Purified bile salts dr berg

I’m an MS4 that fully matched DR this year. I had 21 interviews for DR and matched my top 3 for both DR and intern year. I wanted to share some of my thoughts/reflections/things I wish I knew applying into diagnostic radiology this past cycle. There have been writeups in the past but in the era of virtual interviews, mass applying, and record application numbers, I thought I’d talk a little about how I think the application landscape is changing for radiology and my lowly n=1 opinions on how rads hopefuls can prepare themselves. This is colored mostly by personal experience so obviously take it all with a tablespoon of salt. Everyone’s story is different, I’m just sharing what I learned from my journey.
This year, there were 0 unfilled spots for DR and 2 for IR (those spots were programs that didn’t participate in the main NRMP match cycle, and one nucs med spot that’s being internally filled). For reference, the only other specialties that also filled completely were ortho and Plastics. Neurosurgery, ENT, and Derm all had unfilled spots. This isn’t to suggest that DR is now more competitive than those fields (it’s not, those fields are still far more self selecting and you don’t need to be proficient in softball to match) but just emphasizes how cutthroat the field has gotten in the past couple of years.
Disclaimers: I’m writing from the perspective of a (low tier) USMD. If you’re a DO or IMG, you can probably learn stuff from this info as well but truthfully I’m not fully familiar with all the extra hurdles DOs and IMGs go through to match DR and I don’t want to espouse misleading information for you guys. Connecting with matched DO’s and IMG’s on the discord or spreadsheet will be in your best interest. Also, I only applied DR. The broad strokes advice may still apply here but IR is pretty different in terms of your application and approach so if you’re gunning for integrated IDR you may not glean much from this.
--------------------------------Application Foundations--------------------------------
School Rank: Yea no shit this matters. In general USMD >> DO >>>> IMG except for a couple programs that are IMG heavy (Mercy catholic, Yale bridgeport as examples) No, this isn’t Yale’s main program you prestige whore If you’re at a T20 why are you reading this. You’ll match by virtue of existing. Go outside.
DOs and IMGs really struggled with the match this year and it will not get better. If you’re a premed reading this and choosing a school and you’re at all interested in DR or any other competitive specialty then attending an MD school with an attached academic centehome program is your best bet.
Step 2
With step 1 now P/F this will be the big number programs use I think. My general benchmark estimates:
Sub 240- would consider this to be a genuine weakness/borderline red flag in your app, I’d make the effort to compensate in other areas of your application
240- will probably put you among the weaker end of radiology applicants, but not unworkable
250- baseline goal you should shoot for, basically the average range of matched applicants
260- a great score, theoretically makes you competitive for any program in the country depending on the rest of your app
270- 🤓
If you fail step 2 or step 1, your app is dead in the water.
I’m gonna get like 50 comments saying shit like “well I know xyz student who matched UCSF rads with a 196!!!” yea well as you can see by the length of this post scores aren’t everything. Anyone can match with anything theoretically. But these score benchmarks at least let you get an idea of your competitiveness relative to the rest of the pack, which is important for building the rest of your app. Bottom line: P/250 should be ok as a USMD. P/260 is ideal tho. DO’s should shoot for P/260 as a baseline I think.
DO’s- take both steps. Yes, even though step 1 is P/F. This is non negotiable. Programs do not give a single shit about COMLEX even if their site says they accept it.
Clinical Grades
Don’t need perfect grades, but honor as many as you can. Do whatever is necessary outside of academic dishonesty. Practice your head game. This isn’t a guide on how to honor rotations, those exist elsewhere. Honors in big rotations (IM, surgery) mean more than smaller ones. How much Honors vs HP vs P impacts you depends on your school’s grade breakdown. If you’re High passing when 45% of your class is honoring that’s less than ideal. If only 5% of your class honors then HP is fine. If you’re Passing and your school is P/F then you’re chilling. DON’T FAIL A CLERKSHIP. You probably will not match. If your school publishes shelf grades in your MSPE, don’t fumble those. Avoid shitty MSPE comments and try to get those scrubbed from your record.
Preclinical Grades
Don’t matter as much as clinical grades, especially if they don't factor into AOA. Doing well in preclinicals doesn’t hurt though, and being bottom quintile certainly won’t help. Don’t fail anything. Probably not as big of a deal as failing clerkships but you don’t want any red flags in your app no matter how small.
AOA
Nice to have. I was AOA and had several programs comment on it. If you’re squinting for patterns mostly community programs and lower tier academics actively mentioned it (“Congrats on AOA” or “I see you’re academically strong, since you’re AOA” and comments of that ilk were what I heard). The big name programs I interviewed at did not mention it, so not sure if they care. If you’re gonna rant about how AOA is a diversity award/popularity contest go soapbox somewhere else. You definitely do NOT need AOA to match radiology (the vast majority of people that match don’t, I was the only rads match from my school in AOA). I’m just commenting on my thoughts on how much it impacts your app, not making a political statement.
GHHS
No one gave a shit. This is a mickey mouse award
Research
Do something. This isn’t ortho, you don’t need 20 first author papers in the field. But do something. Does not have to be rads related, unless you’re gunning to match Stanford/UCSF/MGH/NYU or the like. For reference, I had several pubs/presentations/posters in non rads fields that were based on interesting clinical/translational studies. I also had 2 first author radiology case reports. Every interviewer asked about the clinical projects. No one mentioned the case reports. Obviously rads clinical research would be the ideal, but the point here is to not only demonstrate academic productivity, but to have something interesting/memorable to talk about in interviews. 20 case reports isn’t a conversation starter. Original research, even in another field, is a conversation starter. Original rads research is harder to do as students generally can’t read scans which is a big part of most studies but if you can swing it it’s awesome.
Can’t comment for sure on numbers, NRMP says like 8 total items which sounds about right. I’d try to do like 1-2 clinical research projects (in any field, no need to be super anal about radiology) and then fill the rest with case reports. ACR case in point is a good place to pump those out if you have a good mentor (RIP RSNA case reports). Radiology Case Reports has a publishing fee but turnover time is like 1 week so you can really go hard in that journal if your department pays for it.
Former surgical subspecialty switchouts/dual apps, you’ll be okay (I was one of those) Radiology accepts people like you all the time, including residents that match these fields then regret it. I wanted to do a surgical subspec before rads and had a decent body of research in that field. Bonus points if that ENT work you did looked at imaging, It’s an easy pivot on interviews! Like I said before, this isn’t ortho. Research productivity doesn’t compensate for poor grades and scores, and you can’t kill an away like you could in surgical subspecs. So make sure your raw grades/scores are good as they build the foundation of your app. Good grades/scores with low research >> great research with shitty grades/scores.
Bonus: If any research work you did involved coding, statistical programming, or machine learning, try to swing it as a budding interest in AI. Many programs, especially academic ones, get their dicks hard the minute someone mentions AI/deep learning models.
Conferences: Unfortunately, networking is becoming more of a thing in radiology as is the fate of any competitive field in a world of less objective metrics. If you can present at RSNA or ACR or SIR or any other conference, absolutely take the opportunity. Introduce yourself to as many PD’s and APD’s as possible, plant the idea of your existence as a seed into their subconscious. If you have nothing to present, I don't know how much value these conferences would have though unless you're a rizz god or somethng. I can’t comment on this too much because I did literally none of this but if your above application metrics are weak then I’d highly recommend doing this. As a terminally online introvert with the personality of a cement block I think networking is cringe but you gotta play the game. IMGs/DOs should especially be trying to do this.
Extracurriculars/Work Experience
No one really cares about interest groups. No one cares if you worked in the student clinic. Programs do care if you did an interesting service/leadership activity. I had one cool service activity I did in preclinicals that got brought up in every interview (wasn’t rads related at all). Make sure you can speak well on what the activity entailed and how you personally contributed.
Nontrads with previous work experience, wear it like a badge of honor. It makes you more interesting as an applicant. I can’t comment on it firsthand because I went straight through but anything that makes your story more than “I was premed in college and now I’m in medical school” is gonna be a talking point on interviews.
--------------------------------Building your App--------------------------------
Letters of Recommendation
IMO the best setup for this is 1 radiology letter and 2 nonradiology clinical letters. Assuming all you did was a rads rotation and little else, a radiology LOR is going to inherently be weak. Students don’t do much besides shadow on rads rotations and everyone knows it, so what’s it gonna say? “Oh student X sat there like a good little boy/girl and didn’t fall asleep in the reading room please RTM them :)” -yeah not the best letter pal. Your clinical letters on the other hand can actually speak to your ability as a medical student so they can be more impressive. The specialty doesn’t matter too much, just make sure they can speak strongly on your ability as a future resident.
If you’re wondering how to get a good rads letter, the best answer is to do research with a rads mentor. Then they can say that you’re academically productive and worked well on projects which makes your letter nicer. If you do research with multiple rads mentors, that’s the only instance in which I’d get a second Rads letter.
How you set up your 4th year rotations should depend on what you need. If you aren’t sure about getting a good nonrads letter, do a Sub I, especially in IM or Surgery- I really really recommend this as a great way to get a good letter or two. If you’re a newer switch into the field do a rads rotation to get a letter. Honestly your rads letter is more of a checkbox at that point than anything else but having one at least confirms you’re not blatantly backup applying.
Dual/backup appliers should get try to get one rads letter from a rotation. Also, make sure your other letters don’t say how great of an orthopedic surgeon you’re gonna be lol don’t get snitched on by your own homies
Away Rotations
Ding ding ding the big million dollar question. You probably scrolled to look for this. I am of the opinion that yes, you should do an away if you can. This is coming from someone who didn’t do one. Now, they aren’t mandatory like they are for surgical subspecialties, but you should try to fit one into your schedule if you can. With step 1 going pass fail and the increasing number of apps, programs are looking for more ways to separate applicants from the flock. Away rotations can be your key. Some general guidelines:
1. DO A ROTATION AT A PROGRAM YOU WOULD BE ALREADY BE COMPETITIVE AT. Doing an away at a rotation at a program does not guarantee an interview. This may sound lame, but think about it- all you do on most DR aways is shadow, or maybe take an exam or present on a topic. That’s nice but it tells a program nothing about how good you’d actually be as a resident.This is why I made a big deal of being able to assess your relative competitiveness as an applicant. Use texas star and residency explorer to get a better idea of this- if you’re in the upper 25% of matched applicants statistics then it’s probably a good idea to do an away there. Don’t rotate at UCSF or MGH if you’re a DO or have below average stats- you’re not gonna get an interview and you’re gonna waste everyone’s time.
2. Aways should not take precedence over important application building rotations. If you need a non radiology letter and you’re debating between doing an away vs doing a sub I in medicine, the answer is the sub I. A strong application with no aways > weaker app with an away IMO. Getting letters from aways is hard to say. Do it if you don’t have a home program. Otherwise, it’s probably more valuable to build a strong connection to your home program and get radiology letter(s) there.
3. If you’re looking to match in an area that you have no educational/personal ties to, do an away there. If you’re from the midwest and want to match in NYC, do an away in NYC. If you’re looking to match to california and aren’t attending medical school there, do an away in Cali. Unless you’re a superstar candidate you will probably see poor yields in areas outside of your med school/hometown area so an away can help boost yields. That being said, rule 1 takes precedence here.
4. I don’t recommend getting LOR’s from away programs. The big exception here is if you don’t have a home program, in which case then you should. It’s just that these letters are probably gonna be mid at best and home rads letters where the PD/writer knew you for longer will probably be of better quality. Again, everyone is different-maybe you really really vibed with an away faculty and want a letter from them. If you are confident it’ll be a really quality letter, then go for it. But don’t strategize your app around getting letters from MGH or NYu or Stanford and thinking this is like surgical subspecs where you do aways at places for great letters- it’s not.
Make sure to apply early and broadly- it’s first come first serve for most programs. If you haven’t finished your app and submitting to programs already, you’re probably running late. Oops, probably should probably have submitted this sooner. This is what League of Legends does to you folks. Try to do research and ask around about what programs highly value away rotators. I have some leads but there are definitely many many others out there.
NYC- Mt. Sinai Icahn SOM- great away experience, gave interviews to away rotators
PA- Einstein Philly- highly highly values away rotators/demonstrated interest in the program
CA- Santa Barbara Cottage- gave interviews to away rotators, great “foothold” program into CA
CA- Cedars Sinai- another great “foothold” program into CA
Shoutout to these programs for doing the exact opposite:
Wash U St. Louis- rejected an away rotator 3 weeks into the away (per name and shame)
UMD- did not provide interviews to multiple away rotators
FYI both programs I listed above are great places to train at, and programs are under no obligation to give interviews to away rotators, especially in DR. Just know if you rotate there that you should prepare for this possibility.
Post-ERAS submission aways are probably still valuable especially early on in interview season. The only thing is that you won’t be able to get LORs from those but I think LOR’s from away rads programs are almost guaranteed to be mid at best so I’d recommend not building your app around those unless you have no home program.
Signals
The other million dollar question. This year apparently applicants get 6 gold and 6 silver signals. I think the best thing to do with signals is just send them to where you wanna go. I have no clue why anyone would want a silver signal, but I don’t think it’s worth the headache of trying to mindgame which programs are getting silvers and which are getting golds. Send your golds to the ones you really like, and your silvers to the ones you also like but maybe not as much. Don’t overthink it.
My only advice regarding signals is to NOT signal big name academic centers. UCSF, NYU, MGH, Upenn, etc do not put much weight into signals. They know everyone wants to train with them so they get their pick of the litter. Sending a signal to them is likely throwing your signal in the trash, especially if your application metrics aren’t at or above their matched averages. I think you get the most bang for your buck from signaling smallemid tier academic centers and community programs. That being said, I’m not your dad. Signal who you want.
PS ask your home program if they want you to signal them. Some don’t but others are dickheads and want one of your signals. Make sure you know.
Hobbies/Experiences
Damn i dont know what the fuck they’re smoking at AAMC with this change but I guess I can talk about it. Sounds like common sense but talk about shit that’s actually meaningful and you can talk freely and confidently/passionately about in interviews. Especially now since you have limited space. The student clinic you and 1000 med students volunteered at probably doesn’t mean much. Oh, you led the student clinic? Well that’s a lot better, you should talk about that. Activities where you took a leadership role are always gonna be more meaningful and interesting in interviews than stuff you were just a floater in. Gonna copy and paste a comment I made a while ago about putting research as experiences in your ERAS. Applies to any specialty I think:
Publications and "experiences" are different parts of your ERAS application, with Pubs having no cap. You can enter any publication as a "research experience" but you'll need to think a little harder about which ones you wanna put in.
For example, if you do a small filler case report and it gets published in a smaller journal, this is a publication and should be in your ERAS publication section. You could enter it as a research experience as well, where you describe the process you went through to get it written and published. However, this would not be a very meaningful experience and a waste of one of your ten entries.
Let's say you lead a longitudinal translational research project in your field of interest that gets presented at a conference as an abstract, and then subsequently published in a large journal. Both the abstract and the pub will, again, go in your ERAS pubs section. However, this would also make a great research experience to use in your experiences tab. You could talk about how you led the project, the role you played in completing it, where it was presented, etc. This would make for a strong candidate in your experiences tab.
TL;DR: Smaller filler projects are pubs but shouldn't be listed in experiences. Larger important projects should be publications and also listed as a research experience. Hope this makes sense.
I would highly highly recommend including some space for hobbies in your eras. DR interviews are like 80% hobby talk, 10% why rads, 10% random shooting the shit. You don’t need to have insanely interesting hobbies- even mundane stuff is great conversation food. I talked about TV (almost spoiled an interview on Better Call Saul's ending) and manga (Chainsaw Man my love) in some of my interviews. Just be sure you’re genuine in those interests and can talk about them. Don’t fabricate a hobby like underwater basket weaving to make yourself look cool because if you sound fake then that’s gonna be an almost instant DNR. My home PD told me a story of a great applicant they DNR’ed because he said he loved fly fishing in his hobbies section and our PD (who loves fly fishing) asked about it he couldn’t talk anything about it. because it was made up. Yeah, don’t do that.
Probably 2-3 hobbies and elaborate a little on each. Don’t just say running- were you on any competitive teams? Did you run a marathon/halfy/5k? Give some meat to it but not your whole life story.
Personal Statement
I feel very unconfident in talking about this part so I won’t say too much. I was told my PS was good but no one really commented on it in interviews. I think the 10/80/10 rule applies here- 80% of PS’s don't move the needle in any way, 10% are profound, 10% suck ass. You’re not gonna be in that top 10% most likely so just try not to be in that bottom 10%. Spell check, and don’t talk about how you wanna do rads because of lifestyle or because you “Like PUZZLES” -it’s generic as fuck. Have as many eyes on it as possible- your mentors, your friends, your parents, your parole officer, Dealer Jim- get as much feedback on it as possible. Just make sure it doesn’t suck or unintentionally reveal any personality disorders- that time you lit a live squirrel on fire and looking at the bones made you interested in Xrays is probably not a good radiology PS.
Conclusions/I skipped to the bottom
Rads is getting pretty competitive. I’d say it’s not on the level of the surgical subspecs/derm but probably the most competitive one of the remaining ones. It’s still not too bad if you’ve built a decent app- I’m not gonna hype it up like the psych and gas doomposters, but it’s not a walk in the park like it was pre-COVID. Especially if you’re a DO or IMG….
My spicy prediction we will see a small dip in application numbers this cycle- ChatGPT “concerns” and people realizing it’s not a safe backup may cause a small decrease in app numbers- but the process is becoming more opaque with tiered signals and more importantly P/F step 1.
TL;DR:
-GET GOOD STEP 2 SCORE. 250+ goal, 260+ ideal if you want to feel safer but I don't think there's really a safe score nowadays
-GOOD GRADES IN MEDICAL SCHOOL- honors and HP’s, don’t low pass. DON’T FAIL ANYTHING. Be top tertile/quintile/quartile/kitchentile or whatever your school does.
-DO SOME RESEARCH- a couple case reports and a independent project or two that you can talk about is your goal. Don’t need 10+ pubs like an ENT manwhore but don’t have nothing.
-DO AN AWAY AT A TARGET RANGE PROGRAM. Know your competitiveness and choose your away intelligently. Don’t ego it. Do it in a region you’d potentially like to match in especially if you don’t have prior ties. Again, not mandatory but it can really help.
-BE A REAL PERSON- you’re not a stat stick. Mention hobbies, ecs, prior jobs that you can talk about in interviews. The first 3 points get you the interview- it’s these last two points that get you the match.
I hope this helps a little. I wish I wrote this in march post match because then some of this advice would have been more timely like the aways but what can you do.
I might do a part 2 on interviews and rank lists and what I think you should look for in a program so let me know if that's something you might be interested in. I feel like those are later cycle questions and wouldn't be super relevant right now. Plus I've already procrastinated on writing this up when I said I would so I try to write that this shit is never gonna get done.
Other matched rads people feel free to chime in/correct me/share your experiences. I don't claim to be a know it all for this process by any means I still wonder how I managed to pull the devious heist on the program that matched me.
I’m willing to take DM’s if you have more specific/personal questions but no butthole pics please.

