Joanna gaines farmhouse paint colors

I’ve recently been inspired to make some ultimates of the aliens I’ve been obsessed with, the non canon/ debatably canon aliens. There’s many but I narrowed it down to just these 10
Rocks
Squidstrictor
Bob the blob
AntigraviTesla
Plantapocalypse
Portaler
Cartoon Network Alien
As well as HotDawg, scooter alien, and Bananalien from the reboot
I’m sticking to O.R.Ash’s rules of “must lose and gain some powers” and “ must have a new color scheme”
Plus feel free to change some of their powers to be more… actually a thing?

Hello, I've been working on revising an old magic system to fit with a new story, and I wanted to get some feedback on if my system works well or not. It's a long one, but feel free to hit me with any questions/comments/criticisms about it! Please excuse the inconstent capitalization though, I'm working on it.
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An Occultists’ Guide to Boundaries
All of reality is built on boundaries. A boundary is a metaphysical container for both the physical matter and the concepts defining an object. For example, imagine for a moment a ball sitting on a table. Now imagine an invisible skin, wrapped tightly around the entire surface area of the ball, encapsulating all the information and properties of the ball. Now imagine that invisible skin suddenly disappeared, leading the concepts that once filled it to just drift away. They might be infused into the table, making it ‘bright red’, or ‘round’. They could get into the air making it ‘bouncy’ or ‘safe for children ages 2+’. The stuff that makes the ball would still be around, but the ball itself wouldn't. For an object to exist, it must be distinct from the things around it. Without boundaries separating ‘thing’ from ‘thing’, the whole universe would be just one big ‘thing’.
This is the basis of Occult practices. Being an occultist starts with the manipulation of boundaries, as the space within them is where magic is performed. That is why, when an occultist begins their studies, the first power they gain is usually simple telekinesis, as manipulating the position of a boundary is good practice. We tend to call those who never move past that stage ‘espers’ or ‘psychics’ or something of the same effect, and even though they are just scratching the surface of what the occult can do, they can get to be fairly powerful.
A basic, widespread (but not universally applicable) law of boundaries is that they have a natural resistance to being manipulated, which is in most cases tied to the surface area of the object. An interesting application of this is that there is functionally no difference in trying to telekinetically move a cardboard box and a solid steel cube of the same size. However, when it comes to destroying a boundary, the difficulty of doing so is all in the ‘complexity’ (this is hard to define, but it will make more sense later) of the object. Stronger occultists will be able to destroy or create more complex phenomena at larger scales.
Since the creation, destruction, and manipulation of boundaries is a fundamental skill for occultists, many different exercises have been devised to help expand a beginning practitioner's skill in doing so. One popular one is trying to destroy the boundaries of small objects, such as playing cards or snack foods, and quickly capturing all the escaped concepts by creating a spherical boundary around them. This can lead to some delightfully non-euclidean objects, especially when you destroy and re-capture the concepts of two different objects into one boundary, but it is a very dangerous way to practice. One could end up not capturing the concepts in time and end up turning themselves ‘easily tearable’ or ‘appetizing to ants’ without the knowledge of how to reverse that.
The analogy of a weightlifter in training may be the most appropriate since an occultist’s ability will grow like a muscle over time, only one that doesn’t plateau in strength. But like any muscle, they will get tired if they go on too long, which will greatly increase their chances of causing an accident.
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Reality and You
Reality is everything that is real. Every object, entity, or phenomenon that exists and is not fictional is a part of reality. If you can measure it, it's real. There aren’t very many other ways to describe this, but humans generally have a solid grasp of what is real and what is not due to being real themselves. However, not all parts of reality are equal.
All magic happens inside a boundary wherein reality is measurably degraded. There is a special, magical, and incredibly complex machine that can measure the ‘level’ of reality within a boundary. The baseline level, the level wherein everything that isn't the occult takes place, was set to be 10 on the Non-Reality Scale (the NRS for short), and anything below that is magic.
But why would one want to degrade reality? Hypothetically, when someone is pouring themselves a cup of water, they would prefer a fresh, clean glass, to one that hasn’t been washed in years. This is because they want to avoid contamination. Spellwork has the same idea, where to pour what they want into a boundary, the occultist first has to ‘wash’ everything they don’t want out.
That is not to say that less reality is always better. A reality that is too low level can mess with spellwork, or cause a dangerous accident if the boundary is flawed. This is because to complete the final step of the casting, one must reintegrate their degraded reality back to the baseline (that is, if they want anything more than an intangible illusion). The extent to which one would want to degrade reality fully depends on what they want to do with the boundary they are creating. For example, one did not want to use it for drinking, but it would be perfectly fine to use it to water a houseplant. And most people would not be bleaching out a clean cup before drinking from it, even if it has a bit of dust in it. In the same way, in most cases, an occultist does not need to purge absolutely everything from their boundary, and will instead want to selectively degrade reality to a certain level.
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Mana, the Soul, and Concepts
A Concept is the abstract idea of the matter within a boundary. For example, the boundary of the ball I described earlier contains the physical matter of the ball, but it also contains the Concept of the ball. The Concept can be imagined as an index of every piece of information about the ball, with each piece being called an Attribute. Attributes of the ball’s Concept could include its weight, size, bounciness, flammability, or any other property that one could measure from the ball. Being a Concept and being an Attribute are not mutually exclusive, and it is relative to what the caster is referring to at the moment. Technically, all Concepts are Attributes of the Universe, which contains everything, so it's best to think of each Concept as a part of a greater whole, which is in turn made of smaller parts. With this comes the idea that a concept cannot be created or destroyed (of course, there are those annoying exceptions), only constructed and deconstructed.
The basis of spellwork is simple. Create a boundary, degrade its reality, fill it with a bunch of Attributes to form the Concept of the phenomena you want to create, reintegrate reality, and presto, you have a spell. This process is fundamentally the same for most spellcraft, making a well-practiced occultist very versatile. However, it is the complexity within each of these steps that requires research to understand, skill to navigate, and training to pull off.
Every living thing has a boundary, and every living thing has a Concept. Except for living things, we tend to call the Concept a ‘soul’. There is no real difference, and there is a constant debate over what has a soul. Bacteria are generally deemed soulless, robots and magically animated constructs have been rhetorically argued to have souls, and there is debate around what stage of birth or death does the soul of a corpse become just a Concept. But it is generally agreed that living humans have a soul, and within the soul, there is an Attribute called mana. Mana is the fuel that is required to perform anything to do with the occult. Manipulating boundaries, degrading and reintegrating reality, and working with concepts all require mana.
Almost everyone starts with a very low amount of mana. Most humans only have enough to perform small miracles in moments of great stress, such as a parent being able to lift a car to save their child or a firefighter obtaining enhanced perception in a burning building. Mana, however, can be grown over time like a muscle. After continuous depletion of one's mana reserves, the maximum amount that can be ‘refilled’ during rest increases.
There is a widespread standard for measuring how much mana one has. It requires a half-inch diameter, clear glass marble enchanted with a Concept that causes it to output light in a manner directly proportional to the amount of mana poured into it. An occultist can push as much mana as they can into it and measure the irradiance of the light produced by the marble with a photometer to find their maximum output.
Besides mana, the soul also contains Attributes for one's familiarity with other Concepts. Concept familiarity determines how well an occultist can summon, read, or build a concept. Familiarity is gained in several different ways. For example, an occultist skilled in the art of pyromancy may be a grad student who’s spent many sleepless nights studying thermodynamics and exothermic reactions, a person from an icy village who spent a lot of time near the fireplace as a child, or a serial arsonist who thinks fire is incredibly beautiful. All of these people would be familiar with the Concept of fire. In other words, research, experience, and passion are all equally valid ways to gain familiarity with a concept.
There are three ways to get a concept into a boundary. The first way is to summon it, using one's will to draw in a concept and use it directly during spellwork. This is generally considered the best method for any occult performance for various reasons, as its only real downside is that it requires a very high level of familiarity with the Concept one is trying to summon. However, it requires no material components to pull off and does not produce any backlash (an important idea that will be explained later). This is why most mages choose to spend their life within one field of similar Concepts, increasing their familiarity with a small group of Concepts, trading some versatility to be able to pull off Concept summoning efficiently.
On a side note, there is the popular idea of the ‘four elements’ system of magic. While the idea of earth, air, fire, and water being base elements of the universe has no real truth to it, the fact that they are things one commonly interacts with and are fairly visual makes them perfect for summoning.
