Pelpro pellet stove auger not turning

I grew up with abuse, I know what it looks like and I know it doesn't get better but I naively blamed the alcohol.
I don't know when the shift happened, but it did. One day a marital squabble became a huge ordeal, with name calling and finger pointing and he threatened to leave. I told him my Dad did that to my Mom all the time, don't you dare say that unless you mean it. He relented.
A few weeks later, I looked at him wrong. My face made him furious. He said it again. I told him if you say that one more time, I'll say "Sounds good". He told me he would kill himself. He didn't.
At my birthday dinner, my Mom and I had a different opinion on one thing then him, he screamed at both of us. He stormed off, to look something up on his phone and stormed in again, shoving the phone in our faces to prove to us he was right. Told me all the things that were wrong with me. My Mom started crying and didn't feel safe leaving me alone with him.
I am a bad mother. I don't listen to him. I don't do what he tells me to. I don't do what he wants. I should quit my job. I shouldn't talk to my Mom on the phone. Every day is stomping feet and slamming doors and yelling because he can, with endless drinks from hidden bottles. He doesn't have an anger problem. He doesn't have a drinking problem. It's me.
Then it happened. And I wasn't surprised at all. I expected it. He didn't like the way I was calming down our special needs son - I wasn't doing it his way. So he shoved me into a door. I told him to stop and turned my back to walk away and he shoved me face first into the door frame.
Then he pushed me into the stove, then the fridge. I pushed him off of me. I told him to stop, I told him he was hurting me. He kept pushing. Then he reached for my neck and I hit his shoulder. He immediately got in my face, with that finger wagging and demanded to know how dare I hit him. He is the victim. He has been abused.
He slept in the car in the garage, so we couldn't leave. The next day, he acted like nothing had happened. I wondered if I was going crazy. Then he got in our 10 year old's face for crying and told him he needed to be smacked in the face, threatened him, said vile things.
I told him he needed to leave. He kicked the coffee table into my legs before shoving it across the room. He said I was crazy. How dare I? He tells me he's been secretly recording me for a year to prove I'm a bad mother, that I don't behave. How dare I tell him to leave. I'm crazy. I don't listen. I just need to do things his way. If I just did what he wants, there wouldn't be a problem. He's right. I'm wrong.
I was able to make it to the garage and hit the button for the door for all the neighbors and traffic to hear and see. He's gone. And we are safe.
I am not crazy. It's him. It's not the alcohol. It's him. It won't get better. It's him.

Hiya, this is going to be a really long post I'm sorry but TLDR landlord refuses to spend any money or do any maintenance, multiple horrible issues and now the house smells like a dead mans feet :-( Going insane and don't know what to do. Suspect broken pipe but given the runaround and now am just told 'there's nothing more I can do'. Glasgow southside
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So I moved into the flat in 2021, it's visibly not been repaired in a long time but wasn't a huge problem. Classic damp, cracks in walls and ceilings, bizarre and eye-melting amount of different artex textures in each room that were clearly in fashion in the 70s. etc, but couldn't see any major issues and rent is cheap (I was wrong lol). Everything was sort of 'covered' or painted over, so we couldn't see any problems at the time. He was always slow to respond, but didn't think much of it as I've had bad landlords before.
First major red flag was a baby slug infestation in winter 2021 after we asked him to remove a rotten bathroom mirror contraption he'd built, and his 'fix' was to cover the entire floor with slug pellets. We had a cat at the time, so I just snapped and spent 4 days sealing every part of the bathroom just because I couldn't deal with the hassle, and alas no more slugs. He is aware of this and doesn't care. I'm comfortable with basic DIY and did this as properly as I could, and it looks great, clean and sealed and no slugs, cost about £200. (He's told me he intends to gut the flat when we leave and re-do it and whack the rent up, more on this later). Any time we ask for anything, he turns up with a young cousin and a screwdriver and says 'not much I can do' and just leaves, and essentially said do what you need to do to get by as long as you don't break anything. He sent me the inventory pictures and said as long as you don't do structural damage I don't mind. No major major problems I can see so I think whatever, easy life. He bumped the rent up in early 2022 from 600 to 700, not as bad as I've seen others and was doable for us and (probably stupidly) just accepted this.
Just before christmas 22, my housemate moved out and took her cat with her. We had a mouse, so I called the council who put poison down and I left to go and visit family for christmas. I came back to a smell so bad it SLAPPED me in the face as soon as I opened the door, and I was horrified. The classic sweet sickly rancid smell of death I think, so I called the pest control people back who suggested it was a mouse that had died in the wall. Makes sense, so on their advice I used a dehumidifer and waited a month. I washed the walls and floors I could touch with vinegar and bicarb etc. Tried everything and did make it liveable. I cleaned the entire kitchen and scraped back all the dirty sealant, and discovered that he'd painted over not only damp but so many mouse droppings, which had formed a kind of sludge around all the sealed parts of the kitchen. Absolutely rancid, made me sick to my stomach.
A month goes by, stench continues, I do what I can to get by and I saw a rat. Called the pest control people again, who came and did the same. He advised me that the smell should have long gone by now, and he suspected a burst pipe as the smell was also worse when it was warmer. He puts poison down, and I took it upon myself to try and seal up wherever it came from. I followed the trail behind the counters by the windowsill, and found that the open vent to the outside had been sealed up by a breadboard leaned up against it, and covered in foil... The whole bit behind the counters and underneath the windowsill was just haphazard bits of wood leaned up against eachother, and I found an old letter under there from 2019 recommending resealing the house to prevent pests which obviously was never done.
It's the cold snap at this point, so the smell isn't so bad. I hadn't been as on it as I'd like to be as my mum is terminally ill and I'm spending 2 weeks here, 2 weeks down south with her, and obviously massively stressed. I'm also disabled and going through intensive psych and physical treatments for preexisting issues, so haven't much capacity to deal with all this at the moment. My new housemate gets settled around march and refurnishing the flat after the old housemate left took a lot of time, and the smell is STILL there, and getting worse as it warms up. I've spent maybe 300£ on air fresheners, ozone sprays, dehumidifiers, all sorts just trying anything.
A few weeks ago, we had a sudden infestation of HUGE black flies, hundreds, literally hundreds, crawling out from under the skirting board. I came back and cleaned every single inch I could touch with bleach, just to feel comfortable, but I refused to eat in the house as I felt sick. During the clean, I discovered that the raised foundation in the kitchen is basically rotten along with most of the walls and internal structures adjoining the external walls. There is also a layer of bicarbonate of soda underneath the lino flooring suggesting he was well aware of issues. The smell was getting worse and worse, and by this point it had been months so clearly not a body decaying. I called the landlord round, who said he 'couldn't smell anything' whilst looking back and forth at his cousin, and I told him I'm sorry but you can't be serious. He said we can take up the floor maybe, see what's happening, I'll give you a can of air freshener and we'll see. He said the 'flies will take their course and get rid of the smell' (????) and tried to set me and the housemate against eachother, telling each of us the other had agreed to let it go when this was absolute bollocks.. as if we wouldn't talk to eachother? He got really angry when I suggested pipes, and emphatically denied any presence of any kind of plumbing under the property.
I called the pest control man for advice this time, and he came to chat. He has been to this property many times over the years, and confirmed presence of a cast iron pipe underneath the property and again suggested a burst sewage pipe. He advised environmental health, who would provide FOI evidence etc. and escalate. By this point, I'm at my absolute wits end, my mum's getting worse and I've applied for a housing association place but this is going to take months and months. My housemate messaged him today (his last contact was saying that she agreed to let it go (untrue) and someone will be in contact with me soon to 'chat about energy efficiency upgrades to reduce the bills' which I was suspicious of..) and he responded saying 'There's nothing more I can do about this.'. He has promised to deal with this, but the pest control man made me aware that the inspection needed for this costs a lot of money, money he refuses to spend.
He has multiple properties across the city, and I know he just refuses to invest any money in the property until we leave, so he can totally renovate and charge double. Due to the damp, woodworm, rotten foundations, crumbling ceilings etc. it's going to be a major job, and he just doesn't want to do anything. I've contacted Scottish Water to check outside drains, which should be happening soon. But fuck knows what to do now... I haven't the emotional capacity or the funds to move into a random room somewhere short notice as my mental health is in crisis and I need a base to travel back and forth to care for my mum (please no comments on this set up as it's complicated). I'm holding out on a housing association place, but honestly it's really upsetting being here and I have nowhere in the world I feel comfortable and safe right now, especially as I need somewhere safe to work through my recovery that doesnt smell like the inside of an arsehole.
What can I do? I'm scared to report him to environmental health or authorities as I don't think I'll make it through if he kicks us out for this. When I'm set up somewhere new, I'd feel comfortable reporting him and have kept everything as evidence, but I can't risk my stability right now. I can't live like this anymore, the smell makes me gag and is making me so depressed. Thanks so much for reading, any advice?

Where: East to West Ski Traverse from Shepherd's Pass Trailhead (Independence, CA) across the Sierra to Wolverton (Western Sierra Foothills), sometimes referred to as the "Sierra High Route Ski Traverse" or the "David Beck Route" after the ski guide who pioneered the route in the 1970s. Getting to cross the Sierra on skis, particularly with a historic snowpack, was an amazing experience.
When: May 25, 2023 – May 28, 2023
Distance and Vert: 50 Miles, 15,000' ascent (CalTopo: https://caltopo.com/m/FH2VE)
Conditions: Continuous snow from mile ~6 at 9400'. Weather varied from zero visibility clouds, scorching direct sun, precipitation/graupel, and frigid mornings.
Lighterpack: for a couple (shared sleep system and ski gear for two) https://lighterpack.com/rp5unn
Cars/Transportation: This might be one of the biggest challenges of the trip. Some people choose to stage cars at both trailheads, but that would require a six-hour drive before and after the trip. The ideal situation, which we were able to work out, is to swap cars with another group crossing in the opposite direction simultaneously, trading keys on route. However, not everyone will be this lucky. Another option is to hitchhike from Wolverton to Three Rivers, then get a ride to the Fresno airport, fly to Reno, and take the 395 shuttle to Independence. But this will add days to your trip.
Road Closure: This year, an additional complexity was that the road from Hospital Rock to Wolverton was closed due to rain damage. It is a 14-mile stretch with an elevation gain of approximately 5000'. We spoke to rangers at SEKI, and suggested they might look the other way if we rode our e-bikes outside of construction hours, which they believed were from 7 AM to 7 PM. So, one group rode e-bikes with cargo trailers we purchased on Amazon from Hospital Rock at 2700' up to Wolverton at 7400'. They locked up the bikes and trailers and headed east. When we arrived at Wolverton after our traverse, we unlocked the bikes, loaded our gear, and rode the bikes back down to the car parked at Hospital Rock. Walking that stretch would be a pain after already crossing the Sierra, particularly because you'd probably have to haul boots and skis down the road with you on your back.
Purpose of [Long] Report: I've wanted to cross the Sierra on skis for many years, but poor snow conditions had stymied previous attempts. With the historic snowpack this year, I finally got a chance to ski it. Prior to this trip, I scoured the Internet for information, but most of it was either old and lacked details or came from guide companies that lead clients across in about six days. In the interest of aiding future skiers, I wanted to put together a comprehensive trip report with some of our group's learnings. However, a caveat to future readers, our trip was much later in the year than is typical and followed the deepest winter in recorded memory in the Sierra, so your experience may differ greatly.
GEAR
Our kits were relatively light given it was a ski traverse, which was essential due to the long ski and boot carry on day one. This lighter pack is my wife and I's shared and personal gear combine. She was less egar to list out her clothing individually (she does not share our affliction) however she let me weigh it all at once: https://lighterpack.com/rp5unn
Sleep Kit: For anyone contemplating winter camping with someone they feel comfortable sharing a sleeping bag with, I cannot recommend the Feathered Friends Spoonbill enough. It is the single greatest piece of kit I have ever owned. It's absurdly light and warm and more comfortable than a solo bag because it's large enough for both people to stretch out. Of course, it only really works if you feel comfortable cozying up with your partner, but if you're a couple, like we were, it's the greatest. Just make sure that you have pad straps that hold the two sleeping pads together. When we first got the bag, we contemplated one of those double sleeping pads, but they're heavy and not as warm as the Therm-a-Rest Xtherm. Instead, I've sewn pad straps with grosgrain, similar to the ones you can purchase from Gossamer Gear, that hold the pads together perfectly. It's also nice that each person has their own pad to inflate to their preferred firmness. The Xtherm is also warm enough to eliminate the need for extra closed cell foam pads.
Skis: If you're contemplating this route, you might be tempted to reach for ultralight skimo skis, but I'd urge caution. The snow conditions you're going to encounter are wildly variable, and unless you're used to skiing sun cups with a super heavy pack down steep passes, you may want something more robust. I ended up opting for my Blizzard Zero G 105 because I wanted that additional flotation in the soft afternoon snow. It ended up being a pretty good choice, although it was pretty heavy to haul up Shepherd's Pass on my back.
Sharps Kit: We carried aluminum boot crampons and ski crampons. Both were essential. My partner had a BD Whippet to assist on some of the passes. I just opted for poles. If you're used to booting, I think crampons are probably enough, and you can likely leave the ice ax at home.
Stove: We debated bringing an alcohol stove (Trail Designs Ti Tri), but we ended up bringing a MSR Reactor, worried that we would have to melt snow for water. We ended up collecting 95% of our water, and we could've easily collected all of it. I've heard from other groups that when the weather gets cold, it can be more difficult to track down water, but we could have gotten away with an alcohol stove.
Footwear: I wore light road running shoes up Shepard's Pass. They got pretty shredded on the trip, but they were a welcome addition and served as great camp shoes too while I tried to dry by boots in the afternoon sun.
Eyewear: At the last minute, I ditched my goggles and wore Smith Wildcats exclusively. Although I did have a backup pair of sunglasses, just in case I lost the Wildcats, I'm glad I didn't bother with goggles. The descents themselves were pretty short.
Pack: We both used HMG Porter packs without the HMG ski carry mod, but our own MYOG tubular webbing contraption to hold skis in place without damaging the webbing straps. They were perfect for the trip. I do know HMG now makes a ski-specific pack, but I purchased the Porter many years ago. However, even if the new pack had been available, I'd still prefer the Porter for versatility in other activities like climbing, packrafting, general backpacking, etc.
DAY-BY-DAY REPORT
Early on the morning of May 25th, we left the Courthouse Motel in Independence, CA bound for Shepard's Pass Trailhead. With skis and poles in hand, the proprietors looked perplexed when they asked us were we were headed and we told them “Fresno.” Despite significant runoff this year, the road to the Shepherds Pass Trailhead is passable with a low-clearance vehicle. While we couldn't reach the "hikers" trailhead, we easily reached the "stock" trailhead at 5600'. Starting our traverse from there, we ascended Symmes Saddle toward Shepard's Pass in lightweight running shoes, with skis and boots on our backs. Along the way, we encountered clear evidence of the historic avalanche cycle, including massive trees blocking the trail. Crossing the creek multiple times, we devised creative ways to keep our feet dry, using pack tosses and rock jumps. At the final crossing, we bypassed a sketchy log and carefully waded through the creek with our heavy packs.As the trail steepened into switchbacks, intermittent snow appeared around 8400', soon becoming continuous. Pushing on through snow with sneakers, we reached Symmes Saddle at 9100'. There the trail transitions to a south aspect and the snow disappeared completely. After a few more miles, we arrived at Mahogany Flat, there we switched from shoes to skis, encountering consistent snow for the rest of the traverse. Our first night's camp was set above the "Pothole" on granite slabs, offering a breathtaking view of the Owens River Valley below.
The following day, we ascended Shepherds Pass using boot crampons, reaching the Tyndall Plateau. Descending on firm, sun-capped snow, we made our way to the Kern River, where we were fortunate to find a snow bridge, a crucial element of our route. Crossing without a bridge would have been sketchy. From there, we faced the grueling climb up Milestone Basin under a scorching sun. Fortunately, afternoon clouds provided relief and intermittent graupel. We ascended Milestone Pass late in the afternoon, then descended into Milestone Bowl, where again we camped on granite slabs.
On the third day, we descended the remainder of Milestone Bowl before embarking on several long traverses across massive bowls. At the end of the first ski traverse, we booted up an unnamed ridge marked by glide avalanche cracks. After briefly meeting the other party traveling from West to East and exchanging information on conditions ahead, we crossed over Triple Divide Pass. The next pass, Copper Mine Pass, presented more glide cracks and cornices that showed signs of recent collapse. Instead of taking the conventional route north of the peak, exposed to hazards, we managed to skin up just below the Copper Mine Pass summer trail, which surprisingly was melted out and allowed passage to the next drainage. We finished the day with an easy skin up Horn Col and a relaxed ski down to Lonely Lake.
On the final day, we climbed over Pterodactyl Pass below Big Bird Peak before turning north and continuing to ski into the Tablelands. Once near Tablelands Pass, we removed our skins for the second-to-last time and enjoyed a fun but gentle descent toward Pear Lake Hut. The hut was completely buried in snow, having sat unused throughout the entire winter. From the hut, we skinned up the final hump before embarking on a true survival ski down to Wolverton. The snow extended all the way down to the parking lot, but it was wet and covered in pine needles, branches, and pine duff—the type of snow one can't truly fathom without venturing beyond ski resort boundaries.
Finally, we arrived at the parking lot and found our e-bikes securely locked to the barricade, which the eastbound group had prepared for us. We assembled the cargo trailers, attached them to the bikes, and began the long and winding descent from 7400' to 2700', reaching the road closure at Hospital Rock, the truck, and very welcome warm beers.

