I’ve been truly struggling lately. I’m in my late twenties and have severe mental issues, specifically bipolar depression, adhd and a horrible panic disorder. I’ve been through so much over the years. I’ve seen therapists, prescribed dozens of medications and have been involuntarily admitted three times. I haven’t been medicated in years because I have bed reactions to everything I’m put on. I have been drinking very heavily for the last several years as a way to cope. I don’t really let the drinking get out of control, although I’m aware that as a mentally Ill person, it isn’t a good idea to abuse alcohol or any substances really. Two years ago I moved across the country to start over after nearly killing myself. I have come a long way but find myself struggling with the same issues all over again. I am pretty good at controlling my depression and mood, but my panic attacks are out of control and it sabotages every aspect of my life. People judge me and treat me like shit with everything I do. I can’t go anywhere without everyone picking up on my panic and treating me differently. Every job I get, I end up leaving eventually because of this and no matter what I do, the same exact scenario plays out. I just started a new job and I’m already getting laughed at by my boss and everyone in my department. I’m on my second week and just called out two days in a row cuz I had a breakdown and felt like hurting myself last night. I have been struggling with this since I was in the first grade and I have always been an outsider. On one hand, I’m okay with not fitting in, but on the other, people make me feel so alienated and alone that it triggers the illness in me. I’m not the same confident, easy going, charismatic person that I used to be. I constantly just feel like a frightened, caged animal within myself and practically every interaction I have with others is a complete disaster. I really just don’t think I was meant to be here and I’m trying not to give up because I don’t want to hurt others. I’m currently working for a hotel but I’ve had experience in many other fields. I wanted to see if there are people who can relate, what you did to overcome your struggles and if you may have advice on a job that would help with my anxiety. I truly feel like I just can’t be around people, but practically every job requires me to. I wouldn’t mind working from home but don’t have many talents or expertise that would make that possible. I don’t want to die but sometimes it feels like the only option because I’m very sick and tired of being sick and tired. Any advice would be incredibly appreciated.

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 79%. (I'm a bot)

KYIV, June 9 - Moscow and Kyiv both reported heavy fighting in Ukraine on Friday, with bloggers describing the first sightings of German and U.S. armour, signalling that Ukraine's long-anticipated counterattack was under way.
With virtually no independent reporting from the front lines and Kyiv saying little, it was impossible to assess whether Ukraine was penetrating Russian defences in its bid to drive out occupying forces.
Ben Barry, senior fellow for land warfare at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said reports from the Russian bloggers of German-made Leopard tanks and U.S. Bradley armoured vehicles near Tokmak south of Orikhiv, if confirmed, would provide the first evidence that Ukraine's new brigades of Western-armed troops had joined the battle.
In the east, Ukraine has reported advances around Bakhmut, which Russian forces captured last month after nearly a year of the deadliest ground combat in Europe since World War Two.
Ukraine generally bars journalists from reaching its side of front lines during offensive operations.
Russian officials said Ukraine had struck the Russian city of Voronezh with a drone, wounding three people, and reported other drone attacks in Belgorod and Kursk.

Summary Source FAQ Feedback Top keywords: Ukraine^#1 Russian^#2 reports^#3 troops^#4 KYIV^#5
Post found in /worldnews and /RussiaUkraineBriefing.
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I posted this a few months ago, and while I still don’t have a concrete answer (haven’t looked into it tbh), I came across something while rereading a piece on psychedelics and neuroplasticity that I came across some time back.
My original post: https://www.reddit.com/shroomstocks/comments/124nf7k/what_is_the_competitive_advantage_of_atais_vls01/
The Nature paper, “Towards an understanding of psychedelic-induced neuroplasticity”: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-022-01389-z
The excerpt, in case it helps anyone:
“In addition to 5-HT2A receptors, the effects on neurogenesis seen with DMT and 5-MeO-DMT could potentially involve other receptors [42, 43]. DMT has low but functionally significant affinity for the sigma-1 receptor, an orphan receptor involved in neuroprotection and neurogenesis [78]. Sigma-1 receptor antagonists block DMT’s effects on hippocampal neurogenesis [44, 79], and sigma-1 receptor activity has also been shown to stimulate neurogenesis in previous studies [80,81,82]. The affinity of DMT for sigma-1 receptors may also not only its effects on neurogenesis, but also DMT’s neuroprotective effects in a rat model of stroke [83].
Concerning 5-MeO-DMT, this molecule is unusual among psychedelics in that it has a nearly 1000-fold higher affinity for 5-HT1A than 5-HT2A receptors, and many of its effects are mediated by 5-HT1A receptors [79, 84,85,86,87]. Hippocampal 5-HT1A receptors may drive neurogenesis, suggesting that the effects of 5-MeO-DMT on neurogenesis could conceivably occur via potent, relatively selective activation of 5-HT1A receptors [88, 89]. Additionally, 5-HT1A receptors are generally inhibitory and tend to have opposite effects on downstream signaling pathways than 5-HT2A receptors [90,91,92,93]. Many psychedelics show binding affinity for both 5-HT2A and 5-HT1A receptors [94]. Furthermore, some of psychedelics’ effects on attention and the visual system may be mediated by the 5-HT1A receptor [95, 96]. The excitatory and neuroplastic effects of different psychedelic drugs in any particular brain region could conceivably depend on whether that region is richer in 5-HT2A or 5-HT1A receptors [79, 97,98,99,100,101].”

Work in a hotel restaurant at full capacity and am opening tomorrow. When it gets like this we do strictly buffet for breakfast and will put juice/coffee out for guests. The goal is to be getting the drinks for them but sometimes it just gets insanely busy and at least this way people aren’t bitching about refills.
A while ago we switched to a juice machine, which I thought would be great because we wouldn’t have to be constantly restocking the server fridge. Wrong. So wrong.
It takes more than 2 minutes to fill a single pitcher (yes, I have timed it). There is no way to calibrate it to dispense juice faster. I am getting there earlier than everyone else tomorrow solely to fill a bunch of large dispensers to put out. I am not kidding when I say it takes nearly 10 minutes to fill one. It’s just a stupid button. I am desperate to figure out a way to push the button with some sort of object so I am not standing there for 30 minutes just pushing a damn button.
Any ideas are welcome. I am trying to think of what would be heavy enough to keep the button pressed, but also it would need to be the right height from either the floor or a cart. Was thinking maybe a box of creamers on a cart or tray/stand leaned against the button, thoughts?
Also pray for me.
TIA

Hey guys, so I just finished binge-watching the entire series last night (after six months) so I figured that i'd give you guys my opinions
​
11). Double Feature
pretty basic last pick but it was really the best one. The two plots themselves were pretty good and if they were there own seasons they would've been higher, red tide in particular was really clever and pretty good. That being said, it was all just too rushed. Red tide felt hollow, it felt like it had to be rushed to a conclusion with no time to make it satisfying. Death valley was that x10. The season wasn't bad but it wasn't good, it was just nothing
10). Hotel
I really really don't like hotel, it felt like they tried to do too much with it and it wasn't captivating enough to pull it off, I personally just didn't find it all that interesting. The whole season felt like I was finally getting into it and then it jumped to something else totally random. There were many positives (for example, I liked more characters than I hated, even though I hated a few HARD) but I lost interest like 2/3rds through.
9). Apocalypse
Apocalypse would've been such a great season if they'd stuck to the original plot. After they killed the bunker crew off they spent far too much time on Michael's backstory, in fact they spent so much time on it that when the season ended I literally said to myself "wait, that's it, the seasons over?" They didn't need the coven or the murder house cast back and I would've much rather seen what they did with Tim and Emily or Ms. Venable. What really turned me off for this season was Michael's death, that was the most anti-climactic death I've ever seen and he's the son of Satan. Would re watch but not right away.
8). NYC
This was a fairly good season, it took a while to get the ball rolling but once they did the show was pretty good. The season had a lot of dull moments but also a lot of really climactic moments, my personal favorite was the hospital chase between Patrick, Gino, and the Mai Thai killer. The season also avoided a regular theme of AHS which is a week ending, the requiem is one of AHS' strongest endings.
7). Asylum
I like this season but not nearly as much as the fan base does. It was a really good, efficient, and fun season but it didn't quite jump at me like that. I thought the characters were done very nicely, the plot was entertaining, and overall it was very enjoyable. This season is a safe pick but it didn't stand out to me like some others did (except for the Thredson plot-line, OMG!)
6). Freak show
The hate this season gets doesn't feel totally deserved to me. Yes, the season did decline as time went on but not significantly enough to warrant that much hate. I loved the atmosphere of this season and everything felt like it fit. Overall, solid 7.5. Get's the bump over asylum because it feels more unique.
5). Murder house
Spectacular way to start the series, this season had me constantly wondering what was up with the season and I loved it. Constant twists and turns kept you on your toes and the characters were likable enough to enjoy (I mean some were, really disliked the Harmon parents and Larry). Great series start, loved it and it had me wanting more
4). Cult
This wasn't the perfect season by any means, i'll agree that the season is far too heavy-handed with political ideology and yes the Valerie Solanas episode was hot trash. Other than that though, this season is crazy good. Personally, I love shock horror so this season was a really good one for me, I was constantly shocked by what I was seeing and on top of being incredibly captivating, just made this season so good. Also, Kai Anderson is Evan Peters crown jewel of AHS (just saying).
3). Coven
This season made me feel invested in the way the previous two hadn't, this season totally hit on most aspects. The characters in this season are some of the best in the show's run, the plot was not only entertaining but also interesting, and I was genuinely unnerved a decent amount this season (which I love). Top tier season, no doubt
2). 1984
1984 was an homage to classic horror fans everywhere. The season was just so good and captivating, I loved the characters, I loved the cultural recreation, I loved the theme, and I loved the twists. I'm usually one to predict twists before they happen but the Margaret Booth reveal totally got me. Such an entertaining watch, I was sad when it was over.
1). Roanoke
There is no season quite like Roanoke, the season didn't focus much on atmosphere which I do think is very important but the scares made up for it. The season is the most investing and was honestly what I expected when I started watching the show. I was on edge a lot this season and it truly was just such a great experience. My favorite shot in this entire season is when Rory stands up in the hot tub and faces the house, completely unaware of the army of torches through the woods. Nobody notices and this placement has no payoff but it still sent chills down my spine, it's just a reminder that they are there and watching, waiting. I loved this!!
Let me know what you think, I know I've got weird opinions but I think they're fun.

l Someone on my maternal grandfather’s side of the family owned a hotel in Sussex County Delaware near the beach. Can someone please help me find who owned it/ the name of the hotel? I do not know if it is still open but it was open in the early to mid 1900s, maybe even earlier then that. The last name of the owner was Clifton. Sorry if there isn’t enough information.

l Someone on my maternal grandfather’s side of the family owned a hotel in Sussex County Delaware near the beach. Can someone please help me find who owned it/ the name of the hotel? I do not know if it is still open but it was open in the early to mid 1900s, maybe even earlier then that. The last name of the owner was Clifton. Sorry if there isn’t enough information.

