Hey everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster here. I'm looking for a pair of 1461 oxfords and have found a barely-worn vintage pair from the 90s that were Made in England for sale online. The only issue is that the sole (which is one of those old commando style ones from pre-2003) isn't a platform. I've been really lusting after the Bex 1461s with the toe cap from their modern MIE line but I'm not sure how well modern MIEs hold up to vintage MIEs. If there's a significant difference in quality then I'll go for the vintage ones, but I'm really leaning towards that sexy sexy Bex sole. Price isn't a big factor in my decision as I'm mostly concerned about quality - I want these to still hold up 4-5 years down the line. I'm pretty light on my shoes and take care of the leather, if that makes a difference at all.

Example: In Episode 1, his apprentice Darth Maul was able to successfully hold his own against 2 jedi's, both a master and an apprentice.
Yet in the Disney series, Maul got annihilated by Palpatine in seconds, even when he had his brother as backup.
I feel we never really got to see this side of Palpatine in the movies. His agility, skills and mastery at fighting. We saw glimpses of it in Episode 3, but nowhere near enough.
He easily fooled me into thinking he was just a frail old man who was able to shoot deadly lightning from his hands... but the truth is this is just a clever act to deceive people. In truth, his fighting skills dwarf those of practically EVERYONE else in the galaxy. THAT is why everyone fears him, including Vader.
PS. It shows that Yoda truly was the mightiest Jedi who ever lived, to be able to go toe-to-toe with Palpatine, with no holes barred, and survive. Note how Yoda was the only Jedi that Palpatine tried to escape from, and when fighting him, even when using ALL his powers, the best he could do against Yoda was a stalemate.
Had it been any other Jedi, hell even a whole gang of Jedi's, I'm sure Palpatine could have flattened them in seconds, whilst holding a sandwich in one hand.
For the record, I know people will argue that Mace Windu 'defeated' him - I don't think Palpatine was actually using his true strength against him. Remember, at this point his key agenda was to fully turn Anakin to the dark side, and he needed an angle to finally make Anakin snap. By allowing himself to 'lost' to Windu, and be 'at his mercy' right in front of Anakin, it gave Palpatine the PERFECT outlet to finally force Anakin to give in to the dark side.
I believe Yoda was the only Jedi in the movies that Palpatine truly used 100% of his power against.. and still survive.

