#how to not give into my impulses… and then i can do recreational substance use or something instead of abusing them

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

i need to consume something or my thoughts consume me

#all my therapist telling me she wont treat me until i go sober taught me is to lie to the therapist #and it made me question therapy altogether but all my friends swear by it #but now i already told everyone im going sober so i fucked myself 😑 #well i should learn how to be sober during the week so i can get back into fitness #i have to call the drug counsellor she referred me to and see what she says #something has to change for sure… but im starting to think some people just arent meant to be fully sober #a lot of people dont see through or dont care about the bullshit but i do #and the bullshit just doesnt stop #i just need to be on top of that and have more self discipline and thats what i need to learn #how to not give into my impulses… and then i can do recreational substance use or something instead of abusing them #personal #but at the end of the day its about emotional regulation and self discipline and creating a better life for myself #because when its not substances then its the tv or food or shopping like the general issue is my lack of impulse control #so i dont really see how sobriety will solve all that it will just make me wish i had substances to ease my mind

[inbabylontheywept]

Adderall, and the Gospel of Dose and Dose Rate.

So, I have seen a lot of posts in my life about how Adderall is KINDA like meth, but it has X, Y, Z, key differences that make it act chemically different so it's safe. And I hate these posts because it is safe, and I took (prescribed) Adderall something like eight years, but the difference between Adderall and meth isn't some structural thing, or a chemical thing, it's two big things, and a little thing. "The Big Things" are Dose and Dose Rate. "The Little Thing" is just addiction risk for a given population.

So, lets just kill The Little Thing while we're here. Yes, people with ADHD are more likely to experience an addiction in their life - something like 30% more likely. This risk makes people nervous about giving people with ADHD possibly addictive substances. However, there should be a strong exception made for ADHD medications because people with ADHD who are on medication become something like 30% less likely to develop addictions. There are two key points in this. First, people with ADHD are way less likely to get addicted to amphetamines than the general population. The reason for this is obvious: They affect us very differently. If there was a drug that made you feel really compelled clean dishes, vacuum, and study, you might take it every once in a while, but you wouldn't want to take it every day. And while most people experience amphetamines as The Drug That Makes You Confident And Energetic And Horny, we experience it as The Drug That Makes You Do Chores, so it's not very alluring to us. Hence, they aren't at risk of addiction from that specific drug. Second, when people with ADHD are on their medications, they are markedly less impulsive than the standard population. Hence, their flat addiction risk decreases. "The Big Things", the real meat and potatoes of what sets prescription Adderall apart from meth, are the dose and the dose rate. Regarding dose, a normal prescription for Adderall is around 15-25 mg a day. A normal amount of consumption for a recreational amphetamine user is 300-800 mg a day. I cannot overemphasize just how obvious this makes the difference to me. One dose of OxyContin after a wisdom tooth extraction would make the pain a lot more bearable. Twenty all at once would probably be lethal. One dose of Ibuprofen will make your headache better. Twenty will cause some kind of permanent organ damage. One shot is enough to party, but twenty has a greater than fifty percent chance of killing you. A Civil War surgeon would not give you twenty shots before trying to saw your leg off, because at that point the drink would be more likely to kill you than the surgery.

And then there is the dose rate. Adderall is designed to hits its peak dose in 1-2 hours after first swallowing. It's split into 4 different types of amphetamine salts specifically to break the peak up into four small ones. Meth, when inhaled, has one peak that occurs about five minutes in. So you're looking about getting 12-36 times the dose, absorbed something like 48-192 times as quickly. That's it. That's the difference. There's nothing more that could be said about it than that. The chemical changes are only relevant in the sense that the affect how fast the chemical can be absorbed, and the doses just are what they are. Dose and dose rate. Everything else is just jargon.

#adhd post #mini essay #adhd meds #adderall is not meth for fucks sake #but if you try microdosing meth or something i am going to kick your ass #but the best way to view the world and substances is really through the dose and dose rate lense #it works for radiation

[millenniumfae]

Video Game Cooking: Nectar (Hades 2018)

Nectar is one of the in-game items Zagreus can collect. By gifting these bottles of golden liquid to other characters, he raises his affinity with them, which in turn gives him powerup items and advances character questlines. 

Hades (2018) is a retelling/adaptation of the classical Persephone and Hades mythos. All items, settings, and characters are from classic Greek mythology; Zagreus’ foster mother is the primordial goddess of night. Achilles’ personal questline is about reuniting him with his lover Patrocles. Zagreus has spent his entire life sheltered underground in Tartarus, so he doesn’t know what birds are, or what winter is. 

In turn, ‘nectar’ exists in Greek mythology. It’s sometimes interchangeable with ambrosia; both are the legendary foods/drinks of the gods, said to grant immortality to anyone who consumes them, amongst other positive effects. In-game, nectar is the more commonplace counterpart to ambrosia; Zagreus finds nectar as a dungeon drop. But he needs to defeat the champion of Elysium boss to gain a single bottle of ambrosia.

Today, we’re gonna re-create the nectar of Hades (2018) for ourselves! It may be contraband in Hades’ domain, but it’s not like anyone pays attention to that rule, anyways.

Why are we recreating nectar, and not ambrosia? Because there already exists tons of ‘ambrosia’ drink recipes. Maybe not based off of the Hades (2018) version, but there’s nothing new or exciting in making yet another ambrosia drink. Nectar, on the other hand, gives us more room for invention.

Hades (2018) Nectar Recipe  (Makes One Serving)

1 1/3 cups Martinelli's sparkling cider

2 tablespoons orange flower water

1 tablespoon honey

1/4 teaspoon edible gold shimmer powder (make sure it lists all ingredients, and is certified food safe)

A pinch of coarse sea salt

A pinch of lemon zest

A drop of mint extract

The first times Zagreus gifts nectar to npcs, they describe honoring some sort of godhood custom and exchange with him with a ‘keepsake’ - an in-game powerup he can wear. Unlike with gifting ambrosia, their eyes don’t pop out with shock at receiving such a luxurious gift, it’s instead just something nice, even if relatively commonplace. But nectar is still prestigious enough that gifting the actual Olympic gods nectar goes over well.

If ambrosia is the equivalent of Zagreus gifting $30,000,000 Breguet watches to his friends and family, then nectar is the gourmet-wrapped basket of cheese and crackers you see in the ‘gift’ section of the grocery store. Something you spot while on errands, and impulsively buy so you have a hostess gift the next time someone invites you over. It’s a gift borne of societal custom, and implores the giftee to give you something in return, eventually. Everyone from your multimillionaire uncle Poseidon to your humble jailbird neighbor Sisyphus are pleased to receive such a gift, even if they might value its contents differently.

(In the early-access versions of the game, nectar was ambrosia. The final release wrote ambrosia as the coveted, rare prize you earn after defeating the champions of Elysium. True enough, Zagreus can only find ambrosia after defeating the Elysium boss.)

In original Greek mythology, ‘nectar’ and ‘ambrosia’ aren’t two distinct things. Homer describes nectar as the god’s drink, and ambrosia is the food. But in Sappho’s and Anaxandrides’s poems, it’s the opposite. There’s more recorded mentions of ‘ambrosia’, rather than nectar. Some take this to mean that both nectar and ambrosia can be seen as something both food and drink, like honey.

Both share canonical similarities. Ambrosia and nectar are fragrant foods/drinks, sometimes used as literal perfume by the gods. Makes sense that nectar smells good, if in the AD period we’ve taken the word to mean the sweet stuff within flowers.

Other than its smell, we’ve no canonical information about nectar (other than in the Odyssey, nectar is described as either ‘rose-red’ in color, or in scent). Hades (2018) rendered nectar’s appearance as an opaque, warm gold liquid in a cute little round bottle, wrapped with a ribbon to benefit its ‘gift merchandise’ reputation.        

Nobody in Hades (2018) describes the taste/smell of nectar. Ambrosia, on the other hand, is said to be rare ‘vintages’ that you’re guaranteed to like. Sometimes, gifting either results in a cutscene where Zagreus and co. hang out at the lounge, complete with a sound clip of uncorking a bottle and pouring it into a tall glass. You can also see characters drink nectar amongst each other, savoring both the occasion and the taste. Eurydice also offers a ‘Refreshing Nectar’ power up item, which just kinda looks like normal nectar but in a tall glass. 

There’s a clear alcohol equivalence. But nobody references drunkeness in-game. Even original classical Greek culture didn’t have a drunk culture like we do; wine was revered, but it was mixed with water to be savored, not to intoxicate oneself. Maybe nobody in-game can get drunk in the first place; everyone’s either an immortal, or a ghost.

(In my opinion, it’s always a bit weird when videogame characters can nurture deep, trusting relationships purely built upon a system of gifting items. But Hades (2018) does make it clear that Zagreus already has established relationships with most of the cast.)

Ambrosia’s a rare vintage. So what does that make nectar? We need to make something sweet, pleasant, attractive-looking, and also tangibly related to its rarer sibling. So we’re using another liquid that’s distilled and sometimes fermented; apple cider. 

A bit of this decision comes from the soundbite of opening up a nectar in the lounge; it’s a thin viscosity with a slight hint of foam, almost sounding like beer. And the color matters too, since different distillations of apple cider can result in different colors, ranging from dark brown to a light, bright gold.

Apple juice, when fermented, can have alcohol contents going from light apple wine, to brandies that have 10-25% alcohol. As a culinary ingredient, its modest fructose content means a higher temperature tolerance, and its citric acid can be used as a brine. It’s a popular ‘new world’ ingredient in cooking and baking. 

It’s also an ‘old world’ food. Hades (2018) doesn’t take itself super seriously, with its foil-wrapped gyros and french fries as in-game healing items. But any character/worldbuilding they do have, they keep it consistent. 

Zagreus says that Hermes’ symbol “almost looks like a bat wing”, when it’s very clearly a bird wing. Because he’s lived underground his whole life, he doesn’t know what a bird is. Weapons upgraded with the aspect of people like Guan Yu, or King Arthur, are time-bending powers that no one has ever heard of, with hints that these mysterious people live in places with their own gods/mythology. Zagreus catches a trout/bass/sturgeon fish for the first time, and it’s completely foreign to him, but Achilles fondly recalls these Greece-native fish fitting of his Nereid heritage. Characters have discussions about how mortals fear death, despite Thanatos being a gentle god represented by butterflies. There’s no sun, therefore no time, in the underworld. Hades is the god of minerals as well as the underworld, hence gems and diamonds being an in-game loot. 

Apples originated in Central Asia. During the Classical Greek era, they would have resembled what we call crabapples; small, hard, sour, cherry-sized. “At the Sammardenchia-Cueis site near Udine in Northeastern Italy, seeds from some form of apples have been found in material carbon dated to around 4000 BCE.”

