NEMESIS 2: Chapter 41
Steven
"There was no sign of the item you described at the residence" Doombot 0028 said on the other end of the call. "I believe The Office acquired the time machine during the initial assault."
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. If The Office had the time machine, then it was only a matter of time until they deciphered how it worked. After that, it was a different kind of 'matter of time'. A much more permanent one.
"What are our orders, sir?" Doombot 0028 asked, breaking the silence.
"Search the area for any clues" I said, "then return to base. We'll-"
The lights in my office went out at the same time that the line went dead. In one smooth motion, I dropped the phone and drew my blaster. The eerie silence that followed offered no explanation for the power outage, but it did reveal that the backup generator had failed to kick in... or had been disabled.
Silently, I slipped around my desk and took up an offensive position on the door frame. If we were under attack, then we wouldn't stand a chance holding up and waiting to defend a position. By my count, I had four combat ready Doombots, around a dozen of Warden's refugees in frames with their training wheels still on, and thirty support minions on the premises. 28 had taken all of our combatant Doombots, and Doctor Doomsday had taken Magma Carter and Communist Manfred.
Shit.
A beam of light swept across the office door as someone passed by. I waited until the footsteps grew quiet, counted to five, and slid the door open. A Doombot's back greeted me a few meters down the hall.
"Status Report" I barked in a whisper at the robot.
The Doombot rotated its head without turning its upper body, confirming my identity and overall state. "We have lost power to the facility" it said without a hint of emotion, then resumed its patrol.
"Well, yeah, I figured that much" I grumbled. The Doombot ignored me and continued sweeping its flashlight through the dark corners of the Doomfort.
A scream echoed down the hall from the other direction. I turned and sprinted down the dark hallway, sacrificing safety for speed. Frightened faces peeked through windows and around doors as I flew towards the sound. Accountants, lawyers, logistics and supply chain officers, all non-combatants under my protection, and all I had was four Doombots and a blaster.
Why was I so bad at being bad? I should have realized that the Doomfort was still a target for multiple known enemies, and probably a few dozen more, all that would leap at the opportunity to take down one of the biggest names on the Supervillain circuit.
"Good evening, Steven!" A cheerful voice called from the shadows.
I lunged forward, transitioning into a combat roll in mid-air and rolling into an open doorway for cover. Once my eyes adjusted to the new level of darkness, I realized I had taken shelter in the lady's restroom.
"Tisk tisk, Steven" the cheerful voice called again, echoing eerily through the dark hallway. "There's no need for your theatrics, we only want to talk to you about-"
I flicked the dial on my blaster from 'über death' to 'kill', then down again to 'stun'. "If you wanted to talk, you could have called" I shouted back. It was true, Doctor Doomsday had taken out an ad a few years back to promote our recruitment figures. Our toll-free line and custom jingle had brought in quite a few fresh, eager minions into the Doomsquad.
"We actually did that first" the voice called out, "we got a message about your voicemail being full."
Oh.
"Regardless, we felt an in person meeting would be more professional" the voice continued, "to discuss an employment opportunity."
I fired several stun blasts down the hall, covering my own advance as I sprinted another few doors down the hallway. The blue tinged plasma illuminated as it flew, revealing several attackers crouched surprisingly close by. The closest unlucky bastard took my boot to his jaw, his head snapping back before he collapsed in a heap.
His friends opened fire, sending their own blue stun bolts at me. One struck my leg as I tried to roll away, instantly rendering it useless. It felt like the limb had just fallen asleep, and had the pins and needles tingle reaction of blood returning.
"There's a particular skill that you have, Steven." The voice chuckled again. "And we don't mean your power. We are in need of that unique skill at The Office".
I reloaded my blaster and tried to force my leg to work again. I had a sinking feeling that I knew what the madman was going to say next.
"We have acquired a piece of technology, and need someone to teach us how it works. I'm led to believe that you, and you alone, figured out how to use the time machine."
Yup, I was right.
"Well, tough shit" I yelled back down the hallway. "I'm not helping you."
The lights snapped back on, illuminating the room and the hallway beyond. "Oh Steven, we were not expecting you to volunteer." The cheerful voice teased.
I peeked around the doorframe, and froze.
Dozens of armed invaders stood along the hallway, each holding a Doomsquad minion at gunpoint. The terrified faces of so many non-combat personnel gripped my heart with an iron fist as I tried, and failed, to come up with a solution.
"We are prepared to offer you a contract" the man with the cheerful voice said.
It took me a moment to find him among the faceless goons, mostly because he wasn't actually present. A tablet screen held by a rather large invader showed the speaker on the other end of a video call. He grinned when I met his gaze, eye to eyepatch.
"Looks like you've seen better days" I said.
"Indeed. So have you" he replied, flexing his hands from the safety of wherever he was.
I reflexively stole a glance at my prosthetic hands, but didn't reply.
"You may have noticed that my soldiers here have no super powers" The Manager said, "so your dampening power won't have any affect. You're outnumbered by a factor of five, and we already captured the rest of your people here. If you accept our generous offer, I will assure you that no harm will come to your minions. If not..."
One of the attackers stepped forward, dragging a frightened young woman in a choke hold. The woman struggled against the man to no avail. With a stab of fear, I realized who she was.
"Tiffany here has-"
I threw my blaster into the hall and limped out, arms raised in surrender. "Don't hurt her. I surrender." I said. Gasps echoed in a chorus of shocked minions as I allowed the nearest attacker to zip tie my hands behind my back.
"Impressive" The Manager said, leaning back into his chair. "A villain that sacrifices himself for his people. Is there a word for that? Like an evil word for heroic..."
"Leave them all alone, and I come quietly" I said sternly. "Harm any of them, and I will personally remove your other eye, manager."
He chuckled. "I like you, Steven. Very well." He waved a dismissive hand at the screen, and the call ended.
The Office's soldiers kept their word, leading me out of the doomfort and releasing my minions. As I was shoved into the awaiting SUV, I tried to cushion my landing with my zip tied hands.
My right hand cooperated. My left did not.
I suppressed a smile as I was secured in place. My left finger began lightly tapping against my side, a series of touches and pauses that took me a moment to recognize as morse code. I concentrated on the message as it repeated, trying to translate it on the fly. The message turned out to be one word, repeated again and again.
"Howdy" the message said.

So the Perihelion has a ton of usability issues when trying to use it in CQC, and I'm not going to go into depth on all of them in this post.
But one big one, which will be exacerbated by the cap on how long a charge can be held, is the way it uses ammo.
Mechanically speaking, if you want to make a charge weapon interesting, the charge up should be a meaningful, tactical choice, where both uncharged and charged shots present different pros and cons.
The Perihelion suffers in this regard: the fully charged burst feels like the only way of firing the weapon that's worth it.
That's bad enough in itself, but this is worsened by the fact that it's a 3-round burst in a weapon that only has a 3-round mag.
Every time you don't fire a full burst it's bad, not just because the shot itself is less powerful, but you're now stuck with an incomplete mag that cannot achieve a full burst anymore until you've sat through the whole arduous reload (and THEN the charge up time on top of that.)
In any reasonable design of a charge up weapon with a time cap like this, you'd want the weapon - in case of surprise - to be able to fire an uncharged shot or two at a target that appeared out of nowhere as a first reaction, before settling into the rest of the combat. But currently with the Peri that means you're faced with a partial mag, incapable of a full burst, and the two bad choices of either immediately reloading, or trying to land another weak shot or two to empty the mag, delaying you even longer till you can have another burst.
The solution?
Heat-based ammo pool.
Make the delay proportional to the kind of shots fired.
If you shoot one un-charged shot from a heat-based ammo pool, you only need to wait 1/3rd of the full reload time to be at full capacity again.
This would make a 2-charge also an acceptable thing to throw into the mix, depending on how the combat is pacing out, instead of it being exclusively about the full charge and everything else feeling terrible.
Really, given how obsessed the devs have been about making heat-based ammo the Vanu Gimmick on small arms, it's a little surprising we haven't seen it yet on this type of weapon that would actually mechanically synergize with it, and we got "no bullet drop" on a tank cannon with 225 m/s muzzle velocity instead.
((EDIT: A way to cancel a charge would be swell too, obviously, but this suggestion should at least partially solve the same problems and seems much more achievable without adding an extra keybind to tanks just for cancelling a mechanic only a single gun on a single tank has))

Hello, I am currently learning to python with the book "Python for everybody". I have just done this excercise:
Exercise 5: Minimalist Email Client.MBOX (mail box) is a popular file format to store and share a collection of emails. This was used by early email servers and desktop apps. Without getting into too many details, MBOX is a text file, whichstores emails consecutively. Emails are separated by a special line which starts with From (notice the space). Importantly, lines starting with From: (notice the colon) describes the email itself and does not act as a separator. Imagine you wrote a minimalist email app, that lists the email of the senders in the user’s Inbox and counts the number of emails. Write a program to read through the mail box data and when you find line that starts with “From”, you will split the line into words using the split function. We are interested in who sent the message, which is the second word on the From line.
From [email protected] Sat Jan 5 09:14:16 2008
You will parse the From line and print out the second word for each From line, then you will also count the number of From (not From:) lines and print out a count at the end. This is a good sample outputwith a few lines removed
:python fromcount.py
Enter a file name: mbox-short.txt
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[...some output removed...
][email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
There were 27 lines in the file with From as the first word
This is my code:
fhand = open(input('Please enter a file name: ')) count = 0 for line in fhand : if line.startswith('From ') : count += 1 line.rstrip() print(line.split(' ')[1]) print('There were', count, 'lines in the file with From as the first word')
I get a correct output, though, this excercise is at the end of a chapter Lists and, as far as I understand, my code does not create any(?). Could you suggest how to rewrite it using a list (for me to better understand the list/string methods).