The next way to obtain a Concept is through reading. This method takes an object that has a desired Concept or Attributes, destroys its boundary, and adds said Concept or Attributes into the spell. Reading allows an occultist to work with a Concept that they aren’t familiar with, although they should have some level of familiarity if they want to work with it safely. Unfortunately, reading requires you to destroy a material component and leads to backlash. The result is that spellwork done with Concept reading needs more preparation than summoning, and may require rare or expensive materials. The amount of material destroyed, however, does not matter when trying to read a Concept, so long as it is enough that the occultist can reasonably focus on it. For example, if one was trying to read the Concept of gold, the casting will be the same with a few specks of the stuff as with an entire bar.
The final method, Concept building, is the least. Building requires a mage to take several different Concepts and use them as Attributes to construct an entirely new Concept. For example, the Concept of ‘the superpower of human flight’, which doesn’t exist naturally, could be built using the Concepts of ‘weightlessness’ and ‘propulsion’ and ‘human will’. Building has all the drawbacks of reading compounded, so it is very rarely used and requires great skill. But the power to make fiction reality, even more so than any other type of magic, is incredibly appealing, and many occultists spend their entire life trying to bring a permanent concept into the world.
Concepts are not completely objective. For example, a modern person likely associates the color black with things like death, darkness, or despair. In ancient Egypt, however, the color had a more positive connotation, being associated with fertility and festival, since black soil, not white, is where one could grow the crops. Concepts work similarly, and different ones can have different meanings to different people from different cultures and backgrounds. It is completely unknown how modern magic continues to work with so many different ways of looking at the same Concept.
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And Now for the Bad: Backlash
Once again, imagine a ball sitting on a table. Remember how I said destroying its boundary could lead to the table and air around it lead to the table and air around it obtaining some of its properties, or as we now know to call them, Attributes? This is also how I described some of the side effects of improperly doing the ill-advised boundary exercise from the boundary section.
Both of those are simplified examples of backlash.
When an occultist performs a Concept reading, they are picking out the Attributes they want and exposing the rest to outside reality. If left uncontained, the rest of the Attributes will diffuse into other nearby boundaries, giving the caster’s surroundings (and likely the caster themself) properties that they likely do not want. This is a backlash. Worse, as the free Attributes look for a new boundary, they randomly and chaotically deconstruct themselves into simpler Attributes (for example, the attribute ‘fire’ may deconstruct into ‘heat’ and ‘light’), multiplying the number of Concepts diffusing over time, increasing the scale and chaos of the event.
The resistance of an object's boundary to being destroyed scales somewhat on the complexity of the Concept it contains, and therefore, more complex objects that would cause bigger backlashes are naturally harder (as in they require more mana) to destroy. This acts as a sort of natural safeguard for the occult, stopping just any aspiring wizard from accidentally rending cities uninhabitable or wiping large swaths of land off the map.
Be they geometric shapes or runes in an unknown language, the main purpose of a magic circle (or any shape for that matter) is to contain and safely dispose of backlash. Over time, occultists have found ways to take common aspects and successfully break them down into their most harmless components, allowing them to be dissipated safely, and history has provided a good base for the backlash of just about any spell to be properly contained, with a bit of research. A very skilled occultist will be able to properly command backlash to harness it and enhance their spells, controlling the decay of Concepts to find simpler Attributes needed for the main spell or to set off smaller secondary spells to support the original.
Another way of dissipating backlash is with somatic action, or using one’s body in the same fashion as a magic circle. The danger of this should be clear, but it allows the caster to dissipate backlash without having to prepare a magic circle.
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Reintegration and Types
The last part of any occult spellwork is normally the easiest. You just have to stop trying. For sorceries and rituals, firing off a spell is just like firing a bow. If creating a spell boundary is notching the arrow, and gathering Concepts is pulling back and aiming, then the final casting is simply letting the arrow fly as it will. There is some skill involved with the speed and grace of an occultist's mental disengagement, but for the most part, reality itself will do most of the job as it brings one's Concepts back to a level 10 NRS and makes the phenomenon ‘real’. This means that after one creates their fireball, all they have to do is bring it into existence and define its parameters, and throwing it costs no extra mana on your part. That also means that a fireball, once thrown, cannot be altered or taken back unless one creates a completely new boundary to counter it.
I mentioned sorceries and rituals. Those are two of the three ‘types’ (not to be confused with ‘schools’) of the occult.
The first is sorcery, the stereotypical form of magic. Sorceries use summoned Concepts and don't require materials or magic circles or somatic actions. If you see a wizard concentrate for a moment, and something weird happens afterward, you saw a sorcery.
Next are rituals. Magic circles, material components, somatic gestures, and multiple casters are all hallmarks of this type, and it includes anything that creates a new boundary but isn't sorcery.
Lastly, there is enchantment. Enchantment either creates an instant phenomenon on another material, or a permanent artifact meant to be used repeatedly. The idea is, that the spellwork one does is not within a completely new boundary, but is done by adding or removing Concepts from a pre-existing boundary. For example, an occultist could permanently add an ‘unbearably cold’ concept to the blade of a sword, or instantly change the enemy's skeletal system to be ‘highly combustible when submerged in blood’.
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Schools and Applications
There are quite a few ‘schools’ of the occult, general categories occultists put spellwork into. Schools can include things like ‘divination’, ‘necromancy’, or ‘war artifice’.
An example of a specific school of magic is called ‘name sympathy’. Almost all human souls have a ‘name’ Attribute, as it is standard practice to name your children in modern times. One’s name generally is one of their most prominent Attributes, so it is not a difficult task to target a person by using just their name. This is where the school of name sympathy shines, using traces of one’s person to find out their name and affect their soul directly. Sometimes this is used for good and is especially effective when used in conjunction with the ‘healing’ school of magic. Most times, though, it's used for magical murder.
Immortality is not a school of magic per se, since it is just one Concept, but that concept is so hard to build that it takes as much research and effort as any real school. The thing about immortality is that it is very hard to balance. The human body is made up of millions of small parts, all of them living and reproducing and dying constantly. Sure, one could just enchant themselves with the Concept of ‘life’ and apply their mana, but that would immediately give them cancer in every organ. And since there are no real immortal creatures to read the Concept from, in practice, an occultist seeking immortality has to build the Concept from the ground up, and doing so has taken so long and has been failed by so many that most believe that it's completely impossible.
An occultist may completely copy a concept into another boundary. That is called conjuration, one of the other greatly researched struggles of the occult. In most spells, the physical material attached to the Concept within the boundary is left out. When an occultist tries to completely recreate an object with mass or energy, (for example, if you were trying to use gold to make more gold), they are trying to add more matter to the universe than there originally was. And they will accomplish this, thoroughly breaking the law of conservation of mass. However, reality hates when its laws are broken, and it will attack the conjured object, destroying it completely within moments. The whole problem with conjuration is trying to make it work long enough to be applicable for anything more than its primary use for split seconds of attack or defense in the middle of battle, especially given how mana intensive it is. A promising line of study has involved trying to create an equal amount of ‘dark matter’ at the same time as the actual conjuration, balancing out reality.
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All About Artifice
Artificing is another application of the occult, but it is an expansive field that warrants a section of its own. It is generally defined as using enchantment to permanently imbue an item with a Concept.
Artifacts are the most accessible way to use magic. Unlike sorceries and rituals, which require magical knowledge and practice to use, the only real requirement for activating an artifact is to push mana into it yourself. And since everyone with a soul has at least a small amount of mana, anyone can pick up an artifact and use it with minimal training. A good example of this was the ancient Greek phalanx, which was not only the name of the military formation, but also what they called the combined magical gear used by the people in it, comprised of animated spears that automatically targeted vital points, shields that inflicted magical fear, and helmets that stopped arrows in their tracks.
Potions are another example of artifice, though technically they belong to its subschool, alchemy. A potion is any ingestible, magical liquid that gives a beneficial effect to the drinker when they apply mana to the unmetabolized quantity of it within their bloodstream. Solids versions of this concept are called boluses, and gasses are generally deemed too hard to work with. Potions can only be activated by the drinker, meaning there are not many ways to create alchemical poison without convincing one's victim to course mana through their own bloodstream.

