Background
Canary Islands is a Spanish archipelago of volcanic nature located in the eastern Atlantic ocean, just west of southern Morocco. The chain of islands extends for approximately 490 kilometers (300 miles).
Canary Islands is both geologically and climatologically almost identical to Hawaii, and as such, international tourism has been the main pillar of its economy since the 1960s.
The Event
At around 10:15 PM of June 22nd, 1976, emergency services in all the main seven islands received a flood of calls, with people reporting having seen a strange and frightening phenomenon taking place in the night sky. Most of these callers described what they were seeing as 'a gigantic explosion of light' or 'a massive ball of fire', and all of them said the phenomenon seemed to be taking place somewhere far in the west. These accounts were quickly confirmed true by local authorities, since the 'explosion of light' in question shone for several minutes before dissipating.
Many witnesses also added having seen one or two much smaller red lights moving strangely before the 'explosion' took place -rising from the horizon or from behind the mountains at very high speed, although others added that the lights flew following 'a zig-zag trajectory'.
No sound was heard or reported regarding the phenomenon, and no consequences seemed to follow except for a frightened population.
A foreign tourist vacationing in the island of Gran Canaria took the only known legit picture available of the phenomenon, from the balcony of his hotel room in Maspalomas. Here you can see a bigger version of the picture with enhanced contrast.
Here's a drawing extracted from an official report made by the Spanish Air Force. The drawing depicts a description of the event made with the information gathered from witnesses reports in the western coast of Gran Canaria. The mountains in the drawing are a depiction of the silhouette of Tenerife, the island immediately west of Gran Canaria. In order to understand the extreme magnitude of the 'explosion of light', please take into account that Tenerife is 70 kilometers (44 miles) away and its tallest peak -Mount Teide, which is in fact Spain's tallest mountain- is 3,718 meters tall (12,198 feet). Here's a real picture of the landscape depicted in the drawing, for a better perspective.
Hong Kong's bulk carrier vessel Osaka Bay was sailing from Capetown (South Africa) to Southampton (United Kingdom). The event took place when she was some 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of the island of La Gomera, and her crew did also witness the phenomenon. Here's a drawing made out of their witness reports.
The crew of the Spanish Navy's corvette Atrevida (F-61) observed the phenomenon as she was sailing just south of the island of Fuerteventura. Her captain's account of the event;
"At 22:27 local time of June 22nd it was seen, for the first time, a bright light of an intense bluish yellow color, taking off and rising in altitude towards our position... Once it reached certain height (15º-18º) it stood still, turning its light projection and showing its light source. It remained like that for approximately two minutes, before bursting into a large circle of bright bluish yellow light that remained in that position for forty minutes even after the original preceding phenomenon had faded away.
Two minutes later the light source split, its lower half being smaller and standing in the middle of the circle of light, turning into a bluish cloud as the split half that had originated this bluish mass faded away. The upper half gained altitude while describing a fast but irregular spiraling trajectory, vanishing afterwards. None of these movements had any effect whatsoever on the initial circle of light, whose features remained the same, partially illuminating land and sea, which leads to believe that it wasn't an object far in the distance, but rather close".
Here's the translation of local newspaper excerpts detailing the event;
"It was spotted between 10:15 and 10:30 PM and, according to one of our journalists who has his residence at Valle de Aridane (La Palma island), at that time he observed something that looked like a rocket emerging from the sea and flying towards El Time peak shining with an intense red light. The same phenomenon was spotted in Tazacorte (in La Palma island too). The ferry Villa de Agaete, sailing from Las Palmas, could observe a great shining at exactly 10:20 PM, shortly before docking in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The shining, which lasted about five minutes, appeared like a rocket that had come out of the sea". - El Día (June 23rd, 1976)
"Last night, at around half past ten, a strange object was spotted from several points of our region, especially in the areas of Gáldar and Telde (Gran Canaria), where most phone calls we received in that regard were from. Our callers explained to us that it was a round object that grew massively in size as it rose, clearly defined before it began to fade.
The aforementioned phenomenon began as a couple of red objects that moved in zig-zag, forming into some sort of spiral whose lower half ended in three clearly differentiated but overlaying stripes with some degree of separation between them. They were of a very bright red color and faded gradually. On top of these stripes there was what looked like two powerful blue focal lights, which began to diminish in intensity too before turning into a thin haze afterwards". - La Provincia (June 23rd, 1976)
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Thanks to these accounts and description of the events, calculations could be made in order to ascertain the phenomenon's origins. At the moment of its beginning (which many witnesses described as a rocket taking off) the sun was already 13.7º under the horizon and its azimuth angle was 307º (northwest). Setting a hypothetical POV in the geographical center of the archipelago (28.50º N, 15.75º W, just north of Gran Canaria, it was calculated that during it's first phase (the 'rocket lights') the phenomenon was located some 762 kilometers (473 miles) straight west, at an approximate altitude of 46 kilometers (28 miles). By the end of its final phase (the 'explosion of light') it had traveled to a point located at around 1,062 kilometers (662 miles) west and had risen to a final altitude of 90 kilometers (56 miles).
These calculations became a very important piece of data, we'll get back to them later.
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The UFO/Aliens narrative (AKA the press cherry-picks the statement of one particularly imaginative witness in order to sell a story of very questionable credibility)
Being the 1970s, almost immediately certain sectors of the press began talking about UFO -and subsequently about aliens, even though there was no further evidence to suggest such thing. The local authorities (the Army especially) focused their efforts into reassuring the population that there was nothing to fear, while at the same time gathering all the information they could gather in order to investigate the phenomenon.
In June of 1994, exactly eighteen years after that night, the Spanish Army declassified the 107-pages long investigation report of what by then it had been baptized as the "OVNI de Canarias 22/06/1976" ("Canary Islands' 06/22/1976 UFO"). Back then very few people in Spain had internet access, and as such the release of these documents went unnoticed for most people. However, many journalists rushed to get a copy of the report, and many of these worked for UFO/paranormal magazines of dubious scientific accuracy. And, aware of the kind of reaction they wanted to generate from the public they target, they focused in just one part of the report; Dr. Padrón's story.
Francisco Julio Padrón León (who passed away in 2013) was a general practitioner that lived and had his office in the rural municipality of Gáldar, which is located precisely in the northwestern part of the island of Gran Canaria (and precisely, where a lot of people reported witnessing the phenomenon. Unlike most witnessed, however, Padrón told Spanish authorities a much more extravagant version of the events.
That night he had been called in person to check on a local patient at her home, and the doctor had called a taxi in order to reach the patient's residence; Padrón lived in the town of Guía, and the patient lived at a small parish some 10 kilometers away (6 miles) named Las Rosas. Padrón, his companion and the taxi driver claimed having observed the phenomenon when the car was covering the last two kilometers of the route (at that point, a very narrow and barely paved rural road). Or more specifically, Padrón and the taxi driver claimed having bumped into it; because, according to the statement, at that moment the car's headlights illuminated a sphere that was floating right in front of them. The Padrón and the taxi driver described it as measuring some 30 meters (98 feet), slightly bright and slightly translucent. They (the doctor, especially) described seeing two humanoid entities inside the sphere, surrounded by what looked to be inner aluminum structural parts of the sphere. These figures were, per their statements, between 2.5 and 3 meters tall (8'2" to 9'10"), one taller than the other, and they were dressed in red skin-tight suits. Padrón claimed that these beings stood facing each other, apparently interacting among them but didn't seem to notice his or the taxi driver's presence. It then began to grow in size until (his words) "becoming as big as a 20-story building" and began ascending. At this point of his statement he said he went to check on her patient, after which he told all people present at the patients' home, inviting everyone to go outside and check by themselves what he claimed he had seen. By the time everyone joined Dr. Padrón to watch, the sphere was already very big, standing high in the sky and then it flew away at extreme speed ("faster than any aircraft I've seen in my life", Padrón said in the report) leaving a trail of blue smoke behind before vanishing in the distance, towards Tenerife island.
In his individual report, the taxi driver made just a very skimp corroboration of Padrón's statement, omitting most details of his version of the phenomenon. It was just a few sentences long. The taxi driver was a man in his sixties (and wore glasses) of very little formal education -in fact, his preliminary handwritten statement had to be redacted to correct numerous grammar and spelling mistakes.
As for the companion (a relative of the patient, who was traveling in the backseat), this man only describes seeing "intense bright light everywhere" and noticing "both the doctor and the taxi driver's agitation". He claimed the amount of light, plus the fact that by sitting in the backseat the taxi driver and the doctor's bodies blocked his view, hadn't allowed him to see what Padrón claimed having witnessed.
The declassified document contained many more witness reports gathered from the same area, but none of them matched Dr. Padrón's story about a sphere with two humanoids figures in it; every other description -most of them provided by locals- mentions the same enormous disc of light in the west night sky. A car mechanic and his wife described it as "a car's headlight thrice as large as the full moon". A school teacher mentioned having seen it from his house's window through a pair of binoculars when it began to fade, noticing its "fog-like appearance, and the night stars could be seen through", and mentioning what looked like a couple of bluish beams inside. A farmer explained in his statement that it looked like "a fire spot", he too mentioned seeing "two blue lines" in it. Not even the sick woman Padrón had come to provide medical attention to nor her relatives confirmed the Dr.'s description of the phenomenon, matching instead everyone else's.
That didn't stop the journalists working for UFO/paranormal-themed magazines or even some journalists working for reputable newspapers from disregarding all these credible witnesses and instead focusing on the most outlandish one; Dr. Padrón. In summer of 1994, several of these Spanish magazines like Enigmas, Año Cero or Más Allá rushed to publish a drawing depicting Padrón's description of the 'humanoid figures dressed in red' in their articles, not only making absolutely no mention of any of the other witnesses but also claimed that the propulsion system of the alleged 'alien spacecraft' had scorched a nearby onion field -the area is full of that type of crops- and that posterior chemical analysis of the scorched terrain had yielded wildly unusual results. We'll come back to this point later.
Sketch depicting Padrón's (unique, literally) description of the event. Yes, someone from the Army - more specifically from the Air Force- was tasked with sitting down next to this guy and spending a good deal of time drawing whatever ludicrous thing Padrón felt like coming up with.