Hello, I'm back for another go. Here's my first attempt. I understand why some people were calling it anime-ish, but wanted to clarify that it's actually a highly character and relationship-based novel with only a background focus on fighting. But since the internal conflict is more important, I'll try my best to focus more directly on it. I do have to at least mention the antagonists though. Keep in mind, the fighting mainly occurs in the end, so for most of the story the island is pretty calm with just a looming dread of the incoming conflict in the background, as Samoor develops and cultivates relationships.
Dear Agent,
I am excited to present the Foreigner of All, a 99K word YA escapist adventure standalone novel with strong series potential.
Finally breaking under the alienation caused by his phenotypical condition that makes him resemble a foreigner, Samoor starts a new life on an idyllic island with a new identity.
He finds friends for the first time in his life in the form of a caring local clan. Through them he meets Su, an intelligent musician who shows him love he never thought he'd ever be given. With a fake backstory he's tailored to hide his insecurities and gain their respect, he has to live a lie that could come crashing down any minute.
But as he soon finds out, all is not well on the island. He plots to liberate the only true family he's ever had from the brutal gang of hyper-intelligent beasts that dominates the island. He also finds himself stalked by an obsessive assassin whose motive threatens to throw him at odds with a deadly omnipresent syndicate. His dangerous endeavor could risk him losing the first family and home he's ever attained.
In this heavily character-based bildungsroman, Samoor experiences true acceptance as he develops his relationship with his newfound family and soulmate, but simultaneously deals with memories of the family he's left behind and the fear that his dishonesty will be found out.
In this deeply emotional adventure of fulfillment and discovery, Samoor has to come to terms with his past and decide who he wants to be going forward.
First 300 words:
The sun had barely risen before he was at his usual spot near the window, staring out at the Ahmedabad skyline while occasionally rolling his toy truck back and forth. His mother hadn't noticed him there as she left her bedroom to dispose of his fussy brother's soiled diapers, only seeing him as she ignited the stove.
"Soom? What are you doing up so early again? You're only three, you don't have to go to work like your father," she joked as she filled the steel teapot with milk.
"What's Daddy's work?" he asked, his eyes still on the window.
"Daddy's a doctor. He fixes people who need help," she explained.
"Can he fix me?" he asked, his eyes moving to his mother.
She stared at him with her mouth open as the pot boiled over, scalding water hissing as it hit the flames.
She turned off the stove and strode over to him, getting down to his level.
"Samoor, why do you want to be fixed?" she pressed. "There's nothing wrong with you!"
He turned his gaze back to the window. "Yes there is. Other kids point at me, and call me 'Samurai.' I don't look like them, or like my brothers and sister. I'm different."
"Yes, you are different. But that's not bad! It makes you who you are! Please... never say that again," she pleaded, her voice cracking.
He looked down at his toy truck silently.
Samoor was jerked out of the memory when a colorful, ornamented truck blared its ear-piercing musical horn behind him. He lowered his aching thumb as someone shoved open the passenger door from inside.
“Need a lift?” asked the driver, a middle-aged man in an undershirt.
“Yes sir!” affirmed Samoor, straightening his choppy, dark hair.
“The name’s Pradyut. What’s yours, and where ya’ headed?” he asked.
[Bio]
Thank you,

The house is a duplex and it's nice, but we got it on housing assistance which we only have 6 months of and not everything is payed for. Its just me(F13) my brother(M20) and my mom(F42) and our dogs,one great dane who's 2 and a rescue that we dont know the breed of, but is at least 6-7 months and is mine. We have EBT and cash assistance but it's not a lot. My brother doesn't have a job and is trying to get one asap once we're officially moved in and my mom doesn't have one either, and doesn't seem to have then intention on getting one. I go to school obviously and get out on june 15th but im worried. We've always been poor and what happens after we the housing assistance is up? We use the cash we get monthly on gas, dog food, alcohol, weed, and whatever else my mom gets. I dont like it because we run out of it so fast and when i actually speak up and say something about it i get in trouble and yelled at. I had $84 in cash which i was going to spend on stuff for my room and myself but now it's all gone. Why? Because i had to pay for gas and a beer. My mom is good for paying me back but i hate how she carelessly spends the money we get instead of saving it, then acts like we cant get something because we're trying to save the money yada yada yada. Im happy to finally move out of this shit hole we were living in but im fucking terrified. It feels like we've been moving so much in these past few years and i hate it. I have high functioning anxiety, depression, and PTSD, all diagnosed by my therapist abd doctors. I got put on medication for my depression that also helps with anxiety, I've been on it for over 2 weeks and NOTHING has changed. I want to get a higher dosage and when i talked to my mom all she said was "its up to you" which im relatively greatful for but im not just going to double my daily dosage, and have to go get refills more often then be questioned and get in trouble, or whatever they do. I barely take care of myself because my depression is so bad, i cant even take care of my dog. Dont get me wrong, she's a spoiled little shit who i would commit war crimes for but holy fuck do i feel like shit. We also have to pay for all the bills(water, electricity, gas) whatever else. The ONLY appliances in the house is a microwave and stove. Not even a fridge - where are we gonna get that when we're dirt poor? Y'know, one thats not absolute dog shit and gross? If i could get a job i would, but quite frankly the only 'job' i could get is babysitting and i fucking hate kids. I was forced into a parent role at 9 and way after i turned 10 until i moved, i did EVERYTHING while my aunt(the babie's mom) did meth with her baby daddy.

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Pure, unadulterated fear. With those 4 hateful eyes locked onto me, the bear colossus took its first step forward, and with it saturated my mind with a visceral terror. People always talk about the flight or fight reaction, speculating on which end of the fear response they might fall on. But apparently, there’s a third option too, because I froze. Those baleful eyes gripped me like a steel vise and with each plodding step forward I could feel them constricting around me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, everything was consumed by that mounting sense of dread as my doom drew near.
This is ridiculous! I shouldn’t be this incapacitated by some dumb bear! It’s not the first time I’ve faced dangerous stakes in this world, and hell I’d even died already once before, so what’s with me!? But even as I tried to logic my way out, the back of my mind was already prepared with an answer. “This time is different,” It whispered. I’m not dying of clumsiness with an end too quick to process. I’m not dealing with the vague threat of a bunch of herons overrunning my territory. This time, I’m being hunted by a malicious being whose only desire is to see my end, and its winning.
Just then, 4 shafts bury themselves into the bear scion’s red orbs, the aether contained within them blowing large chunks of flesh away from the beast’s skull, followed shortly by an explosion of vines. The new growth attempted to dig deeper into the bear, fighting against its regenerating flesh to penetrate deeper towards the brain. With an angry howl, the beast was forced to use its massive claws to gouge out the arrows, leaving it temporarily blinded by the wounds. Just like that, the spell over my mind was shattered, and I was able to look away from the colossus, up to the brave bunny who had defended me.
From the canopy bounded my favorite jackalope in the world, her visage positively radiating fury. Foregoing her usual aether armor, she’d instead forced all of it directly into her bow to increase its destructive power. All, that is, but the thin sliver of wind aether she’d applied to the bottom of her feet, allowing her to bound through the sky as if it was terra firma. I’m filled with a potent mix of emotions as I watch her swap her bow into shortbow form, fully intending to dance around the bear and take advantage of any openings it dares give her. She did it! She’d managed multiple types of aether at once with that last attack!
But while I was relieved to have been released from the colossus’s gaze, that feeling was strongly tempered by the shame of my inaction. I’ve got to pull myself together dammit! This fight is far from over yet, and I can’t let myself quiver uselessly in a corner while my brave denizens do all the hard work facing this monstrosity. As if to mock the reformation of my resolve, the ground rumbled once more, and out from the giant hole in my mountain poured another host of bears and badgers, thundering onto the battlefield.
Right, this is Deepholm after all, so of course the asshole kept forces in reserve. I swear he must be emptying out the whole damn mountain on me! Uuugghh, fine. Of my scions, only Jackie and Alexa were combat capable at the moment, so they would each need to handle their respective scions on their own. The owl squads would back up Alexa in the sky vs the bats, meanwhile down on the ground my surviving forces were still scattered and disoriented. Alright, time to get to work. All units, fall back to the 3rd defensive line, that bear scion’s size will make it impossible for the regular invaders to help it with its fight against Jackie, so they’ll be forced to go around it to get to you or be crushed underfoot.
It's close, but my remaining denizens are able to make it behind the relative safety of the wooden barricades while my flechette-pines provided cover fire. By this time, the bear colossus has recovered enough of its sight to start fighting back against Jackie, swiping furiously at her while she jumps around burying more arrows into his joints to slow it down. With a fierce battle now being waged on three fronts, I take a moment to check in on Kelving to see how he’s progressing.
Still invisible somewhere inside Deepholm’s caverns, I find him seeping his stone magic into his surroundings. Noticing my presence, he informs me that trying to explore manually was taking too long, so he decided to swap tactics. To avoid detection, he’s maintaining invisibility on himself while keeping his magical flow slow and steady rather than risk alerting Deepholm with a burst of it all at once. As for why he’s soaking the surroundings with stone magic? Well, he actually stole the idea from the bat scion’s sonar, figuring that two can play at that game. His spell is slowly but surely mapping out the entirety of Deepholm’s interior, and once the sanctum’s location is revealed he can make a direct line towards it.
Excellent thinking on your part there Kelvin! Though I am worried for his safety. As of yet, we’ve only seen a bat and a bear scion, so that still leaves the badger one unaccounted for. Considering the fact that the invisibility potions are still just faulty prototypes and that he’s already had to go through all but the last one, I tell him to be as careful as he needs. We’ll figure out a way to hold out on defense for him to do his job. Stay safe kitty, cause I can’t send you any backup should things go sideways.
Up on the surface, to say that the defense is struggling would be a might bit of an understatement. Though Jackie has qualified herself as a threat worth being wary of, the bear has quickly adapted to her hit-and-run fighting style by choosing to simply tank its way through most of her hits and plow its way forward regardless. Even with Jackie striking it in the tendons or continuously destroying its eyes, the bear has figured out that its regeneration is just barely fast enough to keep up with her damage, and to slowly push out any vines that she tries to root into the flesh with. With several ponderous steps and a few blind swipes whenever Jackie gets too close, the colossus is steadily progressing across the lake and straight for my island.
Jackie may have the bear blinded and otherwise occupied currently, but all it would take is a bit of guidance from its winged compatriot and we'd be in some serious trouble. Well, that certainly puts batty up at the top of my list of priorities at the moment, but things aren’t looking so hot for my owls right now either. Though my owls are physically superior and able to hold their own against the greater number of bats swarming around, there is a vast gulf between the support the two scions are capable of effecting the fight with. Alexa isn’t intended to be a primary combat scion, plus she was only born barely more than 48 hours ago!
Meanwhile, her opponent is a giant nightwing bat that is a master of a strange blood-based form of spellcasting, and it has who knows how much experience in actual combat to back it up. This is further complicated by a hitch that none of us had thought to test beforehand. Turns out, when Alexa swaps out the contents of her Cache ability, it puts the ability on a 24hr cooldown before it can be modified again. Since this hadn’t been mentioned anywhere in the skill description, and Alexa hadn’t had the need to change the Cache’s contents until today, this unexpected limitation has left her scrambling trying to come up with a new plan of attack.
Since she’s been locked into storm affinity spells for the time being, Alexa tries to summon forth cumulonimbus clouds to use as a base for some lightning and hail. Yet each time the summoned effect begins to brew and build, the bat scion simply uses its sonic affinity to shred and scatter the stormy weather apart. Meanwhile, it is free to wreak havoc amongst my flyers with a flurry of blood spells. First, it pelts my owls with a slew of blood pellets big enough to kill if they strike any of the owls' vitals, but otherwise leaving behind more minor injuries. But that was just the setup for its next attack. With a dramatic pump of its wings, the nightwing hisses out the words of its next spell, despite not having needed to do so previously.
“Scarlet Blossom: Proliferation.”
The results of this were horrifying, to say the least. With a cruel glee evident in its eyes, the bat scion watched on as one by one my owls began to shake violently, before popping apart like an overfilled balloon. Each owl was one who had been struck by at least one of the previous blood pellets, presumably allowing the bat scion to spread the spell throughout the rest of their body before detonating it. But that was not the end of the carnage, as each drop of blood from the exploded owls dug into the flesh of whatever creature they landed on to repeat the process with their newest target. This technique did not bother to distinguish friend from foe, so owls and bats alike fell victim to its exponential spread, all while the bat scion grinned a wicked smile.
Desperately trying to salvage the situation, Alexa has her owls spread out as much as they can while still being able to help keep their fellows from being surrounded and picked off, each one doing their best to avoid the infected bats who had begun to make kamikaze dives at them. The nightwing didn’t deign to give her more time to think things over and instead swooped down upon her to engage my scion in melee combat. I quickly observe that this might mean the bat scion can’t focus on any other spells while it is maintaining the exploding blood one, and advise Alexa to take advantage of her smaller wingspan to focus on dodging for the time being while we work out a plan.
Down on the ground, Deepholm's regular denizens have made their way up to my entrance cave where they are being held back by a fierce barrage of needles. Giorno has got the flechette-pines firing in staggered groups to keep up the continuous assault while my froglings provide backup with their poisonous shots splashing against the particularly tough or unfortunately bunched together groups of enemies. He’s got my bunnies and leopards on standby behind the wooden barricades to deal with anything that manages to break through, but in reality we really just want them to get a bit of rest so they can recuperate enough for whatever might come next.
Thankfully, though there are still quite a few enemies left, we’re not outnumbered anywhere near as badly as the first wave. Since Deepholm doesn’t seem to have any surprises to pull out from its hat for its regular denizens, it looks like with enough time my defenders will be able to take care of those invaders without any further issues. Finally, some good news. I tell Jackie to delay the big guy for as long as she can with her disabling shots, just keeping him to a slow forward march is a huge help. Then, once either that bat problem or the lesser invaders have been dealt with, we should be able to get her some backup to try and overwhelm the bear’s regenerative rate.
That leaves the battle in the sky as the most critical situation, so I turn my attention once more to Alexa and her dogged resistance. Flapping furiously she’s managed to keep dodging every attack thrown her way, but the toll of exertion is already starting to catch up to her. It won’t be long until exhaustion slows her down enough for the nightwing’s attacks to start landing. Noticing how close the bat scion was getting, Alexa decided to dive down and back towards the creature’s main body, using the assistance of gravity to accelerate her past the bat’s grasping talons. Still, she wasn’t quite fast enough to avoid the blow entirely, and so received a long gash across her back for her trouble. Thankfully the extra space she’d managed to earn by flying to the rear gave us both some more time to think up a plan while the cumbersome beast had to arc back around.
Ok, let’s break it down. Alexa is locked into storm magic without any access to other techniques nor enough experience of her own to utilize her native spatial magic effectively. Storm magic generally works based on the user’s strong mental image of storms to function which between their own experience and all the mental images I’ve shared of the storms I’d experienced in my past life has given my scion plenty to work with. The problem with storm magic is that it takes a much larger amount of mana to use, and it takes time to gather and propagate the storm. Furthermore, after forming said storm it requires a great deal of control and further mana to direct it on its path or to try and make adjustments to parts of it.
Because of all this, it leaves the magic incredibly susceptible to disruptions, especially ones strong enough to disperse the clouds directly as the bat scion can. So obviously, trying to form a proper storm and use that to fight is completely out of the question here, especially since Alexa had used up such a large amount of her mana already with her previous attempts. But what about all the minor bits of storm magic that work in the background to create the cloud formations in the first place? The whole reason storm magic costs so much mana initially is due to working off of only the pictured end result and letting magic fill in the rest of the blanks. So what if we focus on those blanks instead? Let’s see, what do you need for a storm to form?
Well first off, obviously moisture in the air. Can’t do stormy things without some water vapor to work with, naturally. Then the weather channel people would always talk about things like high and low-pressure systems, oh and temperatures of course. And I know that a temperature difference is needed to get air moving. But if moving the atmosphere around is all that’s needed we could always use magic instead of thermal energy.
While I’m busy racing through what little knowledge I have about meteorology, the bat scion has gotten close enough to once more give chase to Alexa as she swerves through the sky. My time for thinking up something useful is growing severely limited. C’mon you dumb jewel, think! What can we do with moving the atmosphere around? Translating moving air to wind magic could work, but the bat’s sonic affinity is too likely to disrupt a straightforward attack like that. We need something it won’t see coming, that it wouldn’t know how to defend against. Wind…moving air…moving…moving gas?
Suddenly I’m struck by inspiration as I watch Alexa breathing heavily in her exertions. We’ve got everything we need to make an invisible killer right here. There’s no time to explain the finer details about the periodic table and all the elements that exist in the giant mixture we call the atmosphere, but thankfully there’s no need, as the body provides an easy filter for exactly the kind of gas we want that should be easy enough for anybody to grasp and use in their mental image. Alexa! Use your storm magic to gather up all the air you’re exhaling, as well as the exhalations of all the remaining bats and owls. I want you to move just that air and keep that bat scion’s head covered in it!
Even in this life-and-death situation, I can feel Alexa’s burning curiosity completely override every other emotion in her head. She manages to rein herself in and complies with my request, but I can practically feel the questions burning to bombard me at any moment. Relax relax, don’t worry. We live through this and you can grill me with as many questions as you want later, ok? I figure that with her native spatial affinity, Alexa will have enough spatial awareness to keep the bubble of carbon dioxide gas firmly wrapped around the nightwing’s head even with the chaotic flight patterns of their dogfighting. Here the big bat’s size worked against it as its massive lungs quickly burned through the oxygen within the bubble’s confines, adding even more carbon dioxide into it in the process.
I watched as those malevolent eyes, so full of confidence and glee before, widened into panic upon realizing it was slowly beginning to suffocate. Suspecting some kind of trick, it used its sonic magic to ripple the air nearby violently, trying to shake off whatever was stealing its breath away. But Alexa’s spell wasn’t some blade of wind or air concentrated into a solid object that could be scattered apart. Instead, all the bat scion accomplished was wasting more of the air in its lungs to vibrate the gasses gathered around its head. Without understanding that it would need to forcibly disrupt the high concentration of carbon dioxide gas, it could do nothing to stop the spell from taking effect.
But a Deepholm scion is still nothing to be trifled with. Below us, the bear scion gave out another mighty roar and began to charge forward at full speed, despite still being blinded by Jackie’s incessant arrow barrages. Looking closely, I can see the thin layer of sonic mana coalesced around the bear’s head, presumably allowing the bear to borrow the bat’s navigational abilities. With this, the colossus could advance quickly without needing to worry about veering off course, stampeding on a direct path to my core while just shrugging off the damage Jackie peppered its hide with.
Shit, the bastard just put us on the clock. We need to end this, and quickly. Meanwhile, the bat scion has interrupted the exploding body spell in favor of transforming all the blood in the air into a swarm of small red bat-shaped blades. Still struggling to breathe, and its eyes filled with sneering hatred, the nightwing launched them all at Alexa at speeds as fast as an arrow in flight.
Having picked up on some of my thoughts about moving air around with storm magic however, my scholarly scion applied it to deftly increase or decrease the density of spots in the sky around her. These patches of wildly different pressure zones caused the many blood blades to veer harmlessly around her. Undeterred by its lack of hits, the bat scion simply pulled the blood back around to attack again whilst he chased after Alexa even more desperately than before.
Waiting for the beasty to suffocate would be problematic, especially if he could maintain concentration on his magics up until, or even after falling unconscious. Thankfully, I’d paid attention back in my chemistry classes and learned a thing or two. It’s a simple matter for Alexa’s storm magic to grab onto the abundant water vapor nearby, and then mix it in with the gas bubble suffocating the bat scion. With the added instruction of picturing the water vapor merging completely with the gas itself to encourage the reaction, we pretty quickly have ourselves an incredibly high concentration of our good friend H2C03, otherwise known as carbonic acid.
The effect was almost immediate. As the nightwing breathed in its throat seized up and tremors ran down the length of its body. The eyes became unfocused and its wingbeats unsteady as the toxic concentration of gas sent the beast into a state of torpor. The blood blades stopped mid-flight and dissipated harmlessly, all of the bat’s attention now being consumed just with trying to stay awake and airborne. Not about to let this golden opportunity pass her by, Alexa takes revenge for the gouge the nightwing left on her back by swooping in and rending one of its wings with her talons. Using the last vestiges of her mana, she does the same to the other wing with claws of wind, shredding the soft membranes to tattered pieces. Still doing its best to fight off the gas-induced sleepiness, the bat scion succumbs to gravity’s embrace and tumbles helplessly toward the rocky ground of my island.
Yeah, science! Get dunked on by chemistry batty! Turning my attention back to the bear colossus below, whose head has now lost the glow of sonic magic from before, I rejoice at the feeling of my newly bolstered spirits. One scion down, two to go.
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This is kinda dumb but here it goes: my boyfriend (21m) and I (20f) have been dating for a few months now, and things are going pretty well. My parents are extremely talkative and easygoing, so it isn’t difficult to talk to them, especially since they do most of the talking. My boyfriend’s parents are a little more quiet and take some work to hold a conversation with them, and I’m a little awkward around them too. Whenever I go to his house, his mom always makes fun of him over small things. For example, she asked him to make a cup of coffee and he didn’t know how to use the coffee pot, (it was a pretty fancy thing, I probably wouldn’t know how to use it) so she told him to move and that she’ll do it, and then turned to me and made some comment about how he’s useless around the kitchen and laughed. I’m still trying to make a good impression on his parents, so I laughed along and told her a story about how one time my boyfriend had a hard time using the stove in my friend’s apartment.
After we went to his room, he told me that he doesn’t like that his mom always acts like he’s incompetent when there’s company, and that it hurt his feelings that I went along with it and made fun of him. I told him that I was just trying to bond with his mom and it was a light hearted joke, and I don’t think he’s stupid or incompetent. AITA for teasing him?
EDIT: typo
EDIT 2: for reference it is very important to him that I get friendly with his parents and he has been pushing me to talk to them more. Although this wasn’t my first time meeting them, he still didn’t bring this to my attention or even prepare me for the possibility until AFTER the exchange. He said she does this often with company and for it being this sensitive of an issue for him I wish he would’ve given me a heads up. I apologized and told him it won’t happen again but now he keeps telling me not to talk shit about him every time we are about to hang out with friends, go to a wedding or family event, or do anything involving outside people. I didn’t know at the time of the incident and my family makes fun of each other all the time, so I didn’t think it would be a big deal. Obviously I thought wrong, but I wish he would consider my perspective when he holds this grudge and brings it up anytime he wants leverage.

