I have a unique situation. A few years ago at the age of 30 I met my biological father. I moved across country from Michigan to Arizona to help him with his business and lived on the same property as him. Everything was going really good for about a year and a half until I started noticing someone was coming in my house and I started to put things together. I didn’t know anything about crafting or black magic or cults or anything like that before this but I came into my house one day and noticed the grate at the bottom of my fridge wasn’t on properly so when I went to put it on the right way and it fell off completely I noticed there was a thick layer of dust but there was very fresh drawings and markings written in the dust. I asked a friend if it was Mexican gang shit not knowing what was going on lol he immediately told me it was black magic and said someone was messing with my food. Its a really story to have to text but I’ll list some other things that happened and I’d like to know if anyone has any insight . I’ve done a lot of research since then and still can’t figure out what the intentions were. So for starters it was a little town about 30 minutes from the Mexican border south of Tucson . My “dad” had several people my age working for him and I believe now they were all in on whatever they were doing to me. At first I thought he wasn’t a part of it and his workers just wanted me gone but I’ll explain why I know he was definitely in on it. Some of the things I noticed are
-They used a wood burner tool or engraved symbols and faces and letters into basically everything wood in my house and around the property like on wood posts and stuff. The letters would be large and stand out by theirselves it would be L,B, and I think R. - would make a almost evil smiley face and I would take my pants off at night and lay them in my bed and noticed the face on my ass in gel pen. They were putting it on my chairs. - switched a black and white candle with one of their own. -the wiring under my fridge was in Arabic or reverse Arabic so I think -under my front porch I found a canoe made out of a large dead frog body. It looked like it was to resemble a boat at least -also under porch found a cutout or some type of homemade rabbit made out of plastic or paper and it had half of one of those plastic Easter eggs in its mouth like a rabbit eating it’s own child or egg or whatever . -dead cat in my car - dead cat in my house - I always slept on my couch but on my bed I noticed a very thin layer of candle wax had been poured on every crease in the mattress . If you look at a mattress you’ll know that had to take a lot of time and effort. -my dad insisted we didn’t need tack strips when we laid the carpet in the trailer and in the room I later found a blue steel razor blade and next to it the word MAD in pen or marker. -the only friend that kept assuring me I wasn’t crazy had a nice 2020 truck and text me one day and said there was blood all over his back seat . I doubt he did that to his nice truck . It looked like a murder scene and when I saw it I noticed the same markings and faces on the car seat and doors . Looked like it was with a pencil eraser . - there was a panel loose in my jeep by my left foot where a hood release is . I pulled it back a little and saw something . When I loosened the panel even more it was a Lego figure and his head rolled off . I know I didn’t put that there lol. - different color dirt than usual and pebbles under carpet in front of door and rubbed all over my jeep tire. Probably cemetery dirt I think .
There’s more but you get the picture. So also in my Jeep I had a tool box and in every drawer there was 6 small twigs in the shape of a U or 6 pieces of plants or flowers. On the outside the drew a few things but one was a stick figure being attacked by wolves . When I came back to Michigan I was attacked by two dogs and had to get 69 stitches . The wound and scar is in the shape of a weird smiley face.
I refused to drive the Jeep and had a rental car and some how fell asleep and was in a head on collision with a family of 5 . Everyone was okay some how. I was going 60 and didn’t have a seatbelt on . Woke up in the passenger seat and the door just opened up for me to get out. Not knowing anyone else I called father of the year to come get me. When we got in his truck he said oh if you were in your Jeep you would have died for sure.
We get back to the house and he wanted me to stay there instead of sleeping at my place next door. He had a 80 inch tv that was turned off so it was basically like a mirror. I’m watching him and his gf lay a mattress on the floor and putting sheets and blankets on it then I see his gf pull something out of a clothes hamper . I can’t even make this shit up . I saw a 2 foot doll wearing one of my shirts. And had strews all over the head . Attached to the screws was some type of string to resemble hair with ties or bows half way down the length . I know they were screws because he twisted a couple of them . Then he put it in a type of dresser thing with a glass door and rolled a rolling closet with clothes in front of it . I could have shit my pants . That was the last time I was there. I immediately told him I had to get my son something from Walmart and needed to go now so I can send it first thing in the morning. He took me to Walmart and I ordered a Uber . He was right next to me and wouldn’t leave my side so I made up the only thing I thought of and said I think his phone was making me sick , something about electronics and said give me 5 feet and walked outside. I get in the Uber and he almost didn’t see me but came up to the car hands cupped around his eyes looking in the windows and saw me. He told the driver I was mentally unstable, on drugs and if he left with me he’s calling the cops. I told the guy I just met this man that’s my dad,showed him my license and explained I ordered the ride I offered him more money and asked him to please go. He said he didn’t want any trouble and cancelled the ride. So now I’m outside of Walmart with the crazy person I call dad and he’s like wtf man you’re just gonna bail on me lol. So I just told him I saw the voodoo doll. He started going nuts denying it and making a huge scene. He never did admit it but he said whatever I think he was doing he was trying to help me. I called the kid Colton they had the blood in his truck and he came and got me.
After 4 years I still don’t know exactly what was going on. If anyone knows what might have been going on I’d like some opinions. Do you think they were trying to sacrifice me or initiate me or what?
One of his workers did drop hints or warnings when I would bing stuff up. He told me “your dad doesn’t work me alit around Christmas time” I was like uh ok and said yeah it’s orders from higher up . Then told me there was like 5 or 6 satanic cults right around there. I’ve came to find out he was telling the truth more than likely.
Thanks for reading. Love and light

I have a unique situation. A few years ago at the age of 30 I met my biological father. I moved across country from Michigan to Arizona to help him with his business and lived on the same property as him. Everything was going really good for about a year and a half until I started noticing someone was coming in my house and I started to put things together. I didn’t know anything about crafting or black magic or cults or anything like that before this but I came into my house one day and noticed the grate at the bottom of my fridge wasn’t on properly so when I went to put it on the right way and it fell off completely I noticed there was a thick layer of dust but there was very fresh drawings and markings written in the dust. I asked a friend if it was Mexican gang shit not knowing what was going on lol he immediately told me it was black magic and said someone was messing with my food. Its a really story to have to text but I’ll list some other things that happened and I’d like to know if anyone has any insight . I’ve done a lot of research since then and still can’t figure out what the intentions were. So for starters it was a little town about 30 minutes from the Mexican border south of Tucson . My “dad” had several people my age working for him and I believe now they were all in on whatever they were doing to me. At first I thought he wasn’t a part of it and his workers just wanted me gone but I’ll explain why I know he was definitely in on it. Some of the things I noticed are
-They used a wood burner tool or engraved symbols and faces and letters into basically everything wood in my house and around the property like on wood posts and stuff. The letters would be large and stand out by theirselves it would be L,B, and I think R. - would make a almost evil smiley face and I would take my pants off at night and lay them in my bed and noticed the face on my ass in gel pen. They were putting it on my chairs. - switched a black and white candle with one of their own. -the wiring under my fridge was in Arabic or reverse Arabic so I think -under my front porch I found a canoe made out of a large dead frog body. It looked like it was to resemble a boat at least -also under porch found a cutout or some type of homemade rabbit made out of plastic or paper and it had half of one of those plastic Easter eggs in its mouth like a rabbit eating it’s own child or egg or whatever . -dead cat in my car - dead cat in my house - I always slept on my couch but on my bed I noticed a very thin layer of candle wax had been poured on every crease in the mattress . If you look at a mattress you’ll know that had to take a lot of time and effort. -my dad insisted we didn’t need tack strips when we laid the carpet in the trailer and in the room I later found a blue steel razor blade and next to it the word MAD in pen or marker. -the only friend that kept assuring me I wasn’t crazy had a nice 2020 truck and text me one day and said there was blood all over his back seat . I doubt he did that to his nice truck . It looked like a murder scene and when I saw it I noticed the same markings and faces on the car seat and doors . Looked like it was with a pencil eraser . - there was a panel loose in my jeep by my left foot where a hood release is . I pulled it back a little and saw something . When I loosened the panel even more it was a Lego figure and his head rolled off . I know I didn’t put that there lol. - different color dirt than usual and pebbles under carpet in front of door and rubbed all over my jeep tire. Probably cemetery dirt I think .
There’s more but you get the picture. So also in my Jeep I had a tool box and in every drawer there was 6 small twigs in the shape of a U or 6 pieces of plants or flowers. On the outside the drew a few things but one was a stick figure being attacked by wolves . When I came back to Michigan I was attacked by two dogs and had to get 69 stitches . The wound and scar is in the shape of a weird smiley face.
I refused to drive the Jeep and had a rental car and some how fell asleep and was in a head on collision with a family of 5 . Everyone was okay some how. I was going 60 and didn’t have a seatbelt on . Woke up in the passenger seat and the door just opened up for me to get out. Not knowing anyone else I called father of the year to come get me. When we got in his truck he said oh if you were in your Jeep you would have died for sure.
We get back to the house and he wanted me to stay there instead of sleeping at my place next door. He had a 80 inch tv that was turned off so it was basically like a mirror. I’m watching him and his gf lay a mattress on the floor and putting sheets and blankets on it then I see his gf pull something out of a clothes hamper . I can’t even make this shit up . I saw a 2 foot doll wearing one of my shirts. And had strews all over the head . Attached to the screws was some type of string to resemble hair with ties or bows half way down the length . I know they were screws because he twisted a couple of them . Then he put it in a type of dresser thing with a glass door and rolled a rolling closet with clothes in front of it . I could have shit my pants . That was the last time I was there. I immediately told him I had to get my son something from Walmart and needed to go now so I can send it first thing in the morning. He took me to Walmart and I ordered a Uber . He was right next to me and wouldn’t leave my side so I made up the only thing I thought of and said I think his phone was making me sick , something about electronics and said give me 5 feet and walked outside. I get in the Uber and he almost didn’t see me but came up to the car hands cupped around his eyes looking in the windows and saw me. He told the driver I was mentally unstable, on drugs and if he left with me he’s calling the cops. I told the guy I just met this man that’s my dad,showed him my license and explained I ordered the ride I offered him more money and asked him to please go. He said he didn’t want any trouble and cancelled the ride. So now I’m outside of Walmart with the crazy person I call dad and he’s like wtf man you’re just gonna bail on me lol. So I just told him I saw the voodoo doll. He started going nuts denying it and making a huge scene. He never did admit it but he said whatever I think he was doing he was trying to help me. I called the kid Colton they had the blood in his truck and he came and got me.
After 4 years I still don’t know exactly what was going on. If anyone knows what might have been going on I’d like some opinions. Do you think they were trying to sacrifice me or initiate me or what?
One of his workers did drop hints or warnings when I would bing stuff up. He told me “your dad doesn’t work me alit around Christmas time” I was like uh ok and said yeah it’s orders from higher up . Then told me there was like 5 or 6 satanic cults right around there. I’ve came to find out he was telling the truth more than likely.
Thanks for reading. Love and light

I have a unique situation. A few years ago at the age of 30 I met my biological father. I moved across country from Michigan to Arizona to help him with his business and lived on the same property as him. Everything was going really good for about a year and a half until I started noticing someone was coming in my house and I started to put things together. I didn’t know anything about crafting or black magic or cults or anything like that before this but I came into my house one day and noticed the grate at the bottom of my fridge wasn’t on properly so when I went to put it on the right way and it fell off completely I noticed there was a thick layer of dust but there was very fresh drawings and markings written in the dust. I asked a friend if it was Mexican gang shit not knowing what was going on lol he immediately told me it was black magic and said someone was messing with my food. Its a really story to have to text but I’ll list some other things that happened and I’d like to know if anyone has any insight . I’ve done a lot of research since then and still can’t figure out what the intentions were. So for starters it was a little town about 30 minutes from the Mexican border south of Tucson . My “dad” had several people my age working for him and I believe now they were all in on whatever they were doing to me. At first I thought he wasn’t a part of it and his workers just wanted me gone but I’ll explain why I know he was definitely in on it. Some of the things I noticed are
-They used a wood burner tool or engraved symbols and faces and letters into basically everything wood in my house and around the property like on wood posts and stuff. The letters would be large and stand out by theirselves it would be L,B, and I think R. - would make a almost evil smiley face and I would take my pants off at night and lay them in my bed and noticed the face on my ass in gel pen. They were putting it on my chairs. - switched a black and white candle with one of their own. -the wiring under my fridge was in Arabic or reverse Arabic so I think -under my front porch I found a canoe made out of a large dead frog body. It looked like it was to resemble a boat at least -also under porch found a cutout or some type of homemade rabbit made out of plastic or paper and it had half of one of those plastic Easter eggs in its mouth like a rabbit eating it’s own child or egg or whatever . -dead cat in my car - dead cat in my house - I always slept on my couch but on my bed I noticed a very thin layer of candle wax had been poured on every crease in the mattress . If you look at a mattress you’ll know that had to take a lot of time and effort. -my dad insisted we didn’t need tack strips when we laid the carpet in the trailer and in the room I later found a blue steel razor blade and next to it the word MAD in pen or marker. -the only friend that kept assuring me I wasn’t crazy had a nice 2020 truck and text me one day and said there was blood all over his back seat . I doubt he did that to his nice truck . It looked like a murder scene and when I saw it I noticed the same markings and faces on the car seat and doors . Looked like it was with a pencil eraser . - there was a panel loose in my jeep by my left foot where a hood release is . I pulled it back a little and saw something . When I loosened the panel even more it was a Lego figure and his head rolled off . I know I didn’t put that there lol. - different color dirt than usual and pebbles under carpet in front of door and rubbed all over my jeep tire. Probably cemetery dirt I think .
There’s more but you get the picture. So also in my Jeep I had a tool box and in every drawer there was 6 small twigs in the shape of a U or 6 pieces of plants or flowers. On the outside the drew a few things but one was a stick figure being attacked by wolves . When I came back to Michigan I was attacked by two dogs and had to get 69 stitches . The wound and scar is in the shape of a weird smiley face.
I refused to drive the Jeep and had a rental car and some how fell asleep and was in a head on collision with a family of 5 . Everyone was okay some how. I was going 60 and didn’t have a seatbelt on . Woke up in the passenger seat and the door just opened up for me to get out. Not knowing anyone else I called father of the year to come get me. When we got in his truck he said oh if you were in your Jeep you would have died for sure.
We get back to the house and he wanted me to stay there instead of sleeping at my place next door. He had a 80 inch tv that was turned off so it was basically like a mirror. I’m watching him and his gf lay a mattress on the floor and putting sheets and blankets on it then I see his gf pull something out of a clothes hamper . I can’t even make this shit up . I saw a 2 foot doll wearing one of my shirts. And had strews all over the head . Attached to the screws was some type of string to resemble hair with ties or bows half way down the length . I know they were screws because he twisted a couple of them . Then he put it in a type of dresser thing with a glass door and rolled a rolling closet with clothes in front of it . I could have shit my pants . That was the last time I was there. I immediately told him I had to get my son something from Walmart and needed to go now so I can send it first thing in the morning. He took me to Walmart and I ordered a Uber . He was right next to me and wouldn’t leave my side so I made up the only thing I thought of and said I think his phone was making me sick , something about electronics and said give me 5 feet and walked outside. I get in the Uber and he almost didn’t see me but came up to the car hands cupped around his eyes looking in the windows and saw me. He told the driver I was mentally unstable, on drugs and if he left with me he’s calling the cops. I told the guy I just met this man that’s my dad,showed him my license and explained I ordered the ride I offered him more money and asked him to please go. He said he didn’t want any trouble and cancelled the ride. So now I’m outside of Walmart with the crazy person I call dad and he’s like wtf man you’re just gonna bail on me lol. So I just told him I saw the voodoo doll. He started going nuts denying it and making a huge scene. He never did admit it but he said whatever I think he was doing he was trying to help me. I called the kid Colton they had the blood in his truck and he came and got me.
After 4 years I still don’t know exactly what was going on. If anyone knows what might have been going on I’d like some opinions. Do you think they were trying to sacrifice me or initiate me or what?
One of his workers did drop hints or warnings when I would bing stuff up. He told me “your dad doesn’t work me alit around Christmas time” I was like uh ok and said yeah it’s orders from higher up . Then told me there was like 5 or 6 satanic cults right around there. I’ve came to find out he was telling the truth more than likely.
Thanks for reading. Love and light