Something worth mentioning; these publications made heavy emphasis on Padrón's education -he was a GP, after all. As in, as extraordinary as his claims were, these were being made by a man of a high level of education, intelligent and therefore (in the eyes of many) automatically worth of credibility. In fact, the patient's relative traveling in the taxi's backseat -a farmhand that had never received formal schooling and was illiterate- said in his witness report that one of the reasons why he did not question Padrón's statement was precisely the abysmal difference in education between him and the doctor, and kind of assumed that if an educated man like Padrón said that such thing had indeed happened, then it must have been true.
A local newspaper interviewed Dr. Padrón shortly after the documents were declassified. And by then, eighteen years after that night, Padrón added some more details to his already bizarre account, providing these journalists with something that wouldn't have been out of place in an episode of The X-Files (which back in 1994 had begun to be broadcasted in Spain, with significant success). Back in 1976 Padrón had already added in his statement that he did not feel fear but 'a strange sense of wellbeing and excitement' in his encounter with the alleged spacecraft; now he was also saying that these beings -which never communicated with him in any way, per his account- had not only the ability to erase anyone's memories off their brains, but they also can "make you see whatever they want you to do for months or years, replacing an 'energy' [his word] in your brain". If these statements weren't absurd enough, Dr. Padrón warned the journalists about not taking him seriously, because in the last three years he "had observed that anyone who had been skeptical of my statements and hurt my credibility in public has passed away within six or seven months, all of them to cancer, eight people in total so far".
Although the documents that included the description of his ludicrous story hadn't been declassified until 1994, ever since 1976 many journalists had managed to get in touch with Padrón and hear his story -the doctor himself wasn't exactly quiet about it either -and some of these are allegedly the cancer victims Padrón would've been referring to. There's no way to check the veracity of that, since the only source of that statement was Padrón himself.
Between 1976 and 1994 the doctor's story circulated in a somewhat obscure manner, being referred to in some UFO articles here and there -and adding their own artistic depictions of his outlandish story. Padrón was already telling any 'paranormal' journalist willing to listen about the scorched onion field. Turned out, back in June of 1976 a farmer in the municipality of Guía did indeed notice an area in one of his onion crops that seemed to have been burned, but that man had specified that that hadn't happened until the morning of June 24th, a good day and half after Padrón's alleged 'alien encounter'. What is more, although the cause of these burns couldn't be ascertained, they were indistinguishable from fire damage. To this day it's thought that these burnt onion plants were nothing but the result of vandalism or a prank. Some UFO skepticism authors have raised the possibility of the doctor himself being responsible.
Picture of one of the many onion fields in Guía and Gáldar. To this day, Dr. Padrón's 'scorched onion field' remains a running joke among the older residents in these municipalities.
At the time Padrón even managed, out of sheer insistence, to get that soil tested. Surprisingly to no one, all chemical, physical and radiological analyses performed yielded no unusual results. The sampling and testing was conducted by Hungarian-Spanish physician Alejandro Carlos de Gyorko-Gyorkos, who at the time was curious about paranormal phenomena and had interviewed Padrón many times in 1976. According to a journalist for Naukas (A Spanish online science and technology magazine that specializes in skepticism and debunking of pseudoscience), in 1992 Gyorko-Gyorkos described Padrón as a man that "interprets everything he comes up with as real". By 1994 Padrón was also claiming that the Spanish Air Force had threatened him with legal action to silence him, and that Gyorko-Gyorkos was a man whose "ethics he'd rather not talk about". Padrón had never mentioned these alleged legal threats at any point before June of that year, precisely once the documents were declassified, a coincidence that hadn't gone unnoticed.
Some skepticism authors have elucubrated about the possible inspiration for Padrón's 'tall men in dressed in red spacesuits'. Not exactly very original.
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Explanation (1994 and 2001)
The 1976 document concludes that the origen of the 22/06/976 UFO -although in reality the Spanish Air force used then the acronym FANI (Fenómeno Aéreo No Identificado', 'Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon') when referring to it- was unknown. In 1994 these paranormal journalists presented such conclusion as an automatic evidence of aliens, or at least UFOs in the sense popular culture depicts then. In reality, as anyone can notice upon checking the report, 'unknown' means precisely that; unknown. At no point in the report the authors bring up rebuttals for any possible logical or rational explanation, but rather they conclude that back in 1976 there was just not enough evidence to provide an accurate explanation of its origin.
The same report contains the transcription of precisely Dr. Gyorko-Gyorkos's opinion about Dr. Padrón's reasoning (safe to assume, by then had already made up his mind about the man) in a military court. In the transcription, and in what looks like a generous maneuver to dismiss Padrón's claims without going as far to humiliate him, Gyorko-Gyorkos explains a military judge that that night Dr. Padrón, possibly overworked and sleep-deprived, misremembered what had seen and his fatigued psyche had create a mixed recollection with what he had seen and what had crossed his mind. As for the taxi driver, this man was probably highly impressionable -apparently the Dr. had behaved in a very excited manner during the phenomenon- and thus in a way Padrón had 'passed' his delusional belief onto him. The military court ruled that "Padrón's credibility could not, for the time being, be corroborated".
Of course, at this point of this writeup a question still lingers; what was whatever thing close to a million and half people saw in the night sky back on June 22nd, 1976? First, let's go over the world's state of affairs at the time, because this is one of these 'mysteries' in which history had been hinting at the answer almost from the beginning;
In 1976 the world was still amidst of a low-key conflict between two superpowers with lots of political tensions; the United States (plus NATO) versus the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (plus other members of the Warsaw Pact). AKA, Cold War. As part of the Western Bloc, at the time Spain had been a long-time ally of NATO. However, the country wouldn't become a NATO member itself until 1982 -which was so controversial within Spain that a referendum would be held in 1986 questioning Spanish people's desire to remain in the military alliance.
As such, while Spain was a Western ally, back in 1976 it was not really 'in the game' yet, especially when taking into account that, unlike in other countries, NATO membership wasn't that welcome. Please notice the year the Spanish army declassified the documents; 1994. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (and with it , the fall of the Iron Curtain) helped lower the stakes this international poker game, and as such the world would learn about all sorts of crazy things that had been going on at both sides of the conflict in absolute secrecy.
Earlier in this writeup there is a data-based description of the phenomenon's behavior, but most importantly, it's ballistic trajectory. Adding to that, countless witnesses had described seeing either one or a couple of lights 'taking off like a rocket'. Let's remember; it had been ascertained that it originated at about 700 kilometers west and had moved further west in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean while reaching an altitude of 90 kilometers -which is about the lower thermosphere. This had already raised the first suspicions among the members of the Spanish intelligence services, suspicions that gained weight in 1994 -and that likely led to the declassification of the report- when much clearer and straightforward communication between the United States' government and Spain's allowed for a more open investigation of the sort of testing the Americans were engaging in. In 2001 an article of research journalism, coauthored by science journalists Ricardo Campo and Vicente-Juan Ballester Olmos finally identified what was behind the 1976 aerial phenomenon.
Campo and Ballester had already noticed its ballistic trajectory calculated in 1976. In 1999, suspecting already who (country) was the 'culprit', they accessed Jonathan McDowell's database of ballistic missile launches. Previous to that Campo and Ballester had failed to find any useful information in NASA's archives, as none of the launches in their registry matched the evidence, and prior to that -right after the 1994 declassification, in fact- they had traveled to Moscow looking for the possible explanation there. Russian military authorities had adamantly denied their involvement in the phenomena, which directed the investigators towards other leads (while at the same time not disregarding the possibility of Russia being behind it after all.
Finally, Campo and Ballester bumped into these two rows of the database. First column indicates the launch identification number. Second and third, the date (in the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Fourth is GMT time (which, adjusting for a compilation error, coincides with Canary Islands' GMT+1 local time when the phenomenon took place). The fifth column tells the type of missile, the sixth on identifies the launch platform and finally the seventh one indicates who was responsible for the launch.
Simply put, the information in these rows means; on June 22nd, 1976, two Poseidon C3 thermonuclear missiles were launched from US Navy's submarine USS Von Steuben), at 20:16 and 20:17 GTM.
The database does not include location (that information remains classified) but during their research Campo and Ballester learned from McDowell himself that the US Navy's eastern test range covers from Cape Canaveral (Florida, US) all the way Ascension Island. The location of the 1976's phenomenon falls well within such range.
From here, Campos and Ballester offered an explanation of its optics. The Poseidon C3 missile carries several 40-kiloton nuclear warheads (normally ten) -for comparison, Little Boy was a single 15-kiloton bomb. Once the two 400-kiloton missiles detonated in the thermosphere, the quick expansion of extremely hot atmospheric gases reflected the sunlight back to Earth, even though by then in Canary Islands the sun was already well below the horizon and the sky was pitch black; at 90 kilometers of altitude, these expanding gases were still in direct path of the sunlight. This reflection is what made the phenomenon appear so bright and big in spite of the 700+ kilometers of distance between witnesses and its source.
Campo and Ballester's article provided also an explanation for other similar events -albeit not that espectacular as the one pertaining this writeup- that had taken place in the islands between 1973 and 1979. All except one were found to be the result of other American thermonuclear tests, with the exception of this one seen south of the archipelago in 1979 -and finally acknowledged by Russia in 2017, although they did not explain what exactly it was.
Conclusion
TL;DR: It was a couple of thermonuclear missiles launched in secrecy by the US Navy in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The 'aliens' witness was, to put it mildy, an individual with an extreme tendency to make ludicrous statements and a marked need to be the centre of attention.
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Campo and Ballester's work is available online for free, and anyone who speak Spanish can check the story of their investigation for themselves.
This is not to say that the whole 'aliens' narrative died down. To this day, the story of the 1976 phenomenon continues to be shared sometimes in media as 'proof' of UFO/aliens, even though it's literally neither -coincidentally, failing to mention the vast amount of evidence pointing at a thermonuclear test. In June of 2016 several newspapers published articles remembering the phenomenon in its 40th anniversary, and pretty much all of them reminded the reader right from the headline that the 'mystery' had long been solved.
Links and Sources
"Two red giants riding a missile" - Excellent article in the aforementioned online magazine Naukas written by Ricardo Campo himself on the phenomenon (Spanish)
The Spanish Army's declassified document on the event. It can be downloaded for free as a 107-pages long PDF
2016 Article (Spanish)