First Previous Next
Chapter 27 - I Guess a Bathhouse Episode was Inevitable
Last Time: Having attained at least some measure or personal safety, the party recovered from their wounds in a forest clearing. Aiden awoke from his nightmare-troubled sleep to see everyone waiting. They had found a fortuitous ally in the form of Alex, a teamster who had happened upon them during their flight from Tripit, though they were away retrieving the party’s belongings. The day passed peacefully enough, and good news was had when Oxcard awoke from his sleep. In the relative quiet, plans were made for what the party would do going forward. Aiden, Laran, Leor, and Oriwyn would follow Arcadia and Oxcard as they made their way to Diareen, a distant trade city. In addition to following them, Aiden made Arcadia and Oxcard the offer to join their party. The two siblings deferred their answer but acquiesced to the party joining them on their trip, and thus it was that they set travel that night at a much more leisurely pace than they had been forced to take the night before.
We had been traveling for about three days. During the first, all of us had been jumpy. Many small clumps of people lined the roads that led from Tripit, little communities that arose in order to be near Tripit or which persisted despite the meteoric growth of their larger neighbor. Any time someone glanced over at us, I felt like they were going to report our whereabouts to Daisy and we would need to flee into the darkness. Luckily, however, there were no incidents and we began to be able to fully relax.
Oxcard was making a good recovery. He still rode in the cart more often than not, with Oriwyn often joining him to minister to his wounds as best she could. It quickly became apparent that he knew more about treating injuries than Oriwyn, so her attempts quickly turned into lessons. Arcadia normally walked nearby, chatting pleasantly with Oxcard whenever he otherwise didn’t have anything to do - I had noticed she didn’t talk to the rest of the party as much, but given the circumstances I figured that her joy at saving Ox merited a little bit of single-minded focus.
It felt strange to lead the group with nothing really going on. We had too many injuries to really try to train, and we wanted to spend as much time as we could traveling to put some distance behind us just in case someone was following, so we barely acted like an adventuring party. In general, it felt more like we were a group of backpackers who had run into each other and decided to stick together rather than an adventuring party on a quest for future glory.
All in all, I couldn’t say I really minded it.
In the quiet times after we’d made camp but before I fell asleep, I would occasionally check Lorna’s pocket mirror. The first time I did, I was unsurprised to learn we had all leveled up - I was level six, Laran and Leor were level seven, Oriwyn was level eight, Arcadia was level five, and Oxcard was level six. In addition to that, I had increased in bond with everybody. After such a harrowing venture, it felt right.
About midway through the third day of travel, Alex called out to us all, suddenly excited.
“I thought this looked familiar! See the weird tree that looks like it was hit by lightning? And that pile of boulders over there that kind of looks like a bunny? If we take the side road we’ll find in about ten minutes, then we’ll get to YaDa’s!”
I had no idea what Alex was talking about, so I shot a look around to the rest of the party. They seemed equally as mystified, so I decided to take one for the team.
“Uh, YaDa’s? What is that?”
Alex slapped a hand to their heart as if they’d been offended.
“You don’t know of YaDa’s? It's the finest combination inn, general store, and bathhouse in all of Tal!”
I snorted with laughter at Alex’s mock indignation. The place certainly sounded interesting - even after only three days on the road, I could do with an inn, a general store, and a bathhouse. If they all happened to be in the same building, then that was all the better for it. I did have one question though.
“I think we’re interested, assuming it won’t cause us too much delay. That being said, why is someone trying to run a business out in the middle of nowhere? Sure we’re not too far from Tripit and we’re on a decently large road, but I can’t imagine that enough people pass through to make it fully worth their while.”
Alex just shrugged and smiled.
“The owners seem to do just fine for themselves! Maybe it’s because they tend to get a lot of repeat customers. I’m not the only one who looks forward to my path taking me by YaDa’s - in fact, I stop pretty much every time I’m going to or from Tripit!”
I nodded along as Alex continued to ramble about some of the amenities of YaDa’s. Everyone else seemed interested too, so it wasn’t much of a decision to declare we would stop in and rest the remainder of the day. Everyone’s mood got an immediate boost and we all moved faster - even the pack animals pulling the cart seemed excited. Soon enough we found a simple wooden sign next to a side road, which Alex directed us down.
The sign had three pictograms on it - a coin purse, a plate of food, and a steaming bath. As I looked at them, my brain started to work out what order I wanted to do the actions they represented in.
Oriwyn’s eyes were bright and wide open as we came down the path. Already, a building could be seen in the distance. It was large for how little else stood near it - a big, blocky building that matched what I thought an inn should look like was flanked by a smaller, blocky building and a large geodesic dome. I blinked a few times, startled by the shape. It looked like triangular panes of glass rested on a wooden substructure, making a shape that I always associated with retrofuturism. Leor looked interested too - maybe she had some interest in architecture?
As we approached, Alex rumbled their wagon to a halt.
“You six - sorry Brams, seven - go ahead and run in ahead of me. I have an understanding with the owners so I’m going to hitch Peggy and Gary up in the stables before I try to get settled. Someone should be working the front desk - introduce yourself, they’re friendly!”
We thanked Alex for their insight and made our way into the building. We entered into a slightly small space - it wasn’t cramped, but it definitely felt small for what I associated with the entryway for an inn. A few plush chairs were arranged around a fireplace on one wall and a desk stood at the far end. It was currently unoccupied, but I saw a small hanging bell and a hammer on an iron stand on the desk. Shrugging, I took point and walked up to the desk. I glanced around but couldn’t see anyone, so I picked up the hammer and tapped the bell. The resulting noise was surprisingly loud and the answer was almost instant.
“So sorry! Be with you in a second!” came a deep but feminine sounding voice. Sure enough, after a short time had passed, a door opened and a woman stepped through.
To call the woman tall felt almost like an understatement. It seemed like she needed to duck under the doorframe - my best guess is that she was six foot eight or taller. She was built in a way that suggested the Ghost of Christmas Present to me - red hair and all - and when she walked behind the desk it looked comically small before her. She appeared to be human, but I wondered if giants were a thing in Tal - if they were, she definitely looked the part.
“Welcome to YaDa’s!” she said, smiling brightly. She swept a hand up to herself by way of introduction. “My name is Ya, and Da is around elsewhere, and together we run YaDa’s! I don’t think I recognize you - is this your first time?”
Leor was the one who stepped up to answer, which surprised me. I shifted back a little to let her take point.
“Yes, this is our first time, though you came highly recommended by our associate Alex. I believe they should be joining us soon!”
Ya beamed behind the desk.
“Oh! Alex is a good sort - glad to see them back! Their favorite room is even open right now - unless they’d be staying with you?”
“We hadn’t discussed how we would be doing lodging arrangements, but I assume Alex may want some peace and quiet after having us unexpectedly tail along for a few days. What sort of accommodations are there?”
Ya ran a quick count on our number. “For six? We have suites that can take six, or you could do three rooms of two. Honestly, it’s cheaper if you’re all together, and we have a harder time filling the big rooms anyway.
It was at that moment that Brams began to try to scale Ya’s desk. With a scrabbling sound and some snorting, he made his presence known. Ya looked down, looked a little surprised, then reached over the desk and held out her arms. Brams gladly stopped scrabbling and flopped into the proffered embrace, so Ya lifted him and placed him on the desk.
“My my, aren’t you a strange one, little creature! Can’t say I’ve seen your like before…”
Brams made a snorting sound that seemed almost indignant and shook himself. His tail wiggled with the end of the shake, then he sat and stared up at Ya. There was a moment’s silence and Brams looked very intent - all of us leaned in a little, as it seemed like Brams was about to do something. A violent sneeze burst from his muzzle, making us all jump, and the moment was over. Ya smiled at him and tousled the hair on top of his head with her huge hands.
“Well, sorry for not including you in the count. I’m sure that the room will fit seven, though you may need to squeeze a little. Follow me!”
With that, Ya pulled a bulky key from a pocket in her pants. She bent down and unlocked a drawer in the desk, withdrawing a smaller key. As she handed it to Leor, she gave her some instructions.
“Now this key is enchanted. After we’ve opened your door, you’ll have ten minutes to make as many copies as you’ll need. Just take the key, leave it on an open spot of the table, and make sure nobody looks at it for about a minute. When you look back, there’ll be a second key on the table. Take the key and give it to someone - have them put it out of sight - and repeat it until you have what you need! When you’re done, stroke the first key and tell it thanks and it’ll stop duplicating itself.”
I chuckled - hotel key cards had nothing on what I’d just seen. Sure the whole system seemed a little convoluted, and there was a part of me that wanted to keep summoning keys for a few hours just to see how many I could make, but it still felt really cool. In a way, it felt like proper magic, like in a fairy tale.
It was amazing how quickly parts of Tal had become passé to me. I figured since I’d been living in Tal for a while, it was natural that I'd done my best to try and fit in, which would explain how I so quickly became inured to the magical wonders of the world. After all, it seemed like my life was going to continue on as it had been for the foreseeable future. Still, sometimes something small would hit me over the head with a sudden feeling that I was somewhere different from Earth.
Over time, that feeling had been less and less negative.
We followed Ya as she led us to our room. She had to slow a little, as Arcadia made it a point to walk in front of Oxcard and walk slowly so he wouldn’t try to keep up with the tall woman and possibly re-open his wounds. Despite the delay however, we made it to our rooms fine before too awful long.
Our lodgings were simple but spacious. Beds lined two of the walls, creating a corner for sleeping that stood opposed to a clear space with some tables, chairs, and what appeared to be a simple wood-fired stove. A stack of small firewood sat in a basket and thick quilts covered the bed, and overall the whole place gave off a very cozy feeling.
We wasted no time in thanking Ya and starting to get settled in. Arcadia, Oxcard, and Oriwyn took the three beds on one wall while Leor, Laran, and I took the remaining. Leor busied herself making keys, though had some trouble because Oriwyn kept trying to sneak a peek of the key when it split, causing the magic to not work. Eventually though, each of us had a copy - we even made a copy for Brams and tied it around his neck loosely with a piece of ribbon, figuring that it would be a good backup. Leor had an odd look on her face when she began to stroke the key and tell it thank you, which got the rest of us laughing. The key shivered in her hand and let out a contented sigh, which made Leor drop it. Oxcard started laughing so hard that he doubled over in pain, but there was no damage done and the mood stayed high. I decided I should address everyone and come up with something of a game plan.
“Well everyone, it looks like we have some R and R time on our hands! What do people want to do?”
What followed was a pleasantly lively discussion. Arcadia, Laran, and I really wanted to see about the bathhouse side of things, while Oriwyn and Leor argued that they were hungry. Oxcard stayed quiet for most of the deliberation, offering noncommittal answers if ever directly asked about anything, which I found a little strange but which I didn’t press on. The whole time, Brams ran laps around the room, flapping his wings as he jumped from bed to bed. I noticed he seemed to be getting just the littlest bit of a glide going as he leapt over the longer stretches - I would bring that up with Ori later. It also seemed like a positive development that the movement didn’t cause him pain, despite the healing scar on his wing.
Eventually, a plan was settled on. We would go to the general store to see if they had bathing clothes and something to eat. If they did, we would make our purchases then head to the bathhouse, which we assumed was the glass-encased dome structure. If we couldn’t find something that worked as a snack, we agreed we would get a proper meal before swimming. Our plan solidified, Oriwyn calmed Brams down enough so that he stopped running laps of the room, and we headed back to the front.
When we got to the store, we found someone we hadn’t seen before. By the look of her, she seemed to be Ya’s daughter - she hadn’t inherited her mother’s prodigious height entirely, but still stood roughly six feet tall. As we all walked in, she perked up immediately.
“Hello! My name is Yada, and I run the general store here! Have you ever visited one of our shops?”
So many things hit me at once I had trouble figuring out what to focus on first. The first thing I came to grips with was that this person’s name was likely a combination of her parents’ - it wasn’t that hard to imagine, but it still felt weird. The second was that there were multiple shops. Obviously the concept of a chain of stores wasn’t foreign to me, but they were a concept I thought I had left behind with Earth. Curiosity overtook me, so I decided to press for a little more information.
“No I can’t say I have - where are they?”
Yada puffed up behind the desk and looked proud of herself.
“Oh they’re around! Pick three out of the four cardinal directions from Tripit, and there you’ll find a branch of Yada’s General store. My siblings - Yadayada and Yadayadayada - run those two stores, but I was the one who started the whole thing and got this shop made! Mom and Dad really mostly care about the hospitality part of things, so I was free to make the business as I wanted it.”
Leor snorted and bluntly asked Yada a question that I had to admit had occurred to me too.
“Yada, Yadayada, and Yadayadayada? Good thing your parents didn’t have more kids or that would get unwieldy. Are they not very creative people?”
I may have phrased things a little more delicately, but I was still curious of the answer. Luckily Yada laughed it off and didn’t seem to take any offense.
“No, they’re good hosts but not the most imaginative when it comes to naming. We always joked it made it easy for people to remember who was the oldest - take the number of syllables and divide by two!”
Leor just raised her eyebrows but Arcadia burst out laughing. I don’t think I’d heard her laugh like that before. Oriwyn looked at her and slowly began to chuckle along, slowly crescendoing to full-blown laughter as well. I managed to keep a straight face until I glanced over at Laran, who looked utterly mystified. Ox was smiling - the first time I’d seen him do so in the short and intense time since I’d met him - and even Leor was giving a disdainful look, which was tantamount to a grin from her. When everyone calmed down, we thanked Yada for the introduction and got to the business of shopping.
There were sandwiches wrapped up in little paper bags, which we all bought one or two of. Oriwyn, Leor, and Oxcard immediately wolfed theirs down while Laran, Arcadia, and I went to a small table set off to the side and had a more leisurely time of things. As we ate, the other three began to look at the wares of the shop.
Oriwyn immediately found little baubles and spent a good while combing through a small chest of brooches. While she was doing that, Oxcard went to some shelves that had what looked like medical supplies. He came up to Arcadia with an armful and asked for some money, which she hurriedly fished out and gave him. Finally, Leor seemed to be focused on a small collection of clothes. She held up a garment and wandered over to a mirror to see how she looked in it. It didn’t take me long to figure out it was some sort of bathing suit.
I was really, really thankful that Tal had the concept of bathing suits. Part of me had been quietly dreading the prospect of skinny-dipping with five people who were barely more than strangers to me. The fact there was some reasonable expectation we would all be clothed was a relief.
After we finished our sandwiches, we all went to look at the bathing wear. Yada wandered over and started talking about things, going over what was popular where and who had suggested certain styles. I did what I normally did and grabbed the first pair of anything that reasonably looked like it would fit me, and it seemed Oxcard did the same. Arcadia was the next to choose, then Leor. Laran and Oriwyn were debating extensively amongst themselves, going over minute differences in material and cut that I wouldn’t have even thought to look at, so we left them to it and told them to meet us in the bathhouse. They agreed, so we set off.
When we entered the glass dome that hosted the baths, I saw that I had been right. A wooden frame created triangular ledges that held up glass panes. Some of them seemed to be missing from strategic places, creating a cross breeze. Still, the glass held in a large amount of steamy air, and we quickly picked out a large pool to claim as our own. There were only two other bathers, and they were off in a much smaller pool off to the side, so we had plenty of choice. We saw some booths off to the side and went to get changed.
As we gathered by the pool, my head idly studied what bathing suits we’d all chosen. I had gone with what was familiar - a pair of baggy trunks that had a cinch at the waist so they wouldn’t fall down. They didn’t have the weird inner netting that I was used to in place of underwear, which felt a bit strange and loose, but otherwise they were comfortable enough. Oxcard seemed to have chosen much the same as me, but where mine were dyed a green color, his seemed to be wholly undyed. I wondered if they had been the cheapest pair available - that might track with what little I knew about him and Arcadia.
Speaking of, Arcadia was wearing what looked like a sports bra and spanks. I’m sure there were women back home who would have killed for her sporty build, though given her life I’m sure she hadn’t come by it in a way that was in any way pleasant. The last to emerge was Leor, and I had to stop myself from laughing. She looked like a candy cane, wearing a red and white striped one-piece bathing suit that made me think of the old-timey Victorian bathing suits I saw guys wearing in movies and read about in history books. The lower part nearly came down to her knees, and given her beard and candy-cane coloring I got the impression of one of Santa’s elves on holiday. The mental image was doubly funny given that Leor was very definitely a dwarf, but I managed to hold myself together regardless.
We all slipped into the water - it was warm and inviting - and had just started to chat when we heard the bathhouse door open. We waved at Oriwyn and Laran as they entered, and they quickly went and got changed in the hutches we had vacated. It was with some curiosity that I watched for them to exit.
Oriwyn wore a loose, draped garment that seemed to be gathered at specific places to preserve her modesty - it looked vaguely Greek to me. I only had a few seconds to observe the cut though, because she immediately took a running start and jumped towards the deepest part of the pool. Brams immediately followed, offering a secondary splash nearly as large as Oriwyn’s as he splashed down. He began to paddle around the pool happily, having tucked his wings up and out of the way, while Oriwyn surfaced, shooting a cheesy grin at Leor - who she had splashed severely with her entrance - and took a place along the ledge at the edge.
When Laran came out, my face turned a little red. Now I wasn’t a prude, and over the years I had seen several men in very, very revealing swimsuits, but Laran’s suit was drawing my eyes in a way that I felt like they hadn’t been drawn since I was going through puberty. He wore what appeared to be folded fabric instead of trunks like Oxcard and I had found - some distant memory thought it looked vaguely Roman in Earth terms. It was a dark burgundy and not even that revealing, but something about seeing him in it brought back the bashfulness I had experienced when he’d run around the edge of the house shirtless the first time I met him. He seemed to be thinking the same way as I saw his cheeks darkened, but ignored his self-consciousness and walked over without comment to join us in the pool.
