MM Romance

Kindle Unlimited

• Hunter's Descent (Mischief and Monsters #2) by Alice Winters - https://a.co/d/cK7Wy9b - (series must be read in order, established relationship, paranormal/fantasy, action, humor, monster x monster hunter)
  
• Wolfgang (Vampire's Mate #5) by Grae Bryan - https://a.co/d/dfYNPC7 - (series must be read in order, paranormal, fated mates, vampire mc, 'psychopath' mc, turned without consent)
  
• Out of The Wild Night (Coven Ties #2) by Marina Vivancos - https://a.co/d/4V6ssHx - (fantasy, biokink, D/s, check CWs)
  
• Full Throttle (Lights Out) by Lisa Henry - https://a.co/d/iY74qHb - (multi-author series, contemporary, F1, hidden relationship, pining)
  
• Mr. Frisky: An MM Age Play Romance (Playhouse Daddies #2) by Joe Satoria - https://a.co/d/3tISJZp - (contemporary, dad's best friend, Daddy kink, age play)
  
• Guarding Axel (Dark Forest Pack #3) by Annabelle Jacobs - https://a.co/d/5y7k9Zn - (paranormal, fae mc, wolf shifter, second chance)
  
• Model (The Club Oxygen Series #9) by Cole Denton - https://a.co/d/bYU7hRn - (contemporary, dark?, BDSM?, very cryptic blurb)
  
• Crimes of Passion by Jack Harbon - https://a.co/d/aIuJmZs - (contemporary, BIPOC, rivals-to-lovers, forced proximity)
  
• Deadly Desire: An MM Dragon-shifter Romance (The Last Mortals #3) by Silvana Falcon - https://a.co/d/iB4fmjn - (paranormal, dragon shifter mc, assassin mc, assassin/target, fated mates, hurt/comfort)
  
• Protecting His Pack (North American Wolves #1) by Morgan Elektra - https://a.co/d/3qUNc8Y - (paranormal, widower mc, single parent mc, wolf shifters)
  
• A Bridge in the Desert by S.A. Sommers - https://a.co/d/9NihOuo - (contemporary, mystery, suspense, missing daughter, man who raised her x biological father)
  
• His Mafia Captor (Dark M/M Mafia Romance) (Toscano Doms #3) by Leo Rivers - https://a.co/d/j3YDo8R - (contemporary, dark, mafia, captocaptive, BDSM, dubcon-noncon)
  
• Man On: A Celebration of Love on the Pitch (The Black Jacks of Detroit #3) by Liz Crowe - https://a.co/d/dOhyRxe - (contemporary, soccer, rivals-to-lovers, teammates-to-lovers)
  
• Don't Look Back in Anger (Two Tribes #3) by Kristian Parker - https://a.co/d/j2V9hSZ - (contemporary, mafia, back from the dead, second chance)
  
• Reuben's Hot and Cold (Clover Hill Romance #9) by M. Arbon - https://a.co/d/07xfDzG - (contemporary, accidentally ended up in a relationship, workaholic mcs, relationship trouble)
  
• The Hero In Me: MM Superhero Enemies to Lovers Romance by Kaylee Kane - https://a.co/d/5kqoQSR - (superhero x supervillain, hidden identity, aliens, D/s, the superhero is an asshole, the supervillain is an au pair for a dog)
  
• Day Break (The Vampire Defense Agency #4) by Katherine Diane - https://a.co/d/isghyPG - (paranormal, vampires, forced proximity, antagonism-to-lovers, action, suspense)
  
• Fallen Fire: The Complete Series (Fallen Fire #1-4) by Richard Amos - https://a.co/d/evg8fCo - (collection, urban fantasy, action, adventure, mystery, slowburn, paranormal beings)
  
• Scorching Submission (Master, May I?) by Candace Lark - https://a.co/d/1xJewXO - (contemporary, antagonism-to-lovers, fake relationship, BDSM)
  

Kobo Plus

• Against the Rush (Philadelphia Power) by Susan Scott Shelley & Chantal Mer - Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/against-the-rush & Scribd: https://www.scribd.com/book/646488297/Against-the-Rush-Philadelphia-Power-1 - (contemporary, hockey, daughter's coach, busy schedules / long-distance-relationship)
  
• Make Like Mountains (Liquid Onyx #2) by BL Jones - https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/make-like-mountains - (series must be read in order, superheroes, love triangle or MMM, mc with anxiety, humor)
  

Other

• Off The Ice: Young Adult Gay Romance (Chesterford Coyotes #1) by RJ Scott & V.L. Locey - https://a.co/d/5hqVSTC - (YA, contemporary, hockey, coming-of-age, high school, rivals-to-lovers, teammates-to-lovers)
  