PODCAST: https://ayearofwarandpeace.podbean.com/e/ep1572-hail-and-farewell-george-moore-vale-chapter-112/
PROMPTS: George does not care about you, whatsoever.
Today's Reading, via Project Gutenberg:
Borde could not enlighten him on that point, and I suggested that he should make application to the publisher of his Prayer-Book and get his money back. There is nobody. I said, like him. He is more wonderful than anything in literature. I prefer him to Sancho who was untroubled with a conscience and never thought of running to the Bishop of Toledo. All the same he is not without the shrewdness of his ancestors, and got the better of Archbishop Walsh, and for the last five years Vincent O'Brien has been beating time, and will beat it till the end of his life; and he will be succeeded by others, for Edward has, by deed, saved the Italian contrapuntalists till time everlasting from competition with modern composers. He certainly has gotten the better of Walsh. And I thought of a picture-gallery in Dublin with nothing in it but Botticelli and his school, and myself declaring that all painting that had been done since had no interest for me.... A smile began to spread over my face, for the story that was coming into my mind seemed oh! so humorous, so like Ireland, so like Edward, that I began to tell myself again the delightful story of the unrefined ears that, weary of erudite music, had left the cathedral and sought instinctively modern tunes and women's voices, and as these were to be found in Westland Row the church was soon overflowing with a happy congregation. But in a little while the collections grew scantier. This time it couldn't be Palestrina, and all kinds of reasons were adduced. At last the truth could no longer be denied—the professional Catholics of Merrion Square had been driven out of Westland Row by the searching smells of dirty clothes, and had gone away to the University Church in Stephen's Green. So if it weren't Palestrina directly it was Palestrina indirectly, and the brows of the priests began to knit when Edward Martyn's name was mentioned. Them fal-de-dals is well enough on the Continent, in Paris, where there is no faith, was the opinion of an important ecclesiastic. But we don't want them here, murmured a second ecclesiastic. All this counterpoint may make a very pretty background for Mr Martyn's prayers, but what about the poor people's? Good composer or bad composer, there is no congregation in him, said a third. There's too much congregation, put in the first, but not the kind we want! The second ecclesiastic took snuff, and the group were of opinion that steps should be taken to persuade dear Edward to make good their losses. The priests in Marlborough Street sympathised with the priests of Westland Row, and told them that they were so heavily out of pocket that Mr Martyn had agreed to do something for them. It seemed to the Westland Row priests that if Mr Martyn were making good the losses of the priests of the pro-Cathedral, he should make good their losses. It was natural that they should think so, and to acquit himself of all responsibility Edward no doubt consulted the best theologians on the subject, and I think that they assured him that he is not responsible for indirect losses. If he were, his whole fortune would not suffice. He was, of course, very sorry if a sudden influx of poor people had caused a falling-off in the collections of Westland Row, for he knew that the priests needed the money very much to pay for the new decorations, and to help them he wrote an article in the Independent praising the new blue ceiling, which seemed, so he wrote, a worthy canopy for the soaring strains of Palestrina.
Unfortunately rubbing salt into the wound, I said. A story that will amuse Dujardin and it will be great fun telling him in the shady garden at Fontainebleau how Edward, anxious to do something for his church, had succeeded in emptying two. All the way down the alleys he will wonder how Edward could have ever looked upon Palestrina's masses as religious music. The only music he will say, in which religious emotion transpires is plain-chant. Huysmans says that the Tantum Ergo or the Dies Irae, one or the other, reminds him of a soul being dragged out of purgatory, and it is possible that it does; but a plain-chant tune arranged in eight-part counterpoint cannot remind one of anything very terrible. Dujardin knows that Palestrina was a priest, and he will say: That fact deceived your friend, just as the fact of finding the Adeste Fideles among the plain-chant tunes deceived him. For of course I shall tell Dujardin that story too. It is too good to be missed. He is wonderful, Dujardin! I shall cry out in one of the sinuous alleys. There never was anybody like him! And I will tell him more soul-revealing anecdotes. I will say: Dujardin, listen. One evening he contended that the great duet at the end of Siegfried reminded him of mass by Palestrina. Dujardin will laugh, and, excited by his laughter, I will try to explain to him that what Edward sees is that Palestrina took a plain chant tune and gave fragments of it to the different voices, and in his mind these become confused with the motives of The Ring. You see, Dujardin, the essential always escapes him—the intention of the writer is hidden from him. I am beginning to understand your friend. He has, let us suppose, a musical ear that allows him to take pleasure in the music; but a musical ear will not help him to follow Wagner's idea—how, in a transport of sexual emotion, a young man and a young woman on a mountain-side awaken to the beauty of the life of the world. Dujardin's appreciations will provoke me, and I will say: Dujardin, you shouldn't be so appreciative. If I were telling you of a play I had written, it would be delightful to watch my idea dawning upon your consciousness; but I am telling you of a real man, and one that I shall never to able to get into literature. He will answer: We invent nothing; we can but perceive. And then, exhilarated, carried beyond myself, I will say: Dujardin, I will tell you something still more wonderful than the last gaffe. II gaffe dans les Quat'z Arts. He admires Ibsen, but you'd never guess the reason why—because he is very like Racine; both of them, he says, are classical writers. And do you know how he arrived at that point? Because nobody is killed on the stage in Racine or in Ibsen. He does not see that the intention of Racine is to represent men and women out of time and out of space, unconditioned by environment, and that the very first principle of Ibsen's art is the relation of his characters to their environment. In many passages he merely dramatises Darwin. There never was anybody so interesting as dear Edward, and there never will be anybody like him in literature ... I will explain why presently, but I must first tell you another anecdote. I went to see him one night, and he told me that the theme of the play he was writing was a man who had married a woman because he had lost faith in himself; the man did not know, however, that the woman had married him for the same reason, and the two of them were thinking—I have forgotten what they were thinking, but I remember Edward saying: I should like to suggest hopelessness. I urged many phrases, but he said: It isn't a phrase I want, but an actual thing. I was thinking of a broken anchor—that surely is a symbol of hopelessness. Yes, I said, no doubt, but how are you going to get a broken anchor into a drawing-room? I don't write about drawing-rooms. Well, living-rooms. It isn't likely that they would buy a broken anchor and put it up by the coal-scuttle.
There's that against it, he answered. If you could suggest anything better—What do you think of a library in which there is nothing but unacted plays? The characters could say, when there was nothing for them to do on the stage, that they were going to the library to read, and the library would have the advantage of reminding everybody of the garret in the Wild Duck. A very cruel answer, my friend, Dujardin will say, and I will tell him that I can't help seeing in Edward something beyond Shakespeare or Balzac. Now, tell me, which of these anecdotes I have told you is the most humorous? He will not answer my question, but a certain thoughtfulness will begin to settle in his face, and he will say: Everything with him is accidental, and when his memory fails him he falls into another mistake, and he amuses you because it is impossible for you to anticipate his next mistake. You know there is going to be one; there must be one, for he sees things separately rather than relatively. I am beginning to understand your friend.
You are, you are; you are doing splendidly. But you haven't told me, Dujardin, which anecdote you prefer. Stay, there is another one. Perhaps this one will help you to a still better understanding. When he brought The Heather Field and Yeats's play The Countess Cathleen to Dublin for performance, a great trouble of conscience awakened suddenly in him, and a few days before the performance he went to a theologian to ask him if The Countess Cathleen were a heretical work, and, if it were would Almighty God hold him responsible for the performance? But he couldn't withdraw Yeats's play without withdrawing his own, and it appears that he breathed a sigh of relief when a common friend referred the whole matter to two other theologians, and as these gave their consent Edward allowed the plays to go on; but Cardinal Logue intervened, and wrote a letter to the papers to say that the play seemed to him unfit for Catholic ears, and Edward would have withdrawn the plays if the Cardinal hadn't admitted in his letter that he had judged the play by certain extracts only.
He wishes to act rightly, but has little faith in himself; and what makes him so amusing is that he needs advice in aesthetics as well as in morals. We are, I said, Dujardin, at the roots of conscience. And I began to ponder the question what would happen to Edward if we lived in a world in which aesthetics ruled: I should be where Bishop Healy is, and he would be a thin, small voice crying in the wilderness—an amusing subject of meditation, from which I awoke suddenly.
I wonder how Dujardin is getting on with his Biblical studies? Last year he was calling into question the authorship of the Romans—a most eccentric view; and, remembering how weakly I had answered him, I took the Bible from the table and began to read the Epistle with a view to furnishing myself with arguments wherewith to confute him. My Bible opened at the ninth chapter, and I said: Why, here is the authority for the Countess Cathleen's sacrifice which Edward's theologian deemed untheological. It will be great fun to poke Edward up with St Paul, and on my way to Lincoln Place I thought how I might lead the conversation to The Countess Cathleen.
📷
A few minutes afterwards a light appeared on the staircase and the door slowly opened.
Come in, Siegfried, though you were off the key.
Well, my dear friend, it is a difficult matter to whistle above two trams passing simultaneously and six people jabbering round a public-house, to say nothing of a jarvey or two, and you perhaps dozing in your armchair, as your habit often is. You won't open to anything else except a motive from The Ring; and I stumbled up the stairs in front of Edward, who followed with a candle.
Wait a moment; let me go first and I'll turn up the gas.
You aren't sitting in the dark, are you?
No, but I read better by candle-light, and he blew out the candles in the tin candelabrum that he had made for himself. He is original even in his candelabrum; no one before him had ever thought of a caridelabrum in tin, and I fell to admiring his appearance more carefully than perhaps I had ever done before, so monumental did he seem lying on the little sofa sheltered from daughts by a screen, a shawl about his shoulders. His churchwarden was drawing famously, and I noticed his great square hands with strong fingers and square nails pared closely away, and as heretofore I admired the curve of the great belly, the thickness of the thighs, the length and breadth and the width of his foot hanging over the edge of the sofa, the apoplectic neck falling into great rolls of flesh, the humid eyes, the skull covered with short stubbly hair. I looked round the rooms and they seemed part of himself: the old green wallpaper on which he pins reproductions of the Italian masters. And I longed to peep once more into the bare bedroom into which he goes to fetch bottles of Apollinaris. Always original! Is there another man in this world whose income is two thousand a year, and who sleeps in a bare bedroom, without dressing-room, or bathroom, or servant in the house to brush his clothes, and who has to go to the baker's for his breakfast?
We had been talking for some time of the Gaelic League, and from Hyde it was easy to pass to Yeats and his plays.
His best play is The Countess Cathleen.
The Countess Cathleen is only a sketch.
But what I never could understand, Edward, was why you and the Cardinal could have had any doubts as to the orthodoxy of The Countess Cathleen.
What, a woman that sells her own soul in order to save the souls of others!
I suppose your theologian objected—
Of course he objected.
He cannot have read St Paul.
What do you mean?
He can't have read St Paul, or else he is prepared to throw over St Paul.
Mon ami Moore, mon ami Moore.
The supernatural idealism of a man who would sell his soul to save the souls of others fills me with awe.
But it wasn't a man; it was the Countess Cathleen, and women are never idealists.
Not the saints?
His face grew solemn at once.
If you give me the Epistles I will read the passage to you. And it was great fun to go to the bookshelves and read: I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.
Edward's face grew more and more solemn, and I wondered of what he was thinking.
Paul is a very difficult and a very obscure writer, and I think the Church is quite right not to encourage the reading of the Epistles, especially without comments.
Then you do think there is something in the passage I have read?
After looking down his dignified nose for a long time, he said:
Of course, the Church has an explanation. All the same, it's very odd that St Paul should have said such a thing—very odd.
There is no doubt that I owe a great deal of my happiness to Edward; all my life long he has been exquisite entertainment. And I fell to thinking that Nature was very cruel to have led me, like Moses, within sight of the Promised Land. A story would be necessary to bring Edward into literature, and it would be impossible to devise an action of which he should be a part. The sex of a woman is odious to him, and a man with two thousand a year does not rob nor steal, and he is so uninterested in his fellow-men that he has never an ill word to say about anybody. John Eglinton is a little thing; AE is a soul that few will understand; but Edward is universal—more universal than Yeats, than myself, than any of us, but for lack of a story I shall not be able to give him the immortality in literature which he seeks in sacraments. Shakespeare always took his stories from some other people. Turgenev's portrait of him would be thin, poor, and evasive, and Balzac would give us the portrait of a mere fool. And Edward is not a fool. As I understand him he is a temperament without a rudder; all he has to rely upon is his memory, which isn't a very good one, and so he tumbles from one mistake into another. My God! it is a terrible thing to happen to one, to understand a man better than he understands himself, and to be powerless to help him. If I had been able to undo his faith I should have raised him to the level of Sir Horace Plunkett, but he resisted me; and perhaps he did well, for he came into the world seeing things separately rather than relatively, and had to be a Catholic. He is a born Catholic, and I remembered one of his confessions—a partial confession, but a confession: If you had been brought up as strictly as I have been—I don't think he ever finished the sentence; he often leaves sentences unfinished, as if he fears to think things out. The end of the sentence should run: You would not dare to think independently. He thinks that his severe bringing-up has robbed him of something. But the prisoner ends by liking his prison-house, and on another occasion he said: If it hadn't been for the Church, I don't know what would have happened to me.
My thoughts stopped, and when I awoke I was thinking of Hughes. Perhaps the link between Hughes and Edward was Loughrea Cathedral. He had shown me a photograph of some saints modelled by Hughes. Hughes is away in Paris, I said, modelling saints for Loughrea Cathedral. The last time I saw him was at Walter Osborne's funeral, and Walter's death set me thinking of the woman I had lost, and little by little all she had told me about herself floated up in my mind like something that I had read. I had never seen her father nor the Putney villa in which she had been brought up, but she had made me familiar with both through her pleasant mode of conversation, which was never to describe anything, but just to talk about things, dropping phrases here and there, and the phrases she dropped were so well chosen that the comfort of the villa, its pompous meals and numerous servants, its gardens and greenhouses, with stables and coach-house just behind, are as well known to me as the house that I am living in, better known in a way, for I see it through the eyes of the imagination ... clearer eyes than the physical eyes.
It does not seem to me that any one was ever more conscious of whence she had come and of what she had been; she seemed to be able to see herself as a child again, and to describe her childhood with her brother (they were nearly the same age) in the villa and in the villa's garden. I seemed to see them always as two rather staid children who were being constantly dressed by diligent nurses and taken out for long drives in the family carriage. They did not like these drives and used to hide in the garden; but their governess was sent to fetch them, and they were brought back. Her father did not like to have the horses kept waiting, and one day as Stella stood with him in the passage, she saw her mother come out of her bedroom beautifully dressed. Her father whispered something in his wife's ear, and he followed her into her bedroom. Stella remembered how the door closed behind them. In my telling, the incident seems to lose some of its point, but in Stella's relation it seemed to put her father and his wife before me and so clearly that I could not help asking her what answer her father would make were she to tell him that she had a lover. A smile hovered in her grave face. He would look embarrassed, she said, and wonder why I should have told him such a thing, and then I think he would go to the greenhouse, and when he returned he would talk to me about something quite different. I don't think that Stella ever told me about the people that came to their house, but people must have come to it, and as an example of how a few words can convey an environment I will quote her: I always wanted to talk about Rossetti, she said, and these seven words seem to me to tell better than any description the life of a girl living with a formal father in a Putney villa, longing for something, not knowing exactly what, and anxious to get away from home.... I think she told me she was eighteen or nineteen and had started painting before she met Florence at the house of one of her father's friends; a somewhat sore point this meeting was, for Florence was looked upon by Stella's father as something of a Bohemian. She was a painter, and knew all the Art classes and the fees that had to be paid, and led Stella into the world of studios and models and girl friends. She knew how to find studios and could plan out a journey abroad. Stella's imagination was captured, and even if her father had tried to offer opposition to her leaving home he could not have prevented her, for she was an heiress (her mother was dead and had left her a considerable income); but he did not try, and the two girls set up house together in Chelsea; they travelled in Italy and Spain; they had a cottage in the country; they painted pictures and exhibited their pictures in the same exhibitions; they gave dances in their studios and were attracted by this young man and the other; but Stella did not give herself to any one, because, as she admitted to me, she was afraid that a lover would interrupt the devotion which she intended to give to Art. But life is forever casting itself into new shapes and forms, and no sooner had she begun to express herself in Art than she met me. I was about to go to Ireland to preach a new gospel, and must have seemed a very impulsive and fantastic person to her, but were not impulsiveness and fantasy just the qualities that would appeal to her? And were not gravity and good sense the qualities that would appeal to me, determined as I was then to indulge myself in a little madness?
I could not have chosen a saner companion than Stella; my instinct had led me to her; but because one man's instinct is a little more clear than another's, it does not follow that he has called reason to his aid. It must be remembered always that the art of painting is as inveterate in me as the art of writing, and that I am never altogether myself when far away from the smell of oil paint. Stella could talk to one about painting, and all through that wonderful summer described in Salve our talk flowed on as delightfully as a breeze in Maytime, and as irresponsible, flashing thoughts going by and avowals perfumed with memories. Only in her garden did conversation fail us, for in her garden Stella could think only of her flowers, and it seemed an indiscretion to follow her as she went through the twilight gathering dead blooms or freeing plants from noxious insects. But she would have had me follow her, and I think was always a little grieved that I wasn't as interested in her garden as I was in her painting; and my absent-mindedness when I followed her often vexed her and my mistakes distressed her.
You are interested, she said, only in what I say about flowers and not in the flowers themselves. You like to hear me tell about Miss —— whose business in life is to grow carnations, because you already see her, dimly, perhaps, but still you see her in a story. Forget her and look at this Miss Shifner!
Yes, it is beautiful, but we can only admire the flowers that we notice when we are children, I answered. Dahlias, china roses, red and yellow tulips, tawny wallflowers, purple pansies, are never long out of my thoughts, and all the wonderful varieties of the iris, the beautiful blue satin and the cream, some shining like porcelain, even the common iris that grows about the moat.
But there were carnations in your mother's garden?
Yes, and I remember seeing them being tied with bass. But what did you say yesterday about carnations? That they were the—
She laughed and would not tell me, and when the twilight stooped over the high trees and the bats flitted and the garden was silent except when a fish leaped, I begged her to come away to the wild growths that I loved better than the flowers.
But the mallow and willow-weed are the only two that you recognise. How many times have I told you the difference between self-heal and tufted vetch?
I like cow parsley and wild hyacinths and—
You have forgotten the name. As well speak of a woman that you loved but whose name you had forgotten.
Well, if I have, I love trees better than you do, Stella. You pass under a fir unstirred by the mystery of its branches, and I wonder at you, for I am a tree worshipper, even as my ancestors, and am moved as they were by the dizzy height of a great silver fir. You like to paint trees, and I should like to paint flowers if I could paint; there we are set forth, you and I.
I have told in Salve that in Rathfarnham she found many motives for painting; the shape of the land and the spire above the straggling village appealed to me, but she was not altogether herself in these pictures. She would have liked the village away, for man and his dwellings did not form part of her conception of a landscape; large trees and a flight of clouds above the trees were her selection, and the almost unconscious life of kine wandering or sheep seeking the shelter of a tree.
Stella was a good walker, and we followed the long road leading from Rathfarnham up the hills, stopping to admire the long plain which we could see through the comely trees shooting out of the shelving hillside.
If I have beguiled you into a country where there are no artists and few men of letters, you can't say that I have not shown you comely trees. And now if you can walk two miles farther up this steep road I will show you a lovely prospect.
And I enjoyed her grave admiration of the old Queen Anne dwelling-house, its rough masonry, the yew hedges, the path along the hillside leading to the Druid altar and the coast-line sweeping in beautiful curves, but she did not like to hear me say that the drawing of the shore reminded her of Corot.
It is a sad affectation, she said, to speak of Nature reminding one of pictures.
Well, the outlines of Howth are beautiful, I answered, and the haze is incomparable. I should like to have spoken about a piece of sculpture, but for your sake, Stella, I refrain.
She was interested in things rather than ideas, and I remember her saying to me that things interest us only because we know that they are always slipping from us. A strange thing for a woman to say to her lover. She noticed all the changes of the seasons and loved them, and taught me to love them. She brought a lamb back from Rathfarnham, a poor forlorn thing that had run bleating so pitifully across the windy field that she had asked the shepherd where the ewe was, and he had answered that she had been killed overnight by a golf-ball. The lamb will be dead before morning, he added. And it was that March that the donkey produced a foal, a poor ragged thing that did not look as if it ever could be larger than a goat, but the donkey loved her foal.
Do you know the names of those two birds flying up and down the river?
They look to me like two large wrens with white waistcoats.
They are water-ouzels, she said.
The birds flew with rapid strokes of the wings, like kingfishers, alighting constantly on the river, on large mossy stones, and though we saw them plunge into the water, it was not to swim, but to run along the bottom in search of worms.
But do worms live under water?
The rooks were building, and a little while after a great scuffling was heard in one of the chimneys and a young jackdaw came down and soon became tamer than any bird I had ever seen, tamer than a parrot, and at the end of May the corncrake called from the meadow that summer had come again, and the kine wandered in deeper and deeper and deeper herbage. The days seemed never to end, and looking through the branches of the chestnut in which the fruit had not begun to show, we caught sight of a strange spectacle. Stella said, A lunar rainbow, and I wondered, never having heard of or seen such a thing before.
I shall never forget that rainbow, Stella, and am glad that we saw it together.
In every love story lovers reprove each other for lack of affection, and Stella had often sent me angry letters which caused me many heart-burnings and brought me out to her; in the garden there were reconciliations, we picked up the thread again, and the summer had passed before the reason of these quarrels became clear to me. One September evening Stella said she would accompany me to the gate, and we had not gone very far before I began to notice that she was quarrelling with me. She spoke of the loneliness of the Moat House, and I had answered that she had not been alone two evenings that week. She admitted my devotion. And if you admit that there has been no neglect—
She would not tell me, but there was something she was not satisfied with, and before we reached the end of the avenue she said, I don't think I can tell you. But on being pressed she said:
Well, you don't make love to me often enough.
And full of apologies I answered, Let me go back.
No, I can't have you back now, not after having spoken like that.
But she yielded to my invitation, and we returned to the house, and next morning I went back to Dublin a little dazed, a little shaken.
A few days after she went away to Italy to spend the winter and wrote me long letters, interesting me in herself, in the villagers, in the walks and the things that she saw in her walks, setting me sighing that she was away from me, or that I was not with her. And going to the window I would stand for a long time watching the hawthorns in their bleak wintry discontent, thinking how the sunlight fell into the Italian gardens, and caught the corner of the ruin she was sketching; and I let my fancy stray for a time unchecked. It would be wonderful to be in Italy with her, but—
I turned from the window suspicious, for there was a feeling at the back of my mind that with her return an anxiety would come into my life that I would willingly be without. She had told me she had refrained from a lover because she wished to keep all herself for her painting, and now she had taken to herself a lover. She was twenty years younger than I was, and at forty-six or thereabouts one begins to feel that one's time for love is over; one is consultant rather than practitioner. But it was impossible to dismiss the subject with a jest, and I found myself face to face with the question—If these twenty years were removed, would things be different? It seemed to me that the difficulty that had arisen would have been the same earlier in my life as it was now, and returning to the window I watched the hawthorns blowing under the cold grey Dublin sky.
The problem is set, I said, for the married, and every couple has to solve it in one way or another, but they have to solve it; they have to come to terms with love, especially the man, for whom it is a question of life and death. But how do they come to terms? And I thought of the different married people I knew. Which would be most likely to advise me—the man or the woman? It would be no use to seek advice; every case is different, I said. If anybody were to advise me it would be the man, for the problem is not so difficult for a woman. She can escape from love more easily than her lover or her husband; she can plead, and her many pleadings were considered, one by one, and how in married life the solution that seems to lovers so difficult is solved by marriage itself, by propinquity. But not always, not always. The question is one of extraordinary interest and importance; more marriages come to shipwreck, I am convinced, on this very question than upon any other. In the divorce cases published we read of incompatibility of temper and lack of mutual tastes, mere euphemisms that deceive nobody. The image of a shipwreck rose up in me naturally. She will return, and like a ship our love for each other will be beaten on these rocks and broken. We shall not be able to get out to sea. She will return, and when she returns her temperament will have to be adjusted to mine, else she will lose me altogether, for men have died of love, though Shakespeare says they haven't. Manet and Daudet—both died of love; and the somewhat absurd spectacle of a lover waiting for his mistress to return, and yet dreading her returning, was constantly before me.
It often seemed to me that it was my own weakness that created our embarrassment. A stronger man would have been able to find a way out, but I am not one that can shape and mould another according to my desire; and when she returned from Italy I found myself more helpless than ever, and I remember, and with shame, how, to avoid being alone with her, I would run down the entire length of a train, avoiding the empty carriages, crying Not here, not here! at last opening the door of one occupied by three or four people, who all looked as if they were bound for a long journey. I remember, too, how about this time I came with friends to see Stella, whether by accident or design, frankly I know not; I only know that I brought many friends to see her, thinking they would interest her.
If you don't care to come to see me without a chaperon, I would rather you didn't come at all, she said, humiliating me very deeply.
It seemed to me, I answered, blushing, that you would like to see ——, and I mentioned the name of the man who had accompanied me.
If I am cross sometimes it is because I don't see enough of you.
It seems to me that it was then that the resolve hardened in my heart to become her friend ... if she would allow me to become her friend. But in what words should I frame my request and my apology? All the time our life was becoming less amiable, until one evening I nipped the quarrel that was beginning, stopping suddenly at the end of the avenue.
It is better that we should understand each other. The plain truth is that I must cease to be your lover unless my life is to be sacrificed.
Cease to be my lover!
That is impossible, but a change comes into every love story.
The explanation stuttered on. I remember her saying: I don't wish you to sacrifice your life. I have forgotten the end of her sentence. She drew her hand suddenly across her eyes. I will conquer this obsession.
A man would have whined and cried and besought and worried his mistress out of her wits. Women behave better than we; only once did her feelings overcome her. She spoke to me of the deception that life is. Again we were standing by the gate at the end of the chestnut avenue, and I remembered her telling me how a few years ago life had seemed to hold out its hands to her; her painting and her youth created her enjoyment.
But now life seems to have shrivelled up, she said; only a little dust is left.
Nothing is changed, so far as you and I are concerned. We see each other just the same.
I am no more to you than any other woman.
She went away again to Italy to paint and returned to Ireland, and one day she came to see me, and remained talking for an hour. I have no memory of what we said to each other, but a very clear memory of our walk through Dublin over Carlisle Bridge and along the quays. I had accompanied her as far as the Phoenix Park gates, and at the corner of the Conyngham Road, just as I was bidding her goodbye, she said:
I want to ask your advice on a matter of importance to me.
And to me, for what is important to you is equally important to me.
I am thinking, she said, of being married.
At the news it seems to me that I was unduly elated and tried to assume the interest that a friend should.