I have a unique situation. A few years ago at the age of 30 I met my biological father. I moved across country from Michigan to Arizona to help him with his business and lived on the same property as him. Everything was going really good for about a year and a half until I started noticing someone was coming in my house and I started to put things together. I didn’t know anything about crafting or black magic or cults or anything like that before this but I came into my house one day and noticed the grate at the bottom of my fridge wasn’t on properly so when I went to put it on the right way and it fell off completely I noticed there was a thick layer of dust but there was very fresh drawings and markings written in the dust. I asked a friend if it was Mexican gang shit not knowing what was going on lol he immediately told me it was black magic and said someone was messing with my food. Its a really story to have to text but I’ll list some other things that happened and I’d like to know if anyone has any insight . I’ve done a lot of research since then and still can’t figure out what the intentions were. So for starters it was a little town about 30 minutes from the Mexican border south of Tucson . My “dad” had several people my age working for him and I believe now they were all in on whatever they were doing to me. At first I thought he wasn’t a part of it and his workers just wanted me gone but I’ll explain why I know he was definitely in on it. Some of the things I noticed are
-They used a wood burner tool or engraved symbols and faces and letters into basically everything wood in my house and around the property like on wood posts and stuff. The letters would be large and stand out by theirselves it would be L,B, and I think R. - would make a almost evil smiley face and I would take my pants off at night and lay them in my bed and noticed the face on my ass in gel pen. They were putting it on my chairs. - switched a black and white candle with one of their own. -the wiring under my fridge was in Arabic or reverse Arabic so I think -under my front porch I found a canoe made out of a large dead frog body. It looked like it was to resemble a boat at least -also under porch found a cutout or some type of homemade rabbit made out of plastic or paper and it had half of one of those plastic Easter eggs in its mouth like a rabbit eating it’s own child or egg or whatever . -dead cat in my car - dead cat in my house - I always slept on my couch but on my bed I noticed a very thin layer of candle wax had been poured on every crease in the mattress . If you look at a mattress you’ll know that had to take a lot of time and effort. -my dad insisted we didn’t need tack strips when we laid the carpet in the trailer and in the room I later found a blue steel razor blade and next to it the word MAD in pen or marker. -the only friend that kept assuring me I wasn’t crazy had a nice 2020 truck and text me one day and said there was blood all over his back seat . I doubt he did that to his nice truck . It looked like a murder scene and when I saw it I noticed the same markings and faces on the car seat and doors . Looked like it was with a pencil eraser . - there was a panel loose in my jeep by my left foot where a hood release is . I pulled it back a little and saw something . When I loosened the panel even more it was a Lego figure and his head rolled off . I know I didn’t put that there lol. - different color dirt than usual and pebbles under carpet in front of door and rubbed all over my jeep tire. Probably cemetery dirt I think .
There’s more but you get the picture. So also in my Jeep I had a tool box and in every drawer there was 6 small twigs in the shape of a U or 6 pieces of plants or flowers. On the outside the drew a few things but one was a stick figure being attacked by wolves . When I came back to Michigan I was attacked by two dogs and had to get 69 stitches . The wound and scar is in the shape of a weird smiley face.
I refused to drive the Jeep and had a rental car and some how fell asleep and was in a head on collision with a family of 5 . Everyone was okay some how. I was going 60 and didn’t have a seatbelt on . Woke up in the passenger seat and the door just opened up for me to get out. Not knowing anyone else I called father of the year to come get me. When we got in his truck he said oh if you were in your Jeep you would have died for sure.
We get back to the house and he wanted me to stay there instead of sleeping at my place next door. He had a 80 inch tv that was turned off so it was basically like a mirror. I’m watching him and his gf lay a mattress on the floor and putting sheets and blankets on it then I see his gf pull something out of a clothes hamper . I can’t even make this shit up . I saw a 2 foot doll wearing one of my shirts. And had strews all over the head . Attached to the screws was some type of string to resemble hair with ties or bows half way down the length . I know they were screws because he twisted a couple of them . Then he put it in a type of dresser thing with a glass door and rolled a rolling closet with clothes in front of it . I could have shit my pants . That was the last time I was there. I immediately told him I had to get my son something from Walmart and needed to go now so I can send it first thing in the morning. He took me to Walmart and I ordered a Uber . He was right next to me and wouldn’t leave my side so I made up the only thing I thought of and said I think his phone was making me sick , something about electronics and said give me 5 feet and walked outside. I get in the Uber and he almost didn’t see me but came up to the car hands cupped around his eyes looking in the windows and saw me. He told the driver I was mentally unstable, on drugs and if he left with me he’s calling the cops. I told the guy I just met this man that’s my dad,showed him my license and explained I ordered the ride I offered him more money and asked him to please go. He said he didn’t want any trouble and cancelled the ride. So now I’m outside of Walmart with the crazy person I call dad and he’s like wtf man you’re just gonna bail on me lol. So I just told him I saw the voodoo doll. He started going nuts denying it and making a huge scene. He never did admit it but he said whatever I think he was doing he was trying to help me. I called the kid Colton they had the blood in his truck and he came and got me.
After 4 years I still don’t know exactly what was going on. If anyone knows what might have been going on I’d like some opinions. Do you think they were trying to sacrifice me or initiate me or what?
One of his workers did drop hints or warnings when I would bing stuff up. He told me “your dad doesn’t work me alit around Christmas time” I was like uh ok and said yeah it’s orders from higher up . Then told me there was like 5 or 6 satanic cults right around there. I’ve came to find out he was telling the truth more than likely.
Thanks for reading. Love and light

I see that the rules say no glass bottles only plastic/cans, does this include flugels? i want to stay within the rules so i was wondering if i can bring flugels in. if not is there any other drinks that are within the rules that you guys would reccomend. i found Nozem Oil that i belive to be within the rules.

Hi chefs, amateur cook here.
I am slowly getting annoyed at most containers in my kitchen. Be it balsamic vinegar, various oils, or even mayo, I find most store bought containers kinda suck.
So here are my questions !

• Do you use squeeze bottles in your work kitchen, why or why not ? How about at home ?
  
• Being plastic whereas most oil bottles in the stores (France) are glass, are there some specific things to keep in mind? I’m thinking in terms of storage mostly.
  
• Do you use your squeeze bottles only for liquids or also for thicker products ? Eg. oil → syrup → mayo
  

I can’t think of anything else right now but any and all details would be greatly appreciated. Thank you !

Spouse and I have been feeling like crap, so we wanted to make a huge pot of chicken noodle soup to last us for a few days so we wouldn’t have to worry about cooking. We’ve made it in the past and it’s turned out fantastic, but we did it different this time and it’s so bitter. It’s upsetting my stomach and even the thought of eating it makes me nauseous. They’ve barely touched it as well and are kicking themselves because we’re on food stamps and this cost a lot of money to make. Please help me and tell me this is fixable 😭
Ingredients: • a whole lot of homemade chicken stock (made from rotisserie chicken bones, cilantro stems, jalapeño stems and seeds, celery leaves and ends, carrot ends (not leaves), a splash of vinegar, onion scraps) • 16oz of whole brown mushrooms, diced • 1lb carrots, diced • diced celery (I’m not sure how many stalks it was but it was probably at least two cups diced) • 2tbsp olive oil • 1tbsp homemade spice mix (I know it at least has salt, turmeric, paprika, pepper, garlic powder, curry powder, I think it also has onion powder, a little bit of cayenne powder, maybe some cumin also? I asked them but they made it so long ago they don’t remember 😂) • 2-3tbsp ginger paste (we ran out so I’m not entirely sure) • 3-4tbsp garlic paste (guesstimating) • 4-5tbsp basil paste (guesstimating) • 1-2tbsp cilantro paste (guesstimating) • 1-2tbsp jalapeño paste (guesstimating) • lemon juice • one box of gluten free pasta • diced chicken from two rotisserie chickens • one bunch of collard greens, chopped • one bunch of mustard greens, chopped* • 2-3tbsp horseradish mustard (guesstimating)*
Everything that has an * is what’s different than how we made it last time. I’m very much a “measure it out” person, but they’re a lot more confident in the kitchen than I am and have way more experience, so with the pastes and stuff I know it’s at least the smaller number because they wrote down measurements for those. They did all the prep work and I just threw everything in the pot in the order they told me to.
I heated up the pot and once it was hot I threw the mushrooms in. There wasn’t any oil or anything, just mushrooms. I cooked them at around medium heat until they started releasing liquid, then I pulled them out and put them in a bowl.
I put in two tablespoons of olive oil and let that warm up a little bit, and then the celery and carrots and spice mix. I stirred it around a few times and then put the lid on it for a minute, maybe minute and a half, and put in the ginger paste, basil paste, and garlic paste. Then I got overwhelmed because they had pulled out cilantro paste and jalapeño paste and hadn’t given me measurements, so they came over and added those as well as more of the other pastes and lemon juice. There was quite a bit of lemon juice. Maybe 1/4c. I stirred it all around and by that point the celery was starting to get translucent like they wanted it to. I put the mushrooms back in.
I threw in three cups of broth and started stirring it all up while scraping the bottom of the pot to get all the bits off the bottom. The broth was supposed to hiss a lot when I put it in but it didn’t hiss or spit up at me at all so I think I put it in too soon. I mixed it up really good and waited for it to bubble a little bit before adding the rest of the broth. It was at least a gallon and four quarts because that’s how much the pitchers were but there was another bottle of broth that we added and I’m not sure how much it held.
I let it heat up more and added the pasta and let that sit for about seven minutes with the lid on for the pasta to cook almost all the way. Then I put the chicken, collard greens, mustard greens, and horseradish mustard in, stirred it, and let it cook for two more minutes with the lid on until the pasta was done.
It was really good that first day, definitely a little bitter, but still really good. That was Wednesday. Thursday it was more bitter and that’s when my stomach started acting up. It hasn’t been touched since today (Saturday). I’ve been scooping the greens out because I think that’s contributing. They got thrown in raw, and spouse said they should’ve blanched them before putting them in.
Is there anyway I can fix this so this big ass pot of soup isn’t completely forfeit?
Thanks in advance if you made it this far. I tried to be as detailed as possible.

I use Valentina salsa picante daily (as doG intended) but the dispensing was annoying. Messy, inconsistent, and the cap hinge would get worn and start flopping in front of the sauce stream.
After threatening to do so for a couple months I bought a 99c condiment squeeze bottle w/cap from walmart and decanted the Valentina into it. Dispensing is even with no mess, as seen here on this morning's bacon and egg burrito breakfast.
The bottle looks like this example, though I don't know what's going on with that price.
10/10, highly recommended.

The original British man of mystery, James Bond was first brought to life on the screen by Sean Connery. Dressed to the nines in a tuxedo and armed with a number of concealed gadgets, Bond was sent across the world to stop high scale crimes. His quick wit and commendable physicality has saved the world a half dozen times over.
This Bond, being the traditional mid-century spy, uses many tricks to get a leg up over the enemy. He’s a very clever, wily agent, although he’s not above just brute forcing his problems with great strength. His Q Branch equipment is disguised as everyday items, so he’s used to being prepared when infiltrating an organization.
The films included in this thread are Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, and Diamonds are Forever. Hover over a feat to see which film it’s from.

Physicals

Strength

• Resists the force of rushing water inside a pipe
• Flips a table with two men on top of it into the water
• Avoids an assassin’s poisoned kicks by pinning her to a wall with a chair
• Holds himself up on the ceiling and drops on a guard when he walks into Bond’s cell
• When his sleeve is pinned to a large wooden cabinet, he pulls the cabinet down
• Picks up and throws a chair at a man, knocking him out
• Fights off an attacker with a damn couch
• Breaks a wooden board with a downward strike
• Throws a man around, sending him through two Japanese screen walls
• When he’s held underwater by two women, Bond surfaces and holds both of them underwater with one hand each

Endurance

• Resists being garroted long enough to grab a knife, stabbing his attacker and turning the garrote wire back on him
• [Limit] Knocked out by a pistol whip to the back of the head
• Keeps fighting after getting a wooden chair broken over his back
• OK after being dropped on his face into a vent
• Stays conscious after strikes from Oddjob
  • Oddjob RT
• Keeps fighting through a vase to the head
• Fights on through hits with a fireplace poker
• Keeps swimming despite grenades being detonated around him
• Keeps running despite being shot in the calf
  • He’s later seen patching up his calf in the bathroom, so he was definitely hit by a bullet
• Breaks free of a rear hold after being punched in the face twice
• Takes a beating from two acrobats, Bambi and Thumper
• [Limit] Knocked out by an urn to the back of the neck

Agility

• Dodges Oddjob’s hat
• While on the ground, he dodges katana swings
• Chases down an assassin, tackling him
• Performs a front flip off a ledge
• Rolls and pulls a lever to incapacitate a gunman with a machine
• Traverses the underside of an oil rig by swinging on a rope, then walking a tightrope

Skill

Combat
Unarmed

• Catches a kick, then throws the attacker back
• Judo flips an attacker, then punches him
• Breaks a hold from behind by a man who wrestles alligators
• Brawls with Dr. No before leaving him to die in the radioactive waters
• Punches out a man in a hazmat suit in one blow
• Commandeers a speedboat, throwing the two men off of it
• Dispatches a guard with a neck strike
• Fights evenly with Grant in a train car, with both men getting in hits before Grant begins garroting Bond with a concealed wire
  • Grant is a trained Russian assassin who no-sells strikes to the stomach with brass knuckles
• Sweeps Pussy Galore to the floor, then reverses her judo throw attempt
• Sneaks up on a guard, then sweeps the leg to knock him out
• Silently KOs a man, then steals his equipment to blend in with a scuba crew
• Knocks out six men when fleeing on a rooftop
• Starts thrashing technicians until one pulls a gun
• Wrestles with Hans before flipping him into a piranha pond
• Wrestles a man in a crowded elevator, using the windows and door as weapons
• Kicks a man off of his vehicle and steals it
• Smacks a dame

With Weapons/Environment

• Stealthily kills a man in a river with a knife
• Closes a truck’s hood on a man’s hand, then punches him out
• Brawls with an assassin in a hotel room before throwing him into a bathtub and knocking a fan into the water, electrocuting him
• Runs up on a guard and slams his head into a car, knocking him out
• Kills Oddjob by using exposed electrical wiring on a metal cage that Oddjob was touching
• Breaks a man’s neck with a fireplace poker
• Pulls a would-be assassin through a window
• Identifies an assassin hiding in the shower, then takes him out with the shower and a nearby door
• Kicks a man’s alcohol bottle, then ignites the contents with a woman’s lighter, allowing him to escape the car
• While diving, Bond wrestles with another diver before cutting his breathing device
• Disarms a diver, then uses the harpoon gun to shatter their goggles
• Defeats three men in the confined space of a ship’s cockpit
• Kills a man with his own knife in one maneuver
• Disarms a man of a spear and stabs him fatally
• Tears off a woman’s bikini top and chokes her with it
• Sprays a man with a fire extinguisher, then strikes him off a ledge with it
• Throws flammable alcohol onto an assassin, lighting him on fire
• While being choked from behind, Bond throws the attacker off of himself, then ties a time bomb to his coat and throws him off a boat

Gunfighting

• Shoots a gunman atop a bridge
• Using a sniper rifle, Bond shoots a man in a helicopter, causing him to drop his grenade inside
• Using a flare gun, Bond fires on floating oil drums, causing an explosion to consume enemy boats
• Grabs Goldfinger’s gun and fires on an airplane window, sucking the villain out of the plane
• Efficient in skeet shooting
• Turns and immediately shoots a harpoon, killing a stealthy assassin
• Shoots a gunman despite their being behind a column for cover
• Shoots three pursuing men
• Right after waking up, he shoots a ninja in the dark
• Outshoots a man in a hallway

Traditional Spy Skills

• [Stealth] Knowing that a man is coming to kill him, Bond waits behind a door, then holds the attempted killer at gunpoint
• [Stealth] Uses a hollow reed to hide underwater from guards and dogs
• [Deception] Tricks Grant into opening a rigged case, which disperses tear gas in his face
• [Sleight of Hand] Slips a tracking device and a note into a gangster’s coat pocket
• [Disguise] Steals an assassin’s clothing, pretends to be the assassin and is personally carried back to the villain’s headquarters
• [Stealth] Hides in plain sight by pretending to be making out, but it’s actually just his own arms wrapped around himself
• [Stealth] Sneaks into the back of a van while his partner distracts the driver
• [Identification] Identifies an assassin he’s never seen before by the scent of their aftershave

Driving

• Loses a pursuing driver by driving under an obstacle
• Weaves around a parking lot, causing a dozen cop cars to crash into themselves, walls or parked cars
• Briefly drives on two wheels to slip through a narrow alley

Other

• [Observation] Notices an attacker in the reflection of a woman’s eye, then uses her as a human shield to block a strike
• [Observation] Notices shadows under a door while snooping, allowing him to hide
• [Human Shield] Uses his dancing partner as a human shield when he notices a concealed gunman’s pistol
• [Foreign Language] Learned several Asian languages at Cambridge
• [Alcoholism] Can tell the temperature of alcohol after one sip
• [Accuracy] Throws three scalpels into a man’s arm and chest
• [Diving] Dives off an oil rig into the ocean below

Equipment

Weapons

• Carries a Walther PPK, a discreet pistol with excellent stopping power
• A collapsible Armalite AR-7 sniper rifle with an infrared sight, allowing for use in the dark
• A knife, kept in his boot
• A grenade, for use underwater
• A projectile launcher disguised as a cigarette, gifted to Bond by a ninja master
  • Used to kill a technician while disarmed of all other weapons
• Once carried a throwing star, a gift from a ninja organization