I started watching House because my TikTok home page was full of clips and it looked interesting.
I watched the first four or five episodes and christ this show is repetitive.
Every episode follows the exact same format and you know based on what point you’re at in the episode whether the team is correct or not about the disease that the main patient has.
I get that obviously each episode brings something new, like character developments or new conversations or whatever, but it doesn’t seem like something I’ll be able to spend my time watching 8 seasons of if every episode is this predictable.
That being said, I have only watched the first few episodes, so maybe it picks up later on? I know when I watched Glee for the first time I was doubting how enjoyable it would be and then it turned out to be great (as great as Glee can be, at least). What do y’all think?

Back around 1987 I was a courier on the afternoon shift 11:30am to 8:30om. Dispatch cutoff the calls at 6:00pm and after a 5 minute grace period you could clear and go home at 6:05pm and get paid to 8:30pm. My route had a highway down the middle and the roads I covered on both sides had a lot of businesses. Those roads were busy with a 40 km/h (25 mph) speed limit and lots of lights. My route git very busy and I would often be at one end of the area and get calls at the last minute for the opposite end. The only way to make it work was to use the highway often and speed.
Next to my area was another courier we will call Richard, Dick for short. Dick would finish early and wait on the on ramp of the highway at 5:50pm daily waiting to clear and go home early. As I got too busy I got in the radio and asked Dick to help with 2-4 calls and guess what, he refused.
I went to my manager requesting they help with my workload. Management informed me that there was no one that could help and I had to suck it up. When I informed him that Dick was right there and had quite a bit of free time he still said it was my route and my problem. I am pissed at this point and figure screw it I will definitely figure it out.
One of the key items at work was that the nightly linehaul truck MUST leave on time at 8:30 pm sharp or management hears from Head Office. The very next day I start my route and I do not use the highway and stick to the speed limit religiously. I roll in the first day at 9:00pm on overtime with the managers calling me every 5 minutes for an ETA. I have three managers waiting for me to explain and simply told them it was busy and went home. Next day, same results so I keep this up for a week.
After a full week of my tardiness management is under pressure and they come to me to do better. I point out that there is a speed limit and maybe Dick could help. They tell me I should pick up the pace (speed) and at that point I said "no problem, put that in writing". They walked away deflated hoping I would be back earlier.....nope.
I did this another week much to the utter dismay of the managers. At the end of the second week the managers meet me again at the dock with a noticeable smugness about them. They them informed me that as a group they have come up with a solution. I listened as they explained how they did a route analysis and have determined that Dick should get about 25% of my area to help out. The beauty was that I retained the best area and Dick got all the crappy calls.
Monday rolls around and they informed Dick of his new route and he is pissed and vocal about it. The Linehaul truck on time the rest of the week and Dick worked to 8:30 nightly. The new route was great and enjoyed to reduced stress. Dick lasted about another 2 months then quit. Lesson is don't be a dick

Stupid old Ocky banged on about number stations all day long. His monotone drawl repeated the same facts about how if you tune into certain frequencies on your radio, you can hear streams of numbers spewed out by clipped English voices. Sentences that make no sense. And most bizarrely enough, the tinkle of music that sounded like an ice cream van. All message ciphers for government agents.
This is true, and fascinating, but once you understand the meaning behind such bizarre phenomena, most people move on with their lives.
Not Ocky. Ocky had his basement crammed with tech that buzzed with static. His jumpers may have had holes at the elbows, and his trousers did not reach his ankles, but he showed off new pieces of kit every week.
Stupid old Ocky. Always good fun though. After a few pints a story about North Korean shortwave signals was a good laugh.
‘Tell us about the ice cream vans Ocky,’ We would say, and he would adjust his glasses, and tell us once again of spies, and their streams of numbers hidden in plain sight.
One night Ocky burst into the pub, holding printed sheets of paper.
He rambled about hours spent cracking codes. How his equipment had been worth the investment, and the debt on multiple credit cards. After all this time, he had a location. An exact spot in Scotland where his precious number station existed.
‘Who wants to come?’ He shouted.
We cheered, and raised our hands. This was like finding a unicorn after bullying someone for wearing a horn on their head.
Ocky’s one condition was we had to leave tonight.
Four pints of cider each made this a brilliant game. Since we lived in Devon, we pooled the money for petrol, and crammed into the back of Ocky’s Mum’s Peugeot. We left around eleven that evening, and sped down dark country roads and glowing motorways. We stopped once for hot drinks and toilet breaks. I remember Ocky’s hands shaking on the steering wheel, even though his coffee remained untouched.
Ocky’s instructions pointed to a spot on the top of a small hill. The closest road ended near some rusted fencing, but we found a gap large enough to squeeze through. We clambered up the gradient, slipping and sliding on the damp grass in our smart trainers. The alcohol had dropped to a pang of regret, and my bladder begged for relief. Ocky was close to receiving a beating.
But the rising sun revealed our prize. We gasped at the ice cream van with the radar antenna on top. The faded signage displaying the tariff, and different types of unknown flavours. The grinning man peering through a mucky window, the cones in both of his hands dripping with grey sludge. And the never ending dirge of ice cream tunes, both familiar, and a tune from hell.
What had Ocky got us into now?

So I've only ever seen fury road and it's obviously great.Been a few years since I've seen it and I have a girlfriend now.I want to show it to her but I've never seen the originals?should I watch those with her for the first time or should I bring it back to those if she likes the new one? Would it be a disservice to show her fury road without watching the originals.Did I do myself a disservice by only ever watching fury road?

