Self-adhesive weather stripping for sliding doors
anyone else had one perfect puppy and another total nutcase??
2023.06.08 13:34 ta6066 anyone else had one perfect puppy and another total nutcase??
We have 2 male iggy pups, both around 6 months old from different litters/breeders.
One is a literal angel in every way and the other is just driving us nuts. Especially when it comes to potty training.
They have a pen inside attached to a doggy door. When they're in their pen - they would both always use the doggy door and go outside to potty, but lately the weather has been terrible (cold and raining) and the iggys just hate getting their feet wet. Angel will still go outside to potty though, in rain, hail or shine. Nutcase on the otherhand, will do anything he possibly can to avoid it.
He will jump out of his pen, barrel it over, pee through the pen walls, pee on the doggy door itself, anything but actually go outside to pee. He even pooped right in his bed once.
I can't even count how many times I've enzyme cleaned every inch of that room now. We've built shelters outside, put him in raingear, praised and given treats for correct behaviour, and we don't punish for bad behaviour, we just calmly put him outside while we clean the mess. Nothing is working - as long as it's wet outside - he's not going out.
Any advice? At the moment we're locking them both outside on rainy days when we can't be home to watch them - hoping it would help desensitise him to the wet weather - it doesn't seem to be working though. He cries the entire time he's out there.
We might resort to crates if it doesn't get better. We didn't like this idea because we like to give them the option to sleep together or apart, but crates tend to be so small that they'd either always be together in one crate or always separated in two different crates. Thoughts?
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One is a literal angel in every way and the other is just driving us nuts. Especially when it comes to potty training.
They have a pen inside attached to a doggy door. When they're in their pen - they would both always use the doggy door and go outside to potty, but lately the weather has been terrible (cold and raining) and the iggys just hate getting their feet wet. Angel will still go outside to potty though, in rain, hail or shine. Nutcase on the otherhand, will do anything he possibly can to avoid it.
He will jump out of his pen, barrel it over, pee through the pen walls, pee on the doggy door itself, anything but actually go outside to pee. He even pooped right in his bed once.
I can't even count how many times I've enzyme cleaned every inch of that room now. We've built shelters outside, put him in raingear, praised and given treats for correct behaviour, and we don't punish for bad behaviour, we just calmly put him outside while we clean the mess. Nothing is working - as long as it's wet outside - he's not going out.
Any advice? At the moment we're locking them both outside on rainy days when we can't be home to watch them - hoping it would help desensitise him to the wet weather - it doesn't seem to be working though. He cries the entire time he's out there.
We might resort to crates if it doesn't get better. We didn't like this idea because we like to give them the option to sleep together or apart, but crates tend to be so small that they'd either always be together in one crate or always separated in two different crates. Thoughts?
2023.06.08 13:08 Mr_I4116 Raj Mahal
Nestled deep within the misty hills of a remote village, stood a grand mansion known as Raj Mahal. The locals whispered tales of its haunting past and warned of the evil spirits that roamed its corridors. Legend had it that the mansion was cursed by an ancient sorcerer who sought revenge for a grave injustice committed against him. Raj Mahal had a dark and ominous presence that sent shivers down the spines of those who dared to approach. Its once majestic exterior was now weathered and decrepit, its walls covered in ivy and moss. The doors creaked ominously as if beckoning unsuspecting souls to venture inside. One stormy night, a young couple, Ravi and Priya, oblivious to the mansion's sinister reputation, sought shelter from the downpour. Desperate to escape the relentless rain, they hesitantly knocked on the massive front door. The door swung open with a groan, revealing the gloomy darkness within. full read the article at this link
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2023.06.08 13:06 Mr_I4116 Raj Mahal
Nestled deep within the misty hills of a remote village, stood a grand mansion known as Raj Mahal. The locals whispered tales of its haunting past and warned of the evil spirits that roamed its corridors. Legend had it that the mansion was cursed by an ancient sorcerer who sought revenge for a grave injustice committed against him. Raj Mahal had a dark and ominous presence that sent shivers down the spines of those who dared to approach. Its once majestic exterior was now weathered and decrepit, its walls covered in ivy and moss. The doors creaked ominously as if beckoning unsuspecting souls to venture inside. One stormy night, a young couple, Ravi and Priya, oblivious to the mansion's sinister reputation, sought shelter from the downpour. Desperate to escape the relentless rain, they hesitantly knocked on the massive front door. The door swung open with a groan, revealing the gloomy darkness within. full read the article at this link
submitted by Mr_I4116 to Horror_stories [link] [comments]
2023.06.08 12:59 Aeogeus The Heart of Zeforo: Chapter 24
First Chapter/Previous Chapter
Keoki felt something sting his right flank; it was a sensation he had become familiar with. He would be fine for a minute or so, the heat of the shot having destroyed his nerves, but sooner or later, the laser burn would damage the surrounding skin, and the real pain would begin.
There would be time to wince later as Ha took a shot to his leg, Keoki grabbed him, and they began to retreat. The vo’rul formed the rearguard, relying on their armour to protect them from the laser fire.
A shot struck Melia’s shoulder and nearly stripped all the armour from her suit. Melia realised the Gretsu company had a few plasma weapons in their armoury.
Realising they were horrendously outmatched, Melia threw down a smoke grenade to cover their retreat.
“Let’s just pretend we weren't that stupid,” Keoki said as he shut a bulkhead.
“Are you and Ha ok?” asked Polumnus, inspecting the obed’s injury, amazed the man was still standing and had a leg.
“Yeah, it’s not the first time we’ve been shot; luckily for us, you’re type likes to keep everything on low power,” Keoki replied, trying to ignore the growing pain near his ribs.
Polumnus was not sure how he was supposed to react to that. He, too, had been shot by a laser rifle out of armour, and Polumnus had been floored instantly and needed a new kidney.
“We can’t stand out ground; they’re too many of them; we need to resort to guerrilla tactics,” Melia said.
Then she had an idea. “Keoki can you make more of those bombs you used to blow me up?” she asked.
“Now they’re a sentence I never thought I’d ever say,” Melia thought.
Keoki paused to think as they heard banging on the other side and began to retreat.
“Maybe, it’s doing it soon enough to matter that’s the problem,” Keoki replied.
“What about that laughing gas you used on me? Do you have any more of that?” he asked, his eyes flitting about for anything they could use.
“We do have two bottles left, but I don’t know if they will get through the masks they’re wearing,” Qerik explained.
“We might be able to use it, Qerik; get back to medical and grab those!” Melia ordered, and Qerik did just that.
“We need to slow them down; if they find Tres, Mu or Ka, we’ll be forced into a direct confrontation,” Keoki said, “and that won’t end well for us.”
“Is there another chokepoint we can use?” asked Polumnus.
“No, they can just burn through the door, and we don’t have the time to manufacture one,” Keoki replied after a few seconds of hoping there was something he had overlooked.
“Then we will manage,” Melia said as she noticed a vent in a nearby room.
“Keoki, where does this lead?” she asked, pointing at it.
“Um, it connects to all the other vents on this floor and the ones above,” Keoki explained; he had gained a pretty good mental map of the ship during his time aboard.
“Good, then we use this room, fire some shots off, lock the door and then retreat into the air ducts. The Kireet are too large to use them,” Melia explained.
“It’s about as good as we can expect,” Keoki replied.
“I’ll inform Qerik; tell him to meet us on the floor above,” Polumnus said, contacting the Rating.
“Make it quick, Pompom, we’ve got company,” Keoki said as the locked door was kicked open.
Keoki instructed the obed into the vent while he, Polumnus and Melia fired shots from behind the cover of the door frame.
“What’s Pompom mean?” Polumnus asked as he struck a kireet right between the eyes.
“Do you people have fluffy balls you attach to clothing?” he asked before being grazed on the arm.
Polumnus thought about, as he saw Melia shoot a merc in the leg, “I think the Folriothis Priests wear something like that.”
“In my language, a pompom is one of those, Polumnus, pompom,” Keoki explained.
“Interesting,” Polumnus thought as he removed a frag grenade from his belt and threw it down the corridor.
“Frag out!” he cried as the kireet got as far away as possible, but in the confines of the ship, that was easier said than done.
Three mercenaries were struck, one killed outright, and two badly injured.
Melia, Polumnus and Keoki used the lull in the fighting to retreat into the vent. The Obed had been sent ahead to meet with Qerik.
“Level with me Melia. What are the odds we’ll all get out of this alive?” Keoki asked as he slid from the vent and into a hallway.
Melai considered lying, but it seemed kind of pointless at this point.
“Slim,” she answered.
“That’s good; I was worried I was being pessimistic,” Keoki said.
Qerik was waiting for them and was carrying two glass containers.
“You called this stuff laughing gas; why? What does laughing mean?” Qerik asked as he placed the jars on the ground and stopped the obed from inspecting them
Keoki then recreated that rhythmic noise he had made in the captain's cabin and said, “That’s laughing; humans do it when we’re happy.”
“Or when subjected to Nitrous oxide, I don’t know why; I do know it was used as an anaesthetic, and some people use it as a recreational drug,” he added.
“An anaesthetic, so when we threw the jars in that room with you, all it did was….” Melia said.
“Make it easier for me to tank the explosion, yes,” Keoki said, finishing her sentence.
“Are we sure this will work? They are wearing masks,” Keoki inquired, inspecting the bottle.
“It was your idea,” Qerik said.
“I know; I was relying on your superior knowledge of the local anatomy to fill in the blanks,” Keoki replied.
“It should do; using this stuff if a war crime for a reason,” Polumnus explained, “can be absorbed through the skin.”
“Are you lot sure you’re up for being war criminals?” inquired Keoki
“They’re slavers; you can drown a slaver in their own piss, and it's morally justifiable,” Qerik countered.
Keoki could not really argue with that. He looked down the corridor and asked them, “Do you three think you could hit these jars from two hundred metres away?”
“Yes,” Melia said without hesitation.
“I suggest we put them over there at that T-junction and shoot them with a low-powered shot, zero risk of the rest of us getting doused in the vapour cloud or stray shards of glass,” Keoki explained.
Keoki glanced at the mangled remains of Melia’s shoulder guard and asked, “Are you going to be alright? You took quite the blow there.”
“Yeah, my suit’s not compromised; I just have to make sure I don’t get shot there again,” Melia said.
As they waited for the kireet to arrive, Keoki went over the plan again; admittedly, it was not complicated or lengthy; shoot the jars and then run. He did not want to get caught out again, and after septuple checking his mental map, he was certain the only way the kireet could get through was down this corridor.
Keoki believed they would be doing a lot of waiting before this thing was concluded; he just hoped it ended in their favour.
Polumnus, Melia and Qerik had their rifles squarely aimed at the jars while Keoki and the obed kept watch for the Gretsu Company. Sure, the vo’rul could probably multi-task, but snipers had spotters for a reason, division of labour and all that.
Keoki noticed a face carefully peering around the corner, and he shouted, “Now!”
The vo’rul fired immediately, and within two seconds, both jars had been shattered, and Melia ordered a retreat.
The kireet fired at them, but Melia and company were out of sight before any damage could be done. They did not remain to check if it worked; time was of the essence, and they needed to plan their next move.
Though as he and Melia closed the next door and locked it tight, he did not know what more they could do; they were outnumbered, outgunned, and his tricks would only work when the kireet were scattered and terrified.
They were clearly cut from a different cloth than the uren.
That is how it went; for two floors, they picked out a spotted fire for as long as they could before retreating. It was costly Keoki took a couple more shots, one of them getting dangerously close to his neck.
Boh took a hit and, while not fatal, would require medical attention.
A plasma round had also struck Qerik; much like Melia, it had not harmed the boy, but unlike Melia, it had damaged his suit integrity, which meant the bacteria on the ship would soon be getting to work on his body.
The only small comfort Keoki could take was that none of the plasma rounds had been aimed at him or the obed. The Senator must have really wanted them alive.
They were running out of room; soon, they would be forced into the canteen, putting Mu and Ka at risk.
For their trouble, it seemed the nitrous had done some damage, and they had managed to bring down a couple more kireet with weapons fire, but not nearly enough to make a difference.
Polumnus slammed the canteen door shut and locked it as Qerik and Keoki closed the other entrances, preventing a repeat of their last cock up.
Mu poked his head out from the kitchen, the young man had had very little to do as of late, and while the rectangle was impressive, it could not distract forever.
“Mu, rest,” Keoki said in the obed language.
“I help,” Mu replied, stepping into the canteen.
“Others have guns, no help, I no help much,” Keoki explained.
Mu was having none of it though; despite how it may appear to outsiders, Keoki was not in charge of the obed. As a matter of fact, from what Keoki could tell, the obed did not even have a leader, period.
The obed listened to Keoki because he was the most knowledgeable about their current predicament, but they still made their own decision, which meant if Mu truly wanted to fight, then Keoki could do nothing to stop him.
Keoki supposed if he had crashlanded on their homeworld, he would be expected to defer to their judgment.
Slapping his legs, Keoki finally said, “Push tables to door. Others no get in.”
Mu did as he was asked, pleased to have something to do for a change; a break was nice and all, but he was not built to sit idle.
“I’m going to try and get Ka to move,” Keoki told Melia as he vanished into the kitchen.
Melia heard him but did not respond; she was too busy converting the tables into a makeshift fortification.
Qerik came by and picked up the rotten food.
“Hungry?” Melia asked, not deviating from her task.
“No, I thought we could put it on the floor, help make it slippery,” Qerik explained.
Melia did pause at that and said, “Good thinking.”
“Just keep the slime away from the hole in your suit. You’re going to get sick enough as it is,” Melia added.
“Don’t remind me,” Qerik replied.
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Keoki felt something sting his right flank; it was a sensation he had become familiar with. He would be fine for a minute or so, the heat of the shot having destroyed his nerves, but sooner or later, the laser burn would damage the surrounding skin, and the real pain would begin.
There would be time to wince later as Ha took a shot to his leg, Keoki grabbed him, and they began to retreat. The vo’rul formed the rearguard, relying on their armour to protect them from the laser fire.
A shot struck Melia’s shoulder and nearly stripped all the armour from her suit. Melia realised the Gretsu company had a few plasma weapons in their armoury.
Realising they were horrendously outmatched, Melia threw down a smoke grenade to cover their retreat.
“Let’s just pretend we weren't that stupid,” Keoki said as he shut a bulkhead.
“Are you and Ha ok?” asked Polumnus, inspecting the obed’s injury, amazed the man was still standing and had a leg.
“Yeah, it’s not the first time we’ve been shot; luckily for us, you’re type likes to keep everything on low power,” Keoki replied, trying to ignore the growing pain near his ribs.
Polumnus was not sure how he was supposed to react to that. He, too, had been shot by a laser rifle out of armour, and Polumnus had been floored instantly and needed a new kidney.
“We can’t stand out ground; they’re too many of them; we need to resort to guerrilla tactics,” Melia said.
Then she had an idea. “Keoki can you make more of those bombs you used to blow me up?” she asked.
“Now they’re a sentence I never thought I’d ever say,” Melia thought.
Keoki paused to think as they heard banging on the other side and began to retreat.
“Maybe, it’s doing it soon enough to matter that’s the problem,” Keoki replied.
“What about that laughing gas you used on me? Do you have any more of that?” he asked, his eyes flitting about for anything they could use.
“We do have two bottles left, but I don’t know if they will get through the masks they’re wearing,” Qerik explained.
“We might be able to use it, Qerik; get back to medical and grab those!” Melia ordered, and Qerik did just that.
“We need to slow them down; if they find Tres, Mu or Ka, we’ll be forced into a direct confrontation,” Keoki said, “and that won’t end well for us.”
“Is there another chokepoint we can use?” asked Polumnus.
“No, they can just burn through the door, and we don’t have the time to manufacture one,” Keoki replied after a few seconds of hoping there was something he had overlooked.
“Then we will manage,” Melia said as she noticed a vent in a nearby room.
“Keoki, where does this lead?” she asked, pointing at it.
“Um, it connects to all the other vents on this floor and the ones above,” Keoki explained; he had gained a pretty good mental map of the ship during his time aboard.
“Good, then we use this room, fire some shots off, lock the door and then retreat into the air ducts. The Kireet are too large to use them,” Melia explained.
“It’s about as good as we can expect,” Keoki replied.
“I’ll inform Qerik; tell him to meet us on the floor above,” Polumnus said, contacting the Rating.
“Make it quick, Pompom, we’ve got company,” Keoki said as the locked door was kicked open.
Keoki instructed the obed into the vent while he, Polumnus and Melia fired shots from behind the cover of the door frame.
“What’s Pompom mean?” Polumnus asked as he struck a kireet right between the eyes.
“Do you people have fluffy balls you attach to clothing?” he asked before being grazed on the arm.
Polumnus thought about, as he saw Melia shoot a merc in the leg, “I think the Folriothis Priests wear something like that.”
“In my language, a pompom is one of those, Polumnus, pompom,” Keoki explained.
“Interesting,” Polumnus thought as he removed a frag grenade from his belt and threw it down the corridor.
“Frag out!” he cried as the kireet got as far away as possible, but in the confines of the ship, that was easier said than done.
Three mercenaries were struck, one killed outright, and two badly injured.
Melia, Polumnus and Keoki used the lull in the fighting to retreat into the vent. The Obed had been sent ahead to meet with Qerik.
“Level with me Melia. What are the odds we’ll all get out of this alive?” Keoki asked as he slid from the vent and into a hallway.
Melai considered lying, but it seemed kind of pointless at this point.
“Slim,” she answered.
“That’s good; I was worried I was being pessimistic,” Keoki said.
Qerik was waiting for them and was carrying two glass containers.
“You called this stuff laughing gas; why? What does laughing mean?” Qerik asked as he placed the jars on the ground and stopped the obed from inspecting them
Keoki then recreated that rhythmic noise he had made in the captain's cabin and said, “That’s laughing; humans do it when we’re happy.”
“Or when subjected to Nitrous oxide, I don’t know why; I do know it was used as an anaesthetic, and some people use it as a recreational drug,” he added.
“An anaesthetic, so when we threw the jars in that room with you, all it did was….” Melia said.
“Make it easier for me to tank the explosion, yes,” Keoki said, finishing her sentence.
“Are we sure this will work? They are wearing masks,” Keoki inquired, inspecting the bottle.
“It was your idea,” Qerik said.
“I know; I was relying on your superior knowledge of the local anatomy to fill in the blanks,” Keoki replied.
“It should do; using this stuff if a war crime for a reason,” Polumnus explained, “can be absorbed through the skin.”
“Are you lot sure you’re up for being war criminals?” inquired Keoki
“They’re slavers; you can drown a slaver in their own piss, and it's morally justifiable,” Qerik countered.
Keoki could not really argue with that. He looked down the corridor and asked them, “Do you three think you could hit these jars from two hundred metres away?”
“Yes,” Melia said without hesitation.
“I suggest we put them over there at that T-junction and shoot them with a low-powered shot, zero risk of the rest of us getting doused in the vapour cloud or stray shards of glass,” Keoki explained.
Keoki glanced at the mangled remains of Melia’s shoulder guard and asked, “Are you going to be alright? You took quite the blow there.”
“Yeah, my suit’s not compromised; I just have to make sure I don’t get shot there again,” Melia said.
As they waited for the kireet to arrive, Keoki went over the plan again; admittedly, it was not complicated or lengthy; shoot the jars and then run. He did not want to get caught out again, and after septuple checking his mental map, he was certain the only way the kireet could get through was down this corridor.
Keoki believed they would be doing a lot of waiting before this thing was concluded; he just hoped it ended in their favour.
Polumnus, Melia and Qerik had their rifles squarely aimed at the jars while Keoki and the obed kept watch for the Gretsu Company. Sure, the vo’rul could probably multi-task, but snipers had spotters for a reason, division of labour and all that.
Keoki noticed a face carefully peering around the corner, and he shouted, “Now!”
The vo’rul fired immediately, and within two seconds, both jars had been shattered, and Melia ordered a retreat.
The kireet fired at them, but Melia and company were out of sight before any damage could be done. They did not remain to check if it worked; time was of the essence, and they needed to plan their next move.
Though as he and Melia closed the next door and locked it tight, he did not know what more they could do; they were outnumbered, outgunned, and his tricks would only work when the kireet were scattered and terrified.
They were clearly cut from a different cloth than the uren.
That is how it went; for two floors, they picked out a spotted fire for as long as they could before retreating. It was costly Keoki took a couple more shots, one of them getting dangerously close to his neck.
Boh took a hit and, while not fatal, would require medical attention.
A plasma round had also struck Qerik; much like Melia, it had not harmed the boy, but unlike Melia, it had damaged his suit integrity, which meant the bacteria on the ship would soon be getting to work on his body.
The only small comfort Keoki could take was that none of the plasma rounds had been aimed at him or the obed. The Senator must have really wanted them alive.
They were running out of room; soon, they would be forced into the canteen, putting Mu and Ka at risk.
For their trouble, it seemed the nitrous had done some damage, and they had managed to bring down a couple more kireet with weapons fire, but not nearly enough to make a difference.
Polumnus slammed the canteen door shut and locked it as Qerik and Keoki closed the other entrances, preventing a repeat of their last cock up.
Mu poked his head out from the kitchen, the young man had had very little to do as of late, and while the rectangle was impressive, it could not distract forever.
“Mu, rest,” Keoki said in the obed language.
“I help,” Mu replied, stepping into the canteen.
“Others have guns, no help, I no help much,” Keoki explained.
Mu was having none of it though; despite how it may appear to outsiders, Keoki was not in charge of the obed. As a matter of fact, from what Keoki could tell, the obed did not even have a leader, period.
The obed listened to Keoki because he was the most knowledgeable about their current predicament, but they still made their own decision, which meant if Mu truly wanted to fight, then Keoki could do nothing to stop him.
Keoki supposed if he had crashlanded on their homeworld, he would be expected to defer to their judgment.
Slapping his legs, Keoki finally said, “Push tables to door. Others no get in.”
Mu did as he was asked, pleased to have something to do for a change; a break was nice and all, but he was not built to sit idle.
“I’m going to try and get Ka to move,” Keoki told Melia as he vanished into the kitchen.
Melia heard him but did not respond; she was too busy converting the tables into a makeshift fortification.
Qerik came by and picked up the rotten food.
“Hungry?” Melia asked, not deviating from her task.
“No, I thought we could put it on the floor, help make it slippery,” Qerik explained.
Melia did pause at that and said, “Good thinking.”
“Just keep the slime away from the hole in your suit. You’re going to get sick enough as it is,” Melia added.
“Don’t remind me,” Qerik replied.
2023.06.08 12:46 xtremexavier15 TSROTI 7 (pt 1)
Toxic Rats: DJ, Scott, Trent, Sammy, Sierra
Mutant Maggots: Anne Maria, Molly, Scarlett, Dave, Geoff
Episode 07: A Mine is a Terrible Thing to Waste
"Last time, on Total Drama Revenge of the Island!" the unseen host opened on a stock shot of the island before the recap montage began. "We saw how clueless our players are when it comes to fashion," he said over a clip of the Maggots' disastrous attempt to bring a self-dressed Sasquatchanakwa out on to the runway. "And how useless they are when it comes to rescues!" he added over the Maggots getting knocked off the scaffolding by barrels thrown by Sasquatchanakwa and Sammy's ultimately failed attempt to seduce him.
"In the end, Katie got the toss-a-roo," Katie got tossed away by Sasquatchanakwa, and then was escorted away by Chef, "and DJ and Geoff got tossed onto opposite teams," Chris added over clips of the two boys volunteering, then high fiving each other as they walked over to their new teams.
The footage was cut to Chris sitting in a deck chair on the Dock of Shame as his toenails were being filed. "You call that buffing?" Chris asked, who was angry at the overweight intern filing his toenails. "I want to see my ruggedly handsome face in every toenail." The intern filed faster. "Who will thrive, and who won't survive?" Chris asked the camera, but a sudden strong wind and the sound of a rotor signaled the arrival of a helicopter.
"This is the Department of Environmental Protection!" a voice called out, the camera zooming out to show a RCMP helicopter hovering a few feet away from the host. "You're busted, McLean!"
"Aww, man!" Chris griped. "Meddling tree-huggers..." With a scowl on his face, he reached into his pocket, and pulled out a walkie-talkie. "Launch Operation Doomsday!" he ordered. "Repeat, Operation Doomsday! Over!" A short hiss of static ended the message, and he turned a smile to the camera. "What is Operation Doomsday, you ask? Find out right here, right now, on Total! Drama! Revenge, of the Island!" As the shot cut outward as usual, another pair of RCMP helicopters swooped down to join the first over the dock.
XXXXX
The scene opened up to show the Maggot cabin, where Dave was inside cleaning. He was currently setting up his bed and had just positioned his pillow.
"And with that, the cabin is clean and free of filth," Dave sighed happily.
Geoff then came running and breathing inside, unknowingly getting streaks on the floor.
"I just cleaned that!" Dave said with a bit of anger in his voice.
Geoff noticed his frustration. "Sorry 'bout that, man. I did just swap over to this team, so I don't know how much of a neat freak you are."
"It's okay," Dave forgave his new teammate. "Most of the jocks in my school come out messy after a football game, and I hate seeing muddy footprints and dirt all over the ground."
"You would not want to meet my team then," Geoff looked back. "We come off looking sweaty and we have to shower for ten minutes just to get the stink off."
Dave shuddered at the thought. "Let's stop talking about it. The thought of a muddy floor makes me nervous."
Confessional: DJ
"Being on a new team ain't gonna be a problem for me," DJ expressed his thoughts in the confessional. "I'm still lingering on from Katie's elimination. She tells me that she likes me, and I never get to tell her that I like her back." He let out a sigh of sadness. "I hope we get to meet after the show's all over."