600 grams of lean red meat pork , 40 grams of garlic , 7 grams of peppercorns , 3 tablespoons oyster sauce , 1+1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar , Green Cap Seasoning Sauce 1+1/2 , tablespoons , 1 tablespoon sweet dark soy sauce

1. Bring the lean pork to the slicer according to the size required. Season with Oyster sauce, sweet dark soy sauce, seasoning sauce Sugar, ground pepper, mix the mixture well. Cover with food preservation film. Refrigerate for 1 day.
   
2. Garlic, pounded not very finely Fry in oil to a yellow color, scoop into a cup and set aside to cool down ( Turn on the gas stove heat as low as possible. No need to wait for the oil to heat. Fry the garlic and fry it.)
   
3. Stir-fry the marinated pork with oil, fry the garlic and stir-fry until the pork is cooked. Add a little more ground pepper or, to your liking, scoop it on a plate and garnish with fried garlic. Garlic and pepper marinated pork menu
   

VDO Guide: หมูหมักกระเทียมพริกไทย ( Marinated Pork with Garlic and Pepper )

Needed to vent and tell people and I knew y’all would understand the pain, I was fishing with a friend on her dock at a local lake (lake murray sc), I had brought my dads old microlight and my pflueger trion 30 and abu Garcia vengeance 7’ medium action spinning rod, I was using the microlight to catch bluegill I had my vengeance rigged up with a egg sinker and a live small bluegill to hopefully catch a catfish or two to eat, I had it sitting on my book bag, I didn’t get a bite on it for hours but we had some luck catching bluegill, during the evening when we had about 4 eating sized bluegill, I got my camp stove out and started cooking them, I was almost done when my friend yelled that something got the bait, she went to pick the rod up but the rod was yanked off the dock, this all happened in the span of about a second so when I turned around it was already gone, I was going to jump in but by the time I ran over it was already long gone, I panicked, I was so sad, words can’t describe what I felt, I was sad, bummed, mad at myself, I know this sounds dramatic but this has never happened to me. I only have two rods that are mine, this setup and a lews rod with a Curado. Now I’m down to one combo. The spinning rod was a gift from someone and it’s worth about $120 I know that’s not much and people have lost way more valuable setups but I’m 16 and don’t have a job yet. I have to save money for a car, I don’t have 120 to spend on a fishing rod. I’m so sad. It’s my fault, if I would of secured it some how, used a rod holder, or tied it to the dock then this wouldn’t of happened, I learned a valuable lesson but it still hurts that I lost it. I know I’m not special and this happens to people all the time but I needed to tell people so I’m telling y’all. Thanks for listening

This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 8 left off. You can read Part 8 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].

The Myraham's Prophetic Cargo

After Theon makes port, the captain of the Myraham announces his cargo to the people on the docks of Lordport and we read about the offloading of the Myraham:

"We're out of Oldtown," the captain called down, "bearing apples and oranges, wines from the Arbor, feathers from the Summer Isles. I have pepper, woven leathers, a bolt of Myrish lace, mirrors for milady, a pair of Oldtown woodharps sweet as any you ever heard." The gangplank descended with a creak and a thud. "And I've brought your heir back to you."

Most of what we read there seems to be reworked in and around Littlefinger's homecoming in ASOS Sansa VI, when the Merling King brings the Dreadfort its heir, Littlefinger, as well as the seeming heir to Winterfell, Sansa. This begins with the Arbor wine and fruit we see off-loaded from the Merling King:

Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions. Among the loads he brought ashore were several casks of wine. Petyr poured Sansa a cup, as promised. …
… The wine was very fine; an Arbor vintage, she thought. It tasted of oak and fruit and hot summer nights, the flavors blossoming in her mouth like flowers opening to the sun. She only prayed that she could keep it down. Lord Petyr was being so kind, she did not want to spoil it all by retching on him.
… "Grisel," he called to the old woman, "bring some food up. … Oswell's brought some oranges and pomegranates from the King." …
Grisel reappeared…, balancing a large platter. … There were apples and pears and pomegranates, some sad-looking grapes, a huge blood orange.

Besides the straight repetition of Arbor wine, oranges, apples, and heirs, the repeated Oldtown motif is baldly reworked by Sansa's description of the wine, which is patently Oldtown-summer-esque, per the only substantive pre-AFFC description of Oldtown, which associates it with hot, fruity summer nights:

"King Maekar's summer was hotter than this one, and near as long. … [T]he heat was fierce while it lasted. Oldtown… came alive only by night. … I remember the smells of those nights, my lord—perfume and sweat, melons ripe to bursting, peaches and pomegranates, nightshade and moonbloom." (AGOT Eddard V)

The Myraham's "mirrors for milady" prefigure Sansa being figuratively groomed by Petyr and literally grooming herself in Petyr's Eyrie after he takes over:

When Gretchel fetched her Lysa's silvered looking glass, the color seemed just perfect with Alayne's mass of dark brown hair. (AFFC Alayne I)

The Myraham's "woodharps sweet as any you ever heard" presage Sansa being attacked by Marillion, whose "voice was strong and sweet", (AFFC Sansa I) after he sings a song (about blowjobs?) called "Milady's Supper" (supper a la the Myraham-ish fruit Sansa eats for supper when she lands) during Petyr's wedding bedding:

Lady Lysa's singer launched into a bawdy version of "Milady's Supper"….

The Myraham's "woven leathers" and "Myrish lace" are reworked into the "laces unlaced" i.e. unwoven during said wedding:

By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.

That it's a "bolt of Myrish lace" is interesting: After Sansa boards the Merling King, she sees a singular "bolt" from a crossbow strike Dontos, and then two more:

Lothor Brune dipped his torch. Three men stepped to the gunwale, raised crossbows, fired. One bolt took Dontos in the chest as he looked up…. The others ripped into throat and belly. (ASOS Sansa V)

Three crossbow bolts? What does that remind us if not… a Myrish crossbow:

"The king is playing with his new crossbow," Tyrion said. Ridding himself of Joffrey had required only an ungainly Myrish crossbow that threw three quarrels at a time…. (ACOK Tyrion VI)

What about the Myraham's "pepper"? I suspect this gets box-checked first by Sansa trying not to "retch" as she is off-loaded along with the wine with which Littlefinger tries to settle her tummy, as just two chapters later peppers are tightly linked to "retching" of the sort Sansa feels like doing:

[Tyrion] found himself on his knees retching… that double helping of fried eggs cooked up with onions and fiery Dornish peppers. (ASOS Tyrion X)

GRRM seems to play off the "pepper" motif in other ways, as well. Consider that the gathering to meet the Myraham and the shouted questions that prompt her captain to announce her cargo—

A handful of Lordsport merchants had gathered to meet the ship. They shouted questions as the Myraham was tying up.

—get reworked by Petyr's household all gathering "to meet" the Merling King and by their peppering one another with questions:

Servants emerged from the tower to meet them; a thin old woman and a fat middle-aged one, two ancient white-haired men, and a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye. When they recognized Lord Petyr they knelt on the rocks. "My household," he said. "I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."

She's a "popper", then, in case we didn't catch that retching → peppers. (This also reworks Theon "popping one off" with the captain's daughter, who is in many ways reworked by Kella, as will be discussed below.)

… [Petyr]… gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one. "Who fathered this one, Kella?"
The fat woman laughed. "I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."
"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. … "How long will you be in residence?"
"As short a time as possible, Bryen, have no fear. Is the place habitable just now, would you say?"
"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung." Petyr turned to Sansa. "Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now. Umfred's my steward, and Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord.…"
… Petyr gestured toward the fat woman. "Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"

A gathering, and questions, questions, questions, as when Theon docks.
Recall that Bryen and Umfred come from shore to offload Sansa (who's just been promised a cup of wine to help with her upset "tummy") from the Merling King's rowboat:

The two old men waded out up to their thighs to lift Sansa from the boat so she would not get her skirts wet.

This reworks the "shorehands… off-loading… casks of wine" from a Tyroshi trader docked with the Myraham—

[Theon] spied a Tyroshi trading galley off-loading…
Shorehands rolled casks of wine off the Tyroshi trader, fisherfolk cried the day's catch, children ran and played. A priest in the seawater robes of the Drowned God was leading a pair of horses along the pebbled shore, while above him a slattern leaned out a window in the inn, calling out to some passing Ibbenese sailors.