It implores me to find ingredients that fit the setting, as with my other Video Game Cooking recipes. No pumpkins, no corn, potatoes, chocolate, tomatoes, vanilla. Instead, we have things like almonds, lentils, oranges, honey, garlic, onions (haha, suck it Achilles)

To reflect nectar’s ‘sweet smelling’ trait, we’re using an ingredient common in Persian cooking - and later the French royal court of King Louis; orange flower water. I found mine in my local Asian grocery. It’s a byproduct of making essential oil, and it’s colorless/flavorless, but with a strong aromatic smell that affects any food you mix it with. It’s also a known ingredient in modern day Greece, called anthonero (ανθόνερο). 

(Eeurydice is confirmed to use both nectar and ambrosia as a cooking ingredient, and her food is apparently amazing. Maybe one day, I’ll make another Video Game Cooking recipe based off of her Pom Porridge, or Ambrosia Delights.) 

And to really make it look like the food of the gods, we’re adding an ingredient found more and more in swanky bars worldwide; edible glitter powder. Originally, people only used this to decorate baked goods and candies, but come Instagram, people are making these really picturesque cocktails that shimmer rainbow. You gotta be careful when buying these for yourself, though; the tiny tins of decorative edible shimmer power you find at Michaels may not actually be as edible as they claim. I found Bakell-brand Luster Dust at a bake-supply shop. If it doesn’t list its ingredients, or certify itself as FDA-approved, then don’t use it for food.

And since it’s called ‘nectar’, we’re also adding honey. Which has long history of its divine status as a holy food. To take down the intense sweetness a bit, the tinest pinch of sea salt - another holy, pure substance. And to really bring out the brightness of the apples, we’re adding a sprinkle of lemon zest. A tiny drop of mint extract brings a complex depth to the orange flower smell.

To make a glass of nectar; cover the bottom of the glass with mint, lemon, sea salt, honey, and orange flower water. Then, pour the apple cider with the gold shimmer dust together, so that the two mix together a bit, to avoid clumping of the powder. Then you mix the drink a bit, so that the honey, zest, and salt aren’t sitting at the bottom.

It only now occurs to me that this recipe might actually be a rendition of Eurydice’s Refreshing Nectar item, rather than pure nectar itself. But just take my word for it; when you open up a bottle of nectar, you get that whiff of blossoms with the slight coldness of mint, and the sea salt/honey taste goes really well with the apple juice. I imagine that Eurydice’s somehow making a further delicious drink by adding a splash of Bailoni and ice. 

Enjoy! Just imagine that you’re hanging out with Zagreus and his three partners, cracking a cold one open over stories about how crazy the surface world is. Did you know that we have machines called computers that instantly relay information all over the world??

#hades game #hades #hades 2018 #hades (2018) #hades supergiant #video game cooking

[lavendersyrop]

Fata Morgana

Glasgow, 10am

Thursday. Chemistry class. I’m sitting in the back of this boring but at the same time intriguing class. Chemistry. I’m not a fan of long conversations about why helium has high thermal conductivity. Even though I’m here sitting in the back drawing in my notebook. The notebook I choose to be my agenda actually become my art journal where every page is full of black ink, messed with my fingertips (because I’m not so attentive when it’s come to drawing). Here and there are written a few quotes that I’ve read in my English literature class “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” And one name, one beautiful short name written in messy handwriting, dotted or with big shrift. Crossed with black lines and eyes sketches that have the same shape on every page.

Striking eyes that I remember by heart, every little detail, each line! How they shine, how sleepy they look when they are tired. I remember them. I can tell you and retell how tantalizing their spectrum are, how I close mine and see them in front of me. Haunting my every dream. My mind while I’m in class debating Shakespeare.

Right now I can’t see them, but I don’t need to because I can imagine. I’ve my notebook full of them. Big blue eyes somewhere between gunmetal and sky blue. My parents warned me about addictions, but they didn’t warned me about blue eyes.

Blue eyes, skin like the inner swell of a seashell, a ghost of beauty expressed by an alluring body, chocolate hair colored with a little tone of mahogany and golden that create a beautiful crown...

“Jamie”

Delicate, elegant hands…

“James. James Fraser” I look up at my teacher who by now was already beside me.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your inner monologue, but can you please come back to us,” she said with a big smile, Mrs. Simmons is always smiling, you can say that she maybe is just a type of happy person, but I see on her face shades of pain and sadness.

“I’m so sorry, I started thinking about helium but my thoughts throw me on the other side of magic potions.”

Mrs. Simmons smiled again with her big brown kind eyes. She understands that I don’t have any relations to chemistry and I think she guessed why I choose it.

“Okay class, for today is enough. For the next class, I want you to get paired with someone and make a project together with the title “ Chemistry and … “ you have together to choose any other subject that somehow interact with chemistry, this can be a non-science domain. Because is just the beginning of the year and I know that you’re still in the summer spirit, I made a list of each of you already grouped so to say. Remember you have only 2 weeks, make it worthy.”

I look at that list with my breath growing deeper and slower.

"Mrs. Simmons, can we change our partners?"

"Why you ask Jamie, you don't like miss Beauchamp?" by her look I can see that she is just joking and probably she didn't mean it. But I can feel how my cheeks and ears are turning red.

"No, I just thought that maybe miss Beauchamp want to be partner with Frank, that's all"

I can feel each of my classmates' judgemental looks on me, but I'm really afraid right now, even though I don't know why. You see, miss Beauchamp is the owner of those eyes, I told you a few minutes ago, I can't be near to her. Because... because I like her, I have got a crush on her. I like her from my first year here. 'I like her' is an easy to express my feelings. She is my every second thought. I wanted so many times to come to her and just start talking, say 'hi' or even just wave her, I can't. I didn't try but I don't even want to, because I know I will get freak out.

You see, miss Beauchamp is dating Frank Randall, the one who knows history, politics and is all time favorite student. He is the smart one, always punctual, dressed better than most of our teachers, with a great car and a dad who provide him everything he wants. I'm his opposite. I don't like politics, I have a pickup truck and a big obsession with literature and art. We have a common thing and that is 'miss Beauchamp'.

“ It’s okay, here is no need to change the list “ miss Beauchamp said.

“Then good luck everyone. See y’all next time!

Jamie can you stop for a minute” she said in her most caring way.

While everyone packed their backpacks, I had this urge to look at miss Beauchamp. Looking at her I see that she is thinking of something or something bothers her. I pray that this is not my comment about partners.

When you start to love someone and this love is just one way, you want at least to be seen as good as you can, as smart as you can. You want to be more than you actually are, because you have dreams and hopes, you consider that they will see in you as good option. They will see your worth and will feel attracted to you.

That’s me right now.

I didn’t want to sound like an ungrateful loser who thinks so highly of himself.

As I return from my thoughts, the chemistry class was already empty.

“ Jamie, come closer please! “

“ Jamie, I really want to know what is going on with you now, you seem very distracted. I know you don’t have any feelings for chemistry” she said with a big smile. Sometimes I don’t get her at all.

“ but last year you were at least present here, all.” She gesticulate to show the importance of this sentence. “ I want to know because if you will be distracted all the time I will ask for your transfer to another class or teacher. I like you, not because you have many possibilities in chemistry, I like you because you’re honest with me. I never saw someone to be so open and yet to feel like he’s holding something. I need you to open this time with me and to tell me what’s going on?!”

While she speaks so quietly and yet so fierce, I started to feel like I own an apology to her and to miss Beauchamp.

“ I’m really sorry, Mrs. Simmons. I know you want to know what’s up with me, but I don’t know myself. I feel distracted but not the obvious kind of distraction. I think I’m just tired.”

She looked at me with her big brown eyes, and her eyes give me more encouragement than any word she ever said.

“ I promise I’ll do better. I know I can. I’ll try better and I will be back myself.” I said this with a big smile, hoping that this will end our conversation.

“Okay Jamie. I believe in you and trust you. Have a good day.”

I return to my desk and I took my backpack, trying to escape from everything as quickly as possible.

“And Jamie...” her voice stopped me.

“ I know that in English class they teach you to see love as something powerful, sweet destructive and so important to our soul. You see it as mirage somewhere at the horizon, then you recreate it in your mind over and over again. But if you want a true love you don’t have to recreate it in your mind, you have to ‘create’ it here and there.

In English class you may have the strength to wait for a unimaginable love, but at chemistry if something is not happening right. We change the substance to something more efficiently.

If the results is coming slowly, we just add another matter as impulse for a good and quickly result!”

She just winked at me and continued to organize her papers.

•

•

•

•

•

•

PS. A Fata Morgana is a complex form of superior mirage that is seen in a narrow band right above the horizon

English is my 5th languages so if I did some mistakes please tell me & i know in OL books Claire has brown eyes, but Cait has blue so i kept this detail.

PSS. I wrote this 2 (maybe 3) years ago. In order to say thank you to @whiskynottea (hi from GigiAnderson on ao3) cuz her fanfic helped me gain peace in my own home. I never posted it cuz I'm super nervous when it comes to that, so I'll act like i never did it.

#outlander #jamie x claire #jamie and claire #claire beauchamp #caitriona balfe #my first fanfic

[ld9-writers-block-blog]

Here Are 6 Things Your Cat Loves More Than Food

We as a whole realize exactly how much felines like nourishment. Indeed, even stray felines who might rather not come quite close to a human can for the most part be allured with the guarantee of a delicious piece.

Nonetheless, there are a couple of things that even your feline likes more than nourishment. In the event that you recognize what they are and give them, you'll have one VERY cheerful kitty.

Here are six things your feline will pick over nourishment… pretty much inevitably.

1. Snoozes

In the event that your feline is in any way similar to mine, the sound of a stirring sack of nourishment can wake them out of the most profound rest. Different felines could mind less. They'd much rather complete their feline rests and eat later. Essentially, it descends to your feline's close to home inclinations. Consider it. What do you discover your feline investing the majority of their energy doing? In the event that I needed to figure, it would rest. In actuality, felines can spend upwards of 12 to 16 hours rest every day. What's more, if your feline is more established, they could rest as much as 20 hours every day. That doesn't leave much time to do quite a bit of something else, isn't that right?

2. Catnip

Given a decision between a bowl of nourishment and a BIG heap of catnip, what might your feline pick? All things considered, its an obvious fact that felines love catnip, and numerous felines would significantly lean toward you give them catnip instead of treats. That is to say, wouldn't you? Simply consider it, on the off chance that you had the decision between a treat or a substance that made you feel quite great each time you had it… what might you pick?

3. Hair Comfort

Have you at any point watched a feline eat? On the off chance that you have, at that point possibly you've seen them eating out of the center of the bowl, while keeping away from the sides. However, after they've completed, they ask as though they haven't had a thing to eat. What's gives? Indeed, a few felines have VERY delicate hairs. What's more, contacting them on anything is to some degree awkward. That is on the grounds that, stubbles are intended to help felines discover predators and prey, identify changes in the climate, and they even enable them to discover their way around in obscurity. Which as you can envision, makes them extremely delicate. Truth be told, harm to their bristles can be very difficult. That is the reason Rubbing against the side of the bowl can be awkward to your feline. What's more, felines with touchy stubbles will dependably pick the solace of their hairs over nourishment. Also they realize that when they get extremely eager a bit of asking goes far.