Gonna post this here too. I think, the fans have to know.
So as I was unsatisfied an severley dissapointed with how Ganondorfs origin was handeled by nintendo, I did some research hoping, I could find anything in game or discovered by other players. A hint towards any motive, going beyond him just being evil for evils sake. Sure enough, I did. After three days on the gamefaqs forums. These informations are also fairly new. Two days old. I just post the link to the tweed mentioned by the folks over on gamefaqs.
https://twitter.com/xbcellen/status/1661857079366402048?s=46&t=9Hpg8scjMEulLnz9DGL1eg
"Ganondorf hated the zonai for being arrogant about the fact that they descended from the gods. he looked down on rauru, thinking he is vain and did not deserve to rule, and thought that the world had lost its original courage from before the zonai came in. he wanted to be an actual authentic king and return the kingdom to its original glory, as opposed to letting hyrule be run by beings who play at being gods and settle down to reign over everything."
If this is true, it would have HUGE implications for his character and the story overall.
Considering the secret stones ampilify the abilities and attributes of their holder, one surely can figure, why he turned into a demon. At last he is the holder of the triforce of power and cursed by hatred through Demise. So by taking the secret stone from Sonia, all these attributes got multiplyed and turned him immediately into a demon and avatar of pure power and evil. My interpretation is, that he lost his self in the process, just acting going forward by the most powerfull desire and purpose to rule, forgetting what he was moments before he took the stone.
And his maniacal laugh at the death of Sonia: he found it ironic, that supposed gods could be killed that easily. Sure, his personality as a conquerer was questionable beforehand. But I see him as a kind of fantasy "Dschingis Khan", implied by his character bio.
All in all, if the above translation error is true, I'm more than satisfied now.