Microplastics, climate denial, contagious skin fungus, warlords, record temperatures, and wheat troubles. This is starting to get serious.
Last Week in Collapse: May 21-27, 2023
This is Last Week in Collapse, a weekly newsletter bringing together some of the most important, timely, useful, depressing, ironic, amazing, or otherwise must-see moments in Collapse.
This is the 73rd newsletter. Sorry it’s a bit later than usual. You can find the May 14-20 edition here if you missed it last week. These newsletters are also on Substack if you want them sent to your email inbox every Sunday.
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Climate and soil scientists are warning that Europe’s soil won’t be able to absorb as much water now, after a season of terrible drought. The feedback loops spell disaster for the continent’s ability to weather the coming drought. France has given up aiming for just a 1.5 °C temperature increase, and are preparing for 4 °C rise by 2100. Scientists claim we are heading for total disaster, but the rest of the world apparently has bigger problems.
The world is allegedly on track for 2.7 °C of warming, and some experts predict that about one billion humans may be forced to migrate as a result of global warming, sea level rise, etc. Iraq is one such location, and countless migrants have already fled. On Twitter, climate scientists report seeing more hostility and climate denial.
Category 5 Typhoon Mawar blasted Guam, and took out electricity, but no humans were killed on the island. In Somalia, over one million people were displaced by drought within the last 4 months.
A ship’s draft/draught) is the distance between its waterline and the bottom of its keel/hull. This determines a ship’s displacement; the heavier a ship’s cargo, the greater its draft will be. The Panama Canal is reducing the allowed vessel draft because they didn’t receive enough rain in the last few months and cannot fully fill the Canal’s locks. As a result, more ships will be forced to make the long journey around Cape Horn—or load up with less cargo to transit the Canal. The supply chain feedback loops are compounding.
Chad saw its highest May temperature last week—47 °C (117 °F), and part of Samoa tied a new May temperature too—34.8 °C (101 °F) . New record temperatures in Southeast Asia again. The ocean around the Cayman Islands has hit 30 °C earlier than any previous year. The average sea surface temperature has been breaking daily records for every day for over two months.
Experts are warning that a heat wave would devastate Phoenix, Arizona, if it knocked out the power grid. Up to 800,000 people (half the population) would allegedly require emergency medical attention for heat stroke, etc. The study concluded that about 12,800 people would die as a result.
Although most of the world is warming, the upper atmosphere is cooling down, forcing scientists and generals to consider its potential impact on satellites and on our sensitive weather patterns. Temperatures beyond roughly 50km out in the atmosphere have been cooled by CO2 levels. Concrete implications from the study are unclear.
About 5,000 Congolese are still missing weeks after catastrophic flooding. Wildfire risk is increasing in Sweden. Heat wave alerts in Sri Lanka.
A study has claimed—again—that species are going extinct even faster than expected. About half of surveyed species have seen population declines recently (especially in the tropics), while 49% are holding relatively steady.
One species at risk of dieoff is the black sea urchin off the coast of Israel—and their dieoff hold grim implications for the health of coral in the Red Sea.
Tick season has begun, and researchers are worried that they can transfer prions from white-tailed deer to humans. Chronic wasting disease has not yet afflicted humans, though it exists in growing quantities among Canadian cervids.
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The danger from fungi is growing as a result of climate change, and the rise of Candida Auris—and a resistant, contagious skin fungus coming out of India—in the U.S. is alarming epidemiologists. The combination of compromised immune systems (from COVID, increased diabetes), climate change, distrust of health entities, health insurance problems, and healthcare worker collapse are creating a terrible convergence of circumstances.
Over 5,000 new species have been discovered in the ocean between Hawai’i and Mexico—and in two months, applications will be accepted to begin deep-sea mining extraction operations in the region. Meanwhile, Shell shareholders rejected attempts to accept new emissions targets, 80% to 20%.
German police are looking into classifying “Last Generation” climate activists as part of a criminal group, amid raids targeting the traffic-stopping activists.
Greenpeace claims that recycled plastic can be more toxic than first-use plastic—but don’t worry, only 9% of plastic is recycled worldwide. A study from Hazardous Materials Advances concluded that recycling plastics produces large amounts of microplastics which later contaminate our land, water, and even air.
The U.S. Supreme Court limited the scope of the Clean Water Act, to exclude certain types of wetlands. This opens up some wetlands to nearby development and pollution.
Some Kansas wheat farmers suffered so much drought and cold snaps that they are abandoning their crops. Across the country, one third of winter-wheat acres are being abandoned, the highest percent in over 100 years. Utah’s Great Salt Lake is drying up, and strong winds are blowing dust, sometimes containing heavy metals.
Locusts in Afghanistan are threatening the coming wheat harvests in an already famine-stricken land. Argentina will face a similar problem if they don’t get rain within a few weeks.
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South Africa is suffering from 33% unemployment and devastating, 10-hour load-shedding (routine power outages) every day. A senior politician is warning that the crumbling nation could become a failed state soon. Power grid troubles are expected to escalate later this winter, by August.
A teenage girl in Guyana set fire to her dorm and unintentionally killed 19 people—because her cell phone was confiscated. What will society do when their water and human rights are confiscated?
Russia is supposedly considering an export ban on gasoline, in an attempt to better control supply & prices within its own territory. Qatar warned Europe that they haven’t seen the worst of the petrol/energy crisis yet.
Global demand for goods is reportedly sinking, and the production of shipping containers is down. More and more Americans are struggling to pay bills as inflation rises. Germany is officially in recession now. South Africa’s interest rates are at a 14-year high.
Some experts are concerned that China may overtake the U.S. with AI development. Others are concerned about the implications of an AI future dominated by the United States. Experts are calling for regulation of AI before it destroys humans.
Cambodia’s ruling party is keeping the opposition party off the ballots in this July’s elections.
The ceasefire in Khartoum is largely holding, but sporadic violence by fighters threatens the fragile “peace” in the city. Once a War “begins,” what role do the civilians have in re-instituting peace—or keeping the conflict going?
The head of the Wagner Group is warning of revolution in Russia, a portent that may also be a threat. The mercenary group is currently handing over Bakhmut to the Russian Army, and claims that about 20,000 Wagner soldiers died taking the city. Meanwhile, a pro-Ukrainian group of ethnic-Russian soldiers made attacks inside Russian territory, and soon withdrew back into Ukraine.
Russia’s former President and PM claimed that this War could last for decades. Yet certain unspecified NATO member states will give F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, and train about 20 Ukrainian pilots, in an effort to force an earlier conclusion. Yet their impact may not be decisive on the battlefield.
Seven U.S. states agreed on a three-year water-sharing compromise over the Colorado River’s water; whether the pact will hold when the Dust Bowl 2.0 begins is up in the air. Meanwhile, troops from Afghanistan and Iran exchanged machine gun fire and some mortars, over water rights in the Helmand River.
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Things to watch for next week include:
↠ It’s that time of the year again. American politicians posture over raising the debt ceiling, a massive political/economic struggle that usually ends with a last-minute compromise or a short government shutdown. The U.S. is set to default on its debt on June 1st, which would damage trust and cause market bedlam. What’s it gonna be this time?
↠ Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo, is rapidly running out of water. The city’s main reservoir only had 10 days left of water—5 days ago. So the city’s supply is set to be exhausted by next Friday. How will the government react—and what will the people do? This might be a signal of what lies ahead for the rest of us.
Select comments/threads from the subreddit last week suggest:
-China will be getting 65M COVID cases—every week—if you believe the claims made in this thread and its sources, which include the Chinese government. The world’s second-most-populous nation, once the last bastion against COVID, has resigned to letting rolling waves of coronavirus repeatedly infect the masses. So it goes.
-Some rich countries will fare very poorly in Collapse, judging by the comments on this thread. Do you see your nation among them?
-Climate change may be worse than you think, says a thread and its comments. Even some doomers will be taken aback by the speed and scale of the damage ahead. What are you doing to prepare?
Have any feedback, questions, comments, resources, Collapse tattoos, recipes, aches or pains, spam mail, etc.? Consider joining the Last Week in Collapse SubStack if you don’t want to check collapse every Sunday, you can get this newsletter sent to your email inbox every weekend. I always forget something... What did I miss this week?

Sincerely, an Arsenal fan.
So I’ve not really had a problem with City over the past decade or so, irrespective of how many titles and major finals they had to their name. Arsenal were never close to competing and it stopped an actual rival from being in their place.
This season we actually had a chance so it’s stings that little bit more but it was ours to lose and lose it we did. Frustrating but fair.
Now, I’d put a bet on at the start of the season because unlike most arsenal fans, I actually expected to do as well as we did. Arsenal +20 handicap to win the title @ 15/1? Chump change. No way we would be over 20 points behind City.
A few weeks back it was mathematically impossible for us to finish more than 20 points behind City. Jubilation. Checked bet365 to see if it had been settled early and of course it hadn’t. I checked back every week since until finally today was the last day of the season and I was looking forward to seeing that big £160 in my wallet. But instead, I see a big red X and £0 returns.
So it turns out that with season handicap betting, every team in the league gets their own handicap added, and you have to win THAT league. And funnily enough, Arsenal had finished 2nd there too. 1 point behind Brentford. All thanks to the big 3 points they secured on the final day of the season… against Man City.
TL;DR - Man City lost me the title, and a tenner
P.S.: I know it’s my own fault for betting on a market that I didn’t fully understand and no I’m not crying over £10. I just think it’s ironic and mildly infuriating that the one time City winning a game would benefit me, is also the one time they lost 🙃
P.S.S: Just to rub salt in to the wounds, I’m currently at uni in Manchester and so I get to witness their celebrations first hand👍🏽😂