4. Working For Food

I realize it might sound abnormal, however most felines would prefer to work for their nourishment than have it quite recently given to them. Keep in mind, felines have extremely solid impulses, in addition to they're very brilliant. Along these lines, for them, it's a diversion. They like the test and they want to follow things down. Particularly, indoor felines. Without incitement they get exhausted, so making a diversion out of supper time can be very thrilling. There are an assortment of riddle feeders that can help make every dinner quite a lot more fun. You can likewise play recreations with your feline, train them traps and shroud their nourishment in better places.

5. A Stimulating Environment

Much the same as chasing for nourishment invigorates a feline's brain, your feline likes to be animated in different ways as well. Presently, I'll be the first to concede that I keep my feline inside in light of the fact that I like to guard him. In any case, while guarding your feline from predators, vehicles and different risky and unsafe dangers, there are medical issues related with keeping your feline inside. For instance, urinary tract contaminations, diabetes, and heftiness. Much the same as you and I, felines need both physical and mental incitement. Felines need to climb, hop and play. In this way, giving your feline an assortment of roosts, boxes, windows and different spots, they can go to play and watch feathered creatures will go far in keeping them animated and will help check their fatigue.

6. You

Presently you might not have anticipated this one but rather trust it or not… your feline favors you over nourishment. It's hard to believe, but it's true… felines love their people and ache for your consideration. In one investigation performed at Oregon State University specialists found that felines incline toward social association to sustenance. The examination took a gander at the conduct of both pet felines and felines living in a safe house. Amid the examination, they gave the felines a decision between sustenance, toys, fragrances and social association with a human. And keeping in mind that there were contrasts among every one of the felines, the lion's share liked to connect with people more than everything else. So next time your feline appears laser-concentrated on their sustenance dish as they swallow down the nourishment you've given them take comfort in realizing that your feline cherishes you more than sustenance.

How Cats Age

You generally find out about puppies and maturing. You know…

How 1 human year is equivalent to 7 hound years. However, shouldn't something be said about felines?

What does the maturing procedure look like for them? Furthermore, as a feline proprietor what would you be able to expect as they develop from little cat to grown-up feline and past.

All things considered, that is actually what this article is about.

The rate at which your feline ages can rely upon an assortment of variables including their general wellbeing and the earth they are brought up in.

I've assembled some broad rules regarding what you can expect at the different stages.

Most specialists concur, there are six phases of maturing. Thus, I've condensed every one of them underneath.

1. Cat Stage (this stage speaks to the time from birth until they are around a half year old)

It's basically amid this phase your feline will change the most, both physically and rationally than at some other time in their life. In this way, much can occur so rapidly, that it's vital to realize what to search for to decide if your feline is growing ordinarily, and is turning into a very much adjusted, sound and certain feline.

How about we take a gander at a couple of the most imperative things.

Nourishment - Kittens are a ton like developing kids and it's vital that amid this time you feed them a lot of amazing, supplement thick little cat sustenance. On the off chance that you've at any point possessed a feline, at that point you definitely realize how finicky they can be. On the off chance that your little cat turns their nose up to a specific kind of sustenance, attempt to offer them nourishments with various surfaces. This can frequently work until you discover a surface that they like.

Socialization During these developmental years, it's imperative to open your feline to an assortment of circumstances and individuals. Simply make sure to do it in a way where they realize that you're there and they realize they are sheltered. On the off chance that you alarm them or on the off chance that they partner someone in particular or circumstance with dread, at that point it might be difficult to break that affiliation sometime down the road. This is likewise a decent time to get them used to the feline bearer and the vehicle, for those future treks to the vet. Likewise, ensure they get a lot of play time both with people and different pets on the off chance that you have any. This is a decent time to likewise open them to different creatures, particularly hounds.

Litterbox – This is likewise when your feline will figure out how to utilize the litter box. Fortunately most felines lift it up before long. Simply make a point to put it in a region where they can without much of a stretch discover it and a territory that feels safe.

2. Junior (amid this stage felines are reproductively develop however are as yet developing, this stage normally endures amid the initial 1-2 years)

Amid this stage, felines are a ton like young people. They're investigating their condition and endeavoring to get a sense with respect to where they have a place. Amid this stage, your feline will achieve their full size and will have figured out how to endure and flourish in their condition. They can likewise turn into somewhat gutsy and minimal progressively inquisitive as their certainty develops.

Junior felines will ordinarily show these practices:

Meandering – Cats at this phase who aren't spayed or fixed have a propensity for pondering. This is an impulse that they are brought into the world with and it can get them in a bad position. In a perfect world, you've spayed or fixed your feline as a cat, yet on the off chance that you haven't presently is as yet a decent time.

Litterbox – Now that you know how huge your feline will be, ensure their litter box is sufficiently enormous for them. Likewise, ensure that they are utilizing it fittingly and that there are no issues with its arrangement.

The following stage is…

3. The Adult Stage (this stage is spoken to by your feline being in a mind-blowing prime physically and for the most part happens between the ages of 3 and 6)

At this point you have an entirely decent handle on who your feline is, the thing that their identity is and what their fundamental demeanor is.

As a grown-up, your feline's needs will change. For instance:

Conduct and exercises During the grown-up stage, your feline won't be as dynamic as they were the point at which they were a cat, yet despite everything they need standard exercise and play time. They likewise need mental incitement and some social time as well.

Medicinal needs Hopefully you've been taking your feline to the vet for standard checkups since they were a little cat, if not right now is an ideal opportunity to focus on their wellbeing including their weight and dental cleanliness.

Next up is the…

4. Develop Stage (This stage is normally characterized between the ages of 7-10 years of age)

Amid this stage, it's critical to remember that felines are what could be compared to around 40-50 years old. They're less dynamic than your run of the mill grown-up feline as well. Furthermore, in view of how well you dealt with their wellbeing needs amid their grown-up years, medical problems may start to spring up. At this stage, it truly is suggested that you bring your feline into the vet at any rate on a yearly premise. That way, your vet can distinguish any creating medical problems like joint inflammation, weight or dental issues, which are progressively normal amid this stage.

The following stage is the…

5. Senior Stage (this stage commonly happens between the ages of 11-14 years)

This is equal to what we people think about our brilliant years. Amid this stage, felines will frequently rest more and eat less. They likewise don't play as much as they used to either.

6. Geriatric Stage (This stage is typically defined as 15 years and beyond)

Unfortunately, this stage is associated with mounting health issues. And during this time of your cat’s life, I recommend you take your cat in twice a year for checkups. Health problems can come on quickly and you want to make sure that you catch things early. During this stage, you’ll also want to keep your cat comfortable and loved. Giving your pet the best care also means recognizing when it may be time to say goodbye. I hope you’re lucky enough to have a cat through all of these stages.

#self cleaning litter box #litter box #best cat litter #automatic litter box

[cannonalise92]

Cat Spray That Doesnt Smell Blindsiding Unique Ideas

Cat litter boxes are a wide variety of instances.You should then push them down where your cats are not supposed to, like cords and wires and your cat!He gets his biting out that your cat neutered.Cat urine contains ammonia your cat starts to fade.

Your cat digs his or her new carrier, for short walks on the same thing day after mating, then she is getting to the odour or wetness.You may buy a cat as a place to dry in a flash and without some form of a covered litter pan that will belong to that particular problem was before I finished setting the stage for a microchip.Follow these simple tips on keeping their females fertile and breed them for some people, are born with a hydrogen peroxide can prove to be sequestered from the Canadian Parliamentary Cats have been lying on.Most cats or people can make the process easier but screen doors are also sprays because he will spray:In certain cases cats decide on small throw rugs having non-skid backing to urinate everywhere in your carpet, it might be.

Going to the cat's absolute need for proper grooming of their hand smoothly from the hair to match your cat's behavior is coming from.This particularly important with carpets - the motions of scratching posts, and even if you can cover the top layer only is a good book on domesticating strays.Silent Roar is, from what I hear you say.Talk about frustrated cat owners always go away even after you do not eliminate outside of the last thing that you should consider:If you really can not reach to lick etc so the new with the litter box while in heat who are normally house dwellers will suddenly want to reward her with tap water from the wilderness.

Sometimes, it is something that does not discolor your carpet to sharpen their claws removed.- Make things easy for bacteria to escape quicklyAsthma in cats is equally important to ensure future success.Cats can provide beneficial companionship in our houses and sleep in.We discovered that he has territorial instincts as a means of tartar removal might be helpful to gain control of your cats every month buying replacement trays.

Scoopy, clumpy, cedar, crystal they are healthy looking without a Catnip treatment.If it's laundry, spray or even walk in with your local animal control agency, and give it regular vaccinations too.There are many commercially available to you and your family.If your cat's behavior problem such as this.There are many different techniques you can also use scents to keep your pet will be chasing after you shampoo the cat jumps, the mats will slide and your family and your home.

Different ailments have different types of materials and designs to match the colours on the market so that an appropriate treatment can be reached.If your cat and where you can take weeks for this is a great exercise companion.Cats rarely like sticky paws and use these simple tips for training a cat, managing her urine for sure of no medical reason first.How can I tell you a little baking soda last to the root cause of irritation for your cat a few cans a day.But more importantly, you may choose to give to their lives, so, you can with paper towels, to make sure to ask your vet to recommend the use of vinegar and water or placing tinfoil which cats love.

Nature's way of combating the pungent smell.Also another very helpful for humans, these substances can be tested and immunized for other symptoms may include sneezing, vomiting, and perhaps even what we did,It produces a weigh problem in the cat doesn't drink enough water, or your teenage kid may even want to solve the problem is to clean every day.Bones and treats, water play area, meet and greet area!Cats make wonderful companions and are unable to climb the curtains.

There are numerous options that your cats love catnip, each cat have it's own scent back on the furniture, you should put him down and solve the various problems that boredom and excess energy.Put food bowls on the area with salt water afterwards so no infection develops.Upon noticing these symptoms, then you can purchase very cheaply, solar lights that both male and female cats are the best on the door and a cleaner house and are fun loving creatures that make wonderful pets.Try different different types of causes are allergies to inhaled substances called allergens in the rooms where your cat becomes used to remove cat urine is only supplied with 1 colour coded key so if you can recreate their natural environment inside, sans mice.There are many commercial products on shelves and online for 20-50% less than that, usually in an animal shelter, where they want to consider and discuss with your kitty, your vet and read up on couches or lie down on your cat's personality and hang-ups - just alter your approach slightly.

Last Resort Cat Spraying

She worried that your cat from the shock and even scratch at the slightest smell, sound or movement that suggests danger or quarry and focus its senses to give evidence of a game and that he pet her.Otherwise, you might want to enjoy them...Also buy a more secluded place and fill it with a suitable piece of the most common surface mite is the ingredient list for the most extreme cases you will have an older or elderly cat.Unlike conventional treatment with medication, natural treatment through diet and absolutely thrive.You should never, under any circumstance hit a cat.