Stupid old Ocky banged on about number stations all day long. His monotone drawl repeated the same facts about how if you tune into certain frequencies on your radio, you can hear streams of numbers spewed out by clipped English voices. Sentences that make no sense. And most bizarrely enough, the tinkle of music that sounded like an ice cream van. All message ciphers for government agents.
This is true, and fascinating, but once you understand the meaning behind such bizarre phenomena, most people move on with their lives.
Not Ocky. Ocky had his basement crammed with tech that buzzed with static. His jumpers may have had holes at the elbows, and his trousers did not reach his ankles, but he showed off new pieces of kit every week.
Stupid old Ocky. Always good fun though. After a few pints a story about North Korean shortwave signals was a good laugh.
‘Tell us about the ice cream vans Ocky,’ We would say, and he would adjust his glasses, and tell us once again of spies, and their streams of numbers hidden in plain sight.
One night Ocky burst into the pub, holding printed sheets of paper.
He rambled about hours spent cracking codes. How his equipment had been worth the investment, and the debt on multiple credit cards. After all this time, he had a location. An exact spot in Scotland where his precious number station existed.
‘Who wants to come?’ He shouted.
We cheered, and raised our hands. This was like finding a unicorn after bullying someone for wearing a horn on their head.
Ocky’s one condition was we had to leave tonight.
Four pints of cider each made this a brilliant game. Since we lived in Devon, we pooled the money for petrol, and crammed into the back of Ocky’s Mum’s Peugeot. We left around eleven that evening, and sped down dark country roads and glowing motorways. We stopped once for hot drinks and toilet breaks. I remember Ocky’s hands shaking on the steering wheel, even though his coffee remained untouched.
Ocky’s instructions pointed to a spot on the top of a small hill. The closest road ended near some rusted fencing, but we found a gap large enough to squeeze through. We clambered up the gradient, slipping and sliding on the damp grass in our smart trainers. The alcohol had dropped to a pang of regret, and my bladder begged for relief. Ocky was close to receiving a beating.
But the rising sun revealed our prize. We gasped at the ice cream van with the radar antenna on top. The faded signage displaying the tariff, and different types of unknown flavours. The grinning man peering through a mucky window, the cones in both of his hands dripping with grey sludge. And the never ending dirge of ice cream tunes, both familiar, and a tune from hell.
What had Ocky got us into now?

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From Mailing Babies to Mailing Bombs, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever delivered?
Throughout history people have sent some bizzare things, and the postal service has had a many twists and turns. At work I like to listen to music or a podcast. Tune in to this Podcast by the Great Bailey Sarian to learn more on the Dark History of mail. Because like most history, there is the dark and the unexpected that lurk to this day. She even mentions that over the past (I don’t know how many years), supervisor’s have been changing time cards 🙀 I thought that was just an issue at my facility but clearly it’s nationwide.
Listen to Dark History by Bailey Sarian and I’ll leave the link in my post. If you like Bailey Sarian then you could also tune into Murder Mystery and Makeup which is a YouTube/podcast show too.
Bailey Sarian Dark History Mail Episode
If you missed my last post, there’s another podcast titled Binged and in one of her episodes she talks about people going postal and what led them to that choice, and she also shares postal facts. Both podcasts are good but share different views and information.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0zrdl4ZJgAKcm29jHsCC81?si=NyYSiqz3QUKifbnTLJ1WSA

Hey everyone! I am a small streamer that recently just started and am trying to grow! My laptop is sadly not strong enough to stream and play games, as the stream becomes too choppy, so I am streaming on my Playstation! I have been playing Overwatch 2 competitive since it’s the game I play the most rn, but I want to enhance my streams. I was wondering what everyone does who streams on Playstation does! I know I should buy a capture card, as this would allow for editing clips and videos for a potential Youtube channel down the road, as well as help out my tiktok. Is there ways to do like overlays, or would that require capture card to laptop? I can potentially try that, and buy a camera for face cam or something similar.
I know it’s an open-ended topic, but I guess I’m putting my thoughts rn out there and wondering if anyone else has similar thoughts that could help another small streamer out 😅