We all relaxed in the warm water, trading the occasional bits of small talk. After a while Alex walked in and we waved, but they seemed bent on going to a particular pool on the opposite side of the room. After a while of discussing nothing important, Arcadia cleared her throat to get our attention.
“Excuse me? I don’t want to be too formal or anything, but Ox and I have been talking about your offer and I figured we should share what we decided.”
My heart nearly froze in my chest. My curiosity on if they’d join us had been burning away at me for the whole trip so far, and it seemed like it was going to be answered. Of course we would survive without them, but with what all we’d been through I very much wanted them to accept. Also, part of me wondered if I felt that way because their refusal would mean our group wasn’t worth joining. I tried to push the sudden jumble of emotions down and focus on what she was saying.
“We talked it over and decided we’ll join you. I didn’t have a much better plan long term, and you’ve already proved you’re trustworthy. So, assuming you’ll still have us, we’d like to join.”
Arcadia looked a little nervous while Ox remained hard to read. I felt a sudden soaring in my heart, but Oriwyn beat me to accepting the offer.
“Yes! Of course! We never rescinded the offer after all, plus we work well together!”
Arcadia looked pleased, and I thought I saw the ghost of a smile on Oxcard’s face. Leor smiled too, while Laran suddenly shot to his feet.
“This calls for a proper celebration! Wait ‘ere!”
With that, he got out of the pool and raced off. In short order, he returned with two wine bottles and a few glasses. He eagerly began passing them out, Leor enthusiastically helping get things uncorked and poured. When we all had our glasses, Laran raised his in the air.
“A toast! To new allies an’ a new team! May we do well, do good, and do well for ourselves in so doin’!”
He said the words as if he’d heard them before - I wondered from whom for a moment but abandoned that train of thought quickly. Everyone readily agreed to his toast and raised their glasses, myself included, before taking hearty drinks of our wine. It was a sweet, almost citrusy flavor that bordered on too sweet for me, but its flavor cut through the steamy air of the bathhouse well. I enjoyed it and it seemed everyone else did too. As we lowered our glasses though, we all got quite a shock.
“Cheers! Now where’s my glass?”
The voice came from Brams, who was happily paddling in the center of the pool. Laran choked on his wine, shooting a little out of his nose. Leor just stopped and stared into her glass, looking for an explanation there. Oxcard and Arcadia looked at the rest of us, vaguely confused, but it was Oriwyn’s reaction I really wanted to see.
She sat on her ledge in the pool, a broad smile across her face. I could see a hint of surprise in her eyes, but still she flashed her smile to the rest of us.
“Why are you all acting so surprised? Did you think I was talking to Brams just for fun?”
Elsewhere: The captain of the river barge stood eagle-eyed at the front. It wasn’t like he needed to steer very much - just about anybody could control a riverboat when it was being pulled by horses on the bank - so his attention was much better spent keeping an eye out for threats. He looked to the side - the group of three mercenaries he had hired to accompany his boat and walk by the horses trotted along, weapons sheathed and chatting amicably. He couldn’t blame them really, given that they’d been going for a full day and a half since he’d picked them up without trouble. Still, he knew this stretch of the river and knew he should expect trouble. He scanned the gently rippling surface of the river again, a sudden feeling of discomfort settling over him. A disruption caught his eye, and he let out a cry. The bubbles that caused the disruption began to surface more violently, making the calm stream look like a pot of water at a roiling boil, and the captain cursed his luck. He’d been a fool to try and make his run when he did, but he felt like he’d had no choice. Now he was going to pay for that specific incautious decision - all he could hope was that he didn’t pay too dearly in either coin or life.
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Chapter 27 - I Guess a Bathhouse Episode was Inevitable
Last Time: Having attained at least some measure or personal safety, the party recovered from their wounds in a forest clearing. Aiden awoke from his nightmare-troubled sleep to see everyone waiting. They had found a fortuitous ally in the form of Alex, a teamster who had happened upon them during their flight from Tripit, though they were away retrieving the party’s belongings. The day passed peacefully enough, and good news was had when Oxcard awoke from his sleep. In the relative quiet, plans were made for what the party would do going forward. Aiden, Laran, Leor, and Oriwyn would follow Arcadia and Oxcard as they made their way to Diareen, a distant trade city. In addition to following them, Aiden made Arcadia and Oxcard the offer to join their party. The two siblings deferred their answer but acquiesced to the party joining them on their trip, and thus it was that they set travel that night at a much more leisurely pace than they had been forced to take the night before.
We had been traveling for about three days. During the first, all of us had been jumpy. Many small clumps of people lined the roads that led from Tripit, little communities that arose in order to be near Tripit or which persisted despite the meteoric growth of their larger neighbor. Any time someone glanced over at us, I felt like they were going to report our whereabouts to Daisy and we would need to flee into the darkness. Luckily, however, there were no incidents and we began to be able to fully relax.
Oxcard was making a good recovery. He still rode in the cart more often than not, with Oriwyn often joining him to minister to his wounds as best she could. It quickly became apparent that he knew more about treating injuries than Oriwyn, so her attempts quickly turned into lessons. Arcadia normally walked nearby, chatting pleasantly with Oxcard whenever he otherwise didn’t have anything to do - I had noticed she didn’t talk to the rest of the party as much, but given the circumstances I figured that her joy at saving Ox merited a little bit of single-minded focus.
It felt strange to lead the group with nothing really going on. We had too many injuries to really try to train, and we wanted to spend as much time as we could traveling to put some distance behind us just in case someone was following, so we barely acted like an adventuring party. In general, it felt more like we were a group of backpackers who had run into each other and decided to stick together rather than an adventuring party on a quest for future glory.
All in all, I couldn’t say I really minded it.
In the quiet times after we’d made camp but before I fell asleep, I would occasionally check Lorna’s pocket mirror. The first time I did, I was unsurprised to learn we had all leveled up - I was level six, Laran and Leor were level seven, Oriwyn was level eight, Arcadia was level five, and Oxcard was level six. In addition to that, I had increased in bond with everybody. After such a harrowing venture, it felt right.
About midway through the third day of travel, Alex called out to us all, suddenly excited.
“I thought this looked familiar! See the weird tree that looks like it was hit by lightning? And that pile of boulders over there that kind of looks like a bunny? If we take the side road we’ll find in about ten minutes, then we’ll get to YaDa’s!”
I had no idea what Alex was talking about, so I shot a look around to the rest of the party. They seemed equally as mystified, so I decided to take one for the team.
“Uh, YaDa’s? What is that?”
Alex slapped a hand to their heart as if they’d been offended.
“You don’t know of YaDa’s? It's the finest combination inn, general store, and bathhouse in all of Tal!”
I snorted with laughter at Alex’s mock indignation. The place certainly sounded interesting - even after only three days on the road, I could do with an inn, a general store, and a bathhouse. If they all happened to be in the same building, then that was all the better for it. I did have one question though.
“I think we’re interested, assuming it won’t cause us too much delay. That being said, why is someone trying to run a business out in the middle of nowhere? Sure we’re not too far from Tripit and we’re on a decently large road, but I can’t imagine that enough people pass through to make it fully worth their while.”
Alex just shrugged and smiled.
“The owners seem to do just fine for themselves! Maybe it’s because they tend to get a lot of repeat customers. I’m not the only one who looks forward to my path taking me by YaDa’s - in fact, I stop pretty much every time I’m going to or from Tripit!”
I nodded along as Alex continued to ramble about some of the amenities of YaDa’s. Everyone else seemed interested too, so it wasn’t much of a decision to declare we would stop in and rest the remainder of the day. Everyone’s mood got an immediate boost and we all moved faster - even the pack animals pulling the cart seemed excited. Soon enough we found a simple wooden sign next to a side road, which Alex directed us down.
The sign had three pictograms on it - a coin purse, a plate of food, and a steaming bath. As I looked at them, my brain started to work out what order I wanted to do the actions they represented in.
Oriwyn’s eyes were bright and wide open as we came down the path. Already, a building could be seen in the distance. It was large for how little else stood near it - a big, blocky building that matched what I thought an inn should look like was flanked by a smaller, blocky building and a large geodesic dome. I blinked a few times, startled by the shape. It looked like triangular panes of glass rested on a wooden substructure, making a shape that I always associated with retrofuturism. Leor looked interested too - maybe she had some interest in architecture?
As we approached, Alex rumbled their wagon to a halt.
“You six - sorry Brams, seven - go ahead and run in ahead of me. I have an understanding with the owners so I’m going to hitch Peggy and Gary up in the stables before I try to get settled. Someone should be working the front desk - introduce yourself, they’re friendly!”
We thanked Alex for their insight and made our way into the building. We entered into a slightly small space - it wasn’t cramped, but it definitely felt small for what I associated with the entryway for an inn. A few plush chairs were arranged around a fireplace on one wall and a desk stood at the far end. It was currently unoccupied, but I saw a small hanging bell and a hammer on an iron stand on the desk. Shrugging, I took point and walked up to the desk. I glanced around but couldn’t see anyone, so I picked up the hammer and tapped the bell. The resulting noise was surprisingly loud and the answer was almost instant.
“So sorry! Be with you in a second!” came a deep but feminine sounding voice. Sure enough, after a short time had passed, a door opened and a woman stepped through.
To call the woman tall felt almost like an understatement. It seemed like she needed to duck under the doorframe - my best guess is that she was six foot eight or taller. She was built in a way that suggested the Ghost of Christmas Present to me - red hair and all - and when she walked behind the desk it looked comically small before her. She appeared to be human, but I wondered if giants were a thing in Tal - if they were, she definitely looked the part.
“Welcome to YaDa’s!” she said, smiling brightly. She swept a hand up to herself by way of introduction. “My name is Ya, and Da is around elsewhere, and together we run YaDa’s! I don’t think I recognize you - is this your first time?”
Leor was the one who stepped up to answer, which surprised me. I shifted back a little to let her take point.
“Yes, this is our first time, though you came highly recommended by our associate Alex. I believe they should be joining us soon!”
Ya beamed behind the desk.
“Oh! Alex is a good sort - glad to see them back! Their favorite room is even open right now - unless they’d be staying with you?”
“We hadn’t discussed how we would be doing lodging arrangements, but I assume Alex may want some peace and quiet after having us unexpectedly tail along for a few days. What sort of accommodations are there?”
Ya ran a quick count on our number. “For six? We have suites that can take six, or you could do three rooms of two. Honestly, it’s cheaper if you’re all together, and we have a harder time filling the big rooms anyway.
It was at that moment that Brams began to try to scale Ya’s desk. With a scrabbling sound and some snorting, he made his presence known. Ya looked down, looked a little surprised, then reached over the desk and held out her arms. Brams gladly stopped scrabbling and flopped into the proffered embrace, so Ya lifted him and placed him on the desk.
“My my, aren’t you a strange one, little creature! Can’t say I’ve seen your like before…”
Brams made a snorting sound that seemed almost indignant and shook himself. His tail wiggled with the end of the shake, then he sat and stared up at Ya. There was a moment’s silence and Brams looked very intent - all of us leaned in a little, as it seemed like Brams was about to do something. A violent sneeze burst from his muzzle, making us all jump, and the moment was over. Ya smiled at him and tousled the hair on top of his head with her huge hands.
“Well, sorry for not including you in the count. I’m sure that the room will fit seven, though you may need to squeeze a little. Follow me!”
With that, Ya pulled a bulky key from a pocket in her pants. She bent down and unlocked a drawer in the desk, withdrawing a smaller key. As she handed it to Leor, she gave her some instructions.
“Now this key is enchanted. After we’ve opened your door, you’ll have ten minutes to make as many copies as you’ll need. Just take the key, leave it on an open spot of the table, and make sure nobody looks at it for about a minute. When you look back, there’ll be a second key on the table. Take the key and give it to someone - have them put it out of sight - and repeat it until you have what you need! When you’re done, stroke the first key and tell it thanks and it’ll stop duplicating itself.”
I chuckled - hotel key cards had nothing on what I’d just seen. Sure the whole system seemed a little convoluted, and there was a part of me that wanted to keep summoning keys for a few hours just to see how many I could make, but it still felt really cool. In a way, it felt like proper magic, like in a fairy tale.
It was amazing how quickly parts of Tal had become passé to me. I figured since I’d been living in Tal for a while, it was natural that I'd done my best to try and fit in, which would explain how I so quickly became inured to the magical wonders of the world. After all, it seemed like my life was going to continue on as it had been for the foreseeable future. Still, sometimes something small would hit me over the head with a sudden feeling that I was somewhere different from Earth.
Over time, that feeling had been less and less negative.
We followed Ya as she led us to our room. She had to slow a little, as Arcadia made it a point to walk in front of Oxcard and walk slowly so he wouldn’t try to keep up with the tall woman and possibly re-open his wounds. Despite the delay however, we made it to our rooms fine before too awful long.
Our lodgings were simple but spacious. Beds lined two of the walls, creating a corner for sleeping that stood opposed to a clear space with some tables, chairs, and what appeared to be a simple wood-fired stove. A stack of small firewood sat in a basket and thick quilts covered the bed, and overall the whole place gave off a very cozy feeling.
We wasted no time in thanking Ya and starting to get settled in. Arcadia, Oxcard, and Oriwyn took the three beds on one wall while Leor, Laran, and I took the remaining. Leor busied herself making keys, though had some trouble because Oriwyn kept trying to sneak a peek of the key when it split, causing the magic to not work. Eventually though, each of us had a copy - we even made a copy for Brams and tied it around his neck loosely with a piece of ribbon, figuring that it would be a good backup. Leor had an odd look on her face when she began to stroke the key and tell it thank you, which got the rest of us laughing. The key shivered in her hand and let out a contented sigh, which made Leor drop it. Oxcard started laughing so hard that he doubled over in pain, but there was no damage done and the mood stayed high. I decided I should address everyone and come up with something of a game plan.
“Well everyone, it looks like we have some R and R time on our hands! What do people want to do?”
What followed was a pleasantly lively discussion. Arcadia, Laran, and I really wanted to see about the bathhouse side of things, while Oriwyn and Leor argued that they were hungry. Oxcard stayed quiet for most of the deliberation, offering noncommittal answers if ever directly asked about anything, which I found a little strange but which I didn’t press on. The whole time, Brams ran laps around the room, flapping his wings as he jumped from bed to bed. I noticed he seemed to be getting just the littlest bit of a glide going as he leapt over the longer stretches - I would bring that up with Ori later. It also seemed like a positive development that the movement didn’t cause him pain, despite the healing scar on his wing.
Eventually, a plan was settled on. We would go to the general store to see if they had bathing clothes and something to eat. If they did, we would make our purchases then head to the bathhouse, which we assumed was the glass-encased dome structure. If we couldn’t find something that worked as a snack, we agreed we would get a proper meal before swimming. Our plan solidified, Oriwyn calmed Brams down enough so that he stopped running laps of the room, and we headed back to the front.
When we got to the store, we found someone we hadn’t seen before. By the look of her, she seemed to be Ya’s daughter - she hadn’t inherited her mother’s prodigious height entirely, but still stood roughly six feet tall. As we all walked in, she perked up immediately.
“Hello! My name is Yada, and I run the general store here! Have you ever visited one of our shops?”
So many things hit me at once I had trouble figuring out what to focus on first. The first thing I came to grips with was that this person’s name was likely a combination of her parents’ - it wasn’t that hard to imagine, but it still felt weird. The second was that there were multiple shops. Obviously the concept of a chain of stores wasn’t foreign to me, but they were a concept I thought I had left behind with Earth. Curiosity overtook me, so I decided to press for a little more information.
“No I can’t say I have - where are they?”
Yada puffed up behind the desk and looked proud of herself.
“Oh they’re around! Pick three out of the four cardinal directions from Tripit, and there you’ll find a branch of Yada’s General store. My siblings - Yadayada and Yadayadayada - run those two stores, but I was the one who started the whole thing and got this shop made! Mom and Dad really mostly care about the hospitality part of things, so I was free to make the business as I wanted it.”
Leor snorted and bluntly asked Yada a question that I had to admit had occurred to me too.
“Yada, Yadayada, and Yadayadayada? Good thing your parents didn’t have more kids or that would get unwieldy. Are they not very creative people?”
I may have phrased things a little more delicately, but I was still curious of the answer. Luckily Yada laughed it off and didn’t seem to take any offense.
“No, they’re good hosts but not the most imaginative when it comes to naming. We always joked it made it easy for people to remember who was the oldest - take the number of syllables and divide by two!”
Leor just raised her eyebrows but Arcadia burst out laughing. I don’t think I’d heard her laugh like that before. Oriwyn looked at her and slowly began to chuckle along, slowly crescendoing to full-blown laughter as well. I managed to keep a straight face until I glanced over at Laran, who looked utterly mystified. Ox was smiling - the first time I’d seen him do so in the short and intense time since I’d met him - and even Leor was giving a disdainful look, which was tantamount to a grin from her. When everyone calmed down, we thanked Yada for the introduction and got to the business of shopping.
There were sandwiches wrapped up in little paper bags, which we all bought one or two of. Oriwyn, Leor, and Oxcard immediately wolfed theirs down while Laran, Arcadia, and I went to a small table set off to the side and had a more leisurely time of things. As we ate, the other three began to look at the wares of the shop.
Oriwyn immediately found little baubles and spent a good while combing through a small chest of brooches. While she was doing that, Oxcard went to some shelves that had what looked like medical supplies. He came up to Arcadia with an armful and asked for some money, which she hurriedly fished out and gave him. Finally, Leor seemed to be focused on a small collection of clothes. She held up a garment and wandered over to a mirror to see how she looked in it. It didn’t take me long to figure out it was some sort of bathing suit.
I was really, really thankful that Tal had the concept of bathing suits. Part of me had been quietly dreading the prospect of skinny-dipping with five people who were barely more than strangers to me. The fact there was some reasonable expectation we would all be clothed was a relief.