Confessional Ends
The scene cut outside the Rats' cabin as a helicopter flew by overhead. The shot panned down to Geoff as he passed by the helicopter, then the camera showed Molly listening to another indie song on her mp3 player.
"You seemed to really like your mp3 player," Geoff chuckled a bit.
"I can't help it," Molly paused her song. "Indie songs don't normally play on the radio. Mostly pop and rock."
"I can see where you're coming from," Geoff sensed. "You like to drift away from the mainstream and focus on your own interests."
"I like other kinds of things like fashion trends and partying, but what I like is less out there," Molly answered. "I like to do things by myself. Being indie doesn't blend in well with other people."
Geoff sat down next to her. "Maybe no one will get invested by what you like to do, but there's someone who I know will."
"Who could that be?" Molly asked the party guy, not getting what she's saying.
Geoff picked up an earbud and put it in his ear. "They're right next to you."
Molly realized what was happening and put on the other earbud. "In that case, let me start the next song. It's really beachy."
This got a laugh out of both of them.
\
"Alright, let's just get our so-called breakfast over with!" Molly said as she and Geoff walked into the hall, the cast standing around looking confused.
"We can't," Dave replied. "Chef's not here, and neither is breakfast!"
"I suppose we will just have to hunt for our food, in a figure of speech," Scarlett requested before everyone began searching.
The perspective changed to show the inside of a refrigerator as Trent opened the door and looked inside. "There's no food in the fridge," he called out after looking over the bare shelves.
"Nothing in the cupboards, either!" Sammy added after opening a cupboard door.
"We should check in the walk-in freezer!" Chef suggested through a small open window, quickly hurrying away as the camera zoomed out to reveal Dave standing nearby.
"The freezer could work!" Dave thought out. He hurried across the room and threw open the freezer door, stepping inside as a cold mist poured out. "I can see meat inside," he called out and ran inside.
The others promptly ran in to join him...and a shutter door slid down behind them. They gasped, and the camera cut outside to show a truck driven by Chef starting up and moving away from a hole in the side of the mess hall.
"Challenge time, suckas!" Chef cackled, sliding open a small view slot and grinning at the camera and campers inside the cargo hold.
"This is so not cool!" Geoff complained, grabbing hold of a swinging piece of meat as most of the others tried to keep their balance in the moving vehicle.
"Where are you taking us?" Sierra asked Chef.
"You'll see," Chef answered with a devilish smile and snicker, sliding the viewing slot shut...and jamming his finger in the process, causing him to yelp in pain.
\
A flash took the scene to what appeared to be the entrance of a mineshaft. On a ledge to the right was a bulldozer and some other pieces of machinery, while to the left was not only a pile of toxic waste barrels, but also a widescreen television showing what seemed like a live feed of the host. The Chef-driven truck backed up to the entrance and with a grin the driver pushed a button that caused the hold to lift, dumping the campers out onto the dirt.
"Good. You're here. Finally," Chris said, giving them a quick look of annoyance before shifting into his typical smile. "Today's challenge is to find a Golden Chris statue in your team color," he raised his left hand and a statuette with a green base appeared with a flash and a chime, then did the same with a red-based statuette on his right, "hidden somewhere in this old abandoned mine." He motioned to the mine entrance, and the two statuettes disappeared with another flash. "First team back, wins!"
"That seems easy enough," Molly told her team confidently. "We got this, team."
"Before we go," Scarlett said, "we will need some supplies-"
She was cut off when a heavy orange backpack was tossed on her, forcefully knocking her to the ground. Everybody looked towards the truck with the others, the shot cutting over to show Chef – now in his hazmat suit – tossing the backpacks out of the back of the truck.
"Don't worry," Chris told them. "There are enough packs for everyone."
The shot cut outward just as Scott was tossed his, revealing that all the others had received packs as well. Most were lifting them with little trouble, though Dave was struggling and Scarlett was still lying on the ground.
"What'd you put in them? Rocks?" Geoff griped, reaching to open the pack's main flap.
"Up-up-up-up-up, no peeking!" Chris admonished. "Those 50 lb bags are purely for your torment," he explained, "and my amusement. Enjoy."
Scarlett was shown rooting through a side pocket and pulled out a small metal armband with a bright green triangular patch on front. "Chemical badges?" the quiet brainiac asked in concern. "Why do we need to measure our exposure to toxic waste?"
"No reason," Chris said with an impish shrug. "Except that I rented the mine out to store hazardous material." The campers all gasped.
"What?!" Trent asked in utter shock. "That is really dangerous and a hazard to our lives!"
Chris continued to be smug. "Which is why I'm in a studio right now!" Both teams immediately protested. "Relax," the devilish host told them, "it's perfectly safe. For thirty minutes," he clarified as an inset of a timer reading 30:00 appeared on the screen next to him. "When your badge turns orange," he pointed at the inset as it showed the green triangle that was on the armbands turning orange, "you have fifteen minutes left. Red is your five minute warning," the triangle turned red, "and, if you see a skull and crossbones," the entire triangle was replaced by a flashing skull and crossbones, "we'll dedicate this episode to you! But no way is it gonna come to that. A mysterious person has been down there for more than forty minutes," he said as the entire on-screen inset disappeared, "and I think they're gonna be fine!...ish..."
\
The shot went to the inside of the cave. It was pitch dark at first, but soon someone lit a candle to brighten the room. Their arm was silhouetted and dark, hiding the true identity of the one holding the candle.
All that could be heard was a villainous, but over exaggerated laugh.
\
"Now move it, peeps!" Chris told the cast, the camera cutting back outward to show them all standing with their packs.
"Can you at least give us a hint about where to find the statues?" Sammy asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Funny story," Chris said with an impish smile and sideways glance. "The statues have gone missing! Someone, or something down there must've taken them."
"Is it well lit down there?" DJ asked nervously.
"It’s a mine, bro" Chris answered, his smile almost mocking. "Pitch black all the way. There are flashlights and fireflies inside," he added, "first come, first serve. Anywho, time's a-wasting, and so are your healthy blood cells. So go!"
\
The scene cut inside the mine entrance as the Rats ran in with Sierra in the lead.
"We're in the lead!" she cheered, stopping right before a small elevator with an open front. "EEEHHH!" Her words echoed as her team joined her, and the five sent worried looks up just as the mine began to rumble and rocks fell down from the ceiling, burying them under.
The Maggots ran past them. "Thank you for allowing us to have the lead!" Scarlett said as Sierra and her teammates poked their heads out of the rubble.
"Nice going, Uber-Girl," Scott sneered at her.
The Maggot team entered the elevator, Scarlett closing the short gate as soon as she could.
"We've got the flashlights!" Dave said, picking up a pair of the devices from the elevator floor. An ominous creaking cut off any possible celebration, however, and moments later a cable snapped, dropping the elevator down its shaft. All five of the Maggots screamed.
They landed with a resounding crash, and the scene cut down to the total darkness at the bottom of the shaft. A few pained groans rose up, followed by Geoff saying "Is everyone okay?"
"I think so," Dave replied first.
"I'm fine," Anne Maria said next.
"The flashlights!" Scarlett exclaimed, Molky turning one on and revealing the broken elevator and scores of waste barrels scattered around the five fallen teens.
"Looks like a tunnel there," Molly said, the camera panning left to show both a normal mineshaft and a more natural-looking tunnel next to it. "Do we take it?"
She was answered by a high-pitched squealing that echoed through the tunnels and caves, lasting long enough for all five Maggots to look around in terror.
"Looks good to me!" Geoff answered, getting up and making a dash towards the more natural-looking tunnel. His teammates followed shortly after him.
\
The squeal faded away as the scene cut back to the top of the elevator shaft, where the five Rats had managed to get themselves free of the rubble.
"That elevator is not coming back up," Trent commented, looking down the shaft.
"We could just call it a day here," Scott impishly said.
"Or we could just shimmy down the line," DJ suggested.
"Are you sure that would work?" Sammy asked.
Trent bent down and picked up the firefly jar. "I'll go ahead and light the way," he told his team. "Then all of you can follow after me."
"That's a good idea," Sierra gave a thumbs-up.
"Here I go," Trent said in a confident tone, holding the cable with his left hand and the firefly jar under his right arm. He cried as he jumped into the shaft and slid down that cable, his declaration quickly turned into a pained shout.
The rest of the Rats shared a nervous look. "Hopefully he didn't burn his nuts," Scott said before the sound of a crash made the four of them wince.
"You can think again," Trent echoed up weakly through the shaft, causing his teammates to share another wary look.
\
A flash took the scene back down to the bottom of the shaft, Trent now lying on top of the broken elevator with his hands covering his groin. The rest of the Rats slid down above him, then hopped off to Trent's side.
"Are you alright?" Sammy asked, bending over her friend and offering him a hand.
"I'll get better," Trent said pitifully, taking her hand and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet.
"Where did the fireflies go?" Scott followed up.
"Over there," Sierra answered. The camera panned down and zoomed in on the upturned jar, then zoomed out as DJ picked it up.
"Looks like we all made it here in one piece," DJ said.
"We sure did," Sierra said as the shot quick-panned over to her standing near one of the tunnels. "We need to get going so the other team doesn't win."
"You, Sammy, and DJ can go on ahead. I'll stay back to help Trent on his feet," Scott said.
\
The Maggots were huffing and panting as the scene cut back to them entering a slightly wider portion of the tunnels. Scarlett and Molly were in front with the flashlights, Dave and Anne Maria were right behind them, and Geoff brought up the rear.
The camera zoomed in on Scarlett and Molly, who were inspecting another pair of tunnels – a normal-looking mineshaft on the left, and a jagged-edged hole on the right.
"Why are we stopping?" Dave protested.
"We hit a fork in the road," Scarlett said.
"So we have to choose between two death traps," Molly deadpanned.
"The tunnels are different," Scarlett explained. "The left one has minecart tracks and looks to be another shaft, and the right one looks like it was carved by a humongous object."
"So this mine's home to a lot of mutants?" Anne Maria finished.
"Why did we stop if we simply could've gone left?" Geoff asked.
"I don't trust rollercoasters," Molly answered. "You never know if they will fall apart."
"This path is better than the other one, so let's just roll with it," Dave concluded before they went to the shaft.
\
"Get back into this jar, fireflies!" Sierra ordered from the group of fireflies flying away while she was holding the jar of fireflies.
"DJ, chase the fireflies back to us so Sierra can catch them," Sammy told the gentle giant.
DJ nodded and dashed ahead. He immediately howled as the fireflies swarmed around his head, and when he returned back to the girls, Sierra slammed the jar on his head, trapping the fireflies but having them fly around the top of his head.
"This should be a good light source," Sammy smiled, much to DJ's indifference.
\
A flash took the focus to a pair of minecarts linked together on a downward slope as the beam of a flashlight approached.
"Yes! These carts will speed us up!" Geoff said excitedly as he led the rest of the Rats to the carts. "This'll be like riding a rollercoaster."
"This seems a lot like a death trap," Molly responded.
"This whole place is a death trap," Dave countered. "What we need is speed, so we can find our statue, get out of here, and not worry about being intoxicated."
Just then Anne Maria's badge turned from green to orange, earning a gasp from her and the others. "Anne Maria's badge is orange!" Scarlett exclaimed.
"Oh my gosh. I only have like fifteen seconds to live or somethin'!" Anne Maria cried out.
"We all have fifteen minutes. We'll be alright, Anne," Geoff comforted her.
"Oh well, that ain't so bad," Anne Maria said before filing her nails.
The shot focused in on Scarlett as her badge suddenly turned orange as well. "Everyone get in," she said before running over and diving headfirst into the back cart.
"Shotgun!" Dave called out as he hopped in the front cart with Molly.
"Looks like we're in the back," Anne Maria said happily to Geoff.
"Then let's move out!" Geoff said, grabbing her arms and pulling her to the carts. The shot cut to a close-up of the front wheel as Molly reached down and pulled away a rock that was holding them in place.
"My first time riding the rails, and I'm always unenthusiastic," Molly said.
The camera pulled back out to show all five Rats in their chosen cart, and Dave pulled a lever that made the carts start moving downhill. The Rats cheered as they rolled off-screen, but Dave quickly added "Wrong lever!" with a hint of terror in his voice.
\
"Thanks for staying back for me," Trent said as the scene moved to him and Scott in complete darkness, only their eyes visible. "Also, could you get your knee off my back?"
"Leaving someone to die is something I'm not into," Scott replied. "And my knee isn't on your back."
"Then...what is-? Oh! It's a flashlight," Trent clicked the device, and suddenly the two teens were visible... as well as a group of giant hairless - and presumably mutated - gophers standing on their hindlegs and screeching menacingly at them.
Scott and Trent clung to each other and screamed.
\
"It's great to be on this team with you guys, but if we lose, I don't mind if you vote me off," DJ told Sammy and Sierra. "We all have to go sometime."
Sammy looked taken aback by the statement. "I won't vote you off. That'd be unfair to you since you swapped teams last episode."
"And besides, we need someone that can lift a truck, and you fill the role already," Sierra said with a smile, and the three continued on with a decent amount of comfort for a few seconds more...before the badge on Sammy's arm beeped and turned orange.
DJ gasped. "Your badge! It's orange!" the brickhouse said. "You've only got fifteen minutes to live!"
Two more beeps drew their attention to DJ and Sierra's badges as they changed as well. "You do too!" Sammy cried out in panic.
"This can't be happening!" Sierra declared, dropping to her knees with an anguished look on her face. "I've never visited Paris, or gotten married legally!"
Sammy and DJ both blinked. "Uhh, what was that?" the former asked.
"I became an ordained minister on the internet, and I thought someone was into me as much as I was into them," Sierra giggled.
"We have to hurry!" Sammy said, and the three took off.
\
"Okay guys," Molly told her teammates as the scene cut back to them rolling down the slope and the camera zooming in on the pair in the front cart, "just keep your eyes open for that statue. It has to be around here somewhere."
"I think we have a problem," Dave tapped the indie chick on the shoulder and she perked up and looked back. The shot cut outward to show that the two carts were now on different tracks, with her and Dave in the foreground and Geoff, Scarlett, and Anne Maria in the back.
"How did that even happen?!" Scarlett exclaimed in disbelief.
The two carts exited from the tunnel into a much more open cave, with the former front cart's track curving downward while the other track sloped upward. Dave and Molly screamed as their cart dipped off-screen and promptly crashed, kicking up a bit of dust and causing the camera to shake.
The shot cut to Anne Maria, Scarlett, and Geoff as horror dawned on their faces as they looked ahead. "The track is broken!" Anne Maria cried out, the perspective moving to the front of the cart to reveal the mangled piece of track they were approaching.
"Everybody brace yourselves!" Geoff screamed, the camera moving back to a distant side-view as the second cart launched off the track, and fell straight down with its passengers screaming all the way. They quickly passed the rocky ledge where Molly and Dave lay seemingly unconscious, and landed with a splash far below.
The scene receded into a set of monitors, the leftmost one showing only static while the middle showed Sammy, Sierra, and DJ walking through the mine and the rightmost one showed an underground lake.
"Looks like our players are doomed," Chris said, the camera zooming out to reveal him and Chef standing in a control room of sorts. "Will any of them survive? I have my doubts," the host laughed. "But find out for sure when we return with more, Total! Drama! Revenge of the Island!"
\
(Commercial Break)
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submitted by xtremexavier15 to u/xtremexavier15 [link] [comments]
Mutant Maggots: Anne Maria, Molly, Scarlett, Dave, Geoff
Episode 07: A Mine is a Terrible Thing to Waste
"Last time, on Total Drama Revenge of the Island!" the unseen host opened on a stock shot of the island before the recap montage began. "We saw how clueless our players are when it comes to fashion," he said over a clip of the Maggots' disastrous attempt to bring a self-dressed Sasquatchanakwa out on to the runway. "And how useless they are when it comes to rescues!" he added over the Maggots getting knocked off the scaffolding by barrels thrown by Sasquatchanakwa and Sammy's ultimately failed attempt to seduce him.
"In the end, Katie got the toss-a-roo," Katie got tossed away by Sasquatchanakwa, and then was escorted away by Chef, "and DJ and Geoff got tossed onto opposite teams," Chris added over clips of the two boys volunteering, then high fiving each other as they walked over to their new teams.
The footage was cut to Chris sitting in a deck chair on the Dock of Shame as his toenails were being filed. "You call that buffing?" Chris asked, who was angry at the overweight intern filing his toenails. "I want to see my ruggedly handsome face in every toenail." The intern filed faster. "Who will thrive, and who won't survive?" Chris asked the camera, but a sudden strong wind and the sound of a rotor signaled the arrival of a helicopter.
"This is the Department of Environmental Protection!" a voice called out, the camera zooming out to show a RCMP helicopter hovering a few feet away from the host. "You're busted, McLean!"
"Aww, man!" Chris griped. "Meddling tree-huggers..." With a scowl on his face, he reached into his pocket, and pulled out a walkie-talkie. "Launch Operation Doomsday!" he ordered. "Repeat, Operation Doomsday! Over!" A short hiss of static ended the message, and he turned a smile to the camera. "What is Operation Doomsday, you ask? Find out right here, right now, on Total! Drama! Revenge, of the Island!" As the shot cut outward as usual, another pair of RCMP helicopters swooped down to join the first over the dock.
XXXXX
The scene opened up to show the Maggot cabin, where Dave was inside cleaning. He was currently setting up his bed and had just positioned his pillow.
"And with that, the cabin is clean and free of filth," Dave sighed happily.
Geoff then came running and breathing inside, unknowingly getting streaks on the floor.
"I just cleaned that!" Dave said with a bit of anger in his voice.
Geoff noticed his frustration. "Sorry 'bout that, man. I did just swap over to this team, so I don't know how much of a neat freak you are."
"It's okay," Dave forgave his new teammate. "Most of the jocks in my school come out messy after a football game, and I hate seeing muddy footprints and dirt all over the ground."
"You would not want to meet my team then," Geoff looked back. "We come off looking sweaty and we have to shower for ten minutes just to get the stink off."
Dave shuddered at the thought. "Let's stop talking about it. The thought of a muddy floor makes me nervous."
Confessional: DJ
"Being on a new team ain't gonna be a problem for me," DJ expressed his thoughts in the confessional. "I'm still lingering on from Katie's elimination. She tells me that she likes me, and I never get to tell her that I like her back." He let out a sigh of sadness. "I hope we get to meet after the show's all over."
Confessional Ends
The scene cut outside the Rats' cabin as a helicopter flew by overhead. The shot panned down to Geoff as he passed by the helicopter, then the camera showed Molly listening to another indie song on her mp3 player.
"You seemed to really like your mp3 player," Geoff chuckled a bit.
"I can't help it," Molly paused her song. "Indie songs don't normally play on the radio. Mostly pop and rock."
"I can see where you're coming from," Geoff sensed. "You like to drift away from the mainstream and focus on your own interests."
"I like other kinds of things like fashion trends and partying, but what I like is less out there," Molly answered. "I like to do things by myself. Being indie doesn't blend in well with other people."
Geoff sat down next to her. "Maybe no one will get invested by what you like to do, but there's someone who I know will."
"Who could that be?" Molly asked the party guy, not getting what she's saying.
Geoff picked up an earbud and put it in his ear. "They're right next to you."
Molly realized what was happening and put on the other earbud. "In that case, let me start the next song. It's really beachy."
This got a laugh out of both of them.
\
"Alright, let's just get our so-called breakfast over with!" Molly said as she and Geoff walked into the hall, the cast standing around looking confused.
"We can't," Dave replied. "Chef's not here, and neither is breakfast!"
"I suppose we will just have to hunt for our food, in a figure of speech," Scarlett requested before everyone began searching.
The perspective changed to show the inside of a refrigerator as Trent opened the door and looked inside. "There's no food in the fridge," he called out after looking over the bare shelves.
"Nothing in the cupboards, either!" Sammy added after opening a cupboard door.
"We should check in the walk-in freezer!" Chef suggested through a small open window, quickly hurrying away as the camera zoomed out to reveal Dave standing nearby.
"The freezer could work!" Dave thought out. He hurried across the room and threw open the freezer door, stepping inside as a cold mist poured out. "I can see meat inside," he called out and ran inside.
The others promptly ran in to join him...and a shutter door slid down behind them. They gasped, and the camera cut outside to show a truck driven by Chef starting up and moving away from a hole in the side of the mess hall.
"Challenge time, suckas!" Chef cackled, sliding open a small view slot and grinning at the camera and campers inside the cargo hold.
"This is so not cool!" Geoff complained, grabbing hold of a swinging piece of meat as most of the others tried to keep their balance in the moving vehicle.
"Where are you taking us?" Sierra asked Chef.
"You'll see," Chef answered with a devilish smile and snicker, sliding the viewing slot shut...and jamming his finger in the process, causing him to yelp in pain.
\
A flash took the scene to what appeared to be the entrance of a mineshaft. On a ledge to the right was a bulldozer and some other pieces of machinery, while to the left was not only a pile of toxic waste barrels, but also a widescreen television showing what seemed like a live feed of the host. The Chef-driven truck backed up to the entrance and with a grin the driver pushed a button that caused the hold to lift, dumping the campers out onto the dirt.
"Good. You're here. Finally," Chris said, giving them a quick look of annoyance before shifting into his typical smile. "Today's challenge is to find a Golden Chris statue in your team color," he raised his left hand and a statuette with a green base appeared with a flash and a chime, then did the same with a red-based statuette on his right, "hidden somewhere in this old abandoned mine." He motioned to the mine entrance, and the two statuettes disappeared with another flash. "First team back, wins!"
"That seems easy enough," Molly told her team confidently. "We got this, team."
"Before we go," Scarlett said, "we will need some supplies-"
She was cut off when a heavy orange backpack was tossed on her, forcefully knocking her to the ground. Everybody looked towards the truck with the others, the shot cutting over to show Chef – now in his hazmat suit – tossing the backpacks out of the back of the truck.
"Don't worry," Chris told them. "There are enough packs for everyone."
The shot cut outward just as Scott was tossed his, revealing that all the others had received packs as well. Most were lifting them with little trouble, though Dave was struggling and Scarlett was still lying on the ground.
"What'd you put in them? Rocks?" Geoff griped, reaching to open the pack's main flap.
"Up-up-up-up-up, no peeking!" Chris admonished. "Those 50 lb bags are purely for your torment," he explained, "and my amusement. Enjoy."
Scarlett was shown rooting through a side pocket and pulled out a small metal armband with a bright green triangular patch on front. "Chemical badges?" the quiet brainiac asked in concern. "Why do we need to measure our exposure to toxic waste?"
"No reason," Chris said with an impish shrug. "Except that I rented the mine out to store hazardous material." The campers all gasped.
"What?!" Trent asked in utter shock. "That is really dangerous and a hazard to our lives!"
Chris continued to be smug. "Which is why I'm in a studio right now!" Both teams immediately protested. "Relax," the devilish host told them, "it's perfectly safe. For thirty minutes," he clarified as an inset of a timer reading 30:00 appeared on the screen next to him. "When your badge turns orange," he pointed at the inset as it showed the green triangle that was on the armbands turning orange, "you have fifteen minutes left. Red is your five minute warning," the triangle turned red, "and, if you see a skull and crossbones," the entire triangle was replaced by a flashing skull and crossbones, "we'll dedicate this episode to you! But no way is it gonna come to that. A mysterious person has been down there for more than forty minutes," he said as the entire on-screen inset disappeared, "and I think they're gonna be fine!...ish..."
\
The shot went to the inside of the cave. It was pitch dark at first, but soon someone lit a candle to brighten the room. Their arm was silhouetted and dark, hiding the true identity of the one holding the candle.
All that could be heard was a villainous, but over exaggerated laugh.
\
"Now move it, peeps!" Chris told the cast, the camera cutting back outward to show them all standing with their packs.
"Can you at least give us a hint about where to find the statues?" Sammy asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Funny story," Chris said with an impish smile and sideways glance. "The statues have gone missing! Someone, or something down there must've taken them."
"Is it well lit down there?" DJ asked nervously.
"It’s a mine, bro" Chris answered, his smile almost mocking. "Pitch black all the way. There are flashlights and fireflies inside," he added, "first come, first serve. Anywho, time's a-wasting, and so are your healthy blood cells. So go!"
\
The scene cut inside the mine entrance as the Rats ran in with Sierra in the lead.
"We're in the lead!" she cheered, stopping right before a small elevator with an open front. "EEEHHH!" Her words echoed as her team joined her, and the five sent worried looks up just as the mine began to rumble and rocks fell down from the ceiling, burying them under.
The Maggots ran past them. "Thank you for allowing us to have the lead!" Scarlett said as Sierra and her teammates poked their heads out of the rubble.
"Nice going, Uber-Girl," Scott sneered at her.
The Maggot team entered the elevator, Scarlett closing the short gate as soon as she could.
"We've got the flashlights!" Dave said, picking up a pair of the devices from the elevator floor. An ominous creaking cut off any possible celebration, however, and moments later a cable snapped, dropping the elevator down its shaft. All five of the Maggots screamed.
They landed with a resounding crash, and the scene cut down to the total darkness at the bottom of the shaft. A few pained groans rose up, followed by Geoff saying "Is everyone okay?"
"I think so," Dave replied first.
"I'm fine," Anne Maria said next.
"The flashlights!" Scarlett exclaimed, Molky turning one on and revealing the broken elevator and scores of waste barrels scattered around the five fallen teens.
"Looks like a tunnel there," Molly said, the camera panning left to show both a normal mineshaft and a more natural-looking tunnel next to it. "Do we take it?"
She was answered by a high-pitched squealing that echoed through the tunnels and caves, lasting long enough for all five Maggots to look around in terror.
"Looks good to me!" Geoff answered, getting up and making a dash towards the more natural-looking tunnel. His teammates followed shortly after him.
\
The squeal faded away as the scene cut back to the top of the elevator shaft, where the five Rats had managed to get themselves free of the rubble.