Part 2 of “The Exterminators RELOADED!”
A Fanfic of u/SpacePaladin15’s work “The nature of Predators” Thank you for the story!
IMPORTANT NOTICE. I AM WRITING ABOUT 247 EPISODES OF THE EXTERMINATORS. ANY IDEAS WOULD BE GREATLY WELCOMED! AS DETAILED OR NOT AS YOU WANT, I WILL CREDIT YOU FOR ANY HELP GIVEN!
---
Memory transcription subject: Henry, Venlil Primary School Student
Sylvan’s dad gestured for us to get the show set up while he walked into the kitchen. I couldn’t bring myself to sit still as the sound of popcorn in the microwave bounced through the house. Sylvan threw himself next to me as the annoyingly long series of logos started to parade through the screen.
“C’mon Dad! It’s starting!” We both held our arms up and caught a bag of popcorn as Mr. Smith copied Sylvan and threw himself on the couch. As Sylvan started to juggle the burning hot bag I started to mockingly mimic him. “Oh shut up! You and your built-in oven mitts!”
I batted Sylvan in the face who didn’t hesitate to try and hold off my attacks by smooshing me down into the chair. We both stopped when the Deep heavy beat of the Exterminators RELOADED started to play. This time though the beat didn’t stop as the opening sequence ended. Instead it played dully in the background like we were hearing it through a wall.
Friotetzali stepped into the scene and sauntered his way through an alley. He stopped and looked at a poster hanging on the wall. It showed a picture of a carrot and tomato with forward facing eyes and silly little stick arms cowering in fear of a ravenous looking Venlil. Plastered above it was the episode's title! “THE HERBIVOROUS BEASTS FROM BEYOND THE STARS!!!”
Frio let out a light chuckle as his tail curled in delight. “Oh that looks hilarious. Gotta remember to go see that.” He gently shook his head as he continued to walk and drop into an indifferent attitude as he approached a lone Mazic by a door. The two stared at each other for a moment before the Mazic slowly turned and opened the door.
With a slow and droning voice he addressed our head investigator. “He’s waiting for you by the dance floor. Doubt you’ll miss him. Welcome back Frio. Try not to burn the place down.” As the door opened the tune picked back up and was almost deafening. Frio walked down the dark staircase and eventually into a room filled with neon signs decorating the walls, strobe lights, lasers, and dozens of people dancing everywhere.
Our Harchen Hero cut through the crowd and haze like a fish through water before finally sitting down at a table with a rather… sleazy looking Gojid. “FRIO! MY OLD PAL! Have a seat! Let me get ya a drink!” The greased back fur of the Gojid just looked out of place as he waved for the servers to bring colorful beverages with little umbrellas over.
I honestly couldn’t make out any words that came out of the Gojid’s mouth after that. The dude just seemed to talk and not say any words. But eventually Frio took a slow sip from his drink and turned his head to stare down the greasy porcupine who’s quills extended in a little bit of fear.
“Cut the crap Genseng. I want to know why by Inatala’s tits you’d think it's a good idea to smuggle terran animals here!” He slammed a pawfull of photos on the table. Each one showed the greasy Gojid buying and selling small animals like rabbits and chickens.
Genseng sputtered and pouted “COME ON! I haven’t done anything that puts anyone at risk! I just sell human’s xeno-safe pets! A bunny never ate a Dossur! Don’t you want humans to take care of the petting addiction on things that want to be pet?” Despite my body telling me this guy was bad news, I couldn’t help but agree. I’ve been ‘pet’ more times than I would like by strange humans… and a few Venlil… and one Kolshian… and I ran away from the Mazic.
Frio sat back in his chair and huffed. “Then WHY have I found NO civilians with one of your pets?” This time he slapped down a paper list of names and places that clearly documented each and every business he sold animals to.
The scumbag sat there with a look of shock on his face and started to sputter out several noncommittal and contradictory statements. ALl the while Frio stared at his “friend” with more and more disgust. Eventually Genseng just sighed, stood up, and shouted. "GUN! HES GOT A GUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” and bolted for the back door as screaming began to fill the room
Frio just casually stood up and watched that douchebag flee! He pulled out his badge and announced to the crowd. “FALSE ALARM! FALSE ALARM! OFFICER FRIOTETZALI, HERE ON OFFICIAL BUSINESS OF THE AVALON CITY POLICE! REMAIN CALM YOU ARE IN NO DANGER!”
I couldn’t understand why he was just standing there as the bad guy ran away! The camera cut to Genseng who was sprinting full force down a narrow hall dodging all manner of obstacles like it was an action movie only for it to cut back to Frio slowly taking a sip of his drink!
Again it cut back Genseng huffing and wheezing as he sprinted through his own shipping operation. The only pauses he took were to open up cages causing a small whirlwind of feathers and bunnies to start in the warehouse. Yet Frio started to casually talk to the people in the room. He just slowly went around reassuring everyone that everything was fine and why he was here.
As I sat there in disbelief that he’d just let the bastard run away Genseng rounded a corner to see his getaway truck. Only to step around the corner and get punched squarely in the gut by Iloralia who was hiding there.
“Come on Genseng? Couldn’t you do something original? This is starting to get boring!” Ilo extended a cattle prod and let the end buzz with electricity as an Extermination Officer van pulled up behind her.
The Gojid let out raspy breaths. “Should have- … figured- … he’d send his- … BITCH! To wait in the alley!” The sleazy man sucked that insult back in when Ilo pressed the business end of her cattle prod to his throat.
“Shut the fuck up. You have the right to remain silent, but for your sake… I hope you’re smart enough to use it!” Ilo’s tail waved behind her with delight as Sephon climbed out of the van with a Gojid arrestor vest to cover Genseng’s quills and bind his arms.
I jumped as the video smash-cut to Sephon slamming down piece after piece of evidence on an interrogation room table in front of a nervous Gojid and his exhausted human lawyer. The angelic Tasamine sat on her perch gently drinking some tea as our perturbed Venlil explained each and every paper and photo that he threw on the table.
“Finally we have you on felony tax evasion. You do know you have to declare ALL sources of income right?” Genseng sheepishly looked to his lawyer, who just sat there with a defeated look on his face. “You are looking at forty years behind bars for this Genseng! FORTY!”
Tasamine let her voice coo out over her cup of tea. “We aren’t going to do you any favours over the tax stuff. The IRS is over our jurisdiction on that, BUT we are prepared to drop the rest of the charges.”
Genseng’s lawyer appeared to wake up in an instant and elbowed his client before he could open his filthy mouth. “So what do you want from my client in return for dropping the charges you have against him?”
Tas let out a little smile that set butterflies to flight in my stomach. “We want everyone that Tas sold animals to. And we do mean EVERYONE.”
Sephon started to pace back and forth as the Gojid and lawyer talked amongst themselves. Eventually Genseng relented and turned to our heroes. “Ok… SO I technically never really sold to a person per say… BUT I kept really good papers on all the businesses I did sell to!”
The conversation started to dull out as the camera began to pan back and into the observation room with Frio, Ilo, and a rather small Mazic. Frio stood stoically silent, his paw held gently under his jaw, lost in thought. Ilo was typing away on the computer crosschecking every business Genseng sold out.
The Mazic took a step forward. His badge now clearly showing that he was the Chief of the Avalon City Police. “I know those businesses… Why would he be selling pets to…” The Chief huffed and stormed out of the observation room leaving Frio and Ilo slightly confused only to watch with an ounce of shock as the Police Chief walked into the interrogation room.
“YOU FUCKING IDIOT! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE DONE?” Genseng recoiled away from the angry Chief as his lawyer was trying to figure out what was happening. “YOU HAVE BEEN SELLING HUMAN PETS AS FOOD TO HUMANS! YOU KNOW LESS THAN ONE PERCENT OF HUMANS EVEN EAT ONCE-LIVE MEAT! EVERYONE KNOWS THAT! MOST HUMANS GET VIOLENTLY ILL AT THE THOUGHT OF IT AND STRAIGHT VIOLENT IF TRICKED INTO IT! IF THIS GETS OUT THERE WILL BE RIOTS!”
Genseng’s lawyer slowly looked to his client with a look of anger and despair plastered on his face. The sleazy man just kinda shrugged. “I didn’t make them buy it!”
“BUT YOU DIDN’T TELL THEM WHERE YOU GOT THE MEAT FROM DID YOU?”
“no?”
“OF COURSE YOU DIDN’T ‘CAUSE, HOW THEN, WOULD YOU GET RID OF YOUR UNWANTED ANIMALS?”
“HEY! I’VE GOT A GUY WHO TAKES THEM IN! I MAKE SURE EVERYTHING IS HUMANE AND SAFE FOR CONSUMPTION AND ANYTHING UNWANTED GO TO THAT GUY! OK? NO MONEY TRANSACTION! … I think he ships them back to Earth or something. No unethical stuff… except maybe selling Once-live as Cloned… but that isn’t that bad! Humans only just considered Rabbits to be on par with dogs!”
The Chief of Police just stood there menacingly as the ever beautiful Tas asked a question. “Who is this man you give the animals to?”
Genseng slowly walked back to his seat. “I don’t have a name. Just some dude wearing the old face hiding masks and a Pleather trench coat. Kinda creepy and usually lets the fat Venlil do the talking, but they scratch my back I scratch thier’s.”
The screen faded to black before coming back to their conference room and joined by the Chief of Police. “So you think this individual is the same one behind the Sheep Operation?”
Ilo sat up in her chair. “It seems to meet up with his M.O. of undermining food production.”
Tas brought a pair of population maps up on their projector. “Just looking at the before and after, the invasive rabbit population was miniscule at best. We had been doing a great job of catching them faster than they could repopulate. At least until their population unpredictably exploded into the hundreds of thousands.”
She swapped out the maps for a single one that showed several areas circled in red. “DNA testing on the rabbits has shown that they aren’t spreading naturally. One population has no genetic relation to the others even though their areas overlap. It has to be someone introducing rabbits in waves to different locals.”
The Chief slowly shook his head. “Do we have any clues as to where the masked man is?”
Frio’s tail curled in delight. “Why yes! Yes we do! He has a meetup with my good buddy Genseng who desperately doesn’t want to spend the next forty years in jail.”
The small Mazic let out a low and insidious laugh “OH! I think I know where you are going with this. You have my support. Let's get this sting operation set up!”
In an instant the day flew by and night rose over the docks of Avalon City. Genseng drove down the roads and pulled around the corner of a large warehouse situated nearby. The sleazy man looked oddly calm. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t his first time ratting.
Overlooking the docks from the warehouse was our team of heroes. Tas had set up a network of monitors and was observing the operation. Several disguised vans were parked nearby filled with Extermination Officers all biting to get a hold of their quarry.
Frio walked over and placed a paw on Tasamine’s wing, before speaking into a recorder. “Looking good Gen. Looks like I misplaced the paperwork on those charges. Get through this and I won’t have time to go looking for it!”
Gen let out a small chuckle. “Hey Frio… Do you miss when we were kids? Getting into trouble. Scraping enough money together to buy lunch when our parents couldn’t afford to feed us?”
Frio took a step back from the monitors. “You said that in a really weird way… but yeah. Just the two of us. Sometimes we were delinquents scamming someone out of five credits and sometimes we were the heroes helping people out. Guess we took different paths…”
The greasy Gojid leaned back in the driver seat of his van. “I- … I am kinda tired of living Frio… It’s just… One deal after another with barely enough money to get from one job to the next… Do- … Do you think I could get a job working with you guys?”
It almost looked like Frio was going to cry as his eyes watered up. “Well… we are a man down at the moment, but my team only hires experienced individuals. It would be hard work, but if you joined as an apprentice and applied yourself… I think you could make it.”
Genseng sat and fiddled with his paws for a few moments. “Even with my arrest record?”
“We are the Exterminators not the City Police. I doubt there isn’t a single one of us that hasn't done something that would get us blacklisted by them!”
Gen let out a light laugh. “Ah good point! They hired you! Well I’d- Wait. He's here.”
A long black limousine pulled up around the corner. Slowly and silently stopping beside them. Frio took a step back. “Alright everyone. It's go time. Gen, get ready to duck down if they open fire.”
With almost perfect unison every unmarked van and cruiser lit up with Yellow and Orange lights and started to race towards the Limo. But with a heart stopping ‘BWOOOOOM’ the Limo exploded into an inferno, sending metal flying through the docks at high speeds.
Gen’s voice screamed over the radio for a brief moment before falling silent.
The next sounds we heard were of a heart monitor. Frio sat at the bedside of what I assumed to be Genseng. His body was covered entirely in bandages, with tubes running into his head and arms. Wires tracked his vital signs and, while steady, didn’t look like they broadcasted good news.
Frio looked up to see Ilo leaning in the doorway. “The limo was automated. No one on board. Mask either knew it was a setup or intended to end Genseng one way or the other.” She slowly walked over to Frio and nuzzled the side of his head. “I talked with the Doctors. They think he’ll make it. Might be a few years, and he will have to learn how to do most things, but he will live.”
Ilo forced her way into awkwardly cuddling Frio. After a small moment of resisting he accepted the embrace and leaned back. “How are we on tracking down the leads?”
She somehow managed to wrap herself around Frio as she quietly responded. “The limo was a dead end. Everything was bought from scrap and assembled off-grid. Camera networks were wiped clean enough that even Tas couldn’t scrape something off of the hard drives. DNA results on the rabbits gave us enough to work with Earth and track down the suppliers on that side, but they were using Genseng as a scapegoat and intermediary for all of it. I don’t think he even realized that the man he was ‘giving’ rabbits to was the man that arranged for him to be able to buy them in the first place.”
Frio wrapped his arms around her. “So this whole operation was basically a money laundering scam with rabbits. They scarred him for life just to- to-” Tears ran down his cheeks as the pair embraced each other. The credits started to roll over the sounds of a heart monitor slowly pinging on. Gentle sobbing slowly faded away as the sound of claws on tile echoed through the speakers.
A rather portly Venlil was flanked on both sides by massive looking dogs. Sylvan’s Dad pointed out those where Karelian Bear Dogs. Bred to actually hunt one of Earth’s apex predators. The Fat Venlil, or Chublil as Sylvan said, walked into an immaculate office, where a man with a silvered mask and brown trench coat sat.
“Sir? Operation Clean House is over. The results are one Gojid launderer hospitalized. He is expected to recover in a few years. When the exterminators watching him clear out an agent will enter with an air-filled syringe and fake death by heart-attack. As you expected the last meetup was a sting operation. Police remain slightly aware of your presence.”
A robotic voice came from the man. “Good work Gavreg. Did you enjoy your trip to Earth?”
“Yessir. You were right. Bear meat is simply divine when prepared correctly.”
WHAT THE FUCK. WHY WOULD HE KNOW WHAT THAT TASTES LIKE?!?
“Glad to hear it. As for the Gojid, I think he’s gotten the message on what happens to people who cross us. Send him a normal fruit basket when he regains consciousness. Have it say… Sorry you got fired! Take a siesta!”
“Very well sir. Just to be clear, hold off on permanently silencing him?”
“Hrm… Yes. He was always amusing to work with.”
“Very well sir. If there is nothing else, I shall take my leave.”
The Fat Venlil turned and walked out of the room. Ending the episode and leaving the three of us sitting on the couch.
“You know Loural is going to throw a fit if she finds out we let both Sylvan and Henry watch this!”
I wasn’t proud but at least the humans screamed louder than I did.
---
Special thanks to u/Dinomannick for the prompt
"I got a few ideas for the show. How about a few episodes have them dealing with invasive earth species on alien worlds, brought there for zoos, rich blokes pet, criminals, whatever. They have either catch or kill all of them before their establishing breeding populations and have the cane toad/rabbit problem like down-under. Think it might be interesting enough for future space TV?"
I hope this lived up to your expectations, and the bunny boom won't be relegated to just this episode either.
---
Links are still broken cause reddit is more like brokeit... Will get around to fixing them soon, real life has been kinda hectic
​
Previous!