After we finished our sandwiches, we all went to look at the bathing wear. Yada wandered over and started talking about things, going over what was popular where and who had suggested certain styles. I did what I normally did and grabbed the first pair of anything that reasonably looked like it would fit me, and it seemed Oxcard did the same. Arcadia was the next to choose, then Leor. Laran and Oriwyn were debating extensively amongst themselves, going over minute differences in material and cut that I wouldn’t have even thought to look at, so we left them to it and told them to meet us in the bathhouse. They agreed, so we set off.
When we entered the glass dome that hosted the baths, I saw that I had been right. A wooden frame created triangular ledges that held up glass panes. Some of them seemed to be missing from strategic places, creating a cross breeze. Still, the glass held in a large amount of steamy air, and we quickly picked out a large pool to claim as our own. There were only two other bathers, and they were off in a much smaller pool off to the side, so we had plenty of choice. We saw some booths off to the side and went to get changed.
As we gathered by the pool, my head idly studied what bathing suits we’d all chosen. I had gone with what was familiar - a pair of baggy trunks that had a cinch at the waist so they wouldn’t fall down. They didn’t have the weird inner netting that I was used to in place of underwear, which felt a bit strange and loose, but otherwise they were comfortable enough. Oxcard seemed to have chosen much the same as me, but where mine were dyed a green color, his seemed to be wholly undyed. I wondered if they had been the cheapest pair available - that might track with what little I knew about him and Arcadia.
Speaking of, Arcadia was wearing what looked like a sports bra and spanks. I’m sure there were women back home who would have killed for her sporty build, though given her life I’m sure she hadn’t come by it in a way that was in any way pleasant. The last to emerge was Leor, and I had to stop myself from laughing. She looked like a candy cane, wearing a red and white striped one-piece bathing suit that made me think of the old-timey Victorian bathing suits I saw guys wearing in movies and read about in history books. The lower part nearly came down to her knees, and given her beard and candy-cane coloring I got the impression of one of Santa’s elves on holiday. The mental image was doubly funny given that Leor was very definitely a dwarf, but I managed to hold myself together regardless.
We all slipped into the water - it was warm and inviting - and had just started to chat when we heard the bathhouse door open. We waved at Oriwyn and Laran as they entered, and they quickly went and got changed in the hutches we had vacated. It was with some curiosity that I watched for them to exit.
Oriwyn wore a loose, draped garment that seemed to be gathered at specific places to preserve her modesty - it looked vaguely Greek to me. I only had a few seconds to observe the cut though, because she immediately took a running start and jumped towards the deepest part of the pool. Brams immediately followed, offering a secondary splash nearly as large as Oriwyn’s as he splashed down. He began to paddle around the pool happily, having tucked his wings up and out of the way, while Oriwyn surfaced, shooting a cheesy grin at Leor - who she had splashed severely with her entrance - and took a place along the ledge at the edge.
When Laran came out, my face turned a little red. Now I wasn’t a prude, and over the years I had seen several men in very, very revealing swimsuits, but Laran’s suit was drawing my eyes in a way that I felt like they hadn’t been drawn since I was going through puberty. He wore what appeared to be folded fabric instead of trunks like Oxcard and I had found - some distant memory thought it looked vaguely Roman in Earth terms. It was a dark burgundy and not even that revealing, but something about seeing him in it brought back the bashfulness I had experienced when he’d run around the edge of the house shirtless the first time I met him. He seemed to be thinking the same way as I saw his cheeks darkened, but ignored his self-consciousness and walked over without comment to join us in the pool.
We all relaxed in the warm water, trading the occasional bits of small talk. After a while Alex walked in and we waved, but they seemed bent on going to a particular pool on the opposite side of the room. After a while of discussing nothing important, Arcadia cleared her throat to get our attention.
“Excuse me? I don’t want to be too formal or anything, but Ox and I have been talking about your offer and I figured we should share what we decided.”
My heart nearly froze in my chest. My curiosity on if they’d join us had been burning away at me for the whole trip so far, and it seemed like it was going to be answered. Of course we would survive without them, but with what all we’d been through I very much wanted them to accept. Also, part of me wondered if I felt that way because their refusal would mean our group wasn’t worth joining. I tried to push the sudden jumble of emotions down and focus on what she was saying.
“We talked it over and decided we’ll join you. I didn’t have a much better plan long term, and you’ve already proved you’re trustworthy. So, assuming you’ll still have us, we’d like to join.”
Arcadia looked a little nervous while Ox remained hard to read. I felt a sudden soaring in my heart, but Oriwyn beat me to accepting the offer.
“Yes! Of course! We never rescinded the offer after all, plus we work well together!”
Arcadia looked pleased, and I thought I saw the ghost of a smile on Oxcard’s face. Leor smiled too, while Laran suddenly shot to his feet.
“This calls for a proper celebration! Wait ‘ere!”
With that, he got out of the pool and raced off. In short order, he returned with two wine bottles and a few glasses. He eagerly began passing them out, Leor enthusiastically helping get things uncorked and poured. When we all had our glasses, Laran raised his in the air.
“A toast! To new allies an’ a new team! May we do well, do good, and do well for ourselves in so doin’!”
He said the words as if he’d heard them before - I wondered from whom for a moment but abandoned that train of thought quickly. Everyone readily agreed to his toast and raised their glasses, myself included, before taking hearty drinks of our wine. It was a sweet, almost citrusy flavor that bordered on too sweet for me, but its flavor cut through the steamy air of the bathhouse well. I enjoyed it and it seemed everyone else did too. As we lowered our glasses though, we all got quite a shock.
“Cheers! Now where’s my glass?”
The voice came from Brams, who was happily paddling in the center of the pool. Laran choked on his wine, shooting a little out of his nose. Leor just stopped and stared into her glass, looking for an explanation there. Oxcard and Arcadia looked at the rest of us, vaguely confused, but it was Oriwyn’s reaction I really wanted to see.
She sat on her ledge in the pool, a broad smile across her face. I could see a hint of surprise in her eyes, but still she flashed her smile to the rest of us.
“Why are you all acting so surprised? Did you think I was talking to Brams just for fun?”
Elsewhere: The captain of the river barge stood eagle-eyed at the front. It wasn’t like he needed to steer very much - just about anybody could control a riverboat when it was being pulled by horses on the bank - so his attention was much better spent keeping an eye out for threats. He looked to the side - the group of three mercenaries he had hired to accompany his boat and walk by the horses trotted along, weapons sheathed and chatting amicably. He couldn’t blame them really, given that they’d been going for a full day and a half since he’d picked them up without trouble. Still, he knew this stretch of the river and knew he should expect trouble. He scanned the gently rippling surface of the river again, a sudden feeling of discomfort settling over him. A disruption caught his eye, and he let out a cry. The bubbles that caused the disruption began to surface more violently, making the calm stream look like a pot of water at a roiling boil, and the captain cursed his luck. He’d been a fool to try and make his run when he did, but he felt like he’d had no choice. Now he was going to pay for that specific incautious decision - all he could hope was that he didn’t pay too dearly in either coin or life.
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So the older I get, the more it comes to dawn on me that other people, lots of other people, in fact, most other people, don't have the same experiences I do. This is true with pretty much everything. I have posted about my specific, singular experiences with everything from STAR WARS to Heroclix on various other online forums. Now I'll spend a few minutes telling you about my experiences with the work of Stephen King.
I am currently 61 years old and by slightly odd coincidence (it doesn't really matter, it's just a number thing) I was born in late 1961. The first Stephen King novel I ever read was THE SHINING. I read the trade paperback with the shiny silver color and the blank faced boy image on it. I enjoyed it a great deal and when one of the very few other student in my high school who read for pleasure saw me with it, she mentioned she liked the author a lot and offered to loan me his two other books. In the end she welshed – I was to discover she wasn't very reliable or trustworthy – but it got me interested enough to go looking for other stuff by King at the public library and that was where I first got copies of CARRIE and SALEM'S LOT – both mass market paperbacks as well. I don't remember the cover of the CARRIE book I read but the SALEM'S LOT had a black cover with an embossed child's face that had a single drop of red blood at the corner of the mouth.
I enjoyed both books even more than I'd liked THE SHINING. In King's forewords to his various different collections, he often contradicts himself as to events of this time period, but one thing that does come through very clearly, and this is obvious from the fiction he's writing too, is that he has always seriously seriously yearned to be a literary writer, rather than a commercially successful genre writer. He tells a story about his agent at the time warning him that if he does a haunted hotel book after the psychic teenager book and the vampire book, he's going to get 'typed', and how he laughed that off and said it was perfectly fine, and I tend to think that's a romanticization of what happened, because King is clearly, as my daughters would say, 'thirsty' for highbrow approbation. He wants the New York Times literary critic to praise his work. He wants to win a Pulitzer and all the other la di da prizes. It just kills him that he's the most successful author in the world in a 'trashy' genre. (When he parody/pities himself in MISERY, his fictionalized self is a writer of trashy romances. That will tell you right there how much respect King has for the genre fiction that has made him an unprecedented and nearly unimaginable success, and the fans of that fiction. He thinks horror is essentially the same thing as trashy romance.)
I think by the time THE SHINING came out King was anxious to be taken more seriously, and that's why THE SHINING seems so much more 'literary' than CARRIE or SALEM'S LOT. It's characters are more grimly realistic, the 'issues' it confronts (alcoholism! Child abuse! Bad parenting!) are all deeply serious. There is no Father Callahan character reviling social consciousness and yearning/demanding for a darker, more supernatural, occult, and 'unrealistic' evil to confront. Jack's alcoholism is the root of all the evil in THE SHINING, and in the end, his even momentary ability to take control of himself again is what allows the 'good guys' to triumph.
There's no such tedious grappling with real life problems in CARRIE or SALEM'S LOT. Oh, CARRIE is obviously centered around the cruelty of bullying, but King is hardly preaching about it or proposing any kind of real life action be taken; in CARRIE, some kids are absolute assholes, they pick on the wrong girl, and they get Blowed The Fuck Up. Nothing literary there. In SALEM'S LOT, King makes the occasional head fake towards tedious real life social problems – Parkins Gillespies tiresome speech about gory drive in movies is one such passage – but mostly he's all about getting this dumb little town in Maine eyebrows deep in vampires as quick as he can. He's obviously having a good time with the narrative and so are we. Again, nothing particularly grim n gritty, no real literary social issues to grapple with. None of the major characters are drunks or gay; Teen Mom is a child abuser but boy does she get hers, so that's okay. And as mentioned previously, Father Callahan is right in there talking about how much grim n gritty reality sucks balls and what he really wants is to fight True Evil.
And then THE SHINING comes along and it's a terrific book, wonderfully well written, but it seems very much to be King trying hard to get some serious reviews from the literary outlets. And ROADWORK, the trudgingly realistic novel he also wrote at this time and published as Richard Bachman, is just soporific.
But after THE SHINING comes THE STAND, which at the time seemed like a hugely ambitious undertaking that King nonetheless pulled off with aplomb. We had no idea exactly how huge an undertaking it really was as we would not see the sprawling, undisciplined monstrosity that was THE UNCUT STAND for decades to come. With THE STAND it seemed very much as if King had given up his quest for literary stature and gone back to just telling a really rockin' action-horror story. Twenty years later we'd find out that this was mostly an illusion; it's just that wise editors, knowing what mass audiences wanted, cut all the horrible real life social issue happy crappy (like the endless weeping and whining about Frannie's pregnancy and her fraught relationship with her psycho mom – King's good books always have a psycho mom in there somewhere – and the homosexual rapes embodied by The Kid and all that other lugubrious nonsense). After THE STAND came THE DEAD ZONE – a more down to earth narrative, absolutely, but still a damn good story with great heroes and villains and a central doomed love affair that proved, for the first time, that King really could be a top notch romance writer if he wanted to. And after THE DEAD ZONE came FIRESTARTER, one of my all time favorite King books. Like THE RUNNING MAN, FIRESTARTER is nothing but high velocity heavy impact action action action, and I loved every word of it. Wonderful heroes, truly villainous villains, and all of it painted with King's deft touch for characterization and atmosphere that made it all seem very believable. FIRESTARTER is, really, almost a remake of John Farris' THE FURY (which is also very much worth reading) but the rule of rip offs is, if you gotta steal, make your version better, and King absolutely accomplished that.
Yeah, and then came CUJO which made me want to barf, it was just SO bad. A killer St. Bernard! An adulterous affair! An advertising guy! OH THE LITTLE KID DIES! And maybe, who knows, we can't say, really, but maybe it had something to do with that crazy cop from DEAD ZONE? Maybe? Holy shit what a terrible, terrible book, and again, yet another one where King was obviously desperately jumping up and down and waving his arms, saying “hey big literary critics! Over here! I'M GRAPPLING WITH HUMAN FRAILTY AND VITAL TRENDY SOCIAL ISSUES!”
DEAD ZONE had come out when I was a senior in high school; FIRESTARTER came out when I was a freshman in college, and I bought it in hardcopy because that's how much I liked Stephen King. I still have that volume on my shelves; on the inside flap of the badly tattered dust cover you can still make out that cover price – $13.95. A lot of jack for a kid who didn't even have a work study job, but I doled it out and was not disappointed.
But once CUJO hit, I got warned off by another student who liked King. So I didn't buy it in hardcover or paperback, I waited until I could get it out of the library, and it blew moist chunks. And that was a very weird time for King's stuff. Next thing was the non fiction DANSE MACABRE, which interested me not at all, and then a lot of strange shit started bubbling up. King had just started to get his swagger on, with like eight best sellers under his belt, so he did CREEPSHOW and CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF and they were pretty terrible, other than the pretty pictures. Hollywood had discovered King by then and that just added to his strut. He was starting to realize he could hand a stack of old dish towels to his publisher and his publisher would do their best to turn that into a new horror novel by Stephen King. I think it was about then his substance abuse issues really started to get their claws into him, too. Whatever the case, I stopped being an avid fan, and started being a 'maybe I'll read this when I can get it out of the library, if someone else tells me it's any good'.
Around this time – the early 80s – a lot of King material started bubbling up in various places. His first Gunslinger short story came out in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION, and I was very disappointed by it. Another story followed in the next issue of F&SF, “Night of the Tiger”, and it was pretty bad too. I had absolutely loved pretty much everything in King's first collection NIGHT SHIFT, so between CUJO and this nonsense, I was really starting to rethink how much I liked King.
Then DIFFERENT SEASONS came out, and it was all great, especially “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”. But I wasn't swayed; King's own introduction told me all four novellas had been written earlier in his career, when he was still doing fine work. When CHRISTINE came out I was like “haunted car? No thanks”. But a guy I was living with at the time said “No, it's good, give it a shot” so I did and I loved it. And as it turned out, it was the last book by Stephen King I would ever wholeheartedly love, but to this day, I think CHRISTINE may be one of his finest works every. Great characters. Great villains. Will Darnell, Wretch In Residence. The awfulness that was Roland D. LeBay. And of course, that central doomed romance... not between Leigh and Arnie, or Leigh and Dennis, but between Arnie and Dennis.
CHRISTINE was an absolute masterwork, King back fully in control of his talent and his craft. And it was the last time he ever was, as far as I can see. Every thing he's put out since has just been one disappointment after another. Some are worse than others – there's really just no excuse at all for his two exercises in towering self pity, MISERY and THE DARK HALF – but none of them manage to ever get better than, well, kinda interesting. There's a real story somewhere in INSOMNIA, but King would have needed to work to polish it and he didn't want to and no editor was going to make him. SCENES FROM A BUICK 8 has a lot of interesting stuff in it. DESPERATION and THE REGULATORS were certainly a cool idea he had no idea how to make work. It's all just a flow of trash, junk, and mediocrity. NEEDFUL THINGS seemed like some kind of gleeful revenge fantasy where he got to dole out horrible, EC Comics style come uppances to thinly disguised versions of everybody he was mad at. TOMMYKNOCKERS and DREAMCATCHER were just bewildering.
Over the past few years I've seen bits and pieces of King's work I liked, but mostly it is still disappointing. THE INSTITUTE is pointless junk. REVIVAL seems silly but that ending is pure raw high octane Lovecraftian terror and almost worth sludging through the rest of the narrative to get to. DR. SLEEP is offensively stupid; King's characterization depends on presenting narrative events from the third person-first person viewpoint of his characters, and we spent far too much time behind Jack Torrance's eyes to be willing to believe he'd ever had an affair, much less one that knocked the girl up.
One of the sections of HEARTS IN ATLANTIS, about the kid who gets involved with the guy who escaped from the Dark Tower and is being pursued by Low Men In Yellow Coats, is actually really enjoyable; it inspired me to write one of my own novellas.
Still, for the most part, if you haven't read CARRIE, SALEM'S LOT, NIGHT SHIFT, THE SHINING, THE STAND (not the uncut edition, if you can avoid that, do it, King badly needs gifted editors), THE DEAD ZONE, FIRESTARTER, CHRISTINE, and DIFFERENT SEASONS, you haven't read King's best work, or probably the finest horror novels produced in the 20th Century. I would also throw in there two Bachman books – RAGE is a much better book than it is given credit for and deserves far better treatment than to be taken out of print because it predicted a contemporary social evil, and THE RUNNING MAN is one of the best things King has ever written.
Once you get through those, though, the pickings get very slim. There's some glitter in the dirt, but it is mostly fool's gold and often it's buried in big piles of shit.
Still, a lot of great writers publish really bad books. My other favorite writer ever, Roger Zelazny, has written some truly unreadable tripe. But he also wrote LORD OF LIGHT and I'll forgive him any number of DAMNATION ALLEYS for that. King wrote SALEM'S LOT and FIRESTARTER and CHRISTINE and “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” and I can forgive him a great deal of fucking nonsense for giving the world those stories. (It is more difficult to forgive the truly terrible TV and movie adaptations his works seem to near universally inspire, but that is another long post entirely.)