• The Gay Best Friend by Nicolas DiDomizio - https://a.co/d/2GSabu9 - (contemporary, romcom, forced proximity, jock/nerd, famous golfer mc, mc with anxiety)
  
• Elf Shot (Monster Dads) by TA Moore, illustrated by Emily Y Chan - https://a.co/d/b6N4OQq - (illustrated edition, paranormal, mystery, agent x suspect, single parent mc)
  
• Monster Hall Pass (Monster Dads) by Bru Baker, illustrated by Emily Y Chan - https://a.co/d/31vDrMW - (illustrated edition, paranormal, vampire mc, fae prince mc, enemies-to-lovers, single parent mc)
  
• Wolf at First Sight (Monster Dads) by Rhys Ford, illustrated by Emily Y Chan - https://a.co/d/8w22YLp - (illustrated edition, paranormal, wolf shifter x unaware human, cop mc, single parent mc)
  
• Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu (Novel) Vol. 6 (Heaven Official's Blessing: Tian Guan Ci Fu #6) by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu - https://a.co/d/in3e9Ge - (series must be read in order, fantasy, gods)
  
• Big Gay Wedding: A Novel by Byron Lane - https://a.co/d/0E2g66N - (contemporary, established relationship, small town isn't ready for all the glitter)
  

Other Queer Romance

Kindle Unlimited

• Choose Us (CHOOSE ME & CHOOSE US #2) by Nicole Spencer-Skillen - https://a.co/d/3gikfKC - (FF, series must be read in order, contemporary, second chance, set in Japan)
  
• Covetousness: A Sensual Pride and Prejudice Sequel (Unconventional Love) by Rosemarie Thorson - https://a.co/d/3ipBk2Y - (MMF, historical, Pride and Prejudice retelling/sequel, Mr Darcy x Mrs Darcy x Colonel Fitzwilliam, infertility or trouble conceiving, blurb emphasizes how extremely erotic this story is)
  
• When Ivy Met Adam : A second chance, forced proximity, sexy, queer love-triangle romance by Jennifer J. Coldwater - https://a.co/d/giJUiLM - (MF, contemporary, second chance, love triangle, forced proximity, bisexual/pansexual mc, based on biblical story of Eve)
  
• Girl Gets Ghosted: A Lesbian Romance Novella by Waverly Decker - https://a.co/d/2uZQKvv - (FF, paranormal, ghost mc, amnesia)
  
• Broken Women Fight Back (Tales of the Undead & Depraved #3) by Adrian J. Smith - https://a.co/d/1WMm5Mj - (FF, series must be read in order, fantasy/sci-fi, established relationship(?), zombie-shifting pirate captain mc (!!!))
  

Kobo Plus

• Santa's Sacking: an M/Enby sweet with heat Christmas romance by Jaxon Knight - https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/santa-s-sacking - (MX, contemporary, helping with the Christmas pageant, holidays)

Scribd

• Stiletto: A Novel by Brenda Peterson - https://www.scribd.com/book/635084908/Stiletto-A-Novel - (FF, contemporary, thriller, mystery, detective x suspect, unclear whether this has a HEA since one mc could be the murderer)

Other

• An Island Princess Starts a Scandal (Las Leonas #2) by Adriana Herrera - https://a.co/d/b6rxicq - (FF, historical, nobility, forbidden relationship, scandal, set in Paris)
  
• That Summer Feeling by Bridget Morrissey - https://a.co/d/j6XDqze - (FF, contemporary, divorced mc, summer camp)
  
• The Professor by Elia Johnson - https://a.co/d/caCaVC7 - (FF, contemporary, professostudent, college, forbidden relationship)
  
• Not Too Old (A Mountain to Coast Romance #2) by Ann Tonnell - https://a.co/d/7VbNQZB - (FF, contemporary, 60+ mcs, protesting a parking ticket)
  
• Chef's Choice by TJ Alexander - https://a.co/d/0efeJpw - (MF, contemporary, romcom, two trans mcs, fake relationship)
  
• House of Longing by Tara Calaby - https://a.co/d/5054GNO - (FF, historical, forbidden relationship, admitted to asylum)
  

Audiobooks

MM Romance

• Wyn (Monstrous #3.5) by Lily Mayne, narrated by Michael Lesley - https://a.co/d/1DgnG2G - (post-apocalyptic, monsters, alternate dimension, established relationship, grumpy/sunshine, only soft for his mate)
  
• The Gay Best Friend by Nicolas DiDomizio, narrated by Daniel Henning - https://a.co/d/cGmquaL - (contemporary, romcom, forced proximity, jock/nerd, famous golfer mc, mc with anxiety)
  