(Disclaimer: Still cutting down that word count! I've also now added the first 300 words, as someone expressed an interest in reading.)
Dear —,
I am submitting RED SKIES for your consideration, a low fantasy novel for those who enjoyed the journey of self-discovery in Adrienne Young’s FABLE and the enemies-to-allies dynamic in Margaret Rogerson’s SORCERY OF THORNS.
Nineteen-year-old Jayne Wilder has more reason than most to hate pirates.
Since losing her mother to their savagery as a child, Jayne nurtures a single ambition: complete her training in the Ministerial Air Force, become a great skyship captain like her mother before her, and find those responsible for her death.
Cale Donovan and his crew are feared by many, terrorising the skies aboard their infamous ship, the Red Lady. When Donovan is finally captured, Jayne finds herself unwittingly used to aid in his escape. Labelled as an enemy of her own Ministry and forced to coexist with her captors if she wants to survive, she is confronted with harrowing truths about her mother’s past. Long-kept secrets come to light, tentative friendships bloom, and the world of skyship piracy proves as thrilling as it is dangerous.
With the Ministry closing in on the crew, Jayne is forced to reevaluate where she truly belongs—and who she can trust. To prove her loyalty once and for all, she can give Donovan up to the Ministry. But to expose the terrible acts committed by her former allies, she can choose to fight alongside him. Even if it means becoming the very thing she once swore to destroy.
RED SKIES is complete at — words and functions as a standalone with series potential. It will appeal to upper YA readers and adults. [Agent personalisation].
As per your submission guidelines, I have included the first — pages and a detailed synopsis below.
I live in the UK with my husband, cat and mischievous cocker spaniel. By day I work in content marketing, and by night I tap away at my keyboard writing stories—if the cat isn’t already sitting on it.
Thank you for your time and consideration!
Sincerely,
[Name]
~
FIRST 300:
Cale Donovan is captured.
They were just words. Words alone should not have shifted the very ground beneath Jayne’s feet, but the whole room suddenly felt as if it had been uprooted from the earth. The world tilted out of alignment.
Stunned silence fell over the training hall. It was usually full of clamour—sounds of sparring and bellowed orders—but now it echoed like a tomb. For a breathless moment Jayne and her fellow recruits were struck dumb, like statues in pristine navy-blue and white. A heartbeat passed.
Then came the outbursts of disbelief. A growing wave of excitement rose within the hall. Recruits turned to one another in a flurry of whispers, and Captain Reid deigned to repeat herself.
“Cale Donovan is captured.” The noise settled. “As of approximately eighteen-hundred hours yesterday evening, Donovan was successfully intercepted by Ministry forces in eastern Cistal. His vessel, the skyship known as the Red Lady, was not present at the scene of capture. The ship and crew onboard are still at large, as of my most recent report.”
Above them on the stage, Reid’s blonde head shone golden beneath the frosted windows. Behind her, an entire line of high-ranking Ministerial Air Force personnel stood at attention. She was not the most senior officer present, but right then Reid could have been Saint Mercy herself. They hung on her every word.
“Donovan has been taken into MAF custody. He is currently being held under confinement by the Justice Order, and will be transferred shortly to City Gaol until the Ministerium agree upon further action.”
The crowd tittered. Jayne felt Tomas lean towards her. “D’you believe this?” he whispered excitedly in her ear. “They actually…I mean, they actually got him!”
“How?” she said, eyes fixed upon the stage. “They haven’t even said how.”
~
I had some super useful feedback on my first attempt, and I think I've tweaked things accordingly, but no doubt there is more to be done. Hopefully the PubTips community can come to my rescue once again!
Thank you. :)

STUDIES ON HUMOR IN THE ZHUANGZI
In one of the now classic studies on humor in ancient China, David R. Knechtges (1970–1971, 80) summarizes what may have been at the time a widespread scholarly view about a relative lack of humor in ancient Chinese texts: “It has been observed more than once that humor does not occupy a prominent place in traditional Chinese literature.” Toward the end of his essay, Knechtges concludes that, while indeed some humorous texts or passages can be identified in ancient China, “most of early Chinese humor is essentially didactic and moralistic” (95). In comparison with this rather unexciting estimation, Knechtges’s view on the Zhuangzi is quite remarkable: he writes that this “entire work is made up of a series of incongruities strung together in the aimless manner of sustained humor” (97). It seems that Knechtges felt slightly uncomfortable with conceding such a dissonance between the strikingly humoristic features of the Zhuangzi and the “essentially didactic and moralistic” humor anywhere else in ancient China, so he thought it better to surmise cautiously that Zhuangzi was probably just a madman with a “fondness for the bizarre and unconventional,” whose humor was “unintentional” and a mere “by-product” of a strange imagination (97).
Knechtges was by no means the first to ascribe exceptionality to the Zhuangzi as a humoristic work in ancient China. In 1932, Lin Yutang published an influential essay called “On Humor” (Lun youmo 論幽默) in which he commended the spiritual merits of humor in the world in general and China in particular. He identified various humorous traditions in ancient China and labeled Daoism (mostly referring to Laozi and Zhuangzi) as the “humorous faction” in the history of Chinese thought, as opposed to the “orthodox faction” of Confucianism (Sample 2011, 174; see also Liu Jianmei 2016, 106–11). Among the Daoists, he singled out Zhuangzi as “the father of Chinese humor” (Sample 2011, 173). He thereby seems to have set the tone for similar judgments, such as a more recent one by Xiao Dong Yue (2010, 403), who states that Zhuangzi “is recognized as the very first humorist in China.” As a rule, most contemporary interpreters of the Zhuangzi grant that it is an often witty text that uses humor among many other literary tools. Eske Møllgard (2007, 6), for instance, affirms that the Zhuangzi “employs prose poems, fables, satire, song, fictitious dialogue, spiritual exercise, didactic verse, aphorisms, and a number of literary genres we have still not identified and understood.”
While statements of this kind abound in the literature—both academic and popular—devoted to the Zhuangzi, in-depth studies on its use of humor as either a literary or a philosophical device are more difficult to find. Nonetheless, one attempt to assess the philosophical function of humor in the Zhuangzi was made by Erik Schwitzgebel (1996). According to Schwitzgebel, humor in the Zhuangzi has the therapeutic function of making its readers capable of taking truth claims or assertions of facts less seriously and thus allows them to adopt a more flexible attitude toward pronouncements in language. He says that Zhuangzi simply “would like to see us take what people have to say less seriously” so that we are “willing to play around with it in a disrespectful way for humorous or other ends” (70–71). We sympathize with this view, particularly since it echoes our point that its similarity to play is a philosophically relevant aspect of humor, but also because it resonates with our claim that humor dissolves moral seriousness and empties out meaning. Perhaps the most comprehensive attempt to analyze humor in the Zhuangzi from a literary studies perspective has been presented by Youru Wang (2003). In Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism: The Other Way of Speaking, Wang adopts a deconstructionist perspective and deals specifically with “denegation” (i.e., negating and self-negating language such as the “negation of all polarities and double negation” [153]), paradox, and irony in the Zhuangzi, all of which he ties to the Zhuangzi’s self-ascribed use of the much-discussed “goblet words” (zhi yan卮言; for interesting discussions of this elusive term, see Wang Bo 2004; Fried 2007; Morrow 2016).3 According to Youru Wang (2003, 153), “the Zhuangzian denegation disagrees with the Derridean interpretation of denegation.… This Derridean interpretation still falls into a negation privileged over affirmation. Zhuangzi does not privilege negativity over positivity.” Instead, Wang believes that denegation as found in the Zhuangzi expresses a playful toying with the relation between language and the ineffable, while uses of paradox illustrate “the dynamic convergence of various opposites.” He thus links humorous rhetorical techniques to philosophical interpretations of the indirect “strategies of communication” (see Kupperman 1989) and “antirationalism” (see Carr and Ivanhoe 2000) found in the Zhuangzi. Wang (2003, 158) concludes, “When the use of denegation or paradox brings about self-negation or self-contradiction in an unanticipated manner, especially when it occurs in a form of self-mockery or self-ridicule, it involves irony.” In short, for Wang, irony emerges as the major humoristic device in the Zhuangzi and, philosophically speaking, it “calls into serious question any logocentric or metaphysical closure in a frivolous or humorous way” (159). Lee Yearley (2005) has also presented some ideas on “Zhuangzi’s kinds of language” and, like Youru Wang, combines a literary analysis with philosophically relevant conclusions. Unlike Wang, though, he does not use a deconstructionist conceptual framework. His intention is to interpret Zhuangzi as a religious ethicist who uses “literary devices like satire or parody” (516; another interpretation of Zhuangzi as a religious ethicist is presented in Lee 2014) to convey a spiritual message and to call for moral self-reflection. According to Yearley (2005, 516), these humorous devices in the Zhuangzi are intended to provoke “hermeneutical crises that have spiritual implications” for readers so that they will eventually be forced to “evaluate their own spiritual maturity.”
From a different philosophical perspective, James D. Sellmann (1998, 165) ascribes a transformative “mystical” meaning to humorous language in the Zhuangzi. He affirms that “storytelling, irony, jokes, even a simple pun—all of the elements that make up comedy, laughter, and forgetting … are the literary devices employed in the Zhuangzi.” Influenced by Kuang-ming Wu’s (1990) approach to the Zhuangzi and partially reminiscent of Robert E. Allinson’s (1989) reading of the text as a guide for “spiritual transformation,” Sellmann further argues that through such devices the Zhuangzi shows “how one must awaken to ‘transformation’ and ‘humor’ by beginning to live the life that affirms one’s own personal mutation” (172).
With fewer philosophical (but more historical and philological) ambitions than Wang, Yearley, or Sellmann, Shirley Chan (2011) has made an attempt at “identifying Daoist humor.” While her specific focus is on the Liezi列子, much of what she says is also applicable to the Zhuangzi, since several of the textual examples she discusses appear in both texts. Chan, too, pays attention to specific literary devices and points to “metaphor, exaggeration, hyperbole and reductio ad absurdum” (87). Interestingly, she connects both the Liezi and the Zhuangzi with the ancient Chinese category of “huaji-ists,” or “humorists,” who, as Knechtges (1970–1971, 82) remarks, “were considered important enough for Sima Qian to compile a monograph on them in his Records of the Historian [Shiji史記].” They were “jesters at the courts of the Warring States kings and Han emperors” (83) and spoke “wittily and relevantly to persuade their lords to accept their advice” (Shirley Chan 2011, 75). Knechtges (1970–1971, 83) states that huaji滑稽 “in the early period meant something like a ‘smooth talker.’ ” The term’s connotations were not necessarily positive, and so it makes sense that Chan reads the expression huaji猾稽 as huaji滑稽, or “humorists,” in an interesting statement made in the Shiji’s biography of Xunzi 荀子. In Chan’s reading, this statement has Xunzi dismissing Zhuangzi as someone “who attacked Confucian social conventions by being a humorist” (huaji luan su滑稽亂俗 [Chan 2011, 232n11; see Shiji 74.11]).
The anti-Confucian trajectory of many of the humoristic passages in the Zhuangzi is discussed in further detail in a more recent essay by Katrin Froese (2014). Froese notes that Confucius is not only sympathetically depicted as a spokesperson for Daoism at times but also ambiguously “at the receiving end of so much biting satire” in the Zhuangzi (310). Although Froese does not explicitly refer to Henri Bergson—whose interesting but unfortunately now-ignored theory of humor assumes that laughter results from perceiving something human as nonhuman, as mechanistic or lifeless (Bergson 1924)—she identifies the function of anti-Confucian humor in the Zhuangzi very much in Bergsonian terms. According to her, the Zhuangzi mocks the at times “mechanist” Confucian attitude to ritual. She writes, “For the Daoist, ritual, when held up against the spontaneous and yet harmonious movement of nature, will always be comic because it is mechanistic, artificial, and forced” (Froese 2014, 210). In the context of a collaborative comparative study on Kierkegaard and Zhuangzi (Carr and Ivanhoe 2000), P. J. Ivanhoe has discussed humor in the Zhuangzi by testing the text against the humor theory of D. H. Monro (1963), which preceded the present standard accounts by Morreall and others. Ivanhoe “ticks all the boxes” and attests that the Zhuangzi contains forms of humor that are compatible with any theory tracing humor back to “feelings of superiority, incongruity, ambivalence, or relief from inhibition or restraint” (Carr and Ivanhoe 2000, 136). Besides proving the Zhuangzi’s humorous versatility and its capacity to live up to contemporary humor theories, Ivanhoe is particularly keen on defending Zhuangzi against any accusations of using humor in a morally suspicious way. For this purpose he suggests a strict distinction between the good-humored, authentic Zhuangzi who speaks in the Inner Chapters and the inauthentic falsifiers of him present in the Outer Chapters. He believes that “it is not too strong a claim to say that sections of the text that criticize Kongzi [Confucius] himself in a severe and malicious way are immediately suspect as the work of late pretenders to Zhuangzi’s mantle.” He specifically points to “the ‘Robber Zhi’ chapter,” which he takes to “have been confidently identified as of rather late origin” (11). In the same vein, he categorically states that “one does not find the mocking humor of the assassin in the authentic parts of the text” (138).
Ivanhoe establishes a stark moral contrast between the mild, ethically instructive, and restricted humor of the genuine Zhuangzi on the one hand and, on the other, the “malicious” “humor of the assassin” of the “pretenders to Zhuangzi’s mantle.” Apparently he assumes that there is a kind of “devil in disguise” hidden in some parts of the book and thinks that the conscientious reader should beware of it. Perhaps Ivanhoe’s drastic good/evil and authentic/inauthentic distinction is due to an influence of the long history of the moralistic “traditional rejection of humor” documented by Morreall (2009). Ivanhoe’s distinction between good and evil humor in the Zhuangzi echoes the “moral fear” that has haunted philosophical and religious condemnations of humor for centuries in both East and West. It is therefore not surprising that it resurfaces in some of the literature on humor, including literature on the humor of the Zhuangzi. Accordingly, Ivanhoe is not the only one to judge Zhuangzi’s humor morally; other authors, too, make an effort to identify an ethically clean humor in the Zhuangzi that is free from immoral or harmful traits. Lee Yearley (2005, 516), for example, writes, “Zhuangzi’s humor rarely, however, just distances in a way that allows us to feel superior.” Youru Wang (2003, 158) finds (inoffensive) irony in the Zhuangzi but not (offensive) sarcasm, saying that irony “differs from sarcasm, because sarcasm laughs at the hearer.” Lin Yutang points out that Daoists “could have become cynical and disgusted with the world, but by arriving at cynicism and disgust, they would have lost an essential element of true humor” (Sample 2011, 175).
Unlike some of the authors quoted in the preceding, but in line with newer humor theories, we reject the traditional superiority perspective on humor that tends to find unchecked laughter morally suspicious. In our opinion, the ascription of such ethically negative attributes to humor results from a moralistic prejudice against humor. We intend to argue instead from an amoral perspective beyond good and evil that looks at humor as being, among many other things, a way to escape moral fear and not as a dangerous rhetorical device that, if not properly reined in and cleansed, will serve to assert one’s superiority over others. We have therefore made our preceding sketch of several characteristics of a Daoist theory of humor in response to a not uncommon impression among readers of the Zhuangzi addressed by Brook Ziporyn (2009, viii): “Profound comedians have always been hard to come by; funny philosophers perhaps even more so. To enter into this work attributed to Zhuangzi is to find oneself roused and enraptured by its intellectual and spiritual depth, but also by its provocative humor.” What we intend to do is make sense of the provocative humor of the Zhuangzi within a philosophical framework. This framework looks at Daoist humor, on the one hand, as a subversive reaction to the impossible existential demands of an ethical regime of sincerity and, on the other hand, as a way of experiencing the playful pleasure, effortless skillfulness, and childlike sanity of a genuine pretender.
From: TOWARD A DAOIST THEORY OF HUMOR
Book: HANS-GEORG MOELLER & PAUL J. D’AMBROSIO GENUINE PRETENDING ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ZHUANGZI COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS New York