Fall, 1945 After the failure of repeated efforts to break into European territory after the Normandy landings, Britain was looking to upgrade its aging fleet of cruiser light tanks to better combat the mysterious new “King Panther”, which were appearing more and more frequently on the battlefield. Internal conflicts within the British War Office escalated to fierce debates over whether to pursue upgrade packages for the Covenanter tank, or the Crusader tanks. Eventually, it was determined that the best way to determine which vehicle would be better for upgrading is to outsource development and pick the best result. You are now tasked with this momentous task of analyzing the existing fleet of cruiser vehicles, determining which one to upgrade, and designing the upgrade package. Good luck!
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Contest details:
In this contest, you will get to choose whether to support the Covenanter team or the Crusader team, and utilize newer technologies to procure an upgrade package for your vehicle of choice. Entries will be judged based on their aesthetics and combat performance, along with bonus points and markdowns that can affect the score. While the War Office has permitted any feasible turret (or casemate) configuration to manufacture, they have also specified certain restrictions that entries must follow in the final product.

• Upgrade packages for both vehicles cannot cause the vehicle to exceed 30.0 tons in weight.
• Vehicles cannot exceed 7 meters in length (excluding the gun), 3 meters in width, and 3.2 meters in height. Foldable utilities like machine guns and antennas are not counted.
• Vehicles cannot be designed in a way that requires cramming more objects into the hull than is possible. The turret also cannot collide with objects mounted on the hull.
• The driver must have at least 0.6 cubic meters of room to sit in, while all other crew members will need at least 0.8 cubic meters of room.
• Vehicles must be equipped with sufficient ventilation and external water stowage (prototypes may use blue paint to mark the intended container for water). They also must have at least 250 L of fuel, 40 rounds of ammunition, and three crew members.