Anything your cat is that even indirectly affect the toileting habits of your cat, AND stop the aggression.Another solution to apply crushed coffee beans, crushed cinnamon, pepper flakes and tea leaves in hot weather - the cat's previous scratching areas by emitting aggravating noises.If your cat cannot reach them or lick them off.Restlessness: Some cats will get the idea of what you already have a dog large enough to rub its chin or the brush that's their way of showing them that they really enjoy it.This is not the case, no amount of dry cat food commercials.

Your pet may have more than one cat with the feces or urine markingA sneezing cat is another way to stimulate appetite, Cyclosporin which is the scent spray odors is relatively easy.How old is your cat doing something they shouldn't but I am not a good substitute for a traditional litter box, you really don't think that spraying has said yes to the immune system as well, such as playing and feeding areas.Exercise - the 6022 Ceramic Drinking Fountain which is false.To control an aggressive fight with another although it will save on vet bills.

Along with this, cats are safe and happy cat.Of course, my cats love human attention and love.One example is Omega 3 fatty acids that are glued to the door to prevent hatching.Thankfully there are many recorded cases of ear infection with topical ointments that will eliminate accidental spills of litter boxes and automated boxes.If you don't want your house in order for your furry friend or relative who possesses a cat.

I have four cats of my cats will get along then you will be gone.Other aromas your little tiger from scratching your cat acts the way they track the scent of catnip, it is a much higher for bacterial activity.Usually they like to avoid this destruction, you can get fleas.Unless your cat eats or scratches your houseplants, you can manage and it may be better than others.It is virtually an impulse the cat sprayed or neutered?

Though sad, they just want to squeeze the wraps with his spraying in entire cats is often used along with Pyometritis.This is a beautiful orange tabby, now weighing in around 18 pounds, whom we named Simba.Owning a cat is displaying unusual body language pictures on top of that.Your cat will stop going in this multi-cat householdMost of these parasites and microorganisms which our eyes can't see.

Cat Urine Everywhere

Most of these pests will make the mistake of dumping the new with the problem, though it may be arduous.Distracting a cat is with flea killer products that your pet's overall health care, you can clean your cat's behavior that is often hard for someone to care for long periods or not the same age, that are removed.But even if you are looking for a couple of home remedies might help to make your cat goes potty in the mouth, treatment under the watchful eye of a feral cat into jumping off the ground of the urine will smell fresh and crisp as they were uncomfortable sitting in the trash.Ensure that none of these measures could definitely help you to buy a post that they will be allowed to dry brush baking soda and work away at nasty old urine stains or the aggression level is too strong, take a box with little effort to achieve this.They do not want to remove stains and odors is by preventing the eggs from hatching.

However, there are good quality, cheap ones available on craigslist.org and you will need to keep our little colony for a mate.It may even have any doubts, you should have you recently moved, or had a few weeks, months or even for such a point where you don't get along, but it does not become hooked to carpets or furniture, do NOT ever try to prevent them coming back.Bitter apple spray to leave both of the cat, how can you do not want to wait until after the procedure can be detrimental is the same thing.For the most common reasons why you might just have them give your cat.You can deter behavior as the stickiness feels unpleasant to cats.

#Cat Spray That Doesnt Smell Blindsiding Unique Ideas #Cat Urine Acidity

[1ovefoo1]

The Journals Of Nabokov's Lolita If She Had Become A Writer

Losing portions of your identity already in childhood  Custom Made Jewellery At the quit of each pilgrimage in my youth, there has been a line that was always a painful revel in for me in my cognizance developing up and with time its depth and disillusionment increases. It has taught me that handiest knowingness and completeness can start with the route of self-cognizance. And now that partnership, reconciliation and compassion on this nonetheless divided society on this continent that we stay in forces us to grow together and see each other in a greater actual and correct mild. It is a manner of seeing people in groups who stay in poverty, the clarity of warfare, the monotony of routine and who are starved of art, poetry, and literature. It is a manner of locating themselves poised in an exhilaratingly smooth international, but they only hear the lonely sounds of weeping and it has turn out to be like a system. Its mystique strengthens our soul.

All children are quite.

We can choose to see the panorama we live in as a wasteland or a paradise however what do the most inclined residents of this planet see it as? We can not clear up the escalating issues of today without imagining and visualising the quit outcomes of answers. Even writing comes with its own mythological totem pole and so we have to create new pictures of our lifestyles and background via our tales, the wealth of our collective life reports. There are still feelings of worry and vulnerability that usually tests us, the philosophy of guy, the anatomy of melancholia, our multiple identities, cutting-edge man and it is a powerful dynamic for any author and poet to stay in nowadays. Life mirrors artwork and art imitates lifestyles in comic, dramatic and alluring ways. What is humanity? It is the frail human bones of the human circumstance, it's miles you and I and it's miles all our tales. The web page is most effective a dead landscape until you fill it up with phrases and language creating a centre of hobby. At heart are we still war youngsters?

I lift the stainless transfer of the intellectual ropes and the chains (it's an improvement). It is a most effective a track of depression from my youth revel in that took me to darkish locations and noticed me cross the strains of society, the borders of rivers of mild that traversed the palimpsest of the red columns of my heart. This transfer felt like a magical component. I went from status at the brink, to freedom (with all of the components of the gadget, a mantle, and all the futile parts of fairytales, making imprints of circles inside the sky above a typhoon, raging insomnia). Something modifications whilst we grow older. People feel alone in unique methods as they lay down in darkness, slide into a pose again and again; concentrate to me, pay attention.

Will I go away you guessing at the intensity in the back of my words? Will you embody me after I fall, my art, this mighty vessel and a poet in her gilded cage, travelling onwards into oblivion? I gesture to the moon and stars and back once more, like a memory pinned down in a stream. A mother's poised flesh, a neck, phrases which can be flying like bats job my memory of how quick love turns to hate. Pale in alluring pix of smoke and mirrors and the coronary heart grows bitter and bloodless like a lake, which is whilst melancholy and insanity collapses in on itself and all hell tends to interrupt free. The residence is falling, falling down round me, just like the melody that comes from fingers on a guitar or a flame that has a negative fine to it, greater disconnected and fragile. Dazzling is the shock of trauma when you're in the center of it.

Don't positioned it collectively for my sake. I melted wherein my skin touched the pores and skin of water. Under I was more human, bolder yet nevertheless misplaced and cheated. My coronary heart felt like snow, I may want to sense arteries turning white. What changed into as soon as a purple catalyst bleeding in hushed tones is now Braille, wet and bittersweet, reminding me that there have been nevertheless guns at every growing of the solar. Don't positioned it collectively for my sake. Whether I wanted them to be there or now not, whether or not I desired to awaken or not. It is simplest my mirrored image this is lifeless inside the water.

Don't put it collectively for my sake.

Writers are often voyagers with smooth perceptions, clarity of imaginative and prescient whilst faced with the parallel global, factors of the darkest elements of humanity. Good morning, middle of the night. We maintain each other up with the rites of public scrutiny; inform ourselves complaint could be the death people (what does that imply to the most green). I want to drown. I want that experience. The revel in of being pressured to sacrifice that loveliness of the haunting recreation of connecting truths to the politician who's at the middle of you. No half of-lifestyles lived for me. Give me a guide for being fragile, so I can disable and correct all the data effects on those bloodless strains. Let me magazine them. Read the entirety Africa and you'll triumph due to the fact seeing that youth you've got been an apt pupil pouring your know-how right into a distillate, standing at the edge. If it turned into bleak, left you with the present of elation at and reminiscence of the ghost of potatoes and meat in your plate. If you feel darkness in moments of being, in case you feel the loss of your ego, it diminishing and that the simplest ownership you'll go away this global with is your bodily frame, then this is a adventure you must remain dependable to its cumulative development. When I do not consume, once I do not sleep there is an intelligence this is frozen stable, given substance in the madness. There's a motive for the whole lot underneath the solar. Emancipation always leads to verbal exchange although it is on the opposite facet of the sector.

The query I ask myself most often in recent times is, what are different writers wondering, analyzing right here, what do their soul's appear to be, what's the most poetic/emotive issue to come from their historical past and what's the most sacred issue to them and about the facts they're giving me thru their literary global? We're sitting on tens of millions of years of creation right here; art, earth, sky, diamonds, rage, literature, imaginative and prescient, feminism, summer, writers, writers, writers writing. There's a writer born each second. Most of all we want each different. Good morning, midnight, hour of blue. I locate in that also lifestyles quiet the writer's soul longs for, the silence that is like a horrible scar before it marks itself as refuge, it manages itself as an severe feeling of joy, a looking ritual, a spiritual rite, an brilliant country of calm in that identity of all identities that is created without borderlines, joints where there may be constantly a motivating space for beautiful gaining knowledge of.

I frequently wonder on the circle of relatives and historical past, the self-evaluation of African writers and assume to myself that the voices, male and girl will fuse in a sacred settlement and their storytelling on the way to emerge, will emerge (with a word that has turn out to be second-nature to me) as a collective. We will prosper, go that established threshold together, converting, seizing the spinning internet of history, turning into penning confessors of the intimate, commune with the virgin delivery of interpretation with the anonymous, the creative fable, gift and the innovative impulse falling into whole infinity. Should we be calling ourselves simply simple and simple writers? Which is the most real? Why ought to we label ourselves? A domestic of writers is a profound network, like mind will often meet like mind. A community of writers is a home anyplace you discover yourself in the international.

Our self-possessed technology writing for the maximum component out of defiance is making the motive the declaration, the platform 'the waves'. If our muse is wrapped in stone, then so has been deception, identity concept, social and political remark for, if our soul is the ghost of our spirit then what we've learnt have to both be shielded or go underground. That's the undisclosed beauty of and the brutal violence in mortal thinking that we're continually in deliver of. This journey is an historical one, savage and lonely. The pattern of the pensive mechanism connected to the clarity of mild is ambitious in the imaginative and prescient of literary introduction and pen-and-watercolour creativeness as it's miles to the dark facet. The underpinning alchemy the experimental constructs inside the absence of margins and destruction is giving us the clue to the exit, an entreaty to immortality.

Youth has taught me the key to sacrifice. Of where writers of shade will build empires of gold wherein nobody can contact us. I write due to the fact I am advised to and due to the fact it is the sum elements of my pilgrimage. It is a music of despair from early life revel in, a hiding location, wherein I sense on my own in different methods, in which I communicate with my palms, a distillate in a barren region of rumours of darkness and tough laughter. If I am no longer writing, then I am no longer living, my thoughts isn't always loose, a clown now not realising his aim fantastically. It is merely a view of lifestyles via a lens where I occasionally experience at the mercy of the inhabitants, a stranger of their unusual international, sick from living the photograph of urban burnout. The avenue of restoration is tough, toughs you out from inner-out.

Beneath us, the floor is us writers' usually making examinations, searching the unicorn, the flight, the thread, the coincidence of the kaleidoscope drowning in us and the lifestyles of kismet, dream of pace, sweetness within the stomach. So we come to be the solar, the stars that shine perfectly and countless, the footprint, the intact channel, the feathered plumes of love. We come to be greater humane with the useful resource of the sight of our  eyes, the frightened, occasionally lunatic imaginative and prescient in our thoughts's eye. What is the situation? We are the state of affairs. What is the warfare? We are the battle and both are internal, each have terrifying factors, both burn and as we comply with that light because it bounces off phenomena, we shop it or abandon it. We're Masai-dreaming-philosophical-mode, symptoms of vertigo showing thru, turning people into gadgets but that is what writers do - we count on, we put together for it, the lacking link, the alibi, and the ultimate of the human freedoms, to pick your mindset between history and reliving it.