It is said that wars are not necessarily won by the boots on the ground, but moreso the men behind their leader. The palm-greasers and rumour mongers, the flagbearers and back-stabbers; the them who do the moving and shaking from backrooms and smoking parlors. The ones with tongues that dangle heavily over others in office, like a proverbial sword of Damocles.
We'll be taking a look at four games that let you crawl into such skin; games where you're not winning by having more dudes or bigger guns, but where you're instead trying to outmanoeuvre the other players while silently (or publicly) trying to exert your influence over the winner. Let's get started!
So why these games? All these games have the players influence a central board on which units are represented and interacted with which do not belong to the players. That also usually means that players can interact with most of or all the pieces on the board, rather than only the pieces that belong to them as a player. They also all feature area control to some extent, where you are trying to determine the winning faction in specific areas in order to determine who wins overall.
The interesting thing for these games, to me at least, is that all of them (at least to some extent) necessitate players trying to figure out what the other player's plans are. They're a little abstract in that sense, as you see players move pieces around to work towards plans that often don't immediately reveal themselves. The key difference with something like chess though, besides not being a two-player head to head duel, is the fact that players can have overlapping goals. Determining to what degree you're more successfully accomplishing this shared incentive is key, as these games usually allow you to pivot in some sense - you need to be able to figure out if your plan of sticking with faction A is going to pan out, or if it's better to abandon ship and start working towards empowering faction B. This idea, the idea of factional alliances that can shift, is key to these games. It's what differentiates them from something like a social deduction game - your team usually isn't static until you've invested too deeply.
Now that we have set up that thematic and mechanical framework, let's take a look at the games!
Turncoats Turncoats is probably the lightest of these four games. Played on a cloth board that can be cinched shut into a bag of holding, Turncoats (by design) has something ancient to it, like it was recently rediscovered after having been played for hundreds of years. This game has quite a bit of similarities with The King is Dead, but there's enough differences (luckily) to consider them apart from each other.
You start the game with eight stones in your grippy little paw that represent your influence with the four factions on the board. Each turn, you can use those stones to do one of four actions, three of which affect the board by either introducing new pieces, removing pieces or by moving pieces from one space to another. The fourth space has you draw a stone from the bag, and returning one from your hand to the bag. Once all players consecutively draw and return a stone on their turn, the game ends and you score.
In a bit of genius (again, similarly to The King is Dead), empowering a faction's position on the board means you'll have to reduce your influence with that faction. Moving pieces to a stronger position costs you one of the srones in your hand, weakening your score at the end of the game. That means that you've theoretically got only eight chances to affect the board, although you've got fewer than that in practice. It turns the game into this tight little game of chicken where you're redrawing stones maybe a little earlier than you should in order to bait your opponent into investing resources that they can't really miss, hoping that instead they won't also be satisfied with the state of the board. It's a game where you've got to reflect and wonder how lucky this punk really feels.
Even if this game's presentation help make the game feel ancient, it's also made the game feel the most abstract. While the inclusion of specific symbology and the map geography help make the game approach feeling like a kind of war game, I can't help but occasionally zoom out and realize that I'm just shuffling glass beads on a piece of cloth rather than set in motion wheels within wheels from my Machiavellian ivory tower. Plus, the tie-breakers in this game are crushing. I've won more than one game because my opponent had mis-remembered one of the many tie-breakers, and that never feels good. For being the lightest and leanest of these four games, it somehow does not end up being the cleanest. That said, it is really great and I love supporting a small designer who puts these games together by hand.
Of these four games, Turncoats is the game I feel most comfortable springing on a group of people who play few or no games. Yes, the ties get a little messy sometimes, but it's easy enough to digest while being beautiful, tactile and direct. Plus, I've seen zero other games that look like this and that has to count for something.
The King is Dead, 2nd ed. The King is Dead is our next step up in rules weight from Turncoats. Still small, still pretty lean, but now we have eight small contests and a hand of cards rather than one big struggle and a hand of beads. And we've even got a narrative hook - we're trying to influence who gets to be the next king of England! Will it be a Briton, a Scot, a Welshman or a Frenchman?
You start a game of the King is Dead by giving each player an identical set of cards to play, along with two public cubes in one of the three colours in the game (red for Britons, blue for Scots and yellow for the Welsh). You then shuffle a set of eight cards and deal then along the board to see in what order you will be resolving the necessary power struggles to see who will be the king! On your turn, you can either play one of the cards in your hand (all but one of which will influence the distribution of cubes on the board, while the remaining one changes the order in which you resolve power struggles) or pass. When all players pass, you resolve the contested region by looking to see which of the three factions is most powerful. If there's a winner, you place a disk of that colour in that region - it's now locked and worth one point of influence for that colour at the end of the game. If there's a tie, you instead place a black foreign invasion disk in that region, indicating that the French are using the discord in that region to make inroads into conquering the island! When all power struggles are done, you either look to see who has the most cubes of the most powerful faction in front of them, or whoever has the most sets of cubes in all three colours in front of them if the French invaded. And there's a bunch of tie-breakers too, more on that later.
So right off the bat, this game touches on a lot of similar mechanics as Turncoats, especially when it comes to taking actions. Both games have you sacrificing your win potential in one way in order to ensure you'll be able to win at all. In this game it's because of a rule I haven't talked about yet - whenever you play a card, you also take a cube off the board and add it to your court. Being tied to played cards means that nobody will ever have more than ten, as you'll never play more than eight cards in a game (and you of course start with two in yourp court), making every choice in this game deliciously agonizing.
And that agony is where the game distinguishes itself. You only have eight chances to affect the game, and (except for one action) those will all be different. This means you'll want to pass as often as possible, but you also don't want to give the whole game over to your opponents as they will just sculpt the game to goozle you as badly as they can. This dynamic usually forces players into a position where they are biding their time for certain power struggles that look like they're never going to go their way while playing a flurry of cards on a struggle that looks like it's the key to their kingdom. This tension is exacerbated by the fact that each player's hand is identical (in the regular game), meaning that you would know exactly what they could do next if only you had paid more attention.
Compared to Turncoats, this game has a more clearly defined feel of politics. That's partially aided by the artwork and graphic design, and partially by the theme. The game feels historic in its presentation and execution, but immersion is aided by the fact that this conflict has shown up in popular culture as well; people who don't know the War of the Roses can just transpose Game of Thrones onto this game and get exactly the same feeling out of it. There's also more political manoeuvring here because your affiliations are public. True motives are secret and people pivot HARD when the faction they were secretly gunning for gets locked out of contention. It's a much more... I don't necessarily want to say stressful, but definitely more high-pressured experience. It's the rare type of game where you get given the choice to not act on your turn and even that feels awful.
That said, there is some criticism to be levied against it as well. The early turns of The King is Dead, while being consequential, don't always feel like they matter. It's much easier to watch the board develop early on and base your strategy on that, even if in practice you need to make every card count which leads to situations where people feel locked into the late game without really understanding what they could have done differently. This is also the most tactical of all the games on here. That's not a problem for me personally, but I've played with people who hated this game because things would always change too quickly for them to make any actual plans. And lastly - the tie-breakers. More than once has a player lost a game at my table because they misunderstood the tie-breaker, and I can't seem to find a way to teach it without ambiguity. It sucks to see someone play a blinder only for them to realize they were playing to a different set of rules from the rest of the players. For a game that's so svelt and clean otherwise, this particular bit of messiness sticks out like a sore thumb.
That said though, The King is Dead is a very easy recommendation. Not as accessible to true beginners as Turncoats, The King is Dead is still really accessible and filled with good, agonizing decisions. It's a classic in my eyes, very easy to recommend.
A War of Whispers Taking a step up in both difficulty and size, we arrive at A War of Whispers! Another game of political manipulation, this game explicitly casts you and your compatriots as the wormtongues in this fight for power. Five factions, a circular board, clever cardplay and plenty of intrigue to be found.
As stated, you'll be playing the role of advisors to five nations who are at war. At the start of each round, you all place two advisors on spaces that correspond to different actions you can take with each of the five factions. These can include rallying troops, combat, movement or some other action that comes with a unique spin put on it by each of the factions. The goal here is to influence the board in such a way that the factions you care about have a strong board presence while the ones you don't care about have a small one, seeing that each faction scores you points. These points range from four points for each area they control to minus one point for each area they control. Most points at the end of the game wins!
Truthfully I enjoy A War of Whispers the least of these four games, even if it does do some very clever things. The action selection mechanism is very clever and has a fun push-your-luck element to it. All the actions are resolved in a set order (as indicated on the boarder around the board), and each time you reach an action that has a player's marker on it they get to do that action. However, if there are unchosen actions to the left of their marker, they get to do those actions as well. This leads to some fun jockeying of positions when choosing actions, and blocking other players is a big part of this game. The asymmetric factions are cool, although they're a bit of a double-edged sword.
The cool thing about each of the factions is that they're all good at specific things. One faction is good at fighting or mobilizing, one is good at mustering and another has action cards that make them powerful at wrestling control of fortifications from a faction's greedy hands. The problem that I run into here is that factions that take their turn earlier in the resolution phase are inherently weaker than those who act later, as the factions that act later can see how the dust settles before having to act. This wouldn't necessarily be a problem of players get to place their own bets at the start of the game, but these are instead placed randomly. The thing I like about both Turncoats, The King is Dead and Pax Pamir (which we'll talk about next) is that you have a very high degree of control over who you're supporting, but this is not the case here. Players do have an opportunity to swap their faction tokens (controlling how they want to score those factions at the end of the game), but that isn't free - you can only swap tokens you haven't revealed, and you can only swap unrevealed tokens.
Thematically it makes a lot of sense to make swapping tokens (and therefore allegiances) be costly - the game of politics bears a heavy price. My problem is that this isn't fun. Putting it bluntly, this game is hard enough as is. It's difficult to suss out exactly what your opponents are doing (seeing that there's now five factions to contend with), and this system makes improvising very difficult. So, this makes it entirely possible that other players will just kneecap you for the entire game or for you to be dealt a set of tokens that will just never win. It's frustrating is what I'm saying. A War of Whispers does a lot of very cool things, but as a game of factional politics I don't like the fact that it just sometimes offers you setups that you can't win and then punishes you for trying to get out of it. But, to be fair, that could be the side of me that's much more tactically rather than strategically-minded speaking.
And that's probably important to say: I flourish much more in tactical games rather than purely (or primarily) strategic ones. And that important to note, because A War of Whispers does give you a lot to strategize with. You get to see the actions your opponents are taking before you take yours, and table-talk is actively encouraged. There's also no hidden info except for the limited number of cards that players have in their hands (most of which do the same things if they belong to a specific faction) and combat is deterministic. This means that players who are able to plan ahead and band together with other players will have a much better time with this than I've had so far. Plus, choosing the right moment to swap tokens is most definitely key to doing well - it can even provide some delicious drama when done especially timely. I just feel that this game isn't necessarily one that I will gravitate to in the future. I'd much rather play this next game if given the chance.
Pax Pamir - 2nd edition And we end on the heaviest and (in my opinion) prettiest of these four games, Pax Pamir. Although The King is Dead is arguably about real-world history, Pax Pamir is the only one of these games that genuinely feels historic. Based on The Great Game, Pax Pamir explicitly aims to model a real-life political conflict. With that comes a lot of baggage; historical, cultural and ludological all at once. Pax Pamir is the hardest game in this list by far, and will also be the most abstractly discussed by force of necessity.
In Pax Pamir, you play an Afghani tribe during the time of The Great Game, a time period where Afghanistan was thrown into a power struggle between Russia, England and itself. You publicly ally your tribe with one of these three factions at the start of the game, hoping to position yourself favourably when one of the game's dominance checks rolls around. Pamir has a card market that forms the engine that the game runs on - it is both its engine and its enigma. The core of the game is simple though; players get twicely buy a card from the market (a Pax-series staple) or play a card from their hand. Played cards come equipped with symbols that can trigger when the card is played or as an action on your turn. These actions tend to affect the board by placing your tribes on regions, neutral blocks that either represent roads or armies of the faction you support, or by giving you some much needed spending money. There's a lot more going on in this game, much more than I can really do justice in this paragraph, but suffice it to say that the cards are where the magic happens in Pax Pamir.
But what about the politics? Pax Pamir, like The King is Dead, has you wear your allegiance on your sleeve. It's emblazoned on your cards, it's smacked on your player wheel and it is pinned on the prizes you've killed to curry favour with local and foreign warlords alike. It's a game about politicking in slow motion, almost; there's a much bigger sense of audiences and of greasing palms than in the other games. Part of that is due to length, of course, but it's also because most big plays in Pax Pamir don't happen out of nowhere. They're stemming from parts being put into place until the moment where the jaws snap shut; it happens slowly then suddenly all at once.
That said, this game really is about politics. It's also the only one of the games on this list where politicking with your opponents is even somewhat of a viable option. Bribing other players is as much of a thing as waving a tax is an incentive to do what someone wants. A single coin really can make all the difference in an economy as tight as Pax Pamir, so talking to the table is essential. By the same token, pivoting is a real option here as well. Allegiances can be discarded like dirty laundry when the tides of war turn, with as much or as little drama as is necessary. It can be as simple as letting a new alliance join your court, or as dramatic as an assassination attempt on someone in your own court. Where switching allegiances felt utilitarian (or sometimes even futilistic) in the other games I've talked about, here it feels both frivolous and monumental. Frivolous because it's potentially both temporary and easy, and monumental because it warps the remaining landscape around it nonetheless. It's a fascinating look at what foreign bonds and geopolitics actually look like.
Having said that, Pax Pamir is genuinely not for everyone. It is the hardest sell on this list, I feel, both in terms of cost and rules weight. While I personally feel that the product is worth the price, it really isn't cheap. That's mostly important if you don't have a group that's willing to put in the muscle for something that's genuinely hard. The game can't fare on looks alone; if your gaming group gets glassy eyes at the notion of considering the consequences of shifts in political climates, this is not for you. Then there's the difficulty. I've played Pax Pamir about eight times, and I'm only sure I've played it correctly, like, twice. Most of those were solo, so it's not too bad, but that's still not great considering the time I'm asking other people to invest in this. Playing improperly is much less of a problem if what you're playing is quick; people are much less willing to forgive that when they just lost a three hour game because you forgot that losing your political cards in a region also means you remove all your tribes from that region. It's an investment is what I'm saying, and one I can't promise will pay off.
Truly though, Pax Pamir is great. It's not my favourite Pax game (that would currently be Pax Renaissance), but it is one of my favourite solo games and arguably the best of these four games if your group can deal with actual, genuine and tremendous weight.
So what would I like you to take away from this? If the idea of playing a party outside of a power struggle who influences the outcome appeals to you, there's a bunch of options for you to choose from! If you want something relatively light, portable, beautiful and unique, get Turncoats. If you want something quick, tense, more classical in design yet still accessible, get The King is Dead. If you want something medium-weight, strategic and are willing to ride the waves of outragious fortune, get A War of Whispers. And if you want something heavy, singular, beautiful and truly historic, get Pax Pamir.
That's my TED talk, thank you for reading.
Other notes I think it's only fair of me to state that I've played A War of Whispers the least of all these games. All the others I've played, like, at least seven times, but I've only played AWoW twice. I just don't really like it all that much, but I do want to be transparent in why that is.
Some of these games might be hard to find at retailers, but you can get them on the websites of either the publisher or the designer. Turncoats, as far as I know, is only really available on Milda Mathilda's website. She uses a Google Form to process orders, which seems insane to me but works for her, and I had to wait about six months for my copy. That said, I feel it was most definitely worth the wait.
If you have any titles of this ilk that you think I should try, let me know! I've obviously missed games, but I'm always interested in trying new things of this ilk.
Lastly, I make no apologies for the reference I used when talking about Pamir. They were the right words in the right place.