• Big Gay Wedding: A Novel by Byron Lane, narrated by Noah Galvin - https://a.co/d/fXBsXsc - (contemporary, established relationship, small town isn't ready for all the glitter)
  

Other Queer Romance

• Chef's Choice by TJ Alexander, narrated by Nicky Endres - https://a.co/d/cGmquaL - (MF, contemporary, romcom, two trans mcs, fake relationship)
  
• Silver Moon (Wolves of Wolf's Point #1) by Catherine Lundoff, narrated by Em Eldridge - https://a.co/d/2pBQ1p0 - (FF, paranormal, romantic subplot, sexuality awakening, menopause triggers lycanthropy, lots of middle-aged werewolves, action, suspense)
  
• An Island Princess Starts a Scandal (Las Leonas #2) by Adriana Herrera, narrated by Nneka Okoye - https://a.co/d/0wffVrT - (FF, historical, nobility, forbidden relationship, scandal, set in Paris)
  
• That Summer Feeling by Bridget Morrissey, narrated by Jeremy Carlisle Parker - https://a.co/d/aJZ5ClH - (FF, contemporary, divorced mc, summer camp)
  

How are we going to solve this competition problem? How can a culture built on competition, capitalism, winning, and getting whatever we want possibly break that addiction? How can we possibly turn away from serving our desires?
That’s the easy part.
You win that game by not playing. You win in the same way Jesus won it the first time. You win by living in the culture while still being set apart from it. You win by being “called out” of the culture. You go to the desert. You pray, fast, and help the poor, like Jesus. You leave the place of idolatry, like Abraham. You exit the corruption, like St. Anthony to the desert. Like St. Benedict, you reset, apart from the world in the wilderness. Like St. Cyprian, like St. Augustine, like St. Ignatius, like St. Francis, like St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross - you swim against the current, because the current is taking you the wrong way. You reset and then re-enter the fray, washed anew in the blood of Christ.
You win by accepting this sinful world as it is, and while still living in that world, but not being a player in its game. You win by entering into the suffering of others, with love, not affirming their sin, but by witnessing another way. Stop honoring and envying what other people hold as worthwhile. Money, houses, luxuries, sex, entertainment, food, alcohol, cars, boats, drugs, vacations. Stop wanting what the world wants. The entire problem is that you want the wrong things, and this is what leads to every error.
How do you step out of this culture? How do you stop wanting garbage in favor of the Bread of Life? We follow the advice of the Truth himself. Jesus said, “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off…And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” (Mk 9:42-47)
The good news for us about this brutal metaphor is that we have something we can rid ourselves of without actual amputation.
What causes our sin in most cases today is what sits between our hands and our eyes. The phone. Our culture is the phone, and envy, lust, pride, sloth, greed, and wrath all reach out to your throat through that device. We can cut off the source of at least half of our most common ways of straying with not a single drop of blood spilled. But few of us will choose this, because hugging our sin is the easier path. Narcissus dies by staring into the mirror, forever, in love with himself.
The easier path is always the one that doesn’t pay off with interest. The easy path is that chosen by Abraham's nephew, Lot. It is the path chosen by those Israelites wanting to return to Egypt in the desert. It is the path chosen by Peter when he denies Jesus. It is the path chosen by Judas in betraying him., It is the path today of affirming sin rather than fighting it. It is the path chosen by Marcion and Arius and Nestorius and Luther and Calvin and Henry VIII and Joel Osteen. The easier path is always the road to ruin. And who wants to be part of a religion that demands nothing of us, that demands too little, when Jesus has given all to his Church?
We must surrender to win. You certainly do not win by joining the side that appears to winning, or that you think will win, because even if you win, you are still stuck in the game. In fact, if you win, you may be more stuck in the game than before, like how the proverbial quicksand pulls you deeper the more you struggle. How many aspiring employees who climb to Vice President suddenly find that their wealth and prestige now “require” a bigger house and a finer car and better schools for their kids? How many French and Germans and Russians traded in the humble truths of Jesus Christ for the toxic truths of a political party? How many Democrats and Republicans are doing the same in America right now exactly as they were in Dante’s Florence so many centuries ago, or in Rome during the glory days of Caesar, or in the last days when the collapse of the Bronze Age? All of these past peoples have turned to dust, but the living God remains, and the Holy Spirit carried the Church along in this final Messianic Age.
You do not win by surrendering to the bulldozer of earthly power, on either side. You win by surrendering to the power of Jesus. He is the real ruler over all things. Your way of life will need to change. Your life itself may need to be given up in professing the Truth. But the only way to win at this most important thing is to surrender everything. Ego, pride, self-elevation. Let it go. Otherwise, if your game is here on this earth, whatever you win today, you will need to defend tomorrow, and someday in the future after long years of fighting, you will turn around and see that you have been defending a pile of rubble. When you reach that moment, know that the one Truth is waiting for you to turn your face all the way to look at his sacrifice on the Cross.
Rather than dishearten you, this should ignite you. You have been wanting the wrong things. Desires that you had, items that you wanted to own, experiences that you sought to remember - these were the distractions from the real answer to the one test question. How strange I thought it was for Jesus to say, “Rejoice, for the kingdom is among you.” But it is here. It’s here, but it’s the opposite of the competitive nonsense and little trophies we have been seeking all our lives. This is an incredibly exciting time to be alive, because once again, the world has regressed into the same shape as in the first century, when the apostles lit the fuse for the dynamite of the Gospel. The fuse is once again just waiting to be lit with the fire of the Holy Spirit. The kingdom is here among us, and it is the Catholic Church, with all its flaws. The Church: founded on a rock called Peter, the sinner and the saint, the fallen one transformed into a bold healer. The same answer to sin for an individual is the same answer for the Church that was founded on the rock called Peter: taking the focus off of Christ and the fullness of him is to fall. To look at Christ constantly in trust is to experience the unending miracle of walking with God. The kingdom is here, the Church - in the world but not of the world - defending the faith from errors until he comes again. We "win" not by playing the world's game, but by going to Mass, by kneeling, by prayer, by believing in and receiving the Eucharist. That is literally the only thing we must do. "Give us this day our daily bread." As for the rest, what do we need? We have the Bread and the Living Water. That is all we need. We must live like the lilies of the field.