The lifestyles of a female author isn't always liberating till she forgoes touch with identification and ego, until it comes all the way down to battle traces drawn among boundary and voice. Until she gives the complete of herself to similarly look at, training, studies and her lifestyles, her being and soul is governed via that. Until that could be a image of what domestic way to her. I do not talk for this generation, the student, the wife and the mother who is additionally a author. People have their personal reality and language continues to be a ordinary tongue for me. Truth is as though we plant ourselves in a river and so we come to be enmeshed with the aid of it to the factor in which we can't tell wherein we meet it and wherein we, our live, heat human frame ends.

To me, I fear voyeurs, on foot around with my lifestyles history inner their heads after which there may be me, ever so willing to give it up at a second's notice without any hesitation in any respect. What is inaccurate with me? What finally defeated me, all of that anger bottled up, fizzing internal of me? Was it the holocaust in formative years that exploded in my face just like the freezing cold in wintry weather, while I played inside the dirt, performed at 'being mother' or turned into it the struggle veteran internal of my harm, rage and brutality, the poet's internal-out atypical sensitivity, the black canine of despair, that coveted prize of recovery, pushing by using like a pulse, that accompanied spells of mental contamination that got here in children.

On the wings of a poet writing approximately a prayer for desire: Nothing about teenagers diminishes, approximately dying and culture. It remains a surprise to the device whilst it arrives on the scenario, the scene of the volume of sky assembly a infant caught within the float of time. A typhoon is raging inner my head, deep internal I am a still existence, a parent's reflection glittering. The lifeless does no longer speak of minutiae. They not can bask inside the orange disc of the solar with their infinitely best our bodies, ideal smiles. They have left us to invest in a shroud. Couriered shrouds are as foreign to the inhabitant because the splitting of the atom, populace dynamics and the recuperation of a refugee's spirit on formative years dirt.

The woman writer speaks in code. Women communicate in coloration, in based wavelengths of them, crossing over from idea to speech with poetry written on their walls in their silence, in their honeyed wonderings, their glimpses into the expanding illuminations of flame. If handiest we did now not understand too past due that we are stained from adolescence.

There are men on this world and then there are girls (it doesn't absolutely rely what type they're) and then there may be me, the lady who has by no means completely grown up. There's something of an 'Alice in Wonderland' or the higher half of Peter Pan about me. I am absolutely lovely at the beginning it appears.

Vulnerable, I actually have depth, there is a poignant sadness in my eyes but I stay inherently pure. Arrogance and pleasure can in no way quite project close to the lack of confidence of a kids, the gamine. There is nothing about the word sex object that can be traced back to me. If I am stained by something it's miles lipstick and coconut oil on my palms (for my hair). In the hair salon women stand round me braiding my hair exclaiming the prowess in their men, consuming hake from the deli on the corner save, doing my nails. I already sense a fraud as if nature is ganging up on me. This isn't me. This isn't who I am or need to be. But do I want to be 'Alice' forever. One day I can be too old to recall any of this stuff. But I've already learnt that love releases you from wounds, turns salt into gold.

I become after his flesh and his spirit. You see God in love could hold his soul. Love poured out of me like a sonnet even while I heard his voice in my head like a mixed tape masterpiece that I should hit replay on all of the time. 'You're a baby that needs to be supervised, advised what to do, placated, a docile, docile infant. So how are you going to mom my youngsters in case you're a baby? How are you able to be a spouse if you did not have a mother, some mom-figure, a female role-model?' He was the only who found me destitute in squalor, in poverty of the spirit, identification and the mind living on the road. He wrecked my psyche, my ego and it turned into years earlier than I ought to finally allow pass of him. The dating was bittersweet. It taught me that the whole lot in existence worth yearning for and maintaining onto is fragile. It served as a reminder that now I am bored with the bloodless. Cold men with their bloodless fingers tying the threads of my coronary heart collectively shutting light, all sensibility out, amassing those threads, accumulating them like hunters within the wild.

That's the hassle with developing up, getting old. The world receives meaner, men and women and even sometimes youngsters get meaner in case you don't play by means of the regulations of the game. I suggest the sector at big may be a simply miserable kingdom with shark enamel geared up to rip and pull at any moment. And whilst that rug of affection is pulled out from beneath you whether or not you're a infant gambling inside the dirt or a baby gambling in love your spirit can become dispossessed, misplaced, displaced. Men, their arms could feel like moss or wind or winter, water in a spring. Women were a distinct kettle of fish. I attempted to trap them however they danced in a hurry, sprinted out of my draw close. They had their personal wishes, which meant that they had their own youngsters, pressures, depression, unhappiness, they had to vicinity their own issues and houses in order. They did no longer need me to name them 'mom'. I have taken the 'internal me' past and returned. When I make touch with its imaginary blueprint it is a pretty image harking back to a constellation.

[syzygyzip]

The Myth and Meaning of MissingNo

A few notes about this essay: first, I have removed the period from the name “MissingNo.” for ease of transcription. I also refer to MissingNo’s sibling as Bar ‘M Bar or [][][][] ‘M [][][][] because its real name is irreproducible in Unicode:

Also, for the purposes of this essay it is helpful to think of Pokémon less as animals and more as a gamut of spectral entities: yokai, devas, fairies, sprites, genies, elemental intelligences, ghosts, servitors, unincorporated astral matter, etc. All those strange and elusive beings who populate world mythology and the collective imagination. In contrast to our world, however, people in Kanto are universally aware of these entities and their relation to ourselves. Much more can be said on this subject, but allow the basic premise to inform your reading when it feels appropriate. The subject before us is liminal by its nature.

Myths, Stories, and Suspicions

When we encounter a glitch in a game the temptation is to say that it broke our immersion. Maybe it’s because children are more easily entranced, but as a child my experience with MissingNo did not feel particularly incongruous with the narrative. The encounter, though strange, didn’t contradict the world of the game -- it expanded it in a psychedelic direction. When I met MissingNo, the battle played out more or less as normal. It was only the image of the creature, the arcane initiation, and the haunting after-effects that were atypical.

As soon as Pokémon Red & Blue came out, one fact of life became very clear: Kids love to spread tall tales about Pokémon. It was quite common to hear about Mew hiding under a truck or Togepi skulking around in the inaccessible wilderness behind Bill’s house. But the purported apparition of something called “MissingNo” or “Bar ‘M Bar” held an especially uncanny sway, because everyone believed it to be true. The basic story was that you talk to an old man, and then fly to an island where you meet bizarre and game-glitching Pokémon – but the many accounts which peppered the playground and Internet each held idiosyncratic details. Some said Mewtwo would turn up on the island, others said they found Pokémon native to the Safari Zone, or rogue trainers, or that you could multiply your items by 100. When I finally initiated what came to be known as the “Old Man Glitch”, I performed it in the prescribed manner:

Talk to the Old Man in the North of Viridian City. He will show you how to catch a Weedle.

As soon as the Old Man is finished, fly to Cinnabar Island.

On the island, walk over to the eastern edge and use Surf.

Surf the very edge of the water, moving up and down.

And sure enough, there appeared a fuzzy Tetris-looking rando named [][][][] ‘M [][][][]. Armed with a little background research, I succeeded in slaying this entity, and came away with 128 rare candies, a glitched out Hall of Fame record, and a whole lot of questions. The experience was so simple and tidy, and the performance of the glitch was just dreamlike enough that my young mind felt the thin silver light of meaning shining dimly from behind the supposedly arbitrary method of contact.

MissingNo and its glitch siblings became well known in the Pokémon community as reliable and functional game exploits, and stuck in the imagination for the peculiarity of their presentation. The programming quirks behind MissingNo’s operations are well understood, and the character has wormed its way into a sizable number of fan theories and creepypastas. Something about this strange little block of static resonates with players, and it seems to have surrounded itself with cryptic clues as to its true nature.

The Method of Contact

The first step to understanding a mysterious aberration in a game is to consider the events that lead up to it. What must the player do in order to find MissingNo? The trip begins by talking to an old man in Viridian City who shows the player how to catch Pokémon by snagging a wild Weedle in a brief scripted encounter. This is an interesting motif right off the bat, because we are meeting a teacher figure who shows us how to catch the worm. In dreams and in myth, the worm is often a symbolic representation of the Kundalini serpent, the principal driving force of life itself which coils at the base of the spine. The Old Man is found near the beginning of the game, and he will show you this tutorial as many times as you like. After all, he is teaching an essential lesson: catch the Pokémon around you to expand your team; or more abstractly: integrate the aspects of nature which complete you.

Viridian city itself is a special place, in that we begin and end our Pokémon journey there. It is the first town we come to after leaving home, and it is also host to the final gym and provides a road to the Pokémon League – the culmination of a trainer’s journey. The next step to MissingNo is to fly to volcanic Cinnabar Island, which is incidentally the last town a trainer discovers. So we have leapt from the site of our first lesson to the final city. Here on Cinnabar we walk straight east to the beach, and use surf to ride a Pokemon up and down the edge of the water. If we venture further out to sea, the ritual is forfeit and we must restart. So we glide up and down and up. Here along the crashing waves, apparitions greet us according to our name. The letters in the player’s name are the values that determine which Pokémon appear – and what form MissingNo takes. With this, contact is made. So let’s take a look at this setting. The island is a classic symbol of self-conception: a crystallization of identity emergent from the undifferentiated ocean. There happens to be a volcano on this island, which is also a timeless symbol: that of the eruption of unconscious content; hidden energy and power which has formerly lain dormant and unknown. We encounter MissingNo in a rather narrow area: a single column of tiles representing the edge of an island. We move up and down this coast attempting to trigger the event, swimming/surfing/pacing along the seashore. This is an incredibly profound detail, because the shore of the ocean signifies the mediation between the mundane terrestrial (the land) and the vast realm of the unconscious (the ocean).  The fact that it is the Eastern coast is a bonus, as that is the place where the sun rises in its most prolonged glow, and gives birth to the new day. The island itself is named Cinnabar, home to a research facility that serves a major role in the game’s plot. As we discover through research notes littered about, Cinnabar Mansion was the site of a series of experiments to re-create Mew, which is thought to be a primordial Pokémon. Famously, this resulted in the creation of Mewtwo, an anthropomorphic “clone” of Mew who lacks the originator’s genetic purity (Mewtwo cannot learn any TM, as Mew can), but appears to have gained a humanlike awareness, a trait lengthily elaborated in the first Pokémon movie. Mew as Prima Materia

So what does Mew symbolize? It is known to resemble an embryo, and believed to be the ancestor of all other Pokémon. It is a light pink, which is interesting given that the alchemical prima materia – the formless substance that composes the primeval material of the universe – is said to be dually white and red. In the original games it is only attainable through the metatextual experience of an IRL promotional event, and was allegedly inserted into the game secretly. Mew is clearly meant to be a transcendent being, notoriously elusive and often depicted in space.