"That elevator is not coming back up," Trent commented, looking down the shaft.
"We could just call it a day here," Scott impishly said.
"Or we could just shimmy down the line," DJ suggested.
"Are you sure that would work?" Sammy asked.
Trent bent down and picked up the firefly jar. "I'll go ahead and light the way," he told his team. "Then all of you can follow after me."
"That's a good idea," Sierra gave a thumbs-up.
"Here I go," Trent said in a confident tone, holding the cable with his left hand and the firefly jar under his right arm. He cried as he jumped into the shaft and slid down that cable, his declaration quickly turned into a pained shout.
The rest of the Rats shared a nervous look. "Hopefully he didn't burn his nuts," Scott said before the sound of a crash made the four of them wince.
"You can think again," Trent echoed up weakly through the shaft, causing his teammates to share another wary look.
\
A flash took the scene back down to the bottom of the shaft, Trent now lying on top of the broken elevator with his hands covering his groin. The rest of the Rats slid down above him, then hopped off to Trent's side.
"Are you alright?" Sammy asked, bending over her friend and offering him a hand.
"I'll get better," Trent said pitifully, taking her hand and allowing himself to be pulled to his feet.
"Where did the fireflies go?" Scott followed up.
"Over there," Sierra answered. The camera panned down and zoomed in on the upturned jar, then zoomed out as DJ picked it up.
"Looks like we all made it here in one piece," DJ said.
"We sure did," Sierra said as the shot quick-panned over to her standing near one of the tunnels. "We need to get going so the other team doesn't win."
"You, Sammy, and DJ can go on ahead. I'll stay back to help Trent on his feet," Scott said.
\
The Maggots were huffing and panting as the scene cut back to them entering a slightly wider portion of the tunnels. Scarlett and Molly were in front with the flashlights, Dave and Anne Maria were right behind them, and Geoff brought up the rear.
The camera zoomed in on Scarlett and Molly, who were inspecting another pair of tunnels – a normal-looking mineshaft on the left, and a jagged-edged hole on the right.
"Why are we stopping?" Dave protested.
"We hit a fork in the road," Scarlett said.
"So we have to choose between two death traps," Molly deadpanned.
"The tunnels are different," Scarlett explained. "The left one has minecart tracks and looks to be another shaft, and the right one looks like it was carved by a humongous object."
"So this mine's home to a lot of mutants?" Anne Maria finished.
"Why did we stop if we simply could've gone left?" Geoff asked.
"I don't trust rollercoasters," Molly answered. "You never know if they will fall apart."
"This path is better than the other one, so let's just roll with it," Dave concluded before they went to the shaft.
\
"Get back into this jar, fireflies!" Sierra ordered from the group of fireflies flying away while she was holding the jar of fireflies.
"DJ, chase the fireflies back to us so Sierra can catch them," Sammy told the gentle giant.
DJ nodded and dashed ahead. He immediately howled as the fireflies swarmed around his head, and when he returned back to the girls, Sierra slammed the jar on his head, trapping the fireflies but having them fly around the top of his head.
"This should be a good light source," Sammy smiled, much to DJ's indifference.
\
A flash took the focus to a pair of minecarts linked together on a downward slope as the beam of a flashlight approached.
"Yes! These carts will speed us up!" Geoff said excitedly as he led the rest of the Rats to the carts. "This'll be like riding a rollercoaster."
"This seems a lot like a death trap," Molly responded.
"This whole place is a death trap," Dave countered. "What we need is speed, so we can find our statue, get out of here, and not worry about being intoxicated."
Just then Anne Maria's badge turned from green to orange, earning a gasp from her and the others. "Anne Maria's badge is orange!" Scarlett exclaimed.
"Oh my gosh. I only have like fifteen seconds to live or somethin'!" Anne Maria cried out.
"We all have fifteen minutes. We'll be alright, Anne," Geoff comforted her.
"Oh well, that ain't so bad," Anne Maria said before filing her nails.
The shot focused in on Scarlett as her badge suddenly turned orange as well. "Everyone get in," she said before running over and diving headfirst into the back cart.
"Shotgun!" Dave called out as he hopped in the front cart with Molly.
"Looks like we're in the back," Anne Maria said happily to Geoff.
"Then let's move out!" Geoff said, grabbing her arms and pulling her to the carts. The shot cut to a close-up of the front wheel as Molly reached down and pulled away a rock that was holding them in place.
"My first time riding the rails, and I'm always unenthusiastic," Molly said.
The camera pulled back out to show all five Rats in their chosen cart, and Dave pulled a lever that made the carts start moving downhill. The Rats cheered as they rolled off-screen, but Dave quickly added "Wrong lever!" with a hint of terror in his voice.
\
"Thanks for staying back for me," Trent said as the scene moved to him and Scott in complete darkness, only their eyes visible. "Also, could you get your knee off my back?"
"Leaving someone to die is something I'm not into," Scott replied. "And my knee isn't on your back."
"Then...what is-? Oh! It's a flashlight," Trent clicked the device, and suddenly the two teens were visible... as well as a group of giant hairless - and presumably mutated - gophers standing on their hindlegs and screeching menacingly at them.
Scott and Trent clung to each other and screamed.
\
"It's great to be on this team with you guys, but if we lose, I don't mind if you vote me off," DJ told Sammy and Sierra. "We all have to go sometime."
Sammy looked taken aback by the statement. "I won't vote you off. That'd be unfair to you since you swapped teams last episode."
"And besides, we need someone that can lift a truck, and you fill the role already," Sierra said with a smile, and the three continued on with a decent amount of comfort for a few seconds more...before the badge on Sammy's arm beeped and turned orange.
DJ gasped. "Your badge! It's orange!" the brickhouse said. "You've only got fifteen minutes to live!"
Two more beeps drew their attention to DJ and Sierra's badges as they changed as well. "You do too!" Sammy cried out in panic.
"This can't be happening!" Sierra declared, dropping to her knees with an anguished look on her face. "I've never visited Paris, or gotten married legally!"
Sammy and DJ both blinked. "Uhh, what was that?" the former asked.
"I became an ordained minister on the internet, and I thought someone was into me as much as I was into them," Sierra giggled.
"We have to hurry!" Sammy said, and the three took off.
\
"Okay guys," Molly told her teammates as the scene cut back to them rolling down the slope and the camera zooming in on the pair in the front cart, "just keep your eyes open for that statue. It has to be around here somewhere."
"I think we have a problem," Dave tapped the indie chick on the shoulder and she perked up and looked back. The shot cut outward to show that the two carts were now on different tracks, with her and Dave in the foreground and Geoff, Scarlett, and Anne Maria in the back.
"How did that even happen?!" Scarlett exclaimed in disbelief.
The two carts exited from the tunnel into a much more open cave, with the former front cart's track curving downward while the other track sloped upward. Dave and Molly screamed as their cart dipped off-screen and promptly crashed, kicking up a bit of dust and causing the camera to shake.
The shot cut to Anne Maria, Scarlett, and Geoff as horror dawned on their faces as they looked ahead. "The track is broken!" Anne Maria cried out, the perspective moving to the front of the cart to reveal the mangled piece of track they were approaching.
"Everybody brace yourselves!" Geoff screamed, the camera moving back to a distant side-view as the second cart launched off the track, and fell straight down with its passengers screaming all the way. They quickly passed the rocky ledge where Molly and Dave lay seemingly unconscious, and landed with a splash far below.
The scene receded into a set of monitors, the leftmost one showing only static while the middle showed Sammy, Sierra, and DJ walking through the mine and the rightmost one showed an underground lake.
"Looks like our players are doomed," Chris said, the camera zooming out to reveal him and Chef standing in a control room of sorts. "Will any of them survive? I have my doubts," the host laughed. "But find out for sure when we return with more, Total! Drama! Revenge of the Island!"
\
(Commercial Break)
\
2023.06.08 11:57 industrialshutter Industrial Roller Doors: Safe and Secure for Home Garages?
 | https://preview.redd.it/ozz4k3dcor4b1.jpg?width=1640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c0f1b41fcfe89d178465ad3e8bec3dcf9e00e1bd submitted by industrialshutter to u/industrialshutter [link] [comments] Industrial roller doors are designed to withstand the harsh conditions of a commercial environment. They are made from strong materials, such as steel or aluminum, and they are often equipped with security features, such as motion sensors and alarms. As a result, industrial roller doors can be a very safe option for home garages. However, there are a few things to keep in mind when considering an industrial roller door for your home garage. First, industrial roller doors can be expensive. They are also more complex than traditional garage doors, and they may require professional installation. Additionally, industrial roller doors can be difficult to operate, especially for children or elderly people. If you are considering an industrial roller door for your home garage, it is important to weigh the pros and cons carefully. If you are looking for a safe and secure door that can withstand the elements, an industrial roller door may be a good option for you. However, if you are on a budget or if you are looking for a door that is easy to operate, you may want to consider a traditional garage door. Here are some of the benefits of using industrial roller doors in home garages:
Here are some additional tips for choosing an industrial roller door for your home garage:
|
2023.06.08 11:57 pindasausmetballen Qua Patet Orbis, part 15
Backstory time!
Memory transcription subject: Trinsa, Venlil Exchange Program Participant
[Standardised Human Time] August 21st 2136 A.D.
I was actually doing this, I was meeting with a real predator, or omnivore, whatever that may mean.
My mind was against this, but I was curious.
What would their homeworld look like? Do they still have other predators?
But most importantly, how does their society work? they can’t be eating eachother on the street can they?
The Venlil navy follows Federation standard, as every species does, exept maybe the Yotul, but those guys were so tainted they even had predators as pets!
But now I was dumb enough to meet one.
We had been talking for a few days now, if not for the look you wouldn’t have known they were predators, they had different culture, music, art and museums! But I still couldn’t get over the fact that I was here, on a shuttle going to a space station with predators.
A green light started blinking in my peripheal vision, indicating we’re going to dock, I had a feeling I never had before, it wasn’t fear, nor was it happiness, I felt curious, like actually exited about meeting a predator.
The sliding doors of the airlock opened with a loud hiss, on the other side of the airlock was a grey Venlil, waiting for us to all get out of the ship.
He started explaining that if you feel threatened you could always leave and probably other important stuff I didn’t listen to.
Im meeting a human!
After the important talk was over she gave us a quick tour of the station, after what was about half an hour we arrived at our rooms and we were nearing my room, 208, I looked at my pad,
‘’one new message’’
I’m on the shuttle now, never been in space before, jezus this is cool!
I started typing a message back.
First time for me too! I am almost at our room, when do you arive?
It took a while before he reacted.
We’re docking now, ecxited to see you.
I opened the door to the room with my pad, the room was cozy, with a single bunkbed, small bathroom and a table with two seats, I set my bag on the top bunk and grab my pad,
Tour is busy, coming soon
I sat down on the top bunk, waiting for Milan, codename Irons. He was a marine in the Dutch army, a tribe on earth, and lived in a small town of 80 thousand people in the east of the Netherlands. A country apparently at war with their sea since their beginning, according to information the UN has released on them.
How do you even do that? A war with the sea, really something a predator will do.
It wasn’t an interview, but still I had some questions prepared if an akward silence fell. I grabbed my pad from my bag and opened the notes app as the door opened.
A large masked man walked in, If I had to guess, about [1.87 meters] tall, compared to my mere [1.56 meter] body he was a tall man, middle long blonde hair covered the top his unmasked head
He put his bag on the bottom bunk and put a basket filled with some kind of red fruit on the table.
‘’heard y’all are herbivores, got ya some strawberries’’ his deep voice rumbled beneath his reflective mask as he sat down at the table.
‘’I have some questions, we have talked a bit but there is some hard censorship on the chats’’ I stated, jumping down from the top bunk with my pad.
He’s really fucking large
I put my pad on the table and sat down on the chair opposite of him and reddied my nerves.
‘’how do you fight the ocean?’’
First/Previous/Next?
submitted by pindasausmetballen to NatureofPredators [link] [comments]
Memory transcription subject: Trinsa, Venlil Exchange Program Participant
[Standardised Human Time] August 21st 2136 A.D.
I was actually doing this, I was meeting with a real predator, or omnivore, whatever that may mean.
My mind was against this, but I was curious.
What would their homeworld look like? Do they still have other predators?
But most importantly, how does their society work? they can’t be eating eachother on the street can they?
The Venlil navy follows Federation standard, as every species does, exept maybe the Yotul, but those guys were so tainted they even had predators as pets!
But now I was dumb enough to meet one.
We had been talking for a few days now, if not for the look you wouldn’t have known they were predators, they had different culture, music, art and museums! But I still couldn’t get over the fact that I was here, on a shuttle going to a space station with predators.
A green light started blinking in my peripheal vision, indicating we’re going to dock, I had a feeling I never had before, it wasn’t fear, nor was it happiness, I felt curious, like actually exited about meeting a predator.
The sliding doors of the airlock opened with a loud hiss, on the other side of the airlock was a grey Venlil, waiting for us to all get out of the ship.
He started explaining that if you feel threatened you could always leave and probably other important stuff I didn’t listen to.
Im meeting a human!
After the important talk was over she gave us a quick tour of the station, after what was about half an hour we arrived at our rooms and we were nearing my room, 208, I looked at my pad,
‘’one new message’’
I’m on the shuttle now, never been in space before, jezus this is cool!
I started typing a message back.
First time for me too! I am almost at our room, when do you arive?
It took a while before he reacted.
We’re docking now, ecxited to see you.
I opened the door to the room with my pad, the room was cozy, with a single bunkbed, small bathroom and a table with two seats, I set my bag on the top bunk and grab my pad,
Tour is busy, coming soon
I sat down on the top bunk, waiting for Milan, codename Irons. He was a marine in the Dutch army, a tribe on earth, and lived in a small town of 80 thousand people in the east of the Netherlands. A country apparently at war with their sea since their beginning, according to information the UN has released on them.
How do you even do that? A war with the sea, really something a predator will do.
It wasn’t an interview, but still I had some questions prepared if an akward silence fell. I grabbed my pad from my bag and opened the notes app as the door opened.
A large masked man walked in, If I had to guess, about [1.87 meters] tall, compared to my mere [1.56 meter] body he was a tall man, middle long blonde hair covered the top his unmasked head
He put his bag on the bottom bunk and put a basket filled with some kind of red fruit on the table.
‘’heard y’all are herbivores, got ya some strawberries’’ his deep voice rumbled beneath his reflective mask as he sat down at the table.
‘’I have some questions, we have talked a bit but there is some hard censorship on the chats’’ I stated, jumping down from the top bunk with my pad.
He’s really fucking large
I put my pad on the table and sat down on the chair opposite of him and reddied my nerves.
‘’how do you fight the ocean?’’
First/Previous/Next?
2023.06.08 11:43 bumpinthenight49 Crashing right outside whiterun Consistently
Right around when you're close to whiterun and encounter the companions and they berate you, I'm crashing there. Anything helps, I wasn't crashing until I reorganized things.
I'll link the guide I followed just in case
Unofficial skyrim special edition patch
Unofficial skyrim creation club patch
Simple workaround framework
Unofficial bloodchill manor patch
Guard dialogue overhaul no extras
Blood suclah complete vampire overhaul
Dmh busty skeevers
Sanguis am oblivion font
Skyhud rebellion preset
Qol and bug fixes compilation
Cheat room
Immersive civil war cleanup
The paarthurnax dilemma
The whispering door quest expansion
Bandolier bags and pouches
Wearable lanterns
Wearable lanterns Nordic
Tfm staff pack
Yot
Wear multiple rings
Simple Gameplay Tweaks Shouts dual wielding and blocking
Improved bandit overhaul
Taos the art of smithing
50 pct more perk points
Ordinator
Odin
Odin ordinator compatibility patch
Elderitch battery
Necrom master the power of apocrypha
Bloodmoon
Flames of coldharbour
Improved telekinesis
Skyrim on skooma
Star double gold
Summermyst
Artefakes unique artifacts replacer
Divergence artifakes patch
Refined artifacts
Human enemies drop hearts and flesh
Audio sfx overhaul
Mythical ages weather overhaul
Whiterun summer edition green grass
Riften summer edition green rift
Landscape fixes for grass mods
No grassias by knight4life
Less grass 120
Cosmetic vampire overhaul
Superior lore friendly hair
Tempered skins female rugged
Tempered skins male smooth
KS pack Felix's hair
Kyoes bangn brows
Trues eyes se with fiery vampire eyes
Darts hair colors
Scars
Rs children overhaul
Vampire lord overhaul
Xpsme by team xpsme and groovtoma
360 walk and run standalone
Verolevi animations aio
Improved potion animation
Ead every attack different
Violens
Updated elfx
Elfx fixes aio
Embers xd elfx patch
Elfx shadows
Elfx shadows ussep patch
Smim 1k static mesh improvement 316.27mb
Elsopas hd hand painted road signs
Bellyaches HD collection
Believable weapons sheathed greatswords
Lustmord vampire armor
Divergence complete aio
Improved closedfaced helmets 9.33mb
Divergence improved closedfaced helmets patch
Sons of skyrim 1k/512 replacer
Ennead aio
Unique saddles of skyrim
Enhanced blood textures
Enhanced blood textures darker
Dirt and blood
Dirt and blood hd retexture
Elsopa quivers redone
Gemling queen jewelry
Amulets of skyrim
Awesome potions simplified
Retextured smim ingredients
Gemstone replacers hd se
Skyland aio
Wet and cold
Rass shaders and effects
Magical forces & fx bundle
Obsidian mountain fogs
Maris flora all in one
New legion redux
Prismatic insects of skyrim
Hearthfire multiple adoptions
Hearthfire multiple adoptions last name optional
Multiple floors sandboxing
Mannequins behave!
Marry almost anyone
Adopt almost any child
Immersive speech dialogues
Whiterun the city of trees
Happy little trees
Castle volkihar HD 1k
Castle volkihar rebuilt
Fortified whiterun
Jks skyrim aio
Embers xd jks skyrim patch
Pets of skyrim jks skyrim patch
Jks interiors aio
Jks interiors aio ussep patch
Jks interiors aio jks skyrim patch
Jks interiors aio elfx patch
Jks interiors aio elfx fixes patch
Elfx shadows jks interiors patch
Jks interiors aio Embers xd patch
City of trees jks skyrim aio patch
Fortified Whiterun jks skyrim patch
Shadowscale set reborn
Wildcat combat of skyrim
Sekiro combat s
Serana dialogue add on
Immersive speech craft
Bijin aio
Bijin aio & ussep patch
Pandorables npcs aio
Npcs react to necromancy
Headtracking and emotions
Volumetric mists
Darker brotherhood v2
Rich dremora merchant
Rich merchants of skyrim
Dynamic display settings
Disable screen shake effect
Horse camera tweak
Night sky hd 2k
Realistic conversations
Realistic water Two
Amazing follower tweaks
Alternative start live another life
submitted by bumpinthenight49 to SkyrimModsXbox [link] [comments]
I'll link the guide I followed just in case
Unofficial skyrim special edition patch
Unofficial skyrim creation club patch
Simple workaround framework
Unofficial bloodchill manor patch
Guard dialogue overhaul no extras
Blood suclah complete vampire overhaul
Dmh busty skeevers
Sanguis am oblivion font
Skyhud rebellion preset
Qol and bug fixes compilation
Cheat room
Immersive civil war cleanup
The paarthurnax dilemma
The whispering door quest expansion
Bandolier bags and pouches
Wearable lanterns
Wearable lanterns Nordic
Tfm staff pack
Yot
Wear multiple rings
Simple Gameplay Tweaks Shouts dual wielding and blocking
Improved bandit overhaul
Taos the art of smithing
50 pct more perk points
Ordinator
Odin
Odin ordinator compatibility patch
Elderitch battery
Necrom master the power of apocrypha
Bloodmoon
Flames of coldharbour
Improved telekinesis
Skyrim on skooma
Star double gold
Summermyst
Artefakes unique artifacts replacer
Divergence artifakes patch
Refined artifacts
Human enemies drop hearts and flesh
Audio sfx overhaul
Mythical ages weather overhaul
Whiterun summer edition green grass
Riften summer edition green rift
Landscape fixes for grass mods
No grassias by knight4life
Less grass 120
Cosmetic vampire overhaul
Superior lore friendly hair
Tempered skins female rugged
Tempered skins male smooth
KS pack Felix's hair
Kyoes bangn brows
Trues eyes se with fiery vampire eyes
Darts hair colors
Scars
Rs children overhaul
Vampire lord overhaul
Xpsme by team xpsme and groovtoma
360 walk and run standalone
Verolevi animations aio
Improved potion animation
Ead every attack different
Violens
Updated elfx
Elfx fixes aio
Embers xd elfx patch
Elfx shadows
Elfx shadows ussep patch
Smim 1k static mesh improvement 316.27mb
Elsopas hd hand painted road signs
Bellyaches HD collection
Believable weapons sheathed greatswords
Lustmord vampire armor
Divergence complete aio
Improved closedfaced helmets 9.33mb
Divergence improved closedfaced helmets patch
Sons of skyrim 1k/512 replacer
Ennead aio
Unique saddles of skyrim
Enhanced blood textures
Enhanced blood textures darker
Dirt and blood
Dirt and blood hd retexture
Elsopa quivers redone
Gemling queen jewelry
Amulets of skyrim
Awesome potions simplified
Retextured smim ingredients
Gemstone replacers hd se
Skyland aio
Wet and cold
Rass shaders and effects
Magical forces & fx bundle
Obsidian mountain fogs
Maris flora all in one
New legion redux
Prismatic insects of skyrim
Hearthfire multiple adoptions
Hearthfire multiple adoptions last name optional
Multiple floors sandboxing
Mannequins behave!
Marry almost anyone
Adopt almost any child
Immersive speech dialogues
Whiterun the city of trees
Happy little trees
Castle volkihar HD 1k
Castle volkihar rebuilt
Fortified whiterun
Jks skyrim aio
Embers xd jks skyrim patch
Pets of skyrim jks skyrim patch
Jks interiors aio
Jks interiors aio ussep patch
Jks interiors aio jks skyrim patch
Jks interiors aio elfx patch
Jks interiors aio elfx fixes patch
Elfx shadows jks interiors patch
Jks interiors aio Embers xd patch
City of trees jks skyrim aio patch
Fortified Whiterun jks skyrim patch
Shadowscale set reborn
Wildcat combat of skyrim
Sekiro combat s
Serana dialogue add on
Immersive speech craft
Bijin aio
Bijin aio & ussep patch
Pandorables npcs aio
Npcs react to necromancy
Headtracking and emotions
Volumetric mists
Darker brotherhood v2
Rich dremora merchant
Rich merchants of skyrim
Dynamic display settings
Disable screen shake effect
Horse camera tweak
Night sky hd 2k
Realistic conversations
Realistic water Two
Amazing follower tweaks
Alternative start live another life
2023.06.08 11:15 Comfortable-Elk9898 Mother has suddenly become delusional, and deeply paranoid
Hello all,
I will state before this wall of text that things aren't easy for me at the moment, and some honest advice, or even just sympathy, would go a long way.
So I'm 20 years old and I only live with my mother in a rental.
Over the past month her behaviour has considerably changed, and she appears to have become extremely paranoid, and driven by unstoppable anxiety.
It's seriously impacting my quality of life and mental health, to the point where I'm not sure what options I have left. I already have my own mental health issues, but hers are spilling over and making mine much worse.
As she is my mother, I always treat her with utmost respect and gratitude, but all I have received back is verbal abuse.
Last week, I had a shower. Once I finished up, I noticed a tiny leak through a crack, so I put a towel on top so as to dry the area.
My mother came home to the towel, and flung verbal abuse at me, for reasons I will never understand. She seemed fixated on the fact that I didn't tell her the towel was there via messages before she got home.
She also accused me of breaking the shower, and has started banging on the walls of the bathroom when she thinks I'm taking too long. Her reasoning is, she believes the REA will evict us if there is a leak.
She called a plumber on the weekend, who quickly confirmed there was no issue. He was in and out, taking only minutes.
To be clear, I have timed my showers after the incident, and they were no longer than five minutes. I time hers, and they exceed ten often.
I ended up packing all my medicine and possessions after this incident, and stayed at my partners house, to try to let my mother cool down. I came back the next day, and to my surprise she was behaving as if nothing ever happened.
Then another incident occurred today, which is the reason I am posting this.
I took a ride-share to work this morning, and when I got home, she got a notification on her phone that the bill was not paid.
I was surprised to hear it and checked it out. I paid as I was told. I communicated that fact to her, and she responded by yelling about how Uber was going to come knocking on our door due to the unpaid 30 dollar bill, and she didn't want to get in trouble with the law. It would be hilarious if it weren't said completely seriously.
I reassured her multiple times that I had paid the bill, and she insisted she "couldn't trust me", and would not change her mind.
This prompted me to become visibly upset for the first time in these ordeals. I asked why I was being treated the way I was, and she would not answer with anything apart from "I feel like I cannot trust you anymore". To be honest, it makes me scared of her. Scared of her coming home, and scared of her talking to me.
Anyway, it brings me to the present. I feel like the person I know as my mother has been stripped from me, and replaced with a monster.
I have no idea what caused her behaviour change, and I am confident I always treat her with respect, and have done nothing wrong. Nothing major has changed in her life.
I appreciate any honest and sincere replies. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thanks
submitted by Comfortable-Elk9898 to Advice [link] [comments]
I will state before this wall of text that things aren't easy for me at the moment, and some honest advice, or even just sympathy, would go a long way.
So I'm 20 years old and I only live with my mother in a rental.
Over the past month her behaviour has considerably changed, and she appears to have become extremely paranoid, and driven by unstoppable anxiety.
It's seriously impacting my quality of life and mental health, to the point where I'm not sure what options I have left. I already have my own mental health issues, but hers are spilling over and making mine much worse.