Vehicle upgrade packages will need to use engines and guns already in production, in order to avoid complicating Britain’s war machine further than necessary.
Available gun options (AP rounds): -Ordnance QF 6-pounder -Ordnance QF 17-pounder -Ordnance QF 32-pounder
Available gun options (APHE rounds): -Ordnance QF 95mm howitzer -QF 4.7 inch Mark IX -BL 5.5-inch Howitzer -BL 7.2-inch Howitzer Adjusting the gun recess and counterweight, along with increasing its thickness, is allowed. You also are allowed to shorten the gun barrel length, but this won’t be looked at as favorably by the War Office.
Available engines: -R-975E-C2 (400hp) -Rolls-Royce Meteor (600hp) -Wright G-200 (800hp) -Rolls Royce Griffon (1000hp) -Merlin XX (1100hp) -Bristol Hercules (1300hp) All engines can have their RPM settings adjusted.
All necessary files for the permitted guns, engines, and the base tanks (provided by DarioXN and Prim Olaf in the Discord) can be found in the attached .zip file at the link below: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o-vIRVMuA0NX48AaUZeD46wH9Q9t6hWu/view?usp=sharing
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Bonus points: These can be awarded for vehicles that meet requirements posted by the War Office. Points here will be added to your final score, after assessment of the vehicle’s aesthetics and combat score.
reaches a top speed of 60km/h
2 points
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100mm of effective frontal armor
2 points
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Utilizes twin transmission
1 point
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gun has over 150mm of penetration
4 points
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carries 450 L of fuel
3 points
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Capable of -12 degrees of gun depression
3 points
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Covenanter: Radiators relocated to rear (this is required if frontal armor is added)
5 points
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Crusader: New ventilation installed (this is required if engine deck is extended)
5 points
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Markdowns: These can occur if vehicles are modified in a way that increases the complexity of the vehicle’s upgrade process, or reduces its effectiveness. Note that some markdowns can be offset by gains through combat performance, such as extending the engine deck geometry to allow adding a bigger engine.
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Extra hull armor is applied internally (over 5mm)
3 points
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Crew is exposed to standard rifle shots
3 points
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Hull requires labor-intensive disassembly
4 points
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Engine deck does not have sufficient vents
3 points
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Vehicle cannot exceed 40km/h
3 points
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Cannot turn while stationary
2 points
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Barrel length is shortened
1 point
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Hull modifications: Both the Covenanter and Crusader contain thickened frontal and side armor, along with complex mechanisms attached to them. The roof and backside, however, are much easier to modify and build upon. As a result, vehicles will be looked at less favorably if additions to the vehicle’s geometry require dismantling portions of the front, side, or bottom armor plates. This does not mean, however, that you cannot add more to them. Bolt-on armor shielding, regardless of armor thickness, will not incur a penalty. Additionally, the driver’s compartment and its respective armor face can be modified at no penalty. Vehicle aesthetics: Your prototype vehicles will be easier to get into production if the layout of vehicle components is included with your prototype. The generic hulls that you will be given to experiment with have a standard equipment and utilities loadout, and will be considered a “base” value in terms of aesthetic traits. These will both score 10 points in their current state. Adding more to its aesthetics scoring, and extending it to any turrets you may add, will increase this score by up to 10 points. Consequently, the opposite can lead to aesthetics points being removed. Should you wish to also model the interior, a “combat-ready” version of your prototype will also need to be supplied. Your combat-ready vehicle will be used for analysis in combat performance, interior space, and other physical traits. Meanwhile, your detailed prototype will be used for aesthetics scoring, and will not have weight or space limitations imposed upon it.
Combat trials: Vehicles will be fought against a fleet of captured King Panther tanks in a “trial by fire” match. Entrants will have a budget of 250 tons, meaning that lighter vehicles will have a higher team count during combat. Points will be earned based upon how many enemy vehicles are killed, and how many allies survive the mock battle. Bonus points can also be earned based on performance relative to competing proposals.
We are still awaiting for the captured King Panther tanks to arrive on the mainland, but so far we have received some details about their characteristics: -Front and side armor has received large upgrades compared to typical Panthers, in some cases up to 50mm of added thickness. -The engine seems to have been changed, to compensate for the added weight. -The vehicle’s interior seems much different than previous Panthers, which could mean they have better handling than previous models. -The gun itself seems to be the same as previous Panthers -Shielding has been added to the side, helping to further improve the armor’s performance.
Overall scoring weight: Combat trials: 60 points Aesthetics: 20 points Bonus points: 20 points Markdowns: -20 points Maximum points possible: 100
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Submission deadline: June 19th at 11:59 PM UTC
Additional Contest Rules
Are resubmissions allowed?
Yes
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Are multiple submissions allowed?
No
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Is Aesthetic Applique Armor enabled?
No
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What vehicle era should be used?
Latewar
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How much can the loader be file edited?
2.0
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Are custom MGs permitted?
No
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Are custom mantlets permitted?
Yes
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Can turrets be used to make spaced armor?
No
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What cheats will be turned on for the judging?
“Place anywhere”
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Can models be imported via SPETS?
Yes
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Is there a maximum amount of guns permitted?
6
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Can cosmetic compartments be overfilled?
Yes
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Are “always-spinning” compartments allowed?
Yes
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How to submit: Email submissions to [email protected] with the .blueprint file and any decals, paint schemes, lore, or other items you wish to include with your submission.