The dream started off in a house in some snowy hills. I was inside and these strange deformed creatures started attacking the house. The creatures were missing sections of themselves and were mostly pink. I suddenly had a pistol with a silencer on it and was expertly defending the peroperty like John Wick. The dream switched and I was in the kitchen of the trailer. The oven was turned around to face the wall and the oven was slamming, bouncing, and screaming. Somehow I knew that there was a girl in there trying to get out and I was the one who put her there. The dream switched again and I was in front of the stove and there was a big soup pot on top. The oven was no longer facing the wall and the banging and screaming had stopped, but I knew that there was a human female in the oven and I was going to use her in some kind of... I dont know a recipe or ritual? I was messing with the flame setting for the soup pot, but the fire looked like plastic or melted crayons and the control was a single mid size metal wheel where the knobs should be. The dream switched again and I was on an icy mountain slipping my way down and helping people who got stuck. I made it down the mountain and drove into my hometown, I pulled off of a side road and found a Waffle House, that does not exist irl, when I went inside it was like a church kitchen with pictures of waffle house and little signs with the name Waffle House plastered all over. The dream jumped again, I was in a front yard, it was night time. An old friend of mine came over with a bunch of his friends and was vey angry with me. I was trying to understand him when I realized he was drunk and his friend were shaking their heads. Then I woke up.