Legion of the Eternal Empire (LEE)
370M+ GP
FARMING CHALLENGE RANCOR (Completed)
18:30 PST / 21:30 EST / 02:30 GMT Guild Reset
REQUIREMENTS:
6.5M+ GP
2 GL
Executor or Profundity
Good Mods/Mod Score. Actively Farming and Improving Mods (Prefer: ~200 or more +10 speed mods)
500 Tickets Daily minimum (prefer 600)
Active Discord Use (mandatory for guild events)
Synced and Public swgoh.gg account
Active Daily in ALL Guild Events
Willing to work to achieve conquest box 4
Guided Farming if you fall behind guild objectives
RotE: 26 ⭐️, 2 Reva Shards - Geo LS: 26 ⭐️, 29 KAM Shards
We Use EchoBot for Platoon Assignments.
We Use HotUtils/HotBot for tracking tickets, guild event participation, and reminders.
TW: 90%+ Win Record. Adaptive strategy depending on our opponent and team readiness.
We have dedicated Discord channels for TB, TW, CPIT, and Bots for members to use.
RAIDS:
All-Heroic Raids on farm (or simmed) - Rotated with 24 Hour Join Period.
HPIT and HAAT simmed - launched 30 mins after guild tickets reset time:
19:00 PST / 22:00 EST / 03:00 GMT
HSTR Rotating raid launch times:
05:00 PST / 08:00 EST / 13:00 GMT
10:00 PST / 13:00 EST / 18:00 GMT
17:00 PST / 20:00 EST / 01:00 GMT
CPIT (Challenge Rancor) raid launch time:
10:00 PST / 13:00 EST / 18:00 GMT
HOW TO JOIN US: Please come to our Discord server and an officer will help you! We want EVERYONE to succeed and are constantly looking to improve on what we're doing to help all within our collective of 8 independently run guilds. We are an established guild with active players who are looking for like-minded, common-sense individuals to join us for the growth and benefit of all!
Legion of the Eternal Empire - DISCORD: https://discord.gg/S4j4ceuYDH
Legion of the Eternal Empire - SWGOHGG: https://swgoh.gg/g/nZu5aA50TVusQFfMqjYNEA/

No eatingslimekinetic sandmagnetic ballsstop motion cookingnoisy reaction/comedymarbles<2 minuteanimatedchiropractic

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656941	benio店長 / ASMR屋さん	ASMR｜最悪なギャル店員のメイクサロンロールプレイ💄(地声)
592297	Myaling ASMR	ASMR Royal Wedding Makeup & Styling👑
517028	Okayu Ch. 猫又おかゆ	【ASMR】眠るための配信。 耳かき/吐息/囁き/マッサージ…KU-100 Ear Cleaning【猫又おかゆ/ホロライブ】
444247	Luxon Bushcraft	3 Days Bushcraft Winter Camping in Rain and Snow-Survival Skills, Campfire Cooking, ASMR
402887	Lowe ASMR	АСМР на Русском | Положительные Аффирмации & Триггерные Слова | ASMR in Russian
359750	강유미 yumi kang좋아서 하는 채널	[ASMR] 시장 바닥 에스테틱
342322	Noel Ch. 白銀ノエル	【ASMR】良く眠れる極上シャンプー💤イベント前に癒し＆綺麗にしてあげる🛀【白銀ノエル/ホロライブ】
340055	FrivolousFox ASMR	Perfect Breathy, But Crispy Whispers (ASMR)
339208	ASMR Glow	Viking ASMR: Convince her to marry you
336679	beebee asmr	Sleepy ASMR | Collarbone Tapping/Brushing, Personal Attention, Mouth Sounds, Fast Hand Sounds
334819	Gibi ASMR	ASMR Triplets | Binaural Ear Layered Triggers for sleep ~
321302	Moonlight Cottage ASMR	Let's Make Tea Blends | ASMR cozy basics (tea brewing & tasting, wood & glass sounds, soft spoken)
314681	Gentle Whispering ASMR	Let these Whisper Echoes wash over you // Melt away any stress // ASMR
301937	Tingting ASMR	ASMR Traditional Chinese Ear Cleaning
295587	TOKYO ASMR MASSAGE	ASMR💈ととのう理容室。ヘアカットとヘッドスパマッサージでリフレッシュ！
286521	Luna Bloom ASMR	My First ASMR Video (roleplay)
285098	ASMR KittyKlaw	АСМР [RP] Парикмахер 💇 Стрижка волос, Шампунь, Массаж ✂ ASMR Hairdresser, haircut, massage
277053	FrivolousFox ASMR	The 4 BEST Mouth Sound Triggers (ASMR)
272303	ASMR Anil Çakmak	SLEEP Happy With Asmr Sleep Massage | Laughing Roleplay
270574	Luna Bloom ASMR	ASMR Follow My Instructions For Sleep in Spanish + English 🌎💋✨
264779	ASMR Glow	ASMR Most Relaxing Cranial Nerve Exam 💤
263334	SRP ASMR	ASMR: Further Investigating your Personality
260946	Ale ASMR	asmr SPIT PAINTING muy INTENSO + Mouth Sounds Ale ASMR español (:
259526	Nanou ASMR	ASMR - FaceTiming with You!
253704	beebee asmr	Visual ASMR | Fast & Aggressive Upclose Mouth Sounds & Hand Movements
252831	Amouranth ASMR	TICKLING YOUR TINGLES ASMR
249374	Timur Doctorov Live	ASMR Strong ayurvedic neck and head massage by Bharti
244680	Mare Ch. なぃとめあ-耳舐めおばけ-	【ASMKU100】ぐっぽり絡み付くベロでイイトコロを甜めまわし♡ なめはむ/マッサージ/Vtube힐링/掏耳朵【ベロペロディープ】
241951	Jojo's ASMR	⚠️ DON'T Watch this ASMR | Look at the Comment Section!
238291	FredsVoice ASMR	[ASMR] Luxury First Class Plane✈️Cut Throat Razor Shave🪒💈
234378	Maya Winky ASMR	ASMR~ Mona Lisa paints your face (you are my canvas) 🎨
231998	TomASMR	My first ASMR video
229033	わんこそばOne-Co Soba Noodles	【ASMR】Water + Cool gel sheet Nano tapes bubbles テープの中に冷えピタと水を入れたらどうなるの？
221230	[ASMR]nara_나라	ASMR(Sub✔)새 마이크로 쌍둥이 귀 청소 (당신의 취향은?) New Mic Twin Ear Cleaning (Choose one of the twins)
220116	アズールレーン	「ウルリッヒ・フォン・フッテンのトキシック・ヒアリング」特別ASMR動画
219352	Mol ASMR.	ASMR te baño para DORMIR con atención personal ASMR español
217091	Tiptoe Tingles ASMR	ASMR Follow My Instructions and Tests (upclose whispers and personal attention)
216698	Lila Asmr	ASMR mouth sounds + spit painting
215440	Still Watching Netflix	Ben Barnes ASMR Book Read | Shadow and Bone | Netflix
214669	Staryuuki ASMR	ASMR DE AMIGA TOXICA ROLEPLAY 😒 | Staryuuki
207445	Jojo's ASMR	[ASMR] Quite a strange eye test...
206658	Coromo Sara. ASMR	ASMR Sleepy Relaxation Spa on Microphone 🎤✨
202657	freckles asmr	ASMR until you fall asleep😴🤍
202243	Lila Asmr	ASMR nos dormimos juntos en un día de lluvia ☔️
196835	Diddly ASMR	ASMR to make you tingle
196618	HeatheredEffect ASMR	ASMR Lingerie Try On Haul x Lana Rhoades
187792	valoulette	𝙖𝙨𝙢𝙧 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙞𝙩'𝙨 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨 [stress relief / unpredictable invisible triggers]
187743	Brazilian Girl Adventures	CAMPING SOLO Selvagem / Primitive shelter in the wild forest #asmr #buscraft
187210	SophieMichelle ASMR	ASMR | Massaging your Scalp - Layered Sounds & Personal Attention for Sleep
186247	freckles asmr	Drift Into Deep Sleep with this Powerful ASMR Hypnotization 🤍
185895	SassySounds ASMR	ASMR| Tingly Tapping Assortment for Sleep 💅
183643	Macoto ASMR まこと。	[ASMR] 好き好き♡ゼロ距離囁き、鼓膜グリグリ、耳ふー、耳マッサージ、 癒し囁き Ear Massage, Whispering, Tingle【KU100/Vtuber】
183154	Anny ASMR	ASMR ESPAÑOL / SPIT PAINTING + L4M0 MIS DEDOS + Mouth Sounds + VISUALES
179475	Macoto ASMR まこと。	[ASMR↓概要] 音良すぎ♡耳元近すぎる熱々吐息♡耳ふー、マッサージ Ear Massage, Whispering, Tingling【KU100】
175951	Asmr With Sasha	⚠️ WARNING ASMR ⚠️ Este ASMR es EXTREMADAMENTE RELAJANTE! | ASMR Español | Asmr with Sasha
174399	Yarify ASMR	Tu AMIGA te cuida y consuela 🧸 ASMR para sanar tu corazón 💞 Todo estará bien 💞