BACKSTORY: tldr
Sootsprinkle (now known as Inkle), a bird with mottled black and grey feathers, embarks on a journey beyond his home forest. Armed with a map from his father, he quickly becomes lost due to the forest's uniformity. As night falls, he encounters strange luminescent blobs that captivate him. Following one of them, he discovers another blob trailing behind him. Intrigued, he observes multiple processions of these blobs converging towards a distant point.
Reaching a clearing, Sootsprinkle finds himself surrounded by an impenetrable darkness. When he attempts to land, he realizes there is no ground beneath him and starts falling into a seemingly endless void. As he plummets, he contemplates his father, the sign he made, and the creatures he encountered. Eventually, he loses consciousness due to his ever increasing velocity.
Upon waking, Sootsprinkle is greeted by an elf and an old man who rescued him from their well. Confused but relieved, he introduces himself as "Sootpinkie Sprinkle." They inquire about his origins, and he tells them about his forest, his father, and the peculiar journey that led him to their location. The elf lady, named Zindi, decides to help him and invites him inside their dwelling.
They tell Sootsprinkle they are in The Vastlands, main continent of Arcavios and that they can help him become acquainted with their ways, history and educational requirements.
Long months of studying ensue, but Sootsprinkle proves his worth with an excellent memory despite subpar recitations. He learns how to write in common and begins to learn elvish under Zindi's tutelage.
During his studies, he takes an interest in the magic Zindi and the old man perform on a daily basis, seemingly effortlessly. He asks questions tirelessly and without the usual stuttering.
They mention that the University of Strixhaven, the most elite school of mages in the multiverse, is only a few days journey from their home and encourage him to apply. He wonders desperately about his father and the forest village he left behind, but decides his dad is too busy being rich and applies to Strixhaven in the end. Still, he vows to return not only literate but as a wizard and a scholar.
He is accepted swiftly by the college of Lorehold, despite being just around their average standards, once he mentions the odd void that brought him to their lands. This college of scholars set their motto "Leave no stone unturned" deep into young Sootsprinkle. He adventured often, despite his small size. On one expedition he found a shiny green pebble and took it back to his professors who laughed and told him it was just a regular rock that was shiny and green. Sootsprinkle kept it anyway.
Later, he found a feather trapped in fossilized resin and excavated it with great care. It was in near pristine condition, blacker than his own and twice as big. When he made his way back, he decided to do independent research in the library to avoid being laughed at again. A blackish ink sprang forth from the tip, staining countless books before he stuck it in his mouth swallowing nearly a bucket full of the rancid liquid. Sootsprinkle was swiftly brought to the infirmary where he made a full recovery and gained a new nickname "Inkwell". He liked it, but decided to pay homage to his old name and family by changing the ending to "le".
Worried about getting kicked out, he explained the entire situation, without stuttering and was granted leniency. This was partially due to his discovery of the unique feather, which was confiscated until head scholars had learned everything they could about it and deemed it safe for him to retain. It was his pride and joy, he wrote many flawless papers with it and about it.
He spent nearly zero time eating, sleeping or making friends. He loved listening to his peers speak and learning from them and always tried his best to reply when they talked to him first, but never went out on his own to seek them out.
In his 3rd year there, he decided to start researching the black void more closely. No one had heard of such a thing although many theories were thrown about here and there. The old man's well was studied day and night one year, under almost permanent surveillance. Nothing but water ever came out again. There was nothing odd about the well.
Inkle decided to take his research to the Biblioplex, supposedly the most massive collection of knowledge in all of the known multiverse. He had been before but the sheer size of the place left him a little upset, knowing he could never possibly read everything in there. He returned sparingly over the previous 2 years.
The librarian and codex proved invaluable to his research although the anomaly had never been seen in the form it took that fateful day, the effects resembled those of the creature known as Vormox, an enormous, worm-shaped anomaly with iridescent scales and a serpentine body.
It possesses the ability to teleport matter by consuming it. When it devours something, it absorbs its energy and essence. The consumed matter is transformed into energy, and "defected", intact, at another location (Usually somewhere random in the vacuum of space or mashed inside another object. In this case, it seems it was the old man's well.
The futility of his situation hit him then, there was absolutely no way to locate this creature in all the infinite locations it could be in and no way to manipulate it to take him back to the right home in the right timeline in the right reality.
Inkle was not worried that he would never see his father again, that was a near certainty. Distraught, he sought comfort in both learning and psychedelic substances, many of which he modified at random. His 108th trial was on an unremarkable evening with an unremarkable substance that he already knew through and through. An odd fungus boiled down, mixed with any alcohol, and magically flavored with a new taste he came up with called "pitch". It was a heavy flavor, it tasted like the top of your mouth, only more. Or like nothing, only less.
Too lazy to grab a cup tonight, he conjured a health potion and dumped in the pitch flavored liquid, filling it to the brim before downing the whole concoction at once. He went to lay down in his bed but substance kicked in nearly immediately.
Vibrant colors danced before his eyes, swirling and merging in an ethereal symphony of hues. Reality twisted and contorted, shifting like a mirage in the desert. His bed seemed miles away, but he made a lunge for it and felt something soft before closing his eyes. And yet, something was wrong.
In this altered state, he felt a profound disconnection with the universe, as if he could touch the very essence of creation but never be a part of it. He floated through cascading patterns of geometric shapes, each one unfolding with intricate precision. Fear led him into a small pocket of a reality in a corner of his mind left untouched since childhood. The air here calmed him and the room faded. Time and space became malleable, merging and folding in on themselves. The sharp points of the fractals were gone.
The journey reached its crescendo. He emerged from the undulating abyss into a realm not unlike his own. He saw grass so green it almost looked real. In fact it felt pretty real too, although the substance has never given him tactile hallucinations before. Unconcerned, he took a bite of probably the most grass flavored grass he'd even encountered.
The air crackled with energy, and the atmosphere hummed with an otherworldly resonance, promising endless adventures and profound revelations. No sooner than one flap of his wings and Inkle smashed into the ground, and blacked out, head throbbing all the while.
Unbeknownst to him, Inkle had crossed a threshold in his own mind entering a reality in some space and time entirely different than his own. He had in fact, not landed on his bed and instead fell through one of those tiny cracks in reality that are only visible when you close your eyes.
He dreamed of the nothingness, discovering his entire self in the absence of a mind. The pain of losing his home dimension felt so insignificant compared to the nothingness. He wondered about love and companionship but realized he wouldn't care to experience it again, but rather would like to know and catalogue it along with as many other things as possible. He looked around and saw his quill and then his body and willed himself towards them.
When he woke up to the sound of birds, he was on a patch of grass on a beach staring at a vast and dark ocean.