Out of all the religions, I do beleive from what I've learned that the Baha'i faith is the most compatiable pairing with agnostic beleifs. But how much is that exactly? Like, would any Baha'is be offended? I feel the need to explain myself, I will. I was raised catholic, but I started having doubts. Not even in the existence of a higher power, but the way the spiritual world was organized. Christianity doesn't reallly make that much sense. At least not compared to everything else out there. That wasn't the tipping point for me though. It was 2020. I saw the utter hate but also distrust of science propagated by christians. Pretty much all the vaccine/COVID deniers and racists were christian. I was already aware of Christians and other religious people persecuting or wanting to persecute LGBT+ people. I had been lead to beleive religion was hateful. and I declared myself atheist, just to show soverignty from the christian ideals of theocrats in the political scene. Upon strangers learning I was atheist, they would say something like "It takes as much or more faith to be an atheist as it does to be a christian". My rebuttal to that was always "Even if there is A god you still need to prove christianity's vision is correct. There's so much more out there. Judaism before you and Islam after. And that's just the abrahamic religions. (Before I knew about the Baha'i faith) . There's also Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Animist religions often found in indigenous people. And the way you might suggest your god is real because of unlikely events, many other religions have their own divinity-affirming events. That split rock in Arabia, the fact of individuals being lucky in extraordinary ways despite a lack of christian beleifs, etc." Then in early 2023, I found the Baha'i faith. I was curious, so I dug in my heels and educated myself on the Baha'i faith.
​
So, here's my findings. A religion that doesn't tolerate, but CALLS for racial, gender, and wealth equality. CALLS to unite humanity, and perhaps even use a mutual language, directly pointing out Esperanto.(As an Esperanto speaker, this is very effort-affirming) Now look- I am well aware that Christianity and Islam both suggests that those with wealth should use some of it to aid the poor, but Islam has those other shortcomings and is being maintained by forceful governments, and Christians have largely forgotten about helping the poor, you barely see any such in the United States thanks to our unique individuality. In fact, despite churches being tax free, tithe is still a thing. And in many cases, it's not actually used for good causes. In fact, espicially at american megachurches, they might go to preachers pockets. One of them is literally halfway to being a billionare as a preacher. THAT is absurd. I don't know about Europe and Latin America, but I doubt it's THAT much better. It's almost as if the messages of Christianity and Islam as revealed to their respective prophets have stood past their lone shelf life, or are going rancid. As if opening up the way for something new. Than I learned about the Baha'i faith's concept of "Progressive Realevation". Again, one of my biggest doubts about religion in general is that there's still so many other religious beleifs around the world, and even if they have common beleifs, they have the tendency to denounce other religions as "false", leaving us not able to know if there is any true religion. But the Baha'i faith solves this by saying "They are all true, they were each created and sent down to man at diffrent times and different places to slowly educate man spiritually. I was looking for YouTube videos explaining the Baha'i faith, and one of them offered me an anology. It posed God as a teacher or school, and man as the students. Suggesting that God is teaching man a little bit at a time, slowly - because that is the way schools teach their students. You do not put a 1st grader into high school and expect them to learn high school material, and test on it sucessfully. Instead, you give them an easier start and progressively let them climb grades, slowly learning harder material and having harder tests to correspond. The lessons change in depth, detail, and theme with very grade. Your future lessons would not necessarily disprove your past lessons, but are surely more advanced amd so have to cover different areas. I'm still not convinced there is a god, but if there is, I beleive the Baha'i faith has the most accurate understanding of the way spirituality works in the context of the world and history. Regarding the previous points of Christianity and Islam not being able to stand on their own, I have this understanding that as the latest relevation of God, the Baha'i community is currently the truest to the principles of their faith. I think the biggest part of this is that it emphasizes religion as a consensual agreement/understanding. Children are not allowed to be deemed Baha'i until their consent at the age of spiritual maturity, and the religion is against prostelitizing. Baha'is clearly care much more about spreading their values than spreading their religion. Not to say the religion doesn't have problems, it's a shame about women not being able to serve in the Universal House of Justice. But I geniunely, geniunely like this religion as a concept and what it stands for. Currently I'm labelling myself as a "Baha'i agnostic." But is the label even ok? Like would I be seen as someone without loyalty, or would Baha'is generally approve of an agnostic sharing their beleifs? I'm not really asking to "join" the religion, because I'm aware that there is no more rite of passage than just sharing your information to join the community's information network. As someone who's called myself an atheist for the past 3 years, this is a notable shift...Again, I'm supposed to be pursuing an independent investigation of truth, but it's really nice to make use of the knowledge and opinions of over the people, as long as I contemplate with them as opposed to submitting to them. I have no more to say. Give me your opinions.

Does an Orthodox Christian need to change his patron saint when converting to Catholicism if the patron saint is not recognized by the Catholic Church?
And if the patron saint is recognized in both churches, is it still possible to change him when converting?

They didn’t tell us the name of the next kid that disappeared. They didn’t tell us another kid had disappeared at all. We could all tell by the silence what had happened. It spoke volumes. I’m sure they talked about it in great detail amongst themselves. In PTA meetings and City Councils. My parents made sure to turn off the TV at 5 o’clock before the news came on, at least in my home. They’d turn it back on for the 11 o’clock news, when were were in bed and couldn’t hear the details.
The strange thing is, they never told us to just stop going outside. They told us to go in groups, sure, but they never decided, or as far as I could tell even though, to keep us all indoors. I guess that sort of freedom wasn’t something they were willing to give up. Instead, they did the neighborhood watch thing. For those few months, I remember my folks meeting more of our neighbors than in all the time previously, or since. Retirees would spend their days out in their front lawns, watching kids and everybody else coming and going. They’d even set up lawn furniture, with umbrellas, even all through the rains of spring. Cops stopped sitting in ambushes on the highways waiting for speeders and instead started patrolling the streets, chatting with us as we’d pass by. Weekends would see all the adults out in their yards, working on cars in the driveways, fixing the gutters, and so on. They had this weird way of looking at you as you’d ride by. Not hostile stares, but it was like they were cataloging your presence. Boy, eight years old, red raincoat silver bike, about 11:30 in the morning, heading south on Sorensen. Seemed fine.
The next time we saw it, it wasn’t in our neighborhood, and I was the one who saw it first. We were visiting Russ, a sort of 5th semi-friend from school. We rarely hung out, mostly owing to geography. His house wasn’t far as the crow flies, but it was up a steep hill. We spent a Saturday afternoon returning a cache of comic books we’d borrowed. The distance we covered was substantial, as we had decided to take lots of extra streets as switchbacks, rather than slowly push our bikes up the too-steep hills.
The descent was going to be the highlight of the trip, up until I saw the Hidebehind. We were on a curving road, a steep forested bluff on one side. The uphill slope was mostly ivy-covered raised foundations for the neighborhood’s houses. That side of the road was lined with parked cars, and the residents of the homes had to ascend steep staircases to get to their front doors.
I was ayt the back of the pack when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Movement, something brown squatting between two closely parked cars. My head snapped as I zoomed past, and despite not getting a good look, I knew it was that terrible thing. “It’s behind us!” I shouted and started pedaling hard. The others looked for themselves as I quickly rushed past them, but they soon joined my pace.
Ralph’s earlier idea of directly confronting the thing was set aside. We were moving too fast, and down too narrow a street to turn around. Then we saw it again it was to our left, off-road, between the trees. Suddenly it leaped from behind one tree trunk to the next and disappeared again. That hardly made sense, the base of the trees must have been thirty feet below the deck of the street we rode down. One of us, I think it was India, let out one of those strangled screams.
There it was again, back on the right, disappearing behind a mailbox as we approached. That couldn’t have been, it must have outpaced us and crossed in front of us. Logic would suggest there was more than one, but somehow the four of us knew it was the same thing. More impossible still, the pole holding up the mailbox was too thin, maybe two inches in diameter, yet that thing had disappeared behind it, like a Warner Bros. cartoon character. It was just enough to catch a better glimpse of it though. All brown. A head seemingly too bulbous and large for its body. Its limbs were thin but far longer, like a gibbon’s. Only a gibbon had normal elbows and knees. This thing bent its joints all wrong like it wasn’t part of the natural order. We were all terrified to wit’s end.
“The trail!” Ralph shouted, and the other three of us knew exactly what he meant. The top of it was only just around the curve. It was a dirt footpath for pedestrians ascending and descending South Hill, cutting through the woods on our left. It was too steep for cars, and to be honest, too steep for bikes. We’d played on it before, challenging each other to see how high up they could go, then descend back down without using our brakes. A short paved cul-de-sac at the bottom was enough space to stop before running into a cross street.
Ralph had held the previous group record, having climbed three-quarters of the way before starting his mad drop. India’s best was just short of that, I had only dared about halfway up, Ben only a third. This time, with certain death on our heels, the trail seemed the only way out. Nothing could have outrun a kid on a bike flying down that hill.
We followed Ralph’s lead, swinging to the right gutter of the street, then hanging a fast wide left up onto the curb, over a patch of gravel, between two boulders set up as bollards, lest a car driver mistake the entrance for a driveway, and then, like a roller coaster cresting the first hill, the bottom fell out.
It was the most overwhelming sensation of motion I’ve ever had, before or since. I suppose the danger behind us was the big reason, and being absolutely certain that only our speed was keeping us alive. I remember thinking it was like the speeder bike scene from Return of the Jedi, also a recent movie from the time. Only this was real. I didn’t just see the trees flashing past it, I could hear the motion as well. Cold air attacked my eyes and long streamers of tears rushed over my cheeks and the drops flew past my ears, I didn’t dare blink. Each little stone my tires struck threatened to up-end me and end it all. Yet, and perhaps worse, half the time it felt like I wasn’t in contact with the ground at all. I was going so fast that those same small stones were sending me an inch or two into the air, and the arc of the flights so closely matched the slope that by the time I contacted the trail again, I was significantly further down the hill.
At the same time, I had never felt more relief, as the thing behind us had no way of catching us now. Somehow, maybe the seriousness of the escape gave us both the motive and the seriousness to keep ourselves under control. Looking back, I marvel that at least one of us didn’t lose control and end up splitting our skulls open.
We hit the pavement of the cul-de-sac below, and didn’t bother to slow down. We raced through the cross-street, one angry driver screeching to a halt and laying on his horn. This brought out the neighborhood watch. Just a few of them at first. Still, we didn’t slow down, our momentum carried us back up the much shallower slope of our neighborhood. Witnesses saw us depart at high speed, and this only brought out more of the watch. We heard whistles behind us, just like our P.E. teacher’s whistle. We figured that was the watch’s alarm siren. Regardless of what happened to that thing, it was behind us. We returned to our homes, shaken, but safe and sound, our inertia taking us almost all of the way there.
Another kid disappeared that Sunday, up on South Hill. We’d suspected it because we could see the lights of the police cars on a high road, surrounding the spot where it would turn out later, one of the kid’s shoes had been found. Russ confirmed it at school on Monday. It was a kid he’d known, lived down the road from his place, went to private school which is why we didn’t recognize his name.
I remember seeing Ralph’s face the next day when he arrived at school. He looked angry. Strong. Like he’d been crying really hard, and now it was over and he was resolved. He said he’d felt guilty because the thing we’d escaped from had gotten the other kid instead. He tried to tell his old man about it, then his mom, then any adult he could. He’d tell them about the monster who hides behind things. They needed to focus on finding and stopping that instead of looking for some sort of creeper or serial killer. Of course, nobody had listened to him. They hadn’t listened to the rest of us either when we’d tried to tell.
So he’d devised a plan. He was calling it the “Fight Patrol,” which we didn’t argue with. If the adults wouldn’t do something, we would. We’d patrol our neighborhood on our bikes, the four of us, maybe a couple more if we could talk others into it. We’d chase it off like that first time, maybe for good, or maybe corner it. Clearly, it could not handle being caught.
Naturally, we brought up the scare on South Hill. He argued that was a bad place. Too isolated, couldn’t turn around easily. We needed to stay on our home turf, lots of visibility, and plenty of the Neighborhood Watch within earshot. Maybe we and the adults working together was the key, even if the adults didn’t understand the problem.
Well, that convinced us. Our first patrol was that afternoon, after school. We watched everybody’s back like hawks. Nothing had a chance to sneak up on us. Nothing could step out from behind a bush without getting spotted. By Friday afternoon there were eight of us. The next week we split up to extend our territory to the next neighborhoods over.
Nothing happened. We never saw anything. Ben thought it was because we were scaring it away. Ralph just thought we were failing, and took it personally. I myself thought the thing had just moved to different parts of town, where the new disappearances were taking place. I told him we should keep it up until the thing was caught.
It was all for naught.
One day, India didn’t show up for school. I asked everybody, the teachers, the office staff, the custodian, my parents. All of them said they didn’t know, and it was so easy to tell that they were lying. That would mark the end of the Fight Patrol.
Ben didn’t show up a couple of days after that. When I got home and collapsed into bed, my mother came in to tell me that Ben’s mother had called. She’d taken him out of school and they were moving elsewhere. I called up Ralph to let him know the news, and he was relieved too.
My last day was Friday, and then I was taken out. Again, I called Ralph so he wouldn’t worry. I guess when there were only two weeks left of school, and it was just grade school, a couple missed weeks don’t amount to much. So I ended up spending the bulk of the summer out in the country, with my grandparents, which was why I brought up my grandpa in the first place.
I suppose I did fine out on their farmhouse. I was safe. There was certainly no shortage of things for a kid to do. I think my mom felt a strong sense of relief too. Things slipped through the cracks.
My grandparents didn’t have cable, too far out of town. They just had an old-school antenna and got a couple of TV stations transmitting out of Canada, Vancouver specifically. I remember one July day, sitting in their living room. My grandmother had just fixed lunch for me and my grandfather and had gone out to do some gardening as we watched the news at noon.
My grandfather was already being ravaged by his illnesses. He was able to get around, but couldn’t do any real labor anymore. He’d lounge in front of the TV in a special lounge chair. He hardly talked, and when he did he’d just mumble some discomfort or complaint to my grandma.
The lead story on the news was the current situation in Farmingham, despite being in the neighboring country, it was still big news in Vancouver, and the whole rest of the region. It seemed the disappearances were declining, but the police were still frantically searching for a supposed serial killer. I didn’t pick up much about what they were talking about, I was a kid after all, but my grandfather was watching intently, despite his infirmity.
He mumbled something, I didn’t catch. I asked him was he said, and as I approached I heard him say “fearsome critters.”
He turned his eyes to me and said again, distinct and in a normal tone of voice, “fearsome critters,” then returned his attention to the screen. “I don’t know why they call them that. Fearsome, sure. But ‘critters?” Makes it sound silly. Like it's some sort of fairy tale that it ain’t. Guess it’s like whistling past the graveyard. Well, they don’t have to worry about them no more, guess they can call them what they like.”
Then he turned to me. “Do you know what it is?” he asked. “Squonk? Hodag? Gouger? Hidebehind?”
“Hidebehind,” I whispered, and he turned back to the TV with a sneer. I had no idea what on earth he was talking about. Remember, this would be years before I learned he spent his youth as a lumberjack. And yet, somehow, I knew exactly what we were talking about.
“Hidebehind,” he repeated. “That will do it. They give them such stupid names. The folk back East, that is. Wisconsin. Minnesota. Ohio. Way back in the old days, before my grandfather would have been your age. Back when those places were covered by forests. They didn’t give them silly names back then, no. Back then they were something to worry about. Then they moved on, though. They all went out West, to here, followed the loggers. So as once they didn’t have to worry about them anymore, they started making up silly stories, silly names. “Fearsome critters,” they’d call them. Just tall tales to tell the greenhorns and scare them out of their britches. Then they’d make them even sillier, and tell the stories to little kids to spook them.”
“Not out here they didn’t tell no stories nor make up any names. It was bad enough they followed us out. I had no clue they even existed until I saw one for myself. Bout your age, I suppose. Maybe a little older. Nobody ever talks about them. Not even when they take apart a work crew, one by one. They just pull the crews back. Wait till mid-summer when the land is dry but not too dry. Then they move the crews in, a lot of them. Do some burning, make a lot of smoke. Drives them deeper into the woods, you know. Then you can cut the whole damn place down. But nobody asks why, nobody tells why. The people who know just take care of it.”
“I guess that’s why they’re coming to us now. All the old woods are almost gone. So they’ve got to. Like mountain lions. I supposed it’s going to happen sooner or later.”
We heard my grandma come into the back door to the utility room, and stomp the dirt off her boots. My grandfather turned to me one last time and said, “Whichever way you look at it, somebody’s just got to take care of it.” Then my grandmother came in from the utility room and asked us how our lunch had been.
Now that I look back at it, that might have been the last time my grandfather and I really had a meaningful talk.
We moved back home in late August. I had been having a fantastic summer. Though looking back, I suppose it could be rough for a still-young woman to be living in her aging parents' house when she’s got a perfectly good husband and house of her own in town.
First thing I did was visit Ralph. He’d been busy. He’d fortified his treehouse into a proper, well, tree fort. He’d nailed a lot of reinforcing plywood over everything. He hadn’t gone out on patrols by himself, of course, but the height of the tree fort afforded him a view of the nearest streets. He’d also made some makeshift weapons out of old baseball bats, a hockey stick, and a garden rake. The sharp rocks he’d attached to them with masking tape didn’t look very secure, but it’d only take one or two good blows with that kind of firepower. He also explained he’d been teaching himself kung fu, by copying all the movies he saw on kung fu movies late at night on the unpopular cable channels. That was classic Ralph.
As for the monster, it seemed to be going away. Its last victim had disappeared weeks previously, part of the reason my mom felt it was time to go back. This had been at night too. What’s more, the victim had been a college student, a very petite lady, barely five feet tall, under a hundred pounds. The news had speculated that their presumptive serial killer had assumed she was a child. I remember thinking the Hidebehind didn’t care. Maybe it just thought she couldn’t run fast enough to get away or put up a fight when he caught her. Like a predator.
At any rate, the college students were incensed. Of course, they’d been hyper-alert and concerned when it was just local kids going missing. Now that it was one of their own the camel’s back had broken. They really went hard on the protests, blaming the local police for not doing enough.
They started setting up their own patrols, and at night too. Marches with sometimes dozens of students at a time. They called it “Take Back the Night.” They’d walk the streets, making sure they’d be heard. Some cared drums or tambourines. They’d help escort people home, and sometimes they’d unintentionally stop random crimes they’d happen across. I felt like this was what the Fight Patrol could have been, if we’d just been old enough, or had been listened to. This would be the endgame for the Hidebehind, one way or another.
I stayed indoors the rest of the summer, and really there wasn’t much left. It doesn’t get too hot in the Pacific Northwest, nobody has air conditioners, or at least we didn’t back then. It will get stuffy though, in August, and I liked to sleep with my window open. I could hear the chants and challenges from the student patrols on their various routes. Sometimes I could hear them coming from far away, and every now and then they’d pass down my street. It felt like a wonderful security blanket.
I also liked the honeysuckle my mother had planted around the perimeter of the house. Late at night, if I was struggling to fall asleep, the air in my bedroom would start to circulate. Cold air would start pouring in over my windowsill, bringing the sweet scent of that creepervine with it, and I’d the sensation before finally passing out.
This one night, and I have no knowledge if I was awake, asleep, or drifting off, but the air in the room changed, and cooler air poured over the windowsill and swept over my bed, but it didn’t carry the sweet smell of honeysuckle. Regardless of my initial state, I was alert pretty quickly. It was a singularly unpleasant smell. A bit like death, which at that age I was mostly unfamiliar with, except a time some animal had died underneath the crawlspace of our house. There was more to it, though. The forest, the deep forest. I don’t know and still