—which itself prefigures the above-quoted off-loading of the Merling King (when "Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions" including "several casks of wine", from which Petyr immediately "poured Sansa a cup, as promised").

Kella & The Slattern

What about that "slattern lean[ing] out a window" to greet "some passing… sailors" while "children ran and played"? I submit that she is one of several motifs from Theon's homecoming prefiguring Petyr's servant Kella. I'll explain.
Consider that Petyr's servant Kella has many bastards i.e. children, popping one out every few years:

"I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."

We only see one; presumably the others are off somewhere, running and playing, perhaps.
Kella happily greets Petyr as he comes ashore, much as Lordsport's slattern "call[s] out to some passing Ibbenese sailors". Note that the sailors on the Merling King are likewise 'passing' — passing through:

"From here the King turns east for Braavos. Without us."

Consider most of all that Kella's something of a slattern herself: She's "not one for telling them no".

"I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."

Indeed, something Lysa says pretty clearly codes Kella as a verbatim "slattern", underlining the recursion:

"How would you like to spend your life on that bleak shore, surrounded by slatterns and sheep pellets?" (ASOS Sansa VII)

So I think the vignette with the slattern and the children in Lordsport pretty plainly prefigures Kella. But I think she's prefigured by two more pieces of Theon's homecoming.

Kella & The Captain's Daughter

Keeping in mind that Kella has a bunch of bastards ("she pops one out every few years) and that she's "not one for telling them no", consider also that she is (a) literally 'with child' — or rather, with a child—

a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye

—that she's (b) "fat"—

"Who fathered this one, Kella?"
The fat woman laughed.

—and that she's (c) coded as a bit stupid:

"Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"
She had to think a moment. "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."

All like Theon's "captain's daughter".
The captain's daughter is "plump", as Kella is "fat":

The girl was a shade plump for his taste…

She is likely pregnant with Theon's bastard, a la Kella the bastard-popper.
She tells Theon…

"You can put it in me again, if it please you…"

…and accedes to his request for a blowjob, so she's "not one for telling them no."
She thereby helps Theon 'pop one off', a la Kella "pop[ping] one out".
Like Kella, she seems a bit stupid:

She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.
The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.
She… learned quickly for such a stupid girl….
She looked at him stupidly, so he left her there.

And finally, she offers to work in Theon's castle—

I'd work in your castle, milord.

—just as Kella works for Petyr.

Kella: The Spreading Patch of the Smallest Finger?

Besides the "slattern" and the captain's daughter, I suspect Kella may also riff on — of all things — the "spreading patches" of "lichen" on "wet" Pyke as Theon sails by:

[Pyke was] wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green lichen, speckled by the droppings of the same seabirds.

Get it? A spreading 'patch'? In combination with "lichen" a la "licking" and Pyke being "wet"? And not just wet, but "wet by… salt waves", when as we know from the captain's daughter, semen tastes "salty", "like the sea". It's like Pyke is being described as a turned-on "slattern" with her legs spread.
A Hoare, we might say.
This connects to Kella, specifically because of her name: Kella is a near anagram for "kale", a dark green plant, like the "dark green lichen".
Actually, the name Kella may have anothere precursor in Theon's story: "Qalen", the maester Theon asks Helya about upon his arrival at Pyke:

"And what of Maester Qalen, where is he?"

Qalen would be pronounced Kalen. Qalen → Kalen → Kale → Kela → Kella. Anyway…

Grisel & The Captain's Daughter

Something similar is going on with Petyr's servant Grisel, the "thin old woman" who was his wet nurse but who "keeps [his] castle now":

"Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now.

Grisel is similarly prefigured by two people from Theon's homecoming, including first the captain's daughter who wants to work in Theon's castle as Grisel works in Petyr's "castle".
Consider first that Grisel, like the captain's daughter, seems slightly stupid (but eager to please), as she fails to grasp Petyr's sarcasm and takes his derisive joke about gulls' eggs and seaweed soup as an order:

"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home. When I break my fast on gulls' eggs and seaweed soup, I'll be certain of it."
"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.
Lord Petyr made a face.

Then there is the captain daughter's resume:

"I'd work in your castle, milord. I can clean fish and bake bread and churn butter. Father says my peppercrab stew is the best he's ever tasted. You could find me a place in your kitchens and I could make you peppercrab stew."

This surely prefigures what we're told about Grisel making a sea-based soup of her own (i.e. the just mentioned "seaweed soup"), baking bread, and churning butter for Petyr:

Grisel reappeared before he could say more, balancing a large platter. She set it down between them. … The old woman had brought a round of bread as well, and a crock of butter.
Grisel climbed up to the bedchamber to serve the lord and lady a tray of morning bread, with butter, honey, fruit, and cream.

Where Grisel used to be Petyr's wet nurse, Theon suckles the captain daughter's nipple as if she's a wet nurse:

Theon's finger circled one heavy teat, spiraling in toward the fat brown nipple. … He took her nipple in his mouth….
"You can put it in me again, if it please you," she whispered in his ear as he sucked.

And finally, where Theon kisses the captain's daughter on the ear—

[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear.

—Littlefinger kisses Grisel on the cheek:

Oswell and Lothor splashed their way ashore, as did Littlefinger himself. He gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one.

Helya & Grisel (& Gretchel)

Grisel also rhymes with and reworks Helya, who keeps Balon's castle:

A bentback old crone in a shapeless grey dress approached him warily. "M'lord, I am sent to show you to chambers."
"And who are you?"
"Helya, who keeps this castle for your lord father."

Get it? "Helya and Grisel", a la "Hansel and Gretel".
(Gretel is a variant of "Greta". "Grisel" sounds like gristle, whereas in Hansel and Gretel the witch is trying to fatten Hansel up — she don't want no stringy meat! Note the thematic symmetry as well: By treating Hansel kindly and feeding him delicious treats, the witch is essentially "grooming" him for her own benefit/consumption, as Theon and Petyr groom the captain's daughter and Sansa, respectively, for their own benefit. Finally, note that "pebbles" are a key motif in Hansel and Gretel, prefiguring the proliferation of "pebbles" on Pyke, the 'rhyming' "pellets" on Petyr's Finger, and the isle of "Pebble" that leads to Petyr's Finger.)
The two "old" castle keepers neatly invert one another. Consider Grisel's comments about the old rushes and fire in Petyr's tower:

"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung."

That's a recursive reversal of Helya's (lack of) preparation for Theon's visit: Where Grisel has a fire going even though she didn't know Petyr was coming, and where she proactively apologizes for not changing the rushes, telling him "we would have laid down fresh rushes… if we knew you were coming", Helya neither lit a fire nor changed the heavily foregrounded "old and brittle" rushes in the rooms Theon is given—

"I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. "See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."

—despite having ample forewarning of his coming:

It was not as though they had no word of his arrival. Robb had sent ravens from Riverrun, and… Jason Mallister had sent his own birds to Pyke….

The joke is underlined by the introduction of "Gretchel" — Gretel with a borrowed H from Helya/Hansel — who fetches washbasins of water (which, see below), "la[ys] a fire in the hearth" and "tend[s] to the fire", brings food and discusses food storage in Petyr's Eyrie in AFFC Sansa I & Alayne I. (In other words, she 'keeps his castle.')

'Rhyming' Interiors

That's just the beginning of the reversals in the many recursions between Theon's lodgings at Pyke and Sansa's in the Drearfort.
Where Helya leads Theon to his rooms on his orders—

"Show me to my chambers, woman," he commanded. Bowing stiffly, [Helya] led him across the headland to the bridge. …
Whenever he'd imagined his homecoming, he had always pictured himself returning to the snug bedchamber in the Sea Tower, where he'd slept as a child. Instead the old woman led him to the Bloody Keep.

—it's Petyr who leads the way into his tower, casually inviting Grisel (and everyone else) to follow him:

"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.
Lord Petyr made a face. "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." He led them up the strand…

Petyr jokes about his hall being "dreary", and perhaps it is, but while it's "small" and "even smaller" within, his tower is also home to his servants, and hence very well lived-in.

Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs. Above that was a modest hall, and higher still the bedchamber.

(Note that the "mastiff", which we see as Petyr leads Grisel in, recalls Helya bowing "stiffly" before leading Theon to his rooms.)
This sharply reverses the situation Theon finds at Pyke, when he's deposited not in a single room shared by a bunch of people who've lived in it forever and warmed by a hearth with a burning fire, a la Sansa, nor in the "snug bedchamber" in the Sea Tower he'd anticipated (which sounds like Littlefinger's little "tower" by the sea), but in the Bloody Keep, in a whole-ass "suite" of large but "chilly", even "cold" rooms with incredibly high ceilings — rooms which haven't even been opened, much less lived-in, for "years", and which are the very definition of "dreary":

The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp. Theon was given a suite of chilly rooms with ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom. [Omitted but see below.]
[Omitted but see below.] It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste. The wall hangings were green with mildew, the mattress musty-smelling and sagging, the rushes old and brittle. Years had come and gone since these chambers had last been opened. The damp went bone deep. "I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."

A ton of the motifs here (including the omitted stuff, which I'll return to) get recycled and reworked in Petyr's tower.
Most obviously, Theon's request for hot water prefigures Sansa's request for a hot bath:

"Might I have a hot bath as well?" asked Sansa.
"I'll have Kella draw some water, m'lady."

Note that Kella fulfills the request, not Grisel. This 'fits', as it's not Helya who brings Theon's water, but "two thralls".
Note also that Sansa requests her bath after thinking…

She desperately needed a bath and a change of clothes.

…whereas Theon changes his clothes immediately after the quoted passages.
Slightly less obviously, the "wall hangings [that] were green with mildew" are reworked by Petyr's own green 'wall hanging': his grandfather's shield, which is painted with a "light green field" and which "hung… above the hearth". The "mildew" is reworked by the fact that the paint is "cracked and flaking" i.e. flawed. And maybe also by the "light green field", since a field grows crops which get milled and which get dewy.

Brittle Bryen's Brigantine, Brindled Mastiff, & Old Blind Dog

As mentioned, the motif of unchanged rushes from Theon's homecoming recurs when Petyr comes home. But Petyr's homecoming also lexically riffs on Theon's rushes being quote-unquote "old and brittle" by giving us Bryen in "brigantine" who is very "old" but not, seemingly, brittle, as he still walks watches, not with his "old blind dog", but with a "brindled mastiff":

"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. He looked to be at least eighty, but he wore a studded brigantine and a longsword at his side. …
"Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord. You said you'd be getting some more men too, but you never did. Me and the dogs stand all the watches."
Sansa found Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps…
The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.

Is the brindled dog a "mastiff" 'only' a wink at Theon going mast-stiff for Asha? (See Part 4.) Maybe. But it's worth mentioning that when Theon is first being stirred by Pyke's banner and it's being battered about like the shield we see in the Drearfort three sentences after the mastiff, it's also (a) flying from a very stiff "mast" and (b) juxtaposed with a very large 'dog' of sorts:

The banner streamed from an iron mast, shivering and twisting as the wind gusted like a bird struggling to take flight. And here at least the direwolf of Stark did not fly above, casting its shadow down upon the Greyjoy kraken.

Musty Old Mattresses

The old, "musty-smelling and sagging" mattress (in the chamber that has just been re-opened after long periods of being closed and uninhabited) from Theon's homecoming is answered in Petyr's homecomiong by Lysa, who arrives a few pages later in the chapter, eager to finally have sex again with Petyr. "Mattress" is slang for a sexually available woman (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mattress) and Lysa sags—

Lady Lysa was two years younger than Mother, but this woman looked ten years older. Thick auburn tresses fell down past her waist, but beneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged.

—and smells stale. (Note that Lysa is on a mattress here.)

Her aunt was drenched in sweet scent, though under that was a sour milky smell. Her cheek tasted of paint and powder.

Lysa's "cheek tast[ing] of paint and powder" riffs on the line about Theon's "distaste" and "fear of ghosts":

It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste.

The distaste wordplay is obvious: Lysa tastes bad. As for the "fear of ghosts", Lysa (whom Sansa fears) being covered in "powder" reminds us of Sansa being afraid of a "spirit" covered in powdery flour:

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs…. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. (AGOT Arya IV)

This line—

The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp.

—is reworked by Lysa as well, who is big and well-dressed ("better furnished", so to speak)—

[B]eneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.

—but cold to Sansa and horny/wet/"damp" for Petyr.
Given that Theon's rooms are in several ways like Lysa (newly 'open for business' after a long period of being closed and untouched by men, etc.), and pronouncing aunt like antler, we also might say that where the Lysa-like rooms are "cold" and "damp", Lysa herself is Sansa's "cold" aunt. Rhyming 'rhyming'.
That "years had come and gone since" the room with the Lysa-like mattress "had last been opened" is reworked not just by Lysa getting laid, but textually when Sansa is told Lysa is coming to the Drearfort (where she is 're-opened', so to speak):

It had been years since Sansa last saw her mother's sister…"

I wonder whether Lysa crying and speaking to Sansa of being "bound by blood" to her—

Tears welled suddenly in Lady Lysa's eyes. "We are women alone now, you and I. Are you afraid, child? Be brave. I would never turn away Cat's daughter. We are bound by blood."

—might not be in part a play on the fact that "the damp went bone deep" in the Bloody Keep. By saying that, Sansa's damp (i.e. crying) aunt "went bone deep", so to speak. (If you're "bound by blood" to someone, you have a "bone deep" bond with them. Also, bone → bound wordplay?)

Braziers → Bracing?

Did Theon's attempt to drive away "the chill" and damp of the salty sea air of Pyke using "braziers"—

See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill.

—inform (via wordplay: braziers → bracing) Petyr's line when the Merling King pulls up to the Drearfort?

Lord Petyr came up beside her, cheerful as ever. "Good morrow. The salt air is bracing, don't you think? It always sharpens my appetite."

And/or is that "sharpening" motif a recursion of Theon sharpening his dirk immediately after said braziers are lit?

After some time, they brought the hot water he had asked for. … While two thralls lit his braziers, Theon stripped off his travel-stained clothing and dressed to meet his father. … He hung a dirk at one hip and a longsword at the other…. Drawing the dirk, he … pulled a whetstone from his belt pouch, and gave it a few licks. He prided himself on keeping his weapons sharp.

Gods Be Good!

The motifs of Theon yelling "gods be good" at his servant and of "ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom" are recursively reworked when Lysa summons Sansa (like a servant) to speak with her the morning after she weds Petyr. Sansa responds to the summons by thinking, verbatim, "gods be good", and is then told they'll be heading to the Eyrie, which we know is "so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds", i.e. it has parapets 'so high that they were lost in the clouds':

Lady Lysa was still abed [like a good mattress!], but Lord Petyr was up and dressed. "Your aunt wishes to speak with you," he told Sansa, as he pulled on a boot. "I've told her who you are."
Gods be good. "I . . . I thank you, my lord."
Petyr yanked on the other boot. "I've had about as much home as I can stomach. We'll leave for the Eyrie this afternoon."
Seven towers, Ned had told her, like white daggers thrust into the belly of the sky, so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds. (AGOT Catelyn VI)

The notion of a "ceiling" so high it is lost in gloom is perhaps also reworked by the story Lysa tells Sansa about Petyr's "rise" to power: She says she "always knew how high [Petyr would] rise", and it's my belief that said rise has likely seen him 'lost', spiritually, in 'darkness'. (Note that ceilings are a frequently invoked metaphor when talking about climbing the corporate ladder.)

"Half his teeth were gone, and his breath smelled like bad cheese. I cannot abide a man with foul breath. Petyr's breath is always fresh . . . he was the first man I ever kissed, you know. My father said he was too lowborn, but I knew how high he'd rise. Jon gave him the customs for Gulltown to please me, but when he increased the incomes tenfold my lord husband saw how clever he was and gave him other appointments, even brought him to King's Landing to be master of coin. That was hard, to see him every day and still be wed to that old cold man.

(Recall that the motif of bad/fresh breath there reworks the "winey stench of the old man's [Sylas Sourmouth's] breath", which Theon thinks about roughly ¼ page prior to being shown his suite in the Bloody Keep.)