Credit to u/bluefishcake for writing the original SSB story and building the sandbox for us to play in.
And a big thanks to the authors and their stories that inspired to get off my ass and put my fingers to keyboard. RandomTinkerer (City Slickers and Hayseeds), Punnynfunny (Denied Operations), CompassWithHat (Top Lasgun), Rhion-618 (Just One Drop), UncleCieling(Going Native), RobotStatic (Far Away), Kazevenikov (The Cryptid Chronicle), Also to the editor # Fan Beta Readers and KLiCkonthat
As always comments, complaints, and suggestions are welcome.
This is a fair use notice. Any and all aspects of this may be used on and within this subreddit only, with attribution. All other uses are exclusive to the author.
/**************/
PO Jyhnex led Robert to the conference room where he had set up a paper and pencil for him, as per his request. She had also set up a digital whiteboard in case Robert needed it. Robert began drawing the first thing on his mind, occasionally expressing pieces of his thought experiment as he allowed himself to disconnect from the world around him. This was different from meditation as it was inwardly directed and allowed him to fly into the universe.
Closing his eyes, he imagined himself walking on the surface of the sun, feeling the solar wind as if it were a gentle mist of water from a sprinkler. The magnetic field lines reacted to his touch like the strings on a harp, playing the music of the stars. This was the place where Robert could start any journey he wanted. He remembered the quote about a demon that lived in the air, which people believed would kill anyone who challenged it. They had long ago slain that demon, but there was a new one that lived in the void. Many had challenged it, but all had died, leaving behind only the simplest of atoms as a result. Robert was not there to challenge the demon, but to understand it.
He willed himself to warp spacetime and move among the stars. As he passed the stars, the light they emitted danced and flickered on the boundary of the warp field, creating a distracting white noise, it demanded his attention, but it would have to wait for a later time. He was here to observe the gravity waves generated by objects moving in the universe, such as planets around stars, stars around each other, and the dances of colliding black holes. They created an endless discordant white noise on the fabric of the universe. The universe had a frequency, and the phase field had a frequency. When they aligned, phase travel became efficient and easy. Many parameters made up the phase frequency, but mass and warp field distortion rate were the two most important. The warp field distortion rate was by far the largest factor. The sweet spot for phase travel was between 0.35 and 0.55 against the Keriverax Barrer Scale, which was the brick wall at the end of phase travel. It was also the home of the demon that lived in the void.
At 0.4KBS, the gravity waves would slide around the warp field like the flow of air over a wing. At this speed, there was almost no distortion from the turbulence in his wake. This was his starting point. In his mind, he pushed up to 0.57KBS, where the gravity waves began to stick to the warp field for just a moment, maybe one or two picoseconds at most, before releasing like a stretched rubber band. He slowed his perspective of time to watch the interaction between the warp field and the gravity wave, playing with the different aspects of the warp field. He repeated his runs over and over again until he defined four quantitative pieces that, if applied correctly, could move the sweet spot up to 0.65KBS, maybe even 0.7KBS.
Pulling back from the warp field and examining it from the outside perspective, there was nothing left that he could alter from inside the field. On the outside, he left the gravity waves, and there was nothing he could do to alter them, but they were definable. It was time to go home, and he would explore more next time.
/***************************************************/
PO Jyhnex: Sorry about that. It's my fault.
PO Jyhnex: (private mode) Lt Cmdr Ashix, grab Dr. Norroe. You both are going to want to see this.
When Lt Cmdr Ashix and Dr. Norroe arrived, there were already a few others watching through the conference room windows. Robert was standing at the main table that had been dragged over to the far side of the room. He was using the digital wall screens like a whiteboard. PO Jyhnex moved over to stand between them., "Commander, we were told to let him do this, right?" She asked, just be sure that they had the confirmation of the orders to allow Robert to have limited access to the things he needed to continue his work.
Lt Cmdr Ashix licked her lips, not really understanding what she was seeing. "Yes and no. We wanted to guide him in the direction of what we think we understand. I do not know if this applies. Doctor, what do you think?"
Dr Norroe stood in delighted amazement watching Robert work. He was writing with his eyes closed, moving his head as if seeing or listening to something that was not there, and sweating heavily. She understood what he was doing. He was visualizing the problem in his mind and was trying to express it as fast as he could. Then he switched hands just as Lt Cmdr Ashix interrupted her and asked, "I am not sure, Petty Officer. Have you noticed that he was switching hands?"
PO Jyhnex pointed to an area away from where he was working and said, "Yes, and he changed languages every time he does."
Lt Cmdr Ashix asked, "What do you mean?"
Dr. Norroe slowly smiled and said, "In theory, he is working on the problem in both sides of his brain, as an analytical and a spatial awareness problem."
PO Jyhnex said, "I know this is going to sound like a complete turox shit question, but has anybody held a mirror up to these undecipherable symbols?"
Dr Norroe and Lt Cmdr Ashix just looked at the Petty Officer. "Your report said he has a human learning disability where his brain interprets symbols backward. Maybe he is writing them backward."
Lt Cmdr Ashix sent a private message to her colleague, "Vevreix, please join me over at Congress Room 3 and bring your glasses." A few moments passed when she received her reply.
C. Vevreix: "On my way, ma'am.”
As soon as Ishani arrived with En. Tha’xur in tow, Lt Cmdr Ashix asked Ishani, "I need your glasses." Ishani handed them over without question. Lt Cmdr Ashix held her glasses up to her data slate so that the image from the screen was reflected on the surface of her glasses. "Ensign, crewman, please tell me what you see," she said.
Ishani spoke first, "The symbols are inverted, both flipped horizontally and vertically."
En. Tha’xur interrupted, "Not only that, the whole block of the equation is written right to left, not left to right...Ma'am, we are going to have to redo most of the translations. I think some of our core assumptions were wrong."
Lt Cmdr Ashix said, "No, you two work with what is right here. I do not want to throw away all of the work we have done so far unless we have to. Get me something by tomorrow morning with just what is in the room. I need to speak with CMDR Vashini."
Handing Ishani back her glasses, she said, "Get on it, you two. Everybody else, back to work."
/*********************************/
Robert opened his eyes to see what he had done. He knew what he had written and what it meant, but understanding it all required filling in the missing pieces. This was way more complicated than making the Charger fly. Turning, Robert saw around a dozen Shil’vati watching him through the windows of the conference room.
"Fuck me…" he resignedly thought to himself. He had to get down from the table, but why have the fun end on a boring note?“You shits want to gawk at me? Fine, gawk at this!” Robert thought as he launched himself into a front aerial, landing in the center of the room. Turning to face his work, he walked backward until he hit the wall and allowed himself to slide down and sit on the floor. With one more defiant move, he flipped each marker up onto the table, not caring where they landed.
From outside, he heard a commanding voice, “Alright, ladies, the show is over.” Sitting on the floor, studying his equations, he started to taste the iron tinge of blood in the back of his throat. Always the bloody fucking nose, he thought. The bloody nose was a small price to pay for the ability to define the problem. He needed aspirin and Tylenol to take care of the headache that was starting. His mother had taken him to a neurologist about three years before the first time he had learned he could control his little trick. Bloody noses and migraines were the results of what he called "flying". He had gotten the idea from reading about Einstein and his thought experiments, and it was the best way to conceptualize the problem. His mother had thought he had a brain hemorrhage, but the neurologist found it was brain fatigue.
This diagnosis was the doctor's way of saying that she really did not have a good idea of what had happened. The tests had ruled out many conditions that could cause the symptoms including epilepsy, though there were several parrals. The change in blood chemistry and electrolyte imbalance resembled heat exhaustion and was more than enough to trigger the migraine and nose bleeds. Everything else seemed to be within the ‘normal’ ranges for a human, but in Robert’s case, he was at the upper end of normal. The doctor did not think it was worth exploring further. No reason to waste resources on a child labeled as defective.
“Robert, would you please get up and sit in the chair, so I can check you out medically?” He looked up to find Dr. Norroe standing over him, holding out a hand to help him up. He took her hand to stand, though sitting in Shil-sized conference chairs was comical at best. With him standing only 5 feet 4 inches tall, and the average Shil’vita being 7 feet tall, he needed a booster seat. Dr. Norroe asked about his medical history as she did her examination, and he filled her in on what the neurologist had told him and his mother. She handed him a bottle of something that was not water. It tasted like sweet saltwater, and it was disgusting. The doctor made him finish it before giving him a couple of cleaning towels to get the blood off his face. His shirt was a lost cause; the blood had soaked through and was still wet and sticky. He needed a clean shirt and a trip to the bathroom to clean up but had to wait.
While the doctor was checking out Robert, PO. Jyhnex was cleaning up the blood that had dripped onto the table. The table was a mess, and as he had worked, he had stepped in it and tracked blood everywhere, even on the floor. Robert felt guilty that the Petty Officer had to clean up his mess.
Before Robert could apologize, PO. MunRhoe arrived, holding a large yellow bag and five extra-large pizza boxes. “You went and had a party without me. That is not fair.”
Shrugging, Robert smiled weakly. “You went for the beer run and missed all the fun. Now, Petty Officer Jyhnex gets cleanup duty, and I'm stuck with the hangover,” he said, reaching up to rub his temple.
Dr. Norroe finished treating Robert as PO. MunRhoe placed the pizza boxes and the yellow bag on a clean section of the table. "Hangover is right, you are dehydrated, borderline hypoglycemic, and low on salt. What you need is food, fluids, and sleep. Since you were under my authority as a medical doctor, I am putting you on light duty for 48 hours. So, I will tell your security detail that he is to treat you as if you are on restricted duty for that time and watch out for any signs of distress. Understood, ladies?" Both petty officers responded affirmatively with "Yes, Ma'am."
"Now, what in the Deep's name were you doing to get all that?" Dr. Norroe pointed at the digital whiteboard. She thought she knew what he had done but wanted to verify his conclusions.
"I call it flying. Albert Einstein called it a thought experiment. It is a way of visualizing the problem in the mind," Robert said and began to rub his temples again as the room started to rock back and forth.
"And how long do you usually do this for?"
Leaning his head and taking several long, slow deep breaths, Robert replied, "Most of the time, 30 minutes to an hour, tops. Then I go eat like a hobbit." Despite the room rocking, he was really hungry.
Hearing Robert's stomach growl, Dr. Norroe asked, "I have no idea what a hobbit is, but I will presume that you eat a great deal more than normal?"
Leaning his head again, Robert thought to himself, "Why the f**k am I so tired? It is never this bad." Meanwhile, Dr. Norroe continued, "Robert, please look at me. How long do you think you were 'flying' for?"
Robert took one last deep breath before sitting up. "An hour, maybe a little more. Why?"
Dr. Norroe looked concerned. "Robert, you were in it for almost five hours. This is very serious. If you push yourself like that too often, you will kill yourself. Please do not do this again without supervision unless there is a way to set a time limit."
Robert took what she said to heart. Solving the problem today was not worth dying over. "Physical touch has worked before. Is that good enough?"
Dr. Norroe replied, "Yes, that should be good for now."
Seeing the yellow bag on the table, Robert asked, "Petty Officer MunRhoe, did you get that food item I asked for?"
PO. MunRhoe had finished cleaning the mess and was opening the first pizza box. "Yes, it is in the bag. That Playwell store was an interesting place Do you need it, or do you want a slice of pie?"
Smiling, Robert said, "Both, but I will need a couple of spoons or a medicine cup first, and more water, please." He pulled the jug of 100 percent pure natural maple syrup out of the yellow bag, thinking, "A couple of shots of this, and about ten minutes, and the shakes should be taken care of."
PO. MunRhoe set up a slipe for Robert and PO Jyhnex, “That Playwell store was an interesting place. My brother's younger kids would love some of those kits. But why would you want something like that.?”
Incredully Robert shook his head, “Because they are fun.” showing just a hint of sadness “ I still know how to have a little.”
The Navy technician arrived with a stack of small Dixie cups and several bottles of water. PO. MunRhoe watched as Robert poured himself about three-quarters of a dixie cup of maple syrup and downed it, going so far as to lick the inside of the cup clean. Robert savored the flavor, wishing he had some real vanilla or chocolate chip ice cream to go with it. The idea of vanilla ice cream with maple brought back a memory of his childhood Friday night storytime. Maggie would read first with her book, then he would try with his, but he relied on his mom for a lot of it. Looking back now, it was a good memory.
Grabbing a monster slice of the deepest deep-dish pizza he had ever seen, PO. MunRhoe asked, "What is that stuff you just drank?"
"It is maple syrup," replied Robert, reaching for a bottle of water to clean out his mouth before he started in on the pizza. "It is tree sap that has been rendered down into basically liquid sugar. And where did you get the pizza, and how did you even know about it?"
Shoveling a forkful of the pizza filling into her mouth, she began speaking. "A year ago, I had a detail up in Chicago. I was there for a month and fell in love with deep-dish. This came from a place called 'A Slice of Chi-Town,' and it's called Big Blue's double-stacked deep dish. Both marines and militia swear by the place, and I agree, this is good. Try some."
Robert grabbed a slice after helping PO. Jyhnex reset the table and chairs. It was good pizza, but sadly Robert could only finish one slice.
/**************/
First:
Janissary: The Joy Ride Ch1 : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)
Previous:
Janissary: The Joy Ride Ch6 : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)
Next:
Chapter 8
Extra:
Janissary: The Son Of War : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)
Janissary: Vision from Zy'Verila : Sexyspacebabes (reddit.com)

Hi bowhunters, in my last post I went over 3 core food buffs I always run that are easy to manage and make, this time we will dive a little bit deeper adding agility max ap and xp buffs.
To maximize these foods I run herbivore and strange in numbers, if your food states a lower buff it is either because you are not herbivore or none of your teammates are mutated.
Let's start with my favorite, steeped melon blossom chai for +5 AGI lasting 1 hour!: agility is your bread and butter as a bowhunter, more agility gives: more max ap and better stealth. We craft melon blossom chai with: boiled water, melon blossom, mutated fern flower and spices. - I hope by now you are camping near a body of water - melon blossoms are rare but I only visit 2 locations: the generals steakhouse has 6 aaronhold homestead has 10 (walk straigt from spawn point theyre in between the junk pile and the shack in the field hard to see, one of them is weirdly called something else but if it looks like a melon blossom pick it up it will give melon blossom) we will visit aaronhold for another buff on this list - spices cannot be farmed or crafted like salt and pepper it is something you find while looting if you are following since last post you have saved up some, there is also a great list going around our discord and reddit where alot of you guys have already contributed locations. - mutated ferns grow in a lot of places and I dont actively seek them out, there is ferns at: queen fight near trees, westtek, the general steakhouse and alot more places I already commonly visit if you do want a one stop shop for your mutated ferns over 100 can be gathered between grafton steel yard and the location of a swarm of suitors to the west.
Even though the steeped melon blossom chai boosts our max ap by increasing our ap it doesnt overwrite a foodbuff that only gives max ap so we can add another tea boosting our max ap. For the best buff we make infused soot flower tea giving +50 to our max ap for 1 hour. To craft it we need: boiled water, soot flower, starlight berries and pepper. - I pray your water situation is okay by now - soot flowers grow everywhere in the forest especially around the vault. - we already have a good starlight berry location in the deep but if you want more there is a ton between the slocums joe near wayward the 3 houses on to the south and then follow the railway back north past slocums to gauley mine exit. For another batch of starlight berries. - pepper like spices cant be crafted however they are usually found near spices or instead of spices, a good chef always has ample amounts of salt, pepper and spices on hand.
Wow so now we have a buff increasing our ap regen our max ap and our agility! This means for a lot of us that we either completely remove the action boy perk or use it only at level one leaving us with more room in our build for those sweet food perks I mentioned in level one of the guide, all we need is to grind some levels to buy the perks luckily the next 2 buffs will massively increase our xp gains.
Let's start with the easy one, cranberry relish gives +25% xp for 1 hour! That's like a fifth lunchbox?! And you can craft them??!! All we need is: boiled water, cranberries, gourds and sugar. - do a rain dance and pray for some boiled water if you still don't have a spot near water - cranberries can be found at aaronhold homestead only guarded by some insects or in sunrise field in the cranberry bog if you like mirelurk queens (correct me if im wrong on the spot I dont like mirelurks haha I still go to the noob spot) or the sparse sundew grove which is a very beautiful location in the cranberry bog with almost no enemies. - gourd can be planted at your camp do a quick search on YouTube for the single wild gourd spawn and replant it at your camp - unlike spices salt and pepper sugar can just be crafted dont forget! Run along your favorite river.
Plant some gourds at your camp keep your sugar up occasionally grab cranberries and never run out again.
But wait there's more we can increase our xp gains even more with brain bombs boosting intelligence by 7,5 for 90 minutes, to craft it we need: brain fungus, mothman eggs, !purified! water and irradiated sugar bombs

• you have a water purifier
• brain fungus can be found at the whitesprings service entrance by all the dumpsters, at emmett mountain dispocal (rad rumble location) if you go right instead of down from spawn over 30 can safely be collected i do it everytime after the event when I'm there anyways. and the swamps near berkley springs station (once you spawn locate the tall cable tower thing and head that direction) only one of the locations is necessary as we don't need alot.
• mothman eggs can be grabbed from the altars at cultist locations, more than we will ever need are at point pleasant.
• irradiated sugar bombs are the real problem we need 3 per craft and they cant be crafted or farmed. Luckily the super awesome people of our reddit and discord also have sugar bomb routes! I only visit one location called mosstown in the large house overlooking the shanty town a skeleton can be found in the bathtub with 2-5 sugar bombs, the house also has a wild company tea spawn, company tea is an incredibly hard to craft tea that boosts ap regen more than fever blossom tea.