Legion of the Eternal Empire (LEE)
370M+ GP
FARMING CHALLENGE RANCOR (Completed)
18:30 PST / 21:30 EST / 02:30 GMT Guild Reset
REQUIREMENTS:
6.5M+ GP
2 GL
Executor or Profundity
Good Mods/Mod Score. Actively Farming and Improving Mods (Prefer: ~200 or more +10 speed mods)
500 Tickets Daily minimum (prefer 600)
Active Discord Use (mandatory for guild events)
Synced and Public swgoh.gg account
Active Daily in ALL Guild Events
Willing to work to achieve conquest box 4
Guided Farming if you fall behind guild objectives
RotE: 26 ⭐️, 2 Reva Shards - Geo LS: 26 ⭐️, 29 KAM Shards
We Use EchoBot for Platoon Assignments.
We Use HotUtils/HotBot for tracking tickets, guild event participation, and reminders.
TW: 90%+ Win Record. Adaptive strategy depending on our opponent and team readiness.
We have dedicated Discord channels for TB, TW, CPIT, and Bots for members to use.
RAIDS:
All-Heroic Raids on farm (or simmed) - Rotated with 24 Hour Join Period.
HPIT and HAAT simmed - launched 30 mins after guild tickets reset time:
19:00 PST / 22:00 EST / 03:00 GMT
HSTR Rotating raid launch times:
05:00 PST / 08:00 EST / 13:00 GMT
10:00 PST / 13:00 EST / 18:00 GMT
17:00 PST / 20:00 EST / 01:00 GMT
CPIT (Challenge Rancor) raid launch time:
10:00 PST / 13:00 EST / 18:00 GMT
HOW TO JOIN US: Please come to our Discord server and an officer will help you! We want EVERYONE to succeed and are constantly looking to improve on what we're doing to help all within our collective of 8 independently run guilds. We are an established guild with active players who are looking for like-minded, common-sense individuals to join us for the growth and benefit of all!
Legion of the Eternal Empire - DISCORD: https://discord.gg/S4j4ceuYDH
Legion of the Eternal Empire - SWGOHGG: https://swgoh.gg/g/nZu5aA50TVusQFfMqjYNEA/

I love The Outer Wilds, and while it might take a lot of critical thinking at times, it is never completely obscure and impossible. Everything is easily figured out with the clues you find in the world.
Echoes Of The Eye is a completely different story. I started the DLC just before I do my final loop in the base game. The 'real' world is fine, but once you get to the 'dream' world; I mean what the actual fuck. I started using a walkthrough, because I kinda just want to get back and finish the main game. I just did the section where you have to go to Shrouded Woods, then to Starlit Cave, then back to Shrouded Woods and follow the owl people into their meeting place. And you have to do it all before the dam breaks. HOW in the hell can anyone do this without a guide. I am very impressed with anybody who managed this feat.

I was called "advanced" or "gifted" since kindergarten, when I was five years old. Two years later in third grade (I skipped first) I got into the actual program. Seven years later here I am as a sophomore, (barely) ready to be an upperclassman next year. In 8th grade, I got my first C. Since around then, I've lost all motivation to do anything related to school unless it's music. I love music- it's my life. But I never learned how to actually put in a lot of work because homework, classwork, and projects always came to me effortlessly. Guys, there's a chance that if I can't get my grade up to about an 82, I'm going to fail my AP English class, which is an all year class. I'm so looking forward to being done with it but if I fail I'll have to retake it. I have like four huge missing assignments that could really boost my grade- even back to an overall B in the class!! I said I'd do it over the weekend but I didn't on Friday night or yesterday or last night. I just have today and tonight. I have a study playlist ready on Spotify, I keep telling myself I will. I know I should, I know our GT teacher is disappointed because she keeps saying I'm not using my full potential. I have to be good again!!!!! But I can't get myself to go do the assignments!!!! AAAAAAAHAGHHAGAHAH 😭

Hello Reddit, I need your help.
Bit of background on me. I'm a pretty average guy, the kind who can get a few matches a week on dating apps and sometimes get a date. I'm in a very big city in Europe. I have a good job, but not rich by any standard.
Beginning of 2022 I matched with a girl on Tinder who was showing up as being thousands of miles away. Said she's in India, that it's an algorithm glitch; more on this later. We chat for a bit, hit it off, and exchange contacts on social media.
Fast forward to this month. We've been chatting very seldomly in small convos during the past year. This month it escalated and it's become quite intense.
I'm 100% sure she's not a catfish. Active on all her social media for both work and personal matters, hundreds of followers, all she says is consistent, followers are legitimate colleagues, got video calls with her, exchange voice notes, things like that. She's sensitive, if a bit neurotic, but self aware, socially involved, highly educated and well spoken. She's good looking, but not unbelievably so, she's as good looking as women I've dated before.
We'd like to meet, and she's originally from a city that is special to me and I always wished to visit but would get few chances to do as it's far away and not that big. She can't travel to Europe before the end of summer due to work constraints, but has applied to come here for her postdoc by the end of the year. I have means to travel and have holidays coming up soon. We're at a stage where I'm about to buy tickets. Money and time are a non issue, as if she turns out to be not worth it I wouldn't regret it.
I haven't caught on any major red flags: she has made it clear she doesn't want or need money, has a job and a stable family backing her, she's never pushed me to do anything, had her fair share of doubt about this thing, she looks responsible and has let me know she background checked me extensively to make sure I am who I say I am. Small details in her pics check out with what she says about what she does.
The only thing that doesn't check out is why she was swiping in my city to begin with. She says during lockdown things got tense with her ex and she wanted an outlet with no strings attached, a bit of attention, used the free Tinder passport and eventually got stuck in my city. Apparently until end of 2022; we matched beginning of 2022. She says was asked to pay to change it back, she's not very tech savvy and wasn't on Tinder much anyway. But this doesn't match my understanding of how Tinder location works and I'm hesitant in believing in unprovable software bugs.
I have a history of being naïve with women and I have a bit of trust issues. I need a second opinion on this. I have researched possible scams I might been looking at, but this just doesn't look like any of them and I feel like a schizo. We're exchanging family and childhood pics and discussing involvement in local politics. If this is a scam, the level of involvement just doesn't make any sense. Why go through all of this to kidnap me or mug me at gunpoint when you can do it with any local or tourist much wealthier than I am with a lot less effort? Why go through all this to extort me of a couple grands in a few months when there's much more efficient scams? Maybe she's honest about what she says but she's being forced to seduce me by someone else and she's just too afraid to be consistent with her morals? I feel like I'm going insane. It feels too good to be true to have such a good connection with someone and the Tinder glitch just sounds too random. However I also know life is random and these things do happen.
I understand you don't have a crystal ball, Reddit. I am willing to take the risk and fly. But how do I travel and stay safe? Just never be alone outside of public spaces or my hotel? What if we want to travel to the hills together? I'd be alone in a foreign country which is not known to be super tourist friendly. What do you think?