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“What?” came her whispered reply.
“Katira, I know way too much about all this for it to be a mere coincidence. Maybe that’s all clairsentience is. A reincarnated soul whose work wasn’t done, and they decided to come around again, only this time, with a little head-start. One of the two lives on in me, and I’d be willing to bet it was your former Master. Her partner died before you met her, and only you would know these things, correct?” Katira nodded her head, and I pressed on. “Okay. I’m also betting that this took place more than a hundred years ago, judging by the amount of earth and growth on this cairn, and due to the nature of societal acceptance of homosexuality. Them keeping their relationship a secret, way out here in the middle of nowhere, would be far easier than the two of them living together in a town. Am I right?” I asked
“Nearly one hundred fifty years, yes. As humans reckon these things, it was around 1875. Not long after your stupid civil war. My Master had lost her mother to typhoid, and her father to the war. She and her best friend decided to attempt to homestead not too far from here, and they eventually fell in love. They were only seventeen at the time, and most of the eligible young men in town had succumbed to the war or to injuries they sustained afterwards. My Master was a hardy, resilient woman. You would have liked her, Stu. She was built like me, and was bullheaded as a mule.” Katira laughed softly, wiping away tears. “Anyway, they built a cabin not terribly far from this spot, and lived for several years together, until the events you described. My Master was beside herself with grief, and nearly ended her time here on several occasions. Until one day, she chanced upon what looked like an old cellar out here in the fields.
“It was there that she found my little body and attempted to bury me. You should have seen her fright when, instead of a pile of bones that fell apart, she had a skeletal kitten bounding around her ankles. We bonded in a similar manner to Joaquin and Shutan. She fell onto the cellar, cut her arm, and the blood dripped onto me. She went on to become an amazing Necromancer in her own right. You two share the same essence type, as well. Huh. I wonder why I never made the connection before,” she concluded softly.
I walked over and wiped the tears from her soft, shimmery face. “Why would you even think to do so? You’ve dealt with all but the most rare of essences, right?” I asked, receiving a nod in turn. “There’s no shame in not recognizing an extremely old pattern. Especially when there’s no real reason to suspect anything. You had already explained away my knowledge, and that should’ve been the end of it.
“Let’s get the last of the reagents and head back. Now that we know where this is, we can come and pay our respects after my Growth. Any time you’re up for it. In the meantime, we say nothing and hint at nothing. My description of their last days could be chalked up to a lucky guess. A very lucky guess, but a guess nonetheless. Unless and until we have some concrete proof, we keep this to ourselves. Not a word even to the guild. Sound good to you?” I asked.
Katira nodded, and I turned and knelt by the old grave. I laid a hand on the topmost stone, and whispered “Not even the stars.” I took a small bouquet of the tiny blue flowers and stood, seeing a weeping dragoness behind me.
“It is you, Bethany. You’re in there, and I know it. I look different, but I’m still the same Katira. I still love you,” she said, tears streaming down her face.
“I’m sorry, what? Bethany? Is that your former Master’s name? What are you talking about?” I asked, concerned.
“What you said when you laid your hand on the grave. Do you recall?”
I nodded, “Yeah. I said ‘Not even the stars’. It just felt right. I dunno why,” I replied.
“That’s what Bethany used to tell her partner, Rose. ‘Not even the stars could shine as brightly as her eyes’, is what she told me. You hold her soul within you. It explains everything to me. Your apparent skill, your oddly specific knowledge, and your way with people. It doesn’t explain your intuition, but that could just be an amalgam of your spirits and your broad intellect. She always lamented her inability to be more creative,” she explained, taking my hand in hers.
“Well. That’s a thing, then. I’m still me, Katira. Even if I have Bethany’s soul, you’re still dealing with Stu. Remember that, please,” I told her.
“Absolutely, Master. This just brings new possibilities to light, is all,” Katira said, sniffling. “My Master, Bethany is gone. I know this. However, knowing that some part of her lives on is a great comfort. That’s all,” she said softly. Katira stepped forward and took my hands in hers. “I know you’re Stu. I know you’re my Master. I can’t forget it. You gave me this form, and I cherish it. Just like I cherish you. You’re going to be my final Master, and I can’t wait to spend an eternity with you,” she said, giving my hands a gentle squeeze.
“Alright, then. As long as we are clear. Are you ready to head back?” I asked gently.
Katira nodded, and we started back off towards the cave. It took us another three hours, but we made it back. The others had been there for a few hours by the time we returned. All three had begun the distillation process by the time we arrived, and had placed their squirrels in the appropriate locations.
“Excellent job, Initiates! I’m glad to see you have taken the initiative to begin your reanimations. Now, it isn’t a guarantee that you will be successful. Be prepared for a messy failure, otherwise. Upon a success, even a minor one, your squirrel will sit up and make vocalizations at you. In the event of a minor success, this is all that will happen. If it is anything more, you can give it a command. It might understand it and act. Just make sure it is a simple one. You can command it to simply die, if you wish. It is up to you. Now, who got here first?” she asked.
“I did, Instructor,” Robert said.
“Excellent. Good job, Initiate Grimes. How long after you got set up did the next one arrive?”
“About an hour, I think and Joaquin was a few minutes after her. That was three hours ago. I think mine is nearly done,” Robert explained.
“Good. While Initiate Merideth gets set up, we will discuss what comes after a successful reanimation,” Katira began.
I turned and began the process of removing the petals from the phlox, depositing them in the pot. I mostly tuned out the discussion they were having, my mind reeling from the events of the day.
If I didn’t hold a reincarnated soul, how else would I be able to do what I do without even thinking about it? How else would I know the stuff I know without having had the instruction? How did I know who was buried beneath that cairn of stones, and how she died? Was it even my soul that was reincarnated? Or, had Bethany’s spirit hung around waiting to impart knowledge upon one lonely Necromancer?
These questions and more rolled around my head, my body moving on autopilot. I was just about to reach into the bag containing the nettles when Katira grabbed my wrist, jerking me from my reverie.
“Initiate!”
“Huh? Wha?”
“Initiate, I’ve been trying to get your attention for a bit. You almost reached into the bag that has the nettles bare-handed. What’s gotten into you?” she asked, her concern evident.
I simply looked into her eyes, my own face a blank mask, and she sighed softly. “Okay. I understand. It’s about what we talked about before, isn’t it?” she asked softly. I nodded slowly. “I take it you’ve never handled nettles, have you?” I shook my head. “Let me show you. In fact, gather around, everyone. Nettles are a painful plant, and you may have to handle them at some point. Let me show you how to deal with them,” Katira announced.
The rest of the group came over and sat while Katira taught us how to handle the irritating plant. Once she demonstrated the process, I tried it once, and even though I’d succeeded, I figured I’d not like to attempt it again. Instead, I took my multitool and pocket knife, clamped onto the stem, and sliced the leaves into the pot. Then, for good measure, I sectioned up the stem and dropped it in, as well. In went the snake skin, water and three drops of my blood. I set the fire, and waited for something to happen.
As luck would have it something did happen. We all heard Robert’s fire go out with a pop, and turned to see the droplet of essence-infused oil spill onto the squirrel. As with our message stones, nothing was spilled, it all just absorbed into the squirrel, and we watched with bated breath.
At first, nothing happened. The squirrel sat motionless on the cold stone slab. After a few moments, however, we all saw the digits on the left forelimb twitch. Collectively, we moved back, as a crazed squirrel was as fearsome as it was small. It took a breath, then a second. Slowly, it sat up, turned its black, unblinking eyes towards Robert and began chittering.
“Try it, Initiate Grimes,” Katira whispered.
Robert cleared his throat and swallowed. “Go outside the cave, and dig a hole big enough for you to lie in beside the first tree you see,” he commanded.
We watched as the squirrel cocked its head to the side and hopped down. It bounded drunkenly out of the cave, and after a short search, began to dig a hole.
“Excellent job, Initiate. Why did you tell it to do that?” Katira asked.
“I felt terrible for it. I think it should be put to rest,” he said quietly.
“So it is digging its own grave? Interesting. Go and tend to it. It may not be able to finish,” Katira replied.
Robert got up and went outside to tend to his squirrel, and the rest of us sat back and chatted for a bit.
“Senpai? What took you so long to find your reagents?” Morita-san asked.
“Well, as our Instructor specified this morning, I require very specific reagents to even have a chance at making this work, and they weren’t easy to find. I had to have phlox, nettles and a shed skin. Phlox were those tiny blue flowers, and they weren’t easy to find. Especially as I had no idea what they looked like until I opened my Grimoire. I knew what nettles looked like, and everyone from around here knows what a shed skin looks like, I think. They just weren’t easy to get. However, after I found the nettles, the other two just kinda happened. The snake skin was tangled around some weeds in a field, and the phlox were growing by an outcropping of stone. We had to go something like five miles from the cave. Speaking of which, I’m gonna need to eat something soon. I just had a small snack around noon or so,” I explained.
“By the time your still finishes, it will be time for dinner, anyway. I’d suggest holding off, if you can,” Katira said.
“I’ll try, but if I start getting the sugar shakes or acting belligerent, I’ll need a small snack again. We really don’t want that,” I said.
Robert came back, looking somber and somewhat sad. “It’s done. I…I told it to die, and it closed its eyes and just stopped moving. It seemed happy,” he said, taking a seat.
“Initiate Grimes, I want you to understand that all you did was reanimate the body of a squirrel. It had no soul, and therefore wasn’t the same creature I killed three days ago. It was more or less a biological machine that used the energy of the reagents you selected and your essence as fuel. It would have eventually stopped moving on its own. You could re energize it with your essence, but that would serve to bond it tighter to you, which is not a situation we want here. You have done well thus far, and I’m proud of you. We all are,” she told the younger man.
“She is right, Master. You have grown in skill, and as a person. Rather quickly, I might add. As such, I would say that your own Growth is no more than a month away. Once we get home, you should alert your job to your upcoming illness,” Yin grumbled.
“I can’t do that, bud. I can’t plan to be sick. Instructor? Do the symptoms all come on at once, or are they in stages?” Robert asked.
“You will most likely get the headaches first. If you can function through them, I would call your job at that point, and tell them that you are sick, and it is unknown as to how long it will last. Hopefully, you will be able to maintain your job after you are done Growing,” Katira replied.
“I can form human arms and hands for the time it takes to send a message on your phone, Master. I could also call for any number of other familiars and Necromancers to help, should you need it,” Yin said reassuringly.
Robert seemed satisfied with this answer, and began to clean his equipment. He had just finished when, with twin pops, we heard both Joaquin and Morita-san’s fires go out. All heads turned to watch the reaction complete.
Both squirrels were doused with the oil/essence mixture, and we watched as it was absorbed into the bodies of the squirrels.
Both squirrels twitched and sat up, turning their heads towards their creators and began chittering.
Morita-san nodded at Joaquin, and he cleared his throat. “Venha aqui, esquilo,” he said.
The squirrel shakily stood and took two steps before collapsing. We all watched in horror as it continued to crawl forward, leaving its back half behind. Joaquin began to panic and scooted back.
“Release it, Initiate Madras!”
“Morra, esquilo! Morra!” the young man cried out. The squirrel shuddered and heaved out its remaining breath, one clawed paw outstretched towards Joaquin. As it did, the rest of its entrails oozed out from its body, coupled with a brown slime.
“I will explain in a moment, Initiate Madras. Initiate Morita-san, it is your turn,” Katira said.
Morita-san swallowed, staring at the halves of the squirrel on the cavern floor. “私に近づいて、リス。” she said, her eyes never leaving the squirrel.
Her squirrel never moved. It sat there, blinking. “Instructor? What do I do? It’s not moving. Just….blinking,” Morita-san said quietly.
“Try rewording what you just said.”
“ここに来て、リス。” Morita-san said. The squirrel bounded over to her, and began to inspect her shoes.
“Excellent job, Morita-san. It seems that your reagents harmonized rather well with both you and your subject. This is why it is acting more like a normal, living creature and not the automaton Initiate Grimes produced. There is nothing wrong with your results, Initiate Grimes. You’ll just need to try a different combination of reagents, is all. Initiate Morita-san happened to chance upon the right triad for her for this experiment.
“The squirrel is yours to do with as you wish, Initiate Morita-san. Congratulations to the three of you. You have successfully reanimated your squirrels,” Katira said happily.
The others smiled and seemed happy. Morita-san looked at her squirrel and cocked her head to the side. “Should I name him?” she asked aloud.
“There is nothing prohibiting that, Initiate.”
“I shall call you Daisuke,” she said to the squirrel. “この死んだリスを片付けて、ダイスケ。” she commanded, and the squirrel bounded over to Joaquin’s partial reanimation, and began to cart the remains outside.
“Now, as for your squirrel, Initiate Madras. It was apparently infected by a parasite which had been eating it from the inside. Some sort of intestinal worm, I would say. When you reanimated it, the parasite was immediately destroyed, and likely aided the decomposition. There is no shame in this, and none of us could have known it was there. It is the risk we take when we choose a creature for reanimation.
“This is why a skeleton was chosen for reanimation more often than not in the past. There was no risk of parasitic infection, little risk of a messy failure, and in the event the energies used ran out, it would simply fall to the ground in a pile, ready to be used again. However, one needs a distinct grasp of anatomy for it, because in the event you put it together wrong, it won’t move correctly,” Katira said.
“So, wait. We could potentially Frankenstein ourselves a servant together?” Robert asked.
“Where do you think Mary Shelley got the idea, Initiate Grimes?” Katira returned with an enigmatic smile.
Robert sat there, his mouth agape.
“Close your mouth, Initiate. You might catch a fly, otherwise.”
We all laughed as Robert closed his mouth with a click. He shook his head and sat beside his cubbyhole in thought. Morita-san and Joaquin were talking animatedly in their respective languages, aided by their familiars.
I sat beside my equipment, watching the oil collect in the reservoir. It looked a little different than the others’ did.
“Instructor?” I asked, waving her over.
“Yes?”
“My essence-infused oil looks different to theirs. Theirs was green, and mine is…well, it’s kind of an orangey-pink. Is something wrong?” I asked with concern.
“Hmm. I’m not sure. I’ve never seen a reanimation essence appear this color. Yin? Shutan? Oiwa? Would you three come here, please?” she called out.
The three familiars approached my station curiously. Katira turned to them, gesturing at my equipment. “Have any of you ever seen this color in a reanimation essence before?” she asked.
“Exactly once,” Shutan said, stroking his bony jaw. “Stu? Yours is a Multiplying essence, correct?” he asked, receiving a nod. “Then, I will reveal nothing, save this: This will be interesting.” He walked away, shaking his head, and I could swear I saw a smirk on his skeletal countenance.
“What? Interesting? I’m not sure I like interesting. Wait a minute! What do you mean, interesting?” I called after him, receiving no inkling of acknowledgement.
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Hey! I’m also uploading my work on RoyalRoad! Here is my profile IvorFreyrsson
Join me over at Words_From_Ivor for more!
Master List