Having foods you cant farm yourself or ingredients you can't bulk farm might seem annoying but I can assure you that if you are actively playing and exploring the map has plenty of salt pepper spices and irradiated sugar bombs and I never run out of it, another thing I do is check every vendor bot their food section for any ingredients or colas. I can also argue that its not stupid but incredibly fun to be exploring a random place seeing a house and raiding the kitchen cabinets, the dopamine spike is massive everytime I randomly run across spices or sugar bombs and it keeps the game interesting for me.
Another fun one to keep an eye out for is melon bloom sounds a lot like melon blossom but sadly cant be found anywhere except for randomly in small blue coolers, with it you can craft a tea just as strong as the infused soot flower tea but they cant be stacked. Checking every blue cooler is advised because they can also contain sugar bombs and colas.
Another big tip is you can respawn all world spawns such as the 5 sugar bombs in the bath or the wild plants by using the world respawn method which is really easy. I advise you to look it up but the short version is. The game remembers the last 250 ish things you grabbed and respawns the other stuff after you server hop so grab desired stuff then grab 300 books in the weird book house in summerville server hop grab your desired thing again, to make a full loop you can grab a bunch of carrot flowers at palace of the winding path with green thumb then server hop and both the books and desired items are back. (Hot take this is the easier company tea farm)
It is important to never forget to equip super duper for 30% chance at doubling your crafted foods.
If you run out of wood because you are crafting so much food remember caps are worth nothing to a smart forager and wood is sold in bulk for cheap by robots. If you find yourself in need of caps make mentats from carrot flower, brain fungus and firecap and craft berry mentats with mentat firecracker berry and starlight berry. Use chemist to make 2 mentats and those into 4 berry mentats also use super duper for 30% bonus. They sell fast at 50 medium at 60 slow at 70 caps and you make 300 of them in like 15 minutes if you know the route. This is not a mentat guide but if you combine all your knowledge with the resources on discord you can figure it out.
Next time we are looking at even more buffs most of which are more situational like defensive buffs and a +5 strength for the carry weight or the melee sidearm. We will also have a brief overview of the chems I recommend.
My tip for next week is that almost every other plant can be used in some way so keep a mental note of any firecaps, silt beans, aster, gourd blossom and ofcourse all of the already stated ingredients.
And ofcourse I want to know from you! What is your go to location for one of the above stated ingredients or what recipe is absolutely missing from this list or required for the next one let me know. What perks are you no longer using because a food buff took over its role and what is your tip for juggling all these buffs for an apprentice chef?

Tl;dr: Kitchen makes the appetizers at the same time as the entrees, sometimes AFTER. So should appetizers be rang in on a separate ticket to be made first or is the “as app/first out” comment enough?
So I’ve been serving for two years at this local small-town mom-and-pop restaurant that’s been open 20ish years but has never really updated their procedures. First job was as a busser in high school and I managed/cooked at a chain restaurant but both those jobs didn’t really do apps. All my other restaurant experience has been in non-service restaurants so it’s my first actual job where people order appetizers.
At this restaurant, appetizers have an “as app” or “as meal” button. Regardless our kitchen makes everything as they get to it or at the same time so entrees tend to come up almost immediately after the apps or even at the same time. Lately because of our new kitchen team (main cook left and the other experienced cook died unexpectedly leaving someone with no experience and another with experience but not a lot of…competency) it’s been a struggle getting food out quickly and still hot. We’re having to accommodate the kitchen’s lack of skill more than anything else (for example, they stopped salting fries altogether because they were oversalting them instead of just using less salt).
Anyway the problem I’m having is having to serve entrees immediately after bringing the appetizer out or having to reheat entrees because THEY COME UP BEFORE THE APP. In one case, I literally saw my appetizer get started after 3/4 entrees were already in the window. I got into an argument with my boss over it. I need other servers’ and even cooks’ opinions on which method is right:

1. Ring in the entire order and enter “as app” or “as meal” on the appetizers to signify they need to be made first.

Or

1. Ring in the appetizers first and then the entrees on a separate ticket.

The reason I’m confused is because boss gets mad if we send in back-to-back tickets -which is what happens with method 2- and we still have to hit “as app” even though I know for a fact the kitchen doesn’t compare the table numbers of tickets so they won’t see the first ticket is just the appetizer for the second ticket. This leads to the same problem as while the first ticket is in the fryer, they start the second ticket FOR THE SAME TABLE. However, her logic is the kitchen is focused on the ticket as a whole (she had no response to why they’ll see “no onions” but ignore “as app” in the instructions then).
Am I wrong for thinking method 1 is the appropriate way and the entrees shouldn’t be getting made simultaneously with the apps? I asked a different server whose been there longer and she told me the “as app” button was specifically put there so they wouldn’t ring in separate tickets by boss’s husband.
Edit: thanks for input, everyone! I’ll switch over to just sending separate tickets and seeing if that makes a difference.

So, as most folks know, there are two types of Zora - the River Zoras, which are the classic aquatic enemies of the 2D Zeldas, and the Ocean Zoras, the peaceful race of waterdwellers we've come to know and ship Link with since Ocarina of Time and have continued to know and ship Link even into the Breath of the Wild says (damn you, Lady Yona, damn you).
I wanna propose, for a second, that the Zoras we see in most of the 3D Zelda games, however, aren't Ocean Zoras and that's actually why they eventually evolve into the Rito come Wind Waker, and that there's actually a third subrace of Zora we've entirely neglected despite being arguably more common.
So, we're introduced to the concept of the Ocean Zoras and River Zoras being different groups in Oracle of Ages, the only game (that I'm aware of) where the two Zoras coexist. In that game, it's abundantly clear what the difference is - Ocean Zoras live in the Zora Sea, while River Zoras live in rivers. Anyone with two braincells to rub together can see why one's called an Ocean Zora and the other's a River Zora.
However, Ocean Zoras actually living in the ocean is something of a rarity. The only other example of it I can think of is in Majora's Mask - the Zoras in that game live off the coast of Termina in Zora's Hall, which is clearly a saltwater environment. In every other game with Ocean Zoras, though, it's a lot less clear.

• In Ocarina of Time, the Zoras live in Zora's Domain (as an addendum, why is it Zora's Domain when it should be Zoras' Domain? Plural nouns get the ' after the s, not before), which is connected to Zora's Fountain by the Zora River, both of which end up feeding Lake Hylia, the largest freshwater body in Hyrule.
  
• In Twilight Princess, the Zora's Domain is once again the headwater of the Zora River and by extension Lake Hylia, both of which are obviously freshwater bodies.
  
• In Breath of the Wild, Zora's Domain is once again built atop a large source of fresh water - the Lanayru Great Spring - which in turn feeds almost all of the major freshwater bodies in Hyrule.
  

The consistent line here is that these Zoras all live in freshwater bodies. Now, some fish can survive in both saltwater and freshwater. These are referred to as euryhaline fish, as opposed to stenohaline fish, which can only survive in a very narrow range of salinities - freshwater fish can't live in salt water, and saltwater fish can't live in fresh water. It's possible that Ocean Zoras are actually a type of euryhaline fish, able to thrive in both salt water and fresh water, and they're called Ocean Zoras perhaps because their counterparts, the River Zoras, are stenohaline and cannot survive in salt water.
However, I'd like to propose that what we're actually looking at are not Ocean Zoras - at least, not most of them. The ones in Ocarina of Time may be euryhaline Ocean Zoras, owing to their striking similarity to the Zoras who live in the Great Bay and Zora Sea, but the reason Zoras look different in Breath of the Wild and Twilight Princess is because they're actually descendants of the two Zora subspecies who intermarried and interbred over the years to produce a new race of Zoras who I am tenatively calling "Lake Zoras." We know, at the very least, that what kind of Zora Ruto and her people are can interbreed with River Zoras - Oren from A Link Between Worlds is highly likely to be a descendant of Ruto, and she's definitely a River Zora.
These Lake Zoras, which we see most clearly in Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild, share some notable traits with both types of Zoras. They take their more humanoid appearance, graceful movement, and large head-tail-thingies from Ocean Zoras, but their coloration is much more in line with River Zoras - instead of the muted whiteish-blue of Ocean Zoras, Lake Zoras take the blues and greens of River Zoras while also adding in brown, grey, bright red, and purple. They also possess the larger fins on the sides of their head from River Zoras (though they're often droopy, like an Ocean Zora), their feet are both webbed like an Ocean Zora while clawed like a River Zora, and - I think most importantly - they're absolutely stenohaline freshwater fish.
This brings me to part two of the theory - why Zoras had to turn into Rito during the Great Flood. I think it's fairly simple - it's not that the Great Sea is "ethereal" or "illusory" or anything like that, and thus the waters are toxic to Zoras, it's that the Great Sea (being a sea) is a saltwater body, and a stenohaline freshwater fish could never survive in it. This also explains the survival of Laruto up until shortly before the events of Wind Waker - Laruto is actually an Ocean Zora, meaning he could survive in the Great Sea and thus didn't need to be transformed, but his descendants (Medli's ancestors) were Lake or River Zoras, so they needed to be changed to survive the post-Flood world.
TL;DR - Zoras in Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild aren't Ocean Zoras, they're a another race of freshwater Zora like River Zoras, and the reason they had to transform into the Rito in Wind Waker is because freshwater fish + saltwater body = this kills the fish.

So, as most folks know, there are two types of Zora - the River Zoras, which are the classic aquatic enemies of the 2D Zeldas, and the Ocean Zoras, the peaceful race of waterdwellers we've come to know and ship Link with since Ocarina of Time and have continued to know and ship Link even into the Breath of the Wild says (damn you, Lady Yona, damn you).
I wanna propose, for a second, that the Zoras we see in most of the 3D Zelda games, however, aren't Ocean Zoras and that's actually why they eventually evolve into the Rito come Wind Waker, and that there's actually a third subrace of Zora we've entirely neglected despite being arguably more common.
So, we're introduced to the concept of the Ocean Zoras and River Zoras being different groups in Oracle of Ages, the only game (that I'm aware of) where the two Zoras coexist. In that game, it's abundantly clear what the difference is - Ocean Zoras live in the Zora Sea, while River Zoras live in rivers. Anyone with two braincells to rub together can see why one's called an Ocean Zora and the other's a River Zora.
However, Ocean Zoras actually living in the ocean is something of a rarity. The only other example of it I can think of is in Majora's Mask - the Zoras in that game live off the coast of Termina in Zora's Hall, which is clearly a saltwater environment. In every other game with Ocean Zoras, though, it's a lot less clear.

• In Ocarina of Time, the Zoras live in Zora's Domain (as an addendum, why is it Zora's Domain when it should be Zoras' Domain? Plural nouns get the ' after the s, not before), which is connected to Zora's Fountain by the Zora River, both of which end up feeding Lake Hylia, the largest freshwater body in Hyrule.
  
• In Twilight Princess, the Zora's Domain is once again the headwater of the Zora River and by extension Lake Hylia, both of which are obviously freshwater bodies.
  
• In Breath of the Wild, Zora's Domain is once again built atop a large source of fresh water - the Lanayru Great Spring - which in turn feeds almost all of the major freshwater bodies in Hyrule.
  

The consistent line here is that these Zoras all live in freshwater bodies. Now, some fish can survive in both saltwater and freshwater. These are referred to as euryhaline fish, as opposed to stenohaline fish, which can only survive in a very narrow range of salinities - freshwater fish can't live in salt water, and saltwater fish can't live in fresh water. It's possible that Ocean Zoras are actually a type of euryhaline fish, able to thrive in both salt water and fresh water, and they're called Ocean Zoras perhaps because their counterparts, the River Zoras, are stenohaline and cannot survive in salt water.
However, I'd like to propose that what we're actually looking at are not Ocean Zoras - at least, not most of them. The ones in Ocarina of Time may be euryhaline Ocean Zoras, owing to their striking similarity to the Zoras who live in the Great Bay and Zora Sea, but the reason Zoras look different in Breath of the Wild and Twilight Princess is because they're actually descendants of the two Zora subspecies who intermarried and interbred over the years to produce a new race of Zoras who I am tenatively calling "Lake Zoras." We know, at the very least, that what kind of Zora Ruto and her people are can interbreed with River Zoras - Oren from A Link Between Worlds is highly likely to be a descendant of Ruto, and she's definitely a River Zora.
These Lake Zoras, which we see most clearly in Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild, share some notable traits with both types of Zoras. They take their more humanoid appearance, graceful movement, and large head-tail-thingies from Ocean Zoras, but their coloration is much more in line with River Zoras - instead of the muted whiteish-blue of Ocean Zoras, Lake Zoras take the blues and greens of River Zoras while also adding in brown, grey, bright red, and purple. They also possess the larger fins on the sides of their head from River Zoras (though they're often droopy, like an Ocean Zora), their feet are both webbed like an Ocean Zora while clawed like a River Zora, and - I think most importantly - they're absolutely stenohaline freshwater fish.
This brings me to part two of the theory - why Zoras had to turn into Rito during the Great Flood. I think it's fairly simple - it's not that the Great Sea is "ethereal" or "illusory" or anything like that, and thus the waters are toxic to Zoras, it's that the Great Sea (being a sea) is a saltwater body, and a stenohaline freshwater fish could never survive in it. This also explains the survival of Laruto up until shortly before the events of Wind Waker - Laruto is actually an Ocean Zora, meaning he could survive in the Great Sea and thus didn't need to be transformed, but his descendants (Medli's ancestors) were Lake or River Zoras, so they needed to be changed to survive the post-Flood world.
TL;DR - Zoras in Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild aren't Ocean Zoras, they're a another race of freshwater Zora like River Zoras, and the reason they had to transform into the Rito in Wind Waker is because freshwater fish + saltwater body = this kills the fish.

Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/seBv2CV
Pics: https://imgur.com/a/oB2Zcw5
TL;DR The highlights are a pencil barreled Colt upper, Aimpoint 3000, ARMS #2 mount, and a SureFire 660/ 6P with a barrel clamp assembly and tail switch.
Drawing inspiration from Black Hawk Down, Blood Diamond, and the Delta "Scud Hunter" carbine, I present to you some real pimp shit.
• At its core is an original Colt A1 pencil barreled upper. This thing is about 60 years old and while it's in phenomenal shape, it does show its age in scuffs and bruises. The bore looks fantastic and there are no apparent functionality issues, although I myself have not fired it. Attached is a DSA handguard, the most faithful reproduction of the original skinny six-hole clamshell you can find. I'll also include the handguard that was originally installed when I got this.
• On top is an Aimpoint 3000 in Leupold split rings attached to an A.R.M.S. #02 carry handle mount. Both of which are in excellent condition with no significant salt. The Aimpoint is not daylight bright but it is still fully functional so long as you aren't aiming at the sun. Extended eye piece included.
• Up front is a SureFire 660 on a barrel clamp mount, and a SureFire 6C on a picatinny mount. The 6C is in great condition but the 660 is damn near pristine. Both are fully functional and I'd be happy to provide pics/ video of them turning on.
• Down below is an unbranded A1 grip. It feels very well made and shows little wear. Included are two Onyx Arms CloneStar grips, one A1 and one A2. Both are like new. There are noticeable quality improvements in the A1 over the A2 but both are equally functional.
• At the rear is an unbranded CAR 15 stock with a John Masen stock pad. The pad appears to have some sort of residue inside from the previous owner, but none on the outside and nothing that effects functionality. The buffer tube will not be included.
$1,900 shipped F&F for everything shown here. I'm not interested in trades. I'm happy to provide more pics on request, just ask!

I’m currently reading ‘Go Wild’ by the wonderful Dr. John Ratey: world leading neuroscientist and one of the academics whose work underpins my hypnotherapy practice.
A short section has truly rocked my thinking. He makes reference to a massive study called ‘The Global Burden of Disease’. It looks at the causes of debilitation and loss of quality of life at a global level – it covered 291 diseases in 187 countries around the world with results published in The Lancet.
The bit that has rocked my thinking is this: the extent to which each of us can take action in our own lives to avoid or alleviate most of the top twelve risk factors for debilitation worldwide – and how hypnotherapy can help. These factors are, in order:
· High blood pressure: regular hypnosis / self-hypnosis / deep relaxation can help reduce blood pressure in itself. Further, hypnotherapy routinely helps with smoking cessation, reducing alcohol consumption, reducing obesity and adopting healthy lifestyles: all of contribute to achieving a healthier blood pressure.
· Smoking: for those who have decided to become non-smokers, hypnotherapy is highly effective in supporting this positive step: often the most significant, single step, in improving life quality.
· Alcohol consumption: This normally takes a bit of unpacking with each individual: there is often a general correlation between working on becoming your best self and reductions in alcohol consumption.
· Household air pollution: even the most ardent advocate for hypnosis would struggle to find a link here. I suspect, because this was a global study, it is driven by the populations who have solid fuel fires within their dwelling – not really an issue for Europeans / Americans.
· Low fruit consumption: a relatively easy issue to resolve for most – implementing beneficial behavioural changes, which then become habits, is basic work for any hypnotherapist.
· Obesity: if only losing weight was a simple matter of calories in / calories out: eat less, move more – job done. That obesity is so prevalent demonstrates just how ineffective the ‘eat less / move more’ approach is. Hypnotherapy and wellbeing psychology take a broader approach: rather than focusing on losing weight, the focus is on living your chosen lifestyle and achieving your chosen physique.
· High blood sugar: there are similarities here with obesity. Achieving healthy blood sugar levels is a consequence of a healthy lifestyle with a focus on overall wellbeing.
· Ambient particulate matter: as with indoor air pollution, this is out of scope for hypnotherapy.
· Inactivity: the correlation between activity and wellbeing are so well established that there can really be no credible debate. Hypnotherapy and self-hypnosis are ideal in supporting making beneficial behavioural changes which, in turn, can shift people from being in a vicious cycle to a virtuous one of long-term, sustainable, personal development.
· High salt intake: one of the easier choices to make which coincides with the broader goal of living with increased wellbeing.
· Low seed and nut consumption: another straightforward behavioural change which can be supported by a range of hypnotherapy / self-hypnosis processes.
I post most of the pieces I write on my tiny corner of the Redditsphere so join me there and I’d be happy to pick up your comments.

I just had a moment of "what is it like having a normal, healthy dog?" and thought maybe I'd reach out to see if anyone has been there. This is gonna be long and have a lot of parentheses so...
TL;DR my adopted dog of 1 year has frequent bowel upsets (about 1/month) that usually resolve with probiotics/time.
Further info: he's a bit over a year old - his age is iffy (anywhere from year and a half to 2 years old). Was picked up as a stray but likely dumped by a prior owner. He's 9lbs, DNA testing says mostly Chihuahua, but also some pekingese, dachshund, poodle, Pomeranian, and whatever other small dog you can think of.
Since literally the day we got him home he's had bowel issues. We've spent so much $$$ at the vet thank God we can afford it. The vet's ultimate conclusion is "probably IBS." She said we could test his liver and kidneys to rule out further disease but she's not inclined to think it's that because his weight is stable and no other symptoms.
Most upsets are triggered by him eating something he shouldn't on a walk. He's had professional training, great at leave it/drop it, except dude loves an earthworm jerky and will swallow it before we can get out "drop it" - then cue the diarrhea.
We already gave up on traditional wet food. Even prescription diet wet food gave him horrible colon upset (I can't even describe how awful it was even with slow intro) so his vet gave the OK to do bland diet (boiled chicken/white rice) as long as he gets some kibble to fill the gap on missing nutrients (about 1/2 to 2/3 cup of sensitive skin and stomach formula each day). He also gets half a packet of probiotic powder with breakfast but we do a whole packet when he's in a flare.
Right now we're on day 4 of a flare and it's mostly resolved - poop is back to normal but I wasn't giving his nighttime snack of a smartbones brand mini churro at night - usually he gets one in his crate and works on it throughout the night. Since he's been sick I thought it best to wait until he was all better so I was giving a little chicken before bed instead.
Well TIL what "empty stomach vomiting" is when he woke me up by throwing up bile in his crate. I feel like an asshole. He didn't want his breakfast either bc I'm assuming he still feels gross but ate a little cheese and is now asleep on me.
I think I'm just looking for someone to say "yeah I've been there it's wild" or advice or anything because I love him so much but holy shit this is so exhausting.

I've been dating my girlfriend, let's call her Emily, for about a year now. We have a great relationship, except for one major issue: she doesn't seem to have any respect for my Soviet step grandmother. Now, let me tell you, My Soviet step grandmother is a force to be reckoned with and has some rare abilities that make her even more formidable.
My Soviet step grandmother is the head of our family and runs the household with an iron fist. She has this uncanny ability to foresee things before they happen, and she always seems to know what's going on, even when we think we're being discreet. It's like she has eyes everywhere. Her powers are pretty intimidating, and she's not afraid to use them to keep everyone in line.
The issue started when Emily first visited my family's home. I warned her about my Soviet step grandmother's strict rules and the need to show her respect. But Emily, being a free-spirited individual, has a hard time conforming to her expectations. She doesn't understand the cultural nuances and the weight of tradition that come with being part of a Soviet family.
Emily's lack of respect has led to some truly bizarre incidents. For example, during the traditional dinner ceremony, my Soviet step grandmother asked Emily to pass the salt, and instead of simply handing it over, Emily decided to perform some sort of crazy routine. It was so out of place and disrespectful. My Soviet step grandmother was not impressed and cast a stern glare that made even the bravest of souls tremble.
Another time, Emily accidentally knocked over our ball that had been in my Soviet step grandmother's possession for decades. This ball was said to hold special powers and was rumored to grant good fortune to anyone who respected it. Well, Emily's carelessness shattered it into a thousand pieces. I could see the anger boiling within my Soviet step grandmother as she muttered something under her breath, and I swear the room started to shake for a split second.
I've tried talking to Emily about the importance of showing respect to my Soviet step grandmother and understanding her rare abilities, but she brushes it off lightly. She fails to realize the significance of these traditions and the impact they have on our family dynamics.
I'm at a loss here. I love Emily, but I also deeply respect my Soviet step grandmother and don't want to upset the balance in our family. How can I help Emily understand the importance of respecting my Soviet step grandmother's rules and rare abilities? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
TL;DR: My girlfriend doesn't respect my Soviet step grandmother, who happens to be a strict matriarch with rare abilities. Emily's disregard for our family traditions and my Soviet step grandmother's abilities is causing tension. How can I make her understand the importance of respect in our family dynamic?