The Scrub Daddy Why is the Scrub Daddy so popular? The Scrub Daddy is popular for several reasons. First, its unique texture and design make it effective at cleaning a wide variety of surfaces, from delicate glassware to tough-to-clean grime on pots and pans. Second, its versatility makes it a great addition to any cleaning kit. The Scrub Daddy can be used for a variety of cleaning tasks around the home, from washing dishes to cleaning bathroom surfaces. Third, the Scrub Daddy is durable and long-lasting, which means it can be used multiple times before needing to be replaced. This makes it a cost-effective choice for homeowners and cleaning professionals. Finally, the Scrub Daddy is a fun and quirky product that has gained a bit of a cult following. Its bright yellow color and smiling face design make it stand out from other cleaning sponges on the market, and its unique texture and cleaning abilities have made it a favorite among many. Link: https://honesthoneyreviews.blogspot.com/2023/05/ things-you-didnt-know-you-could-clean.html

The Scrub Daddy Why is the Scrub Daddy so popular? The Scrub Daddy is popular for several reasons. First, its unique texture and design make it effective at cleaning a wide variety of surfaces, from delicate glassware to tough-to-clean grime on pots and pans. Second, its versatility makes it a great addition to any cleaning kit. The Scrub Daddy can be used for a variety of cleaning tasks around the home, from washing dishes to cleaning bathroom surfaces. Third, the Scrub Daddy is durable and long-lasting, which means it can be used multiple times before needing to be replaced. This makes it a cost-effective choice for homeowners and cleaning professionals. Finally, the Scrub Daddy is a fun and quirky product that has gained a bit of a cult following. Its bright yellow color and smiling face design make it stand out from other cleaning sponges on the market, and its unique texture and cleaning abilities have made it a favorite among many. Link: https://honesthoneyreviews.blogspot.com/2023/05/ things-you-didnt-know-you-could-clean.html

The Scrub Daddy Why is the Scrub Daddy so popular? The Scrub Daddy is popular for several reasons. First, its unique texture and design make it effective at cleaning a wide variety of surfaces, from delicate glassware to tough-to-clean grime on pots and pans. Second, its versatility makes it a great addition to any cleaning kit. The Scrub Daddy can be used for a variety of cleaning tasks around the home, from washing dishes to cleaning bathroom surfaces. Third, the Scrub Daddy is durable and long-lasting, which means it can be used multiple times before needing to be replaced. This makes it a cost-effective choice for homeowners and cleaning professionals. Finally, the Scrub Daddy is a fun and quirky product that has gained a bit of a cult following. Its bright yellow color and smiling face design make it stand out from other cleaning sponges on the market, and its unique texture and cleaning abilities have made it a favorite among many. Link: https://honesthoneyreviews.blogspot.com/2023/05/ things-you-didnt-know-you-could-clean.html

Barber’s Star, 2382

Captain Jayme Dawson sat at the centre of the bridge of the destroyer NFNS Anders T. Christian and grinned to himself with a proprietary satisfaction at his crew’s performance during the drill he’d just run them through; tensions along the border had been growing for months, and he’d be damned before he’d give his people anything less than their best chance at survival. Destroyer Squadron 193, part of the task force sent to defend Barber’s Star, was picketing the system and watching the hyper limit. The Christian’s closest fellows, her sister ships Invincible and Redoubtable, were each a quarter of the way around the system in different directions, millions of kilometres away. Were she to encounter any trouble, the Christian would be on her own for hours.
Dawson saw his sensors officer stiffen in her seat, and rose an eyebrow. “Share with the class, Ensign?” he asked, pulling up the tactical plot on one of his own displays…and nearly had a much more unseemly reaction. Even as she was reading out the situation in a shaking voice, he was running through his options in his mind. “Th-three light cruisers just jumped in, Sir. They aren’t broadcasting any identification—power spike. They’re raising shields.”
A corner of his mind noted how much professionalism she managed to regain by the end of her report, but he had more important things to worry about. Those cruisers were not supposed to be in-system, and clearly had intentions far from peaceful. “Comms, get word to Admiral Miranda and broadcast the standard challenge. Ops, get me shields, and bring the weapons up; looks like we won’t be able to get out of this one if they turn out to be hostile.”
The look he gave at his crew was the grin of a cornered wolf. When they returned it with similar expressions of their own to the beat of the General Quarters alarm, he felt a strange assurance they wouldn’t disappear into the black alone.
​
Admiral Carmen Miranda listened to the briefing with an incredulity she couldn’t hide even behind the habitual snacking she partook in. After she squawked her distress, the Christian had engaged the cruisers and her signal had abruptly cut off. She’d made the obvious and prudent assumption Dawson had been defeated and his ship destroyed and sent a small force out to reconnoitre the area. Expecting to find the wreckage of a destroyer, they’d found a field of debris surrounding three light cruisers floating dead in space. Lifeboats screamed for help. The enemy’s lifeboats. He’d sent his report off to FLEETCOM at Charlemagne. The raiders had been defeated, themselves…but where was the Christian?
​