Hey there, A while ago I got myself a Keystep Pro, thinking it would get regular firmware updates, but it seems that they stopped doing that about two years ago, but I really want some specific features implemented, which I would be willing to do myself.
Is there any project that attempts to reverse-engineer the Keystep Pro firmware? I am by far not experienced enough to deal with whatever ghidra outputs.
The firmware for the Keystep Pro, amongst other firmware, can be found on arturia's website, which is just a gzip archive containing two binary blobs and a version json.
Checking the binary via strings, it seems to be C++ code, developed for a chip from the ARM cortex STMicro STM32F4 series.
So have attempts already been made to reverse-engineer that thing? Is someone willing to help me (starting from absolute zero)?
Thanks!
Edit: If possible, I would also like to find out, how the Midi Control Center transfers the firmware to the Products. It does not work on Linux, which I would like it to. I'm hoping it's just some sysex stuff

I'm going to try and keep this short.
My nmom has been mentally (and sometimes physically) abusive my entire life (as most of them are). It finally got so bad I started cutting myself and finally attempted suicide at 28. Long story short-- through my own strength, I managed to save my own life and move to another country half a word away. We didn't speak for 2 years until I had to go back to the US for a short visit and it was a disaster. Nothing changed. They ended up kicking me out of their house (when I was pregnant) and I had to pay for a last minute hotel for the rest of my stay.
I went back to my now home country and had my daughter and unfortunately she started slowly creeping back into my life. "Can you send me a photo of the baby?" text every now and then, some sneaky calls every now and then and slowly she made herself more of an appearance in my life. If it were up to me I would never have talked to her again but she knows how to pull at my strings and I felt guilty pushing her out given the fact that she is my daughter's grandmother.
Long story short-- we haven't seen each other in 3 years and recently started talking about her visiting. Originally they were going to visit us for ONE WEEK MAXIMUM and then they would venture off and visit other regions around us but they were not going to hold up sitting in MY home however long she pleased. (She used to do this in the past. Come visit, torture me, not tell me when she was leaving. Stay for a month. Get upset when I would have to work and not take more time off to "spend with her.") I told her multiple times we had a rule where guests could only stay for 1 week. To be honest, I didn't want her staying at my place at all but due to her manipulation and a bit my husband's pushing (he's never met her) I caved.
Suddenly she decided she doesn't want to visit any other regions, she doesn't want to go anywhere else and she is going to stay at my home for two weeks (+traveling days. Realistically closer to 3) She literally didn't give me an option to say no.
With time and hearing from my dad how tense things are between them and how much they are fighting I started getting cold feet about letting her stay with us for two weeks. (I had never even agreed in the first place.)
This is MY home. This is OUR home. That I share with my family. She is so toxic. She is so scary, and I do NOT want her in my home for 2 weeks. This is my safe space. I am 35 years old. Who is she to determine how long she can stay AT MY HOUSE?!
I'm not even saying she can't stay at a house next door to mine for a month, I don't give a shit, but you cannot be at my SAFE SPACE for that long. I know this trip will be hell and I need to feel safe and my family and I need peace.
When I called her and broke the news, she lost her damn mind. She started screaming at me and turning violent, throwing a tantrum and crying. (Just as I expected that she would.) We hung up the phone, after my dad's insistence, and we didn't speak again for over two weeks.
Yesterday my dad called me and said they would not be coming. Basically, it's what she wants, or nothing.
Well, guess what I chose. Honestly? I am relieved. This will finally let me cut her off for good and let me be able to live my life again. I tried to maintain some sort of relationship for my daughter, but she is unable to respect my boundaries. I'm going to call her today to tell her that I am done. She is not to call me. She made her decision, and I am making mine.
I am freeing myself.

Arrays
I want to make a schema of json file.It's for an array of products.
The json schema is similar as below:
{"$schema": "http://json-schema.org/draft-04/schema#","title": "Product set","type": "array","items": { "title": "Product", "type": "object", "properties": { "id": { "description": "The unique identifier for a product", "type": "number" }, "name": { "type": "string" }, "price": { "type": "number", "minimum": 0, "exclusiveMinimum": true }, "tags": { "type": "array", "items": { "type": "string" }, "minItems": 1, "uniqueItems": true }, "dimensions": { "type": "object", "properties": { "length": {"type": "number"}, "width": {"type": "number"}, "height": {"type": "number"} }, "required": ["length", "width", "height"] }, "warehouseLocation": { "description": "Coordinates of the warehouse with the product", "$ref": "http://json-schema.org/geo" } }, "required": ["id", "name", "price"]}} The array should at least one item in it. How can I define the minimum of the array?
Do I need to add the minimun defination?
Answer link : https://codehunter.cc/a/arrays/how-to-define-the-min-size-of-array-in-the-json-schema

Bit of an odd comparison, I'm aware, but let me explain.
My dream car for as long as I can remember has been a Golf GTI. I've always been more of a corner carver than I am a "going fast in a straight line" person and driving a few GTIs around some twisties has seemed to prove this to me. However, I recently had the chance to drive a V8 Genesis G80 RWD, and I was impressed with how the combination of torquey power delivery and burble of the V8 combined with the rear wheel drive drivetrain made even mundane drives enjoyable. Because of this, and also the fact that naturally aspirated V8 RWD cars are a dying breed, I've started to look at used S550 GTs in my search as well. Not really interested in the Camaros (shit visibility) or Challengers (way too heavy with FCA reliability.)
Pros for GTI:
More practical
Better on fuel
Way better interior quality
Easier to make more power out of with tune
Better handling (more fun and predictable to drive at limits)
In the case of an MK7.5, the last of an era for VW before cost-cutting took over with the MK8 GTI
Pros for Mustang:
With GT Premium trim, a lot of features one would not expect on a muscle/pony car
V8 power and sound
RWD (I do not live in an area that gets snow)
More fun to drive regularly (as in, makes mundane trips fun)
As stated before, one of the last of a dying breed

Brynnhildr is a bruiseassassin with disruptive short ranged skills and the ability to enter battle on her own terms. She starts out as a high impact assassin and transitions into a disruptive bruiser.

Lore

Frodnar stood up, blinking, with much effort. Why was he on the ground? Where were his axe and shield? Why did everything seem so unreal and dreamlike? The sounds of battle seemed distant and the muddy field was steeped in an unearthly glow. As he slowly pondered these questions, still stunned from that mace blow, someone behind him put a hand on his shoulder. "Frodnar, it is time", she spoke.
"They got me, didn't they?"
She nodded silently, waiting for his bearsmead trance to wear off. As the blood left his body, so would the elixir leave his mind. They had made it farther than the enemy must have expected, just the twenty of them with axes and wolfskins going up against the entire legion. The ambush was flawless, but it was not enough. She knew it was never going to be enough.
"Where is the warband? How many of the rooster draggers did I take down with me?"
She shook her head, with not a hint of sadness in her eyes. "Grapeshot."
"But I can't... The village needs me! The women and children...!"
She remained silent.
"You can skewer their whole legion on that god-spear of yours. Do something!"
"The Gods wove the tapestry of fate to be admired, not touched. Your death was prophesised." She handed him his axe and shield back and coolly continued, "Come with me, einherjer. Your time on Runeterra is over, but one final battle awaits," as the earth quietly dropped out from under the pair and the skies faded into a brilliant white glow and gave way to the myriad stars of Nivheim.

Lying on the floor of a hastily dug trench, a young woman looked up at the stars, watching the glare of a falling star streak past overhead. A portent from the heavens; a sign of victory or doom? She did not dare to hope for much more than a bitter victory, and even that would be a miracle. The legion was still advancing on their position and her brothers were probably already dead. Their only hope was that the men had done enough damage to dissuade them from a frontal attack.
"Mom, the falling star, what does it mean?", a boy asked, no older than fifteen.
"It means we will win this, Bjarn. The Gods are with us. Maybe you'll get to kill a war elephant!", she said, gesturing to the makeshift crossbow he was holding in his knuckles.
It sounded very unconvincing, and Bjarn knew it, and so did the falling star descending invisibly on the small group of defenders. Unbeknowst to the mortals in the trenches, the enemy already knew their position and were loading their cannons. Bjarn would never even get to shoot his crossbow, and then she would rush the enemy ranks in a suicidal charge and that would be that. Wrong place, wrong time, as fate ordained.
As she gave her son a hug, the falling star landed silently on the ruins, watching the small group of defenders in the trench that would be their tomb. A single ethereal tear fell and vanished as the cannons flared in the distance.

Behind the thunder of the barrage, a faint ripple in the tapestry drew the messenger's eye, a single thread unwinding far behind enemy lines. The defenders were still alive: one of the cannons had not fired. Through the din of battle, she listened.
I will not shoot at women and children so the high command can add a few more miles to their borders. Fire! Fire, soldier! This is an order! We can just put down our weapons and walk away. We can put an end to this. Hands in the air! Drop the match! Drop it!
She cast one last glance at the stars she would never touch again and landed at Bjarn's side, taking care not to startle the boy.
"Be not afraid, Bjarn. You need to do something. You know how to use that crossbow?" "Yes, I... shot a rat... just yesterday..." "Good. See that star up there, just a bit brighter than the others? Aim straight at it and shoot." "Who are..." "Do not sit here waiting to die. Shoot. Follow my last prophecy. Unravel the tapestry."
And Bjorn did as she asked, and watched the crude dart arc into the distance, carried by a lucky wind.
This is bigger than you, soldier. If you don't fire, someone else will, and if they don't, someone else will. You are nothing!
Suddenly, unexpectedly, but exactly as the messenger had prophesised, a crossbow bolt fell from the sky, knocking the lit match out of the soldier's hand, sending it tumbling through the air and into a nearby barrel.

As the echoes of the bombardment faded, the mother gripped her sword, awaiting the charge. In the distance, the enemy line rushed towards them, then hesitated, stumbled; swept off their horses and knocked to the ground by a scorching wind as the horizon lit up with a brilliant glow. Burning debris and a cloud of gunpowder smoke filled the sky.
"The cannons! Bjarn, the cannons!" She turned to her son and who is that wait is that a--
"Is... is Bjarn dead?" "Not right now. Maybe later," the messenger replied. "Are we going to die?" "I do not know. The tapestry is unwoven, your fate is now in your hands alone. I have broken my oath; the power of prophecy is no longer mine."
The messenger looked around the trench, pointing her spear at the enemy line where the soldiers were clambering around, disoriented, searching for their weapons and horses. "Listen up! The children stay here and watch for ambushes. The adults join me! We strike that wagon over there before they remember which way to point their swords. That's their carrier pigeon cage. We take that out, we cut their communication lines."
"We can actually win this?", the mother asked.
"We have been given a chance. Nothing more, nothing less. The rest is up to us," the valkyrie replied.
And when her warhorn sounded and she took to the air, the villagers rose up from the trenches and the einherjer with them, rushing the enemy line, as flaming debris rained down from the heavens like falling stars.

Model

Brynnhildr is a valkyrie who has broken her oath and is doomed to remain in Runeterra. She has gray feathered wings with hints of iridescent starlight and wears elegant gray starmetal armor, a deep blue feather cloak and a circlet decorated with starmetal wings over long blonde hair streaming behind her.
She uses her wings to hover just above the ground, but walks when slowed.
Her weapon of choice is a long starmetal spear. She usually holds it one-handed, but grips it in two hands during [Q] Star of Hope.
When she dies, her corpse burns away with starlight flames, leaving no body.

• Easter egg: On her left hand she wears an enchanted ring, forged by Ornn out of stolen Runegold.

Skins

• Death-Fate Brynnhildr: Raven feathers and a black hooded cloak; one of the Greek Keres.
• Merciful Brynnhildr: Old soldiers may fade, but HEROES NEVER DIE.
• Biblically Accurate Brynnhildr: Be not afraid. (Legendary skin; three lion heads and flaming wheels rotating like helicopter blades.)