I have been hitting the brick wall for many years now with the mystery of Carl Petter Schylander and Catharina. So I need all the help I can get!
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I and several others in Norway have long tried to find out about the origins of two Swedes who immigrated to Nordland on the coast of Norway. Namely the couple Carl Petter (b. c. 1764 - 28 April 1823) and Catharina PehrsdotteOlsdotter (b. c. 1764 - 1842). It is my ancestor which makes it interesting for me, but the circumstances of their coming to Norway is an exciting mystery in itself. Exactly when and why they came to Norway is a mystery. These were turbulent years in Europe, Denmark-Norway and in Sweden, so moving without further ado from Sweden via Nasafjell to Nesna and Dønnes in Norway was not an everyday occurrence. Immigration from Sweden to Norway and vice versa is not new, in the second half of the 19th century 100,000 moved from Sweden to Norway, a full three-quarters of the foreign population in the 1900 census was from Sweden. But this was after liberalization policies that had solved compulsory service, the obligation for the propertyless to take up work, ceased in Norway only in 1854, and the tradition of taking up new service only in spring and autumn persisted longer. The passport requirement was abolished even later, first in 1860.
​
At the end of the Great Nordic War and until the peace of Nystadt in 1721, it became clear that Sweden had to have a fleet that could fight near the coast and in the archipelago. To take up the fight with Russia's new galley fleet that was ravaging the Swedish coast. The Swedish naval fleet was not created to fight in the archipelago. Tsar Peter the Great had in his service a Dalmatian Greek sailor, Admiral Count Ivan Botsis, who had previously served in the Venetian fleet and learned there to build galleys. A rowing galley that made it possible to attack even when the wind was calm. So after the peace of Nystadt, the Swedish leadership decided that the naval fleet should acquire a number of galleys and build a galley fleet. The galeiflåtta was stationed at Skeppsholmen in Stockholm and the squadron came to be called Stockholm's squadron. The fleet became known as Arméns flotta or Skärgårdsflottan and existed from 1756 to 1826. The fleet consisted of smaller vessels that could easily navigate and fight in the Swedish archipelago, corresponding to the Norwegian fleet force often called Roflotiljen. By royal decree 18 October 1756, the army fleet was officially created and was thereby separated from the naval fleet. The fleet's founder Augustin Count Ehrensvärd (1710-1772) and his son, Admiral Carl August Count Ehrensvärd (1745-1800), became commander from 1784 to 1790 of the fleet, which was developed with, among other things, knowledge from similar fleets in the Mediterranean. Gustaf 3's Russian war broke out in 1788, at the outbreak of the war the ancestor Carl Petter was approx. 22 years old. Two years into the war in 1790, former commander of the volunteer company, lieutenant colonel Johan Gustaf count Lagerbielke (1745-1812) as commander of the Stockholm Squadron.
Skeppsholm became Sweden's naval headquarters when the naval staff moved there in 1634 from the nearby old Skeppsholm, which is now called Blasieholmen. But not long after during the Scanian War 1675-1679, it was decided to move the military base to the newly founded Karlskrona in Blekinge to secure the newly acquired regions in the south. Skeppsholm's glory days as the navy's headquarters were over, but military activity did not end. It is here that first source of Carl Petter appears as volunteer no. 29 in the premier major's company at Skeppsholm's assembly in Stockholm where the fleet was stationed. Skeppsholm assembly in Stockholm also known as the Admiralty assembly or Holmkyrkan's assembly. Flottan's assembly was a non-territorial military assembly. Christina Charlotta Schylander is baptized here on 12 May 1794 by midwife Johanna Berggren. Pastor at Flottan Natanael Larsson Lithander (1790-1808) confirms three days later the baptism of the daughter of Carl Petter Schylander and his wife Catharina Pehrsdotter. Among the witnesses were lieutenant colonel high-born herr Axel Otto count Cronhielm (1751-1809) of Hakunge and lieutenant Ekstedt. Christina Charlotta does not appear again, and since it was an emergency baptism, it is likely that she died young.
The volunteers were enlisted personnel, i.e. permanent employees. They were also called "marinärer" and their main task was to operate the naval artillery. During the period Carl Petter was a "volantaire" Finland was and a central part of the area the Skærgårdsflottan was supposed to protect. The Skærgårdsflottan's greatest victory was the Battle of Svensksund in 1790 when a larger Russian force was defeated, but it was not enough to stop Russia finally conquering the Duchy of Finland from Sweden in 1809. At this time it was Johan Gustaf count Lagerbielke (1745-1812 ) who was commander-in-chief from 1790-1811. Carl Petter was around 30 years old in 1795, which makes it highly probable that he had all served in Gustav III's Russian war from 1788-1790, he would have been 24 years old at the outbreak of the war. If that was the case, he maybe participated in the Battle of Svensksund in 1789.
Carl Petter is listed as the father again the following year on 17. Sep. 1795 at the baptism of his son Carl Petter Sylander in Lövsta, Ed socken. He is still a volunteer at Armén's fleet and his wife Catharina Sylander is stated to be 28 years old. The godfathera are Lieutenant-Colonel count Cronhielm, his stepmother high-born countess Mrs. Christina Cronhielm, nee Baroness Rålamb, Fänrik (ranks above sergeant and below sub-lieutenant.) Mr. Conrad Vilhelm Ankarcrona (1733-1809) of Runsa and his daughter Miss Margreta Elisabeth Ankarcrona (1777-1838). Both Ankarcrona and Cronhielm had estates in the area.
Nasa silver works
Carl Petter and Catharina probably came around around 1800 to Norway from "Nasa Seilfver Grufvor in Pitteå Lappmark, Ærjeplougs Sochn." The mines were located by the mountain Nasa about 36 miles from Piteå, not far from the border with Norway. There was some traffic between the mines and Norway, probably per horse hoof. The Nasaleden, as this route is called today, mostly ran from Piteå. Nasafjell's silver works was a silver mining operation in Pite Lappmark that took place during two periods, 1635–1659 and 1770–1810. The management of The mill was taken over by the notary Fredrik Jonsson in 1797, a man with big plans but little experience of silver works. He soon got the mill people against him, and the workers who had been permanent residents in Adolfstrøm got tired and moved from there. Mining was therefore carried out on a small scale, and hut density was at an all-time low in 1797-1800. In the autumn of 1801, Fredrik Jonsson moved from Lapland and later went bankrupt. His rights in the company were transferred to one of his creditors, Major Georg Bogislaus Staël von Holstein (1740-1814) in Stockholm. He made great efforts for the Lapland colony station and "cultivation", but did not succeed in saving the silver works. Even with extensive repairs and rebuilds in Adolfstrøm led by the former geschworner at Dannemora mine, Leonard Horneman, silver production remained insignificant. Staël von Holstein became more indebted, and in 1810 he left Adolfstrøm never to return. Mining activity on Nasafjellet and in Adolfstrøm thus ceased completely. In 1821, the entire cottage facility burned down, except for the dwelling house. With this information many have assumed that Carl Petter and family just came via the area, and did not work or stay there.
Dr. Wayne Mitchell said that his grandmother claims that either Carl or Catherina came from a noble family and that they came from Russia. She also claimed that they had to flee the country and when they reached the border crossing between Sweden and Norway that they bribed the border guards with jewels. Harald Bertrand Eckhold from Kragerø told in 1988 that his mother-in-law Åsta Marie Isaksen (1898-1974), great-great-granddaughter of Carl Petter senior, told him in 1956 that Carl Petter Sjølander came to Norway with a small chest full of jewels. And that Carl Petter had said "No one should know who my mother is." That the Sylander family had some noble origin is probably very unlikely, but that it came to Norway in the form of them fleeing from something is a possibility. There is indeed a family with a similar name from Kalmar that was ennobled on 10 June 1812 with registry number 2225. The family possibly starts with Corporal Sven Christoffersson and Catharina Strømsten, who are believed to be the parents of Jonas Sylvander, born around 1700. He married in the 1730s with Sara Anna Hallenberg (1711-1785 in Målilla), daughter of Sheriff Gabriel Hallenberg and Maria Ljungstrøm (-1774 in Ljungby). Their son Johan Gabriel S. (1767-1833) in Stockholm married for the first time to Eva Elisabet Molin (1738-1776). They first had their daughter Anna Britta Sylvander (1762-1844) married to the ship clerk Clas Johan Zander. And then his son Josua Sylvander. Interestingly, Josua marries for the third time countess Lovisa Gustava Ottiliana Cronhielm af Hakunge (1788-1842), daughter of the previously named count Cronhielm and his wife baroness Amalia Fredrika Carlsdtr. Pechlin von Løwenbach (1867-1824).
Catharina's parentage.A possible person who may be identical, with Catharina Pehrsdotter Schillander but very uncertain, is Katharina Olofsdotter born on 7 April 1757 in Arjeplog, daughter of Olof Mårtenson "Nybyggare, expeditionslänsman och snickare i Sakkavare, Arjeplog" born ca. 1728 and died on 19 March 1786 and his wife Karin "Caisa" Persdotter born on 1731 and died on 15 November 1792 also in Sakkavare, Arjeplog. Olof Mårtensson and Karin Persdotter were married in Arjeplog on 11 April 1757. Karin Persdotter was the daughter of PePehr Larsson and Karin Olofsdotter Laestander. Year of birth is very uncertain but probably around 1710. At the court in Arjeplog on 30 January 1731 where her father Olof Laestander puts "church pastor" Sjul Granberg's son Per Larsson before the court, Karin is stated to be 24 years old but the following year, at the court on 26 February 1732, she is noted to be 19 years old. After Karin O. Laestander's death in 1739, Karin Persdotter was adopted by her maternal uncle Petter Olofsson Laestander. This Katharina Olofsdotter moved from Arjeplog around 1780 when one of the parents died, this must be the father Pehr Larsson, since the mother Karin O. Lestander is said to have died in 1739. The adoptive parents, i.e. her uncle Petter O. Lestander and his wife Margareta Svedberg cannot be, since they died later than that. Nasafjell is not far from Arjeplog. And especially considering Catharina uses two patronymics during her life, both Persdatter and Olsdatter, which is consistent with the possible use of patronymics if she did not really want to associate herself with her biological father, which one might think is the case if the reader between the lines. But again this is speculation!
In Norway.
The first definitive trace of Carl Petter in Norway is at Dønnes manor during the census in 1801. Carl Petter Schillander is listed here as the first servant of five to a visiting merchant Berg. Furthermore, in addition to the lords of the farm, there is a Lapland forster boy, eight maids and a widow "in the house of charity". The lord of the house is the widow of lieutenant colonel Isach Jørgen Coldevin (1724-1793), housewife Maria Anna Emahus Tønder (1731-1802) and their son and heir war councilor Hans Emahus Tønder Coldevin (1754-1835). Daughter Else Maria Coldevin (1753-). And in the "house of charity" the widow Anna Cathrine Tobine Sommer (1725-1811), sister of Isach Jørgen. The same census is Catharina Pedersdtr. Schillander with the children Carl Petter and Caroline stated as lodging with a homestead Slåttvik not far from Dønnes with the homestead family Gabriel Andersen (1752-1813) and his third wife Aleth Sophia Johansdtr. (1764-). Whether Carl Petter remained a servant for a long time with the Coldevin family is uncertain. But in 1803 they had a son Isak Jørgen Dass Siølander, baptized in Lurøy church named after the lords of Dønnes and Lurøy. It is Isach Jørgen's eldest daughter Stinchen Catharina Coldevin (1752-1845) and her husband skipper and merchant Christen Dass (1743-1791) who own Lurøy estate. Their son Isach Jørgen Coldevin Dass (1772-1836) is among the godfathers at Isach Jørgen Dass Siølander's baptism.
In 1815, Moflaget farm was vacant. Carl Petter and Catharina must have well liked with the venerable housewife Dass since she wanted them as tenants at Moflaget. Housewife Dass owned Sør-Solvær including Moflaget until 1825. This was an inheritance from Dønnes estate and not originally part of Lurøy estate. In the following land registry, Carl Petter and Catharina take over the building on the entire Moflaget in 1816. Two years later on 10 October 1817, the first of the children, Karl Petter Schiølander, marries Maren Hansdtr. Slåtterøy. And not long after at Solvær in 1818, the first grandchild Katrina Margrethe Sckelander arrives, unfortunately she will also be the first grandchild to perish when she all dies the following year. But all in 1823, Carl Petter probably perishes when he is lost at sea on 28 April 1823 at the age of approx. 58 years. But he leaves behind a family that will have many descendants in Norway, USA and more.
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Sources

• 12. mai 1794. Dåp av Christina Charlotta Schylander (1794-). Faddere: Axel Otto greve Cronhielm (1751-1809) av Hakunge, Axel Abraham Ekstedt (1766-1834) og Natanael Larsson Lithander (1790-1808). ”Skeppsholms församling i Stockholm - 1794 Maj 12/Dito(21) - Christina Charlotta. - Vol. no 29 Prem. Maj. Comp. Carl Peter Schylander, dess hustru Cathar. Pehrsdotter. Öfversteleutnanten Grefve Axel Cronhjelm. Leutnant Ekstedt. Pastorskan Lithander Demoiselle Nöddopet af Barnmorskan Johanna Berggren confirmerades d:15 af ord. Bat: Past: Lithander.". CI:3 (1787-1834) Bild 92 / sid 175 (AID: v89892.b92.s175, NAD: SE/SSA/0014).
• 19. sep 1795. Dåp Carl Petter Sylander. Faddere: Axel Otto greve Cronhielm (1751-1809) av Hakunge, hans stemor fru Christina friherrinne Rålamb gift grevinne Cronhielm, Conrad Vilhelm Ankarcrona (1733-1809) til Runsa og hans datter frøken Margreta Elisabeth Ankarcrona (1777-1838). "Stockholms län. Eds socken, Löfsta - Soffia - Carl Petter - född d.17 döpt d.19 September. Volontairen vid Armeens flotta Carl Petter Sylander, Hust. Catharina Sylander 28 år kyrktogs d. 3 octob. Vittnen Öfverste Leutnanten Högvälborne Grefvej Hr Axel Otto Cronhjelm. Statsfrun Högvälborna Grefvinna fru Christina Cronhjelm född Rålamb. Fendricken Herr Conrad Ankarcrona fröken Margreta Elisabeth Ankarcrona.”. Ed CI:2 (1745-1803) Bild 102 / sid 195 (AID: v94391.b102.s195, NAD: SE/SSA/1497.

The first source in Norway is the census of 1801 (Census 1801 for 1828P Nesna parish. Permanent page Link. Permanent picture link) where they are referred to as Carl Petter and Cathrina Pedersdatter Schillander. Where he is the first servant on Dønnes estate and she is Swedish and earns her living with hand work "Er svendsk og ernærer sig med haandarbeyd". Converted from the given age, they were born about 1764 and their son Carl Petter junior, 6 years old, i.e. born about. 1795. Furthermore, they and their descendants are well documented in Norway where they have many descendants.During the Napoleonic Wars, conscription was introduced in northern Norway and crew rolls were kept. Carl Petter is listed here with Stockholm as his birthplace in 1809 and 1811 (microfilm NT195). Converted from the stated age from the crew rolls, he should have been born in about 1766. In 1832, at her daughter Caroline Frederikke Sjølander's wedding, her place of birth is given as "Nasa Brug in Westerboten in Sverrig." (Nordland fylke, Lurøy, Ministerial book no. 839A03 (1825-1862), Ekteviede 1833, page 378. Permanent page link. Permanent image Link.). Slightly converted if the source is correct, she was born before 14 October 1803.
There are many sources about the family in Norway, but none that provide any more information about their Swedish origins.
Geni: Link
Frode sin Slektside: Link
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Some variations of the family name in Norway: 1801: Schillander (2x sources), 1805: Siölander (1x source), 1817: Schiölander (1x source), 1818: Sckelander (1x source), 1820: Sjölander (17x sources), 1823: Schjolander ( 1x source), 1823: Sylander (4x source), and more. I know that the ending -ander means man. But I'm not sure what the first link can come from. I have speculated whether it could come from Latin silva or Greek xýlon both meaning forest. But as likely as name researcher Eva Brylla answered me "Hi Mats! In Sweden the old name types are tied to the different places. Names in Greek. names with Latin endings in –(i)us. Often they were formed into a place name, like Sylvanus or Sylvander into a place name Skog = forrest. Schillander can therefore be formed into a place name in Skill(-), e.g. Skillberga . One such example was a Swede on his way to "London and beyond" via Ålesund in 1859. His name was Nils Peder Sylander and he came from Silonger parish in Sundsvall. But after searching a bit, there are quite a few places in Sweden and Finland that you can use as a starting point to form the first part of the family name.
Here are some of the forums that discuss Carl Petter and Catharina:
2000- Arkivverket: Link
2002-2008 Akrivverket: Link
2011-2017 Slekt og Data: Link
rotter.se: Link

Some context on our events today, as a family of three (myself and two children aged 6 and 7) we used to love going out and stretching our legs and raiding at the weekend. 95% of the time we would require the help of our friends list so they would join via remote raid.
However, today after over 3 hours of dragging the kids around town from Gym to Gym and staying at each one that has a Shadow Mewtwo raid for atleast 20 minutes until someone turned up and no one ever did until our last one just now were there was 4 others than us..
We were so excited to finally put in our hard work of getting purified gems over the last week and finally nab ourselves the immortal Shadow Mewtwo!!
Fast forward to halfway through the battle, we used up 3 gems, Mewtwo's health was in the yellow and then the game started bugging out, one of our pokemon fainted and the next one wouldn't come out, tried switching nothing, even the others in the group couldn't participate and the timer just kept ticking away with nothing happening at all until it through us out of the battle and rejoining only resulted in a frozen animation of the outside of the Gym.. to add insult to injury the application overheated mine and others phones and closed all applications on our phones resulting in a total restart and thus losing all progress made.. time to go home and cheer my kids up without the help of pokemon for sure.
Total waste of today for us with atleast 3 hours of mindless rushing around with this bugged game. If I knew of a way to complain and show screen recording with evidence of this to the relevant people I would
TL;DR
Kids crying after long time going from Gym to Gym with no active groups raiding, buggy software, no more Shadow Mewtwo for us