As she is my mother, I always treat her with utmost respect and gratitude, but all I have received back is verbal abuse.
Last week, I had a shower. Once I finished up, I noticed a tiny leak through a crack, so I put a towel on top so as to dry the area.
My mother came home to the towel, and flung verbal abuse at me, for reasons I will never understand. She seemed fixated on the fact that I didn't tell her the towel was there via messages before she got home.
She also accused me of breaking the shower, and has started banging on the walls of the bathroom when she thinks I'm taking too long. Her reasoning is, she believes the REA will evict us if there is a leak.
She called a plumber on the weekend, who quickly confirmed there was no issue. He was in and out, taking only minutes.
To be clear, I have timed my showers after the incident, and they were no longer than five minutes. I time hers, and they exceed ten often.
I ended up packing all my medicine and possessions after this incident, and stayed at my partners house, to try to let my mother cool down. I came back the next day, and to my surprise she was behaving as if nothing ever happened.
Then another incident occurred today, which is the reason I am posting this.
I took a ride-share to work this morning, and when I got home, she got a notification on her phone that the bill was not paid.
I was surprised to hear it and checked it out. I paid as I was told. I communicated that fact to her, and she responded by yelling about how Uber was going to come knocking on our door due to the unpaid 30 dollar bill, and she didn't want to get in trouble with the law. It would be hilarious if it weren't said completely seriously.
I reassured her multiple times that I had paid the bill, and she insisted she "couldn't trust me", and would not change her mind.
This prompted me to become visibly upset for the first time in these ordeals. I asked why I was being treated the way I was, and she would not answer with anything apart from "I feel like I cannot trust you anymore". To be honest, it makes me scared of her. Scared of her coming home, and scared of her talking to me.
Anyway, it brings me to the present. I feel like the person I know as my mother has been stripped from me, and replaced with a monster.
I have no idea what caused her behaviour change, and I am confident I always treat her with respect, and have done nothing wrong. Nothing major has changed in her life.
I appreciate any honest and sincere replies. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thanks
2023.06.08 10:43 kaishawna I Worked at the Milwaukee Zoo. Here's why I Quit. Part One -
I used to work as a zookeeper at the Milwaukee Zoo. There wasn't much to it. Just your standard zoo with a gift shop and areas to visit certain animals. I certainly was a fan of the zoo as a child, having visited the zoo for birthdays or field trips. I always said I wanted to be a vet of some sort but guess zookeeper was the closest I could get. Started working at the place around age 20. Fresh out of high school and trying to save money for my autistic nephew, this job didn't offer much. Running the train when workers couldn't, making sure the animals were fed and taken care of, you get the gist. I know, I know. I said I was a zookeeper but work is right around these parts so I have to pitch in where I can.
When I first started at the Milwaukee Zoo, I felt like I was living my dreams of helping animals. But that soon turned out to not be the case. After being there for less than a year, strange occurrences started to happen. It would be minor things such as lights going out, animals being sick, etc. Nothing major. The big incident happened right when two rookies were hired to see where they would fit in at the zoo. They were skinny and teen like. One was more hairer than the other but other than that, they seemed normal. Or so I would think. The weather was a bit hot and I was sweating while cleaning the elephant enclosure. I know, not the greatest job but someone's gotta do it. The manger of the zoo came up to me as I was closing the metal door to the cage.
"You Emily Tanner?"
"Yes. What's up?"
"I've got these two rookie here and I was wondering if you have time to show them around the base, you know, kinda get them used to the place and see where they fit in."
"Um, sure." I stammered, reaching out to shake the two young mens' hands. The gesture was ignored. Thinking to myself, I wondered what was wrong with them. Did they not understand basic social cues? Were they autistic like my nephew? Thoughts started racing through my head until one of the young men spoke.
"You ever notice the smell of animal waste, how it brings you joy?"
I couldn't speak in that moment. Surely this guy was kidding around, right? Nope. His face was stone cold. He was serious.
"Maybe." I managed to get out. This guy was definitely going be the last one to work with, I thought to myself. Instead, I gave a plastered smile and continued on with the conversation.
"These two shouldn't give you a hard time." the manger said before walking away. I nodded in agreement but then he turned back around.
"Oh, and I posted some rules on your locker door. Be sure to read them carefully. You wouldn't want to know what could happen to you if you don't."
"Is this man for real??" I thought again, my breathing quickening. I was beyond confused. "What is happening??"
But I couldn't worry about that. I had these two rookies to look after. Once I ensured the door to the elephant enclosure was secure, I lead the two men to the gorilla exhibit. It was a bit of a walk since the zoo is literally a maze where if you wanted to get to one area of interest, you had to pass several others before reaching your destination. Sure, you might be wondering if I should have the zoo's layout memorized by now, but you have to think. I don't go to the zoo everyday. Even when I go home, the zoo isn't the first thing on my mind. As I was walking, showing the men the different animals and how they behaved and such, I caught a chill down my spine every time I took a glance behind me to ensure they were following me. I tried to ignore it but the feeling was so overwhelming, I had to say or do something to take my mind off the dreaded feeling.
"So, what brings you two to the zoo and why do you want to work here?" I asked them.
Nothing.
They didn't answer. They just stared. Their cold, black eyes stared right into my soul. I quickly turned away and continues down the hot sticky tar path towards the bird enclosure. Luckily for me, it was nearing my lunch break. I could probably feed some of the birds there and then leave these two to their own devices.
I hurried my pace so that time could move faster and I could get as far away from these guys as possible. Hastily, I opened the door to the enclosure and lead them inside. Naturally the birds flew and here and there, their squawks and screeches following them as they flew about.
"You wanna be careful with the birds. Sometimes they can be mean." I tried to crack a joke but these guys weren't having it. So I naturally shut my mouth and buried any jokes I had deep within. They just stared at me, their soulless eyes not leaving mine. Bleh! Where the manger pick these guys up from, the graveyard? Even mummies and buried corpses could crack a ghost smile every once in a while. Carrying on with showing them how to care for the birds, I checked my watch and quite literally ran out of the building like it was on fire. I had to know those rules and why on EARTH these deadpan guys were hired. Surely the manger wanted to hire them as a joke because no one could be that cold and unfeeling like these two creeps.
Racing to the lockecommon room, I checked my locker door and surely, there was a list of rules. Five of them to be exact.
Rule One. Do not allow new hires to see the animals. This is crucial. If you've broken this rule, it's already too late.
Rule Two. Make sure the new hires are not left alone with the animals.
Rule Three. Do not allow the new hires to come in contact with the people. This rule is to never be broken.
Rule Four. Ensure all enclosures are locked and secure.
Rule Five. If the new hires are ever left alone, run as far away from this place as you can. Don't look back.
Grabbing the note and slumping into a nearby nearly broken garden chair, I heaved a sigh. I guess I've broken most of these rules because I left these guys alone and I left them in the bird enclosure on top of that. These "rules" didn't make sense. Why didn't the manger warn me of these supposed rules before introducing me to these guys?? Sighing once more, I exited the room and went back into the blinding light outside. I hurried back to the bird enclosure to find the new hires gone. My heart sank. I had to find them and fast.
Since I didn't know where to look, I went to the manager's office and found him on the phone. He sounded annoyed.
"Yeah, yeah. I got them all set. The girl is to be in charge of them until I figure out something else."
His word hit me. Surely he wasn't talking about me, right? My thoughts swirled again and I nearly gagged. Holding myself together, I knocked on the open door. The manger looked up me, plastering the fakest smile ever.
"What brings you here?" he asked.
"Um, I saw the note on my locker door and I think... I think I might have broken a few rules already."
The manger quickly stood up and hurried to close the door shut. Looking out the blinds that faced the opening entrance to the zoo and gift shop, he turned to me, his face serious.
"Did you lose them?"
"Huh?"
"Did. You. Lose. Them?"
His jaw clenched and his face was covered in cold sweat.
"Yes." I finally admitted. The manger signed, hanging his head.
"We have a problem."
His words were cutthroat, no funny business hidden under his once funny demeanor.
"What...problem?" I questioned, concerned.
"Those new hires aren't... exactly what you would call human. They are entities of sorts."
Now my head was officially fried. Entities? I thought. What kind of twisty rollercoaster works was I living in?? The manger approached me.
"If we don't find them by midnight, we're toast." he said, his voice a whispery hiss. I stared at him, shocked.
"Well, what do you plan on doing? I-I didn't ask to be part of this!"
"Look, I didn't have a choice but to choose you. If I didn't..." he faded off. He then looked at me again, his features a mixture of hurt and panic.
"If I didn't choose you, I would be taken away." he sighed, the words a heavy burden to say.
My voice was no more. Still confused, I open my mouth to speak.
"What do we do now?"
"We wait."
End of Part One.
submitted by kaishawna to nosleep [link] [comments]
When I first started at the Milwaukee Zoo, I felt like I was living my dreams of helping animals. But that soon turned out to not be the case. After being there for less than a year, strange occurrences started to happen. It would be minor things such as lights going out, animals being sick, etc. Nothing major. The big incident happened right when two rookies were hired to see where they would fit in at the zoo. They were skinny and teen like. One was more hairer than the other but other than that, they seemed normal. Or so I would think. The weather was a bit hot and I was sweating while cleaning the elephant enclosure. I know, not the greatest job but someone's gotta do it. The manger of the zoo came up to me as I was closing the metal door to the cage.
"You Emily Tanner?"
"Yes. What's up?"
"I've got these two rookie here and I was wondering if you have time to show them around the base, you know, kinda get them used to the place and see where they fit in."
"Um, sure." I stammered, reaching out to shake the two young mens' hands. The gesture was ignored. Thinking to myself, I wondered what was wrong with them. Did they not understand basic social cues? Were they autistic like my nephew? Thoughts started racing through my head until one of the young men spoke.
"You ever notice the smell of animal waste, how it brings you joy?"
I couldn't speak in that moment. Surely this guy was kidding around, right? Nope. His face was stone cold. He was serious.
"Maybe." I managed to get out. This guy was definitely going be the last one to work with, I thought to myself. Instead, I gave a plastered smile and continued on with the conversation.
"These two shouldn't give you a hard time." the manger said before walking away. I nodded in agreement but then he turned back around.
"Oh, and I posted some rules on your locker door. Be sure to read them carefully. You wouldn't want to know what could happen to you if you don't."
"Is this man for real??" I thought again, my breathing quickening. I was beyond confused. "What is happening??"
But I couldn't worry about that. I had these two rookies to look after. Once I ensured the door to the elephant enclosure was secure, I lead the two men to the gorilla exhibit. It was a bit of a walk since the zoo is literally a maze where if you wanted to get to one area of interest, you had to pass several others before reaching your destination. Sure, you might be wondering if I should have the zoo's layout memorized by now, but you have to think. I don't go to the zoo everyday. Even when I go home, the zoo isn't the first thing on my mind. As I was walking, showing the men the different animals and how they behaved and such, I caught a chill down my spine every time I took a glance behind me to ensure they were following me. I tried to ignore it but the feeling was so overwhelming, I had to say or do something to take my mind off the dreaded feeling.
"So, what brings you two to the zoo and why do you want to work here?" I asked them.
Nothing.
They didn't answer. They just stared. Their cold, black eyes stared right into my soul. I quickly turned away and continues down the hot sticky tar path towards the bird enclosure. Luckily for me, it was nearing my lunch break. I could probably feed some of the birds there and then leave these two to their own devices.
I hurried my pace so that time could move faster and I could get as far away from these guys as possible. Hastily, I opened the door to the enclosure and lead them inside. Naturally the birds flew and here and there, their squawks and screeches following them as they flew about.
"You wanna be careful with the birds. Sometimes they can be mean." I tried to crack a joke but these guys weren't having it. So I naturally shut my mouth and buried any jokes I had deep within. They just stared at me, their soulless eyes not leaving mine. Bleh! Where the manger pick these guys up from, the graveyard? Even mummies and buried corpses could crack a ghost smile every once in a while. Carrying on with showing them how to care for the birds, I checked my watch and quite literally ran out of the building like it was on fire. I had to know those rules and why on EARTH these deadpan guys were hired. Surely the manger wanted to hire them as a joke because no one could be that cold and unfeeling like these two creeps.
Racing to the lockecommon room, I checked my locker door and surely, there was a list of rules. Five of them to be exact.
Rule One. Do not allow new hires to see the animals. This is crucial. If you've broken this rule, it's already too late.
Rule Two. Make sure the new hires are not left alone with the animals.
Rule Three. Do not allow the new hires to come in contact with the people. This rule is to never be broken.
Rule Four. Ensure all enclosures are locked and secure.
Rule Five. If the new hires are ever left alone, run as far away from this place as you can. Don't look back.
Grabbing the note and slumping into a nearby nearly broken garden chair, I heaved a sigh. I guess I've broken most of these rules because I left these guys alone and I left them in the bird enclosure on top of that. These "rules" didn't make sense. Why didn't the manger warn me of these supposed rules before introducing me to these guys?? Sighing once more, I exited the room and went back into the blinding light outside. I hurried back to the bird enclosure to find the new hires gone. My heart sank. I had to find them and fast.
Since I didn't know where to look, I went to the manager's office and found him on the phone. He sounded annoyed.
"Yeah, yeah. I got them all set. The girl is to be in charge of them until I figure out something else."
His word hit me. Surely he wasn't talking about me, right? My thoughts swirled again and I nearly gagged. Holding myself together, I knocked on the open door. The manger looked up me, plastering the fakest smile ever.
"What brings you here?" he asked.
"Um, I saw the note on my locker door and I think... I think I might have broken a few rules already."
The manger quickly stood up and hurried to close the door shut. Looking out the blinds that faced the opening entrance to the zoo and gift shop, he turned to me, his face serious.
"Did you lose them?"
"Huh?"
"Did. You. Lose. Them?"
His jaw clenched and his face was covered in cold sweat.
"Yes." I finally admitted. The manger signed, hanging his head.
"We have a problem."
His words were cutthroat, no funny business hidden under his once funny demeanor.
"What...problem?" I questioned, concerned.
"Those new hires aren't... exactly what you would call human. They are entities of sorts."
Now my head was officially fried. Entities? I thought. What kind of twisty rollercoaster works was I living in?? The manger approached me.
"If we don't find them by midnight, we're toast." he said, his voice a whispery hiss. I stared at him, shocked.
"Well, what do you plan on doing? I-I didn't ask to be part of this!"
"Look, I didn't have a choice but to choose you. If I didn't..." he faded off. He then looked at me again, his features a mixture of hurt and panic.
"If I didn't choose you, I would be taken away." he sighed, the words a heavy burden to say.
My voice was no more. Still confused, I open my mouth to speak.
"What do we do now?"
"We wait."
End of Part One.
2023.06.08 10:00 sharewithme Word of The Hour: bolt
English: bolt
Translations
Fill in missing translations @ https://wordofthehour.org/translations
submitted by sharewithme to Word_of_The_Hour [link] [comments]
- the portion of a lock which is shot or withdrawn by the action of the key
- a shaft or missile intended to be shot from a crossbow or catapult, esp. a short, stout, blunt-headed arrow
- a sliding catch, or fastening, as for a door or gate
Translations
- Catalan: emperna
- Chinese: 门闩，箭头
- Esperanto: bolto
- French: vis
- German: der Riegel, flüchten, die Flucht ergreifen
- Hindi: चटकनी
- Italian: bullone
- Portuguese: parafuso / raio / trinco
- Spanish: rayo,cerrojo
- Swedish: bult
- Welsh: prenio
Fill in missing translations @ https://wordofthehour.org/translations
2023.06.08 09:38 Broad_Bad_9527 Window Decals and Graphics!
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submitted by Broad_Bad_9527 to denverjobs [link] [comments]
Do you want to make your business or vehicle stand out from the crowd? Do you want to improve the aesthetic feel of your brand or product? Do you want to attract more customers and admirers with eye-catching designs?
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2023.06.08 09:35 Broad_Bad_9527 Window Decals and Graphics!
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submitted by Broad_Bad_9527 to DenverAfterDark [link] [comments]
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2023.06.08 09:27 cumblebee_ JENNIE AND V ARE JUST FRIENDS AND NOT DATING!!!
Jeongyeon: I first met Jennie in 2017 at an award show. Since then we have been acquaintances. Now I have never told anyone this, but me and Jimin went to the same school, and we hated each other. We even once got into a fight(I won). Although we don't hate each other now exactly, I can't say that we don't at least dislike one another. I have ran into BTS once, and although Jimin was rude, V defended me. Since then, we have been close friends.
Jeongyeon: So let me make it crystal clear that MALE AND FEMALE IDOLS CAN BE FRIENDS AND NOTHING MORE. This is a very important theme for this whole story. Me and V are not interested in each other, but im sure if photos were taken you crazy fans would be having a field day. However, hearing about the recent situation between Jennie and V sparked my curiosity. I had no idea those 2 had any relationship, and they were being extremely secretive. But after going on a 3 day quest, I can say that they are definitely NOT DATING. First, we have to go back to this Monday.
MONDAY
Momo: "Have you heard about Jennie and V?"
Jihyo: "Yes I have... They must be dating."
Jeongyeon: "Woah, woah, woah, I wouldn't go as far and say that. I don't think so..."
Momo: "What makes you say that?"
Jeongyeon: " I'm saying that because I know both of them. I haven't heard anything. We can't jump to any conclusions yet..."
Jihyo: "True, why don't you go and just text both of them and see what's up?"
Jeongyeon: "I can't just ask them that! They'll think im invading their privacy."
Momo: "Jeongyeons right, you can't just be so direct. There's not much we can really do."
Jihyo: "Well im not gonna just take that for an answer! Somethings up and I wanna know!"
Jeongyeon: "Well, there is someone I know who can help us out..."
-50 minutes later-
The trio opened the wooden door which revealed a mysterious colorful hallway. Jeongyeon led the way, pushing aside a blue star curtain which led to a new room.
Rosé sat on a pink throne coated with rubies. Heart statues, love symbols and spiritual objects coated the hexagon shaped room like stars in the sky. The room was dimly lit by neon led light strips in the shape of hearts on the wall, spewing a deep purple-pink.
Rosé: "What is it that you have journeyed here for?"
Jeongyeon: "We need info on what is going on between your group mate Jennie and V of Bts."
Rosé: "That situation is a huge mystery that my power can't even fully understand, miss. I possesses the power to make anyone I want to fall out of love and break up. I can make love potions and charms. I can look into someone's heart, and see who they desire, if anyone. But Jennie's heart is a special case. Taehyung is in there, yes. But how much of him I don't know. For all I know they could just be acquaintances.."
Momo: "But you like her sister! Hasn't she told you anything?!?"
Rosé: "Naur, not even a murmur. But my power tells me that there is a connection, though potentially small."
Jihyo: "I see. Thankyou for your time Rosé, we appreciate it."
Rosé: " It's my pleasure"
Jihyo Jeongyeon and Momo left Rosé's building and entered the busy city.
Jihyo: "You've gotta be kidding! Even the mastermind of love can't even shed any light. This us pointless, let's just go home."
TUESDAY
Jeongyeon: I can give up, but I won't. I have to prove that they aren't dating.
Dahyun entered the room.
Dahyun: "Hey Jeongyeon, doing something?"
Jeongyeon: "Oh, not much really-
Dahyun: "I know what you've been up to and what you want, if you want answers follow me."
Jeongyeon: how did she know!?!?
Dahyun drove Jeongyeon to a remote grassy area blanked by a dark status cloud. Finally, they stopped at a worn, dirty, tiny house that looked like it came from a horror movie.
Jeongyeon: "Dahyun, are you sure this will help?"
Dahyun: "Positive, I wouldn't trick you"
They entered the suspicious house, only to be met with a young girl no older than 18.
Sophie: " OH. MY. GOSH. ARE YOU DAHYUNA AND JEONGYEON FROM TWICE? IM SOPHIE AND IM YOUR BIGGEST FAN!!!"
Jeongyeon: "HI Sophie, it's nice to meet you!"
Jeongyeon smiled cheerfully, while Dahyun rolled her eyes.
Dahyun: "You can cut the act already, we need info."
Sophie's tone changed dramatically.
Sophie: "Ugh, your no fun, whaddya want?"
It was at this moment Jeongyeon learned the truth. Sophie was a Sasaeng.
Dahyun: "We need to know everything there is about Jennie and V, can you help us?"
Sophie: "Whats in it for me?"
Jeongyeon: "I can tell you about my history with Jimin."
Sophie: "Deal. Now not to brag, but I was the one who took that precious video of those 2 love-birds."
Jeongyeon:"YOU WHAT!?!? WHY DID YOU SHARE THAT?"
Sophie: "Zip it ajumma. Anyways, I heard them talking. Apparently they were talking about candy and a time machine idk."
Dahyun: "That makes no sense?"
Sophie: "That's what I thought to, until I saw where they were going. They entered a secret tunnel. I tried following them, but it's like they just- vanished after making the first turn. I'm still confused on what they are doing though.."
Jeongyeon: "Well, V told me once that he has a passion for time travel, maybe they are making a time machine?"
Sophie: "But what does Jennie have to do with that?"
Dahyun: "Her solo.... I was spying on YG and I heard her screaming saying that her solo comeback was destroyed."
Jeongyeon: "When was this?"
Dahyun: "May 15th."
Jeongyeon: "That's right before the video was taken... it makes so much since now. Jennies solo was deleted, so now she is trying to reverse time with the help of V..."
Dahyun: "But why were they talking about candy..."
Jeongyeon: " That - I don't know..."
Sophie: "Alright times up im done, now where's my payment?"
Jeongyeon: "On second thought, I don't think I will tell you anything after you called me Ajumma.."
Sophie: "Oh great! I guess I'll just stop telling your friend Dahyun here everything I know about idols"
Dahyun: "Jeongyeon!! Tell her the story!!"
Jeongyeon: " Alright, fine."
WEDNESDAY
Jeongyeon: I'm so close to figuring everything out
Jeongyeon met with Momo, Jihyo, Dahyun, and Rosé. The 5 of them were determined to get to the bottom of the situation.
They traveled to the tunnel. The suns rays tried their hardest to reach down the walls of the dark cave, but they gave up after 50 feet. Besides the sun, dim white lights poorly illuminated the tunnel every 20 meters. The 5 of them braved down the ominous, uninviting, damp hall. Suddenly they were met with a T shaped intersection. They could turn left or right. Sophie did not say what direction Jennie and V turned.
Jeongyeon: "We split up. Me and Rosé will go left, and the rest can go right. Let's meet up here In 30 minutes."
And with that, Jeongyeon and Rosé walked on for another 15 minutes, until finally, they found a door. They opened it, revealing a large high tech room, with wires and buttons everywhere. The place was a mess, with boxes and paper everywhere, levers sticking out at the most random spots. Candy wrappers sprinked the floor like confetti. Most Jarring was the giant machine in the middle, a metal disk with a 3 meter diameter, and wires connected everywhere. Metal boxes held the thing together, and a huge lever labeled "start" stood on top.
Jeongyeon: "This is it...."
Rosé: "Well no shit-"
Jeongyeon reached for her phone to call the others, before the door swung open.
Jennie and V.
V: "What the hell are you two doing?!?!?"
Jennie: "Rosé? Jeongyeon? How did you find this place?!?!"
Jeongyeon: "Better question is, what are YOU two doing. This is some mad scientist shit."
Jennie sighed.
Jennie: "This is our project... I know we have been secretive, but it's no use hiding anything now. I never thought i would meet someone with such a passion for science as me but then I met V. He is such a bright mind, and together, we made this..."
V: "This is the electrobit 7000. Here's what it does."
V flipped the switch.
V: "you might wanna step back..."
Suddenly, an electric arc appeared between the metal ring, spinning and glowing fiercely. It turned into a white circle. Unexpectedly, a variety of candies erupted from the machine, and landed In a box before the machine shut down.
Rosé: "That's it?"
Jeongyeon: "It spawns candy? It's not a time machine?"
Jennie: "Time machine, we haven't even started making the design for that yet! No this is just something fun we build together. Halloween is gonna be fun now that we have infinite candy."
V: "Now why would you bring up a time machine?"
Jeongyeon: "That's what the Sasaeng who recorded the video said you were talking about."
V: "Oh, I think she means our Thyme machine. We were working on it just that night. It's a real shame we got caught together."
Jeongyeon: "But Jennie, what's this about your solo being destroyed?"
Jennie: "I'm guessing Dahyun told you? It's okay my producer had a backup saved. I was just screaming in the moment."
Rosé: "Well I gotta say Jeongyeon, you and Dahyun really fucked up huh."
Jeongyeon: "Don't act like you didn't believe it. Well o must say, I'm sorry for all this, sneaking into your lab and all."
V: "Don't worry about it, just please don't tell anyone. And also show me who took the video, so I remember"
And with that, the truth was revealed, and Jeongyeon could finally go back home with the full story of what happened.
Jeongyeon: So this brings us to now. Jennie and V are not dating. They are just friends, and would like to be called that. I'm sharing this so that everyone knows the FULL STORY. Jennie and V have decided they are ready to let people know about their lab, so it is okay for me to share this.
submitted by cumblebee_ to kpoopheads [link] [comments]
Jeongyeon: So let me make it crystal clear that MALE AND FEMALE IDOLS CAN BE FRIENDS AND NOTHING MORE. This is a very important theme for this whole story. Me and V are not interested in each other, but im sure if photos were taken you crazy fans would be having a field day. However, hearing about the recent situation between Jennie and V sparked my curiosity. I had no idea those 2 had any relationship, and they were being extremely secretive. But after going on a 3 day quest, I can say that they are definitely NOT DATING. First, we have to go back to this Monday.
MONDAY
Momo: "Have you heard about Jennie and V?"
Jihyo: "Yes I have... They must be dating."
Jeongyeon: "Woah, woah, woah, I wouldn't go as far and say that. I don't think so..."