Gadgets
Reconnaissance/Detection

• Has a small sensor to detect a listening device on the telephone
• A recorder disguised as a camera, with audio sent automatically to MI6
• A waterproof geiger counter in his watch
• A waterproof camera with infrared compatibility

Mobility

• Grapnel gun, used to quickly scale a wall and take out the guard on the other side
• A grappling gun and cord that attaches to his pants, allowing him to scale the outside of a skyscraper
  • Can be outfitted with metal projectiles and used as a firearm instead
• Parachutes near an oil rig in an inflatable sphere that floats on the surface of water
• A scuba tank with a forward-facing projectile launcher
  • Used to hit a piece of sunken ship, causing it to land on two diving enemies
• Briefly wore a ninja outfit with suction cups on the palms and knees, used to scale down metal walls
• Flies away from a fight with a jetpack

Accessories

• A gas mask
• Scuba gear with a head attachment, meant to make Bond look like a harmless water fowl
• A pocket rebreather that works for about four minutes
  • Uses the rebreather to escape from a shark-infested pool
• Carries what is effectively a mousetrap in his jacket, so that when a guard reaches in to take his gun, he gets his fingers trapped
• Uses a fake fingerprint to assume another man’s identity

Transmitters

• Two small transmitters, the larger of which is magnetic
• Can detect his transmitters on the DB5’s radar
• Smaller transmitter can be placed in Bond’s shoe if he needs to call for backup or rescue

Other

• A leather case with numerous hidden components, like ammunition holders, throwing knives, a folding sniper rifle and 50 gold coins
  • Comes with canister of tear gas disguised as a can of talcum powder that can be rigged to explode unless it’s opened a specific way
• A long tube of plastic explosive and a detonator
• A small device to aid in safe cracking
• A small explosive, used to blow a lock off a cell door

Vehicles
Aston Martin DB5

• A modified Aston Martin DB5 with bulletproof windows and revolving license plate
• Also has defenses mechanism controls in the center console and ejector seat
  • A spinning blade on the wheels, used to carve up an adjacent car’s tires
  • Smokescreen
  • Oil slick
  • Ejector seat used to dispatch a gunman in the passenger seat
• Dual water cannons on the rear of the car

”Little Nellie”

• A helicopter that can be quickly constructed by four workers
• Dual machine guns and dual heat-seeking rocket launchers
• Backwards facing flamethrowers
• Can drop miniature bombs directly beneath the helicopter
  • In a dogfight, Bond uses all of the helicopter’s armaments to destroy five enemy helicopters

Miscellaneous

• Puts powder on his bag and a strand of hair on a closet door to detect if intruders were in his room
• If a woman is distracting him, he swats her away like a fly
• He only has sex for King and Country, it gives him no pleasure, he swears
• Once faked his death and burial at sea to go undercover
• Gets a disguise to look like “a Japanese”
  • Here’s the final product. This looks just like a Japanese guy, right?
• Uses an escape pod as an wrecking ball to destroy the computers that operate a laser satellite

Respect the Doctor

"You know what they call me in the ancient legends on the Dalek home world? The Oncoming Storm. You might have removed all your emotions, but I reckon right down deep in your DNA there’s one little spark left... and that’s fear. Doesn’t it just burn when you face me?"
🎵
At the conclusion of the Time War, the withered and wartorn Doctor started his life anew. Though he reclaimed his name after it was disowned by his War incarnation, he tried to distance himself from his past as the last remaining Time Lord in existence. He continued fighting injustice throughout time and space with steely determination while also remaining detached and brooding over his trauma. This incarnation may not have been among the longest in the totality of the Doctor's regeneration cycle, but marked a crucial period in the Doctor's life.
Make sure to check out the Tenth Doctor's thread because he uses the same versions of the sonic screwdriver and TARDIS as his predecessor.

Sources

Hover over a feat to view its source.

• Doctor Who (2005) series 1= E#
• The Day of the Doctor = 50th

Intelligence & Skill

Technological Aptitude

• Realizes that something is up with Platform One when the reported issues are not accurate.
• Deactivates the Adherents of the Repeated Meme by ripping off one of their arms and pulling out a wire.
• Correctly deduces that Cassandra used a teleportation feed to escape, quickly finds its hidden location and reverses it to teleport her back to face justice.
• Upgrades Rose's phone so she can call across time and space. Additionally, this phone could receive signals from inside a bunker and required no special input to pinpoint which specific time she wished to call.
• Understands the technology behind the Slitheen's skin suits shortly after learning about them for the first time.
• Hacks into the Navy with Mickey's help to launch a missile at 10 Downing Street.
• Shows a stubborn human how to play an alien musical instrument.
• Searches through a box full of alien weapons, sorting out which are broken and which are functional from a quick inspection.
• Works the security of a secret facility during a crisis.
• Understands how a data-sharing brain implant works while observing it in action for the first time.
• Knows the name, century of origin and manufacturer of Jack's sonic blaster.
• Identifies the type of spaceship Jack stole and the nanogenes found in another stolen vessel.
• Uses the nanogenes to end the Empty Child plague then sets the vehicle that released them to self-destruct.
• Discovers and understands the device Blon intends to use to escape Earth.
• Locates Rose in the Game Station using its difficult-to-crack computer system.
• Uses the Game Station's technology to build a delta wave transmitter to stop the Daleks, despite knowing full well it would destroy the Earth in the process. Even though the Doctor completes the machine in a matter of hours opposed to the days he estimated it would take, he refused to use it out of principle.

Observation & Deduction

• Exposes Cassandra as the true culprit behind Platform One's sabotage, even when she used robot drones as a scapegoat.
• Quickly identifies the "ghosts" as gaseous beings and understands how they can possess human corpses.
• Can tell that an "alien" is actually a mutated pig.
• Deduces that an alien spaceship crash was faked for a greater malicious purpose.
• Exposes 10 Downing Street's alien expert meeting as a trap.
• Figures out the Raxacoricofallapatorians' weakness by narrowing down what they know about them so far.
• Deduces what the Slitheen's end goal is.
• Discovers a conspiracy behind Satelite Five from minor details about its culture and later concludes its true purpose.
• Can tell that Nancy has lost a loved one due to her motherly nature towards the local urchins.
• Deduces the origin of the Empty Child plague and reveals that Nancy is the mother of the child in question, thereby bringing an end to the plague.
• Sees through Blon's attempt at distracting him and poisoning his drink.
• Escapes the Big Brother house by intentonally getting himself evicted and calling their bluff at the risk of disintegration.

Social Skills

• Improvises a way to charm different aliens.
• Takes charge of a group of soldiers holding him at gunpoint.
• Buys time by threatening to weaponize a wine bottle in an impractical way.
• Sends away a group of gas mask zombies by exploiting their child-like mentality.
• Fools Rose into going inside the TARDIS so he can send her home and out of harm's way.

Resourcefulness

• Uses a champagne bottle to expose Auton Mickey and aggravate it.
• Saves Rose and Harriet Jones from a pair of Slitheens by spraying them with a fire extinquisher.
• Counters Blon's poisonous breath with breath freshener.

Miscellanous

• Understands the Nestene Consciousness' roars and shrieks when trying to negotiate with it (the TARDIS translation circuit doesn't seem to be at play because Rose doesn't appear to understand it).
• Can exit and enter rooms very stealthily.
• Pickpockets Jack's sonic blaster and replaces it with a banana.
• Claims he can speak five billion languages.
• His knowledge of history is not always on point.

Physical Attributes

Biology

• Can survive fatal injuries or — in War's case — the toll of old age and exhaustion by regenerating his body into a renewed and radically different form. This incarnation met his end when he absorbed the energy of the Time Vortex.
• Has a much longer lifespan than humans. He is allegedly 900 years old by the time he meets Rose.
• Has two hearts.
• The DNA of a time traveler is potent enough that it rejuvenates a crippled Dalek into working condition with a touch. Though we only see this happen with Rose, it's safe to assume the same would apply to the Doctor.

Strength

• Pulls off Auton Mickey's head with his bare hands.
• Flips an Auton over his shoulder.
• Rips the arm off the lead drone of the Adherents of the Repeated Meme.
• Kicks a locked door open.
• Easily dispatches a human guard.
• Can be restrained by at least two Autons or reanimated humans.

Speed & Agility

• Catches a strike from one of the Adherents of the Repeated Meme.
• Makes it across a catwalk to pull a switch before the sun's rays can disintegrate Rose. While he is initially helped by slowing down the giant rotating fans in his way, this help expires by the last fan so he manages to cross it moving at rapid speeds through deep concentration
• Saves Rose from being devoured by a Reaper.
• Catches Blon's poison dart while glancing at a menu.

Durability

• Resists being strangled by a detached Auton arm. This exact arm was strong enough to slice open a steel pipe in a single swipe.
• Doesn't seem bothered by the excess amounts of gas filling up the room.
• Not only withstands an electric shock fatal to humans, but places the device discharging the electricity onto one of the alien perpetrators.

Senses

• Claims he can feel the Earth rotate, though is possibly just being overdramatic.
• Senses the Gelth moving through the walls of a mortuary.
• Tails an elusive girl through smell.
• Claims he can see the past, present and future simultaneously which is too overwhelming for a human mind.

TARDIS

The TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space) is the Doctor's mode of transport as well as his home. By traveling through the Time Vortex, it can materialize to any point in space and time. Though this model is rather old and semi-functioning, it's still a very powerful object in its own right. Oh, and it's also bigger on the inside.
Space Travel & Mobility

• Lands in a secret, highly-secure facility 53 floors underground.
• Lands inside Jack's warship so he can escape its destruction.
• Saves Rose from a hostage situation on the Dalek mothership by materializing around her into the safety of the TARDIS. However, this also brings a Dalek inside that is quickly disposed of.
• Intends to go to Naples in 1860 but ends up in Cardiff in 1869.

Time Travel & Manipulation

• Travels 100 years in the future, then 10,000 and finally 5,000,000,000 years.
• Rose claims she can go on countless journeys and arrive back in 10 seconds, but didn't either because the TARDIS malfunctioned or she just forget.
• Along with twelve of his past and future incarnations, he uses the TARDIS to freeze Gallifrey in time and seal it in a pocket dimension.
• Certain points in time are in flux, meaning somebody's existence in the future does not always ensure that undesirable outcomes will not happen.
• Means to take Rose home 12 hours after her departure, but messes up and takes her 12 months after she left.
• Takes Rose back to witness her father's death, then takes her back again thereby creating two sets of the Doctor and Rose in the same place in time. When Rose prevents her father's demise, the original pair disappear. This violation of time brings upon the Reapers to devour anyone in sight and turns the TARDIS into an empty shell. All of this is reversed when Rose's father follows out his death and lets himself get run over by the same car which had been forced into a perpetual loop by Rose's actions. Though the timeline is restored, miner changes from its first iteration remain.
• Chases a spacecraft to Earth and ends up weeks behind it when they land.
• The Doctor's heroic deeds at one point in time have negatives consequences that he encounters first hand when he ends up in the same place 100 years later.
• The Doctor can't just use the TARDIS to go back in time to avert the current problem.

Navigation

• Tries to locate the Nestene Consciousness by connecting Auton Mickey's decapitated head to the console.
• Marks the flight path of a spaceship from 12 hours ago.
• Gets taken off course by a mysterious signal.

Security & Defenses

• The assembled hordes of Genghis Khan allegedly couldn't get through the TARDIS Door.
• Can fly into the heart of a plasma storm without getting critically damaged.
• Implies that the TARDIS could withstand the explosion of Jack's warship with the doors open or not, comparing it to a draft.
• The Chamelion Circuit allows the TARDIS to change its exterior to blend in with whatever time or place it lands. Because it malfunctioned in the 1960's, the TARDIS has been stuck in the form of a police box ever since.
• The TARDIS is protected by a forcefield capable of withstanding missiles from the Dalek mothership and direct blasts from Dalek rayguns.
• Remotely sends Rose home to keep her out of harm's way and to keep it out of the hands of those who would misuse it.
• Before using a recovery vehicle, Mickey fails to pry open the TARDIS console using a chain hooked to his car.
• The Daleks kidnapped the Doctor and his companions from within the TARDIS using a transmat beam. This beam had to be particularly powerful since a regular one wouldn't be able to breach the TARDIS.

Heart

• The power of the Cardiff Rift forces the Heart of the TARDIS open. When Blon Slitheen looks into it, it connects with her telepathically and reverts her back into an egg so she can live a new, crimeless life.
• After snapping open the console using a recovery vehicle, Rose absorbs the power of the Time Vortex through the Heart of the TARDIS. She then mentally sends the TARDIS back to the future where the Doctor is, having become the legendary Bad Wolf. Rose uses this power to destroy the entire Dalek empire, revive Jack Harkness (and consequently make him immortal) and scatter the words "Bad Wolf" throughout time to form a self-sustaining paradox. However, such power is too much for her mind and body so the Doctor transfers it into his before returning it to the TARDIS.

Console

• Because it's an old model, the Doctor has to sometimes hit the console with a hammer to get things going.
• Plays music.
• Has a scanner capable of viewing the TARDIS' surroundings and local television channels.
• Has a working phone, yet the phone located on the outside is typically non-functional and just for show.
• Plays a holographic message the Doctor prepared for Rose in times of emergency.

Miscellanous Features

• The TARDIS translation circuit allows the Doctor and his companions to understand and speak the local language of wherever they visit.
• Contains a wardrobe full of clothes to help blend in with different time periods.
• The TARDIS key glows when it's about to materialize nearby. It could also summon the TARDIS remotely, even during a temporal disturbance.
• Cancels the Slitheen's galactic advertisement signal.
• Needs to refuel. A few days standing by the Cardiff Rift will do the job.
• Was used by Blon's extrapolator to open up the Rift which could potentially destroy the world.
• Reveals that the disintegrator ray used at the Game Station was actually a transmat beam.

Sonic Screwdriver

The sonic screwdriver is the Doctor's multi-purpose handheld tool. It's mostly used for opening or unlocking doors, but can fulfill a myriad of other functions.
Locks

• Locks a metal door that holds back Auton Mickey for a while.
• Removes a circuit panel.
• Frees the Doctor from futuristic restraints.
• Opens the backstage door to a nightclub.
• Opens a padlock.
• Locks a doorway to keep out a group of gas mask zombies for a few hours.
• Opens handcuffs.
• Can't break Rose out of a jammed door from the future.
• Can't break out of a steel bunker.
• Can't unlock a door with a deadlock seal or smash through exoglass unless an outside force allows it.

Scanning & Tracking

• Ends up in Rose' flat while following a signal for Autons.
• Discovers that the gas mask zombies have identical symptoms by scanning them.
• Gets multiple energy readings from scanning the Game Station.

Manipulating Technology

• Disables an elevator.
• Renders an Auton arm inanimate by cutting off the signal controlling it.
• Hacks into a digital keypad.
• Keeps Platform One's sun filter up even when the system actively fights to make it descend.
• Controls an elevator.
• Hacks into a futuristic ATM to give Adam some digital money in unlimited amounts.
• Hacks into Satelite Five's mainframe.
• Destroys Adam's home phone.
• Transfers the power from a common battery into the TARDIS key.
• Intercepts Blon's teleporter, causing her to keep teleporting in his direction.
• Damages a security camera.
• Activates the TARDIS from the outside.

Physical Alteration

• Removes the bolts on a cat flap.
• Attempts to loosen concrete bars by sending a resonation pattern through them.
• Reconnects severed barbed wire.

Other

• Being sonic, it's not every silent.

Other Equipment

• Carries around a piece of psychic paper that telepathically projects his thoughts into the minds of those who read it, allowing him inflitrate spaces or pose as figures of importance or authority. He has used it to pass himself off as an invited guest to Platform One's Earth destruction party, a member of management at Satelite Five and a member of the Ministry of Astronauts.
• Destroys a department store housing Autons using a homemade explosive.
• Kills the Nestene Consciousness with a vial of anti-plastic.
• Hands Mickey a disc containing a computer virus that would erase all mention of the Doctor on the internet.
• Spies on a building with high-tech binoculars.
• Supervises Blon during her last meal using special armbands from Jack which strike her with 10,000 volts if she goes further than 10 feet away from him.
• Unlike other incarnations, he is more willing to use firearms in desperate situations but may just equip it as an intimidation tactic.

Miscellanous

• Witnessed the Kennedy assassination, the eruption of Krakatoa, the fall of Troy, and World War V. He also pushed boxes for the Boston Tea Party and was on the Titanic when it sunk but not before warning a family not to go.
• MILF magnet.
• Oop North.
• Considered something of a celebrity.
• Santa?
• Makes Daleks back away in fear.

