (one of many streaming discounts for students online). Check out the latest Paramount+ deals here.
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Sign up for Paramount+ and log in with your subscription to stream Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves when it drops on the service from your phone, laptop, tablet or connected TV. In the meantime, Paramount+ is also the home for ViacomCBS’s massive existing library of content.
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Not sure about committing to a full subscription? You can always stream Paramount+ for free with a 7-day free trial. Sign-up now or register for the free streaming deal with Paramount+ here. Then, you’ll be all set to stream the Dungeons & Dragons when it comes to Paramount+.
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As of now, the only way to watch Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is to head to a theater when it releases on Friday, Mar. 31. You can find a local showing on Fandango. Otherwise, you’ll just have to wait for it to become available to rent or buy on digital platforms like Vudu, Amazon, Apple and YouTube, or become available to stream on Peacock. Read on for more information.
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Following its release in theaters, the film will be available to stream on Peacock. Expect the movie to hit the streamer 45 days after its theatrical run, which should be sometime in December.
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Will Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Streaming On HBO Max?
No, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves will not be on HBO Max since it’s not a Warner Bros. movie. While the company previously released its movies on HBO Max and in theaters on the same day, they have since stopped and have implemented a 45-day window between the theatrical release and streaming release.
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Will Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves Available On Peacock?
While a streaming release date has not yet been announced for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, we can estimate when it could head to Paramount based on another Universal Pictures movie.
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Violent Night, which hit theaters on Dec. 2, became available to stream on Peacock on Jan. 20 — a little over 45 days after its theatrical release. If Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves follows the same pattern, it could make its way to the platform by mid-May. However, other movies like Nope took more than 100 days, so it’s best to take this estimate with a grain of salt.
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Will Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves be on Netflix?
Unfortunately, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves isn’t available to stream on Netflix. The Adventure isn’t included in the lineup of Netflix movies, which includes a vast number of rom-coms featuring some of our favorite actors and actresses.
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If you want to watch Julia Roberts movies on Netflix, check out Ben Is Back, August: Osage County, Steel Magnolias, and Runaway Bride. Roberts always appeared in Ocean’s Eleven and Ocean’s Twelve with her Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves co-star George Clooney, and both movies are currently streaming on Netflix as of October 2023.
Casts of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) is bursting with talented artists like Chris Pine as Edgin, Michelle Rodriguez as Holga, and Regé-Jean Page as Xenk. Also, you'll see Justice Smith (Simon), Sophia Lillis (Doric), Hugh Grant (Forge), Jason Wong (Dralas), Sophia Eleni (Valxina Tabaxi), Bryan Larkin (Chancellor Norixius), Kenneth Collard (Din Caldwell), Appy Pratt (Ishira) and a lot more artists are featured in this upcoming fantasy action-adventure film.
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2023.05.28 17:45 SwimmersGirl Who is Robert Dunlap Blue?

Robert Dunlap Blue was a painter noted for his images of pin-up girls in the 1980s and later his cowgirls of the New West series. He was the son of comedic actor Ben Blue. Blue's work precedes that of Patrick Nagel, as Blue's credits as a commercial artist date as early as 1970. A Blue painting was used for the album back cover art for Iron Butterfly "Metamorphosis" 1970 LP release and he painted fetish pin-ups of icon Bettie Page on canvas as early as 1974, which were collected by the "Pin-up King" Charles G. Martignette. (Martignette is co-author of The Great American Pin-Up with Louis K. Meisel). Other notable collectors of Blue's art have included Jack Nicholson, Barbra Streisand, Brian Wilson and Hugh Hefner, as well as numerous corporate collectors, including the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Los Angeles, and the Atlanta Hilton Motel. Blue's paintings are in the National Archives in Washington D.C. and the permanent collection of the Carnegie Art Museum.
Robert Dunlap Blue was born, 27 August 1946 in Los Angeles County, California, to Axie (née Dunlap) and Ben Blue, and grew up in Beverly Hills. He served in the United States Army and attended the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, earning a BFA at the Chouinard Art Institute (1969) in Los Angeles. Blue served as chairman of fine art at Assn. in Art, Van Nuys.
In 1979, Blue joined Brian Davis to form the Davis-Blue Artwork publishing company. This company published a number of dramatic posters, including some by illustrator Major Felten.
Blue, a published painter as early as 1970 worked in many mediums including watercolors, oils and acrylics. Blue's fashion pin-up "Blue Girl" paintings and serigraphs were done in the 1980s, selling to Japan. Compare Blue's artwork to the famous Playboy and commercial illustrator Patrick Nagel, both artists were alumni of the Chouinard Art Institute and painted women during the 1980s.
Blue's popular 1980s period "Blue Girl" series was easily identifiable. Blue painted eyebrows featuring a signature zig-zag detail, with hair swirls with individual strands (often in a stark violet or gold), hands adorning long painted nails, frequently in cherry red. Some popular paintings include "Monica," "Lauren," "Claudia," and golden-haired "Suzanne," in which Blue painted and printed his female subject's hair strands in micronized 24k gold.
In the early 1990s, Blue painted with more realism. By the mid 1990s Blue began painting Bettie Page. Blue and Page collaborated on a series of serigraphs which Page also signed. Robert Blue, Dave Stevens and Olivia De Berardinis feature Page.
Blue succumbed to brain cancer in Santa Monica in 1998, and the Robert Blue Foundation to aid brain cancer victims was instituted in his memory. He was survived by his wife, Linda, and his brother, Tom.
Blue's art was featured in the 1974 film The Second Coming of Suzanne, and also 1984's Heartbreakers, which was loosely based on Blue himself. His work also appeared in the 1982 Richard Elfman film Forbidden Zone.
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2023.05.28 17:27 DianeBukowski MICHIGAN HAS SENTENCED MORE KIDS TO DIE IN PRISON THAN ANY OTHER STATE AND IN THE REST OF THE WORLD

MICHIGAN HAS SENTENCED MORE KIDS TO DIE IN PRISON THAN ANY OTHER STATE AND IN THE REST OF THE WORLD submitted by DianeBukowski to u/DianeBukowski [link] [comments]