I'd rather not ask this through this account, but things are really urgent for myself and my mom, whom I act as a caregiver for. My father broke both of his hips this month, he's currently away I am a nursing home rehabbing. I've been struggling to keep my mother and I afloat paying for a hotel room so she's got access to a bathroom and bed, which she needs since chemo hits her hard even with my help walking. We have disability income, but trying to pay for things on top of a hotel never let's you keep any sort of savings - without my dad doing odd jobs on the side anymore, I've been doing all I can to take up that slack on top of doing odd jobs and flying a sign.
Right now, the hotel we've been staying at (near to doctors and cancer team for my mom) is nearly overbooked, and we don't have any solid income until next week, Wednesday latest. The hotel booked us until Monday as a courtesy, but they need a payment by 6pm eat when the manager leaves, and I've exhausted every single number or resource my state has to offer in the last few months - I feel awful when people mean well but suggest the same places others have who've I've called. We don't have the means to leave with our things, our pets, since we downsized our only car recently, we have nowhere to out anything.. I'm seriously worried, even our bank accounts are drawn out, so the overdrafts will eat up donations or what have you.
I need help with a payment for our hotel room, please. I f someone is willing to help us to i think the easiest way would be to contact the hotel and go directly through them, so it's as simple as possible? I'm not sure if OK,
This feels incredibly embarrassing, Im ashamed I need to ask reddit for help, it's a long shot but it's really my last option, I would really appreciate a miracle. Please dm or respond if you can, thanks for reading