Momo: "What makes you say that?"
Jeongyeon: " I'm saying that because I know both of them. I haven't heard anything. We can't jump to any conclusions yet..."
Jihyo: "True, why don't you go and just text both of them and see what's up?"
Jeongyeon: "I can't just ask them that! They'll think im invading their privacy."
Momo: "Jeongyeons right, you can't just be so direct. There's not much we can really do."
Jihyo: "Well im not gonna just take that for an answer! Somethings up and I wanna know!"
Jeongyeon: "Well, there is someone I know who can help us out..."
-50 minutes later-
The trio opened the wooden door which revealed a mysterious colorful hallway. Jeongyeon led the way, pushing aside a blue star curtain which led to a new room.
Rosé sat on a pink throne coated with rubies. Heart statues, love symbols and spiritual objects coated the hexagon shaped room like stars in the sky. The room was dimly lit by neon led light strips in the shape of hearts on the wall, spewing a deep purple-pink.
Rosé: "What is it that you have journeyed here for?"
Jeongyeon: "We need info on what is going on between your group mate Jennie and V of Bts."
Rosé: "That situation is a huge mystery that my power can't even fully understand, miss. I possesses the power to make anyone I want to fall out of love and break up. I can make love potions and charms. I can look into someone's heart, and see who they desire, if anyone. But Jennie's heart is a special case. Taehyung is in there, yes. But how much of him I don't know. For all I know they could just be acquaintances.."
Momo: "But you like her sister! Hasn't she told you anything?!?"
Rosé: "Naur, not even a murmur. But my power tells me that there is a connection, though potentially small."
Jihyo: "I see. Thankyou for your time Rosé, we appreciate it."
Rosé: " It's my pleasure"
Jihyo Jeongyeon and Momo left Rosé's building and entered the busy city.
Jihyo: "You've gotta be kidding! Even the mastermind of love can't even shed any light. This us pointless, let's just go home."
TUESDAY
Jeongyeon: I can give up, but I won't. I have to prove that they aren't dating.
Dahyun entered the room.
Dahyun: "Hey Jeongyeon, doing something?"
Jeongyeon: "Oh, not much really-
Dahyun: "I know what you've been up to and what you want, if you want answers follow me."
Jeongyeon: how did she know!?!?
Dahyun drove Jeongyeon to a remote grassy area blanked by a dark status cloud. Finally, they stopped at a worn, dirty, tiny house that looked like it came from a horror movie.
Jeongyeon: "Dahyun, are you sure this will help?"
Dahyun: "Positive, I wouldn't trick you"
They entered the suspicious house, only to be met with a young girl no older than 18.
Sophie: " OH. MY. GOSH. ARE YOU DAHYUNA AND JEONGYEON FROM TWICE? IM SOPHIE AND IM YOUR BIGGEST FAN!!!"
Jeongyeon: "HI Sophie, it's nice to meet you!"
Jeongyeon smiled cheerfully, while Dahyun rolled her eyes.
Dahyun: "You can cut the act already, we need info."
Sophie's tone changed dramatically.
Sophie: "Ugh, your no fun, whaddya want?"
It was at this moment Jeongyeon learned the truth. Sophie was a Sasaeng.
Dahyun: "We need to know everything there is about Jennie and V, can you help us?"
Sophie: "Whats in it for me?"
Jeongyeon: "I can tell you about my history with Jimin."
Sophie: "Deal. Now not to brag, but I was the one who took that precious video of those 2 love-birds."
Jeongyeon:"YOU WHAT!?!? WHY DID YOU SHARE THAT?"
Sophie: "Zip it ajumma. Anyways, I heard them talking. Apparently they were talking about candy and a time machine idk."
Dahyun: "That makes no sense?"
Sophie: "That's what I thought to, until I saw where they were going. They entered a secret tunnel. I tried following them, but it's like they just- vanished after making the first turn. I'm still confused on what they are doing though.."
Jeongyeon: "Well, V told me once that he has a passion for time travel, maybe they are making a time machine?"
Sophie: "But what does Jennie have to do with that?"
Dahyun: "Her solo.... I was spying on YG and I heard her screaming saying that her solo comeback was destroyed."
Jeongyeon: "When was this?"
Dahyun: "May 15th."
Jeongyeon: "That's right before the video was taken... it makes so much since now. Jennies solo was deleted, so now she is trying to reverse time with the help of V..."
Dahyun: "But why were they talking about candy..."
Jeongyeon: " That - I don't know..."
Sophie: "Alright times up im done, now where's my payment?"
Jeongyeon: "On second thought, I don't think I will tell you anything after you called me Ajumma.."
Sophie: "Oh great! I guess I'll just stop telling your friend Dahyun here everything I know about idols"
Dahyun: "Jeongyeon!! Tell her the story!!"
Jeongyeon: " Alright, fine."
WEDNESDAY
Jeongyeon: I'm so close to figuring everything out
Jeongyeon met with Momo, Jihyo, Dahyun, and Rosé. The 5 of them were determined to get to the bottom of the situation.
They traveled to the tunnel. The suns rays tried their hardest to reach down the walls of the dark cave, but they gave up after 50 feet. Besides the sun, dim white lights poorly illuminated the tunnel every 20 meters. The 5 of them braved down the ominous, uninviting, damp hall. Suddenly they were met with a T shaped intersection. They could turn left or right. Sophie did not say what direction Jennie and V turned.
Jeongyeon: "We split up. Me and Rosé will go left, and the rest can go right. Let's meet up here In 30 minutes."
And with that, Jeongyeon and Rosé walked on for another 15 minutes, until finally, they found a door. They opened it, revealing a large high tech room, with wires and buttons everywhere. The place was a mess, with boxes and paper everywhere, levers sticking out at the most random spots. Candy wrappers sprinked the floor like confetti. Most Jarring was the giant machine in the middle, a metal disk with a 3 meter diameter, and wires connected everywhere. Metal boxes held the thing together, and a huge lever labeled "start" stood on top.
Jeongyeon: "This is it...."
Rosé: "Well no shit-"
Jeongyeon reached for her phone to call the others, before the door swung open.
Jennie and V.
V: "What the hell are you two doing?!?!?"
Jennie: "Rosé? Jeongyeon? How did you find this place?!?!"
Jeongyeon: "Better question is, what are YOU two doing. This is some mad scientist shit."
Jennie sighed.
Jennie: "This is our project... I know we have been secretive, but it's no use hiding anything now. I never thought i would meet someone with such a passion for science as me but then I met V. He is such a bright mind, and together, we made this..."
V: "This is the electrobit 7000. Here's what it does."
V flipped the switch.
V: "you might wanna step back..."
Suddenly, an electric arc appeared between the metal ring, spinning and glowing fiercely. It turned into a white circle. Unexpectedly, a variety of candies erupted from the machine, and landed In a box before the machine shut down.
Rosé: "That's it?"
Jeongyeon: "It spawns candy? It's not a time machine?"
Jennie: "Time machine, we haven't even started making the design for that yet! No this is just something fun we build together. Halloween is gonna be fun now that we have infinite candy."
V: "Now why would you bring up a time machine?"
Jeongyeon: "That's what the Sasaeng who recorded the video said you were talking about."
V: "Oh, I think she means our Thyme machine. We were working on it just that night. It's a real shame we got caught together."
Jeongyeon: "But Jennie, what's this about your solo being destroyed?"
Jennie: "I'm guessing Dahyun told you? It's okay my producer had a backup saved. I was just screaming in the moment."
Rosé: "Well I gotta say Jeongyeon, you and Dahyun really fucked up huh."
Jeongyeon: "Don't act like you didn't believe it. Well o must say, I'm sorry for all this, sneaking into your lab and all."
V: "Don't worry about it, just please don't tell anyone. And also show me who took the video, so I remember"
And with that, the truth was revealed, and Jeongyeon could finally go back home with the full story of what happened.
Jeongyeon: So this brings us to now. Jennie and V are not dating. They are just friends, and would like to be called that. I'm sharing this so that everyone knows the FULL STORY. Jennie and V have decided they are ready to let people know about their lab, so it is okay for me to share this.
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submitted by Broad_Bad_9527 to DenverBroncos [link] [comments]
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2023.06.08 08:57 Jacques_Ellul ‘The Humiliation of the Word’
I look out in front of me, and perceive the sea lit up out to the horizon. I look around me: to my left and right, I see the limitless straight line of the beach, and behind it, the dunes -- all in space. With my gaze I make the space my own. The objects are clear and plain. I see the wind bend over to the ground, the reeds that keep the dunes in place.
I am at the center of this universe by means of my gaze, which sweeps across this space and lets me know everything in it. By combining these images of reality, I grasp it as a whole, and become a part of it as a result of my looking.
My sight constructs a universe for me. It reveals to me a directly perceivable reality composed of colorful, simple, harmonious images. But it also furnishes me with more subtle materials. I learn to read my brother’s or my enemy’s face. Transmitted images are superimposed on one another, and as a result, I now know that a given image belongs within a particular context of reality. It conjures up another image; I anticipate what I am going to see, but what is coming will in any case be located in space and will constitute part of reality -- deeper and hidden, in a sense, but still reality.
Such information is precise and pinpointed, and deals only with reality. Nothing else, no other dimension, is ever involved. …Sight has made me the center of the world because it situates me at the point from which I see everything, and causes me to see things relative to this point. My vision makes a circular sweep of space, working from this point: my point of view. But now I am tempted, as the center of the world, to act on this spectacle and transform this setting. What was missing in my vision was someone to act, and I am available.
Sight moves to action at the same time that it serves as the means of action. Again, without it, how could I act, since I wouldn’t even know what my hand was touching or what was within my reach? …I am a subject, not separated from what I look at. Rather, what I see becomes a part of me, as my action involves me in what I see. Images both permit and condition my action; they are always imperative. I lean out the window and look searchingly into the emptiness. Images of distance and depth thrust themselves on my consciousness. I know I mustn’t lean out any further.
The image defines and marks the boundaries of my action. The image does not induce my action, but establishes its conditions and possibilities. Without visual images my action is definitely blind, incoherent, and uncertain. Sight conveys certainties and pieces of information to me, as we have said. Such information is reliable. I perceive a gray ocean and an overcast skyline. This is unquestionable. The reality around me is a certainty in which I can be confident. It is neither incoherent nor deformed. I know, of course, that this is also something learned; there are no data coming directly from the senses, and the shapes and colors and distances I apprehend are perceptible to me because I learned them. My culture has furnished me with the very images I see. But however important this may be (and we must not push this idea too far!), it is still true that I see.
What a dreadful uneasiness takes hold of us when reality is submerged in fog…sight fails to furnish me with clear images and I can no longer act. The world loses its midpoint. It is off center because I cannot see it anymore. The center could be anywhere, but it is no longer located where I am.
In order for my sight to mislead me concerning reality, there must be some unusual phenomenon, like a mirage. The image is not ambiguous. This peach I am looking at is red and weighs heavily on the bending branch. This is absolutely certain. But the image is insignificant. It has no meaning in itself and must be interpreted. In the case of a fruit ripe for picking, the visual image gives me indisputable information, but if I stop there, nothing will happen. It must therefore be interpreted. In order to move from the vision of the fruit to "I should pick it" or "It can be picked," there must be an interpretation: an attribution of meaning to these real images of reality.
Another dimension must be added to sight: interpretation will come through speech. Thus the image contains within itself a deep contradiction. It is not ambiguous: it is coherent, reliable, and inclusive; but it is insignificant. It can have innumerable meanings, depending on culture, learning, or the intervention of some other dimension. For this reason I must learn to see, before looking at the image.
After seeing it, I must learn to interpret it. The image is clear, but this clarity does not imply certainty or comprehension. My certainty is limited to this directly perceived reality that my sight reveals to me. Nothing beyond that.
I call these images "vision" because they are connected with the other images I am accustomed to. I would be tempted to say in this case that the order is reversed. The visual image exists, and then I attribute a meaning to it; but the vision appears only as the illustration of a previously established meaning. No matter how insignificant it may be, the visual image is always rigorous, imperative, and irreversible. I saw what I saw. I cannot change the reality which is conveyed to me in this way, except through my action. There is no ambiguity at this point. Nor is there reversibility.
If I had only one "view" of my universe, I would be a participant in a totality which would be both terribly coherent and yet at the same time composed of fragments without any necessary relationship. The totality would be like a cloud of irrational dots which can form only the framework of an action, a change in the relationships between the points. But the cloud of dots cannot be used for understanding anything, because this pointillism of images is space but not duration. The image is present. It is only a presence. It bears witness to something "already there": the object I see was there before I opened my eyes.
I have a point of view, a location from which I see things, but it is situated within what I see and inseparable from it. Wherever I place myself, however I shift my position, I remain in the field of vision, I remain in the middle of what I see. I can never take my distance, act as if I were not present, or even begin to think independently of what I see.
At night, when I cannot see, a certain distance is established. This explains why the day’s events become so painful at night: the distance between me and the world around me allows for reflection and meditation. A flood of images overwhelms me, beckons me, and carries me along: an image I have seen follows immediately after the one I have just dismissed from my mind. I can never stop this movement of reality in space. I can never consider a given image like a diamond or a painting from which I can take my distance in order to be "myself," instead of being overwhelmed by the images composed of dots.
The image prevents me from taking my distance. And if I cannot establish a certain distance, I can neither judge nor criticize. Of course, I also feel pleasure or displeasure in what I see. I can find it beautiful or ugly. But this is not a critical process. No judgment is involved. Furthermore, what possible criticism or judgment can we make with respect to space and reality? In spite of the frailty we have all observed in a person’s testimony about what he has seen, everyone has the same certainty about anything he has seen. He has seen reality.
Sight involves a relationship with reality as established in space. It is an artificial construction. Medusa’s head transfixes whoever gazes at her. Whoever looks at the scenes on the shields of the Iliad is terror stricken. Sight introduces us to an unbearable shock. Reality when seen inspires horror. Terror is always visual. Horror stories play only on our visual sense and suggest representation.
In contrast, the spoken word can involve us in mystery or drama. It places us in situations of conflict and makes us conscious of tragedy. But it is never on its own terrifying or stupefying. We are dazed by sight -- by an image or a vision. The word takes us to the edge of terror only when descriptive and painting extremely precise images. Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories are an example. All the descriptions we have heard of Nazi death camps move us to revulsion and to a judgment that may be based more on strong feelings than anything else. The image of bulldozers pushing along mounds of skeletal corpses, which shortly before had been living beings, faces teetering from the machine’s pushing -- this image drawn from ‘Night and Fog’ moves us to abject horror. It terrifies us, because we see. Such terror results from the horror of reality.
Reality apprehended by sight is always unbearable, even when that reality is beauty. We have a horror of reality, perhaps because we depend on it so. Language, even when it is realistic, allows us to escape from this terrible reality. Sight locks us up with it and obliges us to look at it. There is no way out -- except by controlling and mastering the reality.
Images fall into a pattern with respect to each other, but sounds do not. Instead, sounds contradict each other and cancel each other out. I am listening to a Mozart concerto, and suddenly near me someone speaks. Or a visitor knocks at my door. Or someone starts noisily putting away dishes and silverware. Sounds produce incoherence. The noises I hear form no panorama of the world.
Alone among all other sounds there is one that is particularly important for us: the spoken word. It ushers us into another dimension: relationship with other living beings, with persons. The Word is the particularly human sound which differentiates us from everything else. In this connection a fundamental difference between seeing and hearing is immediately apparent. In seeing, the living being is one form among many. A human being has a special shape and color, but he is included with all the rest as part of the landscape: a discrete, moving speck. When I hear speech, however, the human being becomes qualitatively different from everything else.
The spoken word, even if it involves an essential proclamation or the thought of a genius, falls into the void, passes, and disappears, if it is not heard and recovered by someone. The ocean over there, even if no one contemplates it, remains what it is and what it was. I see it, and it produces a flurry of emotions in me. I leave. I go away, but it does not. The spoken sentence has sunk into nothingness; time has gone by, and there are no "frozen words" which can make themselves heard again later.
Thus speech is basically presence. It is something alive and is never an object. It cannot be thrown before me and remain there. Once spoken, the word ceases to exist, unless I have recovered it. Before it is spoken, the word places me in an expectant situation, in a future I await eagerly. The word does not exist on its own. It continues to exist only in its effect on the one who spoke it and on the one who recovered it. The word is never an object you can turn this way and that, grasp, and preserve for tomorrow or some distant day when you may have time to deal with it. The word exists now. It is something immediate and can never be manipulated. Either it exists or it doesn’t. It makes me what I am, establishes the speaking me and the listening me, so that my role is determined by the word itself rather than by its content. For the word to become an object, someone must transform it into writing. But then it is no longer speech. Yet even in that form, it requires time.
The word is, of necessity, spoken to someone. If no one is present, it is spoken to oneself or to God. It presupposes an ear; the Great Ear, if necessary. It calls for a response. Every word, even a swearword, an insult, an exclamation, or a soliloquy, begins a dialogue. The monologue is a dialogue in the future or the past, or else it is a dialogue incorporated into a monologue. Here again, time is involved. Dialogue develops according to a variable timetable, but dialogue cannot exist unless those engaging in it are inserted into time. Language is a call, an exchange. I avoid using the threadbare term "communication." It is not true that language exists only to communicate information.
Language never belongs to the order of evident things. It is a continuous movement between hiding and revealing. It makes of the play in human relationships something even more fine and complex than it would be without language. Language exists only for, in, and by virtue of this relationship.
Dialogue involves a certain distance. We must be separated as well as different. I do not speak to a person identical to me. I must have something to say which the other lacks, but he must also be different from me. Yet similarity is required as well. When Adam sees Eve he bursts into speech. He speaks because of her and for her. She was flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone; and yet different: a dissimilar similar person. Speech fills the infinite gap that separates us. But the difference is never removed.
Discourse begins again and again because the distance between us remains. I find I must repeatedly begin speaking again to restate what I have said. The result is an inevitable, yet rich and blessed, redundancy. The word is resumed and repeated because it is never fully explicit or an exact translation of what I have to say. It is never precisely received, never precisely understood.
The word reduced to the value of an algebraic formula with only one possible meaning would be useful for us in carrying out an identical superficial activity. But such language could never create meaning, and would never produce agreement and communication with another person. "Algebraic" language could never produce -- or suggest a story. Bees communicate pieces of information to each other, but do not produce anything like history.
The word can also obstruct and impede history, when mythical language immerses us in an ahistorical time that is repetitive and continually reduced to myth. Language is either historical or ahistorical, either a discourse on action to be undertaken or of a myth to listen to. According to the sort of language used, human history either arises and becomes a significant aspect of humanity’s existence, or else it remains on the level of everyday incoherence.
With insight, meaning becomes perfectly transparent. The other person’s words become mine; I receive them in my own mind. I experience utter intellectual delight, but a delight in my whole being as well, when I understand and am understood. The Word ushers us into time.
When I say that language normally deals with Truth rather than Reality, I only mean that there are two orders of knowledge, two kinds of references we use as human beings. There are references to the concrete, experienced reality around us, and others that come from the spoken universe. The spoken universe is our invention -- something we establish and originate by our words. We derive meaning and understanding from language, and it permits us to go beyond the reality of our lives to enter another universe, which we may call phantasmic, schizophrenic, imaginary, or any other name we choose.
I am certain that since the beginning, human beings have felt a pressing need to frame for themselves something different from the verifiable universe, and we have formed it through language. This universe is what we call truth.
The important thing is that the unique value of language lies in truth. Language is not bound to reality, but to its capacity to create this different universe, which you can call surreal, meta-real, or metaphysical. For the sake of convenience we will call it the order of truth. The word is the creator, founder, and producer of truth.
When it uses a loudspeaker and crushes others with its powerful equipment, when the television set speaks, the word is no longer involved, since no dialogue is possible. What we have in these cases is machines that use language as a way of asserting themselves. Their power is magnified, but language is reduced to a useless series of sounds which inspire only reflexes and animal instincts.
How often we have come up against a blank wall instead of a face, when the other person did not want to understand! How can we make him understand as long as he persists in that attitude? In reality, language is an extraordinary occurrence in which each person’s liberty is respected. I can oppose my word to the other person’s. Or I can turn a deaf ear. I remain free as I face someone who tries to define me, encircle me, or convince me.
In other words, of necessity I give my listener a choice to make. A situation where there is choice is a situation where there is freedom. But at the same time, I invite him to use the gift of liberty inherent in language, just as I have. He must speak in turn, consciously making use of his freedom. I invite him to start down the difficult road of self-knowledge and self-expression, of choice, self-exposure, and unveiling.
Language always involves the exercise of freedom. It is never mechanical, just as it is not an object! Subtle structural linguistic analyses are of course limited to texts; that is, to finite, fixed words rather than open-ended ones. Such analyses seem to account for everything…But they overlook one thing. Once the languages and lexicons, rhetorics, discourses, and narratives have been stripped of their mystery, one thing is left: language itself. It remains because it is history, and such linguistic analysis excludes history.
This is its second characteristic. The paradox, let us remember, is something situated beside or outside the doxa (opinion). The paradox is free of all doxa, but at the same time calls the doxa into question. Roland Barthes is right in showing that "the real instrument of censorship is the endoxa rather than the police."
Our civilization’s major temptation (a problem that comes from technique’s preponderant influence) is to confuse reality with truth. We are made to believe that reality is truth: the only truth. At the time of the controversy over universals, the realists believed that only truth is real. We have inverted the terms, believing that everything is limited to reality. We think that truth is contained within reality and expressed by it. Nothing more. Moreover, there is nothing left beyond reality any more. Nothing is Other; the Wholly Other no longer exists. Everything is reduced to this verifiable reality which is scientifically measurable and pragmatically modifiable. Praxis becomes the measure of all truth. Truth becomes limited to something that falls short of real truth. It is something that can be acted upon. The Word is related only to Truth. The image is related only to reality.
Of course, the word can also refer to reality! It can be perfectly pragmatic, used to command an action or to describe a factual situation. The word enters the world of concrete objects and refers to experiences of reality. It is the means of communication in everyday life, and as a result it fits precisely with all of reality. It conveys information about reality and takes part in the understanding of it. It can even create reality, producing effects that will become part of reality. Thus the word is ambivalent. But its specificity lies in the domain of truth, since this domain is not shared with anything else.
On the contrary, the image cannot leave the domain of reality. It is not ambivalent. At this point I can hear someone tempted to ask: "What is Truth?" I will carefully avoid answering by suggesting some specific content for the word. Such an answer would be challenged immediately, involving us in a long digression which would exceed my capacity. Without attempting this sort of definition, I can show what the object of truth can be, and this will serve to distinguish it clearly from reality. The very questions asked about truth can indicate its nature, replacing the answer that cannot be given. We can grant, then, that anything concerned with the ultimate destination of a human being belongs to the domain of Truth.
It does not matter if one can answer or not, nor does it matter whether the answer is personal or is objectified as philosophy or revelation. But when a person asks about his own life (consciously or unconsciously), then the real question of truth has been asked. And when anyone claims to have resolved it, he is lying.
When he tries to answer this question within the framework of reality alone, he has no answer to offer.
An individual can ask the question of truth and attempt to answer it only through language. The image, on the other hand, belongs to the domain of reality. It can in no way convey anything at all about the order of truth. It never grasps anything but an appearance or outward behavior. It is unable to convey a spiritual experience, a requirement of justice, a testimony to the deepest feelings of a person, or to bear witness to the truth. In all these areas the image will rely on a form. Images can convey a rite, and thus people have a tendency to confuse religious truth with religious rites.
An image can catch a psychological expression on someone’s face: ecstasy, for example. People will believe that they are seeing authentic faith, whereas all they have is a psychological state that can be utterly unrelated to faith. Such a state can be induced by a drug, for example. Faced with such a problem, those who identify reality with truth are so monumentally confused that they deny faith because a psychological state can be artificially induced! An image can show a body’s position, as in a photograph of clasped hands and bowed head, seeming to say that this is prayer. But in reality, no prayer is involved in this image; it could be only a joke. Even when no one is joking, an image is incapable of expressing the seriousness of truth.
…An image can report miracles, but only recorded miracles -- after they have taken place and grace has departed. The image can never penetrate as far as the holy place where the Word proclaims that an individual has become a new creation. The miracle is an expression of this new creation. No image is able to convey any truth at all. This explains in partly why all "spiritual" films are failures. When we insist on expressing spiritual matters this way through images, something other than truth is always perceived. Even more serious and alarming, truth tends to disappear behind all the lighting and makeup. It tends to vanish when squelched by images.
Our generation is characterized by the exclusive preeminence of reality, both at the factual level and in our preoccupations. We are moved in this direction by the marvels of technique, the prevailing tone of our time, the great concern about economic matters, etc. Our era is further characterized by an absolute identification of reality with truth. Marxism has prevailed absolutely in this matter, and science has finally convinced people that the only possible truth consists in knowing reality, and that the proof of truth is success relative to reality. Thus in the thinking of modern individuals the image is the means par excellence which communicates reality and truth at the same time.
This attitude concerning images can be held only if one confuses reality and truth to begin with, believing that a scientific hypothesis is true when it is confirmed by experiments. Such a hypothesis has nothing to do with truth, and is merely accurate. Of course, this preeminence of reality and this confusion coincide with the universal belief in the "fact," taken to be of ultimate value.
The image is an admirable tool for understanding reality. A documentary film of a riot enables us to penetrate the world of anger better than any speech could. But an image is explosive only if the spectator knows what it represents and if it is taken for what it is: a faithful representation of reality. An image becomes falsehood and illusion as soon as a person tries to see truth in it. At that moment, by means of an amazing reversal, the image loses all its explosive power.