2023.05.28 17:24 DianeBukowski MICHIGAN HAS SENTENCED MORE KIDS TO DIE IN PRISON THAN ANY OTHER STATE AND IN THE REST OF THE WORLD

MICHIGAN HAS SENTENCED MORE KIDS TO DIE IN PRISON THAN ANY OTHER STATE AND IN THE REST OF THE WORLD submitted by DianeBukowski to u/DianeBukowski [link] [comments]

2023.05.28 17:13 boopfloof Things I Will Not Miss About This Stupid Job

I'm leaving teaching after 4 years, which has been 4 years too long. I am BURNED OUT, and have been terminally burned out for way too long. So, in honor of getting hired at a nice government job, here's my list of things I have despised about being an elementary teacher-
-How loud the environment is, all the time. Kids who enjoy shrieking, banging, tapping, squeaking, moaning, making fart sounds, and just continually talking over you just to fill what they perceive as a void.
-Having 95% of my daily energy expenditure be managing some shithead kids' behavior, and trying to get them to shut up and stop distracting everyone long enough for someone to maybe learn something
-Realizing how bad at parenting SO many parents are now. As in, unable to ensure that your child is regularly bathed, fed, and isn't watching Tiktok for 12 hours after school in filthy clothes. These are parents who have the resources, and their kids generally have VR headsets, parents drive nice cars, and the families take expensive vacations to Hawaii or Europe. I shouldn't be the one raising your kid and teaching them basic social skills and things like how to put their own jacket on and not hit to communicate that you want something.
-PARENTS. Holy shit. Having to first deal with the bullies they are actively creating, and then deal with their insane selves is TOO MUCH. "My son says he didn't do that, and he never lies!" "Well what are YOU doing to fix my son's struggles?" "If you don't stop Lil Johnny from having to interact with this random kid whom he doesn't like, I'll withdraw him from the school and call the cops on you!" The lies, the insane mood swings, the willful ignorance, the denial, the nasty vindictiveness.... BYE get someone else to train up your feral little asshole kid
-Not being able to have anything nice in the classroom, because then when your back is turned someone will steal it, rip pieces off it, poke holes in it, slam it against something until it breaks, or just carelessly lose all the pieces to it.
-Having what actually happens in the classroom be COMPLETELY separate from the useless mirror world of meetings and professional development sessions. Spending 3 hours every week on mind-numbing meetings where we are asked to apply UDL to our inflexible scripted curriculum, or brainstorm how to make intervention groups 5 students when we're losing staff and budget for next year and it's literally impossible, listening to curriculum peddlers hype up their latest useless, expensive, inappropriate curriculum, and being unable to question how insane it all is without getting in trouble.
-Working with some freaky-ass people! It feels like you choose your flavor between... Overly fake sweet person who will gossip behind your back, middle school mean girl/boy (complete with cronies), already mentally Teacher Of The Year, I mistake bitchiness for leadership qualities, control freak who ironically has terrible control of their class, admin brown-noser, and then the small handful of normal people who are impossible to get to know because they want out as much as you do
-Just all of the trillion stupid things that you have to keep constantly circulating in your head all day long. Did I do Braxxxdyn F.'s CICO chart before lunch? Monitor the bathroom log because some kid keeps pissing on the floor. The schedule is reversed today because there's a lock down drill at a weird time. Surprise! This random parent came to "volunteer" (observe what you're doing because she doesn't trust your competency as a teacher), how do you get rid of her without her screaming at you? You have 4 IEPs that require constant 1 on 1 help. How do you give that help constantly for every lesson? Double surprise! One of the intervention teachers is coming for a curriculum "fidelity walkthrough" because one of your grade level team teachers pissed them off by critiquing the shitty curriculum that they hand-picked. You have indoor recess because it started raining, now you don't get lunch without being harassed by kids the entire time. Death by 1,000 stupid pieces of bullshit.
Counting down the days until school is done and I have to deal with a normal level of workplace nonsense.
Edit- For those wondering, I was hired at the local, county level as a community health educator! I was fortunate in that I had previous health care experience from undergrad, and I was able to leverage that plus my teaching to get this position. Don't give up, those of you trying to escape!
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2023.05.28 16:43 MDianeB MICHIGAN HAS SENTENCED MORE KIDS TO DIE IN PRISON THAN ANY OTHER STATE AND IN THE REST OF THE WORLD

MICHIGAN HAS SENTENCED MORE KIDS TO DIE IN PRISON THAN ANY OTHER STATE AND IN THE REST OF THE WORLD submitted by MDianeB to u/MDianeB [link] [comments]

2023.05.28 12:31 DPGamez123 My Wednesday S2E1- Woecome Back to Nevermore (fanfiction)