Link-https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/3481747958703447/
Right now I’m riding a cheap schwinn hybrid, so I was looking to get my first decent road bike. The mrsp for this bike was 750, however it came with a claris gearset. The seller upgraded to ultegra shifters and gears, however the brakes are still tekro. He upgraded the seat to a specialized carbon seat, and changed wheels. Can’t decide whether this is worth it.
From description- “Endurance road bike !
Shifters/Brake levers - Ultegra Chainrings - 50/34 - Ultegra Cassette- (11) - 11-28 - Ultegra
Wheelset - FSA NON SERIES CONVERTIBLE (700C) They can be used as thru-axle or quick release. (They sound great when coasting) Handlebar - Syncros Creston 2.0 Aero (Comfortable zipp handlebar tape) Seatpost - FSA Gossamer SB20 Specialized Carbon Saddle (Short Nose)
Has handlebar mount for Garmin computer. Durable aero top tube bag. Rear light included. Phone mount included.
Disc brakes - Tektro Handlebar mirror included.
The original wheels that came with the bike wheel be included with a pair of 700c x 32 tires. (Gatorskin) The current tires are new. - (Continental Ultra Sport 700c x 23)
Pedals - Shimano GRX PD-ME700 SPD (Double Sided) Lightweight Profile Design Water bottle cage holders.
Extra Saddle will be included. (Selle Royale) 1 Garmin speed sensor on rear wheel.”