My family and I, 43 female, had been planning a trip to the happiest place on earth for almost a year for thanksgiving 2022. Since we booked a condo and had extra room-we invited my little brother and sister in law to be to go with us too. They’re both 25 I only mention this because I think it affects the story.
So fast forward to the Fall. We lose our other brother to deteriorating health. Although not completely unexpected-he was still my little brother and it was avoidable so it was absolutely devastating. I said then we should reschedule the trip-my dad insisted that the kids had been waiting for this and my brother wouldn’t have wanted that. So we pushed through.
It’s just my dad, so I took on the role as the oldest sibling as I usually do, and planned his entire memorial. I didn’t give myself a chance to process until it was over. And when I did I fell completely apart. To the point that I had to voluntarily admit myself into the hospital. We were now a WEEK out from our trip! My sis in law was packing as I was getting medicated!I know BIZARRE!! My sweet husband handled all the last minute trip items while he spoke to my doctors and they assured him I would be ok and I just needed to get a few meds and grief takes time, etc. So we moved forward with the trip. And I’m glad we did…for the most part.
So I get out, I turn around and pack to leave two days later. We’re traveling with myself and spouse, my brother and sis in law, my 12 year old Star Wars fanatic of a kid, meeting our foreign exchange student from a previous year in Orlando, and my special needs sister who lives with us. All of us in a condo and a week in the parks. I’m sure this sounds like we’re crazy already right?! But- We arrive at our destination, spend several wonderful days in both big theme parks and have a wonderful time!
Until day five. The plan was for us to take the Star Wars nut to Star Wars and my brother to take my sister for the morning/early afternoon. I assumed we’d meet up by lunch or something. Communication isn’t easy when you’re 1-having a great time 2-on and off rides 3-in a crowded theme park. So there was a miscommunication on when we were meeting up let’s just say that.
Brother & sis in law wanted to ride a ride that had a long wait time. When I called to check on when and where to meet they told me they’d left my sister at the exit to the ride and were in line to ride it. They said they left her w/food and a drink and she’d be fine. Now the last time I checked the wait time on that ride it said 3 hours-so I FLIPPED out! I yelled something at him over the phone half in hysterics and raced across the entire park, to the exit to find my sister. I found her! My husband, kid and exchange student met up with us later and all was fine, thank god. But I was Infuriated and shocked that he would do this. And my mama bear (mom of 3 plus 1) kicked in. When we met up with them he was mad I hung up on him?! I exploded!!! Yes, in public, at the happiest place on earth. And so there we were being an embarrassment. He walked away because he wasn’t going to be a part of it, my sister in law started crying because she couldn’t find him-it was a cluster****!
Late that night back at the condo, they all left so we could us try to talk it out. And instead of making things better I threw some below the belt comments that I don’t think I did intentionally, but I was an emotional mess at the time and he was an explosive bear by this point. And It was UGLY! It ended up with them taking our shared rental car staying in a hotel the last day and not even going to the parks and leaving on a different flight. :(
I know we both could’ve handled it better; but little brother is the age of my oldest son! So I know I’m the adultier adult. We have NEVER fought like this! Our family doesn’t DO this! We were SO close, his gf and I like sisters. He was like all that I have left and we haven't spoken since. I know we were both *****. I want them back, like how things used to be. There’s a hole in my heart and I miss them so much! Is there any hope?!

Happy Sunday! I added even more stuff today. Shipping is $5, no minimum, and I ship in a few days.
DESTASH
ALCHEMIC MUSE
-jezebel(5 mL, $10): warm amber, animalistic musk, sweet frankincense, and myrrh accented with a touch of dark patchouli and vanilla
ALKEMIA
-tea garden alchemy: $15
-cherry blossom alchemy: $15
-madam pearl($15):
-perfume fixative(5 mL, $10):
-The traveler and the moon(sample $2): Silver leaf tea brewed in an iron kettle, galbanum, sandalwood, petitgrain, tobacco and bamboo leaves, wild currants, raw honey, fresh hay, and a cool splash of rice wine.
-Roll In the Hay(sample $2): A delightful romp through dried hay, fresh green grass, early summer wildflower honey, vanilla grass, vanilla leaf, and wild poppy.
-Baiser Du Soleil(sample $2): black coconut musk, white musk, vanilla orchid, star jasmine, white hyacinth
-More Light!(sample $2):
-aphrodisia(sample $2):
ANDROMEDA’S CURSE
-Pumpkin Magic:(5 mL, $10) pumpkin, marshmallow, vanilla.
-bat orchid(sample, $2): Orchid, Tea, Jasmine, Incense, Oakmoss, Sandalwood, Vanilla
-the call of the void(sample, $2): French Lavender, Nag Champa, Egyptian Amber, Sandalwood, Cedarwood & Vanilla
-undead undead undead(sample, $2): Clove, Orange, Incense, Frankincense, Myrrh, Vetiver, Patchouli, Black Musk
ARCANA
-Vanilla Craves 90s Malls(5mL, $15): The scent of rebellious young punks and toothachingly sweet innocence. Bright fluorescent lights, glossy watermelon-flavored lip gloss, a ziplock baggie of fresh, green bud, and sticky vanilla-laced marshmallow treats.
-pumpkin layering note($3 shop sample)
-sugar(decant, $2)
ASTRID
-Merci no. 39:
BLACK HEARTED TART
-hips like cinderella:
BPAL(samples, $2 each of all for $10!)
-satyr:
-tlazolteotl:
-dance of death:
-tweedledum:
-death on a pale horse
-al-azif:
-plunder:
-white rabbit:
-lawful:
-black tower:
CHERRY KA’S TRUNK(samples, $3)
-a palaver:
-come and reap:
-sandalwood guns:
DEATH AND FLORAL
-honeybush($10, 5mL roller): Herbal black tea and honey with a slight floral undertone, CO2 extract
HEXENNACHT
-Fougere Accord:($3 Ajevie large sample): My prized, personal house-blended fougère (also used as part of the Wuthering Heights blend): Bulgarian lavender, silvanone, oakmoss absolute, vetiver, tonka, jasmine, cetalox, bergamot, vanillin.
-ghost of christmas past(store sample; $3): ranges, and a petrified clump of old-fashioned ribbon candies stuck to Grandma’s candy dish since 1957.
-honey moon(decant; $2): My prized, personal house-blended fougère (also used as part of the Wuthering Heights blend): Bulgarian lavender, silvanone, oakmoss absolute, vetiver, tonka, jasmine, cetalox, bergamot, vanillin.
-raspberry rosemallow(Ajevie sample, $2)
-curiouser and curiouser(shop chonk, $5)
-french kiss(store chonk, 1/2 full): $2
NAVA:
-spirits of the dead(ajevie slink; $3)
POESIE:
-boudicca(sample, $3):
SEANCE (1 mL(?) samples direct from shop; $6)
-cemetary: dragonsblood resin, grass, earth, moss, wood, with hints of vanilla and patchouli
-La Femme Fantome: neroli, ylang-ylang, iris, jasmine, orris root, rose, lily of the valley, vetiver, oakmoss, civetta, Apple, red current, tulip, freesia, heliotrope, white rose, and a touch of amber and musk.
SIXTEEN92
-once more, with feeling(10 mL roller, $15): Autumnal woods, misty hayrides, brown sugar, pumpkin crumb cakes
STEREOPLASM
-enjoy your waffles(sample, label is damaged, $2)
-reverie(sample roller, $3)
WHISPER SISTERS(5mL $8)
-Ghosts of Christmas Past: marshmallow, vanilla, smoke, frankincense essential, Tunisian frankincense, myrrh essentia
-Sturnidae: Madagascscar vanilla, vanilla bean, tonka bean, geranium, violet, cedar, vetiver, white musk, with hints of jasmine and black vanilla.
-worm cake:
-butterfly’s boots:
-harpactira:
(1 mL sample, $3)
-ezra: dark amber, black amber, dark vanilla, blood orange, teak, patchouli
-hurdy gurdy: black musk, amber dragons blood, tonka bean, aged patchouli, black vanilla, smoked vanilla.
-bellatrix:

I saw a news story about a teacher introducing students to citizens who were affected by the internment of Japanese-Americans. Several community members, both young and old, were quoted as having never learned about this in school. My reaction to this kind of thing, which I have heard many times before, is usually, "where the fuck did these people go to school where this wasn't discussed at length?" My partner and I were both educated in unremarkable public schools; we remember this well. And I hate history.
I know 'how do we teach students about bad things the country has done' is a topic of some political sensitivity. My question: are people being sincere? Is it reasonably possible that there are Americans who weren't taught about this? Do there really exist districts that don't include this in the curriculum? Or are people just forgetting (mostly forgivable) or exaggerating their ignorance for social media points?