"Fantastic"

Getting Rid of Most of My Flavors, Part 46
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Starting Flavor Count: 2,434 (down from 2,972)
TASK OR TRASH - Each flavor gets assigned at least one task or it goes in the trash.
 

CAPELLA Honeydew Melon

Update. I gave CAP Honeydew Melon one chance to stick around, a recipe called “Melon Blow Pop.” Before trying it, I wondered what made this recipe a "blow pop" considering there aren't any gum flavors, but something about the way these flavors combine does give it a very interesting bubblegum-y aspect in addition to the candy melon and apple. And the candy apple-melon is great. Unfortunately, I also get a slight perfumy-type off note from the recipe. Specifically, a baby scent perfume. You know, whatever it is that makes baby stuff like baby lotion, baby oil, baby powder all have that same baby scent. I hate that, so CAP Honeydew Melon is history. TRASH 1
 

FLAVOUR ART

 
Royal
Accidentally passed over this one last time. I found it to be a kind of warm and spicy tobacco; with a spice note or notes similar to cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger, but not specifically or distinctly any of those. Also found it odd that despite having no menthol taste or cooling it kind of hits me right in the same spot that menthol does.
I purchased this flavor to make Chem Twista Lime - cigarette with a pinch of lime - and will continue to use it for that. TASK 1 But, I can’t find anything else that I want to do with it.
 
Shade
I don’t know what this is, but it’s not tobacco. It tastes like dirty cooked fruit sweetness, like just part of cooked dark berries or stewed prunes, just the sweetness from them and not their distinct aromas, mixed with something earthy and pushing dirty tobacco but not authentically tobacco. But, it does taste like it would be a good ingredient to use in a fruity tobacco, like you would need a tobacco, and a fruit, but this could be a bridge ingredient.
Already plan to mix CBV’s Cherry Oak Tobacco that uses it. Will also try his Southern Lights recipe for a bourbon-vanilla tobacco that uses it TASK 2, and the very solid looking Bob’s Bacco. TASK 3 I just wished the new ATF showed steep times because I’m not sure how long to steep these. Anyone have a guess? Three weeks sound about right?
 
Soho
I don’t consider this tobacco flavor. It’s more like... Dirty Trail Mix, but in the best possible way.
Slightly dirty roasted nut crust? It’s an odd, complex, flavor that’s oddly weak for FA (8% is not unusual for a mix) with something lightly tobacco-ish, kind of toasty, in there somewhere along with a lot of other stuff - some roasted nuttiness, something like a graham cracker-type or pie crust bakery, a bit of caramel or brown-sugar like sweetness but not too sweet, maybe some raisin-y type sweetness as well. Dry, yet smooth. It’s not a rich flavor but it has plenty of dry bakery-like body.
No, I’m not throwing away FA Soho. I need it for 1-2-3 Burley TASK 4 and it’s used in about 10 recipes I’m planning to try.
Adding to that - I can’t wait to try Pistachio Brulee - Soho. It’s a lot of TFA Pistachio and not a lot of FA Soho for a “comforting warm deep dessert tobacco,” but I still think it’s going to be terrific. TASK 5
Will also add Maga for the simplicity - it’s just FA Soho, FLV Mild Tobacco, and FLV Vanilla tobacco. TASK 6
And because I’m feeling brave, Arcanite, a weird-looking recipe that mixes Soho with Meringue, White Peach, and TFA Dragonfruit. TASK 7
 
Sour Wizard
Held off on ever trying this for a long time because I’d already been burnt by too many supposedly sour things to get excited about FA coming out with Sour Wizard. Anyway, it doesn’t really taste sour, not like sour candy tastes sour, not at 2% anyway, but it definitely has a noticeably tart “pop” to it, more so than the others. Very bright. Other sour additives don’t have much fruitiness but this one does have a very slight green apple kind of taste to it. Top heavy with a dead finish but the sour-ish flavor does carry just a little deeper than just being right on top. The usual suspect acids might be the main ingredients, but FA definitely did more than just put malic and/or citric acid in a bottle with PG, and it shows. Unfortunately, I could not find a single recipe using it that I both felt inclined to mix and had all the ingredients to mix. TRASH 2
 
Spearmint
Aka, “White Winter.” Tastes like the disembodied spirit of weak spearmint gum. Not much body or sweetness. No leafy green stuff. Not extra methol-ed up.
I’m pretty sure I would be fine without it but there is just one recipe I want to try first, just to make sure.
Spearing Mint, Creamy Concoction is one. Although FA and TFA Spearmints aren’t the mints I’d choose for the job, I’m really interested in this “slight spearmint note with sweetened heavy cream” profile, and the sweetened heavy cream part looks great. TASK 8
 
Stark Apple
Sweet red apple, fairly accurately tastes like a red delicious apple or apple juice. I think red delicious is actually the least delicious of apples, but if you don’t, or you need that as a component, this offers it. I guess some people say it tastes more like a yellow apple but I always associate those with having more of a “ripe,” kinda sweaty taste. FA Stark Apple is quite sweet, with a deep natural sweetness, not a ton of flavor, but the flavor that’s there is on point. No tartness or crispness - not very fresh tasting. Sweet and timid enough that I would use it to sweeten a mix of other fruits without worrying much about it getting in the way. Not dry, but not really juicy. Very smooth, does not add any throat hit. Some body, with that mild flavor on top and a medium thick sweeter base, not too thin.
I really liked Strap-On Aid when I tried it six years ago, let’s see if I still do. TASK 9
There are a bunch of apple bacco recipes and at least a handful of them use FA Stark Apple. The one that looks most appealing to me is this Starkonja’s Head, mostly because it has serious, grown-up tobaccos in there and not just RY4 Double and Soho. TASK 10
 
Strawberry (Red Touch)
Fairly weak for FA. I call it the astronaut strawberry, not that I’ve ever had one, but it’s what I imagine eating a freeze-dried strawberry would be like. It tastes natural, with that subtle earthy note that brings some realism to the party, but unnaturally dry. Not juicy at all. Top notes are mild, slightly tart, and the finish is weak but there’s a solid middle that tastes like a semi-sweet ripe strawberry only without any juice. It’s not the best standalone strawberry by far, but it is a great tool. Seems to work really well as part of a strawberry layer to make sweet candy strawberries taste more natural and fill out the middle more, despite not working so well by itself. Cranking it up too high that earthy note starts to get a little grassy, like freeze-drying that strawberry leaves and all.
No, I do not agree with those who say it smells like farts, and no, I’m not throwing away part of the original Strap-On and many of the Strap-On variants. t’s in more than half a dozen things on my to-mix list.
I also need it for Lychee Blossom, which is a fantastic lychee recipe that I love. TASK 11
And I want to try Strawberry Whirl which is described as “layered strawberry jam, light fluffy cream on a whirl cookie.” It had me at OoO Strawberry Jam. TASK 12
StrawMelon Melee because I love cantaloupe and strawberry together and this looks like a great new cantaloupe-strawberry mix. TASK 13
Custard’s Last Stand because I’m very interested in how that WF Sugar Cone fits in there. TASK 14
Daveberry Cheesecake because it’s named after me! TASK 15
Yuno because it looks like a great strawberry milk and I’m really interested in the combination of WF Macadamia Nut and OoO Cream Milky Undertone it uses. TASK 16
 
Strawberry Green
That’s what it tastes like, underripe strawberry. Very green like you can taste the chlorophyll, and pretty tart, but very clearly a strawberry, and has some syrupy sweetness. It tastes like a small amount of it could do amazing things with other strawberries, like making them taste brighter and more refreshing, maybe making a flat sweet candyish strawberry taste more like the real thing.
Pretty excited to try things with this one, already have a couple planned. Mike’s Peach, Strawberry and Vanilla looks like a winner, too. I’m really interested in the combination of WF Strawberry Gummy Candy and FA Strawberry Green for the strawberry and even more interested in the combination of FA Peach White and SSA Nectarines for the peach. TASK 17
 
Summer Clouds
I’m not sure who started calling it FA Dryer Sheets, but I can confirm that is an accurate description. It’s supposed to be peach and rose, it think, but I get a hint of peach and a whole lot of dryer sheets. TRASH 3
 
Tiramisu
There’s a really nice ladyfinger cookie buried in here, and accurate cocoa notes, but unfortunately nothing resembling mascarpone flavor or richness, and even more unfortunately, it’s all soaked in, not liqueur-spiked espresso like it’s supposed to be, but booze-free coffee brewed by a skunk who had recently sprayed skunk spray and burned some popcorn in the same kitchen where he made the coffee. TRASH 4
 
Torrone
As best I can tell it’s actually accurate to a certain type of Italian nougat that contains lemon zest, almonds, pistachios, vanilla, sugar, honey, and egg whites. I’ve never had that, but it pretty much tastes like what I imagine all of that stuff mixed together might taste like. It’s sweet and creamy and nutty and lemony all at the same time. I’m not personally a huge fan of this mostly because the lemon feels weird in there and it seems a bit busy, for a single flavor, but it’s not terrible. It’s a little on the thin side, but just a little; there’s still enough body there to pull off a sugary creamy texture. The nuts aren’t distinctly almondy or pistachio tasting and more of a generic nuttiness.
Need it for Stag Night, also interested in trying The Key To Happiness, described as “a nice piece of store bought key lime pie like you find in the freezer section of your local grocery store. TASK 18
 
Up
This one is so odd. It’s coffee, cream, and... cereal? I don’t know why there’s a bakery flavor in there. It’s coffee forward and that coffee is not terrible, it’s kind of burnt but not dark, like a light roast coffee that’s been on a warmer too long or at too high a temp. There’s a little milky cream that makes an appearance and then there’s some bakery that is, for whatever reason, supposed to be a cereal. I guess it’s cereal? It’s kinda dry and gritty, almost graham cracker like. It finishes on that note and I’m not sure what you’re supposed do with that other than use this to add a coffee note to a bakery recipe, or get really creative. No skunk spray or burnt popcorn or anything like that, so above average for a coffee flavor, but also nothing I want to mix that uses it. TRASH 5
 
Vanilla Bourbon
Thin, natural-ish and darker but not quite spicy vanilla. Really very plain to my taste, Rick calls it warm and a little floral. I’m not getting any warmth or floralness, it tastes more like an attempt at vanilla bean that doesn’t quite get there but is more of a bold natural vanilla than a lot of other offerings. There's a richness or depth to the vanilla flavor, but not to the concentrate itself, it’s actually rather thin, it will most likely will not add the perception of creaminess or thickness that many vanilla flavors do.
Three or four things I’ve planned to mix use it. Here’s two more: Premium Vanilla Custard - obvious from looking at it that it’s going to be delicious. I see you, OoO Marshmallow. TASK 19
And Shunsui Kyoraku. I’m scared of the WF Egg Yolk in there, but not too scared to give it a try. TASK 20
 
Vanilla Cookie
tTis is a very vanilla cookie. Loads of baked in kinda bright but not overly bright vanilla taste. Also, pretty buttery. There’s a nice cookie there in the middle of that butter and vanilla. Without steeping, the cookie is just a little too sharp (nutty, overcooked, pyrazine) for my taste, but it vapes smooth overall with all that vanilla and butter. If it had just a little less pyrazine sharp overcooked nuttiness (and I’m told it does have less of that with a longer steep than the five or six days I gave it before sampling 2.5%), it could get fairly close to a Golden Oreo type of thing.
I already have at least 10 recipes I’m going to make that use it, but also:
3 2 1 Stroopwaffel I don’t know how accurate that will be, but I love VT Honeycomb and looking forward to seeing how SSA Crisp Waffle and FA Vanilla Cookie mix with it. TASK 21
And Makoto Shishio, because I love the idea of an “oreo waffle with cream filling." TASK 22
 
Vanilla Ice Cream
Milky, plain base, not custardy at all - more like gelato. Darker vanilla. I don’t love it, simply as a matter of personal preference and liking a richer style of ice cream, but there’s nothing wrong with it. I’ve got at least recipes in line that use it, and here’s one more that stood out: Lemon Gelato. Looks refreshing and satisfying. TASK 23
 
Vanilla Tahity
This is every bit as much an almond flavor as a vanilla flavor, I get more almond than vanilla. It even has a bit of a cherry-ish note to it the way some almond flavors do. It’s like sweet almond-vanilla-cherry, or amaretto and marzipan. It’s a bit dry, but there’s fluffy marshmallow-like body to it, and it’s not dry enough to be unpleasant. I actually kind of enjoy vaping this as a single flavor. The hint of cherry is similar to the hint of cherry in amaretto, not a medicinal plastic cherry. The vanilla is very bright and artificial, like the vanilla in a vanilla coke, not a coke with vanilla syrup added like at a soda shop or Sonic, but just the vanilla from a can of vanilla coke.
Already planning to keep it long enough to mix one custard recipe that uses it, now I have two more things to try:
This recipe for Vanilla Crescent Cookies looks wonderful. TASK 24
And I’m really interested in the combination of VT Creaming Soda and WF Cotton Candy Jelly Bean in this Blue Balls recipe for blue raz and vanilla hard candy, even if I think FA Vanilla Tahity was probably not the best vanilla for the job. TASK 25
 
Vienna Cream
Absolutely requires a steep, not just to come into itself, but to not be disgusting. It’s weird how much better this gets after steeping for just about 4 days. Freshly mixed, it tastes like someone tried to make spiked eggnog and substituted nail polish remover for rum. After a short steep, it tastes like a very sweet, light dairy cream, on the thin side of creams but still very much a cream. with a bit of bright vanilla and an interesting sort of ice cream-like crispness to it. Very smooth, clean tasting. Have found it sometimes works when other creams don’t, just takes a little patience.
I need it for four of my all-time favorite recipes, Mango Beauregarde, Notorious, Vurve’s Vanilla Almond Milk, and Vanilla Cronut.
Gotta try The Worlds End, too. It looks like too much TFA DX PB for the profile - banana nut bread with chocolate sauce - but looks delicious, regardless. TASK 26
 
New Flavor Count: 2,429
 
Just a short one this time, to get back in the groove. I went on vacation, brought COVID back as a souvenir, and have had a bunch of work to catch up on because of all that. Will finish off the Flavour Art next week.

With summer heat raging already, living in a car can s#ck. Ive lived in my car a few times, and may be again next week. Anywhoo.. here are some things Ive learned that I hope will help anyone in that situation. Feel free to add more.
--- Keep a pee bottle. Nothing is worse than having to hold it or get up and find a bathroom in the middle of the night. Often times its not possible to park where you can 'use the bushes'. I use a plastic water bottle like for atheletes, cheap at thrift stores, and they seal well. Also the opening is large enough to..
----Always park in the shade when you can. The cooler you keep your car the faster it cools off at night. Sleeping in a hot car is all but impossible.
---Look for places to park that are on grass or dirt. Parking on concrete / pavement is like parking on a frying pan. The heat radiates all night. This is a hard one but not impossible, and the difference is life changing.
---Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot and others do not mind if you park there overnight. Certain stores do not allow it, but most of them do. I park in the employee area, but also away from other cars so as not to be noticed. Cracker Barrel also is cool with car campers but it can be hard to 'blend in' there. I have slept at them but its a last resort.
---Use black cloth or w/e you can to block the windows,especially the back ones. You do not want to be seen. You are doing nothing wrong but you do not want to be caught sleeping in your car anywhere in this day and age. Its a safety issue, not just criminals but cops. the cops will harass you and in some places arrest you for vagrancy.
---Spend as much as you can afford to keep your car in shape. Tires, oil changes, basic maintenance. Used tire stores can be a god send. If your car breaks down ( as my honda odyssey van recently did) it can be a terrible situation.
---charge your devices every chance you get. Even if your car has a plug, it is a bad idea to rely on that to power your phone all the time.
--If you can, get a piece of plywood for the back seat ( for non-van car dwellers). Car seats are hard to sleep on. You can get around that by having a piece of plywood cut at Lowe's that will fit on top of the back seat. Measure the width and length that is the biggest you can fit in there. You will probly have to have a couple pieces of wood or w/e to level it out, secure it, but it doesnt have to be a major construction job. as long as its flat and doesnt tip, now you have a better place to sleep. A foam pad on top and your quality of sleep and life just increased.
--If you are in a secure area ( as much as possible) leave the windows cracked slightly. In the winter this helps reduce condensation on the windows. Cops and Criminals both know that fogged up windows mean someone is inside.
--Multi story Parking decks are great places to park. They stay cooler as the sun doesnt heat the pavement. Casinos and hospitals can be good for this. Municipal/private parking garages can be a cheap alternative to having to rent a motel to get out of the heat. Even in downtown Atlanta, you can find 24 hour parking for less than 15 bucks.
---Baby Wipes. Unscented. Enough said.
--Truck stops can be dicey, but you can always sleep there and shower if you have an extra 15-20 bux to spend. if not see above.
Sorry for writing a book. Please add your own ideas, I would love to hear them.