Episode 1- Woecome back to Nevermore.
We slowly zoom in on the Addams Family House. Gloomy and as spooky as ever. As the camera zooms in, we go through a window and see Thing, the disembodied and sentient hand. He's just chased a big spider away. Suddenly the voice of Mortica Addams was heard
"Dinner is ready, my dark angel"
Wednesday Stands up from her typewriter desk and walks out of her room. She begins her inner Monolog as she walks to the dining room and sits down while her food is being brought up
"The last few months away from Nevermore have been as I suspected. Pure torture. That be it from Mother and Father's continuous hideous display of affection, to Pugsley being as pathetic as ever. Never would I have thought I'd miss being away from here"
Wednesday finally gets her food as Morticia begins to speak
"So, are you ready to return to Nevermore again dear?"
Wednesday looks into the void
"You mean where I almost died and successfully solved a serial killer case? I would say my return would be more than adequate for my sanity"
Gomez and Morticia share a proud look as Gomez looks at Wednesday
"Oh, we just knew you'd love it there. We're so happy that you made some friends."
Wednesday looks offended
"They are not my friends, they're merely the classmates I've become acquainted with."
Pugsley eats more as he looks at her
"Isn't that just another word for "friend"?"
Wednesday glares
"It is not…"
Wednesday finishes her dinner as she returns to her room and sits down at her chair. She moves her eyes so she can see behind to her left
"I know you're there, Thing…"
He scurries on her desk and taps away, talking to her
"I suppose you can come back with me this semester. That is… if you do my bidding yet again?"
Thing does a "Yes Sir" salute. He scurried over to Wednesday's purse and tapped on it
"What? I have already packed all I need."
Thing opens it, and out slides her Phone. The same phone Xavier gave to her all those months ago.
"I said I will NEVER be a slave to technology, Thing. Besides, that stalker still has my number."
Thing taps away again
"My "friends?" If they are so inclined to be that word, they will just have to wait until tomorrow."
Thing picks it up and slides it on her desk as he taps the screen. Wednesday has multiple next messages
"sighs Fine, I suppose I can take a quick gander."
She opens the notifications, from Xavier. The only named contact in her phone
Xavier-
63 Days Ago- Wednesday? I know you said you'd never call me, but I just want to know if you're doing alright?
50 Days Ago- Really? Still ignoring me? You always did enjoy the silent treatment.
31 Days Ago- Um… for real are you just gonna ignore me? I thought we ended on a better note last semester?
17 Days Ago- Ok then… I'm just gonna assume that I'm talking to a dead phone. That thing cost a fortune by the way, you're welcome… just… I guess I'll see you around?
Yesterday- Well if you ever see this… just know I will be attending a new school this year…
Wednesday looks strangely alarmed at the last message
"New school? I guess it won't hurt to check in on him?"
Thing taps, saying to go for it
Wednesday-
Leaving Nevermore I hear? I suppose it's for the best.
Almost instantly… she gets a response
Xavier-
Ha! You fell for the bait! I knew you had some kind of a heart.
Wednesday could just feel the rage in her swell as she realized she was tricked
Wednesday-
You know I could always delete your contact?
Xavier-
Wait! I'm sorry, Okay? I just wanted to try one last thing. Just tell me, are you coming back this semester?
Wednesday thinks… should he tell him? Or just wait for the next day? She decides to be nice for today
Wednesday-
Indeed
Xavier-
That's good. Can't wait to see you again. Thing coming along too?
Thing reads it and signs something
Wednesday-
He said to not make him put you back in that squad car.
Xavier-
Ha ha. By the way… Did you ever try to contact Enid? You know how much you mean to her? Ajax says she's been kinda down lately.
Wednesday-
I do not have a way of getting her number. Nor do I want her flooding my phone with those insipid little pictures.
Xavier-
I get that. 😉 And don't worry, I haven't told anyone about you getting that phone.
Wednesday-
Apparently someone does…
Xavier-
Obviously I know about it Wednesday.
Wednesday-
I did not mean you…
Xavier-
Wait… what? Everything OK?
Wednesday-
I have to go. I will explain more tomorrow.
Xavier-
Wait! Ugh… fine…
And with that, Wednesday put her phone back in her bag. Thing taps again
"No, that did not change anything. I still loathe modern technology. And do not spy on my stuff again…"
He bows in apologies
"Now, return to Mother and Father please. I require my space"
Wednesday does some more writing. She's already working on drafts for "Viper De La Muerta: Más Venenosa" The sequel to her book. A few hours go by, and she checks the clock. It says 11:54 P.M. She needs to get some sleep. So she ends her paragraph, wishing a good night to her parents. Her bed is a full queen sized bed, all to herself. It's all black and she has a gray-black blanket. She eventually falls asleep. Suddenly she's somewhere she doesn't understand
Enid is on the ground writhing in pain
"Ahhh! Heeelp!"
"Enid!?"
Wednesday goes to her, surprised. She then sees Xavier getting beat up by strangers
"Ah! Oh! Get the hell back!"
"Xavier!?"
He's punched to the floor as Wednesday tries to help, and now sees Eugene knocked out in the corner and a seemingly lifeless Sheriff Galpin. She then hears a voice
"I'm still out there Wednesday!!!"
Wednesday wakes up and is in a panic, sweating
"Xavier? Enid!? Eueg…
she looks around… a nightmare? She rubs her head and takes a sip of Water from her bottle. She checks her alarm clock
"4:45? Still a few more hours."
She lays back down and wakes up at 7:30. No more nightmares for the rest of the morning
"Good morning Pugsley…"
Pugsley takes a bite of his cereal
"Hey sis… you know I'm…
"Going to miss me?"
She finishes the sentence
"I know, I will miss the way you scream from your hair pulling too."
Morticia enters the room
"Alright darling, Lurch is waiting."
"Okay Mother. I am ready"
Wednesday and Pugsley share a hug, Wednesday not completely enjoying it. She says her goodbyes to her Parents too. Wednesday gets in the car as Lurch drives off. They eventually get to Jericho County. She looks at some of the buildings she remembers from last semester. The hearse rolls up to the Nevermore gates and enters. Lurch opens the door and Wednesday steps out. She monologs again
"Nevermore seemed the same as ever. The same annoying people. The same clueless teachers. And just a little less serial killers. Maybe… that is"
"Lurch, you can go ahead and go. I'll handle the luggage from here."
Lurch nods and drives off. Wednesday puts her bag on her shoulders as she starts to pull her cello case
"That looks kinda heavy?"
Wednesday turns to look at the voice. Xavier. She rolls her eyes
"Need a hand?"
Wednesday sighs
"I suppose"
He grabs the cello and walks with her
"It's nice to see you again. Wish I could say you've gotten taller but…"
"Don't comment on my height."
"Just joking hehe."
Wednesday does not find it amusing
"I suppose the feeling of seeing you is mutual?"
She finds it hard to talk with him. She doesn't know why, but she feels the need to say something to him? Something from last year. She ignores it. They get up to Ophelia hall as they knock. A familiar girl with pink and blue hair answers
"OMG! I missed you so much!?!?"
Enid hugs her tightly, she gets pushed back
"Right… no hug unless it's a near death experience. Right! And Hi Xavier!"
She gives him a small hug too. She Whispers at him
"So… you two gonna hook up? Please tell me…"
Xavier looks terrified
"What!? No… no no no… of course not! We only texted a…. Enid's eyes grow shit…"
She glares at the two