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At the moment, you can watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse at your local theater. But like most movies these days, it should hit a streaming website in the near future.
Like its predecessor, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a flick produced by multimedia conglomerate Disney. What’s more, the production studio owns a number of other famous franchises, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars. Titles made under these umbrellas have both hit Disney+ sometime after arriving at the box office. Fans may also know the original Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is currently available to stream on the site as well. So, if the 2023 version follows the same pattern, folks will likely get to see Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on Disney+ later this year too.
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When the time comes for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse to splash onto Disney+ though, make sure you’re all prepared to watch it. If you don’t have access yet, you can opt into a 30-day free trial before choosing a plan that start at $7.99 per month or $79.99 per year. After your account is all set, click on the title page on Disney+’s official website or the Disney+ app.
As you wait for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse to hit the streamer, why don’t you watch the animated version and its sequel Spider-Man: into the Spider-Verse? Or if you want to immerse yourself in another live-action version, click on the 2019 ABC TV special Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Live!. Enjoy!

Where To Watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Online:

As of now, the only way to watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is to head out to a movie theater when it premieres on June 2, 2023. You can find a local showing on Fandango.
Otherwise, you’ll just have to wait for it to become available to rent or purchase on digital platforms like Amazon, Vudu, YouTube or Apple, or become available to stream on Disney+.

Is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse coming to Netflix?

Yes, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is coming to Netflix approximately in December 2023.
In 2021, Sony and Netflix signed a five-year deal that gave the latter exclusive first-pay-window U.S. streaming rights for Sony Pictures titles after their theatrical and home entertainment windows. Fans can expect to watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on Netflix six months after the film’s theatrical release, thus in December 2023. The date seems reasonable considering that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse dropped on Netflix on June 26, 2019, six months after its U.S. release on December 14, 2018. The pay-one window usually begins about nine months after a film’s theatrical release, but it might start earlier in particular cases.
This post will be updated once there is a 100% officially confirmed Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Netflix release date.

When Will Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse Be Available On Netflix?