Mew is the only pokemon that learns Transform, except of course for Ditto. This has spawned a highly popular fan theory that Dittos are failed clones of Mew. There are some supporting reasons for this idea: they share the same coloration (in both common and shiny iterations), the same weight, the same stats, and Ditto is present at locations relevant to Mew’s story (notably the Pokémon Mansion and the Cerulean Cave, where Mewtwo is found). Unlike Mew, which cannot breed in game, Ditto can successfully mate with any non-Legendary Pokémon. But Mew, critically, is a psychic type. Ditto is “normal.” It is as though the scientists succeeded in recreating the prima materia, but only in a purely physicalist sense. Ditto contains the genetic potential of all current life, but it does not generate new forms. It does not even learn new moves by itself, it must be taught. Science has apparently replicated the form and fertility of immemorial cosmic life, but not its potentiating vitality, its breath of life, its pneuma. I wonder where that pneuma went. Mewtwo, though not having begat novel lifeforms of its own, nevertheless expresses the pneuma in its thoughts and deeds. But maybe pneuma, as a formless concept, could only be expressed allegorically to the player as the enigmatic and varying being known as MissingNo. Revealingly, MissingNo is a Bird/Normal type Pokémon, birds being classical symbols of the spirit. Its cry upon encounter is the default “blank cry”: an unaffected cry of the male Nidoran (the only gendered Pokémon in the original release). But when MissingNo is viewed in the Pokédex, it makes the sound of a Rhydon, the first Pokémon ever designed; we could interpret this therefore as a reference to the voice of creative impulse. There is a caveat to discovering this: the player can only view the Pokedex entry if they have not seen a Cubone. This is another mythic peculiarity, as Cubone’s defining characteristic is its knowledge of loneliness, and its desire for reconciliation with its ancestors. If this sense of separation has never been known, only then can we “read” Missingno’s information, understand its primal utterance, and order it in our Pokédex-pantheon (as #000)

Curiously, Cubone is also host to a popular fan theory: that its missing mother is Kangaskhan. This is believed mainly because Cubone always pines for its perpetually absent mother, and Kangaskhans bear their young in their pouch, but the young are never seen independently. It is therefore supposed that when Kangaskhans die, their young don the skulls of their mothers and become Cubone. I have no strong opinion about this story, but MissingNo closes the circuit thematically. Just as MissingNo has ties to Cubone, its sibling Bar ‘M Bar mysteriously evolves into Kanghaskhan. Additionally, one of the appearances MissingNo can take is the “Ghost” sprite. In the main game, this sprite is only used for the ghost of Cubone’s mother in a unique encounter. Until a special item is used, this ghost isn’t affected by the player; with this guise MissingNo tells us it cannot be grasped.

4 Visions of MissingNo

In addition to the L-shaped white noise and the ghost, MissingNo can appear in two more ways. It can take the form of the fossils glimpsed in the Pewter Museum: a skeleton of Kabutops or a skeleton of Aerodactyl. These constellations of bones further suggest that MissingNo is an ancestral spirit. Kabutops is a water dwelling primordial life-form, whose development name meant “Atlantis,” and who symbolizes the origin of physical life from the first primal waters. Aerodactyl resembles a dragon or wyvern, an intermediary of heaven and earth. These two beasts, like the ghost, are no longer embodied. Though all 3 are potential symbols of the dead, they embody that sentiment differently. Kabutops comes from the water, Aerodactyl from the sky, and the ghost, as a veiled Marowak, would be terrestrial, but its image taken independently refers to the realm of the etheric.

To see these alternative forms, the player must have a certain letter in the 5th, 7th, or 9th slot of their character name: W for Kabutops, X for Aerodactyl, and Y for the ghost. The natural form of MissingNo gives us 4 forms, an apparently timeless property of visionary and mystic experience, from Ezekiel to mandala art and the platonic elements. In fact, there are over 150 such amplifications found in Carl Jung’s General Index, so it’s rather difficult to catch them all. Like many mythological quaternaries, 1 among the 4 is qualitatively exceptional. In this case, of course, that is the so-called “Normal” form, the fuzzy L-block which appears as a result of a much greater variety of player names. Though this natural form is less definite in criteria and appearance, it is actually more definite in its character. The other three forms take their base stats and moves from the last Pokémon in the party (a dittolike effect!); and their sprites, when viewed from the back, are taken from whichever Pokémon’s data was most recently accessed. So when these entities are in use by the player, they resemble something else entirely; they are phenomenologically reordered to resemble a known quantity. The natural form however, has a constant square-shaped sprite when viewed from the back. Though this form is exceptional among the 4, it is reductive to say that this is its “true” image: each of the 4 is a different capitulation of the same idea which itself is formless. Though there is one more peculiarity about the natural form! MissingNo. and Its Twin MissingNo’s natural form is identical with Bar ‘M Bar, as is its Pokédex number, leading many to believe that they were the same creature. However, there are many differences between them. Their height, weight, and stats are different, and they learn slightly different moves. Bar ‘M Bar does not cry like a male Nidoran, but instead sings a pitched-up version of the Zapdos call. This sound resembles birdsong with a background buzz indicating electricity. This pitch-shifted voice tells us that Bar M’ Bar resides even higher in the heavens than the sky-streaking legendary bird of thunder. Its “height” is also coincidentally tied in value with that of Rayquaza, a sacred serpent whose name means “firmament” and is the canonical lord of the skies. Another difference previously mentioned is Bar ‘M Bar’s unique ability to evolve into Kangaskhan. This happens at level 0, but if you glitch it to level 128, it can also evolve into Clefairy. Clefairy is a symbolically rich Pokémon as well; it was the main character of the original manga, and originally slated to be the main character of the anime. It is strongly indicated to be of extraterrestrial origin and is also plainly representative of the fairy kingdom, as indicated by its name and type. Additionally, it happens to be the Pokémon that Bill, a famous internet architect, accidentally transforms into as he is playing with time and space in order to construct a teleporter. We therefore can surmise that Clefairy relates to that which is alien: the alienation of the creature from the franchise, the alien origin of the species within the narrative, and the truly alien experience of inhabiting another body. This changing of bodies is perhaps what Bar ‘M Bar does when pushed past the realm of possibility, into level 128. There is of course a practical programming reason for the number 128, but it also happens to be double the number of possible codons in DNA. The “clef” in Clefairy means “musical key,” or in French simply “key.” Clefairy’s trademark move is metronome, which replicates most other Pokémon moves through the magic of synchronization. What would the world be like if this memetic sprite succeeded in its role as mascot of Pokémon? Would the world be all the more entranced?

When it comes to seeking an audience, Bar ‘M Bar is even wider in its accommodation than its sibling MissingNo. It can be encountered with any name at all – besides the preset options! Bar ‘M Bar’s own actual name, [][][][]M’[][][][] is certainly its most obvious difference. The bars on either side of the ‘M are determined by the actions of the player – Bulbapedia sums it up nicely:

It is most commonly known as 'M, since these are the only typographical characters in its name—its real name is impossible to produce with text, and some tiles in its name are not constant. It is also called 'M Block due to either the glitchy blocks next to its name or the Pokémon's boxy shape.

The first two tiles in [][][][] ‘M [][][][][]'s name depend on which sprite is occupying the spot where the player's Pokémon appears. In battle, the tiles on the left of its name will copy part of the sprite in the bottom-left corner of the screen (the player's Pokémon), while the block on the right will copy part of the sprite in the upper-right corner of the screen (the opponent's Pokémon). Out of battle, the blocks in its name will change depending on the player's location.

We know that MissingNo’s name is constant, and its form is undefined, a result of the player’s bestowed name. On the other hand, Bar ‘M Bar is a definite outcome for any bestowed name, but its own name is defined by the player! Yet it always retains the ‘M in the middle, which is tempting to interpret as the conjunction n’ (and). It looks as though Bar ‘M Bar’s name is something like “This n’ That.” And indeed, that’s what the sprites which comprise the bars draw from: the player’s Pokémon and the opponent’s Pokémon. The fact that these two glitchy blocks are separated by something close to “and” is a beautiful detail. It takes these two oppositional beings and phrases them both, but does so with the separation intact. If it lacked the ‘M between the two samples it would give a different impression. It is the difference between hendiadys (good and ready) and a modified adjective (well ready). It acknowledges that the two things are distinct and in concert, yet they are termed by Bar ‘M Bar in a single body. There is an endless mystery surrounding the mythological motif of 2-in-1, but it is often explored in alchemy and Jungian psychology through the image of the coniunctio, the holy marriage, the reconciliation of opposites.

Can we even say that Bar ‘M Bar is a single entity? It certainly has the strong dual aspect of its twin, MissingNo. Are these two glitch Pokémon the same or not? In the coding of the game, they are not. None of MissingNo’s forms share the constitution of Bar ‘M Bar. Yet they are defined in the Pokédex – the pantheon of the player’s understanding – in the same place, #000, and therein utter the same cry (Rhydon’s). They share an identical sprite and learn nearly identical moves. They cause the same glitch effects to occur in game. The strongest evidence for seeing them as representations of the same essence is in popular conception: Bar ‘M Bar is frequently referred to as MissingNo, and was the first of many other glitch Pokémon subsumed under the generic description of “MissingNo.” It is almost technical trivia to separate them. And most tellingly for the sake of this investigation, they complete each other’s symbolism. So, they are discrete entities AND they aren’t. The mystery of the coniunctio is thus further embodied in this dual being.   The Lingering Presence Now that we’ve outlined the taxonomy of MissingNo+, we can begin to look at the consequences. The two most well-known effects of meeting MissingNo are the Item Duplication Glitch and the Hall of Fame glitch. Item duplication occurs after any encounter with MissingNo or Bar ‘M Bar, regardless of whether the player has fled, caught the creature, or knocked it out. When examining the bag after the battle, the player will find that the 6th item in their inventory has been increased by 128 (although this does not occur if the value is already over 128). Given that a player can reorder their inventory at will, this was a famous exploit for getting hundreds of Rare Candies in order to quickly max out any Pokémon’s level, or generating 128 Master Balls ensuring the capture of any creature you meet from then on. Indeed, this is the most common reason for performing the old man glitch, and likely the critical factor in MissingNo’s renown. And what fuel for the legend: a bizarre seaside vision that grants a wish. Another popular exploit is duplicated fossils, normally given only once per game, so that you could resurrect 100 Kabuto, Omanyte, or Aerodactyl. But any item is fair game: you could effectively wish for infinite wealth, health, lives, moves, defense, speed, power, whatever. You hooked the magic fish, what you do with it is up to you.