Butchered Sons & Brothers

Lysa continues to rant:

"Jon did his duty in the bedchamber, but he could no more give me pleasure than he could give me children. His seed was old and weak. All my babies died but Robert, three girls and two boys. All my sweet little babies dead, and that old man just went on and on with his stinking breath. So you see, I have suffered too." Lady Lysa sniffed. "You do know that your poor mother is dead?"
"Tyrion told me," said Sansa. "He said the Freys murdered her at The Twins, with Robb."

Those references to (a) a bunch of dead "babies", including two brothers, one of which was "murdered" when Lysa's father, Hoster Tully, who ruled the Riverlands, betrayed Lysa's trust; and to (b) foul smelling breath, a la Sylas, and finally to (c) the Red Wedding — a bloody betrayal of Sansa's brother, who was King of the Riverlands — particularly (per Sansa saying "Tyrion told me") as it's described by Tyrion—

Sansa did not need to hear how her brother's body had been hacked and mutilated, he decided; nor how her mother's corpse had been dumped naked into the Green Fork in a savage mockery of House Tully's funeral customs. (ASOS Tyrion VII)

—are one of the ways ASOS Sansa VI rejiggers the part of Theon's description of his Bloody Keep suite I "[omitted]" earlier, which entails betrayals, murdered brothers, a River King, slaughter, and bodies "hacked to bits".

[Theon] might have been more impressed if he had not known that these were the very chambers that had given the Bloody Keep its name. A thousand years before, the sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.
But Greyjoys were not murdered in Pyke except once in a great while by their brothers, and his brothers were both dead.

Lysa's speech with its reference to her abortion and to the Red Wedding (and to stink-breath like Sylas's) isn't the only (or even the main) way Petyr's homecoming chapter refracts those images from Theon's homecoming, though.
Littlefinger is himself a kind of River King (as Lord Paramount of the Trident), right? And note that we read all about his "slaughtered" "sons" just before he enters the tower, wherein we then see the foul betrayers who murdered their 'brothers'. I'm talking, of course, about his sheep and his sheepdogs:

"How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"
… "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home.…" … "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." … A handful of sheep were wandering about the base of the flint tower…. …
Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.

Note the kitchen, recalling that the Bloody Keep is paired with the Kitchen Keep as Theon first gazes on Pyke:

Farther out were the Kitchen Keep and the Bloody Keep, each on its own island.

Note, too, that the sheep are coded as Petyr's "sons", in a way (a la the "slaughtered… sons of the River King" Theon remembers in his Bloody Tower rooms), and not just because he owns them. He says that Kella has lots of bastards and that she minds his sheep, right? And what else does he say of Kella, in jest? That she 'is' the "mother" of his "daughter," "Alayne Stone":

"Alayne . . . Stone, would it be?" When he nodded, she said, "But who is my mother?"
"Kella?"
"Please no," she said, mortified.
"I was teasing.

The joke foregrounds the notion of Petyr as the father of Kella's children. And while she supposedly has a bunch of bastards, we don't see them. We just see the one girl with the livestock-evoking eye with a sty. It's almost like the sheep she looks after are her children. And thus like Petyr is their father.
(Note the word "mortified". This points straight back to Theon in his Bloody Tower for two reasons: First, greyscale, which mortifies the flesh, killed Balon's brother Harlon, who died "in a windowless tower room" at Pyke. Second: Theon will, in his next chapter, be truly mortified by the realization that "Esgred" is his sister Asha, where that masquerade in turn prefigures Sansa masquerading as Alayne.)
So the "cold" Bloody Keep with its partner the Kitchen Keep and its story of a "slaughter", betrayal, brother killing brother, a River King's sons' bodies "hacked to bits in their beds" — all these motifs are reworked by Kella's account of one of Lord Paramount Petyr's sheep-'sons' being killed by its lexicial 'brothers', the very "sheep-dogs" who were supposed to guard it, and of other sheep-'sons' being verbatim "butchered", i.e. slaughtered on a killing bed and in the process surely hacked into pieces that were then preserved against spoilage for future consumption, such that the resulting "cold salt mutton" could be used as travel rations. Which jibes with Theon's language, creatively interpreted:

[T]he sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.

(They were slaughtered and hacked to bits only so as to properly preserve them against spoilage during their upcoming journey "back to their father on the mainland", you see!)

Theon's Honor Guard

The conditions in Theon's rooms are consistent with the cold welcome he receives, both from Aeron—

The priest's manner was chilly, most unlike the man Theon remembered.

—and Balon—

Theon pulled off his gloves. "… Why is my father not here to greet me?"
"He awaits you in the Sea Tower, m'lord. When you are rested from your trip."
And I thought Ned Stark cold.

—and they're thus part of a broad yin/yang 'rhyme' with Petyr's initial homecoming, which is warm and welcoming and full of familiar faces, whereas Theon knows no one, such that he thinks:

It is as if I were a stranger here….

The reversal is wryly underlined when Petyr is greeted at the shore by his "captain of the guards", Bryen:

"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man.

Thus Petyr ironically gets the "honor guard" welcome Theon hoped he'd get on his arrival 'home':

[Theon] saw… no honor guard waiting to escort him from Lordsport to Pyke, only smallfolk going about their small business.

Notice that where no one stops what they're doing for Theon, everyone stops when Petyr arrives. And of course, everyone in his household recognizes him, whereas no one recognizes Theon. Which is telling, because in a deep sense, that's all Theon really wants, deep down: a little recognition.
Littlefinger has it… but it's not enough.

(SUB)SERIES CONCLUDES IN PART 10: Oswell & Aeron; Lothar & Dagmer; The Closing Twist

This post is part of a series looking at the massive amount of 'rhyming' (and occasionally rhyming) recursivity I believe exists between (a) the homecoming of Petyr Baelish to the Fingers and (b) the homecoming of Theon Greyjoy to Pyke.
While this series/post can be read simply as a study 'for its own sake' of the curious recursion between these storylines, it is my belief that the 'rhyming' explored here between the stories of Petyr and Theon exists (at least in part) to foreshadow that, like Theon, Petyr Littlefinger, is (among other things) a scion of ironborn kings, because Petyr is Hoare-ish: I.e. because Petyr's blood is (in some part) the blood of the ironborn kings of House Hoare of Orkmont and, later, Harrenhal.
You can find an index of every post I've made on the topic of a Hoare-ish Littlefinger (including every post in this sub-series) [HERE].
Even if I'm wrong about Littlefinger's lineage, the 'rhyming' recursivity between the homecomings of Theon and Petyr detailed in this series remains, and certainly merits attention.
NOTE: In what follows, all uncited quotes are from ASOS Sansa VI, which describes Petyr's homecoming to his "Drearfort" tower of the 'Smallest Finger', or ACOK Theon I, which describes Theon's homecoming to "drear" Pyke.
As in past posts, I sometimes use "→" as shorthand for "'prefigures' and/or 'informs' and/or 'is reworked by' and/or 'finds a recursive rhyme in'.
As in: ACOK Theon I → ASOS Sansa VI.
This post picks up straight-away from where Part 8 left off. You can read Part 8 [HERE].
If you want to begin at the beginning, Part 1 is [HERE].

The Myraham's Prophetic Cargo

After Theon makes port, the captain of the Myraham announces his cargo to the people on the docks of Lordport and we read about the offloading of the Myraham:

"We're out of Oldtown," the captain called down, "bearing apples and oranges, wines from the Arbor, feathers from the Summer Isles. I have pepper, woven leathers, a bolt of Myrish lace, mirrors for milady, a pair of Oldtown woodharps sweet as any you ever heard." The gangplank descended with a creak and a thud. "And I've brought your heir back to you."

Most of what we read there seems to be reworked in and around Littlefinger's homecoming in ASOS Sansa VI, when the Merling King brings the Dreadfort its heir, Littlefinger, as well as the seeming heir to Winterfell, Sansa. This begins with the Arbor wine and fruit we see off-loaded from the Merling King:

Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions. Among the loads he brought ashore were several casks of wine. Petyr poured Sansa a cup, as promised. …
… The wine was very fine; an Arbor vintage, she thought. It tasted of oak and fruit and hot summer nights, the flavors blossoming in her mouth like flowers opening to the sun. She only prayed that she could keep it down. Lord Petyr was being so kind, she did not want to spoil it all by retching on him.
… "Grisel," he called to the old woman, "bring some food up. … Oswell's brought some oranges and pomegranates from the King." …
Grisel reappeared…, balancing a large platter. … There were apples and pears and pomegranates, some sad-looking grapes, a huge blood orange.

Besides the straight repetition of Arbor wine, oranges, apples, and heirs, the repeated Oldtown motif is baldly reworked by Sansa's description of the wine, which is patently Oldtown-summer-esque, per the only substantive pre-AFFC description of Oldtown, which associates it with hot, fruity summer nights:

"King Maekar's summer was hotter than this one, and near as long. … [T]he heat was fierce while it lasted. Oldtown… came alive only by night. … I remember the smells of those nights, my lord—perfume and sweat, melons ripe to bursting, peaches and pomegranates, nightshade and moonbloom." (AGOT Eddard V)

The Myraham's "mirrors for milady" prefigure Sansa being figuratively groomed by Petyr and literally grooming herself in Petyr's Eyrie after he takes over:

When Gretchel fetched her Lysa's silvered looking glass, the color seemed just perfect with Alayne's mass of dark brown hair. (AFFC Alayne I)

The Myraham's "woodharps sweet as any you ever heard" presage Sansa being attacked by Marillion, whose "voice was strong and sweet", (AFFC Sansa I) after he sings a song (about blowjobs?) called "Milady's Supper" (supper a la the Myraham-ish fruit Sansa eats for supper when she lands) during Petyr's wedding bedding:

Lady Lysa's singer launched into a bawdy version of "Milady's Supper"….

The Myraham's "woven leathers" and "Myrish lace" are reworked into the "laces unlaced" i.e. unwoven during said wedding:

By the time they had gotten him into the tower and out of his clothes, the other women were flushed, with laces unlaced, kirtles crooked, and skirts in disarray.

That it's a "bolt of Myrish lace" is interesting: After Sansa boards the Merling King, she sees a singular "bolt" from a crossbow strike Dontos, and then two more:

Lothor Brune dipped his torch. Three men stepped to the gunwale, raised crossbows, fired. One bolt took Dontos in the chest as he looked up…. The others ripped into throat and belly. (ASOS Sansa V)

Three crossbow bolts? What does that remind us if not… a Myrish crossbow:

"The king is playing with his new crossbow," Tyrion said. Ridding himself of Joffrey had required only an ungainly Myrish crossbow that threw three quarrels at a time…. (ACOK Tyrion VI)

What about the Myraham's "pepper"? I suspect this gets box-checked first by Sansa trying not to "retch" as she is off-loaded along with the wine with which Littlefinger tries to settle her tummy, as just two chapters later peppers are tightly linked to "retching" of the sort Sansa feels like doing:

[Tyrion] found himself on his knees retching… that double helping of fried eggs cooked up with onions and fiery Dornish peppers. (ASOS Tyrion X)

GRRM seems to play off the "pepper" motif in other ways, as well. Consider that the gathering to meet the Myraham and the shouted questions that prompt her captain to announce her cargo—

A handful of Lordsport merchants had gathered to meet the ship. They shouted questions as the Myraham was tying up.

—get reworked by Petyr's household all gathering "to meet" the Merling King and by their peppering one another with questions:

Servants emerged from the tower to meet them; a thin old woman and a fat middle-aged one, two ancient white-haired men, and a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye. When they recognized Lord Petyr they knelt on the rocks. "My household," he said. "I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."

She's a "popper", then, in case we didn't catch that retching → peppers. (This also reworks Theon "popping one off" with the captain's daughter, who is in many ways reworked by Kella, as will be discussed below.)

… [Petyr]… gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one. "Who fathered this one, Kella?"
The fat woman laughed. "I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."
"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. … "How long will you be in residence?"
"As short a time as possible, Bryen, have no fear. Is the place habitable just now, would you say?"
"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung." Petyr turned to Sansa. "Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now. Umfred's my steward, and Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord.…"
… Petyr gestured toward the fat woman. "Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"

A gathering, and questions, questions, questions, as when Theon docks.
Recall that Bryen and Umfred come from shore to offload Sansa (who's just been promised a cup of wine to help with her upset "tummy") from the Merling King's rowboat:

The two old men waded out up to their thighs to lift Sansa from the boat so she would not get her skirts wet.

This reworks the "shorehands… off-loading… casks of wine" from a Tyroshi trader docked with the Myraham—

[Theon] spied a Tyroshi trading galley off-loading…
Shorehands rolled casks of wine off the Tyroshi trader, fisherfolk cried the day's catch, children ran and played. A priest in the seawater robes of the Drowned God was leading a pair of horses along the pebbled shore, while above him a slattern leaned out a window in the inn, calling out to some passing Ibbenese sailors.

—which itself prefigures the above-quoted off-loading of the Merling King (when "Oswell made two more trips out to the Merling King to offload provisions" including "several casks of wine", from which Petyr immediately "poured Sansa a cup, as promised").

Kella & The Slattern

What about that "slattern lean[ing] out a window" to greet "some passing… sailors" while "children ran and played"? I submit that she is one of several motifs from Theon's homecoming prefiguring Petyr's servant Kella. I'll explain.
Consider that Petyr's servant Kella has many bastards i.e. children, popping one out every few years:

"I don't know the child. Another of Kella's bastards, I suppose. She pops one out every few years."

We only see one; presumably the others are off somewhere, running and playing, perhaps.
Kella happily greets Petyr as he comes ashore, much as Lordsport's slattern "call[s] out to some passing Ibbenese sailors". Note that the sailors on the Merling King are likewise 'passing' — passing through:

"From here the King turns east for Braavos. Without us."

Consider most of all that Kella's something of a slattern herself: She's "not one for telling them no".

"I can't rightly say, m'lord. I'm not one for telling them no."
"And all the local lads are grateful, I am quite sure."

Indeed, something Lysa says pretty clearly codes Kella as a verbatim "slattern", underlining the recursion:

"How would you like to spend your life on that bleak shore, surrounded by slatterns and sheep pellets?" (ASOS Sansa VII)

So I think the vignette with the slattern and the children in Lordsport pretty plainly prefigures Kella. But I think she's prefigured by two more pieces of Theon's homecoming.

Kella & The Captain's Daughter

Keeping in mind that Kella has a bunch of bastards ("she pops one out every few years) and that she's "not one for telling them no", consider also that she is (a) literally 'with child' — or rather, with a child—

a girl of two or three with a sty on one eye

—that she's (b) "fat"—

"Who fathered this one, Kella?"
The fat woman laughed.

—and that she's (c) coded as a bit stupid:

"Kella minds my vast herds. How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"
She had to think a moment. "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."

All like Theon's "captain's daughter".
The captain's daughter is "plump", as Kella is "fat":

The girl was a shade plump for his taste…

She is likely pregnant with Theon's bastard, a la Kella the bastard-popper.
She tells Theon…

"You can put it in me again, if it please you…"

…and accedes to his request for a blowjob, so she's "not one for telling them no."
She thereby helps Theon 'pop one off', a la Kella "pop[ping] one out".
Like Kella, she seems a bit stupid:

She looked rather stupid when she smiled, but he had never required a woman to be clever.
The stupid girl did not seem to be listening.
She… learned quickly for such a stupid girl….
She looked at him stupidly, so he left her there.

And finally, she offers to work in Theon's castle—

I'd work in your castle, milord.

—just as Kella works for Petyr.

Kella: The Spreading Patch of the Smallest Finger?

Besides the "slattern" and the captain's daughter, I suspect Kella may also riff on — of all things — the "spreading patches" of "lichen" on "wet" Pyke as Theon sails by:

[Pyke was] wet by the same salt waves, festooned with the same spreading patches of dark green lichen, speckled by the droppings of the same seabirds.

Get it? A spreading 'patch'? In combination with "lichen" a la "licking" and Pyke being "wet"? And not just wet, but "wet by… salt waves", when as we know from the captain's daughter, semen tastes "salty", "like the sea". It's like Pyke is being described as a turned-on "slattern" with her legs spread.
A Hoare, we might say.
This connects to Kella, specifically because of her name: Kella is a near anagram for "kale", a dark green plant, like the "dark green lichen".
Actually, the name Kella may have anothere precursor in Theon's story: "Qalen", the maester Theon asks Helya about upon his arrival at Pyke:

"And what of Maester Qalen, where is he?"