So yeah, second part. I forgot to say the page count last time of this chapter last time, so I'll say it now. Chapter four is about fifty pages long, so it fits the bill when it comes to these things. Not much else to say, so enjoy.
​
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* * *
Jacob pondered.
On what exactly? Oh fine, I’ll tell you.
Jacob had just received what was, hopefully, a relatively unfiltered version of the recent events and situation on the planet. After about an hour of explanation, A had finished on the arrival of the disassembly drones, and the subsequent widespread assault on the worker drones. When Jacob had asked for the specific story of A’s squad, A had skirted around it, only lightly touching upon the subject. It was slightly suspicious, but Jacob didn’t plan on doing anything about it.
However, if it was the truth, it only raised more questions than answers. The fact that a company was willing to exterminate the entirety of what was probably a massive investment was just baffling. Jacob could only come up with two explanations, one of which was rather worrying to think about. The first was that of changing times; perhaps the company was so rich, and technology so advanced, that the worker drones could be replaced with the ease of buying another shipload of tissues. If you threw away an entire box of tissues, it would be annoying to say the least, but it wouldn’t cost a lot to just get another one.
But, it just didn’t make sense to Jacob that that would be the case. The United States military in the time of Jacob had heaps, thousands of missiles, and could afford to replace them as they were used. But if they all disappeared at once? It would take lots of time, money, and effort to replace each and every single last one of the lost payloads, and not to mention the logistical nightmare it would be.
So, that led Jacob to his other solution, one that insinuated a scenario far more confusing and sinister. If the company decided to just annihilate every worker drone, which is a very radical and illogical decision by a galaxy-spanning megacorporation, then it would line up with certain other decisions made by other people in the past.
During the Second World War, the U.S. government was fearful of a potential Japanese invasion. They believed that, if they did land boots on American soil, that the Japanese-Americans would rise up, taking the side of the invaders. And so, Roosevelt made the Executive Order 9066, ordering over one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese-Americans to be interned in concentration camps, where they would remain until near the end of the war.
This was an apt example for how even the most level-headed of individuals could make bad decisions under the influence of fear. If Jacob assumed that the same was true for this day and age, then perhaps the administration at the company had sent machines to kill the entire worker drone populace due some or maybe even all of them being much more dangerous than what was being let on. It was a bit far-fetched, but was the one of the only viable solutions at the moment, aside from his theory that nothing was real and they were all figments of the imagination of a being so complex they were nothing but fiction to it, but the chances of that were little to none.
Right?
Jacob’s pondering was interrupted by someone waving their hand in front of his face.
“Ugh, hello?” A snapped his fingers twice. “You there?”
Jacob blinked, refocusing on his present company. “Uh yeah, just processing.”
A scoffed. “Processing what? I thought humans were superior or something?”
Jacob smacked A’s hand out of his face. “Me too.”
A raised an LED eyebrow.
“Doesn’t matter.” Jacob waved hand in a dismissive way. “What now?”
“I dunno. That's all I had.” A shrugged.
“Nothing else you’re hiding?” Jacob questioned.
“No. There isn’t.” A glared at Jacob. “Now drop it.”
Jacob held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, jeez man, calm down. I just don’t wanna be bored for however long I’m stuck here.”
“Yeah well, that's not really my problem.” A stated.
Jacob didn’t reply, only sighing, before standing and getting up out of his seat.
A startled. “Wait, where are you going?”
“Out.” Jacob simply replied.
“Why?” A inquired.
Jacob shrugged. “Bored.”
A got to his feet as well. “Fine then. I guess I’m going as well.”
“You’re coming with?” Jacob asked incredulously.
“Yeah. I can’t have you running off and getting yourself killed.” A reasoned.
“They kept saying that too.” Jacob grumbled.
“Who said that?” A tilted his head.
“K and X.” Jacob answered. “Also, why don’t y’all have normal names? Why just letters?”
“I dunno.” A non-committedly replied.
“Huh.” Jacob took that as a cue to leave, turning to the ladder.
A followed closely behind, waiting until Jacob had gone through the small exit to ascend himself.
Jacob didn’t bother to use the ladder on the way down, buckling his knees and dropping the last few feet, hearing the snow crunch beneath him. He had been prepared to absorb the impact, but it seemed like whatever advanced mechanics his suit possessed had done the job all by itself, which was pretty nice. He made a mental note to test out the capabilities later on, just to get a general sense of the limits and what would be a danger to him.
Jacob heard a similar crunching noise behind him, causing him to look backwards, seeing A just awkwardly standing there.
“Just gonna follow me? Really?” Jacob was slightly annoyed.
“Yeah. I’ve gotta keep you safe until someone else takes you off my hands, or else I’ll-” A cut himself off.
Jacob took note of that, inferring what he might have been about to say. It only served to confirm his notion that he was sort of a VIP on the planet. He was to be protected at all costs, which was pretty nice for Jacob.
“So, you gonna do anything?” A asked.
* * *
The sound of snow crunching filled the empty room as the pair walked into it.
“Can we go back already?” X complained.
“No, and be quiet.” K scolded him. “It’s too echoey in this room, it’s annoying.”
X scoffed. “Pff, it’s fine. Nobody’s around for miles, we’re all good. Now when can we go back?”
K rolled her eyes. “We can go back when we find something, You heard what he said.”
“What who said?” X inquired.
“You idiot, our squad leader!? Our boss that we’ve spent who knows how long with!?” K cried out.
“Calm down, just messing around.” X leaned against the wall.
“Whatever, you know what A said. We can’t come back until we’ve found water.” K reminded X.
“Why do we even need it? I’m sure he’ll be fine.” X waved off the issue.
“He’ll die.” K deadpanned.
“He can walk it off.” X waved off the issue again.
“I don’t care, just get off the wall, we’ve gotta search every building.” K gestured for X to follow.
“How can we even find anything in here? Everywhere else we’ve checked has been empty.” X took his place next to K.
“You never know, now get to it.” K kicked over a rock, exposing a small marble.
X trotted over to a dented metal counter on one side of the room, peering underneath it.
“Nothing here, this is useless.” X whined.
“Shut up.” K called out.
X surprisingly obliged, kneeling down and searching the small cabinets that were connected to the counter. After finding nothing but a small skeleton huddled inside one of them, X sighed heavily, before making his way over to a large metal box. It might’ve been taller than him if it wasn’t tipped over on its side, with an assortment of power cords snaking out from an outlet on the back of it. Seeing a small handle on the front, X tugged on it, the slight rust giving way to superior strength.
However, X’s eyes went wide with shock, which changed to glee.
“Hey, look what I’ve found!” X called out to K.
K’s head whipped up, staring at the prize that X was brandishing. “You found- what is that?”
If the two had any idea what warm food was, they would’ve recognized the lumpy frozen good that X had in his hands as a perfectly preserved rotisserie chicken. If they had any sort of reheating device, and if they had proper taste buds, they might have been able to enjoy the sweet experience of a Thanksgiving dinner. However, they were ignorant robots who were about as smart as a middle schooler, so the only reaction that they, or at least one of them had, was confusion.
“I dunno, but it says chicken on the side!” X proudly exclaimed.
“What’s chicken?” K questioned.
“I’m . . . not sure . . . but I’m pretty sure it's food.” X’s LED eyebrows furrowed in thought.
“How do you know that?” K asked.
“Uh, I don't?” X seemed more confused than ecstatic now.
K shook her head. “Did you find anything useful?”
“Well I found this clear thing, but it only says something called ‘Dasani’ on the side.” X held up a clear plastic bottle, putting his finger in quotation marks when he said it.
“Give me that!” K dashed across the room, snatching the item out of X’s hands.
“Wha- hey!” X tried to grab at it, but K held it out of his reach.
“Back up!” K swatted X in the face, inciting a squawk of surprise.
“I found it first, give it back!” X shot back, tackling K, causing the bottle to roll across the ground.
The two began slugging at each other, scrabbling across the ground for dominance over a goddamn bottle, like a gang of the aforementioned middle schoolers. Nearly crushing the contested item multiple times, the two spent a good thirty seconds duking it out. And after K finally managed to curl into a ball around the bottle, X tried to no avail to recapture his former possession.
“You motherfu-” X was cut off by a noise from the door that led deeper into the building
The two highly professional disassembly drones shot to their feet, their gazes snapping to the origin of the sound. Standing there was a figure, about the same height as K and X, with familiar black plating and armor, kneeling down to grab a small blue marble that was on the floor. It appears as though the idiot had been trying to be sneaky to avoid capturing the attention of the killer robots, which clearly didn’t go as planned.
“Uh, hi.” The drone said after a moment of silence.
Even more silence.
The military drone took that as a cue to scoop up the marble, before dashing out of the room.
K and X instantly took chase, with K pocketing the small bottle for later. The military drone wasn’t quite fast, but it did make use of its head start well. The unnamed drone disappeared behind the corner, with the pair of disassembly drones right on his heels. However, when K turned around the edge, a bullet tore through the air, finding its home in her head. Completely unprepared, she fell to the ground.
X, contrary to what some might do, didn’t stop to assist her, instead just simply vaulting over her body, speeding onward. He was rapidly closing the distance between him and the military drone, when his prey suddenly whipped around with a pistol in its hand. X, unlike his comrade, was prepared for this inevitability, turning to the side and out of the path of the trio of bullets as they flew by him. X followed up on this by diving down onto the hapless drone, trying to skewer it on gleaming metal claws.
The drone didn’t have a chance to fight, but unknown to X, he did have time to press the small panic button on its jawline, or where the jawline would be if it was a human. If anyone on this planet was familiar with standard police or even military practice, they would recognize the small button as the useful yet annoying panic button.
For a bit of context, the panic button is usually represented as a small and easy-to-access device that, when activated, sends out an emergency distress signal that would notify the proper authorities of the panic button’s location and a dire situation. The panic button is common in the military, police personnel, elderly homes, schools, corporate buildings, apartment buildings, and basically everywhere else that isn’t a ghetto.
The drone, however, proved to be much smarter than his predecessors, much to the dismay of X. It dove to the side, dropping down and through a weakened rusty grate. As X’s claws scraped against the wall, the fleeing drone tossed a metal panel that was blocking the way out to his side, before dashing through the door. X jumped down to the lower floor, before continuing his chase.
A flurry of bullets ripped towards him, but X brought his arm up, letting his forearm absorb the projectiles that hit, and most missed. The drone ran down a comically long flight of stairs, taking three steps at a time. The stairs continued downward, eventually opening up to a basement with a gaping hole in the wall, which led straight into darkness. The drone nearly fell into the hole from the momentum of jumping down the stairs. But, it just managed to skid to a stop at the edge.
X landed at the foot of the stairs, crouching to absorb the impact. X’s gaze focused on the drone that was pointing the pistol at X, sights drawing a solid bead on his head. However, when it pulled the trigger, it was only met with a slight clicking sound. The drone gaze jerked down to the pistol, then straight back up to X, who was now diving towards it, claws outstretched.
The drone jumped backwards, losing his balance. Its foot slipped off the edge, and while the sudden space between it and X saved its life for the time being, it did have to contend with gravity, which was now pulling on the drone by a considerable amount.
X watched as the drone tumbled down the pit, hitting the sides. However, the sides of the pit were both sloped and slick with a thin sheet of ice, causing the drone to slide down to the bottom. The drone slammed against a large rusty metal pipe, which was a solid indicator of the pit’s identity as a sewer.
The drone scrambled to its feet, caving the skull in of a skeleton that appeared to have been a former inspector when one took into account the corpse’s clipboard and tattered clothes. X slammed down onto the large pipe, causing it to resonate like a gong. The drone snatched up a small length of rusty metal rebar that had impaled itself on the ground, the edge of the steel surprisingly sharp. The drone adopted a fighting stance, pointing the business end towards X.
The robotic predator didn’t care, however, just simply stabbing his prey with his own pointy stick, the sharp end of his nanite acid tail. The sharp tool stuck itself in the drone’s shoulder, causing it to drop the bar and curse. X took the opportunity to grip the drone by the head, while digging the claws of his other hand in its chest. X then looked into the opaque black visor of the military drone, before pulling in two opposite directions.
The effects were made known quickly, with the head of the military drone migrating away from its home connected to the body. Oil splashed down onto X, who took the opportunity to feed. X dropped the head, letting it hit the ground with a clang, dropping the body as well.
X stood over the fallen corpse, claws gleaming with oil. K landed next to him, retracting her wings.
“So you got it?” K asked.
“No I didn’t, he got away. This body right here is just a random pigeon, and you’re just hallucinating.” X replied sarcastically. “Also, how the hell did you get here so fast?”
K rolled her eyes. “Oh, be quiet. I’m just making sure, because knowing you, you would probably let him go for the funny.” She ignored his latter question.
“Well now that you mention it . . .” X looked sorrowfully at the body.
K punched him in the arm. “Whatever, we gotta go. I seriously doubt that he was alone-”
She was cut off yet again by a loud crash that originated from the hole up on the wall. The duo whipped around, only to see several guns pointed straight at them.
“Sup.” X nodded at the intruders.
* * *
The sound of conversation could be audibly heard from the lit tent.
The tent had been designated as the de facto headquarters for the former facility personnel, with a smaller offshoot serving as a meeting room for the leadership. The offshoot tent in question was currently being used for its purpose, with an emergency meeting being called. Not because of the discovery of a dead body, but for a different matter entirely.
“Can anyone at least tell me how this happened?” The Lead Engineer leaned on the table.
One of the data officers stepped forward. “We believe that when we were evacuating the facility, an error occurred that declassified the file.” They answered.
“An error did this.” The General wasn’t convinced.
“Well, yes. The computers had been degrading for a while now, and we had noticed that several of our autonomous programs were misbehaving, or just outright not working at all.” The data officer replied.
“And we did nothing about this?” The General glared at the trio of data officers that had joined them.
“We actually were doing all we could, but we didn’t have the materials to make a complete fix.” The Lead Engineer interjected.
“Why didn’t you tell me then!?” The General exclaimed.
“I did. You probably just forgot again.” The Lead Engineer suggested.
“What? I have the best memory here.” The General puffed out his chest proudly.
“Alright then, what were we just talking about?” The Lead Engineer inquired.
The General frowned. “We were talking?”
The Lead Engineer facepalmed. “Goddamn idiot.”
One of the data officers stepped up. “Uh, sir? There is still the matter of the ones who discovered the information.”
“Oh yeah, uh, dump them off the eastern bridge.” The Lead Engineer waved off the issue.
With a simple nod, the data officers left, accompanied by a few guards as well. The Lead Engineer sat back in his chair, before steepling his fingers on the desk. He looked back and forth between the assembled leadership, before the General spoke up.
“So, are we gonna continue or what?” He crossed his arms.
“Yes, sorry.” The Lead Engineer motioned to one of his ministers. “You take the lead, Kane.”
Kane got up, walking to the front of the tent, dragging a projector on a cart with him. When he arrived, he pulled down the white screen, securing the hook on a latch on the bottom. He then adjusted the cart, facing the lens towards the screen. He then attached a laptop to the projector, pressing a few buttons and fiddling with a few switches, cursing once. Finally, the projector flickered to life, shining an image onto the screen.
Kane cleared his throat. “Ahem, so. What you are seeing here is the first page of the document in question. As you can see here, it appears to be warning against a drone viewing whatever the contents of this file is.” Kane flicked to the next slide. “It continues to vehemently express this multiple times, not really differing in its warning at all.”
One of the military ministers, Alicia, raised her hand. “Uh, question?”
Kane paused. “What is it?”
“Its warning against drones? She asked.
“Yes, it is. I’ll explain this later on, so save your questions for the end please.” Kane looked back to the projection, skipping through the slides until he landed on the first one without a warning.
“Ah, here we go. So, as you can see here, this appears to be a logo for JCJenson-'' Kane was interrupted by a faint, “In Spaaaaacee!” from an unknown source. “Uh, anyway, as all of you know, JCJenson was the company that owned this planet, and the one that provided the drones that the government were using in their facility, which was us.” Kane flicked to the next slide.
“Here we can see a title for a project, along with several bits of accompanying information, like locations, associates, page number, references, you get the picture.” Kane then produced a long ruler from what seemed like thin air, before pointing the end at one of the words. “Pay attention to this one here ‘AbsoSolv’ as it’ll come up several times later on.” Going to the next slide, Kane cleared his throat yet again.
“This page is more confusing, as it appears to be mentioning several unit serial numbers that don’t match up with standard format, which are mixed in with several other ones that are in different format, like this one here,” Kane pointed his stick at a random one from the line. “This one says, S-010011X01, which I believe has a main identifying letter instead of a string of numbers based on time of construction.”
“Additionally, while some of these feature the normal serial numbers that worker drones use, they have another identifier after it, separated by a dash.” Kane flipped to the next slide.
“This one is more straightforward, as it appears to be featuring a set of technical designs of a modified worker drone with the serial number and other associated information listed at the top. The notes on the side are observations on the modifications that can be seen in the designs. Some of the original worker drone parts can be seen, but a majority of the inner and outer mass seem to have been altered or replaced with a substance that is described as ‘fleshy’. You can see at the very bottom a signature of an unknown human administrator, and a notice that marks the drone for ‘disassembly’ as an addendum can be seen that marks whatever this is as a failure, and a recommendation to request more data from their source.”
Kane took a breath, before going to the next slide. “This is essentially the same as the last one, and this continues for a few slides. Nothing of note can be found in them, save for a few different serial numbers that were listed in one of the prior slides.”
Kane flicked to the next slide. “This one has two addendums, which I will say in a moment. The image is different as well, with noticeably less random mutations and more of a form taking place. This one was supposedly much more successful than the others, and while it was still marked as a failure, the first addendum said that the team working on the project should strip the data from the drone in as best a condition as they could. The second one simply noted they were naming the specific strain of code they were using to ‘Absolute Solver’. The addendum does not mention any reason or motive behind the name, only noting the fact that their shareholders would be pleased.”
“The next one is the first apparent success in the line of experiments that JCJenson seemed to be doing. A single growth can be seen protruding from the back of the spinal transmitter, and several other growths have sprouted inside. However, it is noted that the drone survived the process, and remained somewhat coherent for a period of time afterwards, which seems to be an outlier when considering the others. There isn’t an addendum on this one, only a request from the team for more extensive data from their source to compare to this experiment.”
“This trend continues for a good while, so I’ll just summarize the important bits for all of you.” Kane stated. “Each version continued to show more and more productive attributes and traits, as is par the standard course. Throughout the notes, requests, and addendums, whoever was typing up the document repeatedly noted some things that I will review later, such as Absolute Solver, the ‘source’, Camp 98.7, Cabin Fever Labs, and disassembly drones.”
Kane flicked to the final slide. “This is the final page, with some items to note. It appears to be a reiteration of the specifics of the agreement between the government and JCJenson, with a few additional key things. It includes the standard formalities and the usual junk that we all know, but something else as well. When mentioning the exchange of data that came from the asset-” Kane paused as the room underwent an uncomfortable shuffle in their seats. “They mention a clear correlation between this project that JCJenson is, or was, working on, and the asset. They also instructed the government contacts that any unauthorized personnel, which included government agents, were now barred from entering Camp 98.7 due to ‘hazardous environmental conditions’ and that this was nonnegotiable.”
Kane turned away from the projector, clasping his hands in front of himself. “And now to explain.”
“From what me and the team I assigned could gather, we deduced the meanings and purposes behind several items that were mentioned in this file. The first and most obvious, the ‘source’ that is mentioned. They are receiving data from this source, which seems to be essential to the development of what they were working on. Based on their words, we figured that the source is likely the asset, and yes, the same asset that we are all familiar with.” Kane paused, seemingly to let his words sink in.
“Continuing on, we began to dissect what Camp 98.7 was. It was very clearly a location of sorts, but where it was and what it was used for was more complicated. While we never arrived at a solid conclusion, we believed that the most likely avenue was that Camp 98.7 might have been an outpost of sorts, perhaps used in conjunction with these Cabin Fever Labs.”
“On the matter of the Cabin Fever Labs, we can clearly assume that research and development of this Absolute Solver was being conducted there, and perhaps Camp 98.7 was a sort of staging ground or other type of location related to the lab. We believe that the location of one or both of these sites are hidden within another file.”
“And perhaps the most intriguing and complex matter of them all, Absolute Solver. We figured that it was likely that this Absolute Solver was instrumental in whatever experiments they were doing, or even being one of the subjects of the experiments themselves. From what we gather, Absolute Solver is something, maybe a piece of alien machinery, some sort of unknown lifeform, an experimental strain of cutting-edge code, one of those things, but whatever it is, it is not something that is ‘normal’. It appears to have a unique effect on those it hosts or comes into contact with, rapidly generating new organic material, with sometimes uncontrolled effects. While the file only shows the experiments that used drones, we don’t know if any humans or other organic lifeforms were included either. Likely not, considering the legality of the situation, but it's open to discussion.”
Kane took a large breath, before continuing.
“And finally, the disassembly drones. They seem simple, but my team believed it to be heavily related to our current situation. They aren’t mentioned very often, but they appear to be a direct result of their experiments or related to one. From what we could gather, they are meant to, well, disassemble. Drones on par with military-grade ones that are capable of a variety of things, like bullet fire, rocket launching, melee combat, flight, digital warfare, and regeneration.” Kane watched as his words dawned upon his audience, expressions filling with shock.
“Yes, those drones. The disassembly drones that we read about are likely some variant of the unknown assailants that attacked the facility, and stole the asset in the process.”
The General sputtered. “B-but that would be a severe political incident! If those drones were under the command of JCJenson, and they stole GOVERNMENT property, then they would be liable for retaliation!”
Kane tried to calm the room. “Now, hold on, I’m not done-”
The Lead Engineer also appeared to be shocked. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier!?”
“You told me to wait for the meeting!” Kane exclaimed.
The room erupted into disarray.
“We need to mobilize, hunt down those damn traitors!”
“What's their last known location!?”
“Where is the nearest transmitter, send out a request for retaliatory action!”
Suddenly, a drone burst into the room, knocking over the projector cart in the process. Everyone turned to look at him, ceasing the chaos for a moment.
“Er, uh, sirs?” The drone asked.
“Yes?” The General and the Lead Engineer stood up at the same time.
“I, uh,” The drone looked back and forth between the two administrators. “Well, we received a panic signal from one of our scouts.”
The General scoffed. “Why would that be enough to warrant our intervention? He probably just tripped on a conveniently placed banana peel.”
The messenger fidgeted nervously. “Well, his partner reported moments before the signal came in that he heard gunshots.”
The administrative drones shared a collective uneasy look.
“What did you do?” The General asked slowly.
“The officers who received the signal first sent in two of the patrol squads that were nearby at the time.” The messenger answered.
The drones in assembly all either looked down in disappointment or facepalmed.
The General spoke up after a moment. “Send in a squad as fast as you can to their last known location. Only veterans, and outfit them with heavy weaponry and explosive ordnance.” The General paused, before adding an afterthought. “And give them some cutting equipment too.”
The messenger blinked in surprise. “Wait, sir, are you sure-”
“Just tell the officers already!” The General slammed his fist down onto the cheap plastic table, which formed a crack.
The messenger saluted quickly, before dashing out of the room.
The Lead Engineer took a cursory look at the assembled drones, before he sighed.
“We’re screwed.”
* * *
“Are you going back anytime soon?”
Jacob looked back at his unwanted companion.
“No.” He answered simply, before resuming his casual trot.
“We’re getting too far away from the spire, and the sun is coming up in an hour or two. I for one don’t want to get caught out.” A insisted.
“Well I don’t die from a bit of sunlight, so too bad.” Jacob stepped over a tire rim.
“I’m not sure that’s your choice.” A stated.
Jacob paused and looked backward. “Oh, so you’re bossing me around now?”
“Maybe, if you keep on making dumb decisions like this.” A stopped as well.
“Pff, I’ll be fine.” Jacob waved his hand in the air to emphasize his point.
“You won’t last ten minutes.” A dead-panned.
“Nah, I’ll speedrun this stuff, I’ll be off-planet in an hour.” Jacob proudly said.
A shook his head and sighed. “Whatever you say.”
Jacob didn’t answer.
Jacob then looked around. “Wait, where are we? I wasn’t keeping track.”
“And you said that you would- whatever, we’re like, three miles away from the base.” A replied.
“Huh, went that far?” Jacob asked.
A frowned. “Three miles isn’t that far-”
A was interrupted by a rather loud crack that resonated through the landscape.
Jacob blinked. “Uh, ok then-”
Jacob was also interrupted by a trio of cracks and bangs, sounding slightly familiar.
“Are those-” Jacob was, yet again, interrupted by even more bangs.
“-gunshots?” He finished.
“I wouldn’t worry, those idiots are probably either messing around, or they found a worker drone to kill.” A nonchalantly answered.
“Shouldn’t we go check it out though?” Jacob inquired.
“It isn’t a problem.” A said, annoyed.
“Well it would give me something to do.” Jacob insisted.
A checked the time, before looking at the horizon for signs of sunlight.
“Eh, fine. Wouldn’t hurt, I guess.” A shrugged.
“Nice.” Jacob grinned underneath his ballistic visor.
* * *
K sliced through the head of the last desperate drone, before spitting out a bullet.
“You done?” K called out to X.
“Yeah, I guess. By the way, do you still have my Dasani thing?” X looked at K hopefully.
“Yes, I do. And besides, it isn’t yours, it's for Jacob.” K answered.
“What? Why is he getting it? Why not me?” X exclaimed.
“Because it's water, idiot. An uncontaminated source, like A told us, remember?” K glared at X.
“I guess, but that's water?” X asked.
“Yes, it is. It matches the description.” K replied
“Description?” X questioned.
“Yeah, the description. You know what description means, right?” K seemed even more annoyed.
“I know what it means.” X snapped. “But how do you know what water looks like?”
K just shrugged, before turning towards the exit.
“Come on, we gotta get back soon.” She flew upwards, landing on the ledge.
X followed suit, tracing their steps back through the building. X looked back up at the rusty grate that the drone had fallen through, which he now identified as being part of a weirdly placed catwalk. Scanning the environment, X found that the only entrance to the small alcove would be the hole in the catwalk. The basement that the small room was connected to didn’t have an entrance either, only having the gaping hole in the side of the room, which likely wasn't intended. That would mean that a person would have to chop through the sewer wall to get into the basement and adjoining alcove, or jump off the catwalk. Both of those options didn’t make any sort of sense at all. In fact, the catwalk wasn’t even needed, someone could have just removed the entire basement-and-alcove plan entirely, which also removed the necessity for a catwalk. All in all, whoever designed the building was either high off of some crazy drugs, an idiot, or both.
But, none of these thoughts went through X’s head, as he was only thinking about the devastating loss of his cool plastic bottle.
K hefted herself up onto the rusty catwalk, with X following close behind. K went through the doorway, only for a rather eventful event to stop her momentarily.
A rocket screamed through the air, smacking K straight in the chest. The resulting explosion blew X backwards and K apart, with oil splashing onto the ground in the process. With a clatter, X hit the ground, slightly dazed. He looked to his left to see what looked like the arm of K, twitching slightly. X tried to get up, only to fall again, after he put his weight on a hand that wasn’t there.
X, seeing the failure of Operation: GTFU, adjusted his position so that he could get up with his other hand only, which was thankfully still there. Investigating his left arm, he could see that everything down from the elbow had been separated from himself in the blast. He didn’t have time to look for it or go get it, so he simply let the matter go.
Standing up, X stared through the smoke, before diving back down onto the ground when another rocket came streaking past him. It scratched his face, sending small sparks up, before heading down the other hallway. X pointed his own rocket launcher into the fog, before firing off a flurry of shots. He heard explosions, but wasn’t rewarded with screams or grunts of pain. Problematic, to say the least.
X took the opportunity to kick K’s assorted dismembered body parts down into the lower alcove, where she should eventually reassemble herself. She was really taking a beating recently, and she would probably be frustrated about that when X was all done, but that wasn’t his problem-
X nearly met the same fate as K when another rocket flew from the open doorway, the fog starting to clear up. X jumped up and over the RPG, letting it fly into the unexplored depths of the building. He couldn’t do this dance forever, so he made the executive decision to charge into the unknown.
* * *
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Anyway, I'll be posting the next part tomorrow, so hang on tight for the singular person that made it to the end. No need to like, this is purely for my own benefit. See ya.