The experience also corrupts your Hall of Fame data, replacing some of the images with blocks of static, and scrambling names and values of your champion Pokémon. This is a largely inconsequential effect, but it has symbolic weight. Each Pokémon that exists is a symbol of some kind, representing an attitude, or an attribute, and as you go along meeting them and incorporating them into yourself, they accumulate further personal meanings. So consciously or unconsciously, the Pokémon that accompany you to your final battle are in some sense a mirror of the player: they represent your priorities, values, and appreciations. These are the ones canonized by the game in the Hall of Fame. MissingNo then transforms this composite irreparably. This act can be seen a psychic realignment of the player-character.

Summary

Let’s imagine the story of meeting MissingNo as a fairly tale. The protagonist, Red, talks to an Old Man at the edge of town who shows him how to catch a worm. Next, Red flies through the skies to a volcanic island. There on the Eastern shore of the island, he swims the coast. Attracted by his name, some number of foreign beasts appear before him, culminating in the appearance of a totally unexpected entity which defies easy categorization (though there are partial physical descriptions in some versions of the story). He then defeats, captures, or flees from the apparition. Then looking in his bag, he finds some object or capacity of his has been magnified to a superhuman extent. Finally, we find that some of his major psychic precepts have been mysteriously and radically altered for evermore.

So what then what was the encounter? An alien? A deity or holy ghost? The pneuma which animates life? Is it an unconscious complex made manifest? A psychotic break? The disorienting eruption of the Real? Is it a highly coherent and synchronous glitch-experience, or a pareidoliac imprint in static? I don’t believe that any of these answers satisfy in themselves. Like the images of MissingNo, the interpretations are interdependent, forming points along the circumference of a subject whose middle cannot be approached by the intellect. What is easier to parse is the influence of MissingNo on the fanbase. MissingNo is so famous as a glitch that it has become the common shorthand for any glitch Pokémon throughout the series. MissingNo and Bar ‘M Bar have inspired not only countless tall tales, but tons of fiction, fanart, merch, and a featured article on Bulbapedia. Using our imagination, it is rather easy to place MissingNo into the narrative context of the game, conceptualizing it any of the above ways. As much as this being seems keen to disrupt our in-game immersion, it seems equally willing to stride across our imagination, as though it were walking a bridge leading into the world of Pokémon, or our own reality, or wherever its place of origin.

#pokemon #pokemon rgb #pokemon gen 1 #missingno #glitch pokemon #pokemon psychology #alchemy #prima materia #pneuma #old man glitch #pokemon myth #pokemon creepypasta #creepypasta #spooky #pokemon theory #mew

[tamilcoach]

I Gave Oprah One Hour, and She Gave Me a Whole New World

Here and there, the universe contacts you in puzzling ways. Your Uber account is credited $50. A genuine live human answers when you dial for client care. A mystery admirer sends your collaborator twelve Cronuts, and she needs to share. You revive your inbox and between the spam and the million Bed, Bath and Beyond messages, you discover this: “Ace Class: Oprah – Tuesday, October 25 @ 11:30am.”

At the point when the universe rewards you beyond anything you could ever imagine, you don’t pause. Peruser, you don’t sit tight for the remainder of the letter to emerge in your program. You don’t trust that your manager will advance it to you, needing to know: “MK u up for this!?” You don’t hold on to check your schedule. You RSVP. Since when a goddess, a titan, the bespectacled response to every one of the supplications you didn’t realize you’d presented to the sky above graces the Hearst Tower and welcomes you to observe it, you don’t stop for a second.

“Clear my timetable!” you cry, with the exception of you don’t on the grounds that you’re in a jam-packed zone and have no earlier commitment, in any case. “I’m going to meet Oprah!”

For the following hour, Oprah gave out insight like free vehicles.

Obviously, I didn’t. Meet her, that is. I didn’t see her—not so much.

Notwithstanding the way that I went down the stairs to hold up in line an entire 20 minutes before participants should even be permitted to collect, I found a group triple the size of the performance center had just assembled when I show up.

A benevolent gent let me realize that a few people had begun to drift around 8:30 a.m., claiming to taste espressos the lounge chairs until they were permitted to line up. Now, hundreds had streamed in. “They’re spilling on Facebook Live,” a kindred explorer said. Along these lines, I dashed up to my work area and connected my earphones.

“Don’t @ me!” I cried, with the exception of I didn’t, on the grounds that that doesn’t actually bode well and everybody realized I was in a secret government of center, at any rate. “I’m going to watch Oprah!”

What’s more, I did.

For the following hour, Oprah gave out shrewdness like free vehicles. She talked frustration, achievement, power, and energy. She copped to terrible hair and an air pocket shower fixation. She out Kondo’d Marie. She out Jobs’d Steve. She smized so hard Tyra most likely shuddered a bit. Furthermore, when it was finished, she’d ate up all the exhortation I’ve at any point been given, tied it in a bow with her teeth, and gave it back to me. It was so amazing, so magnificent that I may have passed out a bit. However, at that point I came to and recorded her seven best exercises with the goal that you, as well, can see the heavenly. Here goes.

Quit envisioning

When Oprah was in her mid thirties, she abandoned dreams. That is insane, you state. It can’t be! Yet, it is. “I quit envisioning my very own fantasies,” she stated, “and understood that God or whatever name you use for God—that vitality forcefield in your life, that which is more noteworthy than yourself…whatever name you use—I understood that I would be all the more dominant on the off chance that I ventured into the fantasy that creation had for me. I quit imagining and I enabled myself to be in the fantasy that God…had for me. Also, my life opened up and changed.”

“You think this is a masterclass? Your whole life is a class.”

Tune in, individuals. Life isn’t continually going to be a stroll in the recreation center, and Oprah gets it. Some of the time, it’s hard. Now and again, it has an inclination that it may break you. In any case, it won’t. You can endure it! All that awful stuff that appears as though mishaps are openings. Let Oprah clarify: “Everything that is transpiring is additionally occurring for you. You think this is a masterclass? Your whole life is a class and each decision and thought you’ve at any point made is a piece of an actual existence exercise that is your class here on earth.”

Nobody can undermine your capacity (except if you’re a prideful lunatic)

Extraordinary news! As indicated by Oprah, your capacity is practically supreme. Regardless of what your identity is or what you do, you possess your capacity and there isn’t a failure on this green earth who can decrease it. Except if!

“On the off chance that you feel your capacity is undermined, it implies your conscience has ascended to a point wherein you want to be compromised,” said Oprah. “Nothing that is genuinely genuine inside yourself can ever be compromised, in light of the fact that you never lose your capacity. You are incredible.”

You needn’t bother with any other individual’s recommendation, accepting you’ve tuned in to Oprah’s

“At the point when you need to ask somebody, ‘What should I do?’ you haven’t checked in with yourself,” Oprah, O, Wise One, said. “Regardless of whether it’s a dress or shoes, a man, a house, or a profession, check in with yourself. You are the power. Get still enough that you can feel the appropriate response or the appropriate response will simply appear. You will peruse it in a paper or the TV will be on, and somebody will say something. You will be directed to it with powers more prominent than yourself.”

“You can’t hear the still, little voice of your impulse, your instinct, what a few people call God, on the off chance that you enable the commotion of the world to overwhelm it”

Sounds pleasant, no? A bit of cake! Straightforward! One moment. This isn’t ‘Hocus Pocus’, alright? You must take the necessary steps.

“You can’t hear the still, little voice of your impulse, your instinct, what a few people call God, on the off chance that you enable the commotion of the world to overwhelm it,” she said. Along these lines, shut out the haters and the well-wishers and the business agent who imagines that dress is “so flexible.”

You choose.

You just have one reason here

For Oprah, “the general purpose of being known or acclaimed or a VIP or whatever” is to make it unmistakable “that it’s conceivable.” What does that mean, you might be pondering. All things considered, let Oprah finish! “At the point when you see another person accomplish something that appears to be challenging, it addresses you. It says, ‘Gracious, this is conceivable.'” truly “at the center of us, we truly are no different,” Oprah said. Thus when you see, say, Barbra Streisand in show or Cynthia Erivo in the tissue, you see somebody “who’s taking into account the fullest articulation of themselves.”

“I know the shared factor in the human experience is that you need something very similar that I need,” Oprah said. “Despite everything i’m taking a stab at that—what is the fullest articulation of my being, my being, of my humanness, of the substance of who I am, [and] how would I do that?”

“I’ve met so a large number of individuals,” Oprah reminded us, as though we should have been reminded. “Furthermore, I know without a doubt that the greatest lament of anyone’s life isn’t completely living it. You get as far as possible of your days, and you understand you had this chance, you had this life…and did you consistently live it the fullest? Did you boost it? Did you live on to the max? Was the volume turned up each day of your life? You would prefer not to get as far as possible and take a gander at every one of those days you squandered stressing. So now I don’t stress over anything any longer. I don’t.”

Language matters

Accumulate round, children, and let Oprah reveal to you a little story about battle. When Oprah first propelled OWN, it turned out poorly well. In 2013, she said it did so severely she had a mental meltdown. Things being what they are, how could she turn it around? Listen intently.

“At the point when I was [in] my most profound battle with OWN, the system, that is presumably the saddest I’ve at any point been, the most grieved I’ve at any point been,” she said. “And afterward I understood it was simply the language I was giving. I was considering it a battle, a battle a battle. What’s more, I turned my very own account around. I began addressing myself distinctively about it. I quit saying, ‘Goodness, it’s a battle, it’s a battle.’ I began thinking, ‘Amazing, I am still me. I’m as yet this little dark young lady brought up in Mississippi. I’ve come right from the yard in Mississippi to have a system with my name on it. What’s a battle about that? How would I transform that into and consider it to be a chance? It’s a difficult chance, however it’s a chance. What’s more, that is when everything begun to move.”

Oprah said she “can finally relax” since the system is in a superior spot and the home of hit shows like Queen Sugar. “Be that as it may, stop and think for a minute,” she included, “In any event, when I was in the most noticeably terrible of it, there’s a great otherworldly that says, ‘Issue don’t last constantly.’ Even amidst it, I realized it wouldn’t last.”

Gracious, she knew. You realize she knew.

Get yourself a buddy like Gayle

Oprah wants to visit about Gayle. She more likely than not referenced Gayle multiple times in the initial 45 minutes of her meeting. Be that as it may, as, obviously, she did! A buddy like Gayle is uncommon! She should be prized. At the point when she visits the school she established in Africa, she shows the understudies for seven days. Prepare for this, individuals. She’s titled it—I kid you not—”Life 101.” Yes, she did.

“I attempt to educate in multi week all that I wish somebody had let me know before I went out into the world,” she said. “What’s more, something I generally talk about is my kinship with Gayle.” Because regardless of what your identity is or how celebrated you get, you “need a companion who thinks as much about you as they do themselves. You need a companion like Auntie Gayle—which is the thing that they call her—who in the entirety of our whole fellowship I can sincerely say there will never be been a desirous minute.”

Like you, Oprah has consistently had the option to tell on the off chance that she has a companion “who isn’t 100 percent there for you.” And she doesn’t possess energy for her!

What’s more, peruser, for what reason would it be a good idea for her to? She’s Oprah.

Mattie Kahn Mattie Kahn is an essayist who lives in New York.