Barber’s Star, 2495

NFMS Hera’s Dream wallowed through normal space, as was the merchant ship’s wont and lot in life. The uneventful flight had left the Second Mate Sammy Ortega, officer of the watch, yawning. He hated routes like these, and glanced at the plot with a well-hidden resentment; Nine (the creatively-named ninth planet of the system) was on the outskirts of the Barber’s Star system, and it left him and his captain’s ship vulnerably near the hyper limit for nearly two-thirds of the trip. The perfect place to get jumped by pirates. Still, though, the system had grown into a defence nexus since the War of ‘82, and it needed the precious metals Hera’s Dream carried. It also meant that Fleet ships weren’t exactly rare in the system.
None of that, however, was much consolation when four pirate ships lit off their drives and began to burn hard to intercept the ponderous fleet supply ship travelling with no protection but the light asteroid shielding that allowed it to travel at a small percentage of light speed. Even before Johny Nelson, the man sitting at the sensor console, could give his trembling report, red icons littered the plot as the pirates’ fire-control radars swept across the unarmed ship’s hull.
“They’re hailing us, Sammy,” Nelson said quietly, the shake in his voice flattening into a disbelieving facsimile of a person’s speech.
Gritting his teeth, Ortega told him to accept the signal. A slovenly face grinned back at him through the command chair’s display when they made the connection. “Cut thrust and prepare to be boarded. Any resistance will be met with force,” he stated, then grinned savagely and licked his lips. “A lot of force.”
The connection closed even while the overwhelmed second mate opened his mouth to respond; before he could turn to the wide-eyed woman at the helm to order their acceleration halted, to give in to the pirate’s demands, Nelson stiffened. “Another contact, Sammy,” he reported. “I don’t think it’s a pirate—the vector’s all wrong. And she’s fast, Sammy.”
“A fleet patrol?” Ortega asked.
“No IFF,” Nelson replied.
“Get her on the horn, Johny,” Ortega ordered.
“Nothing on the comms…huh? That’s weird,” Nelson said, then leaned forward. A strange dread filled Ortega; why wouldn’t she answer hailing? Nelson’s eyes widened. “She’s got her shields up, Sammy!” he exclaimed.
The plot said she had enough power to be a destroyer, but even a true warship of her class should be cautious about engaging this many pirates! On she came nonetheless, shields glowing a curiously menacing red. On she came, hundreds of thousands of kilometres from either the Hera’s Dream or any of the pirate ships. On she came, speeding toward the centre of the pirate “formation.”
When the first beams reached out, Ortega reflected on the courage of that single ship. It was a rare thing, shown by very few even within the navies protecting the disparate human planets. Even as he snapped orders to the woman at the helm, who obeyed in a sort of fugue state incurred by the stress of the situation, he contemplated the stranger’s fearless behaviour.
Like a tiger to its meat, he thought to himself.
The unknown ship flew incredibly; Ortega thought that the helmsman must’ve lived that ship, for how she pirouetted and slipped mere metres aside to avoid the pirates’ beams. Never did that ship fear their guns or numbers, and when their beams inevitably impacted, the entire bridge crew of the Hera’s Dream cringed, expecting those ruby-red shields to collapse. To their astonishment, they held strong, and hot lances of fury struck out from that unyielding bubble, rending the aether. The crew could only watch and shake their heads as this strange, astounding ship cut the pirates to bloody shreds.
Just as quickly as the stranger had shown up and begun to fight the pirates, then the fighting was all done; the pirate fleet was shattered, and the unknown ship had won. Ortega instructed Nelson to attempt to hail the stranger again to thank them, but once again their hailing went unanswered.
“She’s matching velocity,” Nelson reported, his voice filled with the awe and stunned surprise the rest of the crew were feeling. She pulled alongside close enough the hull-mounted cameras could get a good look at her when she dropped her shields.
When she did, the only sound on the bridge was that of three souls collectively inhaling.
The hull of that strange ship was irrevocably marred by the scars of some long-ago encounter; thirty holes ran clear through her, and a large gash left one side missing much of its hull panelling. Every spacer aboard the Hera’s Dream looking knew, without a doubt, that when the ship sustained those grievous wounds everyone aboard had died.
“Mr. Ortega,” the helmswoman said, finally gaining her voice. When his eyes met hers, she gave him a shell-shocked grin. “Have you ever heard the tale of Dawson’s Christian?” she asked, then pointed at the monitor. Ortega was confused for a brief moment, before his eyes returned to the feed and widened.
Painted in white lettering across what seemed to be the only surviving hull space on their side, they could see the ship’s name…Anders T. Christian. That realisation seemed to course through not only them, but also the stranger; instead of flying away, though, the hull itself began to fade from reality before their very eyes. The stunned, silent crew of the Hera’s Dream laid witness to the grizzly sight that was the view of the outer compartments of the shattered ship. Bodies laid askew, floating in the zero-G vacuum, limbs burned off by the edges of beams or torn off by flying shrapnel.
Mercifully, further detail was hidden by the dead crew’s shipsuits.
The bulkheads began to shimmer from perception as the bridge crew aboard Hera’s Dream began to tremble.
The last thing to slip from view were the bones…dead white bones of Jayme Dawson and his crew.
There are stories of the Dutchman, the Celeste and Barnham’s Pride, stories of the Horseman and the Lady at his side…

Kuiper Yard, Sol, 2500

“...but the tale that chills my spirit,” Ortega finished, “and I swear to God it’s true, is the tale of Jayme Dawson and his crew.”
The spacers sitting around the table shared disbelieving glances, but in their years since working aboard Sammy Ortega’s ship, they’d never heard him tell any tall tales. Besides.
It was comforting to know that merchants had a protector.
Even if it was just a vengeful ghost.
————————————————————————————
ِ A short story I wrote based on the song Dawson's Christian. Highly recommend y'all give it a listen. Critique is welcome.

Matchmaking is fundamentally broken to the point of myself and many other players I know no longer wanting to play. There has been a perfect storm of misteps by Riot. At the center of these missteps is an epidemic on the ladder of what I like to refer as the "New Age Smurf".
I will try to break out the list below in a way that paints a picture, I am sure any player reading this with over 250 games can easily relate.

1. There are far too many incentives and enablers within the Riot match making system for players to NOT play on Smurf accounts. I have found that in Gold 3-Silver 2 elo that I have a new account in over 80% of my games. Within a few minutes into the game you can already pick out a candidate or two to check them on op.gg based on their gameplay.
   
2. Players on these "fresh" accounts are not all Korean Lee Sin turbo smurfs, I've played maybe 300-400 games this season and would say that the players on these accounts are quiet the opposite. Usually players are in games well below their true rank. NOT ONLY are these players usually severly outmached, they also do not care an ounce on whether or not they win or lose or get banned. They have no investment in their account and get a new one in minutes if needed for the cost of a chocolate bar.
   
3. Riot's current structure is putting accounts that just finished their Intro Bot games into GOLD 4. This is their standard practice and this is why it is effecting me so heavily. It is so frustrating when level 30 players from all ranges of skill can be thrown in your game at GOLD 4 when SILVER BRONZE AND IRON all exist. The "New Age Smurf" is no longer your Diamond 1 Katarina OTP going for YT highlights. Smurfing has become too easy and popular and Riot needs changes that account for this - potentially lowering the BASE MMR could be a fix. To me these "New Age Smurfs" are so much more frustrating to encounter on their descent down the ladder than the "Old School Smurfs" styling on me on the way up. The Old School Smurf at least earns his LP but when one player 1v9 solo loses on Brand mid 0/11/0 down 110 cs at 15 mins it feels like nothing you can do can overcome it.
   
4. League of Legends grinding is not for the faint of heart. The grind since I have started playing is tough and tests you, but at the end of the day or even after a tough week it was still rewarding. Now with the removal of Smurfs Queue the gates have been open. Roughly 80% of my games are plagued with these new accounts that ruin the quality of the game for everyone involved. The removal of Smurfs Queue has been a failure. With anonymouse champ select I can't even research and dodge these accounts. My friends have given up and left, most are onto different games entirely and completely wrote off the Rift for good. Players that would grind hundreds of games a season have all gotten up and left. This season is uniquely different and unbearable.
   