Abilities

[Passive] Taker of the Slain

"I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the Gods have taken an interest in you."
Doom-Sight: Brynnhildr has vision of all allied champion corpses on the map.
Guide the Einherjer: Brynnhildr can right click an allied champion corpse within range to fly to its location and carry off its spirit. For each spirit chosen this way, she gains bonus damage and defence until that champion respawns. This can only be performed once per corpse.

Stat	Value
Guide the Fallen: Range	400
Guide the Fallen: Buff: Bonus attack damage	5 (+level/2) (=5-14 to 20-56 total)
Guide the Fallen: Buff: Bonus armoMR	3 (+level/3) (=3-9 to 12-36 total)
Guide the Fallen: Mana cost	30

[Passive] Gray Swan

hums 'Ride of the Valkyries'
Brynnhildr can fly at a higher altitude, assuming a more streamlined pose and gaining bonus movement speed, ghosting and increased vision range.

• To activate, Brynnhildr must move in the same direction for a certain distance to attain enough lift, after which she automatically flaps her wings to climb.
• The ability ends when Brynnhildr attacks, casts an ability or takes damage.

Stat	Value
Movement speed	+30% (+2/level) (=32-66%)
Vision range	+150
Activates when moving in the same direction for a distance of	1250

[Q] Star of Hope

"Remember the dead, but fight for the living."
Brynnhildr performs a short dash with her spear, damaging the first enemy unit in her path. On impact, she flaps her starlight infused wings, dealing area effect damage to enemy units next to the target in a line perpendicular to its travel path. The dash can collide with terrain obstacles.
If Brynnhildr is in [Passive] Gray Swan mode, she performs a much longer ranged point-and-click "Swan Dive", swooping down with a shrieking cry and crashing into the target with a spear attack followed by a wing spin that deals area effect damage in a radius around the target. This version of the ability can travel over terrain obstacles.
The "Swan Dive" can also target allied champion corpses at an even longer distance, immediately applying [Passive] Taker of the Slain to the corpse.

Stat	Value
Range (Regular)	450
Range (Swan Dive)	900 (1350 if corpse targetted)
Wing strike (Regular): Width	250
Wing strike (Swan Dive): Radius	300
Wing strike: Physical damage	40/70/100/130/160 (+1.15 total AD)
Cooldown	12/11/10/9/8 seconds
Mana cost	70/75/80/85/90

[W] Between Worlds

"It is not yet your time. Return whence you came."
Brynnhildr grabs an enemy unit in melee range and carries them into the sky, making both herself and the target untargettable for a short time before dive bombing the target back down for major damage and a slow. If this is the last enemy unit and the damage kills it, she then immediately goes into [Passive] Gray Swan mode.
If Brynnhildr activates this ability during [Q] Star of Hope, it immediately casts on impact instead of waiting for the animation to finish. This deletes the wing strike and its area effect damage, dealing the damage only to the direct target, but prevents the target from escaping after the dash lands.

Stat	Value
Duration	Up to 1.25 seconds (impact occurs 0.25 seconds before the end)
Impact: Physical damage	30/50/70/90/110 (+1.0 total AD)
Impact: Slow	50% fading over 1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4/1.5 seconds
Cooldown	18/16/14/12/10 seconds
Mana cost	80/85/90/95/100

[E] Valravn

"Your fall was preordained. Come with me."
Passive: The enchantment on her Ring of Runegold increases Brynnhildr's attack speed against enemy champions and applies a stacking "Doomed" mark to the target, up to 3 stacks.
Active: Must be cast at a target in melee range with 3 "Doomed" stacks on it. Brynnhildr grabs the target and leaps backwards with a flap of her wings, taking the target with her. If she jumps over a terrain obstacle this way, the target is pulled into the obstacle and stunned, allowing her to escape.

Stat	Value
Passive: Bonus attack speed	20/25/30/35/40%
Passive: Mark duration	2 seconds (refreshed on attack)
Active: Backwards leap distance	350
Active: Terrain collision stun to target	1.5 seconds
Active: Cooldown	12/11/10/9/8 seconds
Active: Mana cost	60/65/70/75/80

[R] Götterdämmerung

"Fight. Go. Take back this world from the Gods."
Brynnhildr sends the einherjer, the immortal spirits of her chosen champions, to attack her opponents.
The einherjer are invulnerable and intangible flying warrior spirits with swords and axes (canonically they are the champions she has chosen with [Passive] Taker of the Slain). They appear behind Brynnhildr, seek out an enemy champion with "Doomed" stacks from [E] Valravn and fly into the target while swinging their weapon for damage. They pass through their target several times, turning around with wide arcs to attack again before dissipating when their attack limit is reached.

• If more than one enemy champion has stacks, the attacks are split between them depending on their relative number of stacks (if one has 3 stacks and one has 1 stack, the damage is split 75-25%).
• The stacks on the target(s) do not fall off while the spirits are attacking them.
• If the target dies, the spirits will find other targets with stacks to exhaust their remaining attacks.
• The spirits will pursue targets indefinitely, but have a maximum duration and will dissipate when it runs out regardless of how many attacks remain.
• This ability cannot be cast if there are no enemy champions with stacks within its detection radius.

The number of spirits increases based on the number of champions she has chosen with [Passive] Taker of the Slain.

Stat	Value
Detection radius	800
Number of Einherjer	3 + Number of champions currently chosen with [Passive] Taker of the Slain
Einherjer: Movement speed	600
Einherjer: Attack limit	3 (destroyed after 5 seconds)
Einherjer: Physical damage	15/25/35 (+0.1 bonus AD) (=45/75/105 (+0.3 bonus AD) per spirit) (=135/225/315 (+0.9 bonus AD) to 315/525/735 (+2.1 bonus AD) total)
Cooldown	180/140/100 seconds

Gameplay

Brynnhildr goes top or jungle, starting with [Q] Star of Hope in top lane and [E] Valravn in the jungle.
In either role, her lack of sustain hampers her ability to passively farm and she should hunt for early kills instead. Engaging with [Q] Star of Hope into [W] Between Worlds results in decent damage and delays their escape, potentially leading to a pull from [E] Valravn to stall them further while she auto attacks them.
In the jungle, she is very mobile thanks to [Passive] Gray Swan. It does need a runway to activate and turns off when she gets hit, making it much harder to use in top lane and mitigating the potentially abusive scenario of being able to hard engage from outside the opponent's range.
At level 6, the ultimate comes online. It only deals damage, and not a lot of it at first, but the spirits continue to pursue the target until their duration or attack limit runs out. It is primarily useful for counterganking and dragon fights because the damage scales up if her allies die first and [Q] Star of Hope has a very long range when aimed at an allied corpse.
Her weakest point is the mid game. Her AD scaling is not the greatest and she lacks defensive buffs and therefore needs [W] Between Worlds as an aggro dump, using it like Playful/Trickster instead of as part of her combo. This is a transitional phase and she should build hard defence at this point.
In the end game, her role shifts into a disruptive bruiser tank of sorts. Damage falls off, but her attack speed gets fast enough to chain [E] Valravn after [W] Between Worlds, trapping the target in a CC combo if they don't manage to escape the slow. Furthermore, she now benefits from staying longer in the fight due to [Passive] Taker of the Slain and the power of [R] Götterdämmerung to turn a losing teamfight around if she waits until the last moment (but no longer) to cast it.

Champion Creation Contest

• Late: I thought it said "Fate" until I read the following paragraph, but I like my version better.
• Ability with multiple distinct uses: [Q] Star of Hope can be a tactical dash with damage perpendicular to its path, or a point and click long ranged dash with splash damage.

Hello Reddit, I need your help.
Bit of background on me. I'm a pretty average guy, the kind who can get a few matches a week on dating apps and sometimes get a date. I'm in a very big city in Europe. I have a good job, but not rich by any standard.
Beginning of 2022 I matched with a girl on Tinder who was showing up as being thousands of miles away. Said she's in India, that it's an algorithm glitch; more on this later. We chat for a bit, hit it off, and exchange contacts on social media.
Fast forward to this month. We've been chatting very seldomly in small convos during the past year. This month it escalated and it's become quite intense.
I'm 100% sure she's not a catfish. Active on all her social media for both work and personal matters, hundreds of followers, all she says is consistent, followers are legitimate colleagues, got video calls with her, exchange voice notes, things like that. She's sensitive, if a bit neurotic, but self aware, socially involved, highly educated and well spoken. She's good looking, but not unbelievably so, she's as good looking as women I've dated before.
We'd like to meet, and she's originally from a city that is special to me and I always wished to visit but would get few chances to do as it's far away and not that big. She can't travel to Europe before the end of summer due to work constraints, but has applied to come here for her postdoc by the end of the year. I have means to travel and have holidays coming up soon. We're at a stage where I'm about to buy tickets. Money and time are a non issue, as if she turns out to be not worth it I wouldn't regret it.
I haven't caught on any major red flags: she has made it clear she doesn't want or need money, has a job and a stable family backing her, she's never pushed me to do anything, had her fair share of doubt about this thing, she looks responsible and has let me know she background checked me extensively to make sure I am who I say I am. Small details in her pics check out with what she says about what she does.
The only thing that doesn't check out is why she was swiping in my city to begin with. She says during lockdown things got tense with her ex and she wanted an outlet with no strings attached, a bit of attention, used the free Tinder passport and eventually got stuck in my city. Apparently until end of 2022; we matched beginning of 2022. She says was asked to pay to change it back, she's not very tech savvy and wasn't on Tinder much anyway. But this doesn't match my understanding of how Tinder location works and I'm hesitant in believing in unprovable software bugs.
I have a history of being naïve with women and I have a bit of trust issues. I need a second opinion on this. I have researched possible scams I might been looking at, but this just doesn't look like any of them and I feel like a schizo. We're exchanging family and childhood pics and discussing involvement in local politics. If this is a scam, the level of involvement just doesn't make any sense. Why go through all of this to kidnap me or mug me at gunpoint when you can do it with any local or tourist much wealthier than I am with a lot less effort? Why go through all this to extort me of a couple grands in a few months when there's much more efficient scams? Maybe she's honest about what she says but she's being forced to seduce me by someone else and she's just too afraid to be consistent with her morals? I feel like I'm going insane. It feels too good to be true to have such a good connection with someone and the Tinder glitch just sounds too random. However I also know life is random and these things do happen.
I understand you don't have a crystal ball, Reddit. I am willing to take the risk and fly. But how do I travel and stay safe? Just never be alone outside of public spaces or my hotel? What if we want to travel to the hills together? I'd be alone in a foreign country which is not known to be super tourist friendly. What do you think?