I'm a college student. This is what my diet (in the food sense, not in the weightloss sense) has looked like the past few weeks:
Breakfast: 1/2 cup oatmeal with chia seeds, 2tbsp that whole nut butter from Costco, 1/2c Greek yogurt, and frozen fruit.
Lunch: 1.5c Homemade fried rice (peas, sesame oil, brown rice, bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, spinach, chicken, egg)
Dinner: Leftover fried rice (usually about 1.5c)
Snacks: 2 string cheese sticks and mandarin orange between meals
I'm pretty sure I hit all food groups with this kind of meal plan. Some days I'll go off the meal plan and consume more fats or more carbs or more protein, trying to figure out what is missing and yet every day I wake up feeling exhausted despite getting 9 hours of sleep per night. Not groggy or tired, but like my body has no energy. The only thing that is providing me with a hint as to what is happening is that I have a heavy sugar craving.
I know the human body does not require added sugar to live so I have been resisting that craving. (I additionally have teeth problems and I know sugar will only make them worse.) The only little extra things that I'll eat during the day are bacon or whole wheat pancakes (with no sugar) or fruit (which has minimal sugar but none added) or an extra serving of my meal prepped food.
I don't know what to do. Is the solution to simply eat more sugar?
Edits: Apologies that my post wasn't very clear. I added values to the "menu". Yes, I'm sure I'm drinking enough water, I drink at least 8 cups of water per day (2 Takeya bottles-full).
I do exercise 1 hour every other day.
I do eat protein (chicken, egg, peas). I've calculated my macros and it comes to:
117g protein, 200g carbs, 85g fat
I was thinking this should be fine by I'm, for some reason, still having issues.
I've been checked for thyroid issues as a teenager a couple years ago and I did not have any but perhaps they developed in the last couple of years.
I've always been very independent. I cooked all my own food from middle school to my senior year of high school (from scratch, not too much processed food). Maybe I wasn't feeding myself properly then but I've only just noticed the issues now that I don't have a school meal plan. I've always loved sugar but I really would not say I had an "addiction". Given that I've been living off this self-made meal plan for nearly a month now, I would think any possible sugar addiction I had would be gone now right?

Hi Minimalists,
After the summer I'll be headed into my junior year of an American University. I've been a minimalist since my freshman or sophomore year of high school so I've been at this for a while. In my years of college so far I've lived in a dorm, an apartment, and at home on a gap semester so I can confidently give others advice. Whether you're starting out in minimalism or wanting to deepen your practice, this is for you. College is a great time to start minimalism because if you're like me, you're moving around a lot.
My University is a 3 hour drive from my house so luckily I was able to use a car to move in and out but I didn't have a car to use which turned out to help my minimalism as it resulted in smaller shopping trips. If I were flying in, it would be a different story and I would have to pack less but I had some room.
Clothing

1. Seasonal clothing: My college town has all four seasons so layering was my friend. Summers and spring I wore pants and shorts with a tank top. I have one pair of denim shorts and pants because really, who needs more? They last many wears and a basic blue or black denim can go with anything. In the fall and winter, I layered the exact same outfits with a jacket. I have a few different jackets which I'm trying to pair down. I have a huge snow jacket which I hate having because it takes up so much space. I was about to get rid of it but we had the craziest winter this past January and February so I'm glad I kept it. Sometimes you don't want to keep things but it will serve its purpose. If it doesn't, get rid of it. When I get clothes, I like to get new clothes, I like for them to have multiple purposes but snow jackets are very specific, however, it's better to be comfortable. Especially if you're walking everywhere which I was doing.
2. Underwear: While I was at my apartment this past spring semester, I realized I never used all my underwear and socks in a week (I do laundry once a week). Since I've moved home for the summer, I put some of each away in a box and used what I had. If I needed more I'd grab some but I think I've figured out the perfect number which is different for everyone. I can't really comment on bras even tho I am a girl but I don't really wear them or if I do, it's a yoga bra and I'll wear it as my shirt.
3. Shoes: If you live somewhere snowy and have a pair of hiking shoes that are water-resistant, they work in snow. I was told they wouldn't work so I bought a pair of Timberlands and barely wore them and wasted $150 on them. Recently, I bought a pair of Chacos chelsea boots. I got the black color so I could wear them to work and they'd look more professional. However, black absorbs heat so my feet always get warm. Once these have run their time I'll get a brown color. I have one pair of tennis shoes that I only wear over summer when I work at summer camps. I'm not a fan of tennis shoes but if you go to the gym or run then have one pair and only get another once they are worn out. I have two pairs of hiking sandals which I can also wear with socks in the chillier weather but I'd like to pair them down to one.
4. "Maybes": You know these clothes, the ones you just cannot seem to donate but don't know why you're keeping onto them (or you do). What I've found is I'll get a bag and put my maybes in those and put them out of sight for a few weeks. If I don't miss them, I have my answer.
5. "Maybes" pt. 2: If you move home during the summers and/or winters, I highly suggest keeping some maybes at home. When you come back, you'll most likely be able to donate it all.
6. Hangers: Only bring with you how many hangers you currently need plus maybe one or two more if you want to be nice to yourself. Once you run out, you cannot buy any more clothes.
7. 1 in 2 out: This has been my philosophy with clothes for quite some time now because clothes are the biggest struggle of mine when it comes to minimalism. Now, whenever I buy an item of clothing, it has to be able to replace at least two items I already have or be something I need but don't have yet (like work clothes).