Regarding when the film will be available on Netflix, the answer is less definitive. The first film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, began streaming six months after its theatrical release. Based on this, it is safe to assume Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will see a similar gap between its cinematic and streaming releases. Given the film’s theatrical release of June 2, 2023, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will likely begin streaming on Netflix in December 2023.
This tracks with some of Sony’s bigger releases of 2022. Films like Uncharted and Bullet Train were released on Netflix six and five months respectively after their release in theaters. Of course, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse could have other elements that see it release before or after this tentative six-month period, such as underperforming or exceeding expectations at the box office. Although, based on Sony’s track record – including that of the first film – Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse can be expected on Netflix in the winter of 2023, likely December for a holiday release.

Is Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse coming to Disney Plus?

Yes, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is also coming to Disney Plus approximately in 2025.
Once the pay-one window runs its time and Netflix’s exclusive rights expire, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will be available on Disney Plus. The pay-one window might last as long as 18 months, which means it will be a while before Disney Plus subscribers can watch the much-anticipated sequel. Unlike in other countries, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse isn’t yet available on the Disney-owned streamer in the U.S.
American fans will have to wait until 2024 to watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and at least until 2025 for its sequel. We will update this post once there is an official Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Disney Plus release date.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse comes from a joint effort of directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson. The movie will swing into theaters on June 2, featuring the return of Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy, and Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, among others.
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Will Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Be On HBO Max?

No, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will not be on HBO Max since it’s not a Universal Pictures movie. Last year, the company released its films in theaters and on the streamer on the same day. However, they now allow a 45-day window between the theatrical release and the streaming release.
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When Will Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Be on DVD and Blu-ray? Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will likely be coming to DVD and Blu-ray around the same time as the streaming release. With theatrical films, on average, coming to streaming sooner than ever (usually ninety days after theatrical release), we’ll likely see Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse get a DVD, and Blu-ray release no later than Fall 2023.

Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse cast:

In terms of the confirmed cast members of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, we can expect the following stars to appear:
Shameik Moore as Miles Morales/Spider-Man Oscar Isaac as Miguel O’Hara/Spider-Man 2099 Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy/Spider-Gwen Jake Johnson as Peter B. ParkeSpider-Man Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson Davis, Miles’s father Luna Lauren Vélez as Rio Morales, Miles’s mother Issa Rae as Jessica Drew/Spider-Woman Jason Schwartzman as The Spot, the movie’s villain Daniel Kaluuya as Hobart “Hobie” Brown/Spider-Punk Jorma Taccone as The Vulture Takuya Yamashiro as the Japanese Spider-Man Karan Soni as Spider-Man India Andy Samberg as Ben Reilly/Scarlet Spider f your Spidey senses are tingling, then you came to the right spot. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse came out Friday (June 2), but if you can’t get enough of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, then there’s another release that should be on your radar. Fans of the film franchise can further get their superhero fill (besides just replaying the movie soundtrack) with a new book titled Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: The Art of the Movie by Ramin Zahed, set to release on July 3.
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It was a long trip. This is a long post. Apologies in advance.
HIGHLIGHTS (Days 1-14 of 28) KYOTO--Kiyomizu temple; Nanzenji temple; Nijo Castle; Sanjusangendo temple; Shugakuin Imperial Villa; Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion); Fushimi Inari shrine; 184th Kamogawa-Odori geisha show HIMEJI-The castle and garden. NARA-Todaiji temple UJI-Byodoin temple IZU KOGEN--Jogasaki Coast nature trail
TOKYO, Monday 5/8
We arrived mid-afternoon at Tokyo/Haneda, right after Golden Week ended. It turned out to be, coincidentally, the day when the Japanese government officially downgraded the Covid pandemic to the level of a seasonal flu.
Fresh off a 13-hour flight and experiencing Japan for the first time, we went from touchdown to hotel check-in in something like 90 minutes, braving an almost-rush-hour crush on the Keikyu Line train from the Terminal 3 station.
Experience has taught us that meticulously planning every step of arrival in a new country is crucial to avoiding confusion, getting lost or simply wasting time.
Pre-loaded Suica cards on our smartphones led us straight to the train without standing in any lines.
We' chose the Shinagawa Station area of central Tokyo to spare our jetlagged selves another leg of indeterminate length--four or five hours at least--to reach our Kyoto base. Shinagawa is a straight shot--no transfers--from Haneda and a great place to catch a bullet train.
It was a geezer move that gave us plenty of time to familiarize ourselves with the layout and operation of one of Japan's busiest train stations.
Before crashing for the night, we'd taken care of some business by getting cash from an ATM and picking up reserved seat tickets for a post-Kyoto leg. We used a JR Railway ticket machine to print out the tickets, using QR codes emailed to us the previous month when we bought the tickets online directly from JR-East railway (we avoided costly middlemen in all our travel and entertainment purchases, something that requires planning but is easily doable from abroad). Like all our electronic machine transactions in Japan, there was an English language option on the touch-screen.
A machine also checked us in at the Prince Hotel Shinagawa, part of a modern high-rise development, chosen mainly for convenience. It's a one-block walk from the train station and was perfect for a couple jet-lagged Japan newbies. What we got, for the princely sum of $116 USD, was a spacious (by Japan standards) room on the 34th floor with a dead-on view of Tokyo Tower. Dinner was carryout sushi from the Queen's Isetan department store on the opposite side of the station, plus beer and sake from a convenience store, all consumed in the hotel room with Tokyo's skyline at our feet.
KYOTO , Tuesday 5/9
On the advice of an old Japan hand, we made Kyoto our base for the first two weeks. It worked well. We explored a fabulous city, took three day trips (Himeji/Osaka; Nara; Uji) and left town wishing we'd had time for more.
We expected our first full day to be a blur, due to jetlag, but it wasn't too bad. Following advice from this sub for first-time shinkansen travelers, we got to the station an hour early.
We bought far enough in advance on the Smart EX app to get a slight discount. We booked back row seats on the right-hand side for easy luggage storage but discovered that both our bags (including my larger one, which measures 142 cm [L+H+W]) also fit on the overhead rack. We never had luggage problems on trains during our trip.
Our train to Kyoto had great Fuji views, our first. After depositing the bags in a Kyoto station storage locker (rented with the smartphone Suica card), we made our first sightseeing stop: Toji Temple, a quick subway ride and walk away.
About picking hotels
We used triangulation to pick hotels; that is, cross-checking information from various sources to give us the best possible chance of getting a good place at a decent price. Sources included a handful of guidebooks from the public library, Trip Advisor and this sub.
Solaria Nishitetsu Hotel Kyoto Premier ($221 USD per night with massive breakfast buffet, best of the trip) turned out to be a great base. We paid extra for a room facing the Kamo River, a popular gathering spot for locals, tourists and joggers. We benefited from early booking (more than six months in advance, shortly after Japan began opening up). Inflation and other factors have since raised the price of the same room by about 10 percent.
The newish (opened in 2017) hotel attracts mainly Japanese/Asian travelers who, like me, enjoyed the onsen in the basement. We also put the coin-operated washedryers to good use.
KYOTO, Wednesday 5/10
Up and out, thanks to jetlag, shortly after 5 a.m., walking deserted streets to the foot of magical Kiyomizu temple, arriving just as it opened at 6 a.m. We were back at the hotel for breakfast by 8, after walking down the picturesque, cobbled streets of Sannenzaka, shops still closed, with more tourists starting to trickle in.
About choosing sightseeing spots
I'm a sucker for ratings, assuming they're done well. So, guidebook must-sees, like DK Eyewitness's or Lonely Planet's, star ratings in the Michelin Green Guide to Japan or in the downloaded Gateway to Japan guide (a steal at $10 and in your pocket for free on Kindle app) and, finally, Japan Guide's recommendations helped guide our steps.
That's how we ended up spending the afternoon at Nanzenji, a must-see Zen temple, which, like Kiyomizu, is laid out at the foot of the mountains east of town.
Lunch this day was at Junsei, a yudofo (boiled tofu) restaurant we stumbled onto near the temple. We used wooden sticks to skim the surface of an iron vat filled with simmering soy milk, that was set before us over a gas flame.
About finding restaurants
If you've never been to Japan but lurk on this sub, you've already heard that it's practically impossible to get a bad meal. We booked a handful of places before leaving home but agree with others that you rarely need to do that to eat well. If you're determined to hit a place that's highly popular, often with deep-pocketed foreign tourists, reservations may be required.
We're foodies, up to a point, but Japan's profusion of starred Michelin restaurants was wasted on us. We've learned over the years that we seldom enjoy paying the inflated cost. Over four weeks, we ate once at a Michelin one-star, chosen for other reasons.
That said, Michelin's Bib Gourmands (good, affordable restaurants) never disappointed us. They are plentiful in Japan, especially in Kyoto and Tokyo, and worth seeking out. Most of the time, though, we picked places to eat by cross-checking Google (asking for "soba noodles" near me, for example) and Tabelog, the indispensible crowd-sourced Japanese website (we looked for places in the 3.5 range).
Non-speakers of Japanese can have a hard time making reservations. We found that we could make them in advance from abroad through services like TableCheck (and an apparently expanding number of others aimed at tourists, usually charging a fee; sometimes small, sometimes steep). On the ground in Japan, we sometimes reserved for free through Google and Tabelog (at random places which you can find on Google or Tabelog restaurant listings); they were always honored. We also asked hotel reception desks for reservation help on occasion. We went to a couple restaurants in person and booked a table for later. But the easiest and often best way to get in is simply to arrive on the early side for lunch (by 11:30 or so) or dinner (between 5 and 5:30). More than once, we walked right into a place and were seated, only to discover lots of people waiting in line outside when we left. That said, if you're looking for an above-average meal on a Saturday night, especially in a popular location, you might want to book in advance.
Konbinis (convenience stores) are cheap, good and extremely reliable sources of takeout. And though we liked what we got there (mainly onigiri), we wound up relying on them less and less as the trip went along. The same was true of department store basements, which lived up to their reputation as fantastic food sources, for locals and tourists alike. We learned that we could often eat for the same amount or less in restaurants geared to locals or foreigners on limited budgets, rather than chowing down in our hotel room.
KYOTO, Thursday 5/11
We hit Nijo Castle in the morning and Sento Imperial Palace, one of several attractions we reserved in advance through the Imperial Household Agency. All were well worth it (and free of charge). The agency website explains the rules, which vary somewhat from site to site. We also toured Kyoto Imperial Palace.
About navigation
Just as the Google Translate app (and similar devices) have broken down language barriers, several travel apps have vastly simplified the business of getting around. Google Maps was our basic navigational tool and it rarely failed us. Another app that helped work in concert with Google Maps was Navitime's Japan Travel guide. Both provide alternate routes, detailed information on trains and stations and much more. Sometimes, when we popped out of subway station, we'd check the compass app on the smartphone to make sure we were heading off in the right direction. It doesn't hurt that public transit throughout the country increasingly uses English or romaji to translate Japanese. Over four weeks, we only found one place where we had trouble deciphering the destination signs on buses (oddly enough, in Himeji, a tourist magnet).
KYOTO, Friday, 5/12
A busy day started at Katsura Imperial Villa. Like other Imperial Household venues, a guided tour (in Japanese, but with free English audio guide) is the only way to see the place and its beautiful gardens.
We also caught a kabuki for beginners show at sumptuous Minamiza Theatre--tickets purchased online in advance--after briefly stopping by bustling Yasaka-jinja shrine down the street.
Dinner was our priciest splurge: Itoh, a serene, traditional style steak house in the atmospheric Gion neighborhood. We hadn't initially planned on eating Kobe beef, since we've pretty much given up beef in our everyday lives, but we were persuaded by a family member who correctly posed the question: If not now, when? Worth the steep tab ($264), not least because our table overlooked the tiny Shirakawa canal, the service was great and now we can say we know what Kobe beef is all about. Like buttah.
KYOTO, Saturday 5/13
We were at Sanjusangendo when it opened and glad we'd gone. The display of 500 life-size, gilded 1000-armed kannon in Japan's longest wooden structure was unforgettable.
We're museum people--either you are or you ain't--and the special exhibition at Kyoto National Museum on the 850th anniversary of the founder of Shin Buddhism was well worth it. Unfortunately, like most Japanese museums, photos were prohibited inside. In this regard, technically advanced Japan lags much of the civilized world; even Old Europe has greatly loosened such restrictions in recent years. Smartphone cameras can be a nuisance to other visitors, but they are a quick and easy way of capturing what you've seen and preserving it for later study.
Lunch was at Vegan Ramen Uzu Kyoto, a Bib Gourmand and the weirdest place we ate. Expanded availability of vegetarian ramen is a promising, healthier trend, and we enjoyed it at several places in Tokyo and Kyoto. A TableCheck reservation, made well in advance, got us seats at this cutting-edge spot. Dining is at a polished black surface in a darkened room bathed by the illumination of a giant, swirling teamLab artwork. Pricey but good.
KYOTO, Sunday 5/14
We're horseplayers and enjoyed a day at recently reopened Kyoto Racecourse, capacity 120,000. Betting is easy; just stop by the information desk for instructions in English.
Dinner at Tiger Gyoza Hall was lively, inexpensive and delicious. It was the only restaurant on our trip that we visited twice; reservable on Google.
KYOTO, Monday 5/15
No place put us through more hoops than Kokedera, better known at Moss Temple. It was well worth the difficulty of getting a needed reservation; if you do it by mail from abroad--the least expensive way to go--you need a couple months head start (and an International Reply Coupon, which you have to buy online from the Swiss Postal System). We got there and back via city buses. Along the way we crossed Togetsukyo Bridge in the very congested tourist hotbed of Arashiyama. It didn't make us regret our decision to skip the area.
Afterward we visited Ninnaji temple. Ryoanji temple and its famous rock garden (where noisy fellow tourists made a Zen experience impossible) and Kinkakuji, the incredible Golden Pavilion. The place was jammed but crowd control is excellent and we're glad we made it.
KYOTO, Tuesday 5/16
Shugakuin Imperial Villa, a vast imperial property of gardens and buildings (which you cannot enter) on the northeastern outskirts, was our favorite Imperial Household Agency site. We felt fortunate to get advance tickets through their lottery but saw that same-day tickets were also available there and at other Agency sites; it would be a long way to go, however, if all tickets were gone on the day you wanted to enter. Since we made a conscious decision to visit Japan after the cherry blossom and Golden Week crowds were gone, we have no idea what things are like during busier times.
We strolled the Philosopher's Path after lunch. Perhaps if it had been a quiet early or cherry blossom time, we might have been blown away. Instead, it was a rare disappointment. It struck us as a very conventional touristy trail; nothing special at all.
On the other hand, Ginkakuji (Silver Pavilion), near one end of the path, lived up to the hype. We capped the day by off by catching the procession of Aoi Matsuri, or Hollyhock Festival, one of Kyoto's three big annual festivals. The parade of hundreds of elaborately costumed people, some on horseback, highlighted by a pair of ox-drawn carts, was a hoot. What surprised us was the absence of music or any sort of percussion.
HIMEJI and OSAKA, Wednesday 5/17
A shinkansen whisked us to Himeji for a tour of the incomparable castle and impressive gardens. We took advantage of the unique Himeji Castle English Speaking Guide service, which generously provides personal tours with an area resident, in English, at no cost (book online in advance).
Lunch was at Mentetsu, a very good ramen shop at a mall located between the train station and the castle. Recommended.
We finished the excursion at Osaka's famous, crazy Dotonburi neighborhood, a cross between Times Square and Disney. Dinner was our first okonomiyaki, deliciously prepared at Okonomiyaki Mizuno (a Bib Gourmand). We're allergic to standing in line---life is too short--and we never waited more than 30 minutes for a table on our trip. They took our order at Mizuno while we were in line, and it was prepared before our countertop seats shortly after we got in. Oishī!
UJI, Thursday 5/18
Uji is renowned for its tea and Byodoin temple, best known for its elegant phoenix hall, which is pictured on the back of the 10 Yen coin. It was a great day trip, including lunch at a traditional local soba shop that served cold noodles sobayu style; you pour hot soba stock--the cloudy water the noodles were boiled in--into what's left of your soy-based dipping sauce and drink the (supposedly) healthy brew. Definitely the way to go. Mampukuji, a Zen temple, was a worthwhile stop before we caught a train back to Kyoto.
NARA, Friday 5/19
Our first day of heavy rain failed to dampen the visit to one of the best places on our trip. The town, a tourist favorite because, or in spite of, the overpopulation of overly friendly deer, is well-described elsewhere. We toured Todai-ji, with its giant Bronze Buddha, had lunch at the cute and delicious Pizzeria Trattoria Magazzino (Bib Gourmand) and checked out Kohfukuji temple, too.
KYOTO, Saturday 5/20
Fushimi Inari shrine, on almost every Kyoto must-see list, lives up to its reputation. We followed good advice from this sub and arrived early, a few minutes before 8 a.m. Already, crowds were building. We detoured from the main path through thousands of torii gates and wandered instead up an almost totally deserted sylvan trail on the south side of Mt. Inari, past bamboo groves, a few minor shrines and some houses. After about 45 minutes, we reached a set of stone stairs to the summit. From the top, we took the main path down, dodging the stream of fellow tourists as best we could and gaping at the gates and the view from the halfway point. We highly recommend this alternative way of seeing the best of two Fushimi Inari worlds.
We celebrated our last full day in Kyoto, and our 40th wedding anniversary, with a memorable kaiseki lunch at Hana Kitcho, a Michelin one-star booked weeks in advance from home. The beautifully decorated private room, attentive service, imaginative presentation, museum-quality stoneware and delicious food were certainly up to one-star standards.
The minute that advance online tickets went on sale for the 184th Kamogawa Odori, I jumped on them. The tourist-oriented geisha dance performance is held in May at a theater that overlooks the Kamo River. We were lucky to have been given seats in the front row and when one of the geishas tossed a white cloth package in my direction I snatched it. I now have an unexpected souvenir, a cloth banner autographed by the geisha herself. The fantastic show will remain in memory.
IZU KOGEN, Sunday 5/21
We left Kyoto for the Izu Peninsula and what turned out to be the best single night of our trip. Hanafubuki, a modern ryokan I learned about on this sub, was everything we could have wanted. It features 9 private outdoor onsens on beautifully landscaped property and elegant guest rooms with fluffy futons for sleeping on tatami mats. The ten-course dinner was exquisite. Breakfast, a seven-course feast that featured whole grilled horse mackerel and golden-eye sea bream, was simply amazing.
IZU KOGEN, Monday 5/22
A short walk from the ryokan is the scenic Jogasaki Coast nature trail, a rugged stretch of rocks and pounding surf. A guy I met there who introduced himself as Zeus, a Japanese native currently living in California and in town to visit his parents, compared the coastline to Monterey Bay. We could have used another night to allow us to explore the trail at greater length.
Lunch was at a great local restaurant, walking distance from the train station, Honke Maguroya, featuring local fish and top-grade tuna. The wasabi rhizome, which you grate yourself, is a tipoff to the quality of the sushi, but the prices are extremely reasonable. Recommended.
From there we headed back to Tokyo and the remainder of our trip. Highlights and a full (too full?) final report coming soon.