Qalen would be pronounced Kalen. Qalen → Kalen → Kale → Kela → Kella. Anyway…

Grisel & The Captain's Daughter

Something similar is going on with Petyr's servant Grisel, the "thin old woman" who was his wet nurse but who "keeps [his] castle now":

"Grisel was my wet nurse, but she keeps my castle now.

Grisel is similarly prefigured by two people from Theon's homecoming, including first the captain's daughter who wants to work in Theon's castle as Grisel works in Petyr's "castle".
Consider first that Grisel, like the captain's daughter, seems slightly stupid (but eager to please), as she fails to grasp Petyr's sarcasm and takes his derisive joke about gulls' eggs and seaweed soup as an order:

"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home. When I break my fast on gulls' eggs and seaweed soup, I'll be certain of it."
"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.
Lord Petyr made a face.

Then there is the captain daughter's resume:

"I'd work in your castle, milord. I can clean fish and bake bread and churn butter. Father says my peppercrab stew is the best he's ever tasted. You could find me a place in your kitchens and I could make you peppercrab stew."

This surely prefigures what we're told about Grisel making a sea-based soup of her own (i.e. the just mentioned "seaweed soup"), baking bread, and churning butter for Petyr:

Grisel reappeared before he could say more, balancing a large platter. She set it down between them. … The old woman had brought a round of bread as well, and a crock of butter.
Grisel climbed up to the bedchamber to serve the lord and lady a tray of morning bread, with butter, honey, fruit, and cream.

Where Grisel used to be Petyr's wet nurse, Theon suckles the captain daughter's nipple as if she's a wet nurse:

Theon's finger circled one heavy teat, spiraling in toward the fat brown nipple. … He took her nipple in his mouth….
"You can put it in me again, if it please you," she whispered in his ear as he sucked.

And finally, where Theon kisses the captain's daughter on the ear—

[Theon] drew the captain's daughter close and kissed her on her ear.

—Littlefinger kisses Grisel on the cheek:

Oswell and Lothor splashed their way ashore, as did Littlefinger himself. He gave the old woman a kiss on the cheek and grinned at the younger one.

Helya & Grisel (& Gretchel)

Grisel also rhymes with and reworks Helya, who keeps Balon's castle:

A bentback old crone in a shapeless grey dress approached him warily. "M'lord, I am sent to show you to chambers."
"And who are you?"
"Helya, who keeps this castle for your lord father."

Get it? "Helya and Grisel", a la "Hansel and Gretel".
(Gretel is a variant of "Greta". "Grisel" sounds like gristle, whereas in Hansel and Gretel the witch is trying to fatten Hansel up — she don't want no stringy meat! Note the thematic symmetry as well: By treating Hansel kindly and feeding him delicious treats, the witch is essentially "grooming" him for her own benefit/consumption, as Theon and Petyr groom the captain's daughter and Sansa, respectively, for their own benefit. Finally, note that "pebbles" are a key motif in Hansel and Gretel, prefiguring the proliferation of "pebbles" on Pyke, the 'rhyming' "pellets" on Petyr's Finger, and the isle of "Pebble" that leads to Petyr's Finger.)
The two "old" castle keepers neatly invert one another. Consider Grisel's comments about the old rushes and fire in Petyr's tower:

"If we knew you was coming we would have laid down fresh rushes, m'lord," said the crone. "There's a dung fire burning."
"Nothing says home like the smell of burning dung."

That's a recursive reversal of Helya's (lack of) preparation for Theon's visit: Where Grisel has a fire going even though she didn't know Petyr was coming, and where she proactively apologizes for not changing the rushes, telling him "we would have laid down fresh rushes… if we knew you were coming", Helya neither lit a fire nor changed the heavily foregrounded "old and brittle" rushes in the rooms Theon is given—

"I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. "See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."

—despite having ample forewarning of his coming:

It was not as though they had no word of his arrival. Robb had sent ravens from Riverrun, and… Jason Mallister had sent his own birds to Pyke….

The joke is underlined by the introduction of "Gretchel" — Gretel with a borrowed H from Helya/Hansel — who fetches washbasins of water (which, see below), "la[ys] a fire in the hearth" and "tend[s] to the fire", brings food and discusses food storage in Petyr's Eyrie in AFFC Sansa I & Alayne I. (In other words, she 'keeps his castle.')

'Rhyming' Interiors

That's just the beginning of the reversals in the many recursions between Theon's lodgings at Pyke and Sansa's in the Drearfort.
Where Helya leads Theon to his rooms on his orders—

"Show me to my chambers, woman," he commanded. Bowing stiffly, [Helya] led him across the headland to the bridge. …
Whenever he'd imagined his homecoming, he had always pictured himself returning to the snug bedchamber in the Sea Tower, where he'd slept as a child. Instead the old woman led him to the Bloody Keep.

—it's Petyr who leads the way into his tower, casually inviting Grisel (and everyone else) to follow him:

"If you like, m'lord," said the old woman Grisel.
Lord Petyr made a face. "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." He led them up the strand…

Petyr jokes about his hall being "dreary", and perhaps it is, but while it's "small" and "even smaller" within, his tower is also home to his servants, and hence very well lived-in.

Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs. Above that was a modest hall, and higher still the bedchamber.

(Note that the "mastiff", which we see as Petyr leads Grisel in, recalls Helya bowing "stiffly" before leading Theon to his rooms.)
This sharply reverses the situation Theon finds at Pyke, when he's deposited not in a single room shared by a bunch of people who've lived in it forever and warmed by a hearth with a burning fire, a la Sansa, nor in the "snug bedchamber" in the Sea Tower he'd anticipated (which sounds like Littlefinger's little "tower" by the sea), but in the Bloody Keep, in a whole-ass "suite" of large but "chilly", even "cold" rooms with incredibly high ceilings — rooms which haven't even been opened, much less lived-in, for "years", and which are the very definition of "dreary":

The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp. Theon was given a suite of chilly rooms with ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom. [Omitted but see below.]
[Omitted but see below.] It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste. The wall hangings were green with mildew, the mattress musty-smelling and sagging, the rushes old and brittle. Years had come and gone since these chambers had last been opened. The damp went bone deep. "I'll have a basin of hot water and a fire in this hearth," he told the crone. See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill. And gods be good, get someone in here at once to change these rushes."

A ton of the motifs here (including the omitted stuff, which I'll return to) get recycled and reworked in Petyr's tower.
Most obviously, Theon's request for hot water prefigures Sansa's request for a hot bath:

"Might I have a hot bath as well?" asked Sansa.
"I'll have Kella draw some water, m'lady."

Note that Kella fulfills the request, not Grisel. This 'fits', as it's not Helya who brings Theon's water, but "two thralls".
Note also that Sansa requests her bath after thinking…

She desperately needed a bath and a change of clothes.

…whereas Theon changes his clothes immediately after the quoted passages.
Slightly less obviously, the "wall hangings [that] were green with mildew" are reworked by Petyr's own green 'wall hanging': his grandfather's shield, which is painted with a "light green field" and which "hung… above the hearth". The "mildew" is reworked by the fact that the paint is "cracked and flaking" i.e. flawed. And maybe also by the "light green field", since a field grows crops which get milled and which get dewy.

Brittle Bryen's Brigantine, Brindled Mastiff, & Old Blind Dog

As mentioned, the motif of unchanged rushes from Theon's homecoming recurs when Petyr comes home. But Petyr's homecoming also lexically riffs on Theon's rushes being quote-unquote "old and brittle" by giving us Bryen in "brigantine" who is very "old" but not, seemingly, brittle, as he still walks watches, not with his "old blind dog", but with a "brindled mastiff":

"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man. He looked to be at least eighty, but he wore a studded brigantine and a longsword at his side. …
"Bryen—didn't I name you captain of the guard the last time I was here?"
"You did, my lord. You said you'd be getting some more men too, but you never did. Me and the dogs stand all the watches."
Sansa found Bryen's old blind dog in her little alcove beneath the steps…
The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.

Is the brindled dog a "mastiff" 'only' a wink at Theon going mast-stiff for Asha? (See Part 4.) Maybe. But it's worth mentioning that when Theon is first being stirred by Pyke's banner and it's being battered about like the shield we see in the Drearfort three sentences after the mastiff, it's also (a) flying from a very stiff "mast" and (b) juxtaposed with a very large 'dog' of sorts:

The banner streamed from an iron mast, shivering and twisting as the wind gusted like a bird struggling to take flight. And here at least the direwolf of Stark did not fly above, casting its shadow down upon the Greyjoy kraken.

Musty Old Mattresses

The old, "musty-smelling and sagging" mattress (in the chamber that has just been re-opened after long periods of being closed and uninhabited) from Theon's homecoming is answered in Petyr's homecomiong by Lysa, who arrives a few pages later in the chapter, eager to finally have sex again with Petyr. "Mattress" is slang for a sexually available woman (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mattress) and Lysa sags—

Lady Lysa was two years younger than Mother, but this woman looked ten years older. Thick auburn tresses fell down past her waist, but beneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged.

—and smells stale. (Note that Lysa is on a mattress here.)

Her aunt was drenched in sweet scent, though under that was a sour milky smell. Her cheek tasted of paint and powder.

Lysa's "cheek tast[ing] of paint and powder" riffs on the line about Theon's "distaste" and "fear of ghosts":

It was not fear of ghosts that made him glance about with distaste.

The distaste wordplay is obvious: Lysa tastes bad. As for the "fear of ghosts", Lysa (whom Sansa fears) being covered in "powder" reminds us of Sansa being afraid of a "spirit" covered in powdery flour:

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs…. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. (AGOT Arya IV)

This line—

The halls here were larger and better furnished, if no less cold nor damp.

—is reworked by Lysa as well, who is big and well-dressed ("better furnished", so to speak)—

[B]eneath the costly velvet gown and jeweled bodice her body sagged and bulged. Her face was pink and painted, her breasts heavy, her limbs thick. She was taller than Littlefinger, and heavier; nor did she show any grace in the clumsy way she climbed down off her horse.

—but cold to Sansa and horny/wet/"damp" for Petyr.
Given that Theon's rooms are in several ways like Lysa (newly 'open for business' after a long period of being closed and untouched by men, etc.), and pronouncing aunt like antler, we also might say that where the Lysa-like rooms are "cold" and "damp", Lysa herself is Sansa's "cold" aunt. Rhyming 'rhyming'.
That "years had come and gone since" the room with the Lysa-like mattress "had last been opened" is reworked not just by Lysa getting laid, but textually when Sansa is told Lysa is coming to the Drearfort (where she is 're-opened', so to speak):

It had been years since Sansa last saw her mother's sister…"

I wonder whether Lysa crying and speaking to Sansa of being "bound by blood" to her—

Tears welled suddenly in Lady Lysa's eyes. "We are women alone now, you and I. Are you afraid, child? Be brave. I would never turn away Cat's daughter. We are bound by blood."

—might not be in part a play on the fact that "the damp went bone deep" in the Bloody Keep. By saying that, Sansa's damp (i.e. crying) aunt "went bone deep", so to speak. (If you're "bound by blood" to someone, you have a "bone deep" bond with them. Also, bone → bound wordplay?)

Braziers → Bracing?

Did Theon's attempt to drive away "the chill" and damp of the salty sea air of Pyke using "braziers"—

See that they light braziers in the other rooms to drive out some of the chill.

—inform (via wordplay: braziers → bracing) Petyr's line when the Merling King pulls up to the Drearfort?

Lord Petyr came up beside her, cheerful as ever. "Good morrow. The salt air is bracing, don't you think? It always sharpens my appetite."

And/or is that "sharpening" motif a recursion of Theon sharpening his dirk immediately after said braziers are lit?

After some time, they brought the hot water he had asked for. … While two thralls lit his braziers, Theon stripped off his travel-stained clothing and dressed to meet his father. … He hung a dirk at one hip and a longsword at the other…. Drawing the dirk, he … pulled a whetstone from his belt pouch, and gave it a few licks. He prided himself on keeping his weapons sharp.

Gods Be Good!

The motifs of Theon yelling "gods be good" at his servant and of "ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom" are recursively reworked when Lysa summons Sansa (like a servant) to speak with her the morning after she weds Petyr. Sansa responds to the summons by thinking, verbatim, "gods be good", and is then told they'll be heading to the Eyrie, which we know is "so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds", i.e. it has parapets 'so high that they were lost in the clouds':

Lady Lysa was still abed [like a good mattress!], but Lord Petyr was up and dressed. "Your aunt wishes to speak with you," he told Sansa, as he pulled on a boot. "I've told her who you are."
Gods be good. "I . . . I thank you, my lord."
Petyr yanked on the other boot. "I've had about as much home as I can stomach. We'll leave for the Eyrie this afternoon."
Seven towers, Ned had told her, like white daggers thrust into the belly of the sky, so high you can stand on the parapets and look down on the clouds. (AGOT Catelyn VI)

The notion of a "ceiling" so high it is lost in gloom is perhaps also reworked by the story Lysa tells Sansa about Petyr's "rise" to power: She says she "always knew how high [Petyr would] rise", and it's my belief that said rise has likely seen him 'lost', spiritually, in 'darkness'. (Note that ceilings are a frequently invoked metaphor when talking about climbing the corporate ladder.)

"Half his teeth were gone, and his breath smelled like bad cheese. I cannot abide a man with foul breath. Petyr's breath is always fresh . . . he was the first man I ever kissed, you know. My father said he was too lowborn, but I knew how high he'd rise. Jon gave him the customs for Gulltown to please me, but when he increased the incomes tenfold my lord husband saw how clever he was and gave him other appointments, even brought him to King's Landing to be master of coin. That was hard, to see him every day and still be wed to that old cold man.

(Recall that the motif of bad/fresh breath there reworks the "winey stench of the old man's [Sylas Sourmouth's] breath", which Theon thinks about roughly ¼ page prior to being shown his suite in the Bloody Keep.)

Butchered Sons & Brothers

Lysa continues to rant:

"Jon did his duty in the bedchamber, but he could no more give me pleasure than he could give me children. His seed was old and weak. All my babies died but Robert, three girls and two boys. All my sweet little babies dead, and that old man just went on and on with his stinking breath. So you see, I have suffered too." Lady Lysa sniffed. "You do know that your poor mother is dead?"
"Tyrion told me," said Sansa. "He said the Freys murdered her at The Twins, with Robb."

Those references to (a) a bunch of dead "babies", including two brothers, one of which was "murdered" when Lysa's father, Hoster Tully, who ruled the Riverlands, betrayed Lysa's trust; and to (b) foul smelling breath, a la Sylas, and finally to (c) the Red Wedding — a bloody betrayal of Sansa's brother, who was King of the Riverlands — particularly (per Sansa saying "Tyrion told me") as it's described by Tyrion—

Sansa did not need to hear how her brother's body had been hacked and mutilated, he decided; nor how her mother's corpse had been dumped naked into the Green Fork in a savage mockery of House Tully's funeral customs. (ASOS Tyrion VII)

—are one of the ways ASOS Sansa VI rejiggers the part of Theon's description of his Bloody Keep suite I "[omitted]" earlier, which entails betrayals, murdered brothers, a River King, slaughter, and bodies "hacked to bits".

[Theon] might have been more impressed if he had not known that these were the very chambers that had given the Bloody Keep its name. A thousand years before, the sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.
But Greyjoys were not murdered in Pyke except once in a great while by their brothers, and his brothers were both dead.

Lysa's speech with its reference to her abortion and to the Red Wedding (and to stink-breath like Sylas's) isn't the only (or even the main) way Petyr's homecoming chapter refracts those images from Theon's homecoming, though.
Littlefinger is himself a kind of River King (as Lord Paramount of the Trident), right? And note that we read all about his "slaughtered" "sons" just before he enters the tower, wherein we then see the foul betrayers who murdered their 'brothers'. I'm talking, of course, about his sheep and his sheepdogs:

"How many sheep do I have at present, Kella?"
… "Three and twenty, m'lord. There was nine and twenty, but Bryen's dogs killed one and we butchered some others and salted down the meat."
"Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home.…" … "Come, let's see if my hall is as dreary as I recall." … A handful of sheep were wandering about the base of the flint tower…. …
Within, the tower seemed even smaller. An open stone stair wound round the inside wall, from undercroft to roof. Each floor was but a single room. The servants lived and slept in the kitchen at ground level, sharing the space with a huge brindled mastiff and a half-dozen sheep-dogs.