Bedroom

1. Linen: You only need one pair of sheets, I promise.
2. Desk: I work my best when my desk if clean so all I keep on there is a mason jar with a few pens, my laptop, and a fake plant (I don't like to move around a bunch with real plants and not every place I'm in has a window with a lot of sunlight). I take all my notes digitally so I don't have to worry about physical clutter. I do that with books/textbooks as well. Unless I need to get a physical copy, I always purchase it as an online book.

Bathroom

1. Towels: One towel is all you need, I promise.
2. Toiletries: Scaling down your bathroom routine is a must. I haven't worn makeup since I've become a minimalist and it works for me and I enjoy it but if makeup is a must for you, really think about each step and if you can cut out any. Also, don't keep so many refills on hand, just go buy another when you need it, it really helps with clutter. A few things I have refills on hand. Like my deodorant comes in packs of two and my razor comes with multiple head replacements.
3. Shower: I've decided I'm going to get rid of my bath mat next semester. Why do I need one if I can just dry off in the tub/shower? Really think about what you actually need.
4. Toothbrush: This is something I've just decided to do. I have an electric toothbrush that I've used for years but I'm going to move back to a good old fashioned manual one. The replaceable toothbrush heads are like $15 a piece! Plus, it's bulkier and I always have to keep a normal one on hand when I take a trip.

Kitchen
My roommate and I split the cupboards and drawers but I didn't use half of mine!

1. Pots & pans: Get a good cast iron pan and pot and you'll never need anything else (just be sure you season them right). Maybe get another saucepan if your recipes are more complex but scale down on the complex recipes! (See my next point)
2. Recipes: I love to cook but sometimes the recipe has 10 spices, 8 different veggies, and 10 different topping choices. I'm vegan so that makes some things easier but not much. You can edit recipes. It may take some trial and error but spice it to your liking. You're not going to taste a 1/4 tsp of cumin, I promise. Also, I don't like bell peppers so if a recipe has that, I get rid of it. Finding simpler recipes has really helped my kitchen stay minimal.
3. Food: This is something I'm still trying to work on. I didn't cook much in my dorm but this past semester I didn't have a meal plan and I had a kitchen. I was spending anywhere from $200-400 a month on groceries and unfortunately I left a lot of food to go to waste. MAKE A MEAL PLAN. I love notion and made a recipe book with my favorite recipes. This has helped immensely with food waste. Also, don't get that one super specific thing for one recipe that you're only going to make once. Either skip the recipe or find a substitute. I'll use this example which doesn't apply to me but it's a good example. I love tahini and use it in a lot of things. I can go through a jar of it in 2 months. Others however may never use it but one recipe calls for it. Use another nut butter instead or skip the recipe. Or find more to use it in instead of letting it sit in your fridge and just throwing it out when you move.
4. Plates, utensils, etc.: Do you really need more than 2 plates/bowls/cups? If you have guests, get compostable reusable plates or BYOP. I had 3 of everything but rarely used the 3rd so when I go back, I'm only taking 2 of everything. I wash my dishes as soon as I'm done (or as I go) so it hasn't been a problem for me. Same goes with knives. Do you really need a whole knife block? Just get 1 or 2 quality knives and you'll never need another again.
5. Appliances: Be careful when it comes to appliances because they take up a lot of space when moving. If you drink coffee a lot, get coffee appliances. For me, I love tea so I have a kettle to boil water. I recently got a high speed blender to use as a blender and a food processor and I've loved it. I also recently got an air fryer as a gift. I haven't used it yet but I'm also scared to start haha. I just need to do it once and then I'll be familiar with it. However, if I can use that to replace having to heat up the oven each time, I'll take it. Don't get a toaster oven. You can heat up your bread on a pan on the stove just perfectly and it saves space.
6. Random shit: We all love those fancy shaped bottles and the cool fridge organizers. I had a fancy bottle last semester. Didn't use it once so it is not coming back with me next semester. Those clear plastic fridge organizers are expensiveeee. Do you really need them? Minimalism isn't about having the best organization, it's about being mindful with your stuff. Maybe you find value in those organizers, go for it! But for me personally, they wouldn't add any value to me as I can already organize my fridge pretty well. However, I just bought one of those rotating organizers because the corner of one of my cabinets was getting crowded with spices and oils.

Cleaning

1. Find a good multi-purpose cleaner and it will be a lifesaver!
2. Dryer balls are your best friend.
3. Target's brand Ever Spring has a concentrated laundry detergent and the bottle takes up almost no room and one squirt gets the job done. It's been a lifesaver.
4. Just get a broom. A vacuum takes up a lot of space and is heavy.

Living Room

1. Ngl, I never touched my living room once. I spent no time there. My roommate had some things but if you're not going to hang out there much, don't keep anything in there.

Hope I covered most things and it wasn't too confusing. If you have any other questions, I'd love to answer. If you want links to anything I mentioned please let me know!