"YOU have a f*cking Phone!? Just when were you gonna tell me!? We could've talked alllll break!? Give me your number now and I'll show you the ways of Facebook, and Insta, and Tiktok, and blogging and…"
"Enid!"
Wednesday interrupts
"Could you hold your thoughts for a second before I vomit!? You're giving me a headache and I've only seen you for 43 seconds."
Enid calms down
"Okay… you're right. I'm sorry. But hey, when were YOU gonna tell me Mr. Artsy Fartsy!?"
Xavier looks confused
"Me!? Would you want to break that kinda promise with her…?"
Enid looks at an already angered Wednesday
"I guess that's fair Xavier. So, I hear you and Ajax are now roomies?"
He nods
"Yep. The councilors said it should be fine."
Wednesday interjects
"I thought Gorgons could only be roommates with other Gorgons?"
Xavier clarifies
"As long as he wears his hat, and I don't walk in on him taking a shower… I'll be fine.*
Enid looks excited
"Speaking of Ajax… I'm gonna go see him! BRB!"
She walks out the door as Wednesday walks to her desk and places her Typewriter out of her bag and onto her desk
"Wow. Still using that old dinosaur huh?"
She looks offended
"Of course I am? It is the only true way of writing"
Xavier stands next to her
"What if you mistype a word? You just start over the whole page?"
Wednesday places her pages as she continues talking
"Only amateurs would make that kind of mistake in their work. Anyway, are you just going to annoy me or can I get some work done?"
Xavier looks annoyed
"Excuse me for trying to be nice? I thought you'd have a better understanding of friendship after last year?"
Wednesday gets up fast… but doesn't turn around, Xavier notices
"What? Did that break your thick layer of angst?"
Wednesday turns around. She somehow has a guilty look in her eyes despite being the same lifeless ones
"I… I… I apologize…"
Xavier looks less annoyed now
"It's fine… I know you don't fully get social interaction that well and…"
She interrupts
"No… not for that…"
"Huh?"
Xavier looks at her confused. Wednesday looks at him now
"I apologize for what happened last semester… for everything. Misjudging you, tricking you with the Rave'n, getting you arrested, and for ignoring your messages. Okay?. I should've listened to you more, not Tyler. I'm sorry…"
Wednesday sits down as that took everything out of her
"Wow, uh… that… thank you Wednesday. That means a lot from you."
Wednesday nods
"Consider us even?"
"Not yet…"
Wednesday looks confused
"Why?"
"I have some things to tell you. But first we need to get to that assembly. It starts in like 8 minutes. We get to meet the new principal"
Wednesday begrudgingly agrees and grabs her small bag. Thing jumps on her shoulder
"Hey Thing! How's it going buddy!?"
Thing makes a fist for a fist bump to where they collide. They make their way to the door and Xavier opens it. Only to find Enid who falls on the floor. Xavier looks confused
"Enid, what the hell are you doing? Wait… were you listening to us?"
Enid stands up and straightens her shirt
"Uh no…"
Xavier dusts some dirt off her shoulder
"Then what were you doing against the door?"
Enid panics
"Uh… I was scratching my head on the door. You know us werewolves. Always itchy! Hehe.
Wednesday gets mad
"Enid, there is nothing to spy on us for. Me and Xavier are just friends and that's it? Stop wishing a relationship into fruition."
Enid sulks
"Fine… I promise…"
She walks away. Wednesday looks at Xavier who kinda smirks
"What Xavier?"
He chuckles
"Nothing. Just didn't think I'd hear you call me, or anyone a friend"
"Would you prefer us not to be?"
She said sternly
"It's a joke, calm yourself. Let's get going to that assembly"
They walk out of the dorm and to the assembly area. Wednesday begins to think about Principal Weems. She starts her inner Monolog
"Principal Weems and I may have had our differences, but in the end she was not so bad. She did try and help me take down Laurel Gates. Unfortunately that is what resulted in her untimely demise. She deserved better."
She stands by the group of students as the new principal gets to the stand. He looks middle aged with mid length black hair. He has a five o'clock shadow and wears a black suit and pants. He begins his speech
"Hello everyone, my Nevermore students. It will be an honor to be the new principal at this fine and unique school. Now, I know most of you miss Larissa Weems dearly. But I assure you I will do everything in my part to fill that void"
A lot of the students look rather skeptical
"We hope you all enjoyed your forced vacation, and we welcome everyone back. And we hope you all healed well after last year's… unfortunate incident. But know this, we will take extra precautions with our students' safety. We would also like to give a special thanks to one of our students. Please, give a nice round of applause to our very own…. Wednesday Addams!"
He and the other students start clapping with praise. She looks around embarrassed and also sees Enid and Xavier happily joining in the applause
"We'd also like to thank some other students who helped on that dreadful night. Enid Sinclair, Xavier Thorpe, Bianca Barclay, Yoko Tanaka, Ajax Petropolus, Kent and Divina Waters, and Eugene Ottinger!"
Everyone cheers for the heroes of last semester
"We would also like to ask Ms. Addams some questions?"
Someone comes to her with a mic, Enid and Xavier step in front of her. Enid talks first
"Whoa, whoa! Wednesday does not like to talk in open crows…"
Xavier joins in too
"Yeah, yeah, she uh… gets nervous?"
The others agree. The Principal nods
"Okay, that's fair. We won't push anything on you kids. Oh I almost forgot, my name is Principal Kevin Fairbanks. Now, you may go on with your day. Classes start in 1 hour"
Everyone disperses. Wednesday grabs Enid's shoulder
"You didn't have to do that."
"It's okay, I know how my bestie is about crowds."
She smiles as she walks away. Wednesday walks into another direction. She ends up at the Bee Farm. She goes up to the little hut and knocks. A familiar voice is heard behind her
"Wednesday?"
Wednesday hears the voice and turns around
"Hello Eugene, How was…."
She turns around to talk, expecting him to be the same height. He's like a foot taller now she actually has to look up at him
"What happened to you?"
Eugene looks confused
"Guess I hit a growth spurt? Hehe"
Wednesday is now processing how he's so tall while she's still the same height
"Anyway, I see you have healed up nice?"
Eugene nods
"Yeah, everything's good. And I'm ready for a great bee year. Things are supposed to be going strong. Will you still join the Hummers again this year?"
Wednesday nods
"Possibly. Depends on what else is on my schedule. Well Eugene, I must be going. Goodbye"
"Later Wednesday!"
Wednesday leaves the Bee Farm aera. Eugene's sudden growth in height makes her more self conscious than she cares to admit. She walks through The Quad when a voice is heard behind her
"Hey Addams."
She turns around and sees Bianca Barclay at the fountain, also accompanied by her "side kicks" Kent and Divina
"Bianca. I see you still have your henchmen at your side?"
The twins toll their eyes as Kent speaks up
"We're more than just her "henchmen" Wednesday. We can do anything that she does."
Wednesday retort
"Except excelling at the Poe Cup. I look forward to a rematch in future team events…"
Divina steps forward
"That won't happen again. It was just a fluke, us underestimating you."
"Flukes are just excuses for things not going the way you intend."
Now Bianca stands up
"Alright, enough you guys. But I hope you sharpened up on your fencing. We WILL be taking the title this semester."
Wednesday doesn't even look threatened
"There is no need for practice, I have full faith in my swordsmanship."
"We'll see, Addams. Just you wait. Your ass will be handed to you yet again "
Wednesday looks bored