Note the kitchen, recalling that the Bloody Keep is paired with the Kitchen Keep as Theon first gazes on Pyke:

Farther out were the Kitchen Keep and the Bloody Keep, each on its own island.

Note, too, that the sheep are coded as Petyr's "sons", in a way (a la the "slaughtered… sons of the River King" Theon remembers in his Bloody Tower rooms), and not just because he owns them. He says that Kella has lots of bastards and that she minds his sheep, right? And what else does he say of Kella, in jest? That she 'is' the "mother" of his "daughter," "Alayne Stone":

"Alayne . . . Stone, would it be?" When he nodded, she said, "But who is my mother?"
"Kella?"
"Please no," she said, mortified.
"I was teasing.

The joke foregrounds the notion of Petyr as the father of Kella's children. And while she supposedly has a bunch of bastards, we don't see them. We just see the one girl with the livestock-evoking eye with a sty. It's almost like the sheep she looks after are her children. And thus like Petyr is their father.
(Note the word "mortified". This points straight back to Theon in his Bloody Tower for two reasons: First, greyscale, which mortifies the flesh, killed Balon's brother Harlon, who died "in a windowless tower room" at Pyke. Second: Theon will, in his next chapter, be truly mortified by the realization that "Esgred" is his sister Asha, where that masquerade in turn prefigures Sansa masquerading as Alayne.)
So the "cold" Bloody Keep with its partner the Kitchen Keep and its story of a "slaughter", betrayal, brother killing brother, a River King's sons' bodies "hacked to bits in their beds" — all these motifs are reworked by Kella's account of one of Lord Paramount Petyr's sheep-'sons' being killed by its lexicial 'brothers', the very "sheep-dogs" who were supposed to guard it, and of other sheep-'sons' being verbatim "butchered", i.e. slaughtered on a killing bed and in the process surely hacked into pieces that were then preserved against spoilage for future consumption, such that the resulting "cold salt mutton" could be used as travel rations. Which jibes with Theon's language, creatively interpreted:

[T]he sons of the River King had been slaughtered here, hacked to bits in their beds so that pieces of their bodies might be sent back to their father on the mainland.

(They were slaughtered and hacked to bits only so as to properly preserve them against spoilage during their upcoming journey "back to their father on the mainland", you see!)

Theon's Honor Guard

The conditions in Theon's rooms are consistent with the cold welcome he receives, both from Aeron—

The priest's manner was chilly, most unlike the man Theon remembered.

—and Balon—

Theon pulled off his gloves. "… Why is my father not here to greet me?"
"He awaits you in the Sea Tower, m'lord. When you are rested from your trip."
And I thought Ned Stark cold.

—and they're thus part of a broad yin/yang 'rhyme' with Petyr's initial homecoming, which is warm and welcoming and full of familiar faces, whereas Theon knows no one, such that he thinks:

It is as if I were a stranger here….

The reversal is wryly underlined when Petyr is greeted at the shore by his "captain of the guards", Bryen:

"It is good to have you home, my lord," said one old man.

Thus Petyr ironically gets the "honor guard" welcome Theon hoped he'd get on his arrival 'home':

[Theon] saw… no honor guard waiting to escort him from Lordsport to Pyke, only smallfolk going about their small business.

Notice that where no one stops what they're doing for Theon, everyone stops when Petyr arrives. And of course, everyone in his household recognizes him, whereas no one recognizes Theon. Which is telling, because in a deep sense, that's all Theon really wants, deep down: a little recognition.
Littlefinger has it… but it's not enough.

(SUB)SERIES CONCLUDES IN PART 10: Oswell & Aeron; Lothar & Dagmer; The Closing Twist

What is the best method for making them? I know there’s the double boiler, the crock pot and then stovetop. I have an electric stove and it’s so hard to keep the temperature stable. Are the other methods better?? My stovetop ones turn out fine but I literally have to get up every ten minutes and make sure it’s not over or under heating and it’s kind of annoying.

Has anyone else had this experience of doing compulsions and not even realizing it was a compulsion? I ask because I find that many of my compulsions are so ingrained in my daily life and routine i don’t even notice they are out of the ordinary or could be considered one. For example I was cooking one day and lit my gas stove, turned it off and relit it again because I had to re-light it to make sure there was no gas leak or the house wouldn’t blow up. I didn’t even realize I had re-lit the stove or had this entirely subconscious motivation to my action until an hour later something made me come back to the action and realize it. I find this happens often and i’m always surprised by it, is this a thing that happens to people or just me??? lmao

I know this sounds crazy and my math is gonna be kinda loose, I obviously don't think this is an actual solution, this would never work in reality, vampires like eating people too much and killing each other for this to ever work BUT here me out.
From everything I can find twilight vampires need to feed about twice a month to once a month depending on exertion taking the average just for the math lets say all 8 billion humans are now vampires they now need to feed 1.5 times a month to stay comfortable. They can actually go indefinitely without blood but that would be cruel we want people to be comfortable so 1.5 times a month it is.
8 billion times 1.5 feeds a month times 12 months gives us 144 billion human sized animals or larger that need to be killed a year to feed everyone.
That sounds like a lot however in the U.S.A alone 22.8 billion animals have been killed for food this year and we're only halfway through the year. I'm having a hard time finding world wide stats but if assume the U.S.A will kill about the same number of animals in the second half of the year then that is 45.6 billion animas by the U.S.A alone.
That means the rest of the world needs to only make up 98.6 billion. Given how many animals the U.S.A alone kills I think we can safely assume the rest of the world is already killing that many animals for food a year if not WAY more, so that's pure numbers take care of
Now Obviously not all of those animals are human sized, a large number of those animals will be chickens. HOWEVER I don't think this is that big a problem. Remember humans no longer exist, there are no balanced diets or nutritional or dietary needs to worry about. We can safely take all the resources in the world devoted to raising anything that isn't big enough and convert them to raising animals that are. ALSO farming plants and crops outside of the feed we need for animals is now unnecessary. Humanity likely already has enough farm land to sustain the livestock we are talking about because remember we already kill that many animals a year anyway.
Not needing new farmland means that we no longer cut down 21.8 million acres of rain forest every year saving an unimaginable amount of habitat and allowing those forests to do what they do best and remove carbon from our air.
Speaking of carbon lets talk about how much less of it we would use. A world of vampires would simply have no use for cars on the day to day. Seriously why would you ever drive on a road that constricts you at maybe 80 miles an hour or so when you could run in a straight line from point A to point B at at least 100 miles an hour. You don't get tired and it would be so much faster. add in how much time you would cut out in traffic and I don't see people ever needing cars for day to day use, only to carry goods around. Thats 4.6 TONS of CO2 per car per year gone. people would still need cars to move their stuff but without groceries there's less stuff to move so lets be generous and say we cut out 2.3 tons of CO2 per car per year. that's still insane. This would also make Short haul flights a thing of the past for the same reason. Why go to an airport wait in line waste an entire day just to get somewhere you could have ran to in a few hours? I think long cross country and intercontinental flights would be the only ones left, saving a lot of carbon there too. That's also before you stop to think how much Carbon is spent shipping food around the world, we wouldn't need to do any of that any more. Vampires don't need to heat or cool their houses, they don't need constant running appliances like refrigerators or freezers, no microwaves to heat up food, no ovens and stoves to cook with, The list of little ways that vampires use less resources goes on like that forever. In short I think A world of vampires would Solve Climate Change/global warming and also a lot of most pollution. No food wrappers, water waste.
Vampires don't need healthcare, they cant get sick, don't age or get cancer. Any injuries they may get can simply be healed by venom. All the time money and resources that we as a species have to put towards medicine every day can now be put towards other things. I'm sure you can take all the conclusions ive made here and apply them to countless other industries and problems as well
TLDR We basically already slaughter enough animals to feed the world if everyone was a vampire. They use less resources and would pollute less. Turn everyone into a vampire and save the world I think.