Hi. I have been trying to figure out how to access a couple links in my mod tools, but am unable to figure out how to find them. My issue is banned members evading bans by brigading with new accounts. I have tried finding the "safety" tab, I have tried figuring out how to require karma points under automod but, again, nothing. I have tried old.reddit and new.reddit as well as my app. If it is any help, I am on an iphone, not a laptop. I honestly have tried finding the answer before I bothered you guys. Needless to say, I am not very computer savvy. I appreciate any assistance you're able to give.

My mum and dad are both very toxic people and awful parents. It took me 24 years to finally see it.
When I was a teenager, mum used to move us around a lot. To this day I have went to 4 different secondary schools, lived in 2 different countries and lived in 5 different cities. This damaged my ability to relate to other people, form and maintain relationships with people, as well as make decisions for myself.
Mum is very controlling and judgemental. She would rather hide me from the world than allow me to take risks and learn like a normal parent would. She unfortunately got her wish and it has destroyed my life.
I never had any close friends growing up and was bullied a lot so I became really reclusive. I never got to socialise outside of school due my lack if friends and wasted my entire teenage life just sitting at home.
Smash cut to today where I am a 24 year old virgin who just sits at home all day or goes to work with my Dad only for him to treat me like shit there as well.
I have only ever been in a "situationship" with one girl in my life, but things did not end well between us because of me. I have not seen or spoken to her in years but last I checked she was engaged and has a child. I still think about her everyday and beat myself up over what could have been.
I never go out. Dating apps are useless. I can't form relationships with people due to my insecurities. I have no one to talk to and I have missed out on my entire life.
I hate my life and I don't want it anymore. This is not what I wanted for myself and I don't know how to change it. I really wish I could go back in time to change the past but obviously that's impossible.
what do I do? How can I change my life? How do I accept my life for what it is and move on?

I was thinking about how zen is beyond words ('outside of teaching'), how basically anything that anyone says about it is wrong (not existent, not non-existent, etc etc)...and how that kind of creates tension with freedom and an understanding that there's no right or wrong... And was thinking about how an old friend of mine mentioned that zen masters run around "as if their hair is on fire". The don't, because they're dead, but they did - at least before they got settled. Which is not to say they didn't after, necessarily.
Anyway, what I was thinking was that we should give the poor folks in zen who's hair is on fire a bit of a break. Being unable to speak and unable to remain silent is quite the knife edge to be walking.
I relate it a little to the old Buddhist stories I remember about Buddha's temptations when he was meditating under the Bhodi tree. I'm sure that's designed to sound like a struggle to the rest of us.
So I went to see what zen masters might have to say on the issue. I found the translator's comment interesting - he mentioned that he found the question about cessation puzzling. I thought it was pretty clearly similar to a question we see elsewhere: 'In the end, is this also destroyed?' But anyway, here's Huangbo's take (or one of them) on speech and silence:

Q: 'Vimalakirti dwells in silence. Manjusri offers praise.' How can they have really entered the Gateway of Non-Duality?
A: The Gateway of Non-Duality is your original Mind. Speech and silence are relative concepts belonging to the ephemeral sphere. When nothing is said, nothing is manifested. [Cf. St. John: 'In the beginning was the WORD.'] That is why Manjusri offered praise.
Q: Vimalakirti did not speak. Does this imply that sound is subject to cessation? [This seems to mean: Is sound purely samsaric? But I am puzzled.]
A: Speech and silence are one! There is no distinction between them. Therefore is it written: 'Neither the true nature nor the root of Manjusri's hearing are subject to cessation.' Thus, the sound of the Tathagata's voice is everlasting, nor can there be any such reality as the time before he began to preach or the time after he finished preaching. The preaching of the Tathagata is identical with the Dharma he taught, for there is no distinction between the preaching and the thing preached; just as there is none between such varied phenomena as the Glorified and Revealed Bodies of a Buddha, the Bodhisattvas, the Sravakas, the world-systems with their mountains and rivers, or water, birds, trees, forests and the rest. The preaching of the Dharma is at one and the same time both vocal and silent. Though one talks the day long, no word is spoken. This being so, only silence belongs to the Essential.

Ha. Huangbo's hair is warm ashes.
I wish you the fortune of blunt blades, and a very happy weekend!

Introduction

Celephaïs is a Narrative Side-Scroller developed and published by OllieFearn, released on July 04 2021. Celephaïs is available on Itch.

Presentation

Celephaïs is a recreation of Lovecraft’s Celephaïs. The story follows Kuranes, a man seeking the mythical city of Celephaïs in his dreams.
Travel to Celephaïs
Narratively, it follows Lovecraft’s tale to a tee, with… some abnormalities. The game begins in the third to the fourth paragraph, catching Kuranes’ ancestral home of thirteen generations and the old village along the white road of the sleep or dead with the spears of long grass in the foreground. Kuranes presses onto the cliffs—floating down amidst faintly glowing spheres and finally approaching a rift in the darkness. The dream ends just as Kuranes enter it, catching a glimpse of Celephaïs. OllieFearn does a fine job of illustrating this dreamy tale so far.
On Kuranes’ second attempt, Kuranes finds himself in an emptiness—then transition to a beach (assuming it’s the golden sands) with trees above the water. If you stay around a while, a flickering creature appears and follows Kuranes. Harmless. Afterwards, towards a cave. The dream morphs into a nightmare of liminal space—exiting and falling into the same room with varying lighting and an endless hallway with flickering and strobing lights injecting Horror elements, leaving a jolt that isn’t a necessity to have. OllieFearn’s reimagining of Celephaïs doesn’t end there.
The story flips to the ninth paragraph, nearing the end. Kuranes turn to drugs—Hasheesh (Cannabis) in desperation to reach Celephïs. It worked so well that he materialised in another dimension. He was greeted by the [Violet-Coloured] Pink Gas, an ethereal being—describing the Place as Infinity. Proposes Kuranes a way back to Celephaïs whenever he is ready. I would define OllieFearn’s Infinity as a children’s playground with building blocks (especially for a place where form doesn’t exist). Not to sound entirely out of humour, I did play with the shapes. Smile once or twice.
The Strange and Stranger.
Kuranes returns to his ancestral home and the village and finds them abandoned. This part is the third paragraph edited. Onwards, the dialogue isn’t the same as Lovecraft’s Celephaïs and should be treated as an addition. Kuranes, as the only name is given, said he is from London (likely in England, as Lovecraft is an anglophile). Or, in OllieFearn’s version—Cornwall (located on England’s southwestern tip). Progression is the same, jumping over downed-tree and towards the cliffs—past the village.
Readers of Celephaïs know how the story ends. Kuranes govern over Celephaïs while his physical body falls off a cliff in Innsmouth.
OllieFearn omits portions of the story if left entire; it is an easy fifteen to thirty-minute game with some puzzles and such. Possibly, too laborious to detail the scenes.
The dreamlike soundtrack works wonderfully with the story and tragic end.

Collapsing Cosmoses

OllieFearn did an admirable job of reimagining Celepaïs, however. Some decisions cause unnecessary conflict in the story. Being said, I recommend giving Celephaïs a shot.
Extinct Nobility

I currently have a 5 week old daughter and my ex partner keeps on getting in trouble with the law, he was arrested once whilst i was nearing the end of my pregnancy and social services became involved: he didn’t turn up when we had important plans to due to him using drugs the previous night so I ended things, that night he attempted suicide by crashing his car. The police were aware of this event and I had a phone call from social services. He is on the birth certificate and has been having supervised visits, however, he was arrested again on Wednesday night, he gave me a story that I’m sure is a lie. He was supposed to see our daughter again today but hasn’t turned up, I am expecting a call from social services as I’m sure they are aware of his recent arrest. What is my best action to take? I don’t want to get into any trouble for refusing him access to seeing her, however, he doesn’t turn up most of the time and I’m worried how this will effect her when she grows up. Also, I don’t want to be seen as irresponsible by allowing him to see her despite all contact being supervised by myself.

My summer fling partner will be petite, busty with long hair. She will meet me in a hotel bar wearing a sexy black lace bra beneath a thin, sheer white blouse over a short black skirt with no panties. (If my Cub doesn’t have these items of clothing, we will go shopping.)The bra will create the cleavage I crave and that cleavage will be visible through her partially unbuttoned blouse.
We will meet in the bar where I will present you with a small gift, a cute little butt plug which you insert in your tight little ass when you immediately walk to the ladies room. When you return, we will enjoy a few Old Fashions before I hand you our room key. You will lead the way to our room. I will follow begins you and admire your form.
When we enter our room, you will stand motionless at the foot of our bed while I position myself behind you. I will sweep your hair off to one side of your neck to allow my to begin sensuously kissing the bare side of your neck. My hands will wander around to your breasts to see if your nipples are giving away your excitement.
My hands will reach through your hair giving you goosebumps on the back of your neck.
I will position myself on the bed between your legs where you will remain motionless. I will begin kissing the front of your neck and your face begin beckoning your tongue. I will remove your blouse and begin kissing your bare shoulders and your upper chest before I remove your bra and take each of your nipples in my mouth. I will tease each of your nipples with my lips and tongue while one of my hands reaches between your legs to gauge your enthusiasm for my touch.
When you are ready for me, I will have you lay down on our bed where I will begin kissing each of your inner thighs before I begin ever so lightning licking your clit. I will sense how you prefer me to please you by licking a little more forcefully while also gently sucking your clit until you climax for me.
You will be allowed to touch me in whatever manner you wish after your first orgasm. My wish is that you mount me cowgirl style for your next orgasm and reverse cowgirl style for your third orgasm. For your fourth orgasm, you will be fucked from behind while your hair is pulled and your ass is being spanked.
I want our sweaty bodies blended together before we decide our next sexual efforts.
Message me if you want what I described to be our reality. Inexperience disappears through experience. Practice makes perfect.
PS: Vasectomy here, no pregnancy concerns.