The black domes, they were pocket dimensions, which were completely detached from the material world. Bound to the stream of souls, flowing inside the ephemeral branches of the world tree, they presented a personal hell for each person cast into them. They are a limbo of regrets, the hell of one’s own making, places where the living meets the dead.
There’s only so many ways to elope them. One must either reconcile with the restless souls, or join them, succumbing to their rage and regret that they carried into their afterlife. After all, to even get there, one must possess unparalleled strength and resilience; and only those who had caused deaths and destruction on their path to greatness can even hope to get to this trial.
Freia, Flare, the First princess of Jioral. For some – a good friend, lover, and companion. For others – a nightmare embodied, a vessel of divine powers, a force to be reckoned with. She had many enemies: princes and princesses felled by her authority, treacherous servants and greedy nobles, the knights, who opposed her corruption, slavers and bandits, destroyed on her quest for redemption and restoration of herself… But there were more. Children she had burned, serving her kingdom, women who perished by the tides she conjured, men that had been torn apart by raging tornados of her making, elderly that were buried under the rubble she created…
And how did she oppose them?
“Flagella terram et vescere inimicis meis, o magnum tempestas ignis!” The sorceress chanted, spinning her staff above her head. Then, right before the raging mob reached her, she hid from them behind a vortex of fire. One move and this wave of heat would incinerate everything and everyone in this accursed realm. But…
“TRAITOR!”
“DON’T HIDE FROM US, FLA-A-A-ARE!”
“COME TO US, SISTER!”
“YOU WERE NEVER ONE OF US!”
“USURPER!”
“GIVE ME BACK MY MOM!””
“THE FALSE PRINCESS!”
“SUNNARI (die)!”
“THE DAUGHER OF A WHORE!”
“YOU SHOULD’VE ROT IN THE SLUMS!”
Curses and jealousy, bitterness and hatred. The chorus of tortured souls surrounding the fiery boundary couldn’t be silenced even by the roaring flame. There couldn’t be any redemption.
“I’m sorry for all of you, who unjustly died by my hand!..” And even though there were people deserving their apologies, those who had to perish in favor of Flare’s political ambitions, those she sacrificed to appease her tyrannical father…
“THEN JOIN US, FLARE!”
“PAPA! WHERE ARE YOU?! GIVE HIM BACK!”
“REPENT, BITCH! DISPELL YOUR WITCHCRAFT!!!”
“But I won’t give in to you!” The pink-haired woman exclaimed, absorbing mana into her staff. “Furthermore, there’re those of you I will never regret killing! And there are those, for whom I must live! I MUST GET OUT OF THIS PLACE!!!” Then, she slammed the lower tip of her weapon into the floor made of the absolute darkness. Instead of wailing, being consumed by fear, guilt, self-loathing, and, ultimately, perishing, Freia sundered this entire “world”. One magical strike from her, and cracks of white and gold covered the entire dome. The wall of fire faded, but when the vengeful spirits rushed forward to maul their prey, they crumbled into piles of black salt. “I’m so… so sorry!” The girl lamented, kneeling near the remains of children, whose future she stole. “But I… I must move forward. I must save…”
…
Sparks and crackling, whistle and dazzling – time and time again the surge of lightning breached through the veil of darkness.
“UO-O-O-O-O-O!!!” A guttural scream filled the oppressive silence under the dome. Eve Reese, so childish and bashful, so eager to prove herself, now wore a stone mask of indifference. “Nira-a-a (no-o-o)!!! Yuarmta (I won’t forgive you)!!!” Cornar yelled, held still by at least seven shadows, he had been tortured, killed, bruised, smitten by the raging element of lightning. No longer did the girl see him as a threat; no longer did she cower at the feet of her former husband. Maybe, Eve was condemned to getting back her memories as a means of punishment, something that would make her sympathize with this petty little tyrant…
“Yuarm yau (I don’t need your forgiveness).” The Me-ua kahul spoke, looking at her crackling right arm, trembling with power and guilt combined. Not for forsaking her would-be-spouse, not for becoming Panakea’s pawn…
These souls, these loyal shadows – turned out, she never called upon them… until the very end. Her subjects, her brethren… Eve feared that if she let them out, they would tear her tyrannical husband into little pieces.
“Haa… Haa…” And now, she had to choose. To turn around and let someone else fix her problem, or… “Haa… HAA!!! HAA!!! HAA!!! SUNI (I’ll kill you)!!!”
A Punch to the maw, to the chest, through the ribs, to the heart! He didn’t die! He couldn’t die here! This scumbag of a man, this monster just wouldn’t go away! No matter how much pain she caused him, no matter how many times she slit his throat, broke through his torso, shocked him with spells, cut him with magical light…
And what of Cornar?
“A-A-A-A-A!!! A-A-AGH!!! HA-HA-HA-A!!! NA SHENBATA, SETOAN (you can’t get rid of me, woman)!!!” The son of Hakuo never relented. He relished in his immortality, laughed through the hellish torments Eve inflicted upon him. The skinned lion spotted a weakness in Eve’s heart, and he pressed at it, as if breaking the girl would get him back to the world of the living…
No, he wanted to take Eve to the world of dead.
“Gha-a-a-a… Agh-h-h…” The queen-to-be grabbed her forehead, her rugged breath not only siphoned all the focus out of her, threatening to cast the girl into a pit of despair, it also deteriorated her control over the mana she wielded. Unlike the city of salt, there was enough ambient magic to harvest here, but doing so would require skills, precision, and, most importantly, personal discipline and control over one’s own mind.
“Praibi, orna Iblis (Drain yourself, my Iblis)!” The prince of Batnara shashu tribe provoked, feeling the grip of the shadows losing its strength. A little more, and he’d be free… A little more…
“Hm…” But Eve wouldn’t relent. She once again covered her arm in a coat of magical lightning. She would never surrender; the queen would never let anyone treat her like a slave ever again. Not after Keyaruga’s perseverance taught her a lesson of resilience. Not after his gentleness, however tainted by his wounds, showed her what true love should look like.
She took a swing, prepared to strike…
“…” But then, two winged shadows stopped her hand. Amda and Sana, they were barely recognizable in their spiritual forms… but Eve would never mistake her parents for anyone else. They couldn’t speak, yet they still communicated with their daughter through other means. Emotions, wishes, urges – they never wished such evil to befall their daughter, but what they hated even more – was to see their child descend into the same pit.
“I… I don’t… have to?..” They asked her to stop, to let them relieve her of that burden. “B-but!.. No! You will die!” The girl snarled, grabbing her parents in a hug. She knew what was to come – her mother, father – they wished to sacrifice themselves to drag Cornar back to the afterlife. But that… wouldn’t that mean she’d lose them all over again? Wouldn’t…
“…”
“Yes! You’re dead! So what?! What do I?..” The feeling of pain and powerlessness engulfed the verdant woman. Barely had she found the strength to stand before her fallen tribe, before those who she desired to see the most now left her.
“YOTJAR (finally)!!!” With Eve’s will getting weaker, so did the shadows of her ethereal court. Her tyrannical husband finally broke free, slamming and stomping her shadows, as they fruitlessly tried stopping him. Amda and Sana Reese hugged their child for the last time… and now they stood up to defend their precious daughter. That is… the least they could do.
…
Freia broke inside another dome. From the outside, they looked like bright constellations of stars, formed on the points of a massive, galactic-scaled pentagram. The personal chamber for each of the contenders. One was broken from the inside, collapsing inwards, into a black hole with an orange halo – this was Freia’s dome. There were four more. Two were dimmed, two still shone brightly. The Hero of Magic travelled through this empty space, lit by numerous distant stars. In her current form, things like speed, form, and time – none of them mattered, aside from her destination. And now, she had to choose one of the two luminous chambers.
…
What is true power? Does one determine this abstract concept by the weight one can lift with their muscles? Maybe it was the charisma necessary to lead the masses? Enough money to influence others? Authority earned or inherited?
“Well-well-well…” Whatever the answer truly was, Ellen had none of it right now. No strength to fight, no troops to hide behind, and certainly – those who opposed her now had little if any need of whatever amount of gold she now carried.
“WENCH!”
“TANOUTUR (murderer)!”
“NEZAH (why)?!”
“MERA RIVARO (my life)!..”
“YAU MA (how dare you)!”
“YOU’LL PAY FOR WHAT YOU’VE DONE, BITCH!!!”
Oh, they came for Norn. There were hundreds, if not thousands of them, some she could recall from her Murian and Teuteccain campaigns – the series of expansions past the great wall; others were the court warlords she and John unseated in her ascension; rebellious villagers too came to exact their revenge on the younger princess, after her demons decimated them; and there were the victims of Buranikka’s carnage. This was the mountain of corpses Norn Clatalissa Jioral used to climb onto the very peak of political power…
“Now then, what do you want from me? An apology? Maybe my penance?” Even now, surrounded by countless dead souls, whose entire being now revolved around their grudge, the girl wouldn’t let herself be crushed by their rage. Not mentally, at least.
“DIE!”
“MAN WOR YAKSI (give me your eyes)!”
“SUFFER, YOU MONSTER!”
“I JUST WANTED TO LIVE!!!”
And so, hundreds of voices began howling in unison. So passionate, so eager to share their hardships and aspirations, that Ellen actually started pitying them a little. So many words, so much pain in them.
“Haa… I guess, that something like this was bound to happen someday. Well…” Instead of listening to the rest of the traumatizing nonsense and wailing, the crimson-headed cutie just began… to simply undress. “I don’t have the power to struggle, I can’t break out of here, and all of you came here for me. So go on. Rape me, maul me, kill me, do whatever you want. I’ve already done everything I wanted.” Ellen, now naked and completely defenseless, stretched out on the ethereal black floor, looking into the endless black void above her. The raging souls now came closer and closer, dozens of faces now loomed above her, as their hands reached out to grab the fallen warlady and tear her apart. This… was the end.
Keyaruga, Setsuna, sister… I hope you won’t miss me too much.
And so, she closed her eyes. Time to finally die.
…
…
…
There was no pain, nobody dragged the girl around, not even a single blow fell upon her. Ellen was… safe?
“A-A-A-A!!!”
“UGH-H-H!!!”
“YOLA-A-A-A-A (it hu-u-u-urts)!!!”
Slice and dicing, the ripping of flesh and clattered bones, “death” of a sort, dealt to the undying, torment for the tormented who themselves wished to inflict suffering upon her – someone kept the restless souls away from the princess. Someone precise, fast, and masterful with his tools of mayhem.
“Haa, is that you, Organ?” Ellen asked sullenly. Denied her excruciating retribution once more, she could only cover her tightly shut eyes with her palms.
“How did you know, Your Highness?” Indeed, it was him. As brutal as he was gallant, the deceased demigod was the only one out of these dead souls, who spoke to her, and not wailed at her like some sort of a beast.
“I know only two men, who’d come for me here, and the other isn’t so discreet, you moron.” The young general replied, opening her eyelids. The first thing she saw was the Champion of Jioral, covered in black blood. His prized amber eyes were no more, only black gaping holes were there instead. “Why’re you here? Do you want a piece of me for yourself?” The girl asked, still unwilling to stand up. Honestly, she felt robbed at this moment. This would be such a fitting end for her, but no! “Don’t tell me you’ve just barged in here to… Pff! PROTECT… me.” The second princess spat these words through her painfully clenched teeth.
“First things first, Lady Norn, I suggest you cover your shame and cease this indecency.” The warrior spoke, piercing and slashing the mob with his sword, impaling them with his hidden blade, tossing them back with his kicks. He was far from his prime form, and so, wounds and sores, cuts and lesions were left on him, as he, alone, overpowered dozens of raging men and women, keeping them away from the girl he swore to protect. Indeed… “Forgive me, princess, but I made a vow to your mother, and death is hardly a valid reason to…”
“YAKS… (giv…) A-A-A-A!!!”
“…to renounce my…”
“DOKI-I-I (step away)!!!”
“…loyalty to her!”
Despite everything, no matter the odds, Hawkeye continued to push back the angry spirits. He couldn’t dodge, as every missed blow could land on the lady, he couldn’t step back, as she needed protection more than any time in her life, and, certainly, sustained by this oppressive dimension, he couldn’t die. He couldn’t kill anyone, as they just rose anew from their own black blood, but the man couldn’t retreat.
“He-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh…” The princess chuckled, curling her torso in order to sit up. It hurt her stomach, but the girl persevered nonetheless. “Why am I always surrounded by stupid stubborn men, who just can’t help but dingle their balls before me? Seriously, a dead man, upholding a promise to a dead woman, how much more ridiculous can this get?” The girl scoffed, pulling back her panties, bra, and whatever she left lying around, back on. After all, why even bother now? “Be honest, idiot! What do you want from me?”
“I came here…”
Slash, backflip, tackle, toss – Organ Trist twirled around his commander, pushing back everyone, who came too close to his prized princess.
“…to ask you, Lady Norn!..”
Shoulder slam, side-kick, a flurry of bloodshed embodied in the son of Artemis!
“…to save my…”
Stabbing enemies with that hidden blade, crushing their skulls with the handle of his blade, ripping their eyes out and tossing them away – however useless this double-sided brutality may seem, Hawkeye had purpose, skill, and, most of all, conviction, that allowed him to push the mob away.
“…daughter! Save Marianna!”
After all, what can be stronger, than a father, eager to protect his dear child?
“And you think keeping me alive will help you with that? You, moron, this bloated pigeon trapped me here! I have only one way out – fucking death!” The second princess, now properly clothed again, yelled however loud she could. Unable to comprehend the reasoning behind this idiocy, the girl just stood there, pulling her crimson hair. “Also, you’re severely mistaken! I’m not Norn! Norn’s dead! My name is…”
“…Elly! Elly-y-y!!!” Barely had the princess opened her mouth; before the dome had been breached from the outside. The Hero of Magic emerged above the ground. She levitated, using magical blue flames; she secured her sister by forming a wall around her, a barricade made from powerful ice spears. The sorceress even went so far as to send one into the undead Champion, it was one he easily avoided, though. “Step away from my sister, Organ!!!” The raging magician demanded, pulling her sibling towards her with a gust of mystical wind.
“Ghh! Oh, hey there, Friea!” The fallen warlady spoke, bracing herself against the dizziness her brief flight had caused. Still, this didn’t look good. The last time those two met, Hawkeye severely injured the pink-haired girl, and she just wouldn’t live through it again, unless two gods appeared to help her. This time, though, it was her turn to be a deity-savior.
“Get away! You’ve bested me once, but this time, I can crash this entire realm down onto your head!” The Hero of Magic promised, putting her staff between her sister and her enemy.
“Aw shit, this just gets better and better…” The little genius lamented, nervously shaking her head. Not only was her glorified suicide rudely interrupted, but now this situation threatened to kill her sister as well. Still…
“Elly, Elly… Ellen? Ellen the Adopted?” Despite Freia’s expectations, Organ Trist was more interested in the new name she called Norn, rather than anything else, really. He already had his fair share of battles, after all. “Ho-ho-o! I guess, in the end, you really did become the better version of yourself! And the ‘brother’ in question – is that sir Keyaru?” The blinded man asked with the same smugness he once boasted with in his grandiose life.
“What’s the point of answering you now? Aren’t we just traitors to you?” The heroine replied with every bit of animosity she had in her. “Hold on, Elly, I’ll get you out of here.” Freia stated, charging her staff with the magic that shaped this entire “world”.
“Heh, aren’t you afraid of what that damn poisoned pigeon might do to you for breaking her rules?” The crimson-haired cutie scoffed, witnessing the entire black dome covering with cracks.