I arrive in Berlin tomorrow so I don’t have lots of time to find a good venue to watch the football.
I will be staying near Alexanderplatz station.
Could anyone suggest a good place to watch the game where I can also have a nice meal at the same time?
I asked my hotel to book somewhere for me but they “don’t provide that service” lol, didn’t even bother to suggest somewhere that I could call and book for myself.
I’ve done a Google search and come up with nothing really.
I’m sure it’s fine if it’s even somewhere around the central station and then I can just travel there from where I am.
Online booking is better but I’m not really bothered if I have to call to make a booking. I’d just like to be confident that I have a decent place to watch the game.
I’m travelling alone so it has been quite difficult to just randomly find good places.
I’d really appreciate any advice or options anyone could give me. I know it’s probably annoying getting these kinds of questions, and I normally would not ask, it’s just I’ve been looking for the last two hours and I’m genuinely lost.
Thanks in advance for any help anyone is willing to give

We received our I-797 13 months after sending in our K1 visa application.
After waiting nearly two months and no letter from NVC, we sent an inquiry and they are saying they have still not received the letter from USCIS. Another reply to them and supplying the I-79 to them and they say they are looking into it.
All of their processing times online are different. One place says 2 weeks, another place says 3-4 weeks. NVC's first reply said up to 6 weeks.
Has anyone else experienced this long of a wait time when moving from USCIS to NVC?
Our approval notice end date is August 3rd, is this date still relevant if the NVC receives the paperwork and sends us our new letter? Time is passing quickly and we're starting to worry and we're stuck relying on "the system."

I’m new to this just doing my research before starting, I’m 35 but look 20 and constantly being told my ID is fake. I’ve dated for love through my 20s and I’m tired of going 50/50 and still being cheated on. I’m tired of men honestly might as well Date and get paid. I want to join sugaring…

1. What is the current ppm rate in Oregon?
2. Do you get paid during m&g?
3. Should I lie about my age and say I’m 26?
4. Are there non married SD?
5. I’m 144lb, 5’2 should I lose more weight cos I’m also black?
6. I own a home and have a great career, should I ever mention this things?
7. Are there sb mentors that can be paid to assist new sb?
8. Should I always use protection even if there say were exclusive?
9. Do this men actually help with investing and trading stocks? I really need help there.
10. How can you get their HPV screens?
11. Should I lie and say I’m in Washington near seatle?
12. I don’t want to be meeting in hotel rooms so I want to avoid married SD. Where do married SD meet?

Hello!
I'm a male from Morgantown WV. I mostly enjoy working out, watching A24 movies, and going to hardcore and deathcore concerts. The problem is, the people i meet who are involved in this stuff already... aren't really my type of women.
I'm looking for a country girl. Preferably someone who likes hunting, fishing, trapping, and things like that. Basically if you like to go outside and go on adventures or hiking or killing stuff, I am for some reason insanely attracted to you.
This could be an online or in person friendship that i'd like to turn into more.
Please feel free to message me!

My wife and I will be staying near east beach for 3 nights this September. I am trying to get an idea if a rental car is needed or if we will have enough to do within walking distance. We are planning a relaxing vacation without kids so will be doing some dining and relaxing. The hotel we are staying at also has bike rentals if we need to get a little bit further. Just wondering how walkable the city is and some thoughts from the locals. Thanks!

Does anyone know of any parking near the venue? If not does anyone know how well the LA metro is at getting you to Exposition park? I’m staying near Crypto Arena. I’m hoping they’ll have a shuttle near our hotel so we can just walk.