I can't sleep, & I'm making it your problem by subjecting you to my insomnia thoughts. Legend of Korra: Book 2 totally references HP Lovecraft. I looked over my list of examples & wondered if I might be reaching, but no, they definitely knew what they were doing when they created Unavaatu. He even has a squid head! To be clear, I'm not saying this is the only influence on Book 2, but the others, like Ghibli films, are much more frequently addressed.
For those who somehow don't know, HP Lovecraft was a 1920s-30s pulp horroscience fiction writer, easily most famous for creating Cthulhu; a giant, vaguely humanoid monster with an octopus for a head who would bring about the end of the world "when the stars are right." Vaatu, of course, fuses with Unalaq & ushers in the apocalypse during the planetary alignment of Harmonic Convergence.
While an apocalypse from a human perspective, what actually happens is that the Old Ones reclaim the world they used to rule over before humans evolved. This is slightly different from Legend of Korra's canon, where humans lived on Earth before the spirits came, but you still have that element of the dark spirits "reclaiming the planet." Unavaatu even declares that "it's time to take back the physical world."
Call of Cthulhu wasn't the only story where Lovecraft seemed to express a paranoid fear of the ocean. There is also Dagon and the race of eerie fish-men who worship him, the Deep Ones. It's an idea that strongly resembles this guy here. In fact, of the legions of dark spirits in Book 2, many resemble fish or other sea creatures.
They also have oh so many tentacles, which is another trope Lovecraft is often associated with despite arguably not having that many tentacled monsters. In fact, what first got me thinking of these comparisons was when Unalaq had a water tendril on each arm & Vaatu coming out of his mouth, causing him to look like some kind of tentacled man-horror.
This, like most of the season, took place in the Southern Tribe. This can be compared to Antarctica, which was the setting of another of Lovecraft's famous stories, At The Mountains of Madness. The plot doesn't bear much of a resemblance--at least, I don't think Korra found an alien city--but Lovecraft's focus was on the inhospitable, barren nature of the continent. He put particular emphasis on impassable mountain ranges that acted as barriers of ice beyond which, we eventually find, lies ancient secrets from another world. It's immediately where my mind went in the shots that established the Everstorm. While there are storms in The Mountains of Madness, they aren't that plot-significant. Still, we know the Everstorm to be the product of another world leaking into the human one, which is echoed by the eerie green color of the thunderclouds.
Madness is at the heart of many of Lovecraft's works. The Antarctic mountain maze is just one of the many places where his protagonists go insane at things human minds weren't meant to comprehend. I hadn't originally considered the Fog of Lost Souls when I sat down to write this, but considering everything else, maybe the spirit that invades your mind & drives you insane is no accident.
The common understanding of this trope is that looking at the Old Ones causes you to lose your mind, but to be fair, this is only because they're an extreme manifestation of human insignificance on a cosmic scale. This is what the battle between Raava & Vaatu really represents. It seems inevitable that, some day, Vaatu will win, & humans will be destroyed. Even the mighty Avatar can only delay the inevitable. The dark spirits will reclaim the world for at least 10,000 years until Vaatu is destroyed again, but they will have chances to resurface whenever the cosmos aligns. So the cycle will continue on time scales too vast for humans to comprehend, just as how the Old Ones have to periodically hibernate for eons. Perhaps aided by a devout cultist such as Unalaq.
But where this revelation would leave one of Lovecraft's protagonists a gibbering mess, soon to be dead or institutionalized, Legend of Korra takes a more optimistic approach. Sure, Vaatu may win one day, but that day is not today. The quest to push back the chaos & destruction he represents continues, presented as something the Avatar is determined to never give up on.
Another departure is that Vaatu seemed to have much less staying power than an alien-god-induced fever dream. Besides a few cameos in hallucinations or jokes later in the series, people in the Avatar world seem unconcerned by his passing. Sure, a hitherto unknown planetary alignment released a force of pure chaos bent on destroying the world, & who knows how many others there are where he came from, but that's over now, & some of us have work in the morning. As long as the world doesn't end, I guess you still have to worry about paying the bills.
Speaking of, it's all fiction, so no need to lose sleep over it. But hopefully getting my thoughts out there will help my mind relax, & hopefully, you enjoyed going on this journey with me. Let me know if I convinced you or not, or if there are any other similarities or lesser-discussed influences you've noticed. I will hopefully be well-rested when I see your comments.