When the old man got within range, John kicked at him with his good leg, but the old timer was quick, much quicker than he looked. He ducked to his right, side stepping John's lashing foot, then darted in and touched the tip of the prod to John's leg. Fire--that's what it felt like. White hot fire. A jolt went through John's body that made his eyeballs hurt. And just like that, the old man slipped in again and jabbed him in the stomach. Then, as John rolled onto his belly, the tip touched his back.
John curled into a ball and hugged his knees to his chest.
"Get through that door, boy," the old man said. "Move it, now!" Like herding an ornery animal.
And like an animal, John Burke responded, lifting himself onto all fours and crawling toward the exit. Halfway across the floor, the old man jammed the cattle prod against John's ass. He cried out and scampered through the door.
As soon they were out of the room, the old man clicked his cheek a couple of times like he was calling a dog. "Get on your feet, like a good boy." John struggled to his feet as the door closed behind him and the bolts slammed into place. He stood at one end of a narrow passage, dark, except for a single bulb hanging from the ceiling at the far end. Again, John felt the prod touch his back.
"Get!" the old man said.
John limped toward the light.
The passage emptied into a windowless room, low ceilinged and big. The old man forced him into a chute--a cattle chute. Horizontal steel poles on each side formed a walkway barely wide enough for a man's shoulders. The poles were stacked four high, the top pole about five feet off the ground. Every six or eight feet stood a vertical brace.
The old man closed and locked a sliding wooden door behind them, then bent and slipped between two of the horizontal poles. Outside the chute, he prodded John to keep him moving. As John walked toward the end, the old man thumped him two or three times with the prod but didn't shock him.
Suddenly, an overpowering stench hit John and his feet stopped moving. He looked to the right, toward the source of the smell, and saw a stainless steel table, on top of which lay a man's lifeless body. He was on his belly with his head turned and John could see the face of the man who'd been goaded out of the room just before him. The white-haired old lady stood beside the table gripping an electric carving knife in one latexed hand, while with her other gloved hand she pressed the man's leg firmly against the table. Bile gurgled up into John's throat as the old lady thumbed the switch on the carving knife and sliced a hunk of meat from the back of the dead man's thigh.
John spewed vomit and dropped to his knees. "Get up, boy," he heard from behind him as the prod juiced his lower back. John screamed in pain as he staggered to his feet. "Move it," the old man said. With legs like jelly, John stumbled forward.
The cut he'd worked into the leather belt was just to the right of the steel loop through which the handcuffs ran. Only an eighth of an inch of leather remained. Using his body, John shielded his hands from the old man's view while he tugged on the handcuffs and hobbled along.
The sides of the chute closed in on him as he reached the end. Near panic, John tried to turn around, but before he could the old man slid a gate closed behind him that penned him in.
Trapped.
From the corner of his eye, John watched the old man. Saw him step towards a workbench against the wall, fifteen feet away, and toss the cattle prod onto it. He pulled a ballpeen hammer down from a wall above the bench. It had a big stainless steel head with a foot long wooden handle. The old man turned and walked toward John with a casual, bored look on his face, just another day in the slaughterhouse.
Bent as far forward as he could, John thrust his hips back and jerked his cuffed hands forward, but the leather belt held. Behind him he heard the old man's shoes scrape the cement floor. Desperate, John twisted his hands to the right. The leather still held. Just an eighth of an inch between a chance for escape and a hammer to the back of the head.
A shoe scuff on the floor. Afraid to look, John stared at his hands. He groaned as he thrust his hips to the right and jerked his hands to the left. The leather tore and the belt pulled free from his waist.
"Where you think you're going?" the old man said.
John ducked and heard the top pole ring as the ballpeen hammer glanced off of it. With the belt still dangling from his handcuffs, John doubled over and stepped between the two middle poles on his left side. To his right the old man cursed him and swung the hammer between the bars. The hammer thumped into John's right hip but he didn't stop. Once through the bars he ran--hobbled on his painful ankle--toward the wall, trying to put as much distance between him and the old man as possible.
"Momma, momma, he got loose!"
"Catch him quick 'fore he gets away," the old lady screamed.
John Burke was lost. He didn't know where he was our how to get out. He turned, saw the old man race around the end of the chute, hammer cocked over his shoulder. John's back was to the wall. Wildly, he glanced around for something he could use. There was nothing.
To his left, twenty feet away was the corner of the room and a closed door.
The old man saw John looking. "You'll never get out." But he slowed down, approaching cautiously, angling toward the door to cut off John's only escape route.
The old man looked nervous about the door. John broke and ran. Waves of pain shot up his leg from his swollen ankle but he ignored it. The old man lunged toward the door to intercept. John tried to stop and start, throw a fake at the old man, but his ankle folded and he hit the floor.
The old man dropped to one knee beside him and raised the hammer over his head. "Got you!"
But as the killer blow came down, John shifted slightly to the side and the hammer struck the cement beside his head, sending tiny chips flying into his face. He lashed out with his good foot, missed the old man's head but caught him in the ribs. As the old man grunted and toppled over, John got to his feet and struggled to the door.
Locked.
John twisted the knob and screamed in rage. The old man stood up. Mounted on the wall next to the door was a gray metal circuit box, the handle protruding from its side angled up in the on position. An electrical shut off.
"Get him, poppy," the old woman screamed from the other side of the room. A nice old couple who called each other momma and poppy.
John grabbed the handle with both hands, shot a glance at the old man, saw him bearing down, and pulled.
Lights out. Total darkness.
Just in time John ducked. He heard the old man grunt as the hammer dug into the drywall. With his manacled hands, John shoved the old man, then ran along the wall to his left. Moving through the dark it felt like a mile. The old lady screamed.
Cuffed hands out in front with the torn leather belt dangling from them, John ran into the wall and turned right. He had no idea where to go or what to do. Just knew he had to put as much distance as he could between him and the old man. At the next corner he turned right again. Just up ahead he heard the old lady. "Poppy, I can't see."
He slowed down, tried to catch his breath. Then the lights came on. Poppy must have gotten to the switch. John found himself next to the stainless steel butchering table, and face-to-face with the old lady. With the power on, her electric carving knife started buzzing.
"I got him, poppy!" she said and chopped at him with the knife.
John jerked his head back as the humming blade passed less than an inch from his eyes.
"Momma!" the old man screamed.
John looked across the big room at the old man by the door. Hammer swinging from his hand, he started to run towards them but had to go around the cattle chute. The old lady again cut at John but this time he managed to catch her wrist in his hands. As he kicked her in the shin he heard one of his bare toes crack, but she loosened her grip on the knife and he was able to jerk it out of her hand.
The old man rounded the end of the chute and howled in rage as he saw them struggling. Momma clawed at John's eyes with both hands, but he managed to close them just as her nails raked his face. Carving knife in hand, he slashed at the old lady. The vibrating blade ripped into the side of her neck and cut across her throat. She gurgled up a foul smelling blast of air from her open trachea that made John gag. With her eyes wide open, the old lady looked stunned as her knees folded and she collapsed to the ground.
John Burke turned and the old man was right on top of him, screaming, swinging the hammer at his head. As John raised the carving knife, the hammer snapped the blade off and knocked it from his hand. The old man lunged closer, grabbed him by the throat with his left hand and raised the hammer again.
John threw an awkward jab with his shackled hands and hit the old man in the face with just enough force to stun him into losing his grip on John's neck. Then with a two-handed uppercut to the gut, this one with a little more behind it, he doubled the old man over, then ran for the door.
Standing in front of the door, he jerked down the power switch and again shrouded the room in darkness. He raised his good leg and kicked the wooden door as hard as he could. It gave just a little. Behind him he heard the old man crying, and something else--things being knocked over, things hitting the floor, the sounds of searching.
As John kicked again, his bad ankle screamed in pain, yet still the door held. He caught his breath, raised his good leg and managed one more kick. This time the knob splintered off and the door flew open. Stairs led up.
Behind him, a two-count metallic click echoed through the room. The unmistakable sound of a shell being chambered. A shotgun.
Fighting back the pain, John loped up the stairs as the shotgun blasted behind him. Upstairs he found himself in an empty kitchen. He moved down a short hallway that opened into a room he recognized, the den of the old lady's house. It was dark outside and only a few lights were on inside the house.
Footsteps on the cellar stairs.
Frantically, John looked around, seeing the big bay windows, but no door to the outside. He knocked the dead telephone to the ground, snatched up the end table, and heaved it through one of the windows.
Outside the air was warm and muggy, the ground soft like after a rain. Naked, except for the handcuffs and leather belt hanging from them, John staggered toward the woods just beyond the house. As he reached the first trees he heard another shotgun blast behind him, heard glass shatter, heard pellets tearing through the trees to his right.
Into the trees, getting some of them between him and the house in case the old man ripped off another shot.
"Murderer! I'll kill you," the old timer yelled through the trees. Almost funny, a minute ago the old man trying to bash his brains in with a hammer but still had the nerve to call him a murderer. Not to mention the sweet old lady carving a man like a Christmas turkey.
John turned forty-five degrees to the right. Choosing a zig-zag over a straight line. A minute later he heard another shot, then the pellets ripped into the branches off to his left. A frustration shot. The old man had guessed he'd turn but he'd guessed the wrong way.
He'd gotten out of shape. Just a few minutes into the woods he was puffing like a steam train, a stitch like a knife twisting into his side. John could feel his ankle starting to swell. Time for the zag so he turned left, crossed through what he guessed was fifty or sixty yards of woods, then suddenly burst into a clearing--the cemetery. The high three-quarter moon cast short, dark shadows from the tombstones. Blackness in a sea of night.
Something crashed through the brush behind him in the distance, followed by bark of a big dog. John had trouble as he stepped over the low spiked fence that surrounded the graveyard. For a second he had to put all of his weight on his bad leg and came close to impaling himself.
John remembered another fence, a six-foot iron one that spanned the front of the property, the half-inch thick bars thrust at the sky like black spears. If it circled the whole property, how the hell was he going to get out?
The barking grew louder.
As he limped between the gravestones, John heard the old man cursing in the distance, farther away than the dog, but getting closer. Terror's icy hand gripped John Burke's heart. His feet stopped moving and he dropped down onto a soft, moist patch of earth and leaned his back against a marble slab that marked someone's final resting place, someone whose troubles were over for good. John put his head into his hands as despair washed over him.
He wasn't going to get away. Not on a bad ankle. Not with his hands cuffed. Not from a madman with a dog and shotgun. A madman who kept humans like cattle, who beat men to death with a hammer, whose wife ran a human butcher shop. They were close, the old man and his dog. John could hear the dog tearing through the underbrush just inside the woods, just beyond the cemetery fence. In a minute it would all be over. He wondered if Gail would ever find out what happened to him? To die like this, in a bone yard, victim to a crazy old man and his even crazier wife.
Fear, despair, hopelessness--these feelings surged through John as a sob racked his body so hard it bounced his back off the marble tombstone and shot a bolt of pain down his spine. Then, as if cleansed by fire, those feelings melted like snow, replaced by something new, by something better, by something that fueled him--Rage.
Perched in front of the grave next to him was a thick marble urn, holding a bouquet of long dead flowers. John rolled to it, grabbed the urn in both hands, and dumped out the withered flora. He felt the comforting weight of the urn, heavy enough to crush a dog's skull, or a man's.
He wasn't going to make it easy. If they were going to kill him, they'd have to work for it. The headstones were too small to hide behind unless he crouched down and John didn't want to crouch down and hide. He was through hiding, besides, his ankle couldn't take much crouching. Better to let the dog see him, try to get rid of the mutt before the old man made it out of the woods.
The underbrush got quiet. The dog was out of the woods. No more barking. The moonlight and the shadows played tricks on John's eyes. A glimpse of movement at the fence then nothing. He strained his eyes, willing them to see through the darkness but it was his ears that responded, picking up the quick thumping of padded feet on the wet grass. The sound coming from his left. John raised the urn and turned, then heard it behind him, much closer. A throaty growl. He tried to spin around but the furry beast hit him in the back.
Claws raked his bare shoulder blades as he slammed face first into the ground and the marble urn flew from his hands, useless. Sharp teeth gripped the back of his head and shook it like the stuffed head of a doll. His scalp tore--he actually felt it--as the dog growled and bit harder.
"Get him, boy!" the old man shouted from somewhere near the edge of the woods.
John used his good left leg to push into the ground and roll. The dog tightened its grip on John's head and tried to roll with him but John used his arms to topple the German Shepherd off of him. As the brute tried to regain his feet, John kept rolling until he was on top with the dog pinned under him. The canine's jaws sprung open, looking for something to bite as John grabbed the animal's big head, one hand on each side, and forced the handcuff chain and part of the leather belt into the back of its mouth.
With his naked body pressing down on the dog, John forced the Shepherd's head back. The handcuff chain cut into the roof of the dog's mouth as John pushed back harder and harder. The beast's nails ripped at John's chest and thighs, but still he forced the big head back until the dog's agonized yelping was cut short by a loud crack, like the dry snap of a rotten branch, as its neck broke and body went limp.
John rolled off of the dead dog and struggled to his feet. The old man yelled, "Did you get him, Butch? Did you get him?" John turned toward the sound of the man's voice and saw him stumble out of the woods, just on the other side of the fence, shotgun held across his chest. The old man's eyes locked on the animal lying on the ground. "Butch!" he cried, voice cracked with emotion Then he raised his shotgun.
John dropped behind a headstone just as a blast ripped through the air. Pellets smacked into the other side of the stone. Then, as the double click of a new shell being racked into the chamber echoed across the graveyard, John scrambled away on all fours, keeping his head below the top of the tombstones.
By the time he reached the cemetery fence, John could barely move. His breath came in ragged gasps; his chest, shoulders, and thighs were on fire; and the back of his neck felt wet and sticky. He lifted his cuffed hands over his head and wiped at his neck. His palms came away covered with blood, blood that looked almost black in the moonlight.
One foot got tangled going over the fence and John fell, landing with a thud on the other side. Behind him, fifty yards at most, he could hear the old man's quick shuffle coming across the cemetery. The old man mumbling and cursing to himself. Once John got into the tree line he felt a little safer, something between him and muzzle of that shotgun. But the going was slow. Much tougher than before. He started to feel dizzy. The dog had torn him up and he knew he was bleeding badly.
He'd made it this far but knew there was no way he could make it all the way back home, at least not tonight. Too tired and too hurt. But with the dog dead, all he had to do was shake the old man off his trail, then hole up somewhere until daylight. In the morning he would parallel the road just inside the trees to keep out of sight. His house was only two miles away. He would make it even if he had to crawl on his hands and knees the whole way.
He ran into the fence. Six feet tall, made of pointed wrought iron bars, no more than ten inches apart. Impossible to slip between them. The bars braced by two thin rectangular, iron beams that ran the length of the fence. One, a foot from the ground; the other, a foot from the top.
John hadn't gained any distance on the old man. He could hear his thrashing back in the trees, his slow, steady pace, his mumbling punctuated by curses.
There was only one way to get out and that was over the fence. John set his feet on the bottom support and grabbed the top crossbar with both hands, but with his wrists cuffed he couldn't spread his hands out. He couldn't climb.
He managed to pull himself up so his chin was over the top of the fence and then swung his good leg up. It didn't go high enough. Arms straining, he swung it up harder and managed to hook his heel on the top support, between two of the bars. That's when he lost his grip.
John fell but his foot stayed. He heard his ankle crack and he screamed. Caught between the two vertical bars and the horizontal support, his bare foot was wedged in tight and he hung upside down, naked, like a stuck pig being bled in a slaughterhouse.
The old man stepped out from the trees, shotgun held across his chest like a soldier. Fifteen feet from John, he raised it to his shoulder and grinned as he pulled the trigger. CLICK.
"Goddamit!" He racked the pump, took aim, and pulled the trigger again. Another empty click. This time he slammed the pump back and stared into the open chamber. "Son of a bitch," he mumbled, then grabbed the barrel in a two handed grip.
He swung it like a baseball bat at John's head and all John Burke could do was close his eyes. Just before the wooden stock crashed into his skull, he heard himself say, "Gail."
* * *
Gail Burke was on the toilet, in the middle of peeing, when the doorbell rang. "John," she heard herself say. "God, please let it be John." She pulled on her jeans and ran to the door, didn't even flush. But it wasn't John. It was a man, old but distinguished looking in a dark suit with a pale blue tie draped in front of a starched white shirt. She glanced behind him and saw a van parked in her driveway. Not a minivan, but a full-sized, white work van, windowless except for the driver and passenger doors. No name on the side.
"Can I help you?" she asked, losing hope her caller had anything to do with John.
He raised his hands slightly and she noticed they held a round plastic container. Rubbermaid, or Tupperware, with a lid on it. "Yes," she said.
"Mrs. Burke?"
Gail nodded.
My name is Muller, Frank Muller. He nodded to the right. "I live on Cemetery Road."
She gave him a brief smile.
"I've read about your...your husband's disappearance in the paper."
At first she'd had a lot of visitors like this. Well-wishers, sympathizers, but it had been two weeks and people had stopped coming by. Mostly, she guessed they thought John's disappearance maybe wasn't so mysterious after all. Middle-aged man, married for a dozen years, suddenly takes off. Maybe found a young girl. No mystery there. But she knew that wasn't what he'd done. Something terrible had happened. She could feel it.
"Thank you," was all she could think of to say.
He raised his hands again. "I've brought you something. Chili, my wife's secret recipe."
She looked at the container. The two-gallon size. That's a lot of chili, she thought. She caught a whiff of it as he slipped one hand under the container and lifted part of the lid with the other. He said, "Chock full of beef and beans. Put some meat on your bones."
Gail felt her face flush. Her jeans hung loosely on her hips. She'd lost ten pounds since John disappeared and hadn't had it to spare to begin with. "Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr..." She couldn't even remember the gentleman's name.
"Muller," he said.
"Of course," she said quickly. "Thank you again, Mr. Muller." Gail reached for the container. "To be honest I haven't felt much like cooking and that smells delicious. Please tell Mrs. Muller that I said--"
Mr. Muller shook his head. "Buried her recently."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that."
As she took the chili from him, he forced a smile. "I made it but it's her recipe so if it's good she gets the credit." He laughed a more genuine laugh. "And if it's bad, I'll take the blame."
She felt the heat through the plastic. They said goodbye and Gail Burke went inside to eat a bowl of Mrs. Muller's secret recipe. She felt her stomach growl with hunger. If it tasted as good as it smelled, maybe she'd have two bowls.
THE END

Make friends with each other with benefits, and when the benefits are exhausted, you will disperse; make friends with power, and when the power goes away, you will fall; make friends with power, and lose the power, you will abandon them; A piece of "Zhong Shuo Ritual and Music" can be said to be full of friendship, and today's Guo Wengui vividly shows us a perfect negative teaching material.
Intersect with each other, and disperse when all benefits are exhausted "Golden Yuan Offensive" has always been Guo Wengui's forte. Relying on a large amount of ill-gotten gains from the past, Guo Wengui, who came to the United States, resumed his old business and started the "Blue Golden Yellow". "As well as officials, at the same time, in the face of those "enemies" who cannot be lured by money, they pay to buy or forge their privacy to discredit and stigmatize them. Relying on these three tricks, Wengui was in chaos for a while, attracting a large group of mobs such as Xianglin, Guo Baosheng, and the Zhengshi brother. But money is like running water, and there is no end in sight, not to mention the huge daily expenses of Guo Wengui's luxury cars, mansions, planes and yachts, just talk about his useless mouth, today 250 million yuan, tomorrow Baosheng mansion cash, and then In addition, Xianglin's Mercedes-Benz, and the monthly salary of each of the supporters are 4,500 and 5,000. Wen Gui "asked for salary", but Wen Gui "skilled better" and directly declared that he would cut off money exchanges, which scared the members of the "Salary Collection Coordination Committee" into panic and even many quit immediately. Scenes of farce were shown in turn.
When the momentum intersects, when the momentum goes away, it will lean To say that Wengui broke the news at the beginning, it was quite lively, and Guo Zhanshen and Guo Qishu were quite leading the trend, but after a long time, he jumped up and down every day to say wild words, but there was no real evidence. There are only a few documents It was also suspected of being fake, and the people who eat melons naturally slowly ignored it. It can be said that Wengui played blindly without any cards in his hand, and put his neck on the guillotine alive. Looking at Wengui's henchmen, apart from those who are greedy for money, there is no shortage of people who love fame. Before Wengui "Massive momentum", many people want to take his express train to enhance their reputation, and they praise each other on the Internet every day, hello, hello, hello, everyone. But now that Wengui's defeat has come to light, in line with the idea of ​​not being dragged into the water by him and wanting to let Wengui's "corpse" take advantage of the waste heat, they set up a new stove and built the "Coordination Center" to "break the ties" with Wengui, but they didn't How could Wen Gui, who started as a hotspot, agree with this point, and issued an angry statement to force him to take a stand, and a big infighting drama started.

Hey I was looking to use wood chunks to add some smoke flavor (no not in the hopper), I have a Pro series 850, has anyone put wood chunks on the heat deflector and how did that turn out if y'all have , and yes I use a smoke tube with pellets will eventually try chips in it , but I would love to figure out a way to use wood chunks without dropping mad money on the heat deflector chunk mid I've seen

Name : Pepper
Gender : Male
Age : 23
Species : Catfolk
Character Level: LV1 (0/4 quests completed)
Appearance : look at him he's so small and cute- (5'2)
Personality : He is very friendly, a people pleaser. He doesn't take insults well but he doesn't seek out conflict either. "Sit back and enjoy the show, your food will be out to you in a bit..."
STATS (12/12):
Strength + 1 "I'm not the strongest, it's not that big of a deal..."
Dexterity + 2 (+1 from Racial) "ya need fast hands for efficient cooking..."
Constitution + 0 "er... go easy on me please, I'm just a chef..."
Wisdom + 1 "I know a bit about the world around me, enough to get by..."
Intelligence + 2 "I'd say I'm fairly smart, yeah... a quick learner..."
Charisma + 2 "the show you put on when cooking is all part of the experience..."
Spirit + 4 "My magic is strong, it makes for better meals..."
GEAR :
None
MONEY:
0 g
INVENTORY :
- Greatsword -- "I dont know why i got it, honestly, but makes a great stove. I know it sounds unhygienic but I know what Im doing" A greatsword he uses as his primary weapon, deals 12+1d4 dmg in its base form. He can also heat up the metal on the blade, making it red hot for 4 turns, in this period of time it deals an extra 4+1d4 dmg and attacks inflict Cauterize

Cauterize: Stalls passive regen, removed with active healing

- Kitchen Knife -- "Now this? Much more my style" An expensive looking kitchen knife that he has psychic control over, allowing him to use it separately from him, following simple wills, uses SPI for attack, and deals 9+1d6 dmg. He may also summon or desummon this at will. It has a +1 to attack rolls when not in his hand
- Skillet -- A skillet he can use as both a weapon and a shield, deals 10+1d4 dmg when used to attack, and using it to block gives a +1. Successful blocks against unarmed attacks deal 1d4 damage to the attacker. He can also heat up the metal of it for 3 turns, making successful attacks or blocks against unarmed attacks inflict burn damage (2 hp per turn for 3 turns)
HSD:
Nothing
ABILITIES:
Slots used: 14/14
Racial Traits:
- Cat Traits -- Increased Hearing, Agility, and dark vision (+1 to DEX)
Core Passives:
- Regeneration -- Recover 5 hp per turn [1 slot]
Core actives:
- Slice and Dice -- His kitchen knife clones itself 1d4 times and they all fly at the enemy, the uses must make attack rolls equal to the amount of weapons, and the opponent must make the same amount of defending rolls. This has a 5 turn cooldown. [5 slots]
- Armor Melt -- He can heat up metal armoplating. For non-robot PCs they must either take an action to remove the armor or suffer 8 dmg each turn. For robotic PCs their systems overheat, they must take an action to cool down their systems or take 4 dmg each turn and have disadvantage. This cannot be used for 4 turns after the effects end. [6 slots]
- Eat Up -- "Here, have this, you'll feel better..." Pepper whips up a quick bite of food with strong healing properties, heals 20%. 3 turn cooldown. [2 slots]
Learnt Passives:
None
Learnt Actives:
None
Weaknesses:
None
BACKSTORY: