So - I joined a 40k league (lists, rules and pts frozen as of the start) and I'd like to offer my "thoughts" on Necron units I used, competitive play and just the whole thing in general. So that anyone looking to do enter a competitive arena can have a glance and see whats its like.
Firstly I did REALLY bad. I lost all 5 games. Some more than others. However 4 of the guys I played were in the top 1/2 of the league (you picked 5 random opposition) and 3 of them play competitive on the regular. The one guy that was not - we will come to. However I enjoyed all of the games against the harder opposition. Genuinely even as I removed my last unit as I had the table wiped - I was okay.
Secondly I learnt a lot. I genuinely feel that if I played that first match again I would win. Simple things like screening units. Making sure you plan a few moves in front. Hell - I even hyperphased my scoring units off of an objective, forgetting I needed something on the objective in the command phase to score. Leaving me 10VP down. And this is the point. The main thing to learn is CALMNESS. I slowed down my play a lot and once I did I got better. I tell my kids this in chess. The slower you go the faster you'll win.
Thirdly on to Necron specific. FYI I ran Hypercrypt. The units I got the most out of were:

• The NB - once I worked out how to use him. He is slow - but you can place him somewhere and let your opponent shot at him a bit. He is VERY tough. I was way to cautious at the start of the league.
• 6 Lokhust and lord - VERY good. Took out a lot. My go to for deleting units.
• Scarabs - Again VERY good at just secondaries

Units I didn't use very well

• Skorpeh and lord - in the last game I managed to get them into melee and they held the centre for 2 turns. But I failed to support them so they died. I need to play these better.
• Plasmancer and 10 immortals with re-rolls - I put them into the wrong targets.
• T'Ctan. This guy is hard to use. The NB is easy just hit up any unit it has a weapon for it. The TC - S8&9 - D3&6 damage. Its a harder to know what to kill. Other than that he is a defensive brick. But is he worth it just for that?

Units I would not take again

• CCB - took it under the rule of cool. Never again.
• LHD with Gauss - I had 4 of them. And I can confidently say the did less damage to monsters and vehicles than the standards and lord. -4 AP is wasted when so many of our targets have 5++ saves.
• 6 normal lokhust with no lord. No lordy - no likey

Lastly - that guy. The 1/5. So I will be kind and say this guy is young an VERY socially awkward. And he is on Reddit. So I will make sure if he reads this he wont know its him.
This kid had heard I was not great. He was on a 0-4 wanted to make sure he was not going to go 0-5. And he cheated to win. I was going to write out what he did but - its not gonna change anything. I'm gonna say the obvious. If you want to cheat do not play. But if you are not cheating and you get challenged to roll your dice in the open just do it. If someone asks you not to roll while they are looking away - don't. No one likes to be "that guy". So yeah - social etiquette. Dice in the open, in front of the player, say what its for and what you need to start with. It simple stuff.

I love my father.
He sits in his yellowing, threadbare sofa with its many patches and spill stains that bloom like misshapen ochre flowers and watches the television, chuckling along whenever the blonde man with his blinding teeth teased into a smile cracks a joke that tickles him, shaking his head in amusement. He brings a biscuit to his mouth, absent-mindedly brushing away the crumbs that fall off the side. His hand shudders.
I walk towards him, and he turns to face me. His eyes crinkle into a smile as he grins up at me, empty patches of darkness where he has lost his teeth. I smile back at him softly, nudging forward the medication I have neatly placed on a plate, and his smile falters, his eyebrows creasing into a frown. It pains me as much as it pains him, to wait in agony, unable to do anything as his dementia eats away at his once brilliant brain, rotting away his memories inevitably. As the days flick by, it is more of a rarity now that he looks at me with warm familiarity in his eyes, rather than the cold terror, gazing at not his daughter, but a nameless stranger.
I wonder sometimes about the things he remembers, and the memories that left without a goodbye. Does he still recall those times when he rocked me to sleep as the stars watched us from behind the curtains of clouds, held my hands gingerly as I walked stubbornly with my podgy legs, ran after me while I cycled shakily for the first time, beamed at me proudly as I attained my first job? Does he remember the daughter he raised single-handedly, the daughter who blossomed into the vibrant flower she is today?
I am selfish, I know. He is all I have left, and I his. On the days he looks at me guardedly, shaking in fear, I try to soothe him, jog his memories, bring him down the long-winded memory lane. The time that elapses as his memories click in and he recognizes me once more has been slowly, but ever so persistently, increasing. I sometimes want to scream at him, for how can he forget his own daughter? His own pride and joy? But it is not fair to him, not fair that the most basic of tasks make him flustered and dazed, not fair that his daily activities limit to only watching brainless television and dogmatically following my orders, not fair that the memories of his daughter is reduced to one of the many feathers tickling his brain, just out of his reach.
My father frowns tiredly, picking up the chalky red pill right in front of him, and with a moment’s hesitation, pops it into his mouth, swallowing it down with the water I brought to him. I hold back a fatigued sigh of relief, quietly rejoicing that I did not have to force him to take his medicine. Dementia is resilient. It rushes in, like a tidal wave, biding its time, before abruptly gathering speed and crashing devastatingly onto shore. The red pill tries its best to hold it off, but it will not matter one day. Eventually dementia will win, taking my father’s mind along with it like a morbid war prize, pushing him into the beckoning arms of Death knocking on his door.
My father looks at me with watery eyes. “I still remember, you know,” he takes my hand in his own gnarled one. “I remember that tomorrow is your birthday.”
I love my father. How can I not, as I look at him, and he looks back with all the love he holds in his eyes? His love that has enveloped me over every day, from the moment I was born till now. My father, who struggles to piece together his own name, but cherishes me in his heart, refusing to let me go, refusing to relinquish me into forgetfulness. I smile back at my father, softly holding him up and bringing him to his bed. I tuck him into his worn blankets and wait till his eyes droop and his breath steadies into deep, rhythmic pulls before I convince myself he will live through the night before finally tiptoeing back to my own bed, falling into a restless, interrupted doze of my own.
My dreams shift in flashes of color and nothing more. I wake sleepily, eyes still gritty from sleep and instantly, like always, my heart seizes with anxiety. The silence is always deafening in the morning, and I have to pray that my father is still asleep soundly in his bed instead of wandering in a disoriented blur outside our house. I make my way shakily to his room, my bare feet growing numb on the cold tiles of the floor. Creaking the door open, I nudge my head into his room, my eyes slowly getting used to the faint light from the cracks of dawn peeping through the windows.
The bed is empty. Blankets and covers are rumpled into an untidy heap in one corner, and the gaping absence of my father in his bed mocks me, punishing me for my carelessness and disregard for his fragile safety. I am sure I left the door locked, but panic seizes me like a taut rubber band, and I rush downstairs, flying two steps at a time, my dress hampering around my legs as I burst into the kitchen, only to find my father sitting on the dining chair, nursing a hot cup of coffee. He smiles at me in warm greeting, only for it to dim ever so slightly as his eyes travel over my haphazard state and the wild frenzy blazing in my eyes.
No matter how many times I remind my father that life is unkind and unjust, that it is not, and will never be, his fault if he does something like this, it pains him to think of himself as a burden for me to constantly worry and fret over. I have to tell him over and over that there is nothing he can do that will make me resent him. Ever. Yet he always looks at me forlornly, his disbelief set like a cold and heavy stone. Time passes in a hazy cloud, and he falls deeper and deeper into the gallows of his diseased brain, and I wonder who it is I am trying to convince more, my father or myself.
Guilt and shame harden his eyes, but I interrupt him before he can open his mouth to offer his heartbreaking apologies for causing me such trouble, choosing to instead focus on making him breakfast, fussing over him as he eats slowly, savoring each mouthful of his pitiful meal of whole grain bread. It is only then I consider his tired eyes, still droopy from sleep, his wrinkled clothes, smudged with dirt and what looks suspiciously like mud.
“What’s all that on your clothes?” I try to keep my voice light, hoping he takes the tremble in my voice for mere prying curiosity rather than shaky fear. I swallow the lump on my throat, trying to stop all the qualms roaming around my head, screaming at me all the deadly things he could have done, or that could have happened to him. I quickly scan for any injuries on his body, but other than dirt accumulating under his fingernails and the small yellowing bruise from a couple of days ago when he bumped his head on the sofa, my search comes up clear.
My father smiles at me, his lips turning up into his achingly familiar kindly smile, eyes crinkling into its fine lines. He seems…happy. Really happy. This makes me soften my demeanor, relaxing a little. It has been so long since I have seen my father truly, genuinely happy. Not forced laughs at my pitiful attempts at making jokes, not soulless guffaws at the numerous TV shows flashing in neon all night, and certainly not the little chuckles from observing the antics of our neighbors next door with the raucous kids giggling barefoot around in their overgrown backyard. I grin back at him, wishing this moment could stretch on to infinity, so that time will not creep on us and steal this rare burst of joy away.
“What is it?” I ask him, a teasing note in my question as I begin sweeping away the little brown crumbs that have dribbled out of my father’s mouth as he finishes his tasteless bread. “I got you a birthday present,” his smile widens. I straighten up, my heart swarming with all kinds of emotions. I consider, fleetingly, if the fluttering in my stomach is excitement, but it is cold trepidation instead.
“I invited your sister to come today for your birthday,” he grins, quiet triumph making his eyes glitter. My heart clenches and I freeze, trying to comprehend his words, unraveling them slowly like delicate silk. “W-what?” I splutter, trying to search my father’s oblivious face for any grasp of information. It cannot be. It simply cannot. My father nudges his head in the direction of our living room. His smile grows wider still. “See for yourself.”
I cannot get my body to move at first, so resolute it is in warning me that danger is lurking in the living room, in the shape of my sister’s complicated, twisted soul. But I manage to shuffle slowly in the right direction. The hallway seems to stretch to eternity, looming and ominous, shadows lengthening and taunting me with its mimicry of fabled devils. The television is turned on, as though my father just fell asleep in front of it like always. Static blares out, interrupted by snatches of words from forgettable broadcasters. I stand at the entrance, forcing myself to look at the silhouette framed by the light from the television on the battered sofa.
My sister looks back at me, her teeth widened to a lopsided smile.
“I thought she might like to watch something nice while I talked to you about your surprise,” my father appears noiselessly behind me, making me start. His breath tickles my cheek, making the hair stand up on its end, erect with alarm. I watch him as he meanders his way through the labyrinth of carefully folded stacked clothes that have fallen gently to its side and towers of newspaper my father has hoarded where you can see his manic scribbling in aged crossword puzzles and stands over my sister’s overly relaxed form, gingerly patting her head fondly. “I told her you would be excited that she came by,” he adds nervously, his eyes flicking from the top of my sister’s head and at my frozen state. I tear my disbelieving eyes from my sister and gaze back at my father. I watch his nerves wreaking havoc in him, looking at me with plea, like a child begging their mother for a forbidden toy. I try to relax my face, hoping my half-hearted smile abates his anxiousness. I cannot watch him despair at my expense. “Of course it’s ok,” I say, the strain in my voice not as hidden as I thought it would be. I screw my eyes shut and stumble back to the kitchen, resting my head against the cool granite counter, wishing for my heart to stop racing and my mind to quieten. My father’s happiness and peace of mind...that is all I wish for now.
I love my father. And in the beginning, so did my sister. We loved him when he raised us by himself, working tirelessly to make ends meet, put a roof over our heads and kept our stomachs full. We grew together, just the three of us, a tiny, wounded family, my sister and I taking shelter from the many insurmountable hurdles that life threw at us behind our reliable father. My sister was the life of the party– sparkling, bursting with color like a crackling firecracker. She was always the star of the show, commanding the stage with nothing but brazenness and sheer optimism. She was electric with life.
That was until the day my father was diagnosed with early onset dementia. The day the doctors sombrely told us that there was nothing we could do but watch our beloved father spiral into fugue dreams. The day we knew the father we knew-the brilliant, hardworking, intelligent, selfless man- will never be the same again. The signs were always there, tiptoeing towards the diagnosis. He had begun to forget the days of the week, misplacing everyday items, taking too long to answer our questions, gaping at us blearily as we repeated ourselves painfully. But my sister and I danced around the issue, never quite bringing it up, treating it like a curse, neither of us wanting to break the tranquility, until the day my father woke up and did not remember where he was.
My sister fell apart, like a puppet with its strings ruthlessly cut. She was old enough to remember when our mother had died tragically, and she could not bear to see the loss of another parent, one whom she loved so deeply. I woke up one morning to see her bed empty, her blanket still crumpled, hanging off a corner, her wardrobe doors held ajar, stripped bare. I was not surprised. She did not even leave a note explaining her flight. She simply disappeared.
While my father spiraled, I heard whispers. People in our neighborhood offered sympathetic smiles or avoided their gaze and did nothing more. Their hushed whispers turned more sinister, darker as time ticked by like a sullen clock. Innocent speculations as to where my sister had run off to turned into filthy, dirty rumors that she was living on the streets, begging strangers for money, shooting herself up and living in a cloud of hazy drugs. I listened quietly, knowing the stories were all true. I knew they were, because my sister, in the five months she had run away, had only called once, high as a kite, asking for money to cover her expensive drug habits. I hung up on her while she was still talking, her unnaturally shrill voice ringing in my head. With my sister gone, I knew I had lost my family, and only my father remained to me.
I look at her now, still grinning up painfully at me, and a stabbing pain shoots through me. She smiles like she was there all those times our father wandered through the streets barefoot, and I had to tear through the town frantically calling out for him; those times he asked about her, wondering where she was, and I lied through my teeth that she was just away and would be back soon. My father holds her by the hand and brings her to the kitchen, beaming with utter joy. He looks so happy. I sigh and drag myself into the kitchen, where my father has already pulled out my birthday cake that we made together the previous day from the fridge and placed it in front of my silent sister. I stare at the icing on the small, slanted cake. My father had insisted on decorating, and his almost illegible, childlike writing of ‘Happy Birthday, Daughter Dear,’ had made me feel a rush of affection for my father, but now fills me with quiet, cold dread. Like someone had walked over my grave.
My father pushes the knife into my hands. I hold it as he bursts into the birthday song, his voice warbling with emotion, tears running down his face as he wraps his arm around me and gave me a kiss on my temple. I try to feign a smile at him, but my stomach rolls over at the sight of my sister sitting behind my father, her empty eyes gazing directly through me, and I read the unspoken accusations in them, the utter hatred and disgust. I swallow and pull myself out of my father’s loving embrace and shuffle away. “Aren’t you going to cut the cake?” My father turns to look at me, puzzled. I pause for a moment before slicing the cake slowly with my trembling hands. I pull a slice of the gooey mess onto a plate and slide it over to him, and after he discretely nudges his head towards my sister’s eerily still self, I give her a plate too. For a few minutes, there is nothing but the sound of spoons scraping against the flimsy paper plates as we tuck into the slightly bitter chocolate cake, until my father notices my sister’s untouched meal.
Concern makes him grab her wrist, his fingers easily encircling her small frame. “Haven’t you been eating? Look at how small you’ve gotten!” He exclaims, feeling her spindly, twig-like arms and fragile fingers. I say nothing, my eyes trained on my food, my stomach churning like a pack of worms, but my father has other plans. “Don’t you think your sister is too skinny?” He asks me, and I shrug non-committedly. I feel him glaring at me, his eyes burning holes through me. As I get up to throw my plate away, he grabs me and brings me into the empty hallway.
“Don’t you think it’s about time you stop this silly fight with her?” My father says wearily. I look into his tired, anxious eyes, and I want to scream at him. Does he not remember what she did? All the awful, awful things that had happened? I restrain myself and force my lips to turn up into a smile. Don’t snap, that is the first rule when dealing with dementia patients. “I’ll talk to her,” I promise him, the lies easily falling from my mouth like all the others I had fed him over the past few months. He relaxes, and snakes his hand along my shoulder, enveloping me in a tight side-hug, whispering a muttered ‘thank you’, before heading back to the kitchen and uproariously inviting my sister to watch television with him.
I do not go with them. I hide in the kitchen as long as I can, cleaning all the dishes slowly and methodically, as my thoughts race faster than I can comprehend them, tumbling over one another, wrestling to take control. I toss my sister’s uneaten cake into the trash. Even through the walls separating us, I hear snatches of many commercial breaks, punctuated by my father’s hearty chuckles. Whatever he thinks my sister is telling him must be very funny indeed. I sit on the cold kitchen table and watch the clock, willing time to fly quickly and throw me into the embrace of the future.
The yellow rays of the amber sun fade to make way for the gloom of the night to settle in. Already I hear the crickets singing to their hearts’ content from our garden. Wiping my hands on my clothes, I make my way through to the living room, my mind made up, calm and collected. My sister sits upright on the couch, facing the television impassively. My father is sprawled on the sofa next to her, his head lolling on the armrest, soft snores drowned by the television still turned on. A tense silence settles between my sister and I, somehow louder than the crickets and the television combined. She avoids my gaze and resolutely watches the screen flashing. My hands curl to fists, but I tiptoe to my father.
“I think it’s time for her to go, don’t you think? It’s getting late.” I whisper in his ear. My father shifts, bloodshot eyes blearily blinking up at me. “Tell her goodbye for me, won’t you?” He mutters, his eyes screwing shut again. I do not have to wait long until his breaths become full and steady once more, and without a word, I hold my sister by her hand and bring her out of the house. She offers no resistance, like as though she knows where she is going. Her defenses are down, like someone who has given up.
The garden is a handiwork of my father, and my father alone. The doctor recommended me to let him create a hobby for him to exercise his mind and keep it alive as long as possible, a tiny shred still linking him to reality for when his mind wanders too far away from our reach. He spends whole days pottering around, watering freshly sown seeds and admiring the pretty kaleidoscope of flowers. A slice of heaven on earth, he calls it. In the winter, it has shriveled up, protecting itself from harsh winds and pelts of snow, but my father is certain that the garden will nurse itself back. The resilience of life. We stand there, side by side. The moon looms over us, and I spot two small stars winking down below. I like to think that one is for either of us. I stand there with my once lovely sister until the coldness wraps me like a freezing blanket and numbs my fingers, and then I bring her to the back of the garden to the tulip patch.
Tulips have always been my sister’s favorite flowers. My father, as much as he has forgotten, still holds on to this like sacred knowledge. The tulips have withered, hiding their faces in shame with what is left of their dull petals. There is a big hole right beside it, hastily dug. My father must have referred to this when he mentioned he was gardening earlier today. The shovel leans on the mound of soil next to the gaping hole. I push my sister down and bury her for the second time.
I love my father. I know what you are thinking, but I assure you, everything I have done, and everything I ever will do, is for him only. I want him to be happy, I always have, something any dutiful daughter would say. I did not know I would have to sacrifice my sister for that.
Last month, after I received a call from my drugged out sister trying to persuade me for money and I had hung up on her unceremoniously, I went back home from work like I always did. The door hung ajar, the lock twisted off, and I knew something was wrong. My father must have wandered out again, somehow managing to pry open the lock and fled to the streets wrapped in his delusions. But then I realized the floor was slippery, and the soles of my shoes stained a deep red. Fear clamped onto me like a starving beast, I do not remember what happened next fully, only in snatches of pictures then run in my head like an endless loop of film. Blood that splattered the hallway, leading to the living room. My father sobbing, his hands clamping his mouth, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, riddled with guilt. The bloody knife that shook in his tight fist. My sister lying stiffly on the floor, her own blood pooling around her, oozing from her wounds. Her eyes unseeing, her body tinged with blue. The smell of copper so thick it hung like a heavy curtain, and I could almost taste it in the back of my throat. My father asking me, “Who is she?”
My brain had instantaneously locked into survival mode. I thought of my father when I tore the shower curtain and wrapped my sister’s corpse in it, tying it with knots of fraying string and duct tape. I splashed bleach all over the house until it tingled my eyes and nose and rubbed furiously at the splashes of blood that had begun flaking like dust. I tossed my father’s splattered clothes into the washing machine where they spun in a muddy mess, but the stains remained, so I threw them into the fire I set in the backyard. I washed my hands raw, scrubbing my skin until my fingers bled.
I found bloodstained money in my sister’s backpack. I knew at a glance it was mine and she had come to the house for this very reason after I had rejected her plea. The bag contained nothing else other than a packet of tissue, with pinpricks of blood, a small syringe, cotton wool and the laminated driver’s license of my once beautiful sister. When I looked at her old photo of her, I saw the secrets in her smoke and mirror eyes. They all went into the fire, bleeding into each other until they curled up into charred remains. I waited for night to enshroud us with shadows before I dragged my sister’s corpse outside to the garden, and I began to dig, flinging mud until my arms ached and my body shuddered with something more than coldness. I dug until I could go no more, my body racking with quiet sobs, the soil turning dark with the tears that rolled off my face. I cried for my sister, the one who was with me in my darkest moments, the one I prayed every day would return to us, to complete our family of three. I cried as I rolled her body into the grave and I cried more when I shoveled the earth onto her face, her agony of the last throes of death still etched on her gaunt face, her empty eyes staring up at me.
When I finished, I looked up to see a shadow by my father’s window, watching impassively down at the garden. I could not face my father, the man who killed my sister, so I sat near my sister’s grave and wished her goodbye.
I never went to the police. My father was all I had. I could not let him go to prison, waking up everyday to unfamiliar prison guards roughing him up, to bars of steel to protect others from him. I quit my job and stayed home to take care of my father, flinching at every knock on the door, every ring of the doorbell, expecting the police to swarm the place and ask for my sister reported missing. But they never came, and slowly my unease left, though the guilt never did. She had disappeared off the face of the earth; my father had erased her off, like she had never existed. The day after I buried my older sister in my garden, I watched my father plant tulips near her grave.
I hide the shovel this time round. My father had never once mentioned my sister after the incident. I had hoped against hope this was due to his failing memory, but I know now that in some deep recess of his mind, he must have known the answer would have haunted him, as much as it haunts me. I used to envy that his mind was failing him, for I so wished to forget. Instead, I woke up almost every night gasping, shaking, from nightmares, of images of bloody hands dragging me into the fiery pits of hell, of my sister’s maimed body crawling after me. I make my way back into the house. My father has not moved since the last time I saw him. His snores reverberate around the cramped room, his hand still clutching onto the remote. I watch him, wanting to enter his tricky mind, wanting to know what he is thinking. This man who stayed up at night when I fell ill. This man who posed my sister’s corpse around the house, so that she could leer at me with flesh rotting off of her face. Did he think digging my sister’s body up will give her life again? That she would walk and talk and laugh like she used to? I spot the kitchen knife inches away from his hands, on the cluttered table, along with remains of the cake. When he wakes up, will he greet me with a smile like always, or will he lunge for the knife? It is always a guessing game with him, every chance a risk, every choice leaving me breathless with fear. I dangle from a tightrope on the precipice of a cavern that is his brain riddled with his dementia, his forgotten memories and the illusions he create for himself.
I move the knife away from his fingers and grasp onto it tightly and look down at it. A month ago, my fingers were stained with my sister’s blood. Now, they are gritty with filth and soil from her makeshift grave. I wish to give her a proper burial someday, in a decent grave, with a nice headstone, finally at peace.
My fingers tighten on the blade. My repressed memories flood in, drowning my thoughts with all my pain and hurt. I see my sister’s death immortalized on her face. Her remaining eye sewn shut, swarming with maggots. My father whimpering as his daughter lay bleeding at his feet, his shame rolling off of him in desperate waves. My father beaming at me, pruning his lovely tulips, each leaf falling gently on the grave below his feet.
I love my father, but I wish he were dead.

I often get into risky situations or even killed because of name locking.
The way I think it works is as follows, and please correct me if I'm wrong: If you use a skill while your cursor is on a monster, it will continue targeting that monster even if it moves around and your cursor is not on top of the monster anymore. If you pause and do nothing for a short while, the name locking stops.
Where I am having problems:

• I teleport to Mephisto on my sorc. I use Frozen Orb on him until he uses a skill on me. I want to quickly teleport away to dodge the skill, so I release my frozen orb button, I move my cursor to where I want to teleport, and then I use teleport. What happens? I teleport directly into the face of Mephisto and get slapped. Apparently, I did not wait until name locking stopped.
  
• I clear maps with Arctic Blast druid. I accidentally use Arctic Blast targeting a cold immune monster. I want to cancel Arctic Blast my a move command or Gust in the direction away from the monster, but my druid moves into the face of the cold immune monster and gets slapped instead.
  
• I clear maps with my Phoenix Strike assassin. I use Dragon Flight targeting a monster in the center of a pack to move to that pack. The Dragon Flight places me at the edge of the pack, because there was no room for me in the middle of the pack. Now I want to start attacking the closest monster with my Phoenix Strike. What happens? My Assassin is name locked to the monster in the middle of the pack, so it starts running around the pack trying to get in range that monster instead of just attacking the closest monster even though I have my cursor on that monster.
  

Please make it stop! I would like one of two things: Completely disable name locking or clear name locking when using a new skill. I don't know if it is even possible to fix, but it is extremely frustrating to me. I guess this should be controlled with a setting, so you can have the original behavior, if you wanted.

Disclaimer: played Sorcerer 3 seasons (included are preseason at release, season 2 and season 4, friend played Meteor Sorc season 3 and is doing it again season 4 because... well, let's say our mileage in season 3 was pretty bad (and mileage as sorc in season 4 seems to go in the same bin). This is a rant.
Sorcerer on top in season 2 with an absolutely ridiculous ball lightning build.
Season 3 Sorcerer was ok, meteor sorc blow up dopamine seemed decent, content not so much.
Let's get to my main point : season 4.
What the hell is happening with balance ? Barb always very strong for almost every season aside S1 but getting nerfed for S4 ? Barbarian bash is ridiculous, Bleed barb has dots that hit for 60 millions.
Buffed Necromancer, good for them I guess, minions finally playable at higher tiers. Golem hits at almost 2 billions ?
Sure, pushing the pit on tier ego flattering is fun and if your class can't do it, well it doesn't matter, you are a bit slower to acquire neathiron but it doesn't break anything.
At a point where we don't want to use our stygian stones to summon a tormented boss because we know it is going to be a scratch contest with the boss.
Lilith time. As a sorc, you basically need to fight without making a single mistake for 15 minutes to have a shot at getting her and if you do one single mistake, well, there's a one shot for you, hope you enjoy. Head to Rob's channel, seeing him hit her for 60 millions. Pain.
I'd really love to understand at which point Blizzard concludes that classes are balanced and get shipped for the update. Seems like during PTR, Frozen Orb Sorc was too strong but somehow Bash Barb is fine ? How can a basic skill hit for 75 millions crit and golem do billions crit when sorcerer with meteor with a 230k tooltip barely going over 1.2 million crit (and most of all, is the only skill of the 3 taken as example that has a cooldown) ?
What is general opinion on this ? Because to me, it seems it is not much seen as a problem and discussed at such when clearly, balance is entirely absent, and it has been a year now.

A dark room, filled with clothes and objects thrown around, held a girl, crying on the floor. Her silky silver hair splattered on the ground, with dirty pinky pajamas. Her tears would fall beneath her eyes, wetting the place with her constant and long cries.
V was afraid, unsure. She didn't know what her love thought of her, but his actions hurt her more than any words. Her sunshine was avoiding her, depraving her of it's vitamins that she so much needed. The memories of his looks at her pierced her chest, they weren't hateful, but terrified. He was afraid of her presence, of her. She, who loved him so much, was being neglected of what should be only hers, by the one himself. This was all that bitch's fault. If that twintailed whore hadn't talked with him, he would never be like this. She corrupted him with her two haired fangs, covincing him to bite that damned misinformation, losing the paradise that was their future. Worst of all, she had hope she'd be able to fix everything after his sister's death. She tried to get close to him, but it didn't work. He never listened to her, prefering to stay silent and never repond or react to anything she did.
V punched the floor in frustation. She couldn't believe she made that mistake, allowing such evil to approach her beloved. She could never let it happen again. She had to protect him from everything, all that could do harm to such perfection, but first, she had to gain his grace again. For that, it's best to just talk with him tomorrow.
The next day, V was standing at the school's entrance, waiting for him. She looked more presentable than her home self, wanting to look good for her sun. In the distance, she could see him walking, although, unlike his old self, he was much more gloomy, wearing a hoodie, hiding his face and sheltering his chest with his body. A sight that hurt V and, unfortunaly, was becoming more common to see. He was getting closer to her, but with no signs of even noticing her presence, so she decided to act.
"Hey N, how's your day?" She cheerfully asked him, waving at the boy, but his steps got quicker and he walked right by her side, not answering her question or even glancing at her. This surprised V, leaving a hole in her chest. She tried to follow him, but her body was frozen, pierced by sadness to the ground.
Wandering eyes watched as she suffered, finding amusement in her reaction.
Time passed, she tried to find him in any place, but it seemed that he had disappeared from school. However, she was sure she would see him on class, he never missed one, no matter what.
When she sat on her place, she smiled, seeing that he really was here, but before she could say anything with him, the teacher entered and V recognized this one, he hated talking in his class, so she decided to wait for the bell to ring once again and this pest to be gone.
The bell was heard by the entire school, meaning this class was finally over. It was a bore, as usual, but now, that the poor excuse of a drone was out of the room, she could finally speak with N. V got up and walked to his chair. He was even more gloomy than in the entrance, he hadn't even spoken to the teacher. His lack of happyness was affecting everyone around him, seeing that everyone seemed less joyful.
"Hey N, can we talk-" Before she could finish, N abruptly got up and walked away from her, going out of the room. Everyone looked at the scene, wondering if the two had a fight, since they used to be so close to each other.
From a chair, the same eyes looked with a faint laughter. It would be easier than it thought.
V didn't try to speak with him in class again. Judging by his mood, he would just repeat the same thing. V could feel a hand grasping her core with force, nearly exploding it. Why did this have to happen to her? She just wants his love, nothing more. She could feel tears wanting to leave her eyes, but she couldn't allow them to ruin her reputation. She had to keep it in. Her home was waiting for her when this ended. There, alone, she could do whatever she wanted.
The bell rings one more time, now, annoucing recess. Everyone got up, including N, and so did V. They all walked to the cafeteria, waiting to get their lunch, with others picking their tables. V followed her love, wanting to sit by his side and have a conversation about everything that is happening. She approached him when he walked out of the food line with his plate.
"So N, how about we-"
"Sorry, can I sit with you guys?" She was once again interrupted, although this time, he talked. His voice sounded horrible, as if any sound produced by his vocal cords hurt his flesh, but this wasn't what worried V the most. He had asked a table full of students she was sure he never even talked to. They looked at him and accepeted. He then sat on their side, leaving no room for her. She could only walk away, tears forming on her eyes, looking for any empty table where she wouldn't be bothered by anyone.
Why was he doing this? She just wanted to talk, clear things out, explain to him that she wasn't a monster he had to fear. Why couldn't he accpet this? She leaned on the table, covering her face from everything else. No, she couldn't blame him. What fault did he have on this? He only fell for lies told by the true monster. She couldn't blame him for being himself, she wanted that, more than anything at the moment.
Hours passed and V didn't try to talk with him again, fearing the worst. She only observed him from afar, watching how his old self was being washed away by the more depressing view of himself. Only if she wasn't so naive. The bell rang one last time. They now had to go back to their houses. If she had any chance to talk with him, it was now.
At the entrance of the main building, everyone was alredy gone. V made sure to pick a time where no one would be around. Maybe he was just shy to talk in front of everyone, she had to think about his side too. He was getting ready to leave, when she decided to confront him.
"N, we need to talk" The boy, who was ready to leave, stopped, however, he didn't look at her "I-I just want to talk about things N, to explain what's happening, so, please, let's talk about everything" She pleaded. His fist clenched, but he gave no response, although, he didn't move either. He was just standing there, listening. He wanted to say something, his body was shaking.
Slowly, he turned to her, his eyes meeting hers, expressing a mic of terror with aggressivness. This made V's look soften. He didn't seem happy to talk with her, but it couldn't be that, he was probably just surprised. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. Although, only this action filled V's core with hope. He's finally going to talk wity her, address her directly once again. She couldn't wait to hear her name on his voice once again.
"I've been following you the whole day" A female voice with a heavy russian accent was heard from behind V. She turned around, seeing a girl, about the same size as Lizzy used to be, with red hair and eyes, wearing the normal school outfit of a white shirt, stamped with the school's name, and dark blue shorts, paired with black boots, carrying an abnormally large dark red backpack. V could faintly remember this girl being one of Lizzy's friends, but she only wondered where she came from? V was sure she had checked every place, making sure there was no one in school other than them "But I finally caught you murder queen"
"Who are you?" V asked with a lifted eyebrown. N closed his mouth and only observed the situation in front of him.
"I'm Doll, one of Lizzy's friends. You know, the one you killed" She said with an angry tone. V narrowed her eyes. How did she know? No, this had to an asumption, there was no way she really knew.
"Oh, please. I didn't kill anyone, so just fuck off will you?" The silver haired girl showed the middle finger to the red haired, just wanting to be over with this pointless discussion and continue her talk with her beloved.
"Oh, I will" Doll said with a smile, putting her backpack on the ground and pulling out an AK-47. V and N's eyes widened at the sight of the gun, however, the boy didn't have enough reflex to escape, different from the girl, who quickly grabbed his wrist and ran to a corner where they wouldn't be hit, just as the russian girl started shooting.
The two silver haired were able to escape any fatal injury, but V noticed that N was clenching his shoulder with force, making small whimpers. She feared the worst, only for her to notice a black liquid squirming through the gap in between his fingers. He had been hit by a bullet.
How dare that bitch! First she attacks her for a fucking assumption, now that whore hurts her beloved!? No, things couldn't be this way. That stupid, demented little slav would feel what was like living in the USSR.
As much as V wanted to lunge on the red haired girl and rip out her organs, she was still firing her gun, but what worried the silver haired the most was that she could guess that Doll was approaching the corner with each second that passed. This was bad, if she reached their location, she doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know how to fight someone with an alredy firing gun, but she had to run out of bullets at some point. That's it, she would strike at that moment.
As if magic, the loud sound of gunshots stopped, but V didn't jump out of her cover yet. She didn't knew if the russian had only stopped or ran out of ammunition, the former being the worst scenario for her and N. So she waited, until, the sound of something falling to the ground echoed to her ears. That's what she wanted to hear, confirmation Doll was reloading, so it was safe to attack.
In one quick movement, V got out of cover and lunged at the russian girl with everything she had, but, after jumping towards her, V noticed that Doll was looking at her with a big smile on her face, as if she wanted that to happen. Before the silver haired pinned her down, she ripped her shirt, revealing mutiple active bombs strapped to her body. N got out of cover, leaning on the wall, looking at the fight scene unfold, unaware of what's going to happen. V brought Doll to the ground, as the russian took a detonator from her pocket.
"Это для Лиззи, сука" She spoke, pressing the button before the femme on top of her could escape.
All the bombs on Doll's body exploded, creating a huge ball of fire that engulfed her body, burning to nothing but a black powder, the only pieces of her remaining being the ones from the corner of her body that were exploded away. The center of the explosion hit half of V's body, burning it completely, but not desmebering her.
Her body was sent flying across the area, hitting a wall close to the corner she was before. The impect against the concrete nearly sent her unconscious, but something inside of her kept her mind running. She fell to the ground, but her vision darted around the place looking for something, no, someone.
N was laying on the gorund, clearly unconscious with a part of his head blown off, oil oozing out of it like a fountain. She started to cry and weakly crawl towards him. When close enough, she hugged his body, giving him a kiss on the forehead, right on the side of the wound.
"Please... Don't die" Was all she said in between cries, before closing her eyes.

I woke up with some energy today! Well no, well yes but no. I didn’t get out of bed til a bit after 9 but I was technically replying to work messages on my phone sooo… it doesn’t help, I’m still bad. But it was SO cold and I was SO toasty all rolled up in my duvet, I’m just a mere human after all. But I feel like after I got up and got ready and stuff I had better energy levels so that’s made me feel super happy. And hopeful, tbh. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to feel drained 24/7 for the rest of my life, to the point where I was thinking well even if I wanted a child would I be any good considering how I feel so often? So I do worry about it a bit.
I slept in clothes last night, like leggings and a top I mean, because I woke up to an earthquake so as per always I immediately got up and put clothes on. I’ve never really been a naked sleeper but the last few months I have been, idk why? I go through phases of stuff like this though. Anyway so then my anxiety meant I couldn’t stop shaking all over my body and I was stressy even though it wasn’t big but because I was trembling all over I kept stressing further because they felt like more earthquakes. Anyway I eventually fell back asleep.
I’m genuinely starting to think I should just go back to the EA sort of career path. I went to HR because I figured there’s more opportunity for growth, would be more interesting/varied work etc etc. But based purely on salaries… EA’s can earn way more? At least in in certain situations, obviously not all. But for example for work I’m reviewing a role for a position and so having read through the cases details there’s a woman my age as an EA earning $120k and I read through the PD and I was doing all that for multiple directors in my London job and she’s doing it for one. And I was good at it and that’s ME saying I’m good at it. It just seems like for less work/knowledge you can earn more. And tbh at this rate I don’t enjoy HR, sometimes I did but lately I don’t. I don’t know if that’s a result of my general mood/self, a result of my environment or whatever it might be. I also admittedly wanted to move from away EA type work because I found it embarrassing to say when someone asked what I did, idk why because it’s a perfectly respectable job but there’s kind of a stereotype that goes with EA’s/PA’s I guess, probably more so when you’re a young woman but also idk, it just sounds so admin-y. But then what, my bright idea was to move to HR?! Where there’s an even bigger stereotype - like an ACTUAL one and people just seem to have some kind of prejudice against the entire department and idk. And you have to deal with emotional stuff like people losing their jobs, harassment/bullying claims, parents having stillborns and other bereavements in general. So you have all that, mixed with having to apply legislation and internal policies against every conversation and decision etc etc etc. And that’s just the advisory stuff, then there’s project work, transactional crap that I’ve been lumped with lately because the junior team members don’t seem to be doing anything and my manager has instead asked me to handle it as opposed to getting the juniors to get their shit together. I don’t really like saying the S word, it seems yuck coming off my tongue/brain. Anyway. So being an EA… idk. You organise someone’s professional life aka their inbox and calendar, you prep them for meetings etc, you plan dinners/lunches and workshops etc, you get invoices signed off, you book travel… that’s basically it. It can obviously vary but at the heart of it that’s what they do. Some more senior ones will do a bit more/be more involved but barely. And here they are earning like $30k more than me. I don’t intend to imply I could easily do their job, I realise they’re highly skilled and good at what they do - it’s not an entry level role, but I’ve DONE IT. And not only that but I helped run the office, I was also EA to the general counsel, I booked international events and planned them and I was trusted in being the Chairman’s go to when he was in London and he was a literal billionaire which doesn’t mean he’s any better or anything, but I mean I would think they have a certain expectation? Tbh they probably just took pity on me and wanted to make me feel helpful or something. Idk. Anyway. I think all of this is simply because I’m fed up with work and being used as a gap filler purely because I have a better understanding of certain systems/processes like I have a better understanding for a reason - because I blimmin well DO THEM. So if others would get off their high horse and pitch in they would too. Anyway I think I’d get bored of the lack of variety within EA type work and if I’m going to spend 40+ hours in a job I want to at least somewhat enjoy it/find it interesting. I used to want a job I felt passionate about, but I kind of just don’t think I’m someone who will have that and I’m kind of making my peace with that now. I am absolutely a work to live person, not the other way around. I just want to be somewhat interested in my work, be paid fairly/well enough and work with people I like/don’t dislike. I wish I was someone with a passion for something and the brain to match, like the doctors in House, but I don’t have that burning interest in anything really and I also don’t have the brain for super specialist kind of work or anything anyway. Anyway.
I think I’m also just PMSy, hence my probably unfair lashing out in the earlier paragraph. But I just wrote a message to my manager and had to stop myself crying? And someone just did something for me workwise and it made me upset? It probably also doesn’t help I’m listening to mopey old radiohead.
M and her friend left the living room in such a tip. Like fast food trash on the side tables and stuff. So not a tip but still kind of gross. I think I just find her gross sometimes, but less so her and more so the men she brings here. I’m sure they’re nice enough and stuff but they’re just so… yuck? I sound like such a raging bitch I know but whatever. And sleeping with two different guys in three days, I mean on the one hand whatever I don’t care at all and I definitely don’t think less of her, but it’s just gross to me? I know I’m very much a one man at a time kind of girl though and I never had a properly single phase, like I’ve been single for ages but I mean the actively dating/sleeping with guys and stuff, I never had that phase. I think it’s because I’m a frigid prude with zero self esteem, but zero self esteem in the sense I would rather be alone than risk my feelings being hurt. Anyway.
I kind of feel silly sometimes wearing makeup when wfh and not leaving the house but then I remember the panic and guilt I feel when I barely touch the thousands of dollars worth of makeup in my collection so… here we are. Wearing it all more often has made me feel way better. Also makes me learn what I do and don’t like in my collection, eg I currently prefer an eyeliner to a bit of eyeshadow along the lash line. I go through phases of that though. Anyway. Today I’m wearing a warmer base and it’s becoming really clear to me I’m not quite as cool of an undertone as I thought. I just find it hard to not see the surface redness, but like my neck/décolletage is a fair milky kind of pale, but in a neutral olive way not in a pinky way. Like yesterday I looked so stupid, I mean I blended it well so you couldn’t reeeeally tell but the undertone of my base was so wrong. Which is annoying because majority of fair base shades are cool/pink toned and I’ve spent an embarrassing amount on foundations with those undertones. Even when I buy neutral they seem to look too pink on me? Idk. Anyway I’m wearing one that actually matches me today undertone wise and it looks wayyy better. I should probably chuck my other ones but I mean, they’re practically unused Armani/NARS/Charlotte Tilbury/Estée Lauder etc and that pains me. Then again it would pain me more to wear the incorrect base… ugh.
I’m wearing my MM by the fireplace perfume today, it makes me feel so warm & cosy, like I’m a little candle or something.
I’m back in my psychedelic furs phase. I don’t love all their stuff, that I’ve listened to, but the obsession I had a few years ago with love my way was a whole new level of obsession. I still loveeeeee it.
I had a lazy fried rice for lunch today - brown rice with eggs & frozen veggies mixed in. It was yum enough. I feel too full now.
I’m so ugly, ugly ugly uglyyy. Or rather I feel ugly ugly ugly.
My adore order arrived today and so I got a lil tim tam and yummmmmm. I didn’t buy anything exciting though which I now regret but don’t regret. I just got moisturiser top ups as mine are running low - boooooooooring.
I’ve had a real new wave kind of afternoon music wise.
He makes me so happy :) He showed me the cutest video today of some puppies, okay so like a couple will put their hands on top of one another and then the dog will too! It’s so precious. I can’t wait to be puppy parents with him! I feel like me choosing to not have social media means I do miss out on lots of cute things like that which kinda sucks a lot but oh well - I just don’t think having ig or any of those things would be good for me and I also don’t want to share my life with anyone? Like if I want to share things about me then I’ll tell you, and there are like ten people in the world (or less) who I care to share with anyway - and that includes my family. I do want more friends though. But so anyway.
I felt pretty good earlier, now it’s 7:18pm and I don’t feel like that anymore.
I wish I wasn’t so ugly. I just had a big pathetic cry about it and now I’m late.
Shower time I guess, bye.

Hey ya people, I am in need of an advice again. I am trying to make white chocolate raspberry mousse and then pour mirror glaze on top , but it never seems to work okay. Here’s what i do: 4 sheets of gelatin blooming for 250grams of frozen raspberries blended into purée and then i put it in a mold in the freezer. For the mousse i do it that way, Melt 400grams white chocolate with 200ml of heavy cream and then beat 2 eggs with sugar and 2 gelatin sheets and i mix everything together and put in the fridge to freeze. Ive tried freezing it for more than 12 hours (checked my freezer temp -10), but still the mousse was always kinda soft and the moment i pour my glaze (37 degrees) the edges gets mushy . Is there another recipe for better mousse or what i am doing wrong in mine?

As of right now, there are no Pokemon in the game that are fully aquatic. All in-game Water-types are amphibious. It is likely that there are no aquatic Pokemon because they would look out of place either sleeping on dry land or floating around in mid-air. So how could they be implemented well?
By adding a set of new "islands" that are set underwater.
On these islands, you would not be feeding Snorlax, but Dondozo, the giant catfish Pokemon from Scarlet/Violet. The tent, incense stand and cooking pot would be replaced by a small submarine that has all of their features.
You would only be able to use the following currently in-game Pokemon on these islands: * Squirtle, Wartortle & Blastoise * Psyduck & Golduck * Slowpoke, Slowbro & Slowking * Vaporeon * Dratini, Dragonair & Dragonite * Totodile, Croconaw & Feraligatr * Spheal, Sealeo & Walrein
Everything else cannot be used because those Pokemon can't survive underwater.
The new islands would be:
Sapphire Sea A bountiful open ocean. Favorite berries are Water, Ghost and Flying.
Ruby Reef A vibrant coral reef teeming with colorful plants and coral. Favorite berries are Psychic, Bug and Poison.
Ancient Abyss A deep crevasse in the ocean floor that's so deep down that very little light reaches it. Favorite berries are Rock, Dark and Electric.
Frozen Fjord A cold ocean filled with icebergs. Favorite berries are Ice, Dragon and Ground.
Here's a list of all the new Pokemon that you would be able to find scattered across these islands. Pokemon with an (A) behind their berry type are amphibious and would be able to be used on the terrestrial islands currently in the game.

• Tentacool (Poison)
• Tentacruel (Poison)
• Seel (Water) (A)
• Dewgong (Ice) (A)
• Shellder (Water)
• Cloyster (Ice)
• Krabby (Water) (A)
• Kingler (Water) (A)
• Horsea (Water)
• Seadra (Water)
• Staryu (Water) (A)
• Starmie (Psychic) (A)
• Lapras (Ice) (A)
• Omanyte (Rock) (A)
• Omastar (Rock) (A)
• Kabuto (Rock) (A)
• Kabutops (Rock) (A)
• Chinchou (Electric)
• Lanturn (Electric)
• Qwilfish (Poison)
• Hisuian Qwilfish (Dark)
• Corsola (Rock) (A)
• Galarian Corsola (Ghost) (A)
• Remoraid (Water)
• Octillery (Water) (A)
• Mantine (Flying)
• Kingdra (Dragon)
• Carvanha (Dark)
• Sharpedo (Dark)
• Barboach (Ground)
• Whiscash (Ground)
• Lileep (Grass) (A)
• Cradily (Grass) (A)
• Anorith (Bug)
• Armaldo (Bug) (A)
• Relicanth (Rock)
• Shellos (Water) (A)
• Gastrodon (Ground) (A)
• Mantyke (Flying)
• Basculin (Water)
• Tirtouga (Rock)
• Carracosta (Rock) (A)
• Frillish (Ghost)
• Jellicent (Ghost)
• Alomomola (Water)
• Tynamo (Electric) (A)
• Eelektrik (Electric) (A)
• Eelektross (Electric) (A)
• Stunfisk (Electric) (A)
• Inkay (Psychic) (A)
• Malamar (Psychic) (A)
• Binacle (Rock) (A)
• Barbaracle (Rock) (A)
• Skrelp (Poison)
• Dragalge (Dragon)
• Mareanie (Poison) (A)
• Toxapex (Poison) (A)
• Dewpider (Bug) (A)
• Araquanid (Bug) (A)
• Wimpod (Bug) (A)
• Golisopod (Bug) (A)
• Bruxish (Psychic)
• Dhelmise (Ghost)
• Arrokuda (Water)
• Barraskewda (Water)
• Cursola (Ghost) (A)
• Pincurchin (Electric) (A)
• Basculegion (Ghost)
• Overqwil (Dark)
• Finizen (Water)
• Palafin (Water) (A)
• Veluza (Psychic)
• Tatsugiri (Dragon) (A)

Hello, I am a student of medicine at University of Utah (This info will become relevant later), and I had an experience with something I cannot not explain. For spring break, me and a couple buddies from class pooled some money together to rent a houseboat. The first few days were fun, and we had no problems until the third day of our trip. It was around 1 am and I was the only one up. I was reading when I realized how much of a mess we made. It stank, three days of guys not showering and throwing back multiple packs of beers will definitely do that. But there was a scent I could pick out of the body odor. A smell reminiscent of when you leave popcorn in the microwave for a couple seconds too long and their cores are all burnt black. This smell started to nag at me while it got stronger by the second. I started investigating the source of the scent when I heard noises, it could have just been my ears overly adjusted to the silence, but I swear I heard a sound. It had a squishiness to it that could only be described as walking in tennis shoes that have been completely soaked. I swear I was going insane or just having a surprise after midnight hangover, but then I saw undeniable real, Physical proof that I wasn’t going mad. Small puddles of water leading down a narrow hallway. One of the guys must have been making their way to the bathroom, but that wouldn’t explain the puddles. Maybe they spilled a drink on themselves or perhaps being blackout drunk, pissed themselves on the way to the bathroom. I made my way to the bathroom, knocking on the door ask if they are well and perhaps offer help. The unlatched door swung open with the force of my knocks. A shadow figure stared at the mirror with such intensity that I felt as if I was interrupting some grand ceremony. I studied its silhouette to try to discern which bunkmate it could be. However, the shape was wrong, it didn’t match one of my friends or a human for that matter. Its upper body was deathly skinny with a jagged and not symmetrical frame. When I looked down, I saw plump round legs that could only belong to someone weighing over 400 pounds. I thought I had to know, I was wrong, I did not have to know. I could have said, sorry, close the door and head to bed. Relaying that ignorance is bliss as I fell asleep. But no, I HAD to know. I flipped on the light and my vision exploded with color. It was horrible, the creature was mostly a drenched skeleton bonded together with stringy red meat. Its face only bore only its right eye and a small stretch of skin that covered the right side of its face, like a flesh version of mask the phantom wears on Broadway. A glance down revealed a blue set of wet obese legs with skin slowly peeling away like a large blue sunburn. A pair of athletic shorts was the only thing that could prove this “thing” was once human. Its eye widens, as it finally caught a look of itself. It opens its mouth and dark thick liquid sputtered out onto the mirror and sink. The chunks of which slowly rolled down the glass surface. Then for about 10 seconds its jaw lowered and raised slightly as if it was trying to find its voice. And it did, a scream escaped with guttural lows and high pitches combined in a sound that wasn’t meant for this earth. The thing’s head jolted up as if something had touched it, and it certainly wasn’t me. Its exposed ribs tore into my shoulder as it threw itself out into the hallway. Or maybe it didn’t, because for next several seconds, I would view this once human thing try and grasp onto anything as an invisible rope would tug on its midsection. It bounced up and down the hall and out onto the deck until it caught the fence. The last separation between boat and water. I gazed upon it for the last time. In its eye, I could only see a look of seemingly shared terror. But there was a hint of sad desperation. A blend of flesh and bones reached out to me, its extended fingers quickly collapsed as it seemed to realize that I wasn’t going to help it. The siren coming from the hole in its face crackled then lowered to a hum. It seemed to give up, releasing any grip that was keeping it from the depths. Its body disappeared under water.
I am writing this around 3 am as I have been having trouble sleeping since then. I can still remember its body. As a student of medicine, I feel more sick as I might know how it died. Its boney red upper body must have been the result of multiple 3rd degree burns. No skin remains above the waist other than the patch around the right eye. Its enormous dark blue legs were a victim of bloating after staying underwater for months on end. The puffy limbs absorbed so much water, flakes of skin were shown to be ripping off. This body would have to die in a specific fashion to have the top half be burnt and stay dry while the bottom half decayed under water. That roar has left my ears ringing, that hoarse sound could only come from half cooked vocal cords. However, the worst part was not the gore, but the look it gave me. I feel like I should have tried something, but deep down, I was never going to. I was frozen in my own fear. Restless, I would search for anything that would give me closure. And there in an article I found it. “20-year-old, USU student, Barry Miller assumed dead, trapped in sunken houseboat that caught fire.” I was shocked to find this only happened a few months ago. The half burnt, half bloated body had a name. Barry. Burnt Barry.

when i was younger i played this game a couple times on a PC demo disc. if I remember correctly you were playing little purple clay figures navigating the world each area. the object of the game was to get one of the purple guys to a location that was on the map that was marked with a checkered board tile that represented the end. if i remember there was all sorts of environment hazards, as well as an opposing faction of little orange guys (i might have the colors backwards tho).
the game play I'm a little fuzzy on tho, their was either other little guys that could do there own thing to help advance you in the level (guys who could build a bridge to get across a gap, little solider guys to distract the other guys etc etc) or the character could pick up power ups on the map that would let them do different things, (tools to build a bridge to cross a gap, a parachute to jump down large ledges, a weapon to fight off the enemy characters) the art style was very claymation esque and it was top dow, the levels looked like they were clay set pieces that had photographed and scanned in, the first area was a garden, then when you finished the demo, the game teased other areas such as a picnic blanket area, a frozen tundra, and what looked like a kitchen counter inside a houte. i pretty sure this was some sort of puzzle game because your main objective was to get to the finish square while navigating obstacles

I’m brewing my third batch of booch. I keep reading about people whose F2s get too fizzy and I’m wondering what I’m doing wrong—my F2 is SLOW. I added 1/4 cup of a mix of juiced ginger and blackberries to 16oz flip top bottles. Barely any fizz. And I have since added more juiced berries and even a couple dried strawberries to see if that sped up F2, but it hasn’t. The bottles are stored at room temp, around 72 degrees right now. Is something wrong with the SCOBY I’m using in F1? Something else I don’t know about? I am just learning the science behind it all. Any advice? I like my booch not too sweet and very fizzy.

Hey everyone! I'm back again with today's daily guide!
As we've previously found, reloading the browser makes changes to the rng, so now I have notes when the browser has been reloaded so you can reload it too :). As per usual, sorry about the reloads - it'd be much easier if there weren't any, but I had some issues and instead of being able to restart I had to reload. Also there's at least one place where I've said to quit to menu and continue - I don't think this is the same as a reload, so maybe don't reload and just quit to menu instead?
Also, we originally though that different browsers have different RNG, but recently we found it may be a little more complicated than that. I use firefox when making my guides, and it seems like most of the variations are from chome, but it's not guaranteed - you can still have variations with firefox. If you do find any variations and differences, let me know - I'm trying to get some evidence so I can figure out what the changes are and see if there's a way to nullify them so we can have a single guide for any type of browser :).
Also I'm currently testing this run for any missed reloads. I've currently tested this all the way through to wave 50 on firefox, and can confirm it works as intended :)!
ALSO ALSO: we're still trying to figure out exactly what the relationship with reloading is. For now, if when you need to reload, reload once you've chosen your pokemon for the battle, as, on average, that's when I would reload. I don't know if it'll make a difference, but it can't hurt to try and see what happens :). We think there may not be a relationship between when you reload as long as you're on the wave, but I just wanted to say this as a just in case :)
As per the others, I'm still learning about all this, so sorry for any mistakes I've made - I probably missed at least a couple of reloads, but hopefully I got the majority of them.
One note: There were a few VERY stubborn mons this time around that I just could not catch, sorry. I tried my best - you guys might be better pokemon trainers than me, so if you want to go for them, go for it! Just note that doing so may change the rng, and the guide may be a little off from there.
If you're curious, here's the list of gym trainers from today's run, which happen at waves 10, 20 and 30:

Gym trainer
Gym leader Gardenia
Gym leader Roxanne
Gym leader Crasher Wake

So, one thing I wanted to ask everyone - in daily runs, you only get eggs for pokemon you've already caught, but I assume that none of the pokemon have been caught; this is why I try to catch every unique pokemon we come across on the daily guide, so you get it as a starter and a candy if you need it. That said, would people prefer if I just tried to go for interesting pokemon (like HA/max stats etc) and not try catch every single pokemon? Or do people enjoy having the ability to catch almost every pokemon for the dex and candy if you don't have it? Let me know either way!

Pokemon	Max stat (31)	Wave
Skiploom	Atk	3
Jumpluff	Hp	9
Steenee	Def	14
Carbink	Hp	23
Boldore	Speed	24
Swanna	Sp Atk	33

With the below steps, if I haven't said to take a move when one is offered, that means to not learn it. For the table, there's two columns relating to moves - one for moves to take and one for moves to replace. For example, if the "Move(s) to take..." column has Headbutt and the corresponding row in the "... by replacing move(s)" column has Wrap, it would mean you need to replace wrap with headbutt at this stage when it's offered - and if during that stage a different move is offered, don't take it if it's not on the list. Also if there's multiple moves to be offered, the moves offered in the table are listed from top to bottom of the order you get them - so if you have something like the below, it means that Crunch will be offered before Headbutt will, which will be before Firethrower (and their associated replacements):

Move(s) to take...	... by replacing move(s)
Crunch	Vine whip
Heatbutt	Astonish
Firethrower	Water gun

Also, if there are multiple waves back to back that have the same pokemon (or are within a few waves of each other), I'll label them as 1 and 2 - i.e. Linoone 1 and Linoone 2. This is to help avoid confusion if you're looking back and forth and trying to figure out where you're at
Lastly, with the steps below, if I don't say to switch out to a pokemon, that means you use the pokemon that's come out automatically.
EDIT BEFORE I GO ON: It seems like around wave 20, things go a bit weird. Thanks to a very generous member of the community who wished to remain anonymous (you know who you are - seriously, thank you!) for finding out steps to continue with the run (using firefox - hopefully the same for chrome). I've marked on the wave where there's new steps and what to do, though I've kept the old steps as a just in case; this means that for these waves, use the new steps. I'm currently doing a test run atm and once it's done, I'll make more official notes on how things are going with testing it, but until then, use the new steps and hopefully they should work :). And thanks again to the mysterious solver of rng!
EDIT 2: The steps provided by the anonymous community member have been fully tested and is 100% working in firefox. Again, thank you so much for your help! I'll keep the old steps just in case, though you won't need them - just use the new steps listed and you shouldn't have any issues on firefox (and hopefully on chrome, though there may be subtle differences)
With that, here's the guide:

Stage 1

Wave 1: Combee
Steps:

1. Foul play x 2
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Rare candy sinistcha
Wave 2: Sunkern
Steps:

1. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 3: Skiploom
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This skiploom has max Atk stat
Steps:

1. Foul play x 2
2. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion sinistcha
Wave 4: Sunkern
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Nugget
Wave 5: School Kid Mara
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Pain split x 3
2. Foul play
3. Matcha gotcha x 3

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Mega drain (sinistcha)	Pain split
Wish	Defog
Slash	Sweet scent
Icy wind	Scary face
Giga drain	Mega drain
Mega drain (skiploom)	Sleep powder

Reward: Potion vespiquen
Wave 6: Skiploom
Steps:

1. Switch to weavile
2. Icy wind

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Great balls
Wave 7: Cherrim and cottonee
Steps:

1. Icy wind and matcha gotcha
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion vespiquen
Wave 8: Cottonee
Steps:

1. Pokeball
2. Replace sunkern with cottonee

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 9: Jumpluff and Cottonee
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This jumpluff has max Hp stat
Steps:

1. Icy wind and matcha gotcha x 2
2. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Hyper potion weavile
Wave 10: Sunflora
Steps:

1. Icy wind
2. Great ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Fury swipe	Swords dance
Hex	Life Dew

Reward: Stage end

Stage 2

Wave 11: Parasect
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Couldn't catch it
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Switch to illumise
2. Struggle bug x 2 (this kills parasect)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Air slash	Gust
Acrobatics	Mega drain

Reward: Transfer the miracle seed from weavile and ullumise to sinistcha, then take pokeballs as reward
Wave 12: Vulpix and Bayleef
Steps:

1. Switch illumise with weavile
2. Icy wind and matcha gotcha
3. Pokeball
4. Replace illumise with vulpix

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: X Speed
Wave 13: Vulpix
Steps:

1. Assurance

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: X Attack
Wave 14: Steenee
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This steenee has max Def stat
Steps:

1. Icy wind
2. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Leech seed	Growth

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 15: Breeder Glenn
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Switch to vespiquen
2. Switch to sinistcha
3. Hex x 3
4. Mega drain x 2
5. Foul play x 2
6. Switch to weavile
7. Icy wind

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Extrasensory	Spite
Power gem	Struggle bug

Reward: Hyper potion sinistcha
Wave 16: Nidorina
Steps:

1. Switch to vespiquen
2. Air slash x 2
3. Pokeball
4. Replace jumpluff with nidorina

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion nidorina
Wave 17: Vulpix and Nidorina
Steps:

1. Replace vepiquen with sinistcha
2. Matcha gotcha and icy wind x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Fire stone vulpix
Wave 18: Lokix and Ninetails
Steps:

1. Run away

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: No reward, ran away
Wave 19: Ninjask
Steps:

1. Switch to ninetails
2. Will-o-wisp
3. Extrasensory x 2
4. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion ninetails
Wave 20: Gym leader Gardenia
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Switch to vespi
2. Air slash x 4 (Vespi Dies)
3. Pick Weavile
4. Icy WInd x 3 (Weavile Dies)
5. Pick Sinistcha
6. Matcha gotcha x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Toxic	Slash
Bite	Tail whip
Energy ball	Mega drain

Reward: Stage end
(OLD STEPS, DO NOT USE)

1. Switch to vespi
2. Air slash x 6

Stage 3

Wave 21: Gosilopod
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Couldn't catch it
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Pre Switch Vespi
2. Air Slash x2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion vespiquen
(OLD STEPS, DO NOT USE)

1. Air slash x 2 (this kills it)

Wave 22: Naclstack
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Attack order	Bug bite

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 23: Carbink
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This carbink has max Hp stat
Steps:

1. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: XP Charm
Wave 24: Boldore
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This boldore has max Speed stat
Steps:

1. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Strength sap	Mega drain

Reward: Potion vespiquen
Wave 25: Hiker Daryl
Steps:

1. Switch to sinistcha
2. Matcha gotcha x 3

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion sinistcha
Wave 26: Gosilopod and Probopass
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha and Air Slash Golis (Vespi Dies)
2. Pick Nidorina
3. Matcha Gotcha and Scratch
4. Great Ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion Sinistcha
(OLD STEPS, DO NOT USE)

1. Switch weavile with vespi
2. Matcha gotcha and air slash gosil
3. Matcha gotcha and switch vespi for nidorina
4. Great ball

Wave 27: Probopass
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Shadow ball	Hex

Reward: Potion Nidorina
Wave 28: Ursaring
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha
2. Great ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion Nidorina
Wave 29: Diggersby
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Couldn't catch it
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha (this kills it)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeball
Wave 30: Gym leader Roxanne
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha x 6 (should run out of pp here)
2. Shadow ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Toxic	Scratch

Reward: Stage end

Stage 4

Wave 31: Masquerain
Steps:

1. Switch to vespi
2. Air slash
3. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion vespiquen
Wave 32: Quagsire and Swanna

1. Switch nidorina for sinistcha
2. Attack order quagsire and matcha gotcha
3. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion sinistcha
Wave 33: Swanna
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This swanna has max Sp Atk stat
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Pre Switch Ninetails
2. Extrasensory x 2
3. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Super potion vespi
Wave 34: Seaking 1
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Switch to sinistcha
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Hyper Potion Vespi
Wave 35: Fisherman Wade
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Matcha Gotcha x 2
2. Strength Sap
3. Matcha Gotcha x 2
4. Shadow Ball
5. Matcha gotcha x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion Ninetails
(OLD STEPS, DO NOT USE)

1. Matcha gotcha x 2
2. Strength sap
3. Matcha gotcha x 5
4. Strength sap
5. Matcha gotcha

Wave 36: Golduck
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Couldn't catch it
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha (this kills it)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 37: Ludicolo
Steps:

1. Shadow ball
2. Foul play
3. Pokeball x 4

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Night slash	Assurance

Reward: Sunstone cottonee
Wave 38: Seaking 2
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Super Potion Ninetails
Wave 39: Drednaw
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Couldn't catch it
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This wave has new steps and/or rewards thanks to an anonymous member of the community; the old steps are listed after the reward but should NOT be used.
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha (this kills it)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion Ninetails
Wave 40: Gym leader Crasher Wake
Steps:

1. Switch to whimsicott
2. Leech seed
3. Giga drain x 3
4. Leech seed (whimsi dies)
5. Bring out sinistcha
6. Foul play
7. Strength sap x 2
8. Foul play
9. Switch to weavile
10. Icy wind
11. Night slash (weavile dies here)
12. Switch to vespi
13. Air slash x 3 (vespi dies here)
14. Bring out sinist
15. Matcha gotcha x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Stage end

Stage 5

Wave 41: Magnezone 1
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Couldn't catch it
Steps:

1. Shadow ball x 2 (this kills it)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion sinistcha
Wave 42: Gurdurr 1
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Strength sap x 2
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Crunch	Bite

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 43: Gurdurr 2
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Great balls
Wave 44: Rhyperior
Steps:

1. Strength sap
2. Shadow ball
3. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Dark pulse	Fury swipes

Reward: Sitrus berry sinitscha
Wave 45: Officer Alex
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Superpower (this will be offered once you moon stone nidorina from the shop reward)	Toxic Spikes

Reward: Moon stone nidorina
Wave 46: Magnezone 2
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Couldn't catch it
Steps:

1. Shadow ball x 2 (this kills it)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion sinistcha
Wave 47: Machoke 1
Steps:

1. Great ball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Full heal sinistcha
Wave 48: Machoke 2
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Matcha gotcha

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion nidoqueen
Wave 49: Conkeldurr
Steps:

1. Shadow ball
2. Pokeball x 4

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Ether strength sap
Wave 50: Victini
Steps:

1. Switch to whimsicott
2. Leech seed
3. Giga drain (this kills whimsicott)
4. Bring out nidoqueen
5. Crunch x 2 (this kills nidoqueen)
6. Bring out vespi
7. Air slash x 2 (this kills vespi)
8. Bring out weavile
9. Night slash

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Daily done!
And with that, that's it! As usual, I've probably missed a few reloads - I'm going to boot up a run and see how things go and update as I find things out, but let me know what you guys find too! Good luck with your eggs, and let me know if you guys would prefer runs with less catching and more killing, or if you like the option to catch most of the mons out there! After all, you know what they say!
Gotta catch 'em all!

Like to these works: https://www.attalus.org/poetry/theriaca.html
it into wine. That will be a most excellent protection, for you will stave off death in all forms alike.
700 Learn also that the powerful aid of the sea-turtle is a defence against the bite of all the long, crawling creatures that injure distressful mortals; and may you find it a strong protection. Thus, when fishermen draw the murderous Turtle up out of the sea on to the dry beach, do you, having turned it on its back, strike the life from its head with a bronze knife and let the coarse blood pour forth into an earthen jar newly baked in the furnace; but draw of the livid, thin serum with a well-made colander and on this dry and break up the dots of blood, 710 taking for your mixture four drachmas by weight. And add two drachmas of wild cummin, and to each two drachmas a quarter by weight of the curd in a Hare's stomach. From this cut off one drachma and drink in wine.
Against Snakes these remedies, you will find, will protect you.
Consider now the operations of the dangerous spider and the symptoms that attend its bite. The one which is the colour of pitchy smoke is named the grape ; it moves its feet in succession, and in the centre of its stomach it has hard and deadly teeth. But even when it has fastened on a man, his skin nevertheless remains as though unwounded; 720 yet the eyes above turn reddish and a shivering settles on his limbs, and straightway his skin and his genitals below grow taut, and his member projects, dripping with foul ooze, and at the same time numbness descending upon him overcomes his hips and the support of his knees.
Learn of one different from these - the starlet, on whose back striped bands gleam radiant on the skin. When it has bitten, a shivering comes unexpectedly upon the victim, a torpor is in his head and breaks the bonds of his knees beneath him.
Another kind is the blue spider : it darts about off the ground and is covered with hair. 730 Even on his flesh the victim of this spider carries a terrible wound: his heart is heavy within him and night is about his temples, while from his throat he discharges a deadly vomit like a spider's web; and he thinks that death is near to him.
Yet another is the huntsman, and he is like the Wolf-Spider in form, the destroyer of blue-bottles; he lies in wait for bees, gall-insects, gadflies, and whatsoever comes into his toils. But the bite he inflicts upon man is painless and without consequence.
But another kind is an aggressive foe, the one men call the wasp-spider, reddish and like the ravenous Wasp, 740 which resembles the horse in its high spirit, for horses are the origin of wasps and bulls of bees [which are engendered in their rotting carcases]. When this creature has inflicted a wound, sever swelling ensues and various forms of sickness, and in some cases a quivering, in others powerlessness in the knees; and the wasting man is overcome by an evil sleep that brings the final alleviation.
The antlet - now mark - which in truth resembles the ant, has a fiery neck, though its body is dust-coloured; its broad and spangled back is all speckled, 750 and its dusky head is raised but little on its neck, yet it inflicts as much pain as the spiders aforenamed.
Where men go plucking with their hands, not using sickles, gathering pulse and other legumes amid the fields while still green, there in swarms, wrapped in fiery colour and like to blister-beetles, dart small spiders. But for all their size around the troublesome bite of one blisters always rise, and the mind wanders and is crazed; the tongue shrieks disordered words and the eyes squint.
Consider now monsters which the grim land of Egypt fosters, 760 like the moth which the evening meal-time brings in to flutter round the lamps. All the wings are dense and are covered with down, even as a man appears who may chance to touch dust or ashes. Such in appearance, it is reared among the leaves of Perseus's tree {Persea}. Its terrible head nods ever in grim fashion and is hard, and its belly is heavy ; its sting it plants in the top of a man's neck or on his head, and it may easily and on the spot bring the doom of death.
Come now, and I will speak of the scorpion, armed with an agonising sting, 770 and of its disgusting brood. The white kind is harmless and does no hurt. But the red inflicts a swift and burning fever on men's mouths, and the victims struggle convulsively beneath the wound as though caught by fire, and there rises a mighty thirst. The black kind on the other hand, when it has struck, causes a fearful agitation in a man: victims go out of their wits and laugh without reason. But another kind is greenish, and when it strikes a limb it inflicts shivering fits, and after them a horrid eruption appears, even though the Dog-Star burn scorching hot. 780 Such in effect is the sharp edge of its sting, and behind such a sting nine-jointed vertebrae extend above its head. Another is livid; it carries beneath it a broad and hungry belly, for in truth it is ever an insatiable eater of grass and of earth; and it deals a stroke incurable upon the groin, so ravenous the hunger in its hard jaws. But another kind you will find like the crab on the sea-shore, which feeds in the delicate seaweed and the noisy surf. Others again, like the bandy-legged common crab to look at, are heavy-limbed and their weighty claws are hard, 790 and serrated as in the rock-haunting crabs. It is from them that they have their allotted being, whenever they quit the rocks and the delicate wrack of the pebble-strewn sea. The fishermen with their baits draw them from the salt water; but directly they are caught they slip into mouse-holes, and there the scorpions, the deadly offspring of these dead crabs, are born, to work ruin from wall and fence. Learn too of the honey-coloured scorpion: its end joint is black at the tip, and it dispenses doom unassuageable and most deadly. But the worst enemy of man is the one whose crooked legs are like fire: 800 to children it instantly brings death. Upon its back white wings unfold themselves like those of the corn-devouring locusts, which flitting over the tops of the corn feed on husked grain, and haunt Pedasa and the vales of Cissus.
I can tell you however of remedies against the scorpion's strokes, just as for those of the buzzer from the hills, or of the bee, whose death follows from its very sting when it has stabbed a man as he labours around the hive or in the fields; as it implants its sting, it leaves it in the wound, 810 and to the Bee the sting is both life and death. Yes, and I know too the devices of the woodlouse, and of the deadly wasp, and of the tiny tree-wasp, and of the two-headed centipede, which from both ends can bestow death upon a man, and as the creature moves there speed beneath it as it were the winged oars of a ship; also of the blind and fearsome shrew-mouse, which brings destruction upon men and meets its death in the wheel-tracks of carts. You should certainly avoid the seps, which resembles the squat lizards; and that treacherous and ever detestable beast the salamander, which makes its way through unquenchable fire [unharmed] and without pain; 820 nor does the unquenchable flame injure its tattered skin or its extremities. Furthermore I have knowledge of all the creatures that the sea whirls amid its briny surges, and the horror of the murry, since many a time has it sprung up from the fish-box and striking them with panic has hurled toiling fishermen from their boat to seek refuge in the sea . . . if it be true that this creature couples with deadly-biting vipers on the land, forsaking its salt pasturage. Again, from the death-dealing sting-ray and the ravening sea-snake I can protect you. The sting-ray causes trouble when it strikes with its sting 830 the toiler labouring at his hauled drag-nets; or if the sting is fixed in the trunk of some tree which is flourishing in pride, then, as though the tree were stricken by the fierce beams of the sun, its roots and with them its leafage wither; on a man his flesh rots and wastes away. Indeed the story tells how Odysseus of yore perished from the baneful sting of this monster from the sea.
Now will I rehearse the several remedies for these afflictions. You should take at one time the leaves, like wild-lettuce, of alkanet, at another potentilla, or the crimson flowers of the bramble; bearwort, sorrel, 840 and the long-stemmed viper's herb, cicamum, the luxuriant hartwort, and you may well include ground-pine and thick bark which you have broken off from the oak tree; with them too hedge-parsley, and seeds gathered from the carrot, and the fresh and variegated berries from the terebinth. Moreover you should store up the purple orchella-weed from the sea, and the unspotted maiden-hair, on whose leaves the fine moisture falling from the bursting rainstorm does not settle. Note too, you should cut the everblooming cretan alexanders or the tufted root of the dead-nettle and of the eryngo, 850 together with the fruit-bearing rosemary frankincense. Let there be present also cleavers and helxine and the heavy-headed poppy, capsuled or horned, to protect you. Cut off also a budding shoot of the fig-tree or the actual fruit of the wild fig which appears orbed and swelling before other fruit. Take too the fiery thorn and the blossoms of the bright mullein, and with them leaves of havergrass, and celandine, wild carrot, and the root of bryony, which wipes away freckles and the rash abhorrent to women's skin. 860 Powder also the leaves of vervain, or pluck the twigs of a the protective rhamnus, for by itself it is efficacious to ward off death from a man. Again, gather freshly plucked branches of feverfew, blue pimpernel, or hart's tongue, or take a portion of Lemnian ruddle, which is soothing in all afflictions. Sometimes too you may cut the bitter root of the squirting cucumber; to a stomach even sore oppressed with anguish also fruit of the prickly paliurus affords relief; so too its spiky leaves, and the young fruits of the pomegranate 870 with scarlet on its neck-like, closing sepals where it reddens about the slender flowers; at another time hyssop and the many-branched rest-harrow and the leaves of love-in-absence and the fresh tendril on the grape cluster, cloves of garlic, and the seed of the mountain-born coriander, or even the downy leaves of the delicate fleabane. Often too you may cut of some fresh pepper or Persian garden-cress and administer it in a drink; and the flowering pennyroyal and deadly nightshade and mustard too may save one in evil plight. Take also the green leak from the garden-plot, or else the hurtful seed of the nettle itself 880 with which boys play tricks. With these too perhaps the snow-white head of a squill and the dried coats of purse-tassels and the stalk of the dragon's namesake {dracunculus}, and the shoots of the shrubby rhamnus, and what the wildwood pines in the valleys nourish at the heart of their cones. Look you, you should lop the green root of the feeble herb scorpius that men liken to the poisonous sting of the beast, or waterlilies from Psamathe, and those which Traphea and Copae foster by the waters of their lake, wherein discharge the streams of Schoeneus and Cnopus, 890 and the pistachio nuts which look like almonds upon the boughs by the Indian flood of the roaring Choaspes. Collect hedge-parsley and the red-brown, astringent myrtle berries and slips of sage and of the flourishing fennel; collect also hedge-mustard and the seeds of the wild chick-pea, including with its green shoots the heavy-smelling leaves. Again, water-cress alleviates sickness; so too a fresh garland of melilot; also the white blossoms of the spongy dropwort which shepherds pound in a mortar, and those seeds which the corn-cockle and the red plantain and the rose foster within them, 900 and the tiny seed of the gilliflower. Or cut some knot-grass from the tangled watermeadows, depilatory, and the seed of the mournful hyacinth, over whom Phoebus wept, since without willing it, hard by the river of Amyclae he slew with a blow the boy Hyacinthus in the bloom of youth ; for the iron mass rebounding from a rock smote upon his temple and crushed the sheath beneath it. Mix too some trefoil and gum of silphium equal in scale to the weight of three obols; or else pluck the horn-shaped tufted thyme, often too samphire or lavendar-cotton, 910 and along with them grate into some drink anise and libyan roots. Having shredded them into a bowl, sometimes together sometimes separately, drink them mixed with vinegar or else with wine or water; these help too when shredded into milk.
If however some bite should call for haste as you are on your journey and among waterless glades, the moment you are overcome chew with your jaws some roots or leaves or seeds growing by the way, and sucking out the sap, lay the half-eaten remains of the food upon the wounds 920 in order that you may avoid suffering and imminent death.
Again, by applying to some deadly wound a brazen cupping vessel you will drain the poison and the blood together; or by pouring on the milky juice of the fig, or by using an iron heated in the heart of a hot furnace. Sometimes the skin of a grazing goat filled with wine will be of service at a time when the wound is in ankle or hand. You will fix the sufferer in the wineskin to the mid forearm or ankle and wind the fastening cord about the groin or armpit until the strength of the wine has drawn out the pain from the flesh. 930 At times moreover let leeches feed on wounds and drink their fill. Or drip onion juice, or else pour lees of wine or of vinegar, upon sheep's droppings, make a paste, and plaster the wound with the fresh dung.
But that you may with instruction compound a general panacea,- it will be very serviceable after you have mixed all the simples together - let there be birthwort, root of iris and of spikenard, of all-heal too with dried pellitory, of all-curing wild carrot, and of black bryony, 940 and with them the spongy roots of a freshly dug peony, sprigs of the black hellebore, and mingled with them native sodium carbonate. Pour in too cummin and a sprig of fleabane mixed with the husks of stavesacre; and grate down an equal quantity of the bay's berries and tree-medick and the lowly horse-moss, and gather in some cyclamen. Cast in also the juice of the gleaming poppy, and over all the seeds of the agnus castus, balsam too and some cassia, and with them cow-parsnip and a bowlful of salt, mingling them with curd and a crab; but the former should come from a hare, 950 the latter should be a dweller in pebbly streams. Now all these you should throw into the belly of a capacious mortar, kneading them with the blows of stone pestles. And on the dry ingredients pour at once the juice of cleavers and mix well together; then prepare round cakes of a drachma each, limiting the weight precisely with a balance; then shake them up in two cotylae of wine and drink.
So now you will treasure ever the memory of the Homeric Nicander, whom the snow-white town of Clarus nurtured.
https://www.attalus.org/poetry/theriaca.html

and seeing in its hole the deadly, trailing brute, implored it with fawning speech to aid him in his sore plight. Whereat the snake asked of the foolish creature as a gift the load which he had taken on his back; and the ass refused not its request. Ever since then do trailing reptiles slough their skin in old age, but grievous eld attends mortals. The affliction of thirst did the deadly brute receive from the braying ass, and imparts it with its feeble blows.
Come now and learn that the forms of the chersydrus and of the asp are alike in appearance. 360 Signs of a malignant nature follow on his bite: all the skin upon the flesh, dry, loathsome, and bloated with putrid sores, breaks out from below, disclosing a clammy wound, while innumerable and fiery are the pangs which overcome the man, and sudden swellings are raised upon his limbs, plaguing him by turns now in this quarter now in that. This is the snake that first beneath some shallow mere wreaks his truceless malice upon the frogs; but when the Dog-Star dries up the water and drought is upon the floor of the lake, then upon dry land he becomes dust-like and shabby, 370 as he warms his grim body in the sunshine, and with hissing tongue he haunts the thirsting ruts along the highways.
After him you shall learn of the amphisbaena, less in bulk and slow of gait, two-headed, ever dull of eye. From either end a blunt chin protrudes, the one far from the other. Its body is earth-coloured and wears a skin ragged, speckled, and sheeny. This snake, when it comes to full growth, do wood-cutters, as though they had cut for a walking-stick a stem of twisted wild-olive, strip of its skin as soon as it appears, 380 before the note of the cuckoo in spring. The amphisbaena benefits those with afflicted skin when crippling chilblains break out upon the hands of men overcome with cold, also when the bonds of their sinews slacken and weary.
You shall learn too of the scytale, like in appearance to the amphisbaena, though thick, and bulkier down to its useless tail, for the skytale is of the thickness that men make the haft of a mattock, while the amphisbaena's bulk is that of a maw-worm or of such earth-worms as the earth breeds after a shower. Nor at spring's oncoming, after it has quitted gully and hollow cleft 390 in the season when earth brings reptiles to light, does it browse upon the waving shoots on the fennel's branch, when it clothes its limbs with their new skin beneath the sun; rather does it retire to hedges and glades and lurk deep in slumber and feed upon what the earth may chance to yield, nor does it stave off its thirst for all its desire.
Consider too the king of snakes {basilisk}, small indeed yet far excelling all others: his head is pointed; he is golden-hued and three palms' width in outstretched length. Truly none of the heavy-coiled monsters of earth 400 abide his hissing when to feeding-ground or forest or in craving for a watering-place they dart forth at noontide, but they turn and flee. His bite swells a man's body, and from the limbs the flesh falls away livid and blackening. Nor even will a bird pursuing its track above the corpse, be it eagle or vulture or raven that croaks of rain, nor yet any species of wild beast that pastures upon the hills, feed upon it; such the terrible stench that it sends forth. Yet if so be that fatal greed draws one of them near in ignorance, 410 death and a swift ending are wrought for it on the spot.
Learn now the doom inflicted by the dryinas, which others call chelydrus. It makes its home in oaks or maybe Valonia oaks and dwells in mountain glens. For after it has deserted the water-weeds, the marsh, and the congenial lake, and is hunting molurides and small frogs in the meadows, it is sent speeding in expectation of the gadfly's distasteful onslaught; whereat slipping swiftly into the stem of some hollow oak it coils itself and builds its lair in the depths of the wood. 420 Its back is of a smoky hue, but in the flatness of its head it resembles the hydrus, and from its skin exhales a hateful air, as when about the damp horse-skins and hides the scraps of leather ooze beneath the paring of the tanner's knives. And truly, when it strikes the hollows of the knee or on the sole of the foot, a stifling smell is diffused from the flesh; also there rises up a dark swelling about the victim's wound; moreover he is distraught, hateful distress shackles his mind, and his body is parched with suffering. His skin hangs loose about him, so consuming is the fierce poison 430 which feeds ever upon him. and an encircling mist, veiling his eyes, overcomes him in his sore affliction. Some men scream and choke, and their urine is stopped; or again they fall asleep and snore, oppressed with frequent retchings, or from their throat discharging a bilious or sometimes a bloody vomit; and last of all a dreadful plague of thirst sheds a trembling upon their limbs.
Learn and consider the green and dark-blue dragon, which once on a time the god of healing fostered in a leafy oak upon snow-capped Pelion 440 in the vale of Pelethronius. Radiant indeed does he appear, but in his jaw above and below are arrayed three rows of teeth; gleaming eye are beneath his brows, and lower down beneath his chin there is ever a beard of yellow stain. Yet when he fastens on a man he does not hurt as other snakes, even though his rage be violent, for the wound upon the skin of one whose blood is drawn by his slender fang seems slight as that of a meal-nibbling mouse. From his earliest days the king of birds, the eagle, grows up cherishing fierce wrath against him, and against him with his beak 450 he wages a war of hate whenever he espies him moving through the forest, for every nest he lays desolate, devouring alike the young and the cherished eggs of birds. Nevertheless when the eagle has just snatched in his talons a lamb or a swift hare, the dragon will easily rob him, springing up from a thicket. The eagle avoids him: and then there is a battle for the feast. But as the eagle hovers round, the writhing snake is after him without cease, watching him with sidelong glance and grim eyes.
Should you chance to walk in some valley of limping Hephaestus's isle { Lemnos } or go to storm-beaten Samothrace - these lie far off in the Thracian Gulf, 460 where are Hebrus, the river of Hera of Rhescynthium, and the snow-crested mountains of Zone and the oaks of Oeagrus's son, where too is the cave of Zerynthus - you will find the long monster cenchrines, which men call the spangled lion, dappled with scales. His bulk and his length vary, but in a twinkling he sends upon the flesh a shower of putrid sores which will not heal, and these with their consuming poison feed upon the limbs; and ever deep in the belly the dropsy with its load of pain settles about the mid-navel. At the hour when the sun's rays are at their hottest 470 this snake eagerly resorts to rugged mountains, athirst for blood and on the watch for the gentle sheep, while beneath the tall pines of Saüs or Mosychlus the shepherds cool themselves, forsaking the tasks of herdsmen. Do you not dare, bold though you be, to face him in his fury, for fear he wind about and strangle you as he lashes your body all around with his tail, and gorge your blood after he has broken both your collar-bones. But in fleeing weave ever a crooked, manifold track, and baulk the beast's course by starting aside. 480 For by the many turnings and twistings of the spine he injures its ligaments; whereas he moves rapidly and at his swiftest when his path is straight. Such is the serpent which haunts the isles of Thrace.
There too are the bites of the gecko, hateful, though he is of no account. Of him the tale is current how the Sorrowing Demeter did him injury when she marred the limbs of him as a boy by the well Callichorum, after wise Metaneira of old had received the goddess in the dwelling of Celeus.
Harmless reptiles also there are however which feed in the forest, the brakes and thickets and gullies in the country; 490 and men call these Elopes, Libyans, and curling Mouse-hunters; and with them all the Darters and Moluri and Blind-eyes too which are reported innocuous.
Now all the simples and remedies for these ills, the herbs and the time to cut their roots, I will expound to mankind thoroughly and in straightforward fashion,- herbs by whose aid a man may heal the urgent pain of sickness. While the wound is still bleeding and painful, pluck your herbs freshly (this excels all other remedies) from some place where snakes feed in the thick wood. 500 Choose first the medicinal root of Chiron {centaury}; it bears the name of the Centaur son of Cronus, and Chiron once on a snow-covered col of Pelion found and took notice of it. Its waving leaves, like sweet marjoram, encompass it about, and its blossoms are golden to view; its root, at the surface and not deep-set, is native in the dell of Pelethronius. This when dry or while still green, after crushing in a mortar, mingle in a cotyle of pleasant wine, and drink. It is of service in every case; therefore men call it Panacea {"all-healing"}.
Assuredly let birth-wort which grows in the shade be commended; 510 the leaves it bears are like those of the woodbine with its ivy-shaped leaves, but its flowers are red with scarlet, while the odour diffused from it is heavy, and the fruit in the midst you will see to be like the wild pear upon the cordate pear-tree or the common pear. The root of the female shrub is rounded into a lump, but that of the male is lengthy and extends down as much as a cubit, and in colour it resembles the boxwood of Oricus. This you will search after as a surpassing aid against the dread blow of male and female viper. From it let a portion of a drachma's weight be mixed in a draught of tawny wine.
520 Furthermore take to yourself the treacle-clover as a protection against snakes, be it on some stony hill or in some steep glen (some call it Brief-flower, others would call it Trefoil) ; its leaves are like the melilot, but its scent is like rue. When however it sheds all its blossoms and its mottled leaves, it exhales a smell of bitumen. Then cut off enough seeds to fill the sauce-boat on your table, pound them in a mortar, and take to drink as a remedy against snakes.
Attend now and I will rehearse some compound remedies against disease. Grind down and take the strength-giving Sicilian root of fustic; 530 add a heap of the seed of the brightflowered agnus castus, savin, and the luxuriant rue, and pluck a shoot of the earth-pillowed savory, which in the forest spreads abroad fronds like those of the tufted thyme. Again take the root of the double-flowered asphodel, or else the upper portion of its stem; often with them too the seed which the enclosing pod ripens; or else helxine, which men call Clybatis and which delights in streams and flourishes ever in water-meadows. Drink them after crumbling them into a cotyle of vinegar or of wine which you have drawn. 540 Even with water you might easily escape death.
Consider now the excellent root of Alcibius's bugloss: its prickly leaves grow ever thick upon it, and it puts out a coronal of flowers like violets, but beneath them in the soil the root grows deep and slender. Alcibius a male viper wounded above the lowest part of his groin as he lay asleep upon a mound of uncleansed grain by the margin of a piled threshing-floor, straightway rousing him by the violence of the pain. Whereat he pulled the root from the ground and first broke it small with his close-set teeth as he sucked it, and then spread the skin upon his wound.
550 Again, if you pluck off the shoots of the sprouting horehound and drink them with bright wine you may ward of snakes : this is the plant which draws down the udder of a young cow which mothers not her first-born calf, and anon, swollen with milk, she cares for it. Herdsmen call it Meliphyllon {"honey-leaf"}, others Melictaena, for all about its leaves the bees lured by the fragrance of honey buzz busily.
Or else you should peel off the thin membranes of the brain of a domestic fowl, or pare fine some field basil and marjoram, or cut from a boar's liver 560 the tip of the lobe which grows from the 'table' and inclines towards the gall-bladder and the portal fissure. These then you should drink, mixed together or separate, with a draught of vinegar or wine, though a fuller cure will attend wine. And snip the foliage from the evergreen cypress for a potion, or all-heal, or the testicle which is fatal to the beaver, or that of the river-horse which the Nile beyond Sais with its black soil nurtures, and launches, a ruinous sickle indeed, upon the plough-lands. (For the beast, emerging from the muddy ooze of the river when the pastures grow green and the fallow has put forth grass, 570 tramples and leaves behind a deep track as long as that which it devours with its jaws as it cuts its returning swathe.) From it cut off a drachma's weight to match, and soak in water, shredding all together in a vessel.
And do not forget the wormwood or the berries of the slenderer bay; very serviceable too would sweet marjoram be, which flourishes in garden-plots and borders. And include curd from a nimble leveret or from a fawn of roe or red deer after separating the impurities, or the seminal purse which you have cut from a stag, or his paunch, which some indeed call the 'urchin' but others the 'intestinal snood'. 580 Take of them portions of two drachmas' weight and throw them into four cyathi of old wine and mix well. And do not overlook the succour afforded by the hulwort and the cedar-tree, the juniper berry and the catkins of the plane that invites to sleep in summer, and the seeds of the bishop's weed and the cypress of Ida ; for all these will heal you and will banish untold suffering.
Next consider another means of escape and protection from death, and take helxine and grind it in a round mortar 590 and pour in a cotyle of barley gruel, adding two cyathi of wine of ancient vintage, adding also an equal portion of gleaming olive oil; mix them by pounding and you will keep at bay the poison that bites like gall.
Take also to the sixth of a cotyle fragrant pitch and cut out the central pith from the green giant fennel; or grate the full-grown root of horse-fennel into juniper berries, also the seeds of the marsh-bred celery. The full depth of an alexanders 600 and two drachmas' weight of pungent myrrh: cut too the fruit of cummin that grows in summer and weigh them, or pour in at random and shake up unweighed. Then draw thrice a cyathus of wine and mix with them before drinking. Take to yourself a drachma's weight of fruitful spikenard and with it crumble into fresh-drawn milk an eight-footed crab ravished from the river ; some iris too which Drilon has fostered and the banks of Naron, the abode of Sidonian Cadmus and Harmonia, where as two fearsome snakes they move about the pastures. 610 Take next the thick-growing heath when in flower, round which the thronging bees crawl and feed; take too a young frond of the tamarisk that bears no fruit, an honoured prophet among mortals, which Apollo of Corope endued with prophetic properties and authority over men; with these green marjoram leaves and blossom in plenty, and tree-medick and the milky spurge. Bray all these in a mortar, and in the containing vessels medicate wine with them and take in one-tenth of a chous. 620 But of a truth the tadpoles' all too noisy parents, frogs, are excellent when boiled with vinegar in a pot; often the liver of the biting snake itself if drunk in common wine, or the poisonous head administered sometimes in water, at other times in a small quantity of wine, will help you.
You must not neglect the blossom of the sweet blue pimpernel with its closed eye, nor the all-healing marjoram, which men honour as Heracles's Organy; and with the Marjoram you should rub small a leaf of pot marjoram, and dry pellets of the savory that muzzle evil disease.
630 Be sure and take the well-watered rhamnus, like to the little Wild Lettuce; it ever clothes itself in blossom of white. The name whereby men call it is Good Companion, the men who dwell about the tomb of Tmolus and of Gyges on the steep of Parthenius, where horses that toil not pasture upon Cilbis, and where the Caÿster rises.
Attend now and I will tell you of roots that are a help against Serpents. First, learn the two kinds of viper's bugloss : of one the prickly leaf is somewhat like alkanet, since it is small, and the root which it extends is short and on the ground. 640 The other kind has robust leaves and stalks, is tall, grows purple with small blossoms all over, and puts out a head like that of a viper but rough on top. Of these two kinds cut off an equal portion and use as a remedy after shredding them on a block of wood or in a mortar or a hollow stone. Also you should make a paste of the roots of the eryngo and the flowering bearsfoot, and to these two add an equal weight of the campanula that flourishes about the hedgerows. Take too the heavy foliage of the field-basil upon the mountain and seed of the evergreen celery from Nemea ; 650 with them let the double burden of anise raise the scale that sinks with the weight of roots. These should you knead, and having mixed them in a single vessel you may cure one time the deadly bane of Male Vipers, at another the scorpion's wound, at another the bite of the poisonous spider, if you will crumble three obols' weight in wine.
Consider too the white pine-thistle and the dark kind also. The two are distinct: the dusky is like golden thistle in appearance; it puts forth a circle of leaves, its root is strong and dark, and it grows beneath shady mountain spurs 660 or in glades, shunning the sun. But the other you will find ever in the pride of its leaves, while the head lies low and bloated in the middle of them, and its root is whitish and honey-sweet to the taste. Reject the dark root of these plants, but of other stir a piece of a drachma's weight in river water and drink.
Take herbage of another kind that also bears the name of Alcibius, fill your hand full, and drink in a little wine. it was that when hunting beneath Phalacra's cliff, on Crymna's plain and about Grasus, and where lie the meadows of the horse, 670 as he hallooed to his Amyclaean whelps, he discovered through the anguished whimpering of his lion-hearted hound; for as it followed up a goat's trail along some woodland path it had received the female viper's stab in the watering corner of its eye. And with a howl it flung her off and readily ate the leaves of this herb and escaped deadly destruction.
Administer plenty of the sappy, oily bark of the castor oil tree, together with the leaves of the thick balm, or else the plant whose name is that of the sun's turnings, and which, like the glaucous leaves of the olive, 680 marks the path of the retreating scion of Hyperion. Take likewise the root of the navelwort, which in frosty weather draws out the painful chilblains on the feet of those with broken skin. Sometimes you may take the green leaves of the tall bindweed, or of hart's tongue, shearing off the stalk. Take too the Phlegyan all-heal, even that which the God of Healing was the first to pluck by the brim of the river Melas, when ministering to the wound of Iphicles Amphitryon's son, what time with Heracles he was burning the evil Hydra.
Now lay sudden hold on the marten's young or their mischievous mother, 690 and strip their fur over the flame of a fiercely blazing fire, and after rejecting all the inwards and the stomach's excrements, dress with holy salt, and then dry away from the light of the sun, so that its swift shafts do not shrivel the fresh carcase. But, when necessity comes upon you in anguish, rub the desiccated beast thoroughly with a rasp as though it were frail silphium or a round cake of dried milk, grating...

I went to a seminar a few weeks ago about how to make AI work in my field. One thing that came up was nutrition. Tonight I had the idea to ask ChatGPT for a weekly meal plan on semaglutide and I am so impressed. I then asked it to make me a grocery list from the meal plan. I did also input after that I didn't like certain things and it fixed the plan.
Below is part of the suggested meal plan.
Day 1:

• Breakfast: Greek yogurt parfait with mixed berries and a sprinkle of granola.
• Lunch: Quinoa salad with black beans, corn, diced bell peppers, and a squeeze of lime juice.
• Dinner: Grilled chicken breast with roasted sweet potatoes and steamed broccoli.
• Snack: Sliced apple with almond butter.

Day 2:

• Breakfast: Oatmeal topped with sliced bananas, almonds, and a drizzle of honey.
• Lunch: Chickpea salad with cucumber, cherry tomatoes, red onion, and a lemon-tahini dressing.
• Dinner: Baked salmon served with quinoa and sautéed spinach.
• Snack: Carrot sticks with hummus.

Day 3:

• Breakfast: Scrambled eggs with spinach and tomatoes, served with whole grain toast.
• Lunch: Tuna salad lettuce wraps with diced celery, red onion, and a squeeze of lemon.
• Dinner: Stir-fried tofu with mixed vegetables and brown rice.
• Snack: Greek yogurt with a handful of mixed nuts.

Mix for the patient a draught of well-dried navel-figs from a flourishing tree in wine three years old; or you might also crush them together with a mallet, 350 dissolve them over a fire, and give as an antidote to his sickness. And when he recovers his appetite give him again his fill of this honey-sweet drink, sometimes adding milk to the mixture; or else cast in and mix with wine the dry fruit of the date-palm or wild pears that have long been dried, or the fruit of the common pear, or of the cordate pear, or sometimes myrtle-berries; or let him even, like a new-born child, put his lips to the nipple, and calf-like draw a draught from the breast, even as a new-born calf fresh from the womb, butting the udder, forces out the quickening flow from the teat. 360 Or else you may give him his fill of some warm and greasy drink and compel him to vomit unwilling though he be, forcing him with your fingers or with a feather; or cut and twist from papyrus a curved throat-tickler.
But if fresh milk turn cheesy in the hollow of a man's stomach, then, as it collects, suffocation overcomes him. Give him three draughts, one of vinegar between two of grape-syrup, and purge his costive bowels. Or further, grate into a draught the root of silphium from Libya, or else some of its gum, and administer it dissolved in vinegar. 370 Or again, you may add to the mixture dispersive lye or a fresh-blooming sprig of Cretan thyme. Sometimes the clustered fruit of the eucnemus well-steeped in wine is a help. Also a drink of curd, they say, disperses the clots; so too the green leaves of mint mixed either with a draught of honey or with an astringent one of vinegar.
Consider now the thorn-apple, whose aspect and whose taste upon the lips are like milk. At once unwonted retchings agitate the throat of the drinker, and by reason of the pain at the mouth of his stomach 380 he either vomits up his food stained with blood, or else he voids it, foul and fill of mucus, from his bowels, like one suffering from the spasms of dysentery. Sometimes worn out with the parching struggle his limbs give way and he falls to the ground, yet has no wish to moisten his dry mouth.
You must either administer draughts of milk, or else perhaps grape-syrup, slightly warmed and mixed with it in his cup. Moreover the flesh from the plump breast of a sleek fowl, softened on the fire and eaten, can be a help; so too is gruel if swallowed by the bowlful; 390 also the creatures which beneath the roaring of the rocky sea ever feed about the weed-clad crags: some of these he should devour raw, others boiled, many of them after broiling over a fire; but dishes of sea-snails or of the purple limpet, of crayfish and pinna and of the brown sea-urchin will be far more helpful, and scallops; neither . . . the trumpet-shell or sea-squirts that revel in the seaweed.
Let not the hateful draught of pharicum escape your memory - for you are not ignorant of it: it causes grievous suffering in the jaws. Know that to the taste it is like spikenard; but it sends men reeling 400 or sometimes out of their senses, and in a single day it can easily kill a strong man.
Now you may either weigh out and administer some of the purse-like root of the fair-flowering mountain nard which the headlands of Cilicia nourish by the brimming Cestrus, or else well-ground Cretan alexanders. Take also the iris itself and the head of the lily, abhorred of Aphrodite, seeing that it was her rival for colour; wherefore in the midst of its petals she attached a thing of shame to vex it, making to grow there the shocking yard of an ass. 410 Or else you may shave his head, and having cut the hair from the roots with a keen-edged razor, take it, and after heating along with it fresh barley-meal and the dry leaves of rue, which in its feeding the caterpillar is quickest to spoil, soak in vinegar and plaster thickly about his temples.
Let no man in ignorance fill his belly with henbane, as men often do in error, or as children who, having lately put aside their swaddling-clothes and head-bindings, and their perilous crawling on all fours, and walking now upright with no anxious nurse at hand, 420 chew its sprays of baleful flowers through witlessness, since they are just bringing to light the incisor teeth in their jaws, at which time itching assails their swollen gums.
Give the patient either pure milk to drink as a remedy or else fenugreek, which is grown for fodder and puts forth curving horns amid its windswept leaves - a great boon when it floats in common oil. Or else you should give him dried nettle seed, or even the raw leaves of the nettle itself in plenty to suck, or chicory and garden-cress and what they call perseum, 430 and besides these, mustard and radishes in plenty, and mingled with them slender spring onions. A head of garlic with well-grown cloves just taken in a drink also averts disaster.
Learn further that when men drink the tears of the poppy, whose seeds are in a head, they fall fast asleep ; for their extremities are chilled; their eyes do not open but are bound quite motionless by their eyelids. With the exhaustion an odorous sweat bathes all the body, turns the cheeks pale, and causes the lips to swell; the bonds of the jaw are relaxed, 440 and through the throat the laboured breath passes faint and chill. And often either the livid nail or wrinkled nostril is a harbinger of death; sometimes too the sunken eyes.
Of all these symptoms you must not be afraid, but devote yourself entirely to succour, filling the failing man with boiling-hot wine and grape-syrup. Or else make haste to break in pieces the labour of the bee of Hymettus. (Bees were born from the carcase of a calf that had fallen dead in the glades, and there in some hollow oak they first, maybe, united to build their nest, and then, bethinking themselves of work, 450 wrought round it in Demeter's honour their many-celled combs, as with their feet they gathered thyme and flowering heath.) There are times when, prizing open his dog-teeth, or into his drooping jaws, you should squeeze with a tuft of fleecy wool some fresh, fragrant rose-oil or iris-oil or again oil of the sleek olive; and let him drain a thick flock saturated with it. And forthwith rouse him with slaps on either cheek, or else by shouting, or again by shaking him as he sleeps, in order that the swooning man may dispel the fatal drowsiness and may then vomit, ridding himself of the grievous affliction. 460 And dip cloths first in wine and then in warm oil, and rub and chafe his chilled limbs with the liquid; or again, mix them in a bath-tub and dip his body in it, and at once immerse him in the hot bath and so thaw his blood and soften his taut, dry skin.
Also you should learn to know the dire and fateful drink of the deadly sea-hare, offspring of the waves of the pebbly sea. Its odour is that of fishes' scales and of the water in which they have been scoured; its taste is fishy like that of rotten fish, or of unwashed when scales taint the dish. 470 A sordid creature with its slim tentacles, it resembles the new-born young of the calamary or of the octopus or the fugitive cuttlefish, which stains the sea black with its gall directly it perceives the fisherman's crafty assault. Over the limbs of the poisoned spreads the dusky pallor of jaundice, and piecemeal their flesh melts away and dwindles, and food is utterly loathsome. At times the surface of the flesh swells and grows puffy about the ankles; the eyes are swollen, and as it were luxuriant blossoms settle upon the cheeks. For there follows a scantier flow of urine, which is sometimes red, 480 at others still more bloody in colour. Then the sight of every fish is hateful to his eyes and in his disgust he loathes food from the sea.
Give the patient a sufficient draught of Phocian hellebore or the gum of new-grown scammony in order that he may void both the draught and the filth of the evil fish; or else he should milk a she-ass and drink the milk, or he should dissolve smooth-skinned sprigs of the mallow in a pot. Then again he is given an obol's weight of cedar pitch ; or else let him eat his fill of the scarlet fruit of the pomegranate, the Cretan kind, 490 the wine-red, and the sort they call Promenean, also that from Aegina, and all those which partition hard, red grains into sections by a covering like a spider's web. Or else you should squeeze the flesh of grapes through a strainer, like olives oozing beneath the presses.
But if a man whose throat is constrained by parching thirst fall on his knees and draw water from a stream like a bull, parting with his hand the delicate, moss-like plants, then, approaching eagerly along with the water there rushes upon him in its desire for food the blood-loving leech, 500 long flaccid and yearning for gore. Or when a man's eyes are shrouded beneath dark night, and without thinking he drinks from a pitcher, tipping it up and pressing his lips to its, the creature floating on the surface of the water passes down his throat. At the point to which first the stream drives and collects them, the leeches fasten on in numbers and suck the body's blood, settling now at the entrance where the breath always gathers to pour through the narrow pharynx, and sometimes one clings about the mouths of the stomach inflicting pain, 510 and swallows a fresh repast.
You should administer to the patient a draught of vinegar mixed in his cup, and sometimes with it snow to eat, or ice fresh frozen by the north winds. Or you should dig up some moist, brackish soil and brew therewith a turbid potion to give him strength; or draw actual salt water, and either warm it at once beneath the late summer sun or heat it steadily over a fire. Or else you should give him rock salt in plenty or the salt flakes which a salter ever gathers 520 as they settle at the bottom when he mingles water with water.
Let not the evil ferment of the soil injure a man; it will often swell up in his chest, at other times it will choke him, when it is fostered over the viper's coil deep in its lair, sucking up the monster's venom and the noxious breath from its mouth. This is the evil ferment which they call Fungi in general, for to different kinds different names have been assigned.
Now do you cut of either the head of a cabbage with its coats of leaves or the green fronds of rue, and administer them. Or else crumble the bloom of copper that has had long use, 530 or ashes of the vine in vinegar. Sometimes grate the root of bindweed or some soda into an infusion of vinegar, or a leaf of the cress which grows in garden-plots; and citron too, and the biting mustard. You should also reduce to ashes in the fire the lees of wine or the droppings of the domestic fowl, and then let the man thrust his hand hard down his throat and vomit up the deadly poison.
But if hurt come from a draught, hard to cure, of the sorcerer's lizard, slippery-skinned and utterly reckless, which they call the salamander, and which not even a fierce flame can harm, 540 then on a sudden the base of the tongue is inflamed and then the victims are overcome with chill, and a fearful trembling burdens and loosens their joints. They stagger and crawl upon all fours like an infant, for the faculties of the mind are utterly blunted, and livid weals spreading thick over the skin blotch the extremities as the poison is diffused.
Give the sufferer frequent doses of the tears stripped from the pine-tree mingled with the bee's rich produce; or boil down the leaves of the budding ground-pine together with the cones which the pine puts forth. 550 And sometimes mix the nettle's seed with the finely ground meal of bitter vetch, and dry them. Sometimes too you should sprinkle cooked nettles with crumbling barley-groats, dress well in oil, and force the patient to eat in plenty even against his will. Again, pine-resin and the sacred produce of the bee and the root of all-heal and the delicate eggs of the tortoise are curative when you mix them on a hot fire; curative too the flesh of a hog abounding in fat when boiled down together with the limbs of the sea-turtle which swims at large with weak flippers; or else with those of the mountain tortoise that feeds on tree-medick, the creature 560 that Hermes the Gracious endowed with a voice though voiceless, for he separated the chequered shell from the flesh and extended two arms from its edges. Further, either you should bend to your service the tadpoles' impudent parents and eryngo roots with them, or you should throw into a pot a sufficient quantity of scammony and cook it. With these fee the sick man to satiety, and though he be near to death, you will save him.
If a man imbibe a draught from the sun-loving toad or from the dumb and green-hued toad which in the springtime cling to the bushes, sleek, and licking up the dew, 570 one of them, the sun-lover, induces a pallor like fustic and causes swellings in the limbs while the breath issues continually in long gasps and forced, and smells foul at the mouth. Whereas the voiceless one that frequents the reeds sometimes diffuses the yellowness of boxwood over the limbs, 580 and sometimes bedews the mouth with a flow of bile. Sometimes too a man suffers from heart-burn, and persistent hiccups convulse him. And it causes the seed, now of man now of woman, to drip on, and often scattering it over their limbs it renders it infertile. But you should give the patient the flesh of a frog boiled or roasted; sometimes pitch which you have mixed with sweet wine. And the spleen of the deadly toad averts the grievous oppression - the vocal toad of the fen, which cries on the sedge , the first harbinger of delightful spring. Further, for such patients you should sometimes pour out wine in abundance, cup after cup, and induce the man to vomit, reluctant though he be; or else heat over a fire a big-bellied vessel and keep the sick man always warm, and let him sweat profusely. Also you should clip and mix with wine the roots of tall-growing reeds which are nourished by the toads' native marsh, 590 where as tiny creatures they swim about with their feet, or roots of the life loving galingale, female and male; and dry the man's body by ceaseless exercise, keeping him from all food and drink, and exhaust his limbs.
Also do not neglect litharge, which brings suffering when its hateful burden sinks into the stomach and wind circulates and rumbles about the mid navel, as in a violent colic which overpowers men, smiting them with sudden pains. The victim's flow of urine fails; then the limbs swell 600 and the skin has the appearance of lead.
Give the patient either a double obol's weight of myrrh or a fresh infusion of sage, or else cut him hypericum from the hills, or sprigs of hyssop, or again a spray of the wild fig and seed of celery from the Isthmus, beneath which the sons of Sisyphus buried the youthful Melicertes, slain by the sea, and established games. Or else you should roast pepper along with rue and grate them into wine, and so rescue him from deadly sickness. You should also give him fresh buds of henna, or the firstling fruit of the pomegranate 610 with the flower still upon it.
[See that you do not pluck the dangerous, pine-like yew of Oeta: it is the giver of lamentable death, and only a copious draught of unmixed wine can bring instant help when it chokes the pharynx and the narrow passage of a man's throat.]
[Some remedies medicinal for a man against noxious fungi Nicander in fact set down in his book, but in addition to these the myrtle whose twigs Dictynna abhors, and which Hera of the Imbrasus alone receives not for her garland, 620 seeing that it adorned the Cyprian queen on mount Ida, when the goddesses were roused to compete in beauty with one another - from this in some watered glade take as a healing boon the scarlet fruit that waxes and is warmed with the wintry rays of the sun, and pounding them with a pestle strain the juice over fine linen or with a rush sieve and administer a cup containing a cyathus - or more, for a larger dose is serviceable since this draught is not harmful to men - for that is in fact sufficient cure if you drink it.]
And now hereafter you will treasure the memory of Nicander the singer, 630 and observe the command of Zeus, Protector of Friendships.

NICANDER, 'ALEXIPHARMACA' The Greek text of the 'Alexipharmaca' can be found on the Poesia Latina website.
Even though the peoples from whom you and I, Protagoras, have derived our births did not set up the walls of their strong towers side by side in Asia, and a great space separates us, yet I can easily instruct you in the remedies for those draughts of poison which attack men and bring them low. You indeed have made your home by the tempestuous sea beneath bossy Arctus, where are the caverns of Lobrinian Rhea and the place of the secret rites of Attes; while I dwell where the sons of the far-famed 10 Creusa divided among themselves the richest portion of the mainland, settling by the tripods of Apollo in Clarus.
You must, to be sure, learn of the aconite, bitter as gall, deadly in the mouth, which the banks of Acheron put forth. There is the abyss of the Wise Counsellor {Hades} whence few escape, and there the towns of Priolas fell crashing in ruins.
All the drinker's jaws and the roof of his mouth and his gums are constricted by the bitter draught, as it wraps itself about the top of the chest, crushing with evil choking the man in the throes of heartburn. The top of the belly is gripped with pain - 20 the swelling, open mouth of the lower stomach, which some call the 'heart' of the digestive vessel, others the 'receiver' of the stomach - and the gate is closed immediately upon the beginning of the intestines where a man's food in all its abundance is carried in. And all the while from his streaming eyes drips the moisture; and his belly sore shaken vainly throws up wind, and much of it settles below about his mid-navel; and in his head is a grievous weight, and there ensues a rapid throbbing beneath his temples, and with his eyes he sees things double, like a man at night overcome with unmixed wine. 30 And as when the Silens, the nurses of the horned Dionysus, crushed the wild grapes, and having for the first time fortified their spirits with the foaming drink, were confused in their sight and on reeling feet rushed madly about the hill of Nysa, even so is the sight of these men darkened beneath the weight of evil doom. This plant men call also Mouse-bane, for it utterly destroys troublesome, nibbling mice ; but some call it Leopard's-choke, since cowherds and goatherds with it contrive the death of those great beasts 40 amid the glades of Ida in the vale of Phalacra. Again they name it Woman-killer and Crayfish. And the deadly aconite flourishes amid the Aconaean mountains.
For one so poisoned gypsum to the weight of a handful will perhaps be a protection, if you draw thereto tawny wine in due measure with the gypsum reduced to fine powder - let it be a full cotyle of wine - and add stalks of wormwood, cutting them from the shrub, or of bright green horehound which they call Honeyleaf; administer also a shoot of the herbaceous, evergreen spurge-olive and rue, quenching in vinegar and honey 50 a red-hot lump of metal between the jaws of the fire-tongs, or dross of iron which the flame of the fire has separated within the melting-pot in the furnace; or sometimes just after warming in the fire a lump of gold or silver you should plunge it in the turbid draught. Or again you should take leaves, half a handful's weight, of the ground pine; or a dry sprig of pot marjoram from the hills, or cut a fresh spray of field basil, and cover them in four cyathi of honey-sweet wine. Or you may take some broth, still meaty and undiluted, made from a domestic fowl 60 when the forcible glow of the fire beneath the pot reduces the body to pieces. Also you should render down the fresh meat of an ox abounding in fat and satisfy the stomach to its full capacity with the soup. Again, sometimes you should pour the juice of balsam into some drops of milk from a young girl, or else into water, until the patient discharges from his throat the undigested food. Sometimes too you should cut out the curd from the stomach of the nimble beast that sleeps open-eyed {hare}, or of a fawn, and give it mixed in wine; at other times cast the roots of the purple mulberry into the hollow of a mortar, 70 bray them mingled with wine, and give them boiled in the labours of the bee. Thus may you ward off loathsome sickness though it threaten to master a man, and he may once again walk on unfaltering feet.
In the second place consider the hateful brew compounded with gleaming, deadly white lead whose fresh colour is like milk which foams all over when you milk it rich in the springtime into the deep pails. Over the victim's jaws and in the grooves of the gums is plastered an astringent froth, and the furrow of the tongue turns rough on either side, 80 and the depth of the throat grows somewhat dry, and from the pernicious venom follows a dry retching and hawking, for this is severe; meanwhile his spirit sickens and he is worn out with mortal suffering. His body too grows chill, while sometimes his eyes behold strange illusions or else he drowses; nor can he bestir his limbs as heretofore, and he succumbs to the overmastering fatigue.
Give the patient at once a cupful of oil of the Premadia- or Orchis- or Myrtle- olive, so that the stomach being lubricated may void the evil drug; 90 or else you may readily milk the udder's swelling teat and give it him; but skim the oily surface from the draught. And you may infuse sprigs or leaves of the mallow in fresh sap and dose the sufferer with as much as he can take. Or again pound sesame seeds and administer them also in wine; or else heat and cleanse in water the ashes of vine twigs, and strain the lye through the interstices of a newly woven basket, for this will retain the sediment. Moreover if you rub down the hard stones of the persea in gleaming olive oil, they will ward off injury - 100 the persea which once on a time Perseus, when his feet bore him from the land of Cepheus and he had cut off the teeming head of Medusa with his falchion, readily made to grow in the fields of Mycenae (it was a recent gift of Cepheus) on the spot where the scabbard-chape of his falchion fell, beneath the topmost summit of Melanthis, where a Nymph revealed to the son of Zeus the famed spring of Langeia. Or else you should break up in roasted barley the sap which congeals upon the frankincense bushes of Gerrha; also as helpful you should dissolve in warm water the tears from the walnut-tree or from the plum or those which ever drip in plenty on the elm-twigs, 110 and drops of gum, so that he may vomit up part of the poison, and part render wholesome as he yields to the hot water when the sweat moistens his body. And again he might sate himself with a meal which he has taken or with strong wine and so escape an inglorious death.
When a liquid smells of the corn-eating blister-beetle, that is to say, like liquid pitch, refuse it, for on the nostrils it weighs like pitch and in the mouth like freshly eaten berries of the juniper. Sometimes in a weak infusion these creatures produce a biting sensation upon the lips, 120 or again deep down about the mouth of the stomach; at other times the middle of the belly or the bladder is gnawed and seized with griping pains, while discomfort attacks men where the cartilage of the chest rests over the hollow of the stomach. And the victims are distressed in themselves: swooning delusions hold in bondage what is human in them, and the victim is brought down unexpectedly by pain, like the freshly scattered thistledown which roams the air and is fluttered by every breeze.
At times administer to the patient doses of pennyroyal mixed with river water, making a posset of them in a mug. 130 This was the rich draught of the fasting Deo; once with this did Deo moisten her throat in the city of Hippothoōn by reason of the unchecked speech of Thracian Iambe. At other times take from your pot and mix with the round seeds of flax a rich draught brewed from the head of a hog or of a lamb or from the horned head of a goat which you have but lately cut off, or even, maybe, from a goose, and give it until the man is sick; and let him by tickling his throat stir up in the gullet below the entire mass of polluted food still undigested. At times you should draw the fresh milk of a sheep in a clyster-pipe, 140 administer a clyster and so empty the useless faeces from the bowel. At another time a draught of creamy milk will help the sufferer; or you should lop the green tendrils of the vine when they are fresh-burdened with leaves and chop them up in grape-syrup; or take from crumbling soil the ever sting-shaped roots of scorpius and steep in the bees' produce. The plant grows high like asphodel but sheds its stalks when withered. Also you should take four drachmas' weight of Parthenian earth which Phyllis brings forth under her mountain-spurs, 150 the snow-white earth of the Imbrasus which a horned lamb first revealed to the Chesiad Nymphs beneath the rush-grown river-banks of snowcapped Cercetes. Or brew a drink of boiled-down must of twice that quantity, and into it shred some sprigs of rue, kneading the herbs with rose-oil, or sometimes soak it in iris-oil, which has often cured an illness.
If however a man thoughtlessly taste from loathsome cups a draught, deadly and hard to remedy, of coriander, the victims are struck with madness 160 and utter wild and vulgar words like lunatics, and like crazy Bacchanals bawl shrill songs in frenzy of the mind unabashed. To such a case you should administer a cupful of hedanian wine, 'Pramnian', unmixed, just as it gushed from the vat. Or cast a cupful of salt into water and let it dissolve. Or else you should empty the fragile egg of a chicken and mix with it the sea-foam upon which the swift petrel feeds. It is with this that it sustains life, and also meets its doom, when the fishermen's destructive children assail with their tricks the swimming fowl; and it falls into the boys' hands as it chases the fresh and whitening surge of foam. 170 Do you also draw from the bitter, violet-hued sea - the sea, which, with fire too, the Earth-Shaker has enslaved to the winds. For fire is vanquished by hostile blasts: the undying fire and the expanse of waters tremble before the north-west winds; though the unruly sea, swift to anger, lords it over ships and over the men who perish in it, while to the rule of the abhorred fire the forest is obedient. Again, common oil mingled with wine or a drink of grape-syrup mixed with snow will stay the pain, 180 what time the reapers with their pruning-hooks lop the heavy, wrinkled vintage of the hedanian and the psithian vine and crush it, while with a humming sound bees and the tree-wasp, wasps and buzzers from the hills fall upon the grapes and feast their fill of sweetness, and the mischievous fox ravages the richer clusters.
Take note too of the noxious draught which is hemlock, for this drink assuredly looses disaster upon the head bringing the darkness of night: the eyes roll, and men roam the streets with tottering steps and crawling upon their hands; 190 a terrible choking blocks the lower throat and the narrow passage of the windpipe; the extremities grow cold; and in the limbs the stout arteries are contracted; for a short while the victim draws breath like one swooning, and his spirit beholds Hades.
Give the patient his fill of oil or of unmixed wine until he vomit up the evil, painful poison ; or prepare and insert a clyster ; or else give him draughts of unmixed wine, or cut and bring him twigs of sweet bay or bay of Tempe 200 (this was the first plant to crown the Delphian locks of Phoebus) ; or else pound some pepper with nettle seeds and administer them, or again infuse wine with the bitter juice of silphium. Sometimes you may offer him a measure of scented iris-oil and silphium shredded in with gleaming oil. Also give him a draught of honey-sweet grape-syrup, and a foaming vessel of milk which you have slightly warmed over the fire.
There are even means of promptly averting the oppression caused by deadly arrow-poison, when a man is overcome with anguish from drinking it. First, his tongue begins to thicken from the root 210 and weighs upon the lips which are heavy and swollen about the mouth; he suffers from a dry expectoration, and his gums break open from the base. Often too his heart is smitten with palpitations, and it is his fate that all his wits are stunned and overthrown by the evil poison; and he makes bleating noises, babbling endlessly in his frenzy; often too in his distress he cries aloud even as one whose head, the body's master, has just been cut off with the sword; or as the acolyte with her tray of offerings, Rhea's priestess, appearing in the public highways on the ninth day of the month, raises a great shout with her voice, while the people tremble 220 as they hearken to the horrible yelling of the votary of Ida. Even so the man in his frenzy of mind bellows and howls incoherently, and as he glances sidelong like a bull, he whets his white teeth and foams at the jaws.
You must even bind him fast with twisted ropes and make him drunk with wine, with gentle force filling him to satiety even against his will; then force his gnashing teeth apart in order that under your mastering hand he may vomit up the deadly stuff. Or divide up and boil till soft over a bright fire the young gosling of a free-feeding goose; 230 you should also give him the wild fruit of the rough-barked apple-tree grown upon the hills after cutting off the inedible parts; or even those kinds that pertain to the fields, such as the spring seasons bring forth for girls to sport with; or again pear-quinces, or else the famed fruit of the grim Cydon, which Cretan torrents have fostered. Or sometimes, after sufficiently pounding all these with a mallet, you should soak them in water and then throw in some fresh and fragrant pennyroyal and stir in together with apple-pips. Also you may soak up some fragrant rose-oil or iris-oil into wool 240 and let it drip into his parted lips. Yet hardly may a man after countless sufferings at the end of many days launch with safety his unsteady steps, while his startled gaze roams this way and that. This is the poison with which the nomads of Gerrha and they who plough their fields by the river Euphrates smear their brazen arrow-heads. And the wounds, quite past healing, blacken the flesh, for the stinging poison of the Hydra eats its way in, while the skin, turning putrid with the infection, breaks into open sores.
But if a man taste the loathsome fire of Colchian Medea, 250 the notorious meadow-saffron, an incurable itching assails : his lips all over as he moistens them, such as comes upon those whose skin is defiled with the snow-white juice of the fig-tree or by the stinging nettle or by the many-coated head of the squill, which fearfully inflames the flesh of children. But if he retain the poison, there settles in his gullet a pain which at first eats into it and presently lacerates it from below with desperate retching as he disgorges the poison from his throat; and at the same time the belly also voids the polluted scourings, even as a carver pours off the turbid water in which the meat was washed.
260 Now sometimes you should cut and administer the crinkled leaves of the oak, or else those of the Valonia oak together with the acorns; or you should draw fresh milk in a pail and then let the man swallow his fill of the milk after retaining it in his mouth. At times to be sure shoots of knot-grass will help, or else the roots boiled in milk. You should also infuse vine-tendrils in water, or equally well shoots of bramble which you have chopped. Further, you should strip the green hulls of a well-grown chestnut-tree that cover the thin-skinned nut 270 where the dry husk encloses the inner flesh of the nut so hard to peel which the land of Castanea brings forth. You may suitably extract the inmost pith of the giant fennel which received the spoils of Prometheus's thieving, and at the same time throw in a quantity of leaves of the evergreen tufted thyme and of the berries of the styptic myrtle; or you might perhaps soak the rind of the chamaeleon-thistle, 280 which has a smell like that of basil . The furrow of the victim's tongue grows rough at the base and inflamed from below, and his heart wanders within him. In his frenzy he gnaws his tongue with his dog-teeth, for at times his madness overmasters his wits, while the stomach blinds with wanton obstruction the two channels of liquid and solid food, and rumbles with the wind it has penned within, which circulating in a confined track often seems like the thunder of stormy Olympus, or again like the wicked roaring of the sea 290 as it booms beneath rocky cliffs. Distressed though he is, despite his efforts scarce can the wind escape upward; yet medicinal draughts can at once make him void egg-shaped stools, like the shell-less lumps which the free-feeding fowl, when brooding her warlike chicks, sometimes under stress of recent blows drops from her belly in their membranes ; sometimes under stress of sickness she will cast out her ill-fated offspring upon the earth.
The familiar astringent draught of wormwood steeped in freshly pressed grape-syrup will check his pain; 300 sometimes too you may cut up the resin of the terebinth-tree, or else the tears of the Corsican pine, or again of the Aleppo pine which makes moan on the spot where Phoebus stripped the skin from the limbs of Marsyas; and the tree, lamenting in the glens his far-famed fate, alone utters her passionate plaint unceasingly. Give him also plenty of the flowers of the bright hulwort, fatal to mice, or strip the low-growing shoots of rue, and spikenard, and take also the testicle of the beaver that dwells in the lake; or rub down an obol of silphium with a toothed scraper, or else cut off the same quantity of its gum. 310 Sometimes too he may be given his fill of the wild goat's marjoram, or of milk just curdling in the pail after milking.
But if a man in his folly taste the fresh blood of a bull he falls heavily to the ground in distress, overmastered by pain, when, as it reaches the chest, the blood congeals easily, and, in the hollow of his stomach, clots; the passages are stopped, the breath is straitened within his clogged throat, while, often struggling in convulsions on the ground, he gasps bespattered with foam.
You should cut off for him some juicy wild figs, 320 soak in vinegar, and then mingle the whole with water, stirring together the water and the astringent draught of vinegar; or drain away the burden of his surcharged belly. Also you should strain through a porous bag of fine linen some stirred curd either from a fawn of roe or red deer or from a kid; or again if you take some from the nimble hare you will bring healing and help to the sufferer. Or give him three obols' weight of well-powdered soda, and mix it in a sweet draught of wine; mix too a pound weight with equal parts of silphium and of its gum, 330 and seed of cabbage soaked thoroughly in vinegar. And give him a sprig of flea-bane with its ill-coloured leaves. Or you should bruise some pepper and buds of the bramble-bush; then you will easily dissipate a mass of congealing blood, or break it up if it has lodged in the vessels.
Do not let the agonising drink of the hateful buprestis escape your knowledge; and you should recognise a man overcome by it. In truth, when bitten, its contact with the jaws seems that of soda; it has an evil smell; and all about the mouths of the stomach arise shifting pains; 340 the urine is stopped and the lowest : part of the bladder throbs, while the whole belly is inflated, as when a tympanitic dropsy settles in abundance about the mid navel, and all over the man's limbs the skin is visibly taut. This creature too, I fancy, causes swelling in plump-bellied heifers or calves, whenever they bite it as they graze. For this reason herdsmen name...

Aenar’s Chambers in the Red Keep

The Red Keep, King’s Landing

CW: Child abuse
“WHAT THE FUCK WAS SHE THINKING?!” Aenar shouted in Valyrian, hoping that at least some of the servants didn’t understand, as Laena took another drink from her goblet. She hadn’t spent much time in the Red Keep, mostly due to it still being under construction.
For his own pre-occupation, Aenar paced around the chamber, his steps heavy with the emotion that was on his face and in his mind. His mother could have just thrown it all away, all that he had tried to build in his short life. He’d kept his composure there in the tent, then again as they traveled to King’s Landing.
He’d done it all right, all of it. He caught them speaking out of turn, caught them committing treason, they followed his orders, he asked for death only to be ready to change his mind to mercy, to accede to the plea of his vassal. Of course the Westerling couldn’t keep his mouth shut, he would have lived the rest of his days at the Wall or escaped during the travel for all he cared, as long as he was never seen again, but no, he spoke ill of Rhaenys Targaryen right in front of her.
Very few had seen her that way, the way she got when some injustice was had against her or another woman. Why would this infuriate her so, why of all things did this have to be the thing that set her off so. He’d seen her do it in Summerhall once, she beheaded a man for striking his wife. They were told he was exiled, but Aenar saw the blood and hair in the courtyard. He knew what that meant. It was one of the first times he’d snuck around like that, beginning his craft.
Of course now he mostly paid others for it, to be his sneaks, pressing the importance that they never reveal his name if caught and their designated beneficiaries will be paid in piles of gold, not pieces.That was why he only employed those with a spouse, a child perhaps, old and ailing parents. Those without anything had nothing to lose after all.
As he paced up and down the room, his hands on his hips, glaring at the floor as he went as if the secret to his mother’s reasoning was hidden in the patterns of the floorboards. Laena for the matter watched, with each step and each loop she watched. Every three loops she took a drink but rather quickly determined that he was going rather too quickly for her to keep pace.
“Aenar, sit down, please, you’ll wear out the soles of your shoes,” before she watched his near non-reaction.
“No, I’m fine, and shouldn’t it be Princ-” he stopped speaking and looked up to Laena, who raised an eyebrow to his words. “Sorry, there’s a lot of stress on me right now. Just a lot going on…,” he said as the words faded into nothing, though there still seemed to be more on his lips.
Rhaenys had asked Laena to sit with the man, to let him speak, to answer his questions as a close confidant might. He needed someone older to hear him out now, especially that he was too furious with his mother to speak with her.
“Sit,” she said curtly.
Aenar looked up from his pacing, she was right of course, but there was too much blood going through his heart to let him sit. Unless something calmed him he could not, as wine was not the mood of the day. He acquiesced to the request, sitting near Laena at the table in the middle of the chamber, though his left leg did not stop, it kept on bouncing, almost as if it was still walking.
“Ask me the question,” she said looking at where his eyes would be once he looked up.
Just as she thought, Aenar looked up before asking, “what question?”
“Don’t play dumb, I know you know the question I’m talking about.”
He took in a breath, “why did she do it? Why would she risk it all for the thrill of quick and satisfying revenge? She knew what it meant to me, I could have looked the merciful prince. Kingly even.”
Laena took another drink from her cup. She knew it would come to this and she had prepared for it over the past day. This story would need to be told.
“For me.”
Confusion overran his face as he hardly believed what he heard. “What do you mean for you? You asked for this? Why?”
“One question at a time, though one of them is irrelevant. No I did not, she believes it is right to have done it for me?”
“Because of what happened when we were young girls, tell me young Aenar, what do you know of my relationship with your mother?”
His leg stopped bouncing as the question was asked, it seemed nearly inappropriate but something deep within his mind told him it was not quite that. He sighed before answering, “you and my mother are…,” he thought of the right word, “bedmates. I’ve seen you kissing, I’ve seen the way you look at one another. I know what it means.”
“Okay good, no secrets then, what do you know of the man? You know of who I speak of, yes?”
“Of course I do, it’s much the same, though I don’t know why you don’t just marry him.”
She smiled at the comment, “no secrets then, it’s quite simple really. I don’t wish to,” she giggled.
“Sure, but would it not make it easier for you? And him? Perhaps he could tell people who he was then?”
“That will never happen. And yes, it would be easier, save for the part where he cannot say his name, he cannot show his face, I’ll hardly kiss a man on my wedding day without seeing his face now will I?”
Aenar paused before he answered, it made sense in truth. “I suppose not, and you also said you didn’t wish to, my apologies for prying.”
“No offense was taken, it was a natural question. Now, back to the topic, why did I ask you about the three of us?”
Aenar let out a small laugh, “if Tyraxes, Tessarion, and Meleys gave me all of their combined knowledge I would not know.”
“Good, then your mother kept her mouth shut, well I will tell you then as it is my story to tell and I have spent some time preparing to tell it. You see, your father knew about me and Rhaenys, in fact your grandfather, your aunt, all of them knew. Your father was aware that we laid with one another as they were married as well, he didn’t seem to mind. ‘It’s only fair,’ he said one time.” She laughed before continuing, “we would have preferred them not to know but such was the way.”
She continued, not before taking another drink from her cup. “Rhaenys and I had been friends since we were children, naturally as we grew up certain… feelings appeared. We must have been twelve, maybe thirteen when we first kissed. Things progressed as you would imagine, however we always found that the most enjoyable time was when we were aboard a ship, we spent hours having breakfast, then lunch, and even dinner on board before heading back to Dragonstone. We had privacy, and we had selected the crew so that they all had a reason to not speak about what they saw. Mostly because they were like us.”
Aenar wondered what the point of this story was, however he was focused, this had something there. It would put out that burning question.
“She had asked me to give her a kiss as we docked one day, in front of everyone at the dock. I said no but she asked again, and I gave in. The thrill of it was something I almost lived for, for that one moment I could be myself around others, but that didn’t last long. My father was waiting for me at the dock, he had a message from my grandmother from Volantis that she sent to me. Instead he saw me kissing a woman,” she paused and took in three sharp breaths. Her heart was beating out of her chest, but the breaths slowed her breathing, she could do nothing about her heart.
“Give me just one moment,” as she took two drinks of her wine. “I was fifteen, as was your mother, and he screamed at the top of his lungs, I will never forget this. ‘I will not have a degenerate for a daughter!’ He walked the gangplank and grabbed me by the wrist, dragging me off the ship. As my feet touched the ground he hit me across the face such that I almost fell over.”
“There are two versions of what happened next, your mother thought I was hit, read my grandmother’s letter which did in fact ask me to visit, and I went to Volantis for a year. My version of the story is not quite that. He asked permission to keep me in one of the dungeons, which he did. I was chained to the wall for nearly every hour of the day, except for the hour or so he took them off every few days.”
She turned away from Aenar as tears pooled in her eyes, wiping them away quickly, “sorry once again, this just brings back quite a lot of memories,” she said with a small laugh, riddled with how much of a farce it was. She took another drink of her wine as she saw Aenar’s face. She had been looking at the boy, but she had not seen him. There was glass over his eyes, his expression frozen in terror.
“He had a man tail Rhaenys, report on everything she did and write it down, then he’d read that report back to me, in excruciating detail, hitting me every once in a while. He bought the ship we’d sailed on and set it ablaze in the bay.”
“Fortunately for your mother, she did not know any of this, she kept on giving her life, the joyous woman that she was, a giggle at every turn, and she even tamed Meraxes. Sorry bonded with, she’s very clear on the distinction,” she looked at Aenar with a smile, which he tried to return but could not muster the muscles in his face.
“The man found out about this, and took it upon himself to solve the problem. He entered during one of these visits. I don’t know how he opened the lock, I don’t know why the guard didn’t stop him, but they saw what he did next. One moment I was purple from the bruises, the next I was red with my father’s blood. He took me to Rhaenys, he had seen us together before and figured she would at least offer me protection. Instead he and I saw Rhaenys the way she was in that tent for the first time. It was like she was a different person. She tried to embrace me and when I winced and moved away, she handed me a cloak. She took a key off her keyring and told me this was how to open the door to the room, then she left, locking me in but with a way to leave should I wish to.”
Her breaths lessened, relaxed, as her shoulders rolled down to where they were usually. “They told me they paid the guard not to say a thing, they pretended the man left for Pentos, when really she flew out to the sea and picked him back up. He would hide in her rooms from then on. They hid the body but we still knew the guard had seen it all. My family in Volantis issued a warrant for his arrest and sent it to Dragonstone, the reward was the equivalent of five thousand gold dragons. When Summerhall was built, he had more free reign, as we hadn’t really been friends before then but we still kept to the precautions. My mother returned to Volantis and I refused to follow her. She knew what my father had done, she knew and did nothing.”
“I spent months unable to be touched by the woman I loved even then, I hardly ate, I watched as your mother married from afar, afraid of the crowd. Your mother must have apologized for asking me to kiss her three thousand times by now, she says she doesn’t blame herself, but it's pretty clear she does. That is why she executed that man on Summerhall, that’s why she did what she did to Jon Westerling. The First Night piece was something she meant to discuss with your aunt first, but I doubt that she would have an issue with it. Does that explain it?”
Aenar stared, the tears no longer just over his eyes but falling down his cheek as well. He didn’t speak before standing to get a cup and filling it on the table. He downed the cup and then poured another. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he managed to get out.
“I don’t really deal with it much anymore, I have a nightmare here or there, but your mother wakes and wakes me. The memories live on sometimes, but they have faded. Even ten years ago I remembered much more detail, not so much anymore. And all I have on my body is this scar,” she said, showing her right inner bicep.
“I don’t know what to say,” Aenar said after a brief silence.
“Nothing, you don’t need to. You just need to understand. What she did was a mistake, but you were brave for accepting the challenge.”
Aenar did not answer.

Hey everyone I am 23 F. I want to lose a 20-25 lbs. I was 150, goal to be 125 ish. Anyways I have been doing a calorie deficit of 1500 for a few months with absolutely no results. I figured that’s too high of calories for me to lose weight so I cut down to 1200. I’ve lost 5 lbs in 5 days, I know because I just went to the doctors and they weighed me. The doctor also took a urine sample (lady doc she wanted to screen for some stuff) and my urine is apparently full of ketones which means my body is in ketosis and currently burning fat. While I am glad to finally be seeing results I am rlly worried that 5 lbs in 5 days is way too fast, and I don’t think I should have such high volume of ketones in my urine, my doctor seemed concerned. Do you think I should go up to 1300? I am pretty hungry on my diet but that’s a deficit, right? I do eat a super whole foods diet, I cook almost everything from scratch. Also, apparently ketosis happens when a diet is low carb but my diet isn’t. I eat like 105-155 g carbs a day. I eat a lot of lean proteins, eggs, chicken, fish, whole grains, tons of veggies (3-4 servings a day), nuts, and fruit.
average day for me looks like breakfast: coffee w soy milk 2 eggs wasa multi grain cracker 1/4 avocado grilled asparagus
or yogurt bowl w red berry cereal on top
lunch: 4 ounce chicken/ high protein grain salad or grilled veg fruit or smoothie
dinner: fish or chicken grilled veg rice, gold potato, or sweet potato.
dessert: chocolate, yogurt covered pretzels, ice cream bar, dried or fresh fruit