Hello, I'm not sure if this is okay to ask about on here but I have no idea where else to ask.
Long post because I want to provide the full context of my experience with a dentist. I want to know if I should report my experience to the board or if it's acceptable for religious doctors to be like this. So, I had an appointment with a dentist I'd never met, and I believe he mistreated me due to my religious beliefs from my pre-appointment paperwork. He tried pushing his religion onto me *literally* the entire time he was in the room, I repeatedly told him I'm not interested. He said that his job is to save me from my "inevitable fate after death". He had multiple religious speeches he gave me, which sounded rehearsed, so I told him "I'm just confused why we're talking about religion and not my teeth". He got visibly annoyed and asked if I would pray with him to which I said sorry no I'm not comfortable with that. He then ended the appointment prematurely in an angry manner without addressing any of my concerns, cleaning me up, or going over the X-rays at all. He told me that I'm a sinner and I'm doomed to hell for eternity unless I let him save me. I didn't know how to respond to a dentist condemning me to hell, I was incredibly (too) nice to him. I had 4 impacted wisdom teeth causing me severe pain, and I had to ask him in the lobby, "So, is it my wisdom teeth causing the pain?" (I had no idea or confirmation at that point) and he just said "yep". He didn't give any information other than that, then proceeded to hand me 3 pamphlets about God and told me to sit in my car and think long and hard about the mistake I'd made by not converting... (Front desk told me I needed them extracted ASAP and sent a referral to a surgeon. I had to ask his staff to email me my X-rays since he didn't show me them.)
It's been a few months but it still really, really bothers me how he treated me. It provoked me to check his reviews and there were some terrible ones I found, some referencing similar experiences, some saying that he and his wife run for local office using patients' personal information to solicit votes, crazy stuff I've never heard said about any dentist. His responses to critical reviews are equally disturbing, he just blames the patient for not being understanding, educated, or accusing them of being racist or a "veteran hater" if they speak up about their experiences with him. His facebook and business website is plastered with Donald Trump worship as well, with "MAGA" is in his website name, in the title that he calls himself, advertised on the building, and everything. Just something else I noticed that didn't seem very professional for a dentist.
My mom has been seeing him for years with no problem, says he's always super nice and thorough - but she is already religious, which is why I feel he only mistreated me due to my religious stance. I hadn't seen a dentist since I was 16 (21 now) so I just don't know if this is acceptable or not. Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated.

I met my late wife Bianca when I was a single dad to my now 28 year old daughter Sam. Bianca treated Sam as if she was her real mother and Sam shared the same amount - if not more - of love with her. Then Bianca and I had our younger daughter Julia who's 19. When Bianca got sick, Sam stepped up and offered so uch help and support. She even helped with taking care of Julia as well. This lasted til after Bianca had passed away.
The girls then for some reason started getting into lots of arguments but often times, it's Julia who gets them started. Maybe it's because she felt jealous or guilty because Sam puts lots of efforts into remembering Bianca by celebrating her birthdays, doing things to honor her and so on, while Sam doee little to nothing in comparison. She recently began throwing the words "my mom isn't your real mom" at Sam in every argument. I thought she does it to make Sam feel bad for a while but things escalated. I tried talking to Julia but she had already taken things that Sam had as momerial of her mother.
During the last argument they had, I heard Julia say to Sam that she (sam) will never be a daughter to her stepmother and that her (julia) inheriting the necklace her mom left is the ultimate proof of this statement. Ngl, I was both shocked and furious especially after listening to Sam having a breakdown and not being able to step in and help her. I kept quiet for days thinking about what happened. then I gathered them both together and decided to give the necklace to Sam since her wedding was approaching. Now Bianca did not specified who should inherit the necklace, and traditions say the biological daughter should automatically inherit it but after what I heard Julia say I just couldn't let Sam think or even believe she's less of a daughter to her mom than Julia. Julia lost it and started screaming repeatedly asking if I was being serious and yelled about how I'm playing favorites and being unreasonable. I told her since I'm the official owner of the necklace then it was my decision and said it was final. We got into an argument and Sam left. Julia got her grandparents (mother side) involved and they came at me for what I did calling it "insane" and that only blood family should inherit the necklace. They said that I'm risking damaging my relationship with Julia if I go through with this. They're expecting me to correct this but I kept putting my foot down. Now days later with Julia completely refusing to talk to me I feel like I was being harsh and unfair towards her but I just wanted to keep feeling that love and support that Bianca showed her even when she's physically here to show her.
AITA for the decision?

I don't have any adult family members or older friends to explain or teach things to me, I'm 17 turning 18 at the very end of the year. I feel ridiculously stupid, immature because trying to understand all this college, university, licences, jobs, registration, money, identification shit I don't understand any of it.
The only adult I have to teach me is my 64yr old guardian, she hasn't worked since her 20s due to being unable to and therefore being paid. Anything she's given me advice on, has ended up being outdated and corrected by friends my age. Admittedly, she's got a lot of abusive tendencies. My older brother, who is stuck in the same boat, listened to me about this. We both sorta said it feels like she doesn't us to be independent, and cuts us off from a lot of things or doesn't teach us.
In Australia, we get centrelink money from the government when unemployed to live off of. at 18, you get it directly to you. My guardian doesn't let us have it if we are still living with her.
I'm trying to do little things, teach myself how to cook properly which is so humiliating to type out but so much of my childhood was abuse and neglect. Then my upbringing with my guardian was therapy, and this overguarding.
I'm trying to understand things on my own through reading things about university, how to get my learners license sorted and then how to drive, how to just..know what car to buy.
but even reading these things, I can't wrap my head around it. I get stressed, my brain shuts off and I get nauseous. I feel stupid because I don't understand all of this, nobody is telling me how to do it, I don't have anyone to do so and I feel moronic nearly crying whenever my friends talk about future plans and how their parents are explaining things to them.
I am trying to get a job, and trying to give a good impression on interviews though I have severe anxiety and struggle socially still from how I was raised but it clearly isnt too well. I've been doing volunteer work to add to my resume, I can't seem to get employed still.
College is mandatory in my country & state unless in a fulltime job or apprenticeship, so it's my last year in college which I utterly fucked up. I was on and off meds last year with depression, this year dealing with insomnia but attending more. I didn't pass any of my courses last year, this year isn't looking so well.
How do I figure shit out on my own, how do I fucking do all this stuff to live normally. I feel like I'm suffocating and I need to do something to leave but I don't know how.

I scored 23 in my first attempt and I need to reach a 25+ score. Could anyone suggest areas of improvement in the essay I've written below?
The question is from the ets website itself.
Q) Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
Television advertising directed toward young children (aged two to five) should not be allowed.
My response -
Product-based companies rely on television advertising as televisions are used by the majority of the population. While I have no problem with advertising targeting teens and adults, I do not think advertising directed toward young children should be allowed. There are two reasons why I feel this way, both of which I will elaborate on in the following essay.
My parents often tell me how obsessed I was as a kid with beyblades, which were advertised quite aggressively at the time. We weren't financially comfortable back then, but as a child, I didn't understand the difficulties my parents were going through. I threw tantrums over wanting those toys till they ended up agreeing. It is surprising to imagine being that demanding at that age. The fact that ads could capture the imagination of a five year old to such an extent is scary. When my parents got me the beyblade, I didn't play with it for more than a week. I didn't have the critical thinking skills needed to dissect an ad and know if I actually wanted the thing, rather than mindlessly believing the ad saying I did.
Moreover, targeting little children like that feels ethically wrong to me. I have a young niece who was convinced that the Lego sets turned into real animals because of how the game was depicted in the ad. Children at that age tend to have imaginative minds and innocence. Directing advertisements toward them when they don't have the necessary aptitude for skepticism and rationality is harmful for them. Not getting what they want puts a strain on both the parents and the kids. Evoking such ugly emotions out of children is dangerous for society and could have potentially harmful effects on them in the long term.
To conclude, I completely agree with the sentiment that advertising should not target young children. I feel this way because of how naive and gullible little children tend to be.
E - some words

Hi all, not really sure what to do currently. My boyfriend and i moved into a new flat in September of 2022. Since day one there have been issues with the bathroom like the flush leaking, the tap on the basin leaking etc, but most prominently, the water boiler for the shower has not worked since day one.
We have been paying the rent in full, it's not very high but it's still a lot. We have complained to our land lady multiple times and there have been handy workers that have visited twice or thrice. Who advised that the only thing that can be done is that she has to buy us a new boiler because they just do not make parts for the very old one we have. She told us she ordered a new boiler but that handy worker had no open appointments.
Then 3 weeks ago she told us that the very first Handy worker she called (who apparently can fix the old one) called her back (she had called him all the way back in November) and that he is willing to come take a look. That still hasn't happened. This makes us think she never ordered the new boiler to save money and has been lying to us.
My boyfriend called the new handy worker a few times but they can't do anything unless the land lady says so.
We have been using the shower in the flat 1 floor below us (she owns the whole building) and it has been really inconvenient, even though we have access to a shower. It was okay in the winter but not anymore.
We are at our wits end trying to get her to fix it, we hadn't thought of getting any legal recourse because apart from the shower issue she is a really nice lady and a single mom but we are just really tired of not having a working shower.
What should we do?

So throughout my posts and comments I have already shared a few of mine.
This particular one covers my headcanon on his pre-Hogwarts and summers during his first four years at Hogwarts: https://old.reddit.com/HPfanfiction/comments/13gfgtx/tom_riddle_discovers_his_love_for_reading/
Some other ones that I have:

• Lestrange and Avery were his best friends. Lestrange (the one that was contemporary to Tom's time in Hogwarts) was the closest thing he would ever call a friend. In fact he might have been his first and last true friend, while Avery was mostly what Pettigrew was to James and Sirius. Later in life, when the Death Eaters were formed, the trio wielded almost equal power within the organization. However Tom was the real charismatic leader, while Lestrange was the cautious voice of reason. Avery was pretty much the weak link. When Lestrange realized what direction Tom intended to take the organization in (and refused to listen to his advice) and furthermore saw his children, Rodolphus and Rabastan admiring more Tom's ways than his, he decided to turn informant for the Ministry. This lead to a lot of arrests and even deaths. Lestrange also tried to turn Avery to his side and kick Tom out of the organization, but Avery much more preferred Tom as he saw him as a real leader so he snitched on Lestrange. Upon finding out, Tom was heartbroken and that's the point he became extremely cynical and refused to allow anyone else to get too close to him. He captured Lestrange and brutally tortured him, ripping his tongue out in the process. Then he presented a nearly dead Lestrange to the Death Eaters and said the Aurors did this to him. He convinced his sons to kill him "to put him out of his misery" as a last mocking to his former best friend.
  
• Tom and Dumbledore had a similar relationship as Harry and Snape. Tom perceived Dumbledore as being unfair towards other houses and favoring Gryffindors and while, unlike Snape, Dumbledore never showed direct cruelty or meaness towards Tom, he always kept a close look on him and would often tax even the smallest mistakes he would catch Tom making.
  
• In his first two years Tom was really withdrawn, behaved mostly like at the orphanage. He spent of his time in the library and his classmates found him rather creepy. He was trying to figure out his ancestry but since there were no records of a Riddle family and Marvolo was not a notable man enough to be recorded anywhere, he was getting nowhere. He did however excel in his classes and occasionally helped Avery (who was sort of like Neville and he kind of felt pity for him) with his homework and Avery tried to form an awkward friendship with him. However when the Gryffindors decided to pull a prank on the Slytherin's new chaser, Lestrange by disillusioning a bunch of snakes and hiding them in his Quidditch uniform, Tom Riddle used his Parseltongue to control the snakes (kind of paralleling Harry's reveal in book 2) and chase away the Gryffindor bullies. It was then that he formed a close relationship with Lestrange, after the latter asked him if he was related to the Gaunts. Partially out of interest for the source of information that Lestrange could provide and partially because Lestrange was genuinely a likeable person, Tom developed a close friendship with him. It was also due to the information provided by Lestrange that he was able to track his ancestry to Slytherin.
  