"My posterior isn't beaten easily… anyway I need to go. Herbology is starting soon."
Wednesday arrives at Herbology class. Being here again brings back some memories. Like getting smacked with a shovel. Weems' Death. And most importantly… Ms. Thornhill aka Laurel Gates. It's a good thing she's now rotting in prison. She takes a seat in the second row, as she feels someone else take another next to her. It's Xavier again
"We always seem to be desk mates, huh?"
Wednesday looks at her books
"It is not a coincidence when there are no assigned seats. You chose it"
Xavier rolls his eyes
"No shit… Anyway I've been meaning to ask something."
Wednesday looks up real quick
"Do not make things awkward, Xavier…"
He nods
"It's not my goal to do that. anyway, you mentioned that I wasn't the only one in your contacts, right?"
*It almost escaped her mind, she doesn't care to admit that either."
"Indeed."
She takes her phone out of her pocket and turns it on
"Can I see who it is?"
She hand sit to him
"I have been receiving stalker images. They involve me and you and me and… Tyler as well."
Xavier looks at them and nods, a bit worried
"I see… have you told anyone? This could be serious, you know?"
*Wednesday looks at him."
"Serious things intrigue me more."
just then Xavier sees something in the text feed.
"Whoa…"
*What? What is it?"
He points at the bottom of the screen.
"See those lines moving… that means someone is typing. Right now.*
The pictures that are sent are startling. One is of Xavier's dorm room. The other is Wednesday and Enid's room. And the last is of Xavier and Wednesday sitting at a desk in herbology class… where they are right now…
Stalker-
You don't just have to worry about yourself, Wednesday… your friends too…
"Holy shit… this is some creepy shit. "
"Don't worry. I will get to the bottom of this eventually…"
They meet the new teacher and finish class. Xavier asks her something before they go.
"Hey, there's been something I've wanted to tell you. Can you meet me at my Art Studio. Tonight? 9:00. It isn't anything weird, I promise."
Wednesday looks conflicted
"I will think about it. Do not tell Enid. She thinks there's something going… on… between us."
Xavier giggles
"She's a strange one, always following you like a wolf pup. Anyway, see you there maybe. Bye Wednesday."
The rest of the day goes smoothly for the most part as she heads back to the dorms. Wednesday goes back to Ophelia Hall and enters her and Enid's dorm. she Immediately holds a grossed out face
"Enid, what is that revolting stench burning my olfactory senses…?"
Enid perks up from her magazine
"What? Oh, you mean the sweet air freshener I just got? It's great. You don't agree?"
Wednesday looks nauseous
"It smells like a unicorn farted in here… super sweet and sugary… revolting."
Enid rolls her eyes
"I can't have anything that I like in here, can I? You get your clickety clackety typewriter, your giant ass Cello, your early morning meditation sessions, what do I get?"
Wednesday goes over to her bed and grabs a light jacket
"You get your phone? Your blinding nail polish and hair dye. Not to mention your obnoxious Korean musicals."
Enid breaths slowly, trying not to snap
"Do not… disrespect my K-Pop… Anyway where are you headed? It's like 8:30?"
Wednesday grabs her small bag
"I have an event to attend to. It's really nothing to blow a gasket over."
Enid squeals
"Is it… a date!?"
Wednesday nearly gags
"What? No? He just needs to talk?"
"So it is with Xavier… called it.."
Wednesday's not having it
"Enid, it is only a conversation. If there was something going on I would tell you. Now please… no more squealing… Thing, stay with Enid so she doesn't spy on me again"
Enid pouts
"Aw, no fair!?"
Wednesday journeys to Xavier's Art Studio. Arriving here fills her stomach with regret, for whatever reason she doesn't understand. She knocks on the wooden door. 15 seconds goes by, and no answer. Wednesday assumes that he isn't there and goes to leave when the door opens
"Wednesday. You made it. And you didn't break into my shed."
Wednesday turns around and walks in
"Don't expect that to be a regular occurrence. So, you said you wanted to speak with me?"
Xavier nods as he puts down his brush and turns off the radio
"Yes."
"Well, what is there you need to say to me?"
Xavier sits down on his stool to have a more eye to eye view of her
"Wednesday, I really appreciate you apologizing earlier. I know it sounds weird, but… I spent weeks wondering if you ever thought that. It's my turn to apologize now."
"You have nothing to apologize for"
He interjects
"Yes… I do. Obviously we both know we didn't exactly get along at some points, even though I wanted to."
She nods agreeingly
"That would be an understatement"
"I know… I know… I realize now, how much of a creep I looked. I didn't leave you alone when you asked. I shouldn't have told you who to and who not to hang out with. I was a total ass when you would tell me the other way. And then… when I said I should've let Rowan kill you. I… I didn't mean that. I was just angry and betrayed. You probably don't know this… but I even asked Bianca to erase you from my memory…"
Wednesday looks on, telling him to continue
"I'm so sorry. And after looking back, I don't know if I deserve to be your friend. So… if you don't want to be around me… I understand…"
Wednesday looks kinda overwhelmed by his venting. She honestly didn't realize how much he cares deep inside
"My conscience tells me that I should do what you've told me. To walk away"
She turns and looks at one of his paintings, a Raven
"But my conscience isn't always right."
Xavier's depressed face turns around into a hopeful one
"Wait… are you saying…"
Wednesday nods
"Yes. We can still be… Fff… frrr…. Friends…"
Xavier gets up to hug her but he stops himself. He's seen Enid denied hundreds of times so he brushes it off awkwardly
"I appreciate it. From here on out, I'll try to listen to you more."
"A small start would be to stop looking like a guilty psychotic serial killer all the time."
Xavier agrees with a nod
"Yeah… guess I did turn up at the worst times, eh?"
Wednesday looks at his painting more
"Indeed you did. Did you paint this recently?"
He walks up next to her
"Uh huh. I actually painted it last night at home. After you finally responded to me, I made that. Please… don't take it as I'm drooling over you or something?"
She nods no
"No. No, I get it. It's some good work. It's… amazing even. Oh, and if you tell anyone about this conversation I will shoot you with an arrow myself this time"
"Wouldn't want it any other way, Wednesday"
Wednesday walks away and gives a slight smirk as she turns to the exit
"I shall see you tomor…"
As she touches the door, her head jerks back and her eyes go wide as she falls back
Xavier: Wednesday!?!
He catches her as she falls. She sees a vision. She sees Xavier tied up against a wall as he's stabbed in the gut as he screams in agony. She then wakes up as Xavier is talking to her
"Hey? Hey!? You okay? You took a dive there. Was it… another vision?"
She stands up and brushes herself off
"Indeed…"
"What'd you see?"
She looks at him, actually kinda scared
"You… you were… stabbed…"
To Be Continued…
Cast-
Wednesday Addams- Jenna Ortega Xavier Thorpe- Percy Hynes White Enid Sinclair- Emma Myers Bianca Barclay- Joy Sunday Eugene Ottinger- Moosa Mostafa Divina Waters- Johnna Dias-Watson Kent Waters- Oliver Watson Morticia Addams- Catherine Zeta-Jones Gomez Addams- Luiz Guzmàn And Thing Portrayed By- Victor Dorobantu
Supporting Cast- Pugsley Addams- Isaac Ordonez Lurch- George Burcea Principal Fairbanks-
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2023.05.28 04:51 Junior_Button5882 11 Terrifying-But-True Horror Stories Reported in the News - From fatal exorcisms to unexplained deaths and devil worship—these are some real-life nightmares.