hi, I getting back into firealpaca and before when I had it, it worked great. But when I have reinstalled it seems the zoom tool has broke. For context I use a gaomon pd156 pro and it has a wheel for scrolling in and out. when ever I try scrolling in it goose out Ive tried reinstalling again, changing the wheels key commands, and changing fieralpacas shortcut keys. None has worked ofc which is a bummer for me because I like to use the wheel when drawing. It dose not have the same issue on csp(clip studio paint) or paint tool sai so im very confused, any help would be good thanks for reading much love.

What is the road works conspiracy ?
You can't drive a few miles with out pain in the neck road works ? You get quicker to your destination riding a bike......
Road works....the work of hidden forces...no one questions ,the year is 2023 can anyone of sane mind remember so many road works 10 years ago ?
The plan of the great reset ...
Destroy the economy by road works crippling the grid on a global scale....
Achieving 2 prime objectives..
Harvesting negative negative energy....
Mocking the public as they do not question idiotic road works that are obviously growing in number 2023 like a dirty rat plague!

\*\*\*Hello,As so many on here demand, when sending your FIRST D..M please include your Name, Location, Age and a photo. Please do not just say hi.\*\*\* 99% of you explicitly ignore this I am only interested in something longterm with the right person. I am in no way shape or form looking for, flings, one night stands, to be 1 of 12 in your rotation etc. Please no games or drama, that stuff was ok 20 years ago lol. I honestly am leaning towards NO children as I find it near impossible to find someone to take out for coffee, let alone have a child with. So atm anything child related is a hard pass unless for some reason you are in fact so different from everyone else that you completely change my outlook on life, then and only then can we perhaps entertain the thought of children ( this also includes people that currently have children, no thanks). I do work full time, just starting a new job. I do enjoy to cook and bbq and would love someone who is also capable of cooking and or can bring something new to the table. I am looking for the ride or die type, someone I dont have to walk on eggshells around, someone who doesnt support the alphabet army or go along with any of those mainstream woke psychosis. Someone with a great and very dark sense of humor, you can take it and give it right back. Just someone who's fun, likes to travel, and actually wants to build a life together.-------------------Hard NO's; 1. Cigarette smokers 2. heavy drinkers 3. History of physical / sexual abuse 4. mens haircuts 5. Anyone remotely close to any possible viral clip you can imagine 6. Single moms 7. New Profiles / BRAND NEW accounts \--------------------Please be 420 friendlyComedians : Tom Segura, Dave Chapelle, Jim Norton, Bill Burr, Tim Dillon aka The Pig, Mark Normand, Christina P, Ali Wong, Joe Rogan, William Montgomery aka the big red machine, kill tony, etc to name a few--------------------Shows : Trailer park boys, Letter kenney, simpsons, forensic files ( anything crime related especially serial killer documentaries ), Brooklyn 99, schitts creek, Seinfeld, southpark, breaking bad, better call Saul, Shoresy , Paradise PD, Brickleberry, Banshee, Ozarks blah blah---------------------Music : literally all over the place, mostly prefer metal / edm , changes by mood.---------------------variety of podcasts : YMH, Radio Rental, Crime Junkie, Tim Dillon show, Congratulations, stuff you should know, All over the road, tuesdays with stories, park after dark , Ramsey show, JRE, chip chipperson , Haiyaa with Nigel Eng, long days, history hyenas etc

I've been doing a ton of research on all three of these different bikes (and the competitors), and I can't figure out which one I really should go for. I want all three, but obviously can't afford it. My background is everything two wheels. e-MTBs, MTBs, I have a R1200GS that I rip offroad, 2 stroke dirt bikes, etc.
What I want to do:

• Explore dirt/forest roads and OHV singletrack
  
• Do camping trips with the bike (bikepacking-ish?)
  
• Get to places that motorcycles typically can't get to
  
• Maybe commute if I can make the bike legal
  

What I don't want to do:

• Ride through parks or MTB areas
  
• Rip thru urban areas/bike lanes
  
• Hit massive wheelies in traffic
  

Those things make great youtube videos that I love to watch, and if I was 18 again I would be out there doing it. But at 30 I just have zero desire to crash or catch looks from the 5-0.
So I've looked at all three. I like the idea of a higher powered and longer range dirt bike like the Storm Bee, but if I'm trying to find and get to some super off-road places, a small bike like the light bee would be best. The ultra bee straddles between the two but also seems to compromise on the biggest stongsuits of either and doesn't seem to fit (super light or super powerful/range). In an ideal world, I could just get a street legal Storm Bee and make it my legal commuter, but that path doesn't quite seem established. Also have been considering the Talaria Sting R since it's above the Light bee, but below the ultra bee. Seems like a good mix between the light bee and the ultra bee.
What should I get?

\*\*\*Hello,As so many on here demand, when sending your FIRST D..M please include your Name, Location, Age and a photo. Please do not just say hi.\*\*\* 99% of you explicitly ignore this I am only interested in something longterm with the right person. I am in no way shape or form looking for, flings, one night stands, to be 1 of 12 in your rotation etc. Please no games or drama, that stuff was ok 20 years ago lol. I honestly am leaning towards NO children as I find it near impossible to find someone to take out for coffee, let alone have a child with. So atm anything child related is a hard pass unless for some reason you are in fact so different from everyone else that you completely change my outlook on life, then and only then can we perhaps entertain the thought of children ( this also includes people that currently have children, no thanks). I do work full time, just starting a new job. I do enjoy to cook and bbq and would love someone who is also capable of cooking and or can bring something new to the table. I am looking for the ride or die type, someone I dont have to walk on eggshells around, someone who doesnt support the alphabet army or go along with any of those mainstream woke psychosis. Someone with a great and very dark sense of humor, you can take it and give it right back. Just someone who's fun, likes to travel, and actually wants to build a life together.-------------------Hard NO's; 1. Cigarette smokers 2. heavy drinkers 3. History of physical / sexual abuse 4. mens haircuts 5. Anyone remotely close to any possible viral clip you can imagine 6. Single moms 7. New Profiles / BRAND NEW accounts
\--------------------Please be 420 friendlyComedians : Tom Segura, Dave Chapelle, Jim Norton, Bill Burr, Tim Dillon aka The Pig, Mark Normand, Christina P, Ali Wong, Joe Rogan, William Montgomery aka the big red machine, kill tony, etc to name a few--------------------Shows : Trailer park boys, Letter kenney, simpsons, forensic files ( anything crime related especially serial killer documentaries ), Brooklyn 99, schitts creek, Seinfeld, southpark, breaking bad, better call Saul, Shoresy , Paradise PD, Brickleberry, Banshee, Ozarks blah blah---------------------Music : literally all over the place, mostly prefer metal / edm , changes by mood.---------------------variety of podcasts : YMH, Radio Rental, Crime Junkie, Tim Dillon show, Congratulations, stuff you should know, All over the road, tuesdays with stories, park after dark , Ramsey show, JRE, chip chipperson , Haiyaa with Nigel Eng, long days, history hyenas etc