“I don’t care about her rules! All I want is to see you safe!” The sorceress spoke with even more defiance toward Caladrius than Norn ever had in her. If needed, she would challenge this feathered nightmare to a duel, anything, just to save her family.
“I see…” Hawkeye uttered, kneeling before the two girls. All that time, rather than monitoring Freia’s moves, his supernatural senses were aimed outside, to make sure no restless souls cross the fence of magic ice. But now… “I see your eyes, Princess Flare, they’re just like hers. I’m sure; you’ll make Lady Reeharoze proud of you yet.” Now, before he once again departs to the other side, there was one last thing to tell them. First praise, then a claim… “Lady Ellen, I beg of you. The life of Marianna now lies in your hands.” …and finally a plea. With all that said, Organ Trist crumbled, his body turned into black salt. And with it, the entire realm began to collapse in itself…
“Hold tight, Elly…”
…
And now, there was only one dark dome left. Arguably, the worst of them all, this particular world was to be the prison for Keyaruga… or his cemetery. No doorways to run into, no windows to jump from. He was alone, trapped with hundreds of those who were slain by his hand. Those poor bastards – the restless souls, their minds were so obsessed with hatred, and their grudge – powered by the sheer immortality of their ethereal blackened bodies. This was hell in its purest form. The question is – a hell for who, exactly?
“YE-E-E-E-E-EAH!!! IT’S HEALING TIME!!!” Keyaruga snarled and began splattering blood all over the place. Everyone who was touched by that substance became horribly mutated – their heads bloated, their muscles strained so much, they crushed their very bones! “WHAT’S WRONG?! KILL ME!!! KILL ME NOW!!!” The man demanded, dancing around his would-be tormentors with his blade, blessing his foes with the exquisite gift of perpetual agony! Saber in his right hand, Georgius on his left, one complementing another.
Despite what the lad asked, nobody could bring him down. His immortal flesh defied any blade, his bones healed in an instant, his mad frenzy alleviated any pain.
He thought he could kill his enemies for the second and final time, give them proper death in the most excruciating manner. He was wrong…
“DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! AGAIN! AND AGAIN! AND ALL OVER AGA-A-A-A-AIN!!!” The hero yelled chopping off heads and severing limbs! He killed so many, he couldn’t even count the slayings! He murdered the same people over and over, each time their agony being more exquisite then the last!
Kill a man once, he won’t even notice, his rage will only rise! Kill him thrice – he’d waver! Five – and the seeds of fear are sown. Ten – and he’s broken completely!
Keyaruga just couldn’t help himself, he hated these scum so much, he just couldn’t contain all his passionate hatred. It was so strong, that the feeling of pure, raw, primordial wrath transcended every possible modification he had put into himself.
“A-A-A-A-A!!! UGH-H-H-H-H!!!” A soldier was weeping, hugging his boot. “S-S-S-S-SPA-A-A-ARE ME-E-E!!!”
“YO-O-OU!!! I remember you!” The healer spoke, raising the cretin by his neck. “My first kill! You watched me being raped, drugged… BEATEN!!!” The man yawped, slicing off his upper face with one nimble slice. “AND YOU NEVER!!! EVER!!! EVER FUCKING HELPED ME!!!” The lad, tainted by black and red blood, slammed the sentry into the ‘floor’…
“A-A-A-A-A!!! PLE-E-E-EASE!!!” …and gleefully sliced off his arms, ignited sparked his left armored hand into a gauntlet of blazing heat!..
“GU-GHH-GUU!!! UA-A-A-A-A-A-A!!!” And finally, cauterized the wounds, just so that the retard wouldn’t die too soon.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!!!” The crazed avenger yelled, grabbing Leonard, so conveniently nearby, weeping. “YOU SAID, I’VE DONE NOTHING FOR THIS FUCKING KINGDOM?! I’LL SHOW YOU, WHAT I CAN DO NO-O-OW!!!”
And so he did, the madman rested his two fingers on the sadist’s forehead. A second passed, and a purple spark had announced the richest form of suffering.
“Oh… U-u… Uo-o-o-o-o-o… Khh…” Indeed, although it wasn’t as vocal as previous ones, Keyaruga was more than pleased with the result. He knew of a human having specific nerves, specifically for reacting to pain. And he just overloaded them. Toxic spiders, dangerous medusas, venomous snakes and scorpions – all of them could do that with their poisons. Hell, even Keyaruga could brew neurotoxins. But damn, this thing had one ultimate merit compared to all of those – the instant effect, so potent, in fact, that the victim can’t even cry out from the excruciating pain!
“He-e! That’s a neat trick.” The lad mumbled, approaching a maid, lying on the “floor” like an embryo. Flare’s bodyguard shivered and sucked her thumb, completely lost to this twisted world. Just one little touch… “Pam! You’re already dead!” Keyaruga sneered tapping his armored fingers by her temple.
“Uh… Uh… Ugh… W… Wha-?.. A-A-A-A-A-A-AGH-H-H!!!” The woman grabbed her skull, but it was too late. All the blood, bile, and even marrow now came into her brain, bloating it, up until it burst in a fountain of black blood and shining entrails.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!! I FUCKING LOVE IT!!!” The deranged healer laughed so loud, and his presence was so overwhelming now, that nobody even dared to come close to him, let alone attack, unless they wished to become a victim of a new twisted experiment. Oh, their fear, this agonizing panic! They’re giving me a fucking boner! I wanna fuck! I want a woman! Oh, this! This will do nicely!
And so, Keyaruga dropped his saber, unfastened his belt, ripped the dress, slapped that ass which he had found, grabbed it, pushed it in! The woman with a blackened tail was slowly dying of blood loss, but that barely concerned the lad. He grabbed her pelvis and began to move, so fast, so frantic, and so mindless, that no one could see a human in him. No-o, this was a wild beast, slamming his bulging cock into the defenseless female, too tired to react, let alone resist somehow. She wasn’t even tight, just barely warm, but even that was enough. A few minutes of such suffering inflicted on her, and he came, this was a brilliant orgasm, deeply perverted, and twisted to the very core…
Oh, that’s the fucking best! I love it so much!
Keyaruga grabbed her hand, wiped his penis with it, pull back his pants, and…
I don’t remember her. I wonder, who that is.
He pushed the body, rolling it to the back.
“Ha-a-a… Hello again, Kailia…” The mad lad recognized her instantly. An agent, sent to find and assist Eve Reese in her quest, hired by someone named Carol. But that alone wouldn’t be enough to get Keyaruga to brutally rape her. “You’ve killed my Norn, but I spared you. Heh, after Kali left, I tasked you to ward off whoever they sent after my Eve, but… It seems like you’ve failed. Really, really sad.” The healer spoke, resting his left hand on her dying flesh, recovering it in an instant. And just like that… “Oh, fuck!” She nearly stabbed him with a knife. Gods only knew where she got it from… “Sit still.” But then, Keyaruga just pressed his finger on her forehead, and completely shut down her limbs functions. He pitied her… but could do nothing for this miserable leopard woman.
“Haa… Damn, it’s getting boring here.” The hero lamented, picking up his weapon of choice. At this point, he just put it back in its sheath. Only then did he spot a couple of new faces in the crowd of weeping bastards. “You there! You don’t look like you should be here. What’s… wait…”
“STAY AWAY FROM ME, MONSTER!!!” The woman cried, she was weeping into her man’s now tainted shirt.
“Heh! He-heh! No-no-no-o! Oh no-o-o!” Keyaruga frantically shook his head, unable to believe what he just saw. This was the worst. This… “Anna! Kurt! What… What’re you even doing here?! I… I avenged you! You shouldn’t have…” His parents were there, they stood among the thugs, slavers, robbers, bandits, zealots, murderers… But they… they weren’t one of them…
“You killed us, traitor. You raped my wife, after everything she’s done for you. You’re disgusting little shit!” The mighty harvester told him, pointing his war-scythe at the hero. The only thing that held him at bay, though, was his spouse, loudly crying with black tears pouring from her eyes.
“Heh… You… really think I’d…”
“No. But you’ve proven it.” Kurt spoke with the coldest possible rage in his voice. Keyaru’s cruelty couldn’t be doubted, after all. Not after everyone he maimed this day. “I don’t give a fuck, what the hell is wrong with you, but I’ll slice your guilty ass as many times as I need.” The older man spoke, pushing Anna aside. And then, he lunged.
Kurt struck as a true warrior – he was swift, accurate, precise – his war scythe – basically a reforged farming tool, grazed Keyaruga’s torso, cut his leg, he even stabbed his foster son through his chest. But… there was no blood.
“Calm down, you two.” The hero demanded, stoically taking hit after hit, like the heavy glaive-like blade was nothing. While Anna crumbled to her knees, lost in her weeping, Kurt wouldn’t stop attacking. “You can’t kill me, I’m immor-…” Barely did the lad say so; before his foster father grabbed the handle in a wide grip, and just swept his head off with one precise strike.
“NO-O-O-O-O-O-O!!!” Strangely enough, despite all of the delusions his parents had about him, Anna just couldn’t stand seeing her child being killed so brutally. “A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A!!! WHY-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y?!!!” As Keyaru’s head rolled on the ground, the thugs, at least those who weren’t affected by any of hero’s inventive afflictions, started to get rallied again.
“You had it coming, you ungrateful dipshit!” Kurt spat through tightly closed teeth. He couldn’t watch, couldn’t face what he had to do with his adopted prodigy. Even if he was a criminal. Even if…
“I really did…” But the bastards weren’t enjoying the show for too long. Right when the healer seemed to fall, a new body started to grow from his neck-stump, the clothes, the pouches, the weapons – everything turned into ash just to materialize again on the proudly standing conqueror of death itself.
“What devilry is this?” Kurt’s reaction was understandable. A mix of fear, anger, and disgust, was all over his tainted face. In turn…
“KEYARU-U-U-U!!!” Anna just dashed forward to hug her child. No matter, how disgustingly atrocious his resurrection was, without even looking at the beheaded body that now lied nearby, the woman just went ahead and embraced the lad. She… didn’t seem to be in her right mind, even for a dead soul.
“Anna, I… I…” The shivers began taking a hold of him. His hands, his knees – they trembled so much, this simple touch he though he lost forever, this… This was enough to make him cry. “I’m sorry… I’m so, so, so, so-o-o sorry!..”
“DIE, FUCKER!!!”
“THAT YOU HAVE TO SEE ME DOING THIS!!!” Keyaruga yelled, grabbing Leonard by his wrist. Just a little pressure – and he dropped his sword, the weapon faded into nothingness. Then, the man pushed Anna back, punched his foe in the gut, and proudly showed his captive to his family. “Haa… He-heh! He-e-e… This… This is Leonard, Flare’s… right hand…” The hero spoke, this time trying to maintain his sanity, as his parents now cautiously looked at him. “I… I came from the future! I had to rewind time’s flow itself… Because Flare was evil, and he…” Then, the man put his hand onto the barely struggling imbecile, thus transforming him into Keyaru, the motionless child, whose entire mobility, except for breathing, was shut down for the ease of what he was about to do. “I killed Flare! And he took my guilt. Then…” Afterwards, the healer went ahead and summoned raging flames upon his free hand. Kurt and Anna watched motionlessly, as he placed the magic-shrouded palm onto his ‘own’ face, burned it, scourged the blackened flesh with the sorcery he ‘learned’ from Flare… “My trick was revealed, and he headed out to our village, looking just like me. The rest… you know the rest.”
And finally, Keyaruga dropped the motionless doll, unable even to cry out from the excruciating pain the Hero of Healing inflicted upon it. He then faced his parents, still shocked by such a display of merciless brutality, they couldn’t even properly reply, this entire spectacle of bloodshed, mayhem, rape, torture, demonstration of immortality, and now – proofs of metamorphosis – all of that left them utterly silent.
“Kurt, Anna… I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you… But I can’t let you, or any one of these fuckers keep me here! I… I have a family! Freia, Setsuna, Ellen, Eve – I so wanted you to meet them… But you can’t now. You… might not believe me, and I understand that.” The red-eyed lad uttered, as his posture slouched more and more, along with his fading bravery. “This is what it’s like to be a man! I must be strong! I have to be ruthless now, so that nobody would challenge me in the future!” The man added, now turning his back to his foster parents. He stood straight, he stretched his shoulders, took a deep breath, and… “LISTEN HERE, YOU FUCKING MONSTERS!!! WHAT YOU’VE FELT NOW IS BUT A TINY BIT OF WHAT I’LL DO TO YOU, ONCE I’M FUCKING DEAD!!! NOW YOU WILL GO INTO THE DEEPEST PITS OF HELL, AND WHEN YOU’RE THERE, PRAY I DON’T FUCKING DIE ANYTIME SOON!!! BECAUSE WHEN I FINALLY KICK THIS SHITTY BUCKET, I’LL FIND EACH OF YOU, AND WE’LL BE PLAYING FOR THE WHOLE OF ETERNITY!!! BUT WHY WAIT, WHEN WE CAN HAVE SOME FUN NOW, HU-U-U-UH?!!!”
The speech was told, the impact made. His words were so zealous, so passionately intimidating, that the weeping fools now reached a whole new depth of despair.
“GET US OUT OF HERE!!!”
“SAVE ME-E-E-E!!!”
“HE’S THE DEVIL!!! DE-E-EVIL!!!”
“UA-A-A-A-A-A-A!!!”
“KUUNDA (I’m so scared)!!!”
“HE-E-E-E-E-ELP!!!”
And so, this entire crowd, this mob of immortal corpses, just ran away. Everyone, who could still stand on their feet, began fleeing in panic, trampling each other in the process. What they failed to notice, though, is that the dome is endless only for its main victim. Everyone else just came up against the invisible wall.
The Trial of Heart – its goal is twisted, to be certain. To pass it would mean releasing the dead souls from their grudge toward you. A saint would shift it to forgiveness, but the deranged avenger pumped so much fear in those criminals, that their hatred was replaced by the purest and most animalistic terror. Still, with the task done, the souls began to dissipate in a white light. They would finally be free…
“REMEMBER!!! YOU’VE NOT SEEN THE LAST OF ME!!! WE’LL MEET AGAIN, YOU FUCKING SHITBAGS!!!” Unfortunately for them, though, Keyaruga’s long shadow still loomed above them all. And such, even in relief, the crowd continued to cry, to sob, to wail, to…
“Keya… ru…” But not all left because of dread. When the avenger turned around, his foster mother, crumbling into white flakes, stood on her tiptoes to give him a last kiss on the cheek. “You’ve grown… so much…”
And so, she faded. Kurt quickly followed, although it wasn’t forgiveness or benevolence that filled his raging soul. No, it was an impotent acceptance. He saw Keyaruga as a mirror, in which he saw himself, before he deserted the royal guard and found himself in Alban.
“Someday… you’ll follow my path…” And this was what the man spoke at last, dropping his war-scythe to the ethereal ground. With no souls to redeem in the most twisted of ways, the dome of blackness quickly turned insufferably bright.
The Trial of Heart had been passed.

Growing up I'd always hear murmurs of a cult called the "Purple People." We all knew people who knew people who had trespassed and been shot by rock salt guns. What I didn't know is how deep there ties are to corruption stemming back to the 60's and their influence in spawning a recently exposed Bay Area Cult.
The "Purple People" is a group based in Lafayette, CA, known officially as the Lafayette Morehouse.
Formed in 1968, this community lives in purple houses, travels in purple cars, and is often labeled as a sex cult due to their experimental sexual research and hedonistic lifestyle. Despite the nickname, the members themselves are not purple, but they use the color extensively to signify a unique space. The choice of purple was reportedly because it was the favorite color of the first wife of the group's founder, Dr. Victor Baranco.
The community, which has its own security guards, is believed to have ties with OneTaste, a company involved in an alleged pyramid scheme and cult known for offering "orgasmic meditation" for women. The members of Lafayette Morehouse teach sex practices and techniques, with some residents engaging in casual relations, polyamorous relationships, and relations with multiple partners simultaneously.
The group has faced controversy, with allegations of intimidation tactics to keep members within their ranks, and the 1994 arrest of the founder and his wife for possession of LSD. They've also been known for public demonstrations of a woman climaxing, as part of their teachings on sexuality
I created this video on Youtube, with more details about it.