A terrifying movie or book or show gets your blood pumping in the moment of consumption, sure—we covered our eyes in Squid Game with the rest of the world. But for the most part, you rest easy afterward knowing that what you've witnessed is fiction, deliberately spun up to creep you out. When the real world gets eerier than anything Stephen King could dream up, that's when you have every right to get a little scared of the dark.
Once in a while, a story of a dreadful disappearance, demonic possession, or devil worship will land in the local paper instead of a pulpy old paperback. We've rounded up the most unnerving real-life tales below. In honor of spooky season, here are eleven we can't stop thinking about.

The Axe Murder House

The Villisca Axe Murder House in Villisca, Iowa is a well-known tourist attraction for ghost hunters and horror lovers alike. The site of a gruesome unsolved 1912 murder, in which six children and two adults had their skulls completely crushed by the axe of an unknown perpetrator, was purchased in 1994, restored to its 1912 condition, and converted into a tourist destination. It costs $428 a night to stay at the old haunted home, where visitors always report strange paranormal experiences, such as visions of a man with an axe roaming the halls or the faint screams of children.
But in November of 2014, the haunting took a darker turn. Robert Steven Laursen Jr., 37, of Rhinelander, Wisconsin was on a regular recreational paranormal visit with friends when true horror struck. Per VICE:
His companions found him stabbed in the chest—an apparently self-inflicted wound—called 9-1-1, and Laursen was brought to a nearby hospital before being helicoptered to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said Laursen suffered the self-inflicted injury at about 12:45 a.m., which is around the same time the 1912 axe murders in the house began.
Laursen recovered from his injuries, but has never spoken publicly about what occurred that day. For Martha Linn, the owner of the home, the incident was very upsetting. "It's publicity, but it's not exactly the kind of publicity you desire to have. I don't want people thinking that when they come to the Villisca Axe Murder House something's going to happen that's going to make them do something like that.” The house remains open for tourist visits and overnight stays today.
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The Haunted Doll

When you think of haunted dolls, it’s likely the creepy old Victorian-looking porcelain kind that springs to mind. None of which you probably have laying around. Still, don’t get too comfortable around any kids toys too soon, though: a Disney’s Frozen Elsa doll that was gifted for Christmas 2013 in the Houston area made headlines earlier this year when it seemingly became haunted.
Per KPRC2 Houston News:
The doll recited phrases from the movie Frozen and sang “Let It Go” when a button on its necklace was pressed.
“For two years it did that in English,” mother Emily Madonia said. “In 2015, it started doing it alternating between Spanish and English. There wasn’t a button that changed these, it was just random."
The family has owned the doll for more than six years and never changed its batteries. The mother says the doll would randomly begin to speak and sing even with its switch turned off.
The family decided to throw the creepy doll out in December of 2019. Weeks later, they found it inside a bench in their living room. “The kids insisted they didn’t put it there, and I believed them because they wouldn’t have dug through the garbage outside,” Madonia told KPRC2 Houston News.

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At that point, Elsa ceased to sing the English rendition of “Let It Go” altogether, speaking only Spanish when pressed. The family then double-bagged the bizarre doll and placed it at the bottom of their garbage which was taken out on garbage day. They went on a trip shortly after, but when they returned, Elsa too had come back, and was waiting in the backyard of their home.
This time, the family mailed Elsa to a family friend in Minnesota, who taped the haunted doll to the front bumper of his truck. It doesn’t seem to have made its way back to Houston yet, as per Madonia’s latest February Facebook update on the creepy doll.