• In the third year, due to unforeseen circumstances, the Qudditch game between Gryffindors vs Slytherins also got switched to the last one to parallel PoA. Tom Riddle, now becoming more outgoing, decides to help the Quidditch team to pull a prank on the Gryffindors. I haven't thought exactly what but likely something to do with hexing brooms. That's when he earns the respect of Nott, Rosier, and Mulciber which are older students in the team.
  
• I have detailed in the link above Tom Riddle's brush with death due to Dragonpox in the link above and how he came to name himself Voldemort as well as his rising interest in defying immortality so I won't bore you again with it. However the Dragonpox epidemics also affects professor Merrythought who is quite old. She has to take a sabbatical year to recover. In turn paralleling the events from OotP, the wife of the first muggleborn head of DMLE is hired as a supply teacher (she's also a Muggleborn). Due to the atrocities committed during WW2, she starts pushing an agenda of Muggle tolerance and using magic to help them. This annoys the purebloods of Slytherin and it is during this time that Tom discovers the Chamber of Secrets. He plans to use the Basilisk to terrify the new professor. After several attacks that fail to chase her out of school, he decides to finally kill her but he accidentally kills Myrtle. This scares Tom and makes him back out of his plan. Still since he already killed someone, may as well try his hand at creating a horcrux. However Myrtle's death does also manage to chase away the supply teacher from the school. This leaves several students without a DADA teacher before the OWLs. In an attempt to fill that demand, Tom starts a study group with his fellow Slytherins where he teaches them dark arts, and paralleling it to Dumbledore's Army, he calls it the Knights of Walpurgis since the study group is started on the night of the 30th of April, as Tom is a huge fan (as I detailed in the link above) of astronomy.
  
• However not all Ministry workers are satisfied with the closing of the Chamber of Secrets case and an over-zealous Auror lingering on, accidentally overhears Tom bragging to his gang about the Chamber of Secrets and how he plans to reopen it again next year. This prompts him to keep a close look on Tom and under the pretense that he thinks a student might have been involved in the murders of the Riddle family, he is reluctantly allowed to return to Hogwarts the next year because of a compelling argument he made to his bosses that he has suspicions a child might have been involved since the Trace got activated despite no known magical child living in Little Hangleton. And since Dumbledore conveniently left the school to get more actively involved in the war against Grindelwald, this Auror replaces him as a Transfigurations teacher. This annoys Tom to no end since he feels the new Transfigurations teacher is hounding him even worse than Dumbledore and he can't afford to reopen the Chamber of Secrets.
  
• Meanwhile Tom learns of a legend that the four founders once saved some goblins from a "sticky situation" and befriended them. At the Hogwarts inauguration, an envoy of goblins came and presented them with four gifts. For Gryffindor it was a sword that would make him as powerful as every enemy he defeated, for Ravenclaw a diadem that retained the wisdom and knowledge of all its wearers and transfer it to the current wearer, for Hufflepuff a cup which when filled with something it would never end (kind of fits the protections in Gringotts) and for Slytherin, who was blind and relying on snakes to guide him, a locket that would allow him to see as far as the soul of humans (hence the eyes within the locket that Harry sees when he opens it). Tom instantly becomes obsessed about possessing this items. Also realizing he has no chance of reopening the Chamber as long as the Auror is within Hogwarts, he will want to leave it as a legacy and thus creating other horcruxes. It is then when he realizes that if he made an object out of each of the founders' relics and the ring he stole from his uncle (which while he didn't know what it was sensed its immense magical power) and becomes fascinated by the idea of splitting his soul in seven. Hence his question for Slughorn.
  
• In the following year, he researches all the relics. He manages to find from Helena what happened to the diadem, learns that the locket stayed with the Gaunts and makes the connection with what Morfin said that his mother stole the locket, learns that the cup also stayed with the descendants of Hufflepuff which are now called the Smiths and learns how to get the sword. So he starts a plot to steal the sorting hat but when he manages, the hat is quick to read his mind and tells him that he'll never be able to make the sword his as Gryffindor left it to the Gryffindor house since he did not have any children and enchanted it so that it will forever remain to the worthy Gryffindors. This prompts Voldemort to drop his plan of making it a horcrux and decide he will in time find another powerful item to use it as a container for his seventh part of the soul.
  

That's it for now. If you have any other headcanons about the lesser known deeds of Tom Riddle, feel free to share. As for me, I have developed a biography for him a while ago, but seeing that I am too old to write fanfiction anymore, feel free to borrow also any of the ideas.

Recently I looked into a pickup book again and I felt the uneasyness again. Those people are just great at making you feel horrible.
Now I noticed the reason for that:
it's huge entry barriers they set themselves. Only if you have all set in place, you can think about talking to women. Unless you have everything going for you, don't even try.
The entry barriers seem logical, therefore what you read is "You have all the material right in front of you, you know it must be right, because it sounds logical, if you still cannot do it..."
And this is where self-hatred is bred.
It contradicts human desire to not seek pleasure. You must have pleasure to endure pain. The only pleasure they offer is "maybe you will have sex".
Basically those materials are built with no knowledge about how humans learn but with an outdated "If it doesn't hurt, it's not good" russian ballet dance teacher style.
Yes, don't hate the player, hate the game. If women weren't such hypocritical cunts, we didn't need it.
But what pickup is not, is empowering.
That makes people not start who have all the material, because the barrier of entry is way too high. They make it seem that without a lot of work in advance, women will reject you - and women don't contradict it.
Not only that, but, even worse, also without a lot of work WHILE you are talking to them, you will get rejected according to them - and women don't contradict it.
Therefore, why even try, you'll be disappointed anyway and you will hate yourself having made yet another woman's day and her egos being stroked, all at your mood's expense.
Having sex with women, just like making money - people make that huge, they create all kinds of real or made up hurdles while noone contradicts them.
Recently I read the question "How do I become rich in 2 years from 3k to 1 million?" And the replies were all like "You'll never make it", because THEY NEVER MADE IT.
When it comes to making money, the internet is full of losers who talk and experienced people who remain silent.
Similar to women, and I am still convinced that we have control over a lot when it comes to being treated well by women.
Those pickup books, they are just full of hatred towards men and they could be interpreted as ways to prevent competition from rising up while tricking them into paying for it.

My ruling desire!
(James Smith, "Christ Exalted, Saints Comforted, and Sinners Directed" 1855
My ruling desire is to be wholly given up to the Lord and to His work, and to show forth His praises from day to day. But when I aim at this most--I am baffled, opposed, and always hindered! I see what is wrong, but cannot avoid it. I see what is right, but cannot attain unto it. I know what I wish, but I cannot enjoy it. I read what God commands, but I cannot perform it.
In the midst of all, I bless God . . . for Jesus Christ, for free grace, for a full salvation, for abiding comfort, for a good hope, for sweet views of Jesus, for a glorious inheritance, for an assurance of victory, and for the promise of eternal triumph!
Nothing can . . . separate me from Jesus, turn the current of His love from me, or change the purposes of His grace for me.
His love is astonishing!
His ways are marvelous!
I change; He remains the same. I sin; He pardons. I cry; He hears and answers. I ask for favors; and He kindly bestows them. I fear; and He promises. I wander; and He says, "Return." I lament my folly; He whispers peace. I feel poor and impoverished; He says, "All things are yours!" I imagine that I am alone; He says, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." I expect that He will abandon me; He asks, "How can I give you up?"
I cry, "Unworthy, unworthy!" He says, "You are My dear son, My pleasant child."
I fear I shall be overcome. He says, "No weapon formed against you shall prosper."
I fear I shall lie down in darkness. He says, "The Lord shall be a light unto you."
I say, "I can do nothing!" He says, "I will work all your works in you."
I say, "I am barren!" He says, "From Me is your fruit found."
I cry, "I am thirsty!" He says, "I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys--to give drink to My people, My chosen ones."
I complain, "I am weary!" He says, "Come unto Me--I will give you rest."
I feel dry and parched. He says, "I will be as the dew unto Israel."
I say, "I need food!" He says, "My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed."
I fear I shall die. He says, "He who eats Me, even he shall live by Me."
I say at times, "All these things are against me!" He says, "All things shall work together for your good!"
I say, "I shall surely be overcome!" He says, "Nothing shall by any means hurt you."
I say, "I am often left alone!" He says, "Lo, I am with you always."
I say, "I am all deformity!" He says, "You are all beautiful, My love--there is no spot in you!"
I say, "I shall see Him no more!" He says, "I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice."
I say, "Surely the Lord cannot love such a wretch!" He says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love."
I say, He cannot have chosen one so vile and base. He says, "I have chosen you, and will never cast you away!"
I say, "I am desolate and forsaken!" He says, "Your Maker is your husband, the Lord Almighty is His name, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel."
I say, "I shall be left to myself at last!" He says, "I am a friend who sticks closer than a brother."
I say, "Set me as a seal upon Your arm, as a seal upon Your heart!" He says, "I will make you like a signet ring on My finger, for I have chosen you."
I cry, "Remember me, O Lord my God, for good!" He says, "You shall be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God."
I cry, "Do not be terribly angry with me, O Lord!" He says, "I swear that I will never again be angry and punish you."
I say, "I beseech You, show me Your glory!" He says, "Behold, I come quickly!"
I cry, "Remember me with the favor which You bear unto Your people!" He says, "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you--and you shall be comforted."
I cry, "Tell me where You graze Your flock." And He says, "Follow the footsteps of My flock."
I cry, "O that it was with me as in days that are past!" He says, "Arise, My darling, My beautiful one, and come with Me."
I cry, "My soul is among lions!" He says, "Come down with Me, from where the lions have their dens and leopards live among the hills."
I say, "O that I was sure that Jesus loved me!" He says, "You have ravished my heart, My sister, My spouse!''
I say, "I moaned like a mourning dove!" He says, "Your lips, O My spouse, drop as the honeycomb, honey and milk are under your tongue."
I say, "I am exposed, and lie open to the attacks of enemies on every side!" He says, "You are My private garden, My treasure, My bride, a secluded spring, a hidden fountain."
I say, "Do not look upon me, because I am black!" He says, "You are all beautiful, O My love!"
I say, "How miserable I am! Not a cluster of grapes or a single early fig can be found to satisfy my hunger." He says, "At our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old--which I have laid up for you, O My beloved."
I say, "I fear that my numerous sins and powerful corruptions will cool the love of Jesus for me!" He says, "Many waters cannot quench My love, neither can the floods drown it."
I sigh, "I am feeble and sorely broken!" He says, "I will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax."
I say, at times, "He afflicts, and counts me for His enemy!" He says, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten! I deal with you as My son."
I say, "I am totally unfit to be the bride of Jesus!" He says, "Oh, how beautiful you are! How pleasing, My love--how full of delights!"