Part 1
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to think even.
Emily knows my biological mom?
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” I asked.
Emily’s smile was as thin as ice. “I didn’t think you were ready. Now you are.”
“Ready for what?”
“You’ll know soon enough. Sleep tight, Skye. You have to go to school tomorrow.”
I couldn’t sleep. All I saw, in my nightmares and painted on the ceiling, was Alfie’s face. He whispered my name while I dreamed and wriggled into my happiest memories. I woke up screaming as his body twisted and swelled.
We will meet again. Alfie hissed through a series of clicks.
It was too quiet when I woke up the next morning. I was used to Emily yelling for me to wake up for school or my dad rushing to get dressed for work and brushing his teeth or the smell of burned bacon and pancakes and eggs down from the kitchen. Or at the very least Alfie ringing my ears off to tell me he was waiting too long outside.
But the silence whispered through the halls, sneaking into my room and tickling my heart. I rubbed my eyes and sat with my knees tucked against my chest, watching the sun rise. The sky was lit in gold as the darkness slithered away, but it was as if dawn had never arrived at all.
I got dressed and headed downstairs. At that point I realised exactly why the house was so quiet and my heart stopped cold.
Most of the stuff we owned was packed up into boxes; and anything that was too big was covered by translucent tarps. Emily and my dad were huddled together in the kitchen. They looked so lost, so hollow, like they’d just come back from Alfie’s funeral and had not stopped crying since.
“Hey morning,” I said tersely.
“Morning,” Emily said. She still wasn’t looking at me. “Did you sleep well or do you still look like a panda bear?”
“Ha ha.” I made myself some coffee. It tasted like muddy water.
Emily looked at the clock. “You better hurry up or you’ll be late for school, Sleepy Skye.”
“But—” The night before was still spinning in my mind. Questions bubbled to the back of my throat, dying on my lips.
Emily placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Skye. I’ll explain more later when the time is right.”
School felt like forever. All of my classes passed in a blur. Everyone avoided me like the plague, and whispered behind their hands when I walked past. I didn’t really care. I rested my head on my hands and wished Alfie was here. Whispering that everything would be okay.
Creak
When the last bell rang I plodded through the halls. The chatter around me had blended into a monotonous stream of nothing. I looked around me and saw Alfie’s face around me, in the couples making out near the lockers, in the teenagers huddled together like penguins.
My heart ached again.
Alfie…
My dad’s van was waiting for me at the school entrance, coughing up smoke like an old, retired dragon. It was jammed full of boxes and things wrapped in bubble paper. I was surprised it could even move a centimetre without something breaking inside.
“Hop in Skye,” said my dad, poking his head out of one window.
“Um, where are we going?”
“To my old place,” Emily explained, poking her head out of the other window. “I—we—thought it would be good for you, for…for the both of us.”
“After…after…y’know.”
Alfie died.
The wind was still once more, as if mourning over him in its deep grief too. I crumbled against the side of the van, letting hot tears stream down my cheeks.
Alfie…
Without a word more I climbed into the van and my dad sped off immediately. I gazed outside the window, watching country roads blend into billboards and highways, and let the van rock me into a soothing sleep.
“We’re here. Wake up, Sleepy Skye.”
Emily’s house, as it turned out, was a two-storey monster tucked away from the heart of the city. The paint was peeling away and the bricks underneath were slick with slime. Mold crawled between the bricks and stayed there, dying the house green. I turned away and nearly threw up.
“This way,” Emily said, climbing a set of stairs. It was really dark, and everything was covered in shadow. The only source of light was a small Gothic window that shone through the gloom in a weak white arm. Set at the side of the stairwell was a black iron door. I started towards it, but Emily glared at me, so I abandoned the door and followed her.
The second floor was surprisingly well-kept. The floors were swept and the walls clean of dust. Picture frames depicting bugs and scarabs hung onto the wall, polished until it shone. There was even a pot of tea on the table.
“Knock yourself out,” Emily said as she collapsed onto the couch. She closed her eyes.
“Make yourself at home.”
“It stinks,” I observed, wrinkling my nose.
In fact it was the worst stink I had ever smelled in my life. It tore through the walls and floors like it was made of paper and I gagged. I sprinted to the window, stuck my head out and breathed in relief.
Emily raised an eyebrow.
“There’s some…construction going on downstairs,” she explained. “We just got here, so bear with it a little longer, okay Skye?”
“Yeah,” I choked. My eyes were watering. If I could see the smell it would be a big black cloud hovering in the air, howling and shaking in its stinky fury.
“Can I explore the city? I need some fresh air.”
“Go ahead,” Emily said, turning away. “Just be back for dinner.”
I nodded. I had never sprinted out of my old house so fast in my life, rubbing my smarting eyes. Even at the distance I could smell it, and once again I felt like throwing up.
After some time I slowed to a walk and really started to look around. It wasn’t much of a city—and it also wasn’t much of a town—but somewhere in between. It was getting quite late in the day with the sun streaming slowly in from the west, but the town felt…alive in a way. Shopkeepers hollered their wares from the inside of their ornate walls, and people were strolling on the streets, their arms interlocked laughing and whistling.
I tried not to think of Alfie.
A couple of blocks away I saw a large diner, its neon sign beckoning me inside. Getting closer I could smell heaven: char-grilled meats, fresh cakes and cookies, and something else in a fryer or oven.
My stomach growled. I wiped off my drool with my sleeves.
Pushing the door open, I went in.
The diner was abuzz with chatter and laughter; people were toasting each other with glasses of beer and ale. Yet everything died the moment I came in. Time stood still; heads swiveled to look at me and a collective gasp rose from the frozen crowd. I felt like an animal in a zoo as I navigated through the chaos and found a table to sit.
“Don’t mind ‘em.”
The speaker was a living Popeye, with a big, floppy nose and bigger arms that bulged with muscles and fat and a tattoo of a beetle instead of an anchor. He was wearing a greasy, bloody apron and a cap that was too small for a nest of blonde hair.
“It’s been a while since we had anyone new around here. Thirteen years, in fact. Also, hold on…”
He squinted hard at me, his eyes moving from my head down to my legs.
“Are you Skye?”
Goosebumps pricked my skin once more. I looked outside and realised the wind had once again stood still.
“Yes! How do you know?”
The man opposite me thought for a moment, then shouted something to the kitchens. Then he sat down opposite me and grinned, revealing yellowed teeth.
“Your stepmom talks about you a lot. She adores you, you know.”
He cupped my head in his hands and brushed a lock of hair off my head. Tears welled in his eyes.
“You look a lot like your mom. Same face, same eyes.”
He knocked on my face like it was a piece of wood.
Click clock
“Rock solid too.”
My hair stood up on my skin as I stared straight into the eyes of this man who I just met.
“Y-you know my biological mom too?”
The man’s smile grew even wider. “Let’s just say…kind of.”
He extended his hand. “I’m sorry I haven’t introduced myself earlier. Call me Mr Lancaster. I’m the owner here.”
“I’m pleased to meet you too,” I replied, shaking his hand.
“Boss? Everything is ready.”
One of the waiters skidded to a halt near our table. He was a handsome youth—freckles and curly red hair. He held out a huge plastic bag to me.
Mr Lancaster smiled at me in a way that made my heart melt.
“Fish and chips. And I threw in some strawberry milkshakes as well. It’s one of our best dishes on the menu. Emily is always going on and on about how crazy you are for ‘em.”
“Wow! Thank you Mr Lancaster!”
“It’s on the house too. A welcome gift from me. Tell your stepmom she doesn’t have to pay back a single cent.”
He glanced out at the darkening sky, sweat mopping his brow.
“You better be going now. It’s getting late. See you soon, Skye. You’re always welcome here.”
And with that, he practically shoved me out of the door.
The bell tinkled as I stumbled onto the street, nearly tripping over the food. It was really heavy, mind you. Like a thousand dumb-bells made out of solid gold. By the time I reached my flat my arms ached.
I dropped the takeaway on the floor and sat down on one of the stairs to rest. The sun had completely set at this point; long, thin shadows crawled across the wall to the corners. Soon I was plunged in darkness. I could barely see my hand in front of my face.
My vision suddenly cleared, and I realised I could see. Somehow. Dark shapes shifted and twisted before my eyes, but I could still make out details of every brick, every scratch on the stairs and wall. The takeaway sat untouched before me.
It was like looking through an extremely grainy CCTV.
BANG BANG BANG!
As the bangs echoed throughout the hallway I froze, the excitement of my discovery gone.
BANG BANG BANG!
SKYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEE!
My name was shouted with great abandon, the call tinged with sorrow and pain. I inched closer and realised that it was coming from the iron door.
SKYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEE!
Whoever was calling me was thrashing against the door, making the hinges shake. I backed away, my heart in my throat. All the hair on my skin was standing up straight.
BANG BANG BANG!
The stink slapped me in the face, making my nose itch. My eyes didn’t leave the door as I scrambled up the stairs to the main apartment, leaving everything in the dust.
It was only when I slammed the door behind me and sprinted down the hallway to my bedroom did I realise I forgot the takeaway still sitting at the bottom of the stairs.
Oh well I told myself, trying to calm my shaking heart. I can go back in a few minutes.
I’m sure Emily and Dad won’t mind.
The city had fallen asleep. The hustle and bustle seemed to have vanished with the last of the sun. The streets were illuminated faintly with lamps that shone like a halo. My room looked like it belonged in a horror movie.
I lay on my bed for a while, squeezing my eyes shut and listening to my heart beat. The screams had long died down, but I somehow heard them long and clear in my mind, as if blasted by an invisible loudspeaker.
SKYEEEEEEE!
Low and loud, like a foghorn from a ship lost at sea.
SKYEEEEEEEEE!
“Shut up!” I screamed, my eyes welling with tears. I curled up in a ball and squeezed my head with my pillow. Even then the screams rammed against the sides of my head, over and over again, and I was dizzy from the pain.
Eventually I got out of bed and wandered throughout the house, hoping for something to distract myself from the eternal noise. The apartment was shaded in the same grainy darkness, except for the dining-room, which was glowing invitingly like a crackling campfire. Something clanged and tinkled. Cutlery probably. Either Emily or my dad setting the table. My stomach grumbled. The smell from the diner was making me hungry.
I started towards the dining room but then I heard it. A strange chitter-chatter. Like crickets, even though we lived so far from nature.
It was coming from the pictures hanging on the wall.
I hadn’t paid much attention to them when I first came in, but now it was drawing me closer like a moth to a flame. The bugs chittered again, and their legs twisted and struggled, almost like it was dancing. Looking closer, I realised that all the pictures depicted the same figure. A woman in various poses with the head of a bug with too-large eyes. She was wearing a dress that shone like fire and was glaring at the camera.
“Mom?”
I clapped my hand over my mouth. I didn’t know where that came from. I looked nothing like her. I didn’t know her. It was my first time seeing her.
But Alfie…
No, no, no! I’m mad! I must be going mad! It’s the screams, I thought, the screams were driving me cuckoo! Making me think crazy thoughts!
I forced myself to look away and shove those thoughts out of my mind. I didn’t know what to believe anymore.
“Skye? Dinner time!”
Emily’s calls broke through the confusing mess in my head. I was grateful that she came to my rescue. Glancing back at the photo of my mum (no, she isn’t! How can I be related to…that?), I scurried down the hallway and into the dining room.
Emily had saved the takeaway.
It sat between us on the newly-dusted table. Emily pulled out foil containers and set one each before me and my dad.
“Mr Lancaster called about the fish and chips,” she explained. “He was delighted to have met you, Skye.”
She ruffled my hair, and chuckled as she handed me a strawberry milkshake. “But it looked like his little delivery girl got cold feet on her first order, eh?”
“Emily!” I groaned. I took a long sip and licked my lips. The milkshake was delicious. Rich, creamy and filled with enough sugar to make my insulin go straight into overdrive.
“Hey,” I noted, sitting down after a while. The pure sweetness of that drink was enough to make my head spin. “Mr Lancaster made some extra fish and chips.”
And it stank too. Almost as much as whatever is behind that iron door.
“Oh, that’s nothing,” Emily said quickly, sweeping the bag off the table and rushing it to the kitchen. “Mr Lancaster always makes me extra. He knows I’m always hungry after midnight!”
I chuckled nervously, feeling the weight of my worries lift off my shoulders. Emily did eat a lot after midnight. A couple of times I had spotted her sneaking to the living room with the television on and a bag of chips.
Yet this particular container stuck out like a sore thumb. Not just the smell, or how big it was compared to the others, but…but, was it me or was it glowing?
I buried that thought into the deepest recesses of my mind. No. I had enough wild and crazy thoughts and visions for one night.
Succumbing to them was not what Alfie would have wanted.
That was not what any of us would have wanted.
Once we had finished dinner, I helped to clear the table and wash the cutlery. Emily turned to me and said:
“I’ve got some things to do tonight. Take care, Skye, and take care of your dad.”
“He does not look well.”
Sick actually. Dad looked like he was going to throw up. He staggered to the couch and passed out on the leather. I couldn’t help but pity him. Fifty-six years old, and all that oil into the fish and chips was not doing his heart any good.
“I’ll look after him,” I promised.
“Good girl.” Emily gave me another thin smile. She pulled on a jacket—a black jacket with a golden rim—and gave me a kiss on my forehead.
“I won’t be long.”
Emily strode out of the house, taking the last box of fish and chips with her. There was something clinking in her pocket, like suits or armor banging together. And just as she stepped out of the front door, she pulled out that something from her pocket. I only saw it for a brief second, but it was enough to make my heart race.
It was a key. But not just any key.
This one was black. Like evil. Like ash. Like the iron door.
It smirked at me as it hid back in her pocket. A shiver ran up my spine.
“Emily, wait!”
“Is there a problem, Skye?”
“Yeah. I wanna ask you something.”
I took a deep, shaky breath. There was a lump in my throat and my heart was beating way too fast.
“The iron door on the first floor…what’s behind it?”
“It’s nothing, Skye,” Emily said. Her eyes darted to somewhere behind me and fixed on one of the bug women. “Just some of my old stuff, y’know? From before I met your dad?”
“Right…”
“Now I have to go. I’ll be late otherwise. I’ll see you later, okay Skye?”
I swallowed as I watched her leave. Uncertainty still sat tight in my stomach, wound up like a spring, and wouldn’t let go.
“Dad? You okay?”
No response. My dad was out like a light.
Then his eyes shot open.
I gulped.
They got bigger and bigger. I saw each individual vein popping out and weaving into each other like mini spider webs.
Then it bulged and swelled. His head enlarged to accommodate it.
Chills shot down my spine as I realised exactly what was going on.
“Dad?”
Click click click.
His lips split and burst into mandibles. I scrambled over and held his hand.
“Don’t do this to me. Don’t be like Alfie.”
I was crying. I was shaking. Oh god, I was shaking so bad it felt like I was in an earthquake.
Click click click
I scrambled over and held his hand. It only seemed to make it worse, however. I watched as it shrank and turned black and folded into itself.
“Dad! Fight it!”
He hunched over and coughed out so much more blood.
Ack ack ack
“DAD!”
His spine was curving over and hardening into a black shell. I dropped his hand and backed away into a corner, my face white.
Ack ack ack.
The floor was blooming. Grass spread thin like a carpet and tall trees grew. I saw red flowers explode onto new branches, like a bundle of fireworks.
My dad clicked and clacked, as if enjoying the new scenery.
No…
My skin was crawling. Literally. I looked down and saw bumps pulsing beneath the folds, marching along to my heartbeat. Then it broke and a cockroach popped out. It took a deep breath, bowed, clicked and clacked in the same rhythm as my dad’s—slow and steady, a pulse—
And…
And I SWEAR I heard the cockroach say:
“Your Highness.”
I screamed. It bounced off new grass and fresh flora.
I’m really going mad now.
I pinched myself, wondering if I was living in some kind of nightmare. But I wasn’t. It was as real as the still lights from the street lamps shining in through the window.
Click clack.
More cockroaches were spilling out from my skin like a dam left unchecked. My dad looked at me inquisitively. Cement was quickly turning into dirt.
Click clack
My thoughts were clambering over each other as I squatted, paralysed in my corner, watching the cockroaches with my mouth open. My dad—no longer human—crawled into the walls and towards me. Staring at the roaches and slowly reaching out to them. They squeaked and climbed over him.
This was too much. I did the only thing I could think of.
My phone was butter in my hands. My vision blurred and I kept on punching in the wrong numbers.
Thankfully, Emily answered the phone on the first ring.
I took a deep breath and screamed into the receiver. My voice was shaking so bad I was surprised I could say anything at all.
“EMILY! HELP!”
SK

I went to the luthier to have my bow rehaired and after noticing how my bridge was, it was decided to change it. I also now have new rosin (Bernardel vs some pirastro rosin that came with the violin already used). My experience of playing has completely changed and the sound is different too, which was expected. However, I have a very weird feeling regarding the contact of the bow with the strings. It feels like it is not enough. There is enough rosin for sure on it, but for example, I tried staccato and it was not successful. Of course it may be my skills on this one but overall the feeing is there whatever I do. Could that feeling be due to one of the changes that were done?
To mention that my strings are 1.5 years old so it could be part of the reason but the grip was still felt better right before I brought my instrument to the luthier.
Thank you for your help