A Deadly Exorcism

In August 2016 in North London, 26-year-old Kennedy Ife began acting strange and aggressive following a pain in his throat. He reportedly bit his father, threatened to cut off his own penis, and complained of a python or snake inside of him before his family restrained him to a bed with cable ties and excessive force.
As the BBC reported:
“The family then set about attempting to ‘cure’ Kennedy through restraint and prayer over the next three days, the court was told.”
His brother, Colin Ife, told police:
“It’s clear that thing was in him, what we believed was a demon because it was not natural. It was clearly trying to kill him,” he said.
“We had to restrain him for himself. It was clear if we didn’t restrain him, he could have tried to harm people in our family.”
Kennedy Ife had been bound to his bed for three days without medical attention when his brother called emergency services, explaining that Kennedy Ife was complaining of dehydration. He appeared to have developed breathing issues, and was pronounced dead at 10:17 a.m.
As The Independent reported:
While police were at the house Colin Ife allegedly carried out an “attempted resurrection” by chanting and praying for Mr. Ife.
All seven of Kennedy Ife’s family members were accused of manslaughter, false imprisonment, and causing or allowing the death of a vulnerable adult. A post-mortem examination revealed over 60 wounds including a possible bite on Kennedy Ife’s body, and his father, Kenneth Ife, along with four of his brothers, sustained injuries as well.
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The BBC reported:
Kenneth Ife told jurors he ordered his sons to take shifts and use "overwhelming force" but denied that an "association with cults, occults and secret societies" played any part in the death.
After a four day jury deliberation, all seven family members were cleared of charges on March 14, 2019.
📷Witches prepare themselves for a journey by broomstick to the Black Mountain, circa 1650. From a 17th century Dutch copperplate by Adrianus Hubertus.Hulton Archive

Dead Animals in the Walls

When the Bretzuis family decided to insulate their home in Auburn, Pennsylvania in 2015, they discovered that it had already been—with scores of dead animal carcasses.
As Fox reported:
The dead animals were wrapped in newspapers from the 1930s and 40s and were among half-used spices, and other items.
After removing the items they sent hundreds of artifacts and carcasses to an expert in Kutztown.
The expert attributed the rotting animals in their walls to Pow-wow or Dutch magic, a ritual originating in the culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch to treat ailments and gain physical and spiritual protection. The Pennsylvania Dutch were a group of German-speaking settlers to Pennsylvania in the 1600 and 1700’s, and are often of Lutheran, Mennonite, or Amish faiths.
The Washington Post notes on the magic:
Many of the spells deal with the care of livestock, finding water, or the treatment of minor ailments, reflecting the conditions and concerns of early American settlers.
But powwow also has within it a tradition of darker spells, and even of such things as conjuring demons.
One notable ritual in their tradition is this hex to create loyalty in a dog:
To attach a dog to a person, provided nothing else was used before to effect it: Try to draw some of your blood, and let the dog eat it along with his food, and he will stay with you.
The mold found on the rotting carcasses in the Bretzuis home has caused illness among the family members, and they say that the odor hasn’t gone away.
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Florida Devil Worshipping

Friends noticed that Danielle Harkins, a 35-year-old schoolteacher near St. Petersburg, Florida, started acting strangely in June of 2012, developing an interest in demonic rituals.
Soon after, she was arrested for abuse of seven of her former students, as the Tampa Bay Times reported:
Danielle Harkins told the kids they needed to rid their bodies of demons as the group gathered before dusk Saturday around a small fire near the St. Petersburg Pier. They should cut their skin to let the evil spirits out, police said she told the children. Then, they needed to burn the wounds to ensure that those spirits would not return.
When Harkins held a lighter to one teen's hand, wind blew the flame out, police said. That prompted her to douse his hand in perfume before setting it on fire. The boy suffered second-degree burns, police said.
Another teen was cut on the neck with a broken bottle, police said. Harkins used a flame to heat a small key, which she then used to cauterize the wound.
The police were notified because a friend of one of the students who participated in the ritual raised alarms. However none of the students themselves told their parents about the event or would comment following the arrest of Harkins for aggravated battery and child abuse.
NBC reported:
Investigators said they've spoken to Harkins, but she didn't spell out what type of religion would require such drastic measures.
"She hasn't informed us exactly what she was trying to accomplish with this," Puetz [of the St. Petersburg Police Department] said.

The Death of Elisa Lam

Elisa Lam was last seen on January 31, 2013 in the lobby of the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. She was vacationing through the West Coast, documenting the trip on her blog, and checking in with her parents every day. On January 31 those calls stopped. Lam had vanished. Soon the police were involved and her parents arrived to help with the search.
They had nothing. That February, LAPD released elevator surveillance footage of Lam before her disappearance. The footage shows Lam behaving strangely in the elevator, appearing to talk with invisible people, peering around the corner of the door, crouching in the corner, and opening and closing the door. But what exactly is going on in this video raises more questions than answers. Theories range from psychotic episodes, to demonic possession, to unknown assailants just out of the camera's view:
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Around that time, hotel guests started reported weird things happening with the Cecil Hotel water supply. As CNN reports:
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"The shower was awful," said Sabina Baugh, who spent eight days there during the investigation. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."The tap water "tasted horrible," Baugh said. "It had a very funny, sweety, disgusting taste. It's a very strange taste. I can barely describe it."But for a week, they never complained. "We never thought anything of it," she said. "We thought it was just the way it was here."
On the morning of February 19, a hotel employee climbed to the roof and used a ladder to investigate the hotel's water storage tanks. That's where authorities found the decomposing, naked body of Lam, whose personal items were found nearby. After an autopsy, her death was labeled accidental. NBC Los Angeles reported at the time about the strange circumstances in the hotel's past:
The tank has a metal latch that can be opened, but authorities said access to the roof is secured with an alarm and lock.The single-room-occupancy hotel has an unusual history. "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez, who was found guilty of 14 slayings in the 1980s, lived on the 14th floor for several months in 1985. And international serial killer Jack Unterweger is suspected of murdering three prostitutes during the time he lived there in 1991. He killed himself in jail in 1994.In 1962, a female occupant jumped out of one the hotel's windows, killing herself and a pedestrian on whom she landed.
In February 2021, a Netflix doc called Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel explored Elisa's tragic case and the history of the "cursed" Cecil Hotel.