Episode 01: Bigger! Badder! Brutal-er!
The scene faded into a shot of the Earth from space, an astronaut banging on a small communications satellite in the foreground with a wrench. The satellite had the letters 'TDRI' scrawled on the front in black.
"We've been to the movies," the voice of Chris McLean began as the satellite seemed to whir into function, lights on either end of it glowing green. "We've been around the world!" Just as the astronaut gave the camera thumbs-up, the satellite suddenly failed with a jolt of electricity and broke apart, the astronaut palming the visor of their helmet. "And this season," Chris said as the camera rapidly began to zoom in towards northern Canada, "we're going right back where it all began," the camera past through layers of cloud to reach a beautiful morning sky, then panned down to an all-too-familiar island, "at Camp Wawanakwa!"
Chris McLean was already standing just off-center on the dock, right by the 'Wawanakwa' sign – both of which looked like they'd gone through some heavy wear and tear. "I'm Chris Mclean," the host formally introduced himself, "and as you can see, things have changed since we've been away." He walked down the dock to where a male red-shirted intern of southeast Asian descent waited with a coconut drink on a platter; the right side of the camp's sign fell down as he passed by, taking out a small piece of the dock.
"And by changed," the host said with a darkly expectant smile, "I mean gotten really, really, dangerous!" He took the coconut drink from the intern. As soon as he did so a giant pink tentacle rose from the lake with a terrifying roar, and slammed down on the dock – Chris calmly sidestepped it, but the intern and a sizable chunk of the end of the dock were smashed into the water. "Good stuff," the host laughed.
"But the rules of the game remain the same," he told the camera, the scene changing to a panning shot of one of the cabin rooms, a cockroach scurrying over the lens. The room itself looked about the same as it had three seasons ago – decrepit and old-fashioned, but boringly so. "A handful of unsuspecting teens will bunk with complete strangers," Chris explained during the pan, the shot cutting to a stained piece of male underwear nailed to a wooden door that promptly opened to reveal the old outhouse confessional within, "air their dirty laundry in our outhouse confessional, and compete in life-threatening challenges all over the island," the camera cut to a long-distance shot of the thousand-foot-high-cliff, zooming in on the gleamingly jagged rocks in the water below it, "and risk being voted off," Chris continued as the shot cut to the clearing, firepit, oil drum, and eleven stump-seats used for Campfire Ceremonies of the past.
"Last one standing wins," the shot cut from the elimination area to a still image of a wheelbarrow overflowing with money, "one, million, DOLLARS!" A short, grand, and victorious tune blared as the shot zoomed in on the prize money.
"Speaking of our cast," Chris said back on the Dock of Shame as a cool rock theme began to play, "here they are now!"
The shot cut to a small but luxurious red-striped yacht where the twenty-four contestants of the past three seasons could be seen more-or-less enjoying themselves. Brick and Courtney were making out on the starboard side while Ella, Ezekiel, and Sadie danced nearby, Eva looking away from them. On the stern deck, Mike, Owen, and Sky were dancing and Izzy was hanging upside down swinging life rings with Noah watching with disinterest. On a higher sternward balcony, Dawn was meditating, Beth was reading a book, and Cody and Harold played with video game handhelds. Shawn dropped down on the group unexpectedly from even higher up, startling all four. And at the bow, Heather leaned coolly against the port-side railing and smiled at the camera, Topher was looking at his reflection in a mirror, Jo and Lightning arm-wrestled on the railing next to them, Amy and Rodney were dancing to music that Duncan was setting up on his boombox, and Lindsay sat on the very foremost point of the railing posing.
Chris waved at the yacht as it approached...and kept on going, the music scratching to a halt instead of the ship. "NOOOO!" Owen hollered in surprise in anguish as the boat sailed off-screen, and Chris laughed.
"No, not them," he told the camera as it zoomed back in on him. "This season, we've got all new players, fighting for the million!" he announced as the music turned tense and grandiose. "And here they come now, for real!"
The shot cut to another yacht approaching, similar to the last one but with its stripes a pale teal instead of red. Several teens could be standing along the bow, port-side, upper deck, and stern, and the camera cut to those at the head of the ship – Molly and Dave.
"Meet Molly," Chris said, the girl noticing the boy next to her feeling scared.
"What’s the matter? We’re just going to compete where the show started," Molly assured the boy.
"Dave," Chris continued, and the boy blinked.
"Yeah, but I didn't know that the island would consist of toxic waste," Dave told the girl before breaking out the hand sanitizer and rubbing his hands and arms with it, causing the indie girl to raise an eyebrow.
The camera panned to the right to show the next two campers in line – Scott and Trent.
"Scott! And, Trent!" Chris continued.
"Why are you carrying a guitar around?" Scott asked Trent, who was happily tuning up his guitar.
"So I can practice my songs at camp," Trent smiled at the grumpy boy.
"Max!" Chris announced next, the pale boy in question suddenly and without warning popping up between Scott and Trent with enough force to knock the two to the sides with startled cries. From the evil smile he was sporting to the pale skin, everything about him radiated villainy.
"These compestants have no idea what awaits them when we arrive," Max said, speaking darkly as a dark tune played in the background. "For I am the definition of pure evil!" Max degenerated into laughter as the camera panned away from him, showing Leshawna and Sammy, the next contestants.
"Leshawna," Chris introduced the large girl witnessing Max's introduction.
"That boy is not right in the head," Leshawna shook her head with disapproval.
"Sammy," Chris introduced the nervous cheerleader.
"He is a bit free-spirited," Sammy said timidly while holding her left arm.
The camera panned right again to show B. He snapped his fingers for the audience.
"B," Chris finally introduced, "and Scarlett," he added, the camera panning further right to show the girl next to B reading a book.
"You seem confident to be here," Scarlett said dryly without taking her eyes off her book. "Do you know about the substance of toxic waste and radiation?" B nodded in agreement, impressing Scarlett. "That's good to know."
"Katie," Chris continued as the scene cut to a spot further down the yacht, showing the girl holding her tablet.
"Just in," Katie waved pleasantly at the camera. "I'm about to be competing for a million dollars, I-"
As she spoke the camera panned away to Anne Maria spraying her hair.
"Anne Maria," Chris introduced.
"Oh yeah!" Anne Maria looked at the camera. "Three more coats oughta do it."
She was interrupted when Katie walked back into the shot. "Not to be rude," she looked at the camera, "but you panned away before I could finish my introduction."
"Sorry, viral," Anne Maria smirked. "The camera just loves me more."
"Geoff," Chris introduced next as he dashed onto the scene, putting himself next to the two girls.
"Okay, girls," Geoff said in what was a chill tone, "let's not get off on the wrong foot. You'll get more camera time after we're all introduced."
Anne Maria proceeded to spray her hair again, the cloud causing Geoff and Katie to cough profusely.
"Sierra," Chris introduced next, the camera panning up to the girl standing on the upper balcony.
She was hurriedly typing into her phone. "I can't wait to step foot on Camp Wawanakwa and talk about it on my blog!" Sierra said, looking around in amazement until a small flock of pigeons flew past and knocked her over the railing with a scream.
"And DJ," Chris finished as Sierra landed next to the fourteenth and final competitor of the season.
DJ looked down as Sierra landed and gasped. "Oh snap! Let me help you up!" DJ quickly bent down and helped Sierra up. "There you go."
"Yup!" Chris said as the shot cut back to him on the Dock of Shame. "It's our roughest, toughest, most explosive season ever!" He took out a remote control, and pressed the large central button with his thumb.
The yacht that the new contestants were sailing in on suddenly exploded, sending all fourteen of them flying and screaming in every direction.
Chris took a casual sip of his coconut drink, then looked at the camera and raised a finger high. "Right here," he said as a faint version of the series' capstone theme played, "on Total! Drama! Revenge of the Island!" The shot jumped outward as the title was said, showing Wawanakwa island in its entirety with a few plumes of smoke in the distance marking where the yacht had exploded.
xxx
(Fade to Opening Theme)
[The sequence begins much as it did three seasons ago, with an open into letterbox format as the camera focuses on the tops of a few distant pine trees. A rusty stage light rotates up and turns on; then the shot changes to a cobwebby spotlight swinging down and turning on as well; then a small security camera popping out of one of several leaky toxic waste barrels; then another camera bursting out of a tree hollow, held by an octopus tentacle and dislodging a few bones; then a pair of fair-skinned arms clapping a film slate in front of the camera which switches to a shot of the island, briefly showing a giant octopus looking out of the lake to the right, then flying forward down the dock and past the buildings, passing under a totem pole that Chris was sitting on and which was being carried by a trio of male interns of mismatched heights.]
Dear Mom and Dad, I'm doin' fine;
[The camera rapidly flies through the trees as the lyrics begin, quickly reaching the top of the thousand-foot-high cliff.]
You guys are on my mind!
[It looks down at the ring of buoys in the water below and dives, immediately cutting to an underwater view as the bubbles disperse to reveal Sammy gagging with several vicious-looking fish watching her hungrily until a claw-like machine grabbed her and pulled her up to the surface.]
You asked me what I wanted to be,
And now I think the answer is plain to see!
[Up in a canoe, B tinkered with the machine, and looked up as it pulled Sammy out of the water and into the sky.]
I wanna be...famous!
[The scene lingers on Sammy in front of the sun for a moment, then quick-pans left to Katie in the middle of the woods posing as she is filming herself; a falling Sammy abruptly hits her on the back and knocks both to the ground. Katie lifts her head to look at the cheerleader, who just smiles bashfully. Geoff runs past them as the camera pans left to Sierra sitting on a tree branch and texting on her phone. Gophers suddenly pop up from the ground and roar, causing Sierra to flee.]
I wanna live close to the sun!
[At the top of a waterfall, Molly and Trent float downriver in a canoe. Trent was playing a song on his guitar, to which Molly was vibing to until she finally spotted the waterfall. Both screamed as they went over the edge.]
Well pack your bags, 'cause I've already won!
[The camera pans down to DJ, balancing a log on his finger. Though he does not see the canoe falling behind him, he does see Molly and Trent as they fall right on top of him, breaking the log he was holding onto and sending all three into the water.]
Everythin' to prove, nothin' in my way;
[Scott is laughing at the three's misfortune, and a monstrous shark with arms and legs bursts out of the outhouse with a toothy grin, making Scott run away.]
I'll get there one day.
[The camera pans to the Mess Lodge, Chef Hatchet's silhouette visible in the window. Zooming in to the room shows him stirring a pot of some greenish slop with a dark grin, and the shot pans over to show Max cackling wickedly until Chef shoves a spoon full of slop into his mouth.]
'Cause I wanna be...famous!
[Another pan to the left reveals Anne Maria spraying her hair. Once she realized she was being recorded, she glared at the camera and sprayed it with her can. The spray cloud moves the scene out of the lodge and into the beach, where Scarlett is calmly reading her book – until a hawk flew right in just to snag it and flew away, much to Scarlett's unamusement.]
(Na-na nanananaa, nanana-nanaa, na-nananananaa)
[The camera pans away from Scarlett and on to Dave applying hand sanitizer. A furry hand taps him on the shoulder, distracting the germaphobe and allowing the arm to snatch away the sanitizer. Dave realizes what's happened, and rushes angrily at the large hairy ape-man now using the hand sanitizer.]
I wanna be! I wanna be! I wanna be famous! (Na-na nanananaa, nanana-nanaa, na-nananananaa)
[The camera pans down to the end of the dock to show Leshawna, blowing a kiss before taking a few steps back. She busts out a few dance moves of her own.]
I wanna be! I wanna be! I wanna be famous! (Na-na nanananaa, nanana-nanaa, na-nananananaa)
[A sudden splash of water comes down on the sista, interrupting her dancing and causing her to send a frown upward – Chris is hovering above him in a jetpack and helmet, holding an empty bucket. He drops the bucket then flies off, the flames from his jetpack taking over the screen. It becomes night as they peter out, and the camera pans down across the stars and treetops and full moon to Anne Maria and Geoff sitting at a campfire together. As they lean towards each other with expectant smiles they are interrupted and separated by Chef Hatchet, wearing a hazmat suit and holding a glowing green marshmallow between them with a pair of heavy tongs.
The shot zooms out to show the rest of the cast looking shocked, whistling the last few notes of the song – Trent, Leshawna, B, Scott, Dave, and Katie on Anne Maria's side; Max, Sammy, Molly, Scarlett, DJ, and Sierra on Geoff's side; and Chris standing next to Chef on Geoff's side as well. The shot continued to zoom out until a signboard was shown marking the presumed entrance to the fire pit; it read 'TOTAL DRAMA REVENGE OF THE ISLAND' in block letters, the third word being the largest and the last word relegated to a board tacked on at the end.]
XXXXX
"AAAAHHH!" Max screamed, the episode fading in to him landing hard on a rock jutting out of the water. "Why must a villainous mastermind suffer like this?" he groaned, pitifully sliding into the water as Anne Maria swam past in the background.
"Chris is so getting a beatdown for this!" Anne Maria said to herself.
Sammy was shown swimming by clinging to a piece of driftwood, then looking to the side at the sound of someone coming up behind her. "Sorry about this!" Trent shouted as he shot past like a torpedo.
The camera followed Trent as he swam past Molly. "There is a thing called open space!" Molly said before continuing her swim.
The shot cut back to Max, now flailing his arms as he struggled not to drown. "Spaz," Scott said as he swam past him.
Max finally sank below the water, but fortunately Scarlett quickly swam over and dived down.
"I pity you, and I also don't want you dead," Scarlett informed as she surfaced, pulling a coughing Max back up with her.
"Get me to land now!" Max demanded.
The camera cut to Geoff. He reached another rock jutting out of the water and pulled himself up onto it. "Okay. How am I gonna get myself to shore?" The party guy then saw a long piece of wood shaped like a surfboard and grabbed it. "I think I know what to do!"
Positioning himself on the rock while laying belly first on the wood, Geoff boosted himself off the rock and rocketed through the water, even managing to get up and maintain himself.
The shot cut to Scarlett helping Max swim to shore, only for a surfing Geoff to unknowingly splash water onto the both of them, causing them to fall under the water.
Leshawna sputtered as she sank and struggled to stay afloat. "I don't think I can stay up for much longer!"
"I'm on it!" DJ and Katie said, appearing out of nowhere and swimming to the girl.
"Oops. You can go first. Sorry if I interrupted," Katie apologized.
"No no. You can go instead. I think it was the other way around," DJ offered.
"Well, I mean, if you insist," Katie chuckled until the hand of Leshawna held onto Katie's head for support, dragging her down.
DJ panicked. "Hang on! I'm coming!" He dived down and got both Leshawna and Katie, the former spitting out water.
"If we weren't in water right now, I'd be tweeting about you saving me," Katie commented.
Confessional: DJ
"So this is my first confessional," DJ opened while looking around the outhouse confessional. "I've watched the first season, and this is where the contestants come in to talk about their feelings or strategy or whatnot."
"We're all newcomers here, so if I see anyone struggling, I'll be there to help them out," he continued with a smile before frowning. "Right after I get used to this island first."
Confessional: Katie
"Hello," Katie said in the next confessional to her tablet. "This is the first time I am in the Total Drama confessional. It's a little disgusting, but that's for another time!" She continued with her perky smile and put her tablet away. "I came onto this show in order to promote my vlogging expertise and gain more followers. I'm a bit of an advice guru, so don't be surprised if I have a solution for some sticky situations." She laughed blissfully. "That was so alliterative!"
Confessionals End
The footage resumed with a rather wet Trent on shore. He looked around, then cheered in victory. "Yes! I'm first!" he cheered. "And my guitar is in one piece-"
His face dropped as he looked to his left, and the camera panned to show Sierra fixing her wet hair.
"How did you get here before us?" Trent asked.
"I practiced swimming back home in case we have a beach episode," Sierra explained happily.
Dave was the next to come to shore, crawling out of the water. "I'm here!" he panted before falling on his face.
Confessional: Dave
Dave squirted hand sanitizer on his hands, and set his pocket-sized bottle aside on the seat, beginning to rub his hands together to spread the cleaning product. "How did I not read my contract fully? I never would've signed up if I had known how unclean the environment was gonna be."
Confessional Ends
B and Max were the next to make it to dry land, the quiet genius dragging the super villain up the beach on his head with the super villain coughing out water.
Confessional: Max
"I do not like yachts, so it was very enjoyable to have it be destroyed," Max grinned. "I just wish it was me who blew the yacht up instead of being on the receiving end like those other fools," he complained briefly.
"I guarantee you, everybody will be frightened by my abnormally large brain and my super advanced hearing. No one has ever, ever been able to sneak up on me!" he declared confidently just as an orange butterfly flew over him. It landed on his head...and with a sickening bone-crunch, Max started to tilt over. "Begone, brutal butterfly!" he cried in pain, falling over onto the seat under the butterfly's weight.
Confessional Ends
The footage cut back to the beach, showing Trent, Sierra, Dave, B, and Max loitering around a large rock further up the beach and revealing that Scott, Scarlett, Anne Maria, Sammy, Molly, Leshawna, Katie, and DJ had all made it to shore as well.
"This is preposterous!" Max ranted, pouring water out of his shoe. "I am not to be treated with disrespect! Chris will rue the day he met Max Mayhem!"
Molly was sitting next to Max and listening without a care. "Is your last name actually Mayhem? If it's not, I'd respect you for creating your own nickname."
Max was about to answer, but a wave and a dramatic riff signaled that another person had washed up.
It was Geoff, who coughed out a small fish.
Confessional: Geoff
"I wiped out for a while," Geoff confessed. "I’m more into parties and having a good time. As long as I get along with everyone and not be harsh, I can last up to the tenth or eleventh episode."
Confessional Ends
"I can't believe we were blown up before we even got on the island," Sammy said, Katie sitting near her. "I've been watching Total Drama for a while, and I can't even tell what's going to happen next," she looked at the girl.
"It's not your fault. None of us can look into the future," Katie told her before looking at her tablet. "Katchy Katie here, and so far, the island is looking pretty bland," she told her viewers.
"Katchy Katie?" Sammy wondered. "What's that about?"
"That's just my vlog name," Katie explained. "I usually record what's going on in my life so I can tell my viewers what to do and not what to do."
"Could you send me a link to your vlog?" Sammy asked the influencer. "It sounds interesting."
Katie gave a slip of paper with her name on it to Sammy. "Here you go. It's best to always keep track of what you see and know on paper so you won't forget in the future."
"Attention, fresh meat!" Chris announced, the shot cutting to a pair of loudspeakers on a tree nearby, then panning down and right to show that all fourteen campers were now waiting around on the rocky beach. "See that trail leading into the forest?" the host continued, the camera following the contestants' gazes right as they looked at where the beach, trees, and rocks met. "Race to the end of the trail," Chris commanded, "and do not disturb the wildlife! That would be bad."
"Does he seriously think that will frighten us?" Scarlett blew him off.
"The tiniest sound can set them off," Chris continued. "Liiike...THIS!" He blew an airhorn over the intercom, forcing all fourteen campers to cover their ears.
The camera panned over to the distant treetops on the left, the airhorn fading in to a loud, terrifying roar that startled a flock of birds to flight. The music became tense as one tree was knocked over, then another closer to the beach. Finally, the cast screamed and fled into the woods.
\
A clock wipe transitioned the footage ahead to an adorable little purplish bird singing on a branch...until a frog-like tongue snapped out of a hollow behind it and dragged the bird into darkness.
The camera panned down to a finish line, just as Geoff and DJ ran past it with the brickhouse in the lead. "Alright! First place!" DJ turned to the party guy. "Don't worry. Second's not that bad."
"I know," Geoff smiled. "I don't get why people are worked up over it though."
It was then that Chris rode up on a red ATV, his usual smile on his face. "Party Time, two steps left. You're on Team A," he directed, Geoff nodding happily and walking a few steps back towards the finish line. "Big Friendly Giant? Move right. You're on Team B," he told DJ, directing him to the right; he complied just as Scott crossed the finish line, skidding to a stop next to Geoff.
"Pit Sniffer," the host told him, "you're on Team A." Molly slid in next. "Free Spirit, Team B," Chris told her.
"Alright then," Molly said with a smile and ran off to the right. B stopped running and came to a halt.
"Silent Treatment, Team A," Chris told him, causing him to give his signature greeting to Geoff and Scott before Trent arrived. "Guitar Hero, Team B," Chris told him.
"Okay!" Trent went to his designated team.
Sammy and Katie arrived next, the nervous cheerleader bending over to catch her breath and the influencer clutching her chest. "Sour Sport. Team A. Perky Influencer. Team B," Chris said.
"I'm not that bad," Sammy mumbled while Katie ran to her team.
"Blogspot, Team A," Chris continued over a shot of Sierra running and stopping at her team. Dave arrived next. "Germ Avoider, Team B."
The camera zoomed out a little ways from Team A just as Leshawna ran up, panting and out of breath.
"Loud and Proud, Team A," Chris said. "Tan in a Can, Team B," Chris continued as Anne Maria arrived, walking rather than running.
"I'm… so… tired!" Max moaned while dragging himself through the floor.
"Maniacal Max, Team A," Chris directed. As Max joined his teammates they all looked back towards the finish line, with Scarlett simply walking to the finish.
"Aaand Quiet Genius, Team B," Chris finished with a smile.
"What was that thing in the forest?" Sierra said, trudging past her teammates.
"I'm pretty sure that cry does not sound like any normal animal," Trent added.
"Relax, it'll all make sense eventually," Chris explained, his impish smile quickly degenerating into long, evil laughter that caused the two teams to stare at him and look at each other in awkward, nervous confusion.
Chris finally stopped laughing, and wiped a tear from his eye. "Now, this season of Total Drama will be a little bit different," he explained. "For example, in every episode, someone will be eliminated."
The campers gasped, and an ominous chant played in the background. "It's never been that hard before," Sammy remarked in shock.
"I know," Chris told her with a smug grin, "I'm good. But since you're all first-timers, I'm gonna cut you a break and hide this bad boy somewhere in the campgrounds." He held up what appeared to be a small wooden carving of his head, and the shot cut in for a close-up. "A genu-ine McLean Brand Chris Head! Your free ticket back into the game!" The small carving was shown against a radiant white and blue background, an angelic chorus playing as images of Chef Hatchet dressed in a lavender leotard and tutu, angel wings, and a halo flew into the corners of the screen while holding harps and singing.
"Even if your teammates vote you off," he added as B and Geoff were shown staring with wide eyes. "Whoever finds it," Chris continued over a shot of DJ, Dave, Scarlett, and Molly also watching with wide eyes, "will become the most powerful player in Total Drama history!" Both Sierra and Max were shown smiling in awe.
The angelic chorus ended as Chris brought the statue in for a closer look. "Is the cleft on my chin really that big?" he asked in concern.
"Yep, and it looks like a butt," Scott answered, earning an annoyed glare from the host.
"Moving on," Chris said forcefully, "time for the team names!"
"I hope the names won't be stupid!" Molly immediately said. "I don't want to be defined by a name like the Silly Bunnies?"
"You got that right Molly," Chris told her, "The names have been chosen by moi. Team A, you shall henceforth be known as, the Toxic Rats!" A short but energetic riff played as the screen switched to a green, red, and yellow starburst-patterned background, a green logo spinning up to the front. It bore the image of a six-limbed rat standing up on its hindlegs and bearing its teeth menacingly.
The Toxic Rats stared blankly for a moment before Max laughed and said "How evil!"
"And Team B," Chris continued, turning his head to the other six, "you are hereby dubbed, the Mutant Maggots!" A different energetic theme played as a teal, yellow, and orange sunburst-patterned background took over the screen, and a red logo spun up to the front. This one depicted the head of a three-eyed maggot, its mouth frozen in a gaping hiss.
The Mutant Maggots stared blankly for a second as well. "What's with all the chemical waste references?" Dave asked.
The perspective switched to a group shot as another loud roar shook the area. "It's the monster!" Anne Maria shouted in terror, making the others look around in shock.
The shot cut to some distant trees, a flock of birds flying away as one fell, then the camera panned to the right as another closer tree fell. Dave, DJ, and Katie gasped in fear, the brickhouse quickly grabbing the influencer's arm for comfort, and the camera zoomed in on a bush in front of the last fallen tree.
A small hairless squirrel with big yellow eyes jumped out and looked around.
"So we panicked over a small squirrel?" Scarlett said in disbelief.
"Aww, it's kinda cute!" DJ gushed...until it blinked sideways, and he cringed audibly.
"What happened to it?" Katie asked from off-screen as the squirrel happily blinked and looked around some more.
"While we were gone," Chris explained, "I rented the island out to a nice family-oriented biohazardous waste disposal company." As he spoke, the camera cut to a pile of oil barrels stashed in and around a tree. All of the barrels had a hazard sign on them, and most were leaking some sort of foul bubbling green liquid. "Sweet people," the host remarked.
"But," he added as the focus cut back to him on his ATV, "the waste is having a teensy bit of an impact on the flora and fauna." The hairless squirrel was shown again, blinking as a monarch butterfly flew close to it. It snapped out its tongue like a frog, and swallowed the butterfly up.
"This may be odd, but that squirrel is cool!" Geoff said with a grin as Max and Sammy gave him odd looks.
"You know," Leshawna said, cautiously approaching it with a smile on her face, "it looks weird but I'm sure it's perfectly harmless! Am I right?" She reached out to pet it, and it roared the same deep and terrifying roar that had scared them all earlier, then shot lightning from its eyes at the ground Leshawna was standing on. Leshawna screamed and ran away, and the squirrel blew her a raspberry before hopping back into the bush.
Chris was laughing hysterically as the shot cut to Leshawna jumping into the arms of a surprised Geoff in fear. The camera cut back to Chris as he stopped laughing, then in an elated and dramatic tone said "Most. Danger. Ev-er~!" as an equally sharp and dramatic tune played.
Confessional: Leshawna
"That guy is some kind of crazy," Leshawna confessed to the outhouse camera in outrage. "Adding toxic waste to the island? That's gotta be a criminal offense if it endangers us."
Confessional Ends
"Now," Chris said with a wide smile as the scene cut back to him once again, "before we start our very first challenge of the season, let's give out some rewards. DJ," he turned to the left, "because you made it up here before anyone else, your team gets a trampoline!" A grand tune played as the shot cut to a close-up of the trampoline, and moments later Chef Hatchet bounced down upon it. "And the Rats, get a hacksaw," Chris added, the shot cutting upwards to show his glowering assistant holding the tool in question.
Chef suddenly lost his balance and fell with a crash; Max laughed and had the hacksaw thrown at his head for it; and Scarlett silently laughed too, and in turn got crushed by the trampoline that was thrown at her, making her groan in pain.
"What do these items have to do with this bomb?" Chris asked, holding up a square of plastic explosives with a wireless timed detonator attached to it.
"Uhh, he's not gonna blow us up again, is he?" Trent nervously asked an equally nervous Scarlett.
"Who knows," Chris said with a sly smile, leaning in between the two with the bomb. "Find out when we come back!"
(Fade to Commercial)

In case you don’t know, the concept of electrolysis is to electrically charge water to split it into its hydrogen and oxygen components.
First I connected 20 large stainless steel washers to two stainless steel threaded rods and placed them inside a modified hard plastic water bottle.
I filled the bottle with filtered water and potassium hydroxide (KOH is an electrolyte that makes water more conductive). I then attached a hose output valve to the top cap of the bottle so that the hydrogen has a place to escape.
The two portions of the rod sticking out the top of the bottle were then connected to two live wires soldered to a battery box.
I’ve seen several videos of other homemade generators that immediately had a reaction once the batteries were connected, however my model had zero reaction after connecting everything together.
I’ve already ruled out the problems of not enough potassium, not enough voltage, not evenly mixed solution, and incorrect electrical connections. So what could be the problem? Any input would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT: I figured out the problem! As u/Zogoooog and others pointed out, there was likely an error somewhere in my construction that ended up shorting the entire assembly. There was a large stainless steel nut that I used to connect that brass output valve to the lid of the bottle. The nut was in direct contact with two washers that were connected to the underside of the lid to hold it in the right spot on the rods. I removed the large nut since the brass valve already had a pretty tight friction fit, connected the batteries, and it worked! Producing bubbles at a much faster rate now. Thanks everyone!

I feel really, really stupid asking this but I’m seriously clueless lol. I bought an essential oil for the first time, the rosemary from deve herbs, and I legit don’t know how to open the bottle. I took the cap off but then there’s like a plastic thing inside the opening of the bottle that doesn’t seem like it’s supposed to come out, and it also came with a little nozzle looking thing. I don’t know if I’m supposed to stick the nozzle and break through the thing in the bottle or rip the thing in the bottle out? I’m lost 💀

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

Buying another scooter. I did the motor and gear oil changes on my last one. The hole for the gear oil is very small. I bought a kit that screws on to the gear oil bottle. It came with different sized plastic hoses. The problem is that even the diameter of the smallest was too large. How do you guys fill the gear oil reservoir?