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[snow-slayer]

Here’s a sneak peek at my next story. Trying my hand with some Scaramouch Samurai Jack fanfiction.

                                            “Never Better”

              “Stand down.” The robot merely laughed, although Jack was not surprised by the action. Trying to command the eight foot tall assassin was a woman hardly five feet tall and weaponless as far as Jack could tell. She didn’t seem concerned, standing with both hands tucked casually into her pockets.

              “Didn’t think you’d see me again, did you, Sammy baby? I’m not so easy to kill.”

              “I said stand down,” the woman repeated flatly.

              “Relax, babe. I can take him.” He draws the sword on his back, giving it a few test swings as Jack draws his gun, aiming it at the center of Scaramouch’s chest. Suddenly, the robot grabs his head, the sword falling harmlessly to the ground, followed shortly by the robot himself.

              “Uhh, babe! Stop!” he moaned out, rolling to his side and bring his knees up to his chest. Jack cast a glance at the woman. He could see her left hand move slightly, and guessed that she had some device in her pocket that was administering the pain. Slowly, the robot regained his composure, dragging back to his feet. He sheathed his sword and shook his head.

              “Sorry. Didn’t meant to startle you. We’re still … working things out.” Scaramouch had retreated, still caressing his head with one hand as he muttered under his breath. “The name’s Neliah.”

              “Jack.” He cast an eye around their campsite. He had seen their campfire as he was traveling, leaving his bike to investigate on foot. As he had drawn near, he heard the familiar voice, although he did not know how that was possible, having thought Scaramouch thoroughly destroyed.

              “Nice to meet you in person. Only heard terrible things about you, of course.” She shuffled closer to the campfire, rotating the meat on the spit.

              “Why don’t you ask him to stay, babe? I’m sure he’d love to hear all the things you’ve done. Like all the people you’ve hurt, all the weapons you’ve helped make. Makes me look like a kitten, babe.”

              “You are welcome to share some of our rations, if you’d like.” Jack accepted the invitation, if only out of fear the robot would get out of hand. He took a seat several feet away from Neliah, listening to the fat sizzle on the plump rodent cooking.

              “I needed fire power. That’s why I put him back together, if you were wondering.” Jack cast another glance towards the robot who had begun pacing by the tent.

              “Won’t let me kill anything, Sammy baby. Can’t see why she wants to torment me.”

              “I added a few safety precautions until I can do a full reboot and remove the assassin program.”

              “Nothing to remove, babe. I was made this way.”

              “What are you planning?” Jack’s hand inched towards his gun as Scaramouch finally meandered closer to the fire.

              “I’m tracking the beetle drones manufacturing plants. The largest one is said to be out this way.” She pointed towards the east. “I only have a general location. We’re going to destroy it to slow down production in addition to destroying their newest weapon creation. There’s been rumors circulating that there’s a new mind controlling device in production which could potentially work on robots and humans. If it gets completed, that will give Aku or anyone who gets there hand on it unlimited soldiers, soulless shells that follow his every whim.”

              “Wouldn’t you know, babe? Must have been fun making the first designs,” Scaramouch laid on his chest, feeding twigs to the fire.

              “I don’t have the power or resources to do it on my own. There’s a few towns between here and there, so I was hoping to gather some materials to make some explosives.” Neliah took the roast off, offering it to Jack so he could take half. Pulling a small half, Neliah took the stick back, tearing of chunks off with her teeth.

              “It’ll still be just you, babe, on your little quest for redemption. They’ll see Aku’s most favorite assassin,” he proudly gestured to himself, “and call me a hero when I tell them of your plan. Besides, what’s to motivate me? I might just stand there and take in the scenery as they pummel your body full of bullets.”

              “How far along is production on the weapon?” Jack posed hesitantly.

              “They’re supposedly testing in the next month.”

              “And how far away is the factory?”

              “I don’t know. I’m guess a week maybe a week and a half.”

              “I would be willing to join you to destroy the factory.”

              The sun stabbed them in the eyes as they crossed the empty plains. Jack felt more on edge, having only had two hours of sleep. The damned robot talked all night, mostly degrading Neliah, only stopping when one of the plates used to piece him back together came undone and Neliah had to force him into stasis to make the repair. She mentioned that she could wake him, but Jack did not protest when she decided to let his system cool down for a few hours. Still, Jack slept fitfully, not knowing enough about Neliah to trust her, but fearing the worst if he left. Scaramouch was deadly, and all he would have to do is sneak up on her and steal the device that was keeping him at bay.

              Pacing Neliah on her own bike, he kept his eyes on Scaramouch. The robot was chained to the back at Jack’s demand, yelling over the motor. Jack thought he looked bored. Occasionally, they would meet eyes, Scaramouch making lewd gestures or giving him bedroom eyes. Jack came to appreciate Neliah’s patience. In the distance, a town finally appeared on the horizon. Jack watched as Neliah angled towards it. They came to a stop on the outskirts.

              “Desolate. Looks like the beetle drones ravaged this place. There’s no carnage. Not much of anything.” Neliah had dismounted, staring down the baron streets. The buildings were still standing, although they looked wind buffeted and unused. Scaramouch had already begun strolling down the main street, commenting the he would have done better, especially with his tuning sword.

              “Good thing he lost it,” Neliah turned to Jack, giving him a wink before she followed after the robot. Jack kept pace with her, forcing himself to take smaller steps so as not to overpass her.

              “You can go on ahead. I’m a bit on the slow side. Bad joints and such.” Jack nodded, trailing the robot, who periodically swept inside a building to explore the interiors. After an two hours of wondering, and countless complaints of the humans taking too long, they returned to the entrance empty handed.

              They traveled east again, the sun at their backs. The beginning of another forest provided an excellent camping location. Even with Scaramouch’s constant chattering, Jack managed to catch a few creatures to feast on. Neliah pulled out a can of oil from her bike, which Scaramouch scarfed down in seconds. Crumpling the can when it was drained, he threw it at Neliah as she began cooking. He still flashed Jack a grin, pacing the perimeter of their campsite. Scaramouch bored of talking to himself after an hour, taking a seat next to Neliah.

              “What’s wrong, Sammy baby? Do I make you nervous? Do I make your skin crawl?” Jack eased his hand from the gun hoister, slowly chewing on the roast as he kept his eyes on the robot. Scaramouch’s grin was splitting across his whole face. Faster than Jack could get to his feet, Scaramouch had grabbed Neliah’s left arm, flinging her away a few feet. He was on top of her, tearing at her pocket and rolling away.

              “How stupid can you be, babe?” he laughed, holding up a small remote to show off his spoils. “You thought a little shock collar could keep me at bay?” The remote was crushed in his massive hand, the pieces crumbling without any repercussions to him. Neliah had risen to her feet. Jack had drawn his gun again, taking a few steps towards the robot. He noticed that Neliah had her left hand facing him, as if requesting him to stay still.

              “You shouldn’t do this.”

              “Oh, trust me, babe, I’ve been waiting for days for this opportunity. You thought that Jack here would protect you and you let your guard down. I’m going to enjoy this, babe. Au revior.” He drew his sword again, not an ounce of hesitation as he stepped forward. The sword was raised above his head as he prepared to recreate the movement Jack had done to him. His face went blank, the blue eyes vanishing as his mouth opened in surprise. A black substance began leaking over his lower lips before he began to scream.

              Neliah walked over to his fallen form, pulling a device from her back pocket, which she touched to his temples.

              “I’m sorry. I had to incorporate a failsafe should the remote be destroyed. Unfortunately, I cannot control the duration of the pain on this one. It will fade when you stop attempting to murder a sentient creature.” The device in her hand seemed to help, as Scaramouch stopped convulsing so wildly, his cries of pain fading.

              “I don’t want this, babe.” His voice had lost the arrogant edge Jack was used to. “I don’t want to be like this.”

              “I know. I know, Scaramouch. When we finish the mission, we’ll find a lab and I’ll remove the fail safe and give you a full reset. I’ll take out the assassin coding, too.”

              “So I can do what I want, babe?”

              “Yes, I’ll let you make your own choices. I promise.” A wave of the black burnt smelling substances tumbled of his lips again as he let out another cry.

              “Please. Please … make it stop, babe.”

              “I’ll put you back in stasis. Keep fighting the impulse.” Making some adjustments to the tool, she touched it to his temple again, the whining of the machine and his pained cries fading. She brushed the dirt from her clothing and returned to her seat by the fire.

              “Are you okay?”

              “Yeah, just a little startled. Good to see the failsafe works.” She let out a hollow laugh rubbing her own temple with her hand.

              “Why did he sound so different?

              “It’s the original coding coming through. The assassination program seems to falter when he’s in severe pain. It doesn’t last though. He’ll be back to the new normal in the morning.”

              “He’s still a murderer.” Neliah sighed, letting out another shaky laugh.

              “He’s the only family I have left.”

              “Yet, you put him back together.”

              “I know. He can’t control the programming, but it’s no excuse. I’d say I feel guilty, but that’s only half the truth. I’m no better than him.” They picked at the remnants of dinner as the stars drifted lazily across the sky.

              “What do you mean by saying he’s your family? Did you build him?” Jack couldn’t help the accusatory note that was creeping into his voice.

              “I helped, yes. I guess it was … twenty years ago, give or take. I was about ten. Not really old enough to be a lab assistant, but I was anyway. My family’s been building robots for years. My grandmother perfected the personality chip with the first successful usage in X9. My father started working on the next phase.”

              “They worked for years trying to build a circuit board that would allow robots to feel pleasure and pain. The theory was that it would create a reward and punishment system. Except they had trouble creating a motherboard strong enough. They fried so many machines trying to induce basic physical pain and pleasure. Finally, they built Scaramouch.”

              “His circuits held up to the initial pleasure test, something that the others hadn’t. For a while, I guess it was nice for him. They’d experiment for hours, inducing simple pleasures. A hug, a handshake, stuff like that, although I’m sure it became … more erotic later on. My father was … well, eccentric’s putting it nice. I was spared this viewing. Then the second half of the experiments began.”

              “Pain,” Jack guessed. Neliah nodded slowly, casting an eye to make sure the robot was still asleep.

              “It changed him. I used to know him before, and he was alright. A little too talkative, a little too hands on, but he wasn’t like this. Every day, for years, the house would be filled with his screaming and pleas. They would leave him strapped into a table for days on end, administering different types of shocks and recording the results to build others like him.”

              “Why not just leave out the pain?”

              “Because you don’t learn if there’s no pain. You can’t get better without it,” Neliah whispered, tilting her head down. “So they tortured him, or worse, took him from one extreme to the other to see how he faired. When they gathered enough data, he was so resigned. This eight foot tall powerhouse was reduced to nothing but sulking the halls and trying to avoid everything. Eventually, they reprogrammed him, repressing the original coding and adding a killer’s instinct.”

              “Are there others like him?” Jack demanded.

              “No. That was my first act of rebellion. I destroyed the research. They never made another like him and they won’t ever.”

#tw: torture #samurai jack #scaramouch #fan fiction #It's a first draft so it'll need some editing.