An Exorcism in Indianapolis

Last year, the Indianapolis Star published a lengthy report on a family terrorized by three children allegedly possessed by demons. The account of Latoya Ammons and her family tells disturbing stories of children climbing up the walls, getting thrown across rooms, and children threatening doctors in deep unnatural voices. It would seem like something straight out of a movie–a work of fantasy, except all of these accounts were more or less corroborated with "nearly 800 pages of official records obtained by the Indianapolis Star and recounted in more than a dozen interviews with police, DCS personnel, psychologists, family members and a Catholic priest."
One of the more chilling sections of the report includes a segment about the possessed 9-year-old:
According to Washington's original DCS report—an account corroborated by Walker, the nurse—the 9-year-old had a "weird grin" and walked backward up a wall to the ceiling. He then flipped over Campbell, landing on his feet. He never let go of his grandmother's hand.
Another segment of the piece reads:
The 12-year-old would later tell mental health professionals that she sometimes felt as if she were being choked and held down so she couldn't speak or move. She said she heard a voice say she'd never see her family again and wouldn't live another 20 minutes.
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Utah Murder-Suicide

In September of 2014, a Utah teen returned to his home to find his parents and three siblings dead. "In a notebook, a 'to-do list' had been scribbled on the pages ... The list looked as if the parents were readying to go on vacation—items such as 'feed the pets' and 'find someone to watch after the house' were written," The Salt Lake Tribune reported. It appeared to be murder-suicide, but there was no suicide note, no prior indication that they would do this, no explanation. Police could not figure out why two parents would kill themselves and three of their four children.
For a year, no one knew exactly what happened to the family, or what would drive the parents to do something so unthinkable. In January, police released more chilling details in the case. According to accounts from family members and an investigation by police, the parents were driven by a belief that the apocalypse was coming and an obsession with a convicted killer. As the Washington Post reported:
Friends and family told police that the parents were worried about the "evil in the world" and wanted to escape a "pending apocalypse." But most assumed they just wanted to move somewhere "off the grid." Investigators also found letters written by Kristi Strack to one of the state's most infamous convicted killers, Dan Lafferty, who was convicted in the 1984 fatal stabbing of his sister-in-law and her 1-year-old daughter. According to trial testimony, he killed the victims at the order of his brother, Ron Lafferty, who claimed to have had a revelation from God. The story became a book called "Under the Banner of Heaven."Police said Kristi Strack became friends with Dan Lafferty, and she and her husband even visited him in prison.

The Phone Stalker

In 2007, ABC news documented a series of cell phone calls to families with terrifyingly specific death threats. The unidentified callers knew exactly what families were doing and what they were wearing.
The families say the calls come in at all hours of the night, threatening to kill their children, their pets and grandparents. Voice mails arrive, playing recordings of their private conversations, including one with a local police detective.The caller knows, the families said, what they're wearing and what they're doing. And after months of investigating, police seem powerless to stop them.
This went on with the Kuykenall family for months, who reported a caller with a scratchy voice threatening to slit their throats.
When the Fircrest, Wash., police tried to find the culprit, the calls were traced back to the Kuykendalls' own phones -- even when they were turned off.It got worse. The Kuykendalls and two other Fircrest families told ABC News that they believe the callers are using their cell phones to spy on them. They say the hackers know their every move: where they are, what they're doing and what they're wearing. The callers have recorded private conversations, the families and police said, including a meeting with a local detective.

"The Watcher"

After moving into their $1.3 million dream home, a New Jersey family started receiving creepy death threats from someone who identified themselves as "The Watcher." As CBS News reported earlier this year:
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Since moving in, the owners said they have received numerous letters from the mysterious person. "The Watcher" claimed the home "has been the subject of my family for decades," and "I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming," Castro reported.The new owners have several children, and other letters asked, "Have they found out what's in the walls yet?" and "I am pleased to know your names now, and the name of the young blood you have brought to me."
The family was forced to flee from their home and later filed a lawsuit against the previous owners.

Issei the Cannibal

In 1974, 24-year-old Wako University student Issei Sagawa allegedly followed a German woman to her home in Tokyo, Japan, broke into her apartment while she was sleeping, and attempted to cut a piece of flesh off her body to consume. When she awoke, she reportedly fought him and he was later captured by the police. According to a 2012 Vice documentary that covered Issei's bizarre story, he was mistakenly charged with attempted rape and his wealthy father paid the victim a settlement outside of court to have the charges dropped.
Seven years later, in 1981, he allegedly committed a murder in France—shooting and eating a fellow University student, Renée Hartevelt. Issei creepily documented the entire experience with photographs and he was captured by authorities once again while attempting to dump the rest of her body in the Bois de Boulogne lake. He was deported back to Japan and committed to a mental institution. For reason unknown, his psychologists in Japan declared that he was sane. Furthermore, a legal technicality involving the French government refusing to turn over the documents from his case meant that his murder charges were dropped completely. He checked himself out of the mental hospital and has reportedly been walking the streets as a free man ever since. Issei has even become a controversial celebrity, writing over 20 books. According to Japan Today, he most recently fantasized about an unnamed TV actress, saying:
"I'll catch a glimpse of her thigh and think, 'That sure looks tasty.' But I don't feel like I actually want to eat it. As I accomplished the act of cannibalism once, there's no meaning to maintaining the desire for it anymore. In my book, I wrote that it [human flesh] was tasty, but that was not really true; I'd much rather eat Matsuzaka (Kobe) beef. But because I'd desired to consume human flesh for so long, I'd managed to convince myself that it would necessarily be delicious."
Issei Sagawa was also referenced in the Rolling Stones song "Too Much Blood," with the lyrics reading: "And when he ate her he took her bones/To the Bois de Boulogne." He is currently 73 years old and continues to live in Kawaski City, Japan. To this day, no one knows why France did not allow Japan to give him a trial.
📷MATT MILLER
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