When the image is understood to speak only of reality, however, it is explosive and terrible. At this point we discover a new problem. images in our society are always the product of a mechanical technique. Technique is truly an intermediary, since the universe of images is established for us by technique. But this is the equivalent of saying that we find ourselves in the presence of an artificial world, made by an outside force with artificial means. Therefore it is important to realize that stark reality is never conveyed to us in this universe of images. Instead we find a more or less arbitrary construction or reconstruction, with the result that we must constantly remind ourselves of the ambiguity behind the apparent objectivity of the image: it expresses a reality, but of necessity it presents us with an artifice. In this sense the image is deceptive: it passes itself off as reality when it is artifice; it pretends to be unilateral truth when it is a reflection of something that cannot be truth.
2023.06.08 08:53 GrumpyGin Advice on projector purchase
Hi, I am turning to you good people for some advice on buying a projector. I've never owned one, so I don't know a lot about them and there's so many on the market, I'd love some recommendations from your personal experience. I'll try to give you as much info as possible:
1) Reasons for buying: I live in a small flat and don't have room for a large TV. I do have a blank wall in the bedroom on the opposite side of my bed I could project to. Before you ask: no, I sadly can't put a TV on that wall, because I have a sliding door and a tv would block it. :(
2) Where it will be used: The width of the wall without any obstruction is about 160cm and the distance from the wall to where the projector would be is about 230cm. As I'm renting, I don't want to install a shelf on the wall behind the bed, so I'd ideally place the projector on top of a short bookshelf (about 110cm tall), which is slightly to the side, not at the centre of the wall. So something like auto keystone would be fantastic. I'm really bad at guessing this, but I assume the projection on the wall would not be more than a 10-15 degree horizontal angle... ish? The room can be pretty dark, but I'd want a projector that works well if there's not complete darkness, too. So, during the day with dark curtains closed but a small amount of light leaking in, for example.
3) Features I'm after: I'd use it almost exclusively for watching films & TV. So streaming service integration would be superb, also good (wireless?) connectivity with my (Samsung/android) tablet or phone in addition to standard HDMI wired connection & USB support would be great. I also don't have a separate sound system, so good integrated speakers are a big bonus. I'm not too fussed about the resolution, but I was thinking at least 1080p.
4) in terms of price, I wouldn't want to go past 600 EUR (~650 USD), possibly less.
I actually first got the idea for a projector from seeing the Samsung Freestyle that to me seemed to tick most of the boxes, but I heard it's really dim (I have no clue how many lumens I'd need) and not worth its price (It retails for a little less than 500 EUR where I'm from, though). I also had my eye on the Anker Nebula Cosmos 1080p, which is also around 550 EUR. Would any of these 2 fit my needs and you'd recommend them or do you have any other recommendations?
All help will be very much appreciated! I'm also happy to provide more info on my wants & needs if I forgot anything.
submitted by GrumpyGin to budgetprojectors [link] [comments]
1) Reasons for buying: I live in a small flat and don't have room for a large TV. I do have a blank wall in the bedroom on the opposite side of my bed I could project to. Before you ask: no, I sadly can't put a TV on that wall, because I have a sliding door and a tv would block it. :(
2) Where it will be used: The width of the wall without any obstruction is about 160cm and the distance from the wall to where the projector would be is about 230cm. As I'm renting, I don't want to install a shelf on the wall behind the bed, so I'd ideally place the projector on top of a short bookshelf (about 110cm tall), which is slightly to the side, not at the centre of the wall. So something like auto keystone would be fantastic. I'm really bad at guessing this, but I assume the projection on the wall would not be more than a 10-15 degree horizontal angle... ish? The room can be pretty dark, but I'd want a projector that works well if there's not complete darkness, too. So, during the day with dark curtains closed but a small amount of light leaking in, for example.
3) Features I'm after: I'd use it almost exclusively for watching films & TV. So streaming service integration would be superb, also good (wireless?) connectivity with my (Samsung/android) tablet or phone in addition to standard HDMI wired connection & USB support would be great. I also don't have a separate sound system, so good integrated speakers are a big bonus. I'm not too fussed about the resolution, but I was thinking at least 1080p.
4) in terms of price, I wouldn't want to go past 600 EUR (~650 USD), possibly less.
I actually first got the idea for a projector from seeing the Samsung Freestyle that to me seemed to tick most of the boxes, but I heard it's really dim (I have no clue how many lumens I'd need) and not worth its price (It retails for a little less than 500 EUR where I'm from, though). I also had my eye on the Anker Nebula Cosmos 1080p, which is also around 550 EUR. Would any of these 2 fit my needs and you'd recommend them or do you have any other recommendations?
All help will be very much appreciated! I'm also happy to provide more info on my wants & needs if I forgot anything.
2023.06.08 08:46 MummyCroc I am a government employee in Zimbabwe and I turned 34 this week (TW: Mentions of suicide)
Occupation – Government employee
Age – 34
Location – Zimbabwe
My salary – $500 (paid monthly)
Side Gig Income – $0
Other income – negligible amounts from dividends received from my stock portfolio that I re-invest
Housemates – 4 (husband P, 6 year old L, 4 year old E and nanny F. My nephew M is around and makes appearances too)
Assets and Liabilities
Income progression- (https://www.reddit.com/MoneyDiariesACTIVE/comments/vbbb7s/i_live_in_zimbabwe_making_3600year_and_i_just/)
Expenses
This year, my husband and I decided that he would take on the bulk of our expenses since I do most of the domestic work/childcare. Expenses I pay will be indicated. My salary is now for my expenses, my investments and my savings, and spoiling the kids. Husband caters for the family basics. There was a point last year when I felt my husband wasn’t as invested in the family because he barely did anything financially. By having him cater for all expenses, he is now definitely involved and invested. My husband’s income is just about the same as mine, slightly higher at some times.
My Expenses
Household Expenses (paid by P)
Previous MDs - (https://www.reddit.com/MoneyDiariesACTIVE/comments/vbbb7s/i_live_in_zimbabwe_making_3600year_and_i_just/) and (https://www.reddit.com/MoneyDiariesACTIVE/comments/yc801g/i_am_33_years_old_and_i_just_graduated_with_my/)
MD Q&A
Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Yes, I have a BSc in Accounting, a Masters in Accounting, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Taxation. My parents both have Masters degrees, and in my family, the bare minimum acceptable for education was getting a Bachelors. My mother paid for my undergraduate degree, and I paid cash for my postgraduate studies.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money?
My parents divorced when I was very young. My dad is the wealthier of the two, my mum has always been middle-class. My mum brought me up with very little financial help from my dad, he only covered tuition and healthcare until I turned 18. My mum catered for everything else. My mum taught me how to look for bargains, how to save and invest, and also how to sometimes enjoy your money.
If you have, when did you move out of your parents'/guardians' house?
I would say I moved out at 26 when I got my current job. I had moved out when I got my first fulltime job, but moved back home when that contract ended
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself? Does anyone else cover any aspects of your financial life?
At 26 again. That's when I earned enough to cover all my bills without needing help. My husband P covers some aspects of my financial life, and my mum occasionally helps out with stuff for her grandchildren.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
I worked as a receptionist at my mum's law firm after finishing my A Levels (age 18) while waiting to start university. My mum gave me the job to keep me occupied and out of mischief, lol.
Do you worry about money now?
I worry about building generational wealth for my children. I want to make sure they will be set for life as adults. I do worry about money because hyperinflation is eroding my earnings and retirement dramatically. This is my second time losing my retirement. My mum and in laws are losing their retirement for the third time, so honestly our old age looks bleak if we do not invest outside of work pensions.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income?
I receive negligible dividends from the shares I own, lol.
Day 1
0430 – I’m woken up by loadshedding. I sigh, rollover, and sleep some more
0600 – Alarm goes off. I turn it off, enjoy cuddles from P and finally get out of bed. Our water tanks ran out 4 days ago, and council has not yet deigned to give us water, so we rely on P’s parents and friends to give us water. I get my water that was warming up on the stove, and take a quick bucket bath. I moisturize, do my brows, throw my lace wig on (I cut my hair in January, and I’m at a really awkward stage where my hair looks bad when I wear it out all day) and get dressed. It’s cold in the mornings so I put on winter stockings and a black and white chevron patterned dress, nude ballet pumps plus my warm jacket. I get E from the couch where he was watching Cocomelon and my lunch bag out of the kitchen and we head off to his school. After dropping off E, I go to the office. No electricity means no elevator, so I go up the stairs. I see my boss’s boss and greet him as we do the ZESA (local electricity company) sponsored workout. I log in to the work register, fill up my kettle, and settle down to check out my work email. Nothing urgent came through overnight, so I go into my personal email. The wig company I patronize has given me a code for my birthday, and I’m wondering if I should pull the trigger on my cart. I decide to do a report while thinking this through.
My mum is currently working out of the country, so I am managing her local finances/obligations while she’s away. I remember I have to buy the prepaid electricity token for my childhood home as well as for the house she lives in when she’s working in the country. I spend $23 on electricity for both houses (mum’s money so doesn’t count)
1030 – After doing some firefighting and office gossip I have my breakfast. Today its rice, peas and 2 fried eggs. I sprinkle some peri-peri Aromat on top since I don’t have a sauce/gravy ad I have been craving spicy food lately. I also pop my multivitamin and supplements. I check my team’s work and send back anything that needs correcting. I also generate the multiple reports my boss expects from me. I suddenly remember I need to claim my allowance for performing a role that is higher than my actual position at work. I quickly complete the form, and send it to my boss for his signature. The extra money from this is what I use to fund my stock market investments. I also remind my team to send a report to me for consolidation by noon.
12.00 – I do a major push of all my work due today so I can relax after lunch. I compile my reports and set them ready to send. I also finish my first 2 litres of water of the day, and cue up the next 2 litres
1300 – Its lunchtime, and my work bestie and I head out around town**. I find shorts that L would fit and buy 2 pairs for $10**. We head back to the office and I have caramel popcorn for lunch. Then I remember I forgot to have my afternoon meds, oops. Anyway, more work before heading to an audit meeting
1630 – The audit meeting is finally over, and I rush to shut down my computer, pack up my things and go home. I have an agreement with my manager that as long as I make up for the hour, by either coming early or skipping lunch, I can leave work at 4pm. I had a total hysterectomy end of last year so I still can’t manage driving in heavy traffic. I arrive home, make the bed (P had not made it when he went to work), and harvest chilies from our garden that have ripened. I also harvest a local herb used as a flu remedy and lemongrass, so I can brew up a tea/tisane for the flu affected people in my house. I also pack L’s lunch for tomorrow, a pie, a naartjie and juice. It’s also F’s payday, so I give her US$80 (P gave me this money).
E says he is hungry so I feed him sadza and sour milk by his request. I multitask covering L’s school textbook while supervising his homework and watching Married to Real Estate and the Great British Bake Off. I then have my dinner of sadza, greens and beef. I have a chat with the kids about their day at school. P gets home.
1900 – P and my nephew M go to fetch water from P’s friend’s house. The city council still hasn’t opened up our water supply. I do some French on Duolingo while the boys wreak havoc in their playroom. I read L and E their bedtime stories and put them to bed. I decide to do my hair in cornrows while watching Masterchef Australia. They get home and I help them carry water indoors. I remember that when power comes back I need to boil tripe on the stove, so I cut it up, put it in the pot with water, salt and garlic, and place it on the electric stove. We have serious loadshedding these days, so we have a gas stove and solar power to tide us over. I take a quick bath and change into my pyjamas. While P watches TV, I read Wild Sweet Love by Beverly Jenkins and continue to do my hair in cornrows.
2200 – My arms are tired and I’m only halfway through with the cornrows. I give up and go to bed with P.
Total spent - $10
Day 2
0600 – I hear crying. E is in a bad mood today. I turn off my alarm, and go to see what’s wrong. E does not want to get dressed for school. I sigh, and help F dress him while he throws a massive tantrum. E is dressed, so I go do my morning routine of shower, moisturize, contact lenses, and eyebrow makeup. Today, I wear a green dress I took from my mum, black tights, nude ballet flats and a black and white coat. E gets put into the car by F, and starts crying for porridge. We are already late, so he learns that the consequence of refusing to eat his porridge on time is to go to school without having his porridge. It’s not a big issue though, as he gets fed at school. So I lock the doors and windows and drive him to school as he throws a tantrum for the entire 10 minute drive. I shove him into the school gate and head to work.
It’s another ZESA sponsored stair workout today. I log into the register, and fill up my kettle with water. I switch on my computer, check my work email and send off client emails to my team for their response. My personal email has an annual report from one of the companies I have shares in so I check out if there’s a dividend this year. I own a negligible number of shares in the company though, but 28c per share is quite impressive. I check to see if my stock exchange wallet has been credited with the money I transferred there so I can buy more shares. It still hasn’t so I send a follow up email o the enquiries desk at the stock exchange. I do have a stockbroker, but I prefer doing my trades myself. I also do some French on Duolingo before 8am.
0830 – Our HR is in a tizzy because people are late for work. I don’t make a big deal out of it usually, because salaries are shit and people are demotivated. As long as my team shows up and does some work, I’m ok. I approve some work, and warn my team about coming in a bit too late. I also tell a teammate that she will have to cover for me on Monday as I am taking the day off. Our internet connectivity is shit so I can’t log into our system to check some stuff. My work bestie gives me avocados from her house. I almost cry because I have been craving avocados, but been too cheap to buy them.
1000 – I have a really bad sore throat. I am also hungry since I haven’t had breakfast yet. I jot down my shopping list for the weekend and head to Pick ‘n’ Pay to buy carrots, green peppers, tomatoes, lemons, cheese, polony and bread. I also buy my breakfast/lunch, which is rice, beans, ox liver and egg salad**. It all cost $10**. I leave my shopping in my car, and go to the office to wolf down my food, and take my multivitamin and painkiller. I also receive my wigs that I bought in May. Perfect timing, as I want to wear a new wig tomorrow for our girls’ day out.
I do some more work, and remind my team to send me the information I need for my daily reports.
1300 – I go out to buy a few items I didn’t find in Pick ‘n’ Pay earlier**. I go to Spar and buy peas, eggs, soft drinks for the outing tomorrow and a sausage roll. Total cost is $10**. The outing has been deemed kid friendly, so I needed drinks for the boys to have tomorrow. I get back into the office, and spend the rest of the lunch hour working.
1600 – It’s finally time to go home. I send my email to handover work issues for the person who will take over my role on Monday while I am on leave. I also send my out of office email, and head home. The kids are at their grandmother’s, so I take a leisurely bath, put on my pyjamas and eat dinner. Then I watch Masterchef Australia until P and E get home. I also get in some French Duolingo practice
2000 – P goes out with his friends, so I snuggle up on the couch with E and watch TV. I put E to bed, read him his bedtime story and kiss him good night. I finally finish season 13 of Masterchef Australia, and move on to My Kitchen Rules Australia. I love Australian reality shows, ngl.
2200 – I go to bed P gets home and tells me some bad news about a friend of ours. I feel very sad for him. He cuddles me and we sleep.
Total spent - $20
Day 3
0700 – I wake up feeling like a truck ran me over. I get out of bed, and get ready to hand-wash our laundry. We still have no running water so we can’t use the washing machine. I play music while doing my laundry to keep me motivated
0900 – Laundry has been hung out to dry. F has cooked potato curry, so I boil eggs and water. I have my breakfast of potato curry, egg, multivitamin and coffee. Once I’m done, I give E a bath and dress him. I also bath, moisturize, do my brows and get dressed. I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt today as my friends and I ae supposed to take our kids out for a playdate. Then I receive a message that the outing is cancelled since one of our group is really sick. I try to think of something I can do with E, since L is out having fun with his grandmother. I do my Swahili Duolingo practice.
1100 – The welder comes to do some work on our garage door. I monitor the work for a bit, and then my nephew takes over. E starts really bugging me to go out. So I put on my headband wig and sneakers, and pack a cooler bag with snacks and drinks. We head into town and I buy myself some ciders for $9. These are for me to drink when the mood strikes me. E wants to go to a resort by the lake so I oblige him. We pay $8 for our entrance. He goes to play on the swings, and I take pictures of him having fun. Another family turns up, and one of his classmates is among them. He’s so happy, and goes to play with his friend. I watch him running around.
1500 – I get a call from my friend that she’s in town with my cake. This cake was meant for the cancelled outing. I pack up our stuff, hustle E into the car and drive back into town. I let out some colourful swear words when I realise I forgot to get our change of $2. Anyway**, I meet up with my friend and get the cake, and pay her $30**. It’s so pretty. I call my MIL while still in town to find out what time she will be there so I can pick up L. She says it will be an hour, so E and I head home to drop off the cake so it doesn’t melt in my AC-less car.
1600 – We are back in town waiting for L and MIL. E wants an ice cream so I buy him one for $0.50 using money I had in my Innbucks wallet. MIL calls and asks me to head over to where she is to pick L up since she can’t leave yet. E and I get there. MIL gets me sadza and goat tripe stew, which I eat a bit of to be polite even though I am not hungry. When I’m done, I pack up the kids and drive home. I bath and change into my pyjamas.
1800 – I feed the kids, and we play until their weekend bedtime of 8pm. I read them their bedtime stories and tuck them in. I watch TV and iron my morning laundry while having a gin and juice until 9pm, and head to read in bed. P and my nephew arrive home from their amateur soccer league match and subsequent outing with the boys. I fall asleep soon after.
Total spent - $49.50
Day 4
0700 – I’m woken up by L demanding that I come and play with them. I am still sleepy so I fob him off.
0900 - F knocks on the door and tells us she is off to church. I finally get out of bed and get dressed. I see the boys playing relatively peacefully so I let them continue with their antics. In the kitchen, I find F had cooked breakfast, and since I’m starving, I heat up water for coffee. L surprisingly isn’t hungry so I serve up breakfast for P and me. I have my daily multivitamin. P heads out to go fetch water, while I bath, change and hang out with the kids. I also do my French Duolingo practice for the day
1200 – I have played with the dogs and kids, and I am exhausted. I collapse onto the couch and watch MKR Australia. P gets home, and naps on the couch. I give the kids haircuts and baths.
1700 – L is hungry and really wants cake, so I feed the kids a dinner of sadza and sour milk. Then some cake for dessert. I also pack L’s school lunch, which will be a polony sandwich, a cupcake and juice. The kids play until its bedtime at 7pm. The usual routine, bedtime stories and tuck in is done
2000 – P and I watch a movie while having some alcoholic drinks.
2200 – Bedtime for us
Total spent - $0
Day 5
0600 – It’s my birthday today. I am going all out celebrating myself since TW I tried unaliving myself twice in the past year. L wishes me a happy birthday before he goes to school. I get birthday messages from my mum, dad, SILs, and friends. I also get a call from my brother, his wife and their son, and they sing to me. I feel very loved today. P goes to drop off E at school today so I can sleep in
0800 – I am finally up and hungry. I cook a quick breakfast of boiled eggs, and a bean curry. P takes my car to get serviced, while I bath, moisturize, contact lenses, do a full face of makeup and get dressed for the day. Today I wear a tie-dyed cutout mini-dress and sneakers, and my wavy headband wig
1300 – P is home and he drives me to a hotel outside town near a renowned tourist site in our country. We have a platter of fried fish, chicken strips, pork strips, fries, and a salad to share and multiple Savannah Drys while there. It’s really nice getting to reconnect after a very tumultuous year in our marriage. P pays.
1700 – We drive around the area, before heading home. Once we get home, P and my nephew go on a hunt for water, while I feed the kids. P and I head off to take our showers. I remember why I don’t do a full face of makeup when it take a long time to get the makeup off my face.
1900 – The family sings happy birthday, and we eat cake. Birthday gifts were gin and chocolate. I hustle the boys off to bed. No story today, as they went to bed later than usual. P watches TV while I read my novel.
2100 – Bedtime for the grownups
Total spent - $0
Day 6
0530 – I wake up and lie in bed for a bit. Then I read my novel some more.
0620 – I am up, and take my bath, moisturize, do my brows and get dressed. It’s cold this morning, so I wear a yellow dress with black polka dots, black tights and ankle boots. I pack up the cake I’m giving to my colleagues, as well as my water bottle. E and I head out. I drop E off at school, and go to the office. I log into the work register, turn on my computer, and check my emails. There are a few pressing issues I need to get up to speed with. One of my colleagues gives me $50 as a birthday gift. I also hand out the cake to my team.
0900 – Work is pretty quiet today, so I update my MD. I also receive news that one of my nephews is getting married. He is not that much younger than me, and could be my younger brother, but it makes me feel so old.
Note on my family: In our culture, even distant relatives are given close relationships so the large number of nephews/nieces is from those relationships. It’s a big thing done to maintain close family bonds. I have 4 actual (in a Western sense) nephews and nieces who are all under the age of 6.
1000 – I head to the supermarket and buy bread, onions, carrots, pork chops, pork trotters and my breakfast and lunch. This costs $25. The meat is the main cost driver here. I have a sausage roll, my multivitamin, supplement and milk for breakfast. I remember that I need to check if my stock exchange wallet was credited, ugh. The website is refusing to load and I’m very frustrated. I finally log in and see the amount is still not credited. I email and send a tweet to the stock exchange. Hopefully the tweet will get them to start moving.
1200 – My boss is mad. One member of my team left his desk without informing me and there’s an urgent matter. I was about to go downstairs to give P the groceries, so I stick around for a bit before committing the same offence as my subordinate, lol. I quickly get back into my office and check on work, sign some papers and letters, and clear out my emails.
1300 – My work bestie has to run other errands at lunch so I decide to stay in the office. I check my personal email and see I have received a dividend of $0.27, lol. The share price will probably drop soon, so I will buy more shares in this counter if I can get them to increase my shareholding. My goal for this year is to breach the 10,000 share mark for one counter. I suddenly remember I have work to do, so I use my lunch hour to do the work, and then take a quick break to eat my lunch of fries and a sausage and do some Swahili Duolingo practice.
1500 – I am thinking of going home when one of my team members calls me to deal with an angry client. I go to the office, and find out it’s a surprise birthday party from my team. I am so happy, lol. We have more cake, and there’s also fruit and juice. I head home feeling so appreciated with even more cake.
1700 – P and my nephew go out to get water. I warm up my bath water, and give the kids their dinner. Today its rice and croc meat. I make L’s lunch for tomorrow, a toasted polony sandwich and juice. I also pack my lunch, rice, a fried egg and peas. And some cake for my work bestie’s kids. I take my bath; change into my pyjamas and hound E to eat his food. If we let that kid be, he would probably live on the bits of our souls he sucks out daily by being stubborn. I am feeling nauseous so I have plain rice with a bit of avocado. The kids watch cartoons, while I do some more Swahili on Duolingo.
1900 – Bedtime for the kids. Today, there’s no demand for a bedtime story, so I just tuck them in and tell them I love them. I read my novel as increasingly feel more nauseated. I end up going to hurl my guts out. P comes home and finds me lying limply on the bed. He gives me a cuddle, and goes to eat his dinner. I get up but smell fish, and run back to throw up. If I hadn’t had a hysterectomy, I would be doing a pregnancy test ASAP.
2100 – I go to bed, and lie in bed for a bit, before finally drifting off.
Total spent - $25
Day 7
0500 – I wake up feeling nauseated again. Ugh, this reminds me of having hyperemesis while pregnant. I put my water on to heat and get back in bed to read some more.
0600 – E comes to lie on our bed. I get out of bed, and go throw up. I get my bath water, take my bath, moisturize and put my contacts in. I look like a reanimated corpse this morning. I do my brows to try bring a bit of life to my face and get dressed. It’s very misty and cold today so I put on warm brown tights, a long black dress, my warm jacket and ballet flats. I grab my lunch and the cake, pop E into the car and head out. Visibility is extremely low, so I drive slowly. I don’t know why people like surprising other drivers by having their cars pop out of the mist without switching on their headlights. I successfully avoid the drivers who hate life and drop E off at school before heading to work.
0700 – I am in the office, and I log into the register, before turning on my computer and checking my work email. Not too much in there, so I check my personal email. My stock exchange wallet has finally been credited with the $100. I also ponder whether I should pull the trigger on a V-part wig.
I do my weekly report, and start doing some boring work in the system. I realise I didn’t save the work I did yesterday, so I have to re-do it, so I can have the list of error messages to send to ICT.
0830 – Everyone is in the office, so I do some reshuffling of duties, so that essential areas are covered while one of my colleagues is on leave. I give the cake to work bestie, who tells me how much her daughter was excited over the cake yesterday. It’s now time for me to put my head down and really focus on knocking out the system work today. I also log into an online training, and I listen while doing my work. My mum also deposits money for my birthday gift and to spoil her grandkids.
1000 – I log into my stock exchange account and buy shares for $99.14 (doesn’t count as spending, as the money was moved before the MD started). The deadline for other departments to submit their weekly reports to me for consolidation has passed so I start following up. One department is a big problem as they always send their report late. Le sigh. I draft a very passive aggressive email to them. I also decide not to buy the wig and instead ask the person making me my custom earrings that I got myself for my birthday to bill me the rest of the money so I can pay and move the remainder of the money in my account into savings. Our currency has taken an enormous hit in the last week, and is free falling dramatically. I’d rather keep USD cash than money in my account at this point. The training finally ends.
1100 – I’m getting hungry so I go warm up my lunch, sprinkle on peri peri Aromat and dig in. Yum. I also have my multivitamin and supplement. A lady who sells local snacks comes in. She persuades me to buy maputi (corn nuts mixed with roasted peanuts) for $0.50. I buy them for my afternoon snack. I end up sending the report with missing statistics, and tell the department to send directly to the compiler, as they were late. That was a very aggressive email tbh. I’m still hungry, so I munch on my maputi, leaving the peanuts because I don’t feel like eating them lately.