5. Ranked has become akin to gambling at this point in my rank. You are just waiting to see on load in if you have a fresh account in the game (80% of the time you do). Then if they are on your team there is about a 10-15% chance they are actually deserving of being in this lobbys rank or higher. The majoirty of the time they solo lose and are extremely toxic. There's no point in holding back in chat when a ban means nothing to your new account with no skins, no history.
   
6. The current system is designed for the player to grind with LP gains that grow stale... BUT new accounts are a quick google away and only $3. FRESH LP GAINS +30 / -18 LP. I see less and less people on my friends list. I am not sure if they are truly offline or just on their own smurf. The whole experience has become less and less social when I log on
   

Hey does anyone know if GMC has an option to color match the front and rear bumpers on the new 2024 HD without buying an AT4 or higher package? I noticed that Chevy has the Z71 Sport and Midnight edition that gives you the option to have the bumpers painted from the factory to remove the chrome. Ford also has a similar option on their lower trim levels along with Chevy and RAM. It seems a bit ridiculous that you have to drop 80k just to have painted bumpers.
Thanks for any information or replies in advanced!

I have extreme anxiety about every single thing no matter how small. Currently I’m trying to paint my apartment and I’m anxious about the change, that I picked the wrong color. I’m googling how many times can you paint the same wall, googling how to strip paint from wall, getting anxiety about how I dont think I know how to strip paint. It’s insanity. Last month I was freaking out because I got a new outfit and I had a complete identity crisis about it. Last week I was freaking about buying the wrong bed frame. It’s always something. And often times it’s trivial. I freak out constantly, I change my mind so often I can’t make a decision to save my life. Does anyone else experience this and have any advice? How can I change this? I’m so tired of living like this. I’m making my loved ones miserable and myself miserable. Also a year and a half ago now I bought this apartment and I still worry if I made the wrong choice. During that time I couldn’t eat or sleep. Now I’m happy with the apartment and that has all settled but I still am wondering on a regular basis if I should have bought a different one! When it’s impossible because I didn’t and it already happened. My thoughts are so “circular” my boyfriend calls it, and so exhausting. He says I’m always “going backwards” he’s right. I even had to stop doing yoga because the muscle I was gaining was making me panic because I don’t want my body to change. It’s all so ridiculous and I can’t seem to get out of this nonsense

Okay, so at the start you're told to go get the three shrines on the great sky island. When you do so you are then able to open the door to the temple of time. Now, when I first played, I had no context for what I saw inside the temple, but now I realize a few things. Firstly, we see one of the secret stones, more specifically Zelda's own secret stone, on the altar ahead. Only this one is translucent. It's like at the end of each temple when you find a secret stone, only this one isn't physical and white, it's translucent and gold. Similar to the other stones, when you interact with this one you're teleported to that weird aetherial spirit world where you see sand circles and a symbol in the clouds in the back. This is you interacting with Zelda as the sage of time and I had no idea of that the first time and by the time I got to the sages I had completely forgot about this encounter with Zelda at the temple of time. When you meet her she extends her hand to you and you grasp it, just like with the modern sages. You then see a golden sparkle effect, the same as the different colored sparkle effects of the sages, light up in her arm and then travel from it to your arm and light up your arm that color. Then the middle part of the arm turns from gold to filled out green and instead of getting an avatar, we get Zelda's own time power. We see her use recall in the story and we gain that ability
So we actually start our adventure down in Hyrule with Zelda's sage power already added to us!
So I was thinking of all this and thought "well that makes no sense!". I mean, Zelda's flying around outside the temple of time right now as the light dragon. How in the world could her spirit be here and how did we interact with her stone?! She swallowed it to become a dragon. It doesn't make sense to see a random projection of her secret stone and she herself when she's supposed to be completely gone from the world right now. But then I got to thinking. Zelda had two powers. She had both Sonia's time powers, recall, and she had Rauru's power of light. Her stone is said by Mineru to amplify her time power specifically, but by the end of her time in the founding era she no longer has a use for that power because she no longer intends to use it to return to the future somehow. Her need at that time is for a sacred power strong enough to destroy the demon king. To bathe the master sword in that power. So she swallows her stone with the intent of maximizing her sacred power, not her time power. She becomes the light dragon and becomes a font of sacred power. My theory is that in choosing to amplify her sacred power and become the light dragon, she may have forsaken her time power or it might have separated from her and then link absorbs it into his hand. Zelda is no longer there and Link is able to use Zelda's own sage power. He doesn't summon an avatar and use it to use the power, it's his own power. In a sense Link may actually be a sage of time for the duration that he has her powers, just not amplified by a stone so he has the base amount of power
I've also thought about the end cutscene where Rauru and Sonia seem to channel their powers through your arm to save Zelda somehow, transforming her back from a dragon to a hylian again. I think maybe Link was using recall on her and that Rauru and Sonia powered Link's recall up to be able to recall her to her state in the founding era. Complete with her stone on her necklace again. It doesn't really say how Zelda was transformed back, it's just suggested that they channeled their abilities through your arm, but recall makes the most sense I'd say. Though there's no recall effect or sound in the cutscene so that's just speculation. Instead there's just vague light

Bought this RG Genesis and I think white color looks definitely classy! I've been playing a Les Paul for like forever and this guitar felt really comfy compared to it. The neck was refreshing for me and everything is easier on it! Also I think this guitar despite being cheapest one that i have, feels the most expensive. Build quality, feeling, neck, parts, everything! Only major thing though: Even though the feel is great, i think the sound of the guitar is kinda dull... Can't find a word to describe it but the tone is really flat, and i didn't like the harmonics on the bridge pickup. When i was jamming with my les paul, yes it feels terrible and really uncomfortable but the sound was like.. it was ALIVE!
What do you guys think about that? Is it the pickups? I really, really enjoy playing my rg genesis. I can play this beauty without exhausting my left hand and this was not the deal with my les paul... But the tone is a big issue. Also if it is the pickups which pickups do you guys recommend? I want great harmonics and les paul-ish high gain rhythm tone.