1200 – I see a missed call from a number I don’t know. I call and it turns out they had sent money to my mobile wallet mistakenly. I check the mobile wallet and it shows it had an extra $11. I send the money back to the person. Times are too tough to keep people’s money
1400 – I snack on a few skittles instead of having more food. I just want something to entertain my mouth, I’m not hungry at all. I review more work and drink more water. The jeweler has sent the payment request for the earrings. I pay $100 (total spent on the earrings comes to $200, which is worth it for sterling silver custom made Jewellery. I use $50 of the birthday money from my mum to cover for part of this expense)
1600 – Finally time to go home. I shut down my computer, and drive home. Once I’m home, I put on my bath water, and help L do his homework. Then I do some Swahili Duolingo practice and pack L’s lunch for tomorrow. He requested maize (corn on the cob), a boiled egg and a naartjie. His wish is my command for once. I also pack my lunch, a boiled egg, peanut butter sandwich and a bit of birthday cake. The jeweler sends pictures of the final product. They are absolutely gorgeous. Happy 34th birthday to me!!!
1800 – I serve the kids their dinner, and go to take my bath. P sends a text that he will be home late as they are working late today. I have my own dinner while persuading E to eat his food
1900 – Bedtime for the kids. I read them their bedtime stories, tuck them in and tell them I love them. Then I go to watch TV. I’m catching up on Married to Real Estate, Food Factory and Man Vs Food. You can tell that reality TV is my jam.
2100 – I decide to have some decaf black coffee and cake as my bedtime snack. P and my nephew arrive home. They are later than they thought they would be because nephew dropped his phone in the middle of the highway and they were searching for it. Because nephew’s ancestors were on the job, they found it intact. It’s a big deal because this is a major highway and huge trucks use that road constantly. I chat with P as he has his dinner and takes his bath.
2200 – Cuddles and bedtime for us
Total spent today – $100
Total spent this week – $204.50
Spending by categories
Food & Drink – $84.50
Home & Health – $0
Clothing & Beauty – $110
Transportation – $0
Fun & Entertainment – $10
Reflections on this week’s spending
The spending is pretty much about normal for me tbh (excluding the cake and earrings). I had quite a bit of petrol in the tank so I didn’t need to top up my tank this week. The converted US$ prices are a bit inaccurate since our currency had a big drop this week, and most of my spending is in local currency. I could reign in my spending a bit, and focus more on investing. However, I do enjoy using my money to bring joy to my kids and myself. Particularly myself after the absolutely shitty year I had.
submitted by MummyCroc to MoneyDiariesACTIVE [link] [comments]
Age – 34
Location – Zimbabwe
My salary – $500 (paid monthly)
Side Gig Income – $0
Other income – negligible amounts from dividends received from my stock portfolio that I re-invest
Housemates – 4 (husband P, 6 year old L, 4 year old E and nanny F. My nephew M is around and makes appearances too)
Assets and Liabilities
| Equity | $60,000 fully paid off | |
|---|---|---|
| Retirement Balance | ?? | I contribute monthly, and employer matches fully. But because of changes in currency and hyperinflation, I don’t really count this as an asset |
| Savings | $1700 | (went down due to travelling trying to get my passport done since it expired) |
| Current account balance | $660 | Includes my mum's money since I'm managing her financial affairs while she's abroad |
| Loan from employer | $130 | I took a personal loan from work, because the interest rates are lower than rate of inflation and repayment is over 18 months. Loan was used to make improvements on our house, and what wasn’t used, I bought shares on our stock exchange, due to hyperinflation, the amount I owe in US$ has gone down |
| Investments (shares in various counters on our local stock exchanges) | $1,186 | |
| Car | $4,000 | Based on current resale value. Car was bought secondhand for cash |
Income progression- (https://www.reddit.com/MoneyDiariesACTIVE/comments/vbbb7s/i_live_in_zimbabwe_making_3600year_and_i_just/)
Expenses
This year, my husband and I decided that he would take on the bulk of our expenses since I do most of the domestic work/childcare. Expenses I pay will be indicated. My salary is now for my expenses, my investments and my savings, and spoiling the kids. Husband caters for the family basics. There was a point last year when I felt my husband wasn’t as invested in the family because he barely did anything financially. By having him cater for all expenses, he is now definitely involved and invested. My husband’s income is just about the same as mine, slightly higher at some times.
My Expenses
| Expense | Amount /period | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Car insurance and licensing | $300/annum | This is due in March, and I pay for the entire year |
| Petrol | $60/month | |
| Electricity | $10/month | |
| Airtime/data | $20/month | |
| Groceries | $60/month | This is for additional groceries such as bread, veg and fruit bought during the month |
| Kids’ clothes | $40/month | I’m trying to build up their winter wardrobe so I try to buy them something each month |
| Makeup/clothes/toiletries/ supplements/hair | $30/month | I do not us this much monthly though |
| Water | $15/month | Based on last bill received in April. We do not get water consistently so bills are infrequent |
| Donations | $20/month | Ad hoc donations to a soup kitchen, and maternal health fun |
| Stock market investment | $50/month | May invest more or less, but I do try to buy shares every payday |
Household Expenses (paid by P)
| Expense | Amount /period | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Groceries | $200/month | Bulk grocery shopping of staple food items and toiletries |
| LP Gas | $30/approx. every 2 months | We buy when it runs out. Usually every 2 months depending on how bad the power supply is |
| Medical | $15/month | For OTC meds (painkiller, cough syrup, antacid stocked for emergencies) and any prescriptions |
| Pet expenses | $60/ twice a year | For vaccinations and checkups for 4 dogs. Pet food is covered under groceries |
| School fees for the kids | $347/ term | One kid has fees paid every month, the other every 3 months |
| Nanny | $80/month | Less than before as both kids are now in school fulltime, and nanny is there to get them ready for school and care after school for 3 hours. |
| DSTV subscription | $37/month | |
| Transport for kids to/from school | $60/month | L gets picked up and dropped off at home daily, E is dropped off after school |
Previous MDs - (https://www.reddit.com/MoneyDiariesACTIVE/comments/vbbb7s/i_live_in_zimbabwe_making_3600year_and_i_just/) and (https://www.reddit.com/MoneyDiariesACTIVE/comments/yc801g/i_am_33_years_old_and_i_just_graduated_with_my/)
MD Q&A
Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Yes, I have a BSc in Accounting, a Masters in Accounting, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Taxation. My parents both have Masters degrees, and in my family, the bare minimum acceptable for education was getting a Bachelors. My mother paid for my undergraduate degree, and I paid cash for my postgraduate studies.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money?
My parents divorced when I was very young. My dad is the wealthier of the two, my mum has always been middle-class. My mum brought me up with very little financial help from my dad, he only covered tuition and healthcare until I turned 18. My mum catered for everything else. My mum taught me how to look for bargains, how to save and invest, and also how to sometimes enjoy your money.
If you have, when did you move out of your parents'/guardians' house?
I would say I moved out at 26 when I got my current job. I had moved out when I got my first fulltime job, but moved back home when that contract ended
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself? Does anyone else cover any aspects of your financial life?
At 26 again. That's when I earned enough to cover all my bills without needing help. My husband P covers some aspects of my financial life, and my mum occasionally helps out with stuff for her grandchildren.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
I worked as a receptionist at my mum's law firm after finishing my A Levels (age 18) while waiting to start university. My mum gave me the job to keep me occupied and out of mischief, lol.
Do you worry about money now?
I worry about building generational wealth for my children. I want to make sure they will be set for life as adults. I do worry about money because hyperinflation is eroding my earnings and retirement dramatically. This is my second time losing my retirement. My mum and in laws are losing their retirement for the third time, so honestly our old age looks bleak if we do not invest outside of work pensions.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income?
I receive negligible dividends from the shares I own, lol.
Day 1
0430 – I’m woken up by loadshedding. I sigh, rollover, and sleep some more
0600 – Alarm goes off. I turn it off, enjoy cuddles from P and finally get out of bed. Our water tanks ran out 4 days ago, and council has not yet deigned to give us water, so we rely on P’s parents and friends to give us water. I get my water that was warming up on the stove, and take a quick bucket bath. I moisturize, do my brows, throw my lace wig on (I cut my hair in January, and I’m at a really awkward stage where my hair looks bad when I wear it out all day) and get dressed. It’s cold in the mornings so I put on winter stockings and a black and white chevron patterned dress, nude ballet pumps plus my warm jacket. I get E from the couch where he was watching Cocomelon and my lunch bag out of the kitchen and we head off to his school. After dropping off E, I go to the office. No electricity means no elevator, so I go up the stairs. I see my boss’s boss and greet him as we do the ZESA (local electricity company) sponsored workout. I log in to the work register, fill up my kettle, and settle down to check out my work email. Nothing urgent came through overnight, so I go into my personal email. The wig company I patronize has given me a code for my birthday, and I’m wondering if I should pull the trigger on my cart. I decide to do a report while thinking this through.
My mum is currently working out of the country, so I am managing her local finances/obligations while she’s away. I remember I have to buy the prepaid electricity token for my childhood home as well as for the house she lives in when she’s working in the country. I spend $23 on electricity for both houses (mum’s money so doesn’t count)
1030 – After doing some firefighting and office gossip I have my breakfast. Today its rice, peas and 2 fried eggs. I sprinkle some peri-peri Aromat on top since I don’t have a sauce/gravy ad I have been craving spicy food lately. I also pop my multivitamin and supplements. I check my team’s work and send back anything that needs correcting. I also generate the multiple reports my boss expects from me. I suddenly remember I need to claim my allowance for performing a role that is higher than my actual position at work. I quickly complete the form, and send it to my boss for his signature. The extra money from this is what I use to fund my stock market investments. I also remind my team to send a report to me for consolidation by noon.
12.00 – I do a major push of all my work due today so I can relax after lunch. I compile my reports and set them ready to send. I also finish my first 2 litres of water of the day, and cue up the next 2 litres
1300 – Its lunchtime, and my work bestie and I head out around town**. I find shorts that L would fit and buy 2 pairs for $10**. We head back to the office and I have caramel popcorn for lunch. Then I remember I forgot to have my afternoon meds, oops. Anyway, more work before heading to an audit meeting
1630 – The audit meeting is finally over, and I rush to shut down my computer, pack up my things and go home. I have an agreement with my manager that as long as I make up for the hour, by either coming early or skipping lunch, I can leave work at 4pm. I had a total hysterectomy end of last year so I still can’t manage driving in heavy traffic. I arrive home, make the bed (P had not made it when he went to work), and harvest chilies from our garden that have ripened. I also harvest a local herb used as a flu remedy and lemongrass, so I can brew up a tea/tisane for the flu affected people in my house. I also pack L’s lunch for tomorrow, a pie, a naartjie and juice. It’s also F’s payday, so I give her US$80 (P gave me this money).
E says he is hungry so I feed him sadza and sour milk by his request. I multitask covering L’s school textbook while supervising his homework and watching Married to Real Estate and the Great British Bake Off. I then have my dinner of sadza, greens and beef. I have a chat with the kids about their day at school. P gets home.
1900 – P and my nephew M go to fetch water from P’s friend’s house. The city council still hasn’t opened up our water supply. I do some French on Duolingo while the boys wreak havoc in their playroom. I read L and E their bedtime stories and put them to bed. I decide to do my hair in cornrows while watching Masterchef Australia. They get home and I help them carry water indoors. I remember that when power comes back I need to boil tripe on the stove, so I cut it up, put it in the pot with water, salt and garlic, and place it on the electric stove. We have serious loadshedding these days, so we have a gas stove and solar power to tide us over. I take a quick bath and change into my pyjamas. While P watches TV, I read Wild Sweet Love by Beverly Jenkins and continue to do my hair in cornrows.
2200 – My arms are tired and I’m only halfway through with the cornrows. I give up and go to bed with P.
Total spent - $10
Day 2
0600 – I hear crying. E is in a bad mood today. I turn off my alarm, and go to see what’s wrong. E does not want to get dressed for school. I sigh, and help F dress him while he throws a massive tantrum. E is dressed, so I go do my morning routine of shower, moisturize, contact lenses, and eyebrow makeup. Today, I wear a green dress I took from my mum, black tights, nude ballet flats and a black and white coat. E gets put into the car by F, and starts crying for porridge. We are already late, so he learns that the consequence of refusing to eat his porridge on time is to go to school without having his porridge. It’s not a big issue though, as he gets fed at school. So I lock the doors and windows and drive him to school as he throws a tantrum for the entire 10 minute drive. I shove him into the school gate and head to work.
It’s another ZESA sponsored stair workout today. I log into the register, and fill up my kettle with water. I switch on my computer, check my work email and send off client emails to my team for their response. My personal email has an annual report from one of the companies I have shares in so I check out if there’s a dividend this year. I own a negligible number of shares in the company though, but 28c per share is quite impressive. I check to see if my stock exchange wallet has been credited with the money I transferred there so I can buy more shares. It still hasn’t so I send a follow up email o the enquiries desk at the stock exchange. I do have a stockbroker, but I prefer doing my trades myself. I also do some French on Duolingo before 8am.
0830 – Our HR is in a tizzy because people are late for work. I don’t make a big deal out of it usually, because salaries are shit and people are demotivated. As long as my team shows up and does some work, I’m ok. I approve some work, and warn my team about coming in a bit too late. I also tell a teammate that she will have to cover for me on Monday as I am taking the day off. Our internet connectivity is shit so I can’t log into our system to check some stuff. My work bestie gives me avocados from her house. I almost cry because I have been craving avocados, but been too cheap to buy them.
1000 – I have a really bad sore throat. I am also hungry since I haven’t had breakfast yet. I jot down my shopping list for the weekend and head to Pick ‘n’ Pay to buy carrots, green peppers, tomatoes, lemons, cheese, polony and bread. I also buy my breakfast/lunch, which is rice, beans, ox liver and egg salad**. It all cost $10**. I leave my shopping in my car, and go to the office to wolf down my food, and take my multivitamin and painkiller. I also receive my wigs that I bought in May. Perfect timing, as I want to wear a new wig tomorrow for our girls’ day out.
I do some more work, and remind my team to send me the information I need for my daily reports.
1300 – I go out to buy a few items I didn’t find in Pick ‘n’ Pay earlier**. I go to Spar and buy peas, eggs, soft drinks for the outing tomorrow and a sausage roll. Total cost is $10**. The outing has been deemed kid friendly, so I needed drinks for the boys to have tomorrow. I get back into the office, and spend the rest of the lunch hour working.
1600 – It’s finally time to go home. I send my email to handover work issues for the person who will take over my role on Monday while I am on leave. I also send my out of office email, and head home. The kids are at their grandmother’s, so I take a leisurely bath, put on my pyjamas and eat dinner. Then I watch Masterchef Australia until P and E get home. I also get in some French Duolingo practice
2000 – P goes out with his friends, so I snuggle up on the couch with E and watch TV. I put E to bed, read him his bedtime story and kiss him good night. I finally finish season 13 of Masterchef Australia, and move on to My Kitchen Rules Australia. I love Australian reality shows, ngl.
2200 – I go to bed P gets home and tells me some bad news about a friend of ours. I feel very sad for him. He cuddles me and we sleep.
Total spent - $20
Day 3
0700 – I wake up feeling like a truck ran me over. I get out of bed, and get ready to hand-wash our laundry. We still have no running water so we can’t use the washing machine. I play music while doing my laundry to keep me motivated
0900 – Laundry has been hung out to dry. F has cooked potato curry, so I boil eggs and water. I have my breakfast of potato curry, egg, multivitamin and coffee. Once I’m done, I give E a bath and dress him. I also bath, moisturize, do my brows and get dressed. I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt today as my friends and I ae supposed to take our kids out for a playdate. Then I receive a message that the outing is cancelled since one of our group is really sick. I try to think of something I can do with E, since L is out having fun with his grandmother. I do my Swahili Duolingo practice.
1100 – The welder comes to do some work on our garage door. I monitor the work for a bit, and then my nephew takes over. E starts really bugging me to go out. So I put on my headband wig and sneakers, and pack a cooler bag with snacks and drinks. We head into town and I buy myself some ciders for $9. These are for me to drink when the mood strikes me. E wants to go to a resort by the lake so I oblige him. We pay $8 for our entrance. He goes to play on the swings, and I take pictures of him having fun. Another family turns up, and one of his classmates is among them. He’s so happy, and goes to play with his friend. I watch him running around.
1500 – I get a call from my friend that she’s in town with my cake. This cake was meant for the cancelled outing. I pack up our stuff, hustle E into the car and drive back into town. I let out some colourful swear words when I realise I forgot to get our change of $2. Anyway**, I meet up with my friend and get the cake, and pay her $30**. It’s so pretty. I call my MIL while still in town to find out what time she will be there so I can pick up L. She says it will be an hour, so E and I head home to drop off the cake so it doesn’t melt in my AC-less car.
1600 – We are back in town waiting for L and MIL. E wants an ice cream so I buy him one for $0.50 using money I had in my Innbucks wallet. MIL calls and asks me to head over to where she is to pick L up since she can’t leave yet. E and I get there. MIL gets me sadza and goat tripe stew, which I eat a bit of to be polite even though I am not hungry. When I’m done, I pack up the kids and drive home. I bath and change into my pyjamas.
1800 – I feed the kids, and we play until their weekend bedtime of 8pm. I read them their bedtime stories and tuck them in. I watch TV and iron my morning laundry while having a gin and juice until 9pm, and head to read in bed. P and my nephew arrive home from their amateur soccer league match and subsequent outing with the boys. I fall asleep soon after.
Total spent - $49.50
Day 4
0700 – I’m woken up by L demanding that I come and play with them. I am still sleepy so I fob him off.
0900 - F knocks on the door and tells us she is off to church. I finally get out of bed and get dressed. I see the boys playing relatively peacefully so I let them continue with their antics. In the kitchen, I find F had cooked breakfast, and since I’m starving, I heat up water for coffee. L surprisingly isn’t hungry so I serve up breakfast for P and me. I have my daily multivitamin. P heads out to go fetch water, while I bath, change and hang out with the kids. I also do my French Duolingo practice for the day
1200 – I have played with the dogs and kids, and I am exhausted. I collapse onto the couch and watch MKR Australia. P gets home, and naps on the couch. I give the kids haircuts and baths.
1700 – L is hungry and really wants cake, so I feed the kids a dinner of sadza and sour milk. Then some cake for dessert. I also pack L’s school lunch, which will be a polony sandwich, a cupcake and juice. The kids play until its bedtime at 7pm. The usual routine, bedtime stories and tuck in is done
2000 – P and I watch a movie while having some alcoholic drinks.
2200 – Bedtime for us
Total spent - $0
Day 5
0600 – It’s my birthday today. I am going all out celebrating myself since TW I tried unaliving myself twice in the past year. L wishes me a happy birthday before he goes to school. I get birthday messages from my mum, dad, SILs, and friends. I also get a call from my brother, his wife and their son, and they sing to me. I feel very loved today. P goes to drop off E at school today so I can sleep in
0800 – I am finally up and hungry. I cook a quick breakfast of boiled eggs, and a bean curry. P takes my car to get serviced, while I bath, moisturize, contact lenses, do a full face of makeup and get dressed for the day. Today I wear a tie-dyed cutout mini-dress and sneakers, and my wavy headband wig
1300 – P is home and he drives me to a hotel outside town near a renowned tourist site in our country. We have a platter of fried fish, chicken strips, pork strips, fries, and a salad to share and multiple Savannah Drys while there. It’s really nice getting to reconnect after a very tumultuous year in our marriage. P pays.
1700 – We drive around the area, before heading home. Once we get home, P and my nephew go on a hunt for water, while I feed the kids. P and I head off to take our showers. I remember why I don’t do a full face of makeup when it take a long time to get the makeup off my face.
1900 – The family sings happy birthday, and we eat cake. Birthday gifts were gin and chocolate. I hustle the boys off to bed. No story today, as they went to bed later than usual. P watches TV while I read my novel.
2100 – Bedtime for the grownups
Total spent - $0
Day 6
0530 – I wake up and lie in bed for a bit. Then I read my novel some more.
0620 – I am up, and take my bath, moisturize, do my brows and get dressed. It’s cold this morning, so I wear a yellow dress with black polka dots, black tights and ankle boots. I pack up the cake I’m giving to my colleagues, as well as my water bottle. E and I head out. I drop E off at school, and go to the office. I log into the work register, turn on my computer, and check my emails. There are a few pressing issues I need to get up to speed with. One of my colleagues gives me $50 as a birthday gift. I also hand out the cake to my team.
0900 – Work is pretty quiet today, so I update my MD. I also receive news that one of my nephews is getting married. He is not that much younger than me, and could be my younger brother, but it makes me feel so old.
Note on my family: In our culture, even distant relatives are given close relationships so the large number of nephews/nieces is from those relationships. It’s a big thing done to maintain close family bonds. I have 4 actual (in a Western sense) nephews and nieces who are all under the age of 6.
1000 – I head to the supermarket and buy bread, onions, carrots, pork chops, pork trotters and my breakfast and lunch. This costs $25. The meat is the main cost driver here. I have a sausage roll, my multivitamin, supplement and milk for breakfast. I remember that I need to check if my stock exchange wallet was credited, ugh. The website is refusing to load and I’m very frustrated. I finally log in and see the amount is still not credited. I email and send a tweet to the stock exchange. Hopefully the tweet will get them to start moving.
1200 – My boss is mad. One member of my team left his desk without informing me and there’s an urgent matter. I was about to go downstairs to give P the groceries, so I stick around for a bit before committing the same offence as my subordinate, lol. I quickly get back into my office and check on work, sign some papers and letters, and clear out my emails.
1300 – My work bestie has to run other errands at lunch so I decide to stay in the office. I check my personal email and see I have received a dividend of $0.27, lol. The share price will probably drop soon, so I will buy more shares in this counter if I can get them to increase my shareholding. My goal for this year is to breach the 10,000 share mark for one counter. I suddenly remember I have work to do, so I use my lunch hour to do the work, and then take a quick break to eat my lunch of fries and a sausage and do some Swahili Duolingo practice.
1500 – I am thinking of going home when one of my team members calls me to deal with an angry client. I go to the office, and find out it’s a surprise birthday party from my team. I am so happy, lol. We have more cake, and there’s also fruit and juice. I head home feeling so appreciated with even more cake.
1700 – P and my nephew go out to get water. I warm up my bath water, and give the kids their dinner. Today its rice and croc meat. I make L’s lunch for tomorrow, a toasted polony sandwich and juice. I also pack my lunch, rice, a fried egg and peas. And some cake for my work bestie’s kids. I take my bath; change into my pyjamas and hound E to eat his food. If we let that kid be, he would probably live on the bits of our souls he sucks out daily by being stubborn. I am feeling nauseous so I have plain rice with a bit of avocado. The kids watch cartoons, while I do some more Swahili on Duolingo.
1900 – Bedtime for the kids. Today, there’s no demand for a bedtime story, so I just tuck them in and tell them I love them. I read my novel as increasingly feel more nauseated. I end up going to hurl my guts out. P comes home and finds me lying limply on the bed. He gives me a cuddle, and goes to eat his dinner. I get up but smell fish, and run back to throw up. If I hadn’t had a hysterectomy, I would be doing a pregnancy test ASAP.
2100 – I go to bed, and lie in bed for a bit, before finally drifting off.
Total spent - $25
Day 7
0500 – I wake up feeling nauseated again. Ugh, this reminds me of having hyperemesis while pregnant. I put my water on to heat and get back in bed to read some more.
0600 – E comes to lie on our bed. I get out of bed, and go throw up. I get my bath water, take my bath, moisturize and put my contacts in. I look like a reanimated corpse this morning. I do my brows to try bring a bit of life to my face and get dressed. It’s very misty and cold today so I put on warm brown tights, a long black dress, my warm jacket and ballet flats. I grab my lunch and the cake, pop E into the car and head out. Visibility is extremely low, so I drive slowly. I don’t know why people like surprising other drivers by having their cars pop out of the mist without switching on their headlights. I successfully avoid the drivers who hate life and drop E off at school before heading to work.
0700 – I am in the office, and I log into the register, before turning on my computer and checking my work email. Not too much in there, so I check my personal email. My stock exchange wallet has finally been credited with the $100. I also ponder whether I should pull the trigger on a V-part wig.
I do my weekly report, and start doing some boring work in the system. I realise I didn’t save the work I did yesterday, so I have to re-do it, so I can have the list of error messages to send to ICT.
0830 – Everyone is in the office, so I do some reshuffling of duties, so that essential areas are covered while one of my colleagues is on leave. I give the cake to work bestie, who tells me how much her daughter was excited over the cake yesterday. It’s now time for me to put my head down and really focus on knocking out the system work today. I also log into an online training, and I listen while doing my work. My mum also deposits money for my birthday gift and to spoil her grandkids.
1000 – I log into my stock exchange account and buy shares for $99.14 (doesn’t count as spending, as the money was moved before the MD started). The deadline for other departments to submit their weekly reports to me for consolidation has passed so I start following up. One department is a big problem as they always send their report late. Le sigh. I draft a very passive aggressive email to them. I also decide not to buy the wig and instead ask the person making me my custom earrings that I got myself for my birthday to bill me the rest of the money so I can pay and move the remainder of the money in my account into savings. Our currency has taken an enormous hit in the last week, and is free falling dramatically. I’d rather keep USD cash than money in my account at this point. The training finally ends.
1100 – I’m getting hungry so I go warm up my lunch, sprinkle on peri peri Aromat and dig in. Yum. I also have my multivitamin and supplement. A lady who sells local snacks comes in. She persuades me to buy maputi (corn nuts mixed with roasted peanuts) for $0.50. I buy them for my afternoon snack. I end up sending the report with missing statistics, and tell the department to send directly to the compiler, as they were late. That was a very aggressive email tbh. I’m still hungry, so I munch on my maputi, leaving the peanuts because I don’t feel like eating them lately.
1200 – I see a missed call from a number I don’t know. I call and it turns out they had sent money to my mobile wallet mistakenly. I check the mobile wallet and it shows it had an extra $11. I send the money back to the person. Times are too tough to keep people’s money
1400 – I snack on a few skittles instead of having more food. I just want something to entertain my mouth, I’m not hungry at all. I review more work and drink more water. The jeweler has sent the payment request for the earrings. I pay $100 (total spent on the earrings comes to $200, which is worth it for sterling silver custom made Jewellery. I use $50 of the birthday money from my mum to cover for part of this expense)
1600 – Finally time to go home. I shut down my computer, and drive home. Once I’m home, I put on my bath water, and help L do his homework. Then I do some Swahili Duolingo practice and pack L’s lunch for tomorrow. He requested maize (corn on the cob), a boiled egg and a naartjie. His wish is my command for once. I also pack my lunch, a boiled egg, peanut butter sandwich and a bit of birthday cake. The jeweler sends pictures of the final product. They are absolutely gorgeous. Happy 34th birthday to me!!!
1800 – I serve the kids their dinner, and go to take my bath. P sends a text that he will be home late as they are working late today. I have my own dinner while persuading E to eat his food
1900 – Bedtime for the kids. I read them their bedtime stories, tuck them in and tell them I love them. Then I go to watch TV. I’m catching up on Married to Real Estate, Food Factory and Man Vs Food. You can tell that reality TV is my jam.
2100 – I decide to have some decaf black coffee and cake as my bedtime snack. P and my nephew arrive home. They are later than they thought they would be because nephew dropped his phone in the middle of the highway and they were searching for it. Because nephew’s ancestors were on the job, they found it intact. It’s a big deal because this is a major highway and huge trucks use that road constantly. I chat with P as he has his dinner and takes his bath.
2200 – Cuddles and bedtime for us
Total spent today – $100
Total spent this week – $204.50
Spending by categories
Food & Drink – $84.50
Home & Health – $0
Clothing & Beauty – $110
Transportation – $0
Fun & Entertainment – $10
Reflections on this week’s spending
The spending is pretty much about normal for me tbh (excluding the cake and earrings). I had quite a bit of petrol in the tank so I didn’t need to top up my tank this week. The converted US$ prices are a bit inaccurate since our currency had a big drop this week, and most of my spending is in local currency. I could reign in my spending a bit, and focus more on investing. However, I do enjoy using my money to bring joy to my kids and myself. Particularly myself after the absolutely shitty year I had.
2023.06.08 08:33 abas_games The shadow of harumi - after merge fanfiction
This fanfiction might contain spoliers of dragon risin part 1 !! I will say that because it have some references
Hi this is a fanfiction story which takes place after the merge Please ignore any mistakes i made writing this And i know the pilot point might not be the most cannon so anyway lets start
under a thundery weather harumi wakes and rise up after the all the realms merged together happened she find herself being in a village she used to live in before the events of Great Devourer happened (Harumi tries remember what happened exactly and how she ended up here but no clue) she then heard a kid noise from the village she is at she looks at the source of the noise and sees the kid crying. harumi: H-hey, are you alright? She ask the kid who is a 4 year old boy Kid: No! I'm not alright! He said while crying harumi: Do you mind telling me what's the matter? She ask the crying kid again Kid: My parents missing and i can't find them! Harumi: don't worry kid i will look for them Harumi then looks into the sky and notices how weird it is harumi: It seems to me that something big happened i don't know how or what but i will find out After few hours She decided to go to the Monastery of Spinjitzu hoping that she will find anyone there (After a while of walking on the monastery stairs ) harumi: hm! she noticed how weird that ninjago city looks from far distance She continues walking and before she reachs the doors she felt a small earthquake come from the monastery < It most likely came from an some sort of elevator's > Harumi opens the door only to disappointedly found no one she also noticed there's A portrait of Wu hung on the wall Harumi: Nya , lloyd ? ( No response ) Harumi: Anyone here? She decided to explore the monastery looking for clues on what happened She noticed how messy this place are While searching for clues she found a paper in a desk and . With a dragon picture in it She obviously doesn't know what it means so she decided to rest for a moment and go into ninjago city later this day ... ( Harumi take with her some items with her and decided to go out of the monastery hoping to find more clues on what happened ) she eventually made it to ninjago city and immediately notices that A tent in the city contains images of ninja harumi ( After a while Harumi thinks if no one is protecting the city she will do then) Harumi ultimately decided to protect the new ninjago city until any she finds any sign of the Ninja's ... . . . I hope that i don't see any requests for a part 2 of this
submitted by abas_games to Ninjago [link] [comments]
Hi this is a fanfiction story which takes place after the merge Please ignore any mistakes i made writing this And i know the pilot point might not be the most cannon so anyway lets start
under a thundery weather harumi wakes and rise up after the all the realms merged together happened she find herself being in a village she used to live in before the events of Great Devourer happened (Harumi tries remember what happened exactly and how she ended up here but no clue) she then heard a kid noise from the village she is at she looks at the source of the noise and sees the kid crying. harumi: H-hey, are you alright? She ask the kid who is a 4 year old boy Kid: No! I'm not alright! He said while crying harumi: Do you mind telling me what's the matter? She ask the crying kid again Kid: My parents missing and i can't find them! Harumi: don't worry kid i will look for them Harumi then looks into the sky and notices how weird it is harumi: It seems to me that something big happened i don't know how or what but i will find out After few hours She decided to go to the Monastery of Spinjitzu hoping that she will find anyone there (After a while of walking on the monastery stairs ) harumi: hm! she noticed how weird that ninjago city looks from far distance She continues walking and before she reachs the doors she felt a small earthquake come from the monastery < It most likely came from an some sort of elevator's > Harumi opens the door only to disappointedly found no one she also noticed there's A portrait of Wu hung on the wall Harumi: Nya , lloyd ? ( No response ) Harumi: Anyone here? She decided to explore the monastery looking for clues on what happened She noticed how messy this place are While searching for clues she found a paper in a desk and . With a dragon picture in it She obviously doesn't know what it means so she decided to rest for a moment and go into ninjago city later this day ... ( Harumi take with her some items with her and decided to go out of the monastery hoping to find more clues on what happened ) she eventually made it to ninjago city and immediately notices that A tent in the city contains images of ninja harumi ( After a while Harumi thinks if no one is protecting the city she will do then) Harumi ultimately decided to protect the new ninjago city until any she finds any sign of the Ninja's ... . . . I hope that i don't see any requests for a part 2 of this
2023.06.08 08:22 Jacques_Ellul ‘The Humiliation of the Word’
I look out in front of me, and perceive the sea lit up out to the horizon. I look around me: to my left and right, I see the limitless straight line of the beach, and behind it, the dunes -- all in space. With my gaze I make the space my own. The objects are clear and plain. I see the wind bend over to the ground, the reeds that keep the dunes in place.
I am at the center of this universe by means of my gaze, which sweeps across this space and lets me know everything in it. By combining these images of reality, I grasp it as a whole, and become a part of it as a result of my looking.
My sight constructs a universe for me. It reveals to me a directly perceivable reality composed of colorful, simple, harmonious images. But it also furnishes me with more subtle materials. I learn to read my brother’s or my enemy’s face. Transmitted images are superimposed on one another, and as a result, I now know that a given image belongs within a particular context of reality. It conjures up another image; I anticipate what I am going to see, but what is coming will in any case be located in space and will constitute part of reality -- deeper and hidden, in a sense, but still reality.
Such information is precise and pinpointed, and deals only with reality. Nothing else, no other dimension, is ever involved. …Sight has made me the center of the world because it situates me at the point from which I see everything, and causes me to see things relative to this point. My vision makes a circular sweep of space, working from this point: my point of view. But now I am tempted, as the center of the world, to act on this spectacle and transform this setting. What was missing in my vision was someone to act, and I am available.
Sight moves to action at the same time that it serves as the means of action. Again, without it, how could I act, since I wouldn’t even know what my hand was touching or what was within my reach? …I am a subject, not separated from what I look at. Rather, what I see becomes a part of me, as my action involves me in what I see. Images both permit and condition my action; they are always imperative. I lean out the window and look searchingly into the emptiness. Images of distance and depth thrust themselves on my consciousness. I know I mustn’t lean out any further.
The image defines and marks the boundaries of my action. The image does not induce my action, but establishes its conditions and possibilities. Without visual images my action is definitely blind, incoherent, and uncertain. Sight conveys certainties and pieces of information to me, as we have said. Such information is reliable. I perceive a gray ocean and an overcast skyline. This is unquestionable. The reality around me is a certainty in which I can be confident. It is neither incoherent nor deformed. I know, of course, that this is also something learned; there are no data coming directly from the senses, and the shapes and colors and distances I apprehend are perceptible to me because I learned them. My culture has furnished me with the very images I see. But however important this may be (and we must not push this idea too far!), it is still true that I see.
What a dreadful uneasiness takes hold of us when reality is submerged in fog…sight fails to furnish me with clear images and I can no longer act. The world loses its midpoint. It is off center because I cannot see it anymore. The center could be anywhere, but it is no longer located where I am.
In order for my sight to mislead me concerning reality, there must be some unusual phenomenon, like a mirage. The image is not ambiguous. This peach I am looking at is red and weighs heavily on the bending branch. This is absolutely certain. But the image is insignificant. It has no meaning in itself and must be interpreted. In the case of a fruit ripe for picking, the visual image gives me indisputable information, but if I stop there, nothing will happen. It must therefore be interpreted. In order to move from the vision of the fruit to "I should pick it" or "It can be picked," there must be an interpretation: an attribution of meaning to these real images of reality.
Another dimension must be added to sight: interpretation will come through speech. Thus the image contains within itself a deep contradiction. It is not ambiguous: it is coherent, reliable, and inclusive; but it is insignificant. It can have innumerable meanings, depending on culture, learning, or the intervention of some other dimension. For this reason I must learn to see, before looking at the image.
After seeing it, I must learn to interpret it. The image is clear, but this clarity does not imply certainty or comprehension. My certainty is limited to this directly perceived reality that my sight reveals to me. Nothing beyond that.
I call these images "vision" because they are connected with the other images I am accustomed to. I would be tempted to say in this case that the order is reversed. The visual image exists, and then I attribute a meaning to it; but the vision appears only as the illustration of a previously established meaning. No matter how insignificant it may be, the visual image is always rigorous, imperative, and irreversible. I saw what I saw. I cannot change the reality which is conveyed to me in this way, except through my action. There is no ambiguity at this point. Nor is there reversibility.
If I had only one "view" of my universe, I would be a participant in a totality which would be both terribly coherent and yet at the same time composed of fragments without any necessary relationship. The totality would be like a cloud of irrational dots which can form only the framework of an action, a change in the relationships between the points. But the cloud of dots cannot be used for understanding anything, because this pointillism of images is space but not duration. The image is present. It is only a presence. It bears witness to something "already there": the object I see was there before I opened my eyes.
I have a point of view, a location from which I see things, but it is situated within what I see and inseparable from it. Wherever I place myself, however I shift my position, I remain in the field of vision, I remain in the middle of what I see. I can never take my distance, act as if I were not present, or even begin to think independently of what I see.
At night, when I cannot see, a certain distance is established. This explains why the day’s events become so painful at night: the distance between me and the world around me allows for reflection and meditation. A flood of images overwhelms me, beckons me, and carries me along: an image I have seen follows immediately after the one I have just dismissed from my mind. I can never stop this movement of reality in space. I can never consider a given image like a diamond or a painting from which I can take my distance in order to be "myself," instead of being overwhelmed by the images composed of dots.
The image prevents me from taking my distance. And if I cannot establish a certain distance, I can neither judge nor criticize. Of course, I also feel pleasure or displeasure in what I see. I can find it beautiful or ugly. But this is not a critical process. No judgment is involved. Furthermore, what possible criticism or judgment can we make with respect to space and reality? In spite of the frailty we have all observed in a person’s testimony about what he has seen, everyone has the same certainty about anything he has seen. He has seen reality.
Sight involves a relationship with reality as established in space. It is an artificial construction. Medusa’s head transfixes whoever gazes at her. Whoever looks at the scenes on the shields of the Iliad is terror stricken. Sight introduces us to an unbearable shock. Reality when seen inspires horror. Terror is always visual. Horror stories play only on our visual sense and suggest representation.
In contrast, the spoken word can involve us in mystery or drama. It places us in situations of conflict and makes us conscious of tragedy. But it is never on its own terrifying or stupefying. We are dazed by sight -- by an image or a vision. The word takes us to the edge of terror only when descriptive and painting extremely precise images. Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories are an example. All the descriptions we have heard of Nazi death camps move us to revulsion and to a judgment that may be based more on strong feelings than anything else. The image of bulldozers pushing along mounds of skeletal corpses, which shortly before had been living beings, faces teetering from the machine’s pushing -- this image drawn from ‘Night and Fog’ moves us to abject horror. It terrifies us, because we see. Such terror results from the horror of reality.
Reality apprehended by sight is always unbearable, even when that reality is beauty. We have a horror of reality, perhaps because we depend on it so. Language, even when it is realistic, allows us to escape from this terrible reality. Sight locks us up with it and obliges us to look at it. There is no way out -- except by controlling and mastering the reality.
Images fall into a pattern with respect to each other, but sounds do not. Instead, sounds contradict each other and cancel each other out. I am listening to a Mozart concerto, and suddenly near me someone speaks. Or a visitor knocks at my door. Or someone starts noisily putting away dishes and silverware. Sounds produce incoherence. The noises I hear form no panorama of the world.
Alone among all other sounds there is one that is particularly important for us: the spoken word. It ushers us into another dimension: relationship with other living beings, with persons. The Word is the particularly human sound which differentiates us from everything else. In this connection a fundamental difference between seeing and hearing is immediately apparent. In seeing, the living being is one form among many. A human being has a special shape and color, but he is included with all the rest as part of the landscape: a discrete, moving speck. When I hear speech, however, the human being becomes qualitatively different from everything else.
The spoken word, even if it involves an essential proclamation or the thought of a genius, falls into the void, passes, and disappears, if it is not heard and recovered by someone. The ocean over there, even if no one contemplates it, remains what it is and what it was. I see it, and it produces a flurry of emotions in me. I leave. I go away, but it does not. The spoken sentence has sunk into nothingness; time has gone by, and there are no "frozen words" which can make themselves heard again later.
Thus speech is basically presence. It is something alive and is never an object. It cannot be thrown before me and remain there. Once spoken, the word ceases to exist, unless I have recovered it. Before it is spoken, the word places me in an expectant situation, in a future I await eagerly. The word does not exist on its own. It continues to exist only in its effect on the one who spoke it and on the one who recovered it. The word is never an object you can turn this way and that, grasp, and preserve for tomorrow or some distant day when you may have time to deal with it. The word exists now. It is something immediate and can never be manipulated. Either it exists or it doesn’t. It makes me what I am, establishes the speaking me and the listening me, so that my role is determined by the word itself rather than by its content. For the word to become an object, someone must transform it into writing. But then it is no longer speech. Yet even in that form, it requires time.
The word is, of necessity, spoken to someone. If no one is present, it is spoken to oneself or to God. It presupposes an ear; the Great Ear, if necessary. It calls for a response. Every word, even a swearword, an insult, an exclamation, or a soliloquy, begins a dialogue. The monologue is a dialogue in the future or the past, or else it is a dialogue incorporated into a monologue. Here again, time is involved. Dialogue develops according to a variable timetable, but dialogue cannot exist unless those engaging in it are inserted into time. Language is a call, an exchange. I avoid using the threadbare term "communication." It is not true that language exists only to communicate information.
Language never belongs to the order of evident things. It is a continuous movement between hiding and revealing. It makes of the play in human relationships something even more fine and complex than it would be without language. Language exists only for, in, and by virtue of this relationship.
Dialogue involves a certain distance. We must be separated as well as different. I do not speak to a person identical to me. I must have something to say which the other lacks, but he must also be different from me. Yet similarity is required as well. When Adam sees Eve he bursts into speech. He speaks because of her and for her. She was flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone; and yet different: a dissimilar similar person. Speech fills the infinite gap that separates us. But the difference is never removed.
Discourse begins again and again because the distance between us remains. I find I must repeatedly begin speaking again to restate what I have said. The result is an inevitable, yet rich and blessed, redundancy. The word is resumed and repeated because it is never fully explicit or an exact translation of what I have to say. It is never precisely received, never precisely understood.
The word reduced to the value of an algebraic formula with only one possible meaning would be useful for us in carrying out an identical superficial activity. But such language could never create meaning, and would never produce agreement and communication with another person. "Algebraic" language could never produce -- or suggest a story. Bees communicate pieces of information to each other, but do not produce anything like history.
The word can also obstruct and impede history, when mythical language immerses us in an ahistorical time that is repetitive and continually reduced to myth. Language is either historical or ahistorical, either a discourse on action to be undertaken or of a myth to listen to. According to the sort of language used, human history either arises and becomes a significant aspect of humanity’s existence, or else it remains on the level of everyday incoherence.
With insight, meaning becomes perfectly transparent. The other person’s words become mine; I receive them in my own mind. I experience utter intellectual delight, but a delight in my whole being as well, when I understand and am understood. The Word ushers us into time.
When I say that language normally deals with Truth rather than Reality, I only mean that there are two orders of knowledge, two kinds of references we use as human beings. There are references to the concrete, experienced reality around us, and others that come from the spoken universe. The spoken universe is our invention -- something we establish and originate by our words. We derive meaning and understanding from language, and it permits us to go beyond the reality of our lives to enter another universe, which we may call phantasmic, schizophrenic, imaginary, or any other name we choose.
I am certain that since the beginning, human beings have felt a pressing need to frame for themselves something different from the verifiable universe, and we have formed it through language. This universe is what we call truth.
The important thing is that the unique value of language lies in truth. Language is not bound to reality, but to its capacity to create this different universe, which you can call surreal, meta-real, or metaphysical. For the sake of convenience we will call it the order of truth. The word is the creator, founder, and producer of truth.
When it uses a loudspeaker and crushes others with its powerful equipment, when the television set speaks, the word is no longer involved, since no dialogue is possible. What we have in these cases is machines that use language as a way of asserting themselves. Their power is magnified, but language is reduced to a useless series of sounds which inspire only reflexes and animal instincts.
How often we have come up against a blank wall instead of a face, when the other person did not want to understand! How can we make him understand as long as he persists in that attitude? In reality, language is an extraordinary occurrence in which each person’s liberty is respected. I can oppose my word to the other person’s. Or I can turn a deaf ear. I remain free as I face someone who tries to define me, encircle me, or convince me.
In other words, of necessity I give my listener a choice to make. A situation where there is choice is a situation where there is freedom. But at the same time, I invite him to use the gift of liberty inherent in language, just as I have. He must speak in turn, consciously making use of his freedom. I invite him to start down the difficult road of self-knowledge and self-expression, of choice, self-exposure, and unveiling.
Language always involves the exercise of freedom. It is never mechanical, just as it is not an object! Subtle structural linguistic analyses are of course limited to texts; that is, to finite, fixed words rather than open-ended ones. Such analyses seem to account for everything…But they overlook one thing. Once the languages and lexicons, rhetorics, discourses, and narratives have been stripped of their mystery, one thing is left: language itself. It remains because it is history, and such linguistic analysis excludes history.
This is its second characteristic. The paradox, let us remember, is something situated beside or outside the doxa (opinion). The paradox is free of all doxa, but at the same time calls the doxa into question. Roland Barthes is right in showing that "the real instrument of censorship is the endoxa rather than the police."
Our civilization’s major temptation (a problem that comes from technique’s preponderant influence) is to confuse reality with truth. We are made to believe that reality is truth: the only truth. At the time of the controversy over universals, the realists believed that only truth is real. We have inverted the terms, believing that everything is limited to reality. We think that truth is contained within reality and expressed by it. Nothing more. Moreover, there is nothing left beyond reality any more. Nothing is Other; the Wholly Other no longer exists. Everything is reduced to this verifiable reality which is scientifically measurable and pragmatically modifiable. Praxis becomes the measure of all truth. Truth becomes limited to something that falls short of real truth. It is something that can be acted upon. The Word is related only to Truth. The image is related only to reality.
Of course, the word can also refer to reality! It can be perfectly pragmatic, used to command an action or to describe a factual situation. The word enters the world of concrete objects and refers to experiences of reality. It is the means of communication in everyday life, and as a result it fits precisely with all of reality. It conveys information about reality and takes part in the understanding of it. It can even create reality, producing effects that will become part of reality. Thus the word is ambivalent. But its specificity lies in the domain of truth, since this domain is not shared with anything else.
On the contrary, the image cannot leave the domain of reality. It is not ambivalent. At this point I can hear someone tempted to ask: "What is Truth?" I will carefully avoid answering by suggesting some specific content for the word. Such an answer would be challenged immediately, involving us in a long digression which would exceed my capacity. Without attempting this sort of definition, I can show what the object of truth can be, and this will serve to distinguish it clearly from reality. The very questions asked about truth can indicate its nature, replacing the answer that cannot be given. We can grant, then, that anything concerned with the ultimate destination of a human being belongs to the domain of Truth.
It does not matter if one can answer or not, nor does it matter whether the answer is personal or is objectified as philosophy or revelation. But when a person asks about his own life (consciously or unconsciously), then the real question of truth has been asked. And when anyone claims to have resolved it, he is lying.
When he tries to answer this question within the framework of reality alone, he has no answer to offer.
An individual can ask the question of truth and attempt to answer it only through language. The image, on the other hand, belongs to the domain of reality. It can in no way convey anything at all about the order of truth. It never grasps anything but an appearance or outward behavior. It is unable to convey a spiritual experience, a requirement of justice, a testimony to the deepest feelings of a person, or to bear witness to the truth. In all these areas the image will rely on a form. Images can convey a rite, and thus people have a tendency to confuse religious truth with religious rites.
An image can catch a psychological expression on someone’s face: ecstasy, for example. People will believe that they are seeing authentic faith, whereas all they have is a psychological state that can be utterly unrelated to faith. Such a state can be induced by a drug, for example. Faced with such a problem, those who identify reality with truth are so monumentally confused that they deny faith because a psychological state can be artificially induced! An image can show a body’s position, as in a photograph of clasped hands and bowed head, seeming to say that this is prayer. But in reality, no prayer is involved in this image; it could be only a joke. Even when no one is joking, an image is incapable of expressing the seriousness of truth.
…An image can report miracles, but only recorded miracles -- after they have taken place and grace has departed. The image can never penetrate as far as the holy place where the Word proclaims that an individual has become a new creation. The miracle is an expression of this new creation. No image is able to convey any truth at all. This explains in partly why all "spiritual" films are failures. When we insist on expressing spiritual matters this way through images, something other than truth is always perceived. Even more serious and alarming, truth tends to disappear behind all the lighting and makeup. It tends to vanish when squelched by images.
Our generation is characterized by the exclusive preeminence of reality, both at the factual level and in our preoccupations. We are moved in this direction by the marvels of technique, the prevailing tone of our time, the great concern about economic matters, etc. Our era is further characterized by an absolute identification of reality with truth. Marxism has prevailed absolutely in this matter, and science has finally convinced people that the only possible truth consists in knowing reality, and that the proof of truth is success relative to reality. Thus in the thinking of modern individuals the image is the means par excellence which communicates reality and truth at the same time.
This attitude concerning images can be held only if one confuses reality and truth to begin with, believing that a scientific hypothesis is true when it is confirmed by experiments. Such a hypothesis has nothing to do with truth, and is merely accurate. Of course, this preeminence of reality and this confusion coincide with the universal belief in the "fact," taken to be of ultimate value.
The image is an admirable tool for understanding reality. A documentary film of a riot enables us to penetrate the world of anger better than any speech could. But an image is explosive only if the spectator knows what it represents and if it is taken for what it is: a faithful representation of reality. An image becomes falsehood and illusion as soon as a person tries to see truth in it. At that moment, by means of an amazing reversal, the image loses all its explosive power.
When the image is understood to speak only of reality, however, it is explosive and terrible. At this point we discover a new problem. images in our society are always the product of a mechanical technique. Technique is truly an intermediary, since the universe of images is established for us by technique. But this is the equivalent of saying that we find ourselves in the presence of an artificial world, made by an outside force with artificial means. Therefore it is important to realize that stark reality is never conveyed to us in this universe of images. Instead we find a more or less arbitrary construction or reconstruction, with the result that we must constantly remind ourselves of the ambiguity behind the apparent objectivity of the image: it expresses a reality, but of necessity it presents us with an artifice. In this sense the image is deceptive: it passes itself off as reality when it is artifice; it pretends to be unilateral truth when it is a reflection of something that cannot be truth.
2023.06.08 08:01 willardTheMighty Piper
A set of strings for your guitar,
A long drive home in my old car.
A movie, just the two of us,
Alone.
/
I told you I had them lying around
But I didn’t. I didn’t.
I got them from the store special
For you.
/
I told you I ain’t have any place to be
But I did. I did.
I drove you home and skipped a class
Or two.
/
And at the movie theater
I extended my small finger
To be an inch closer
To you.
/
You’re about as light as a feather.
May I bear you in my arms?
All day long, it was cloudy weather;
A sunburst just ten minutes long
Shined upon our first embrace.
There was fire in my arms,
And light upon your face.
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A long drive home in my old car.
A movie, just the two of us,
Alone.
/
I told you I had them lying around
But I didn’t. I didn’t.
I got them from the store special
For you.
/
I told you I ain’t have any place to be
But I did. I did.
I drove you home and skipped a class
Or two.
/
And at the movie theater
I extended my small finger
To be an inch closer
To you.
/
You’re about as light as a feather.
May I bear you in my arms?
All day long, it was cloudy weather;
A sunburst just ten minutes long
Shined upon our first embrace.
There was fire in my arms,
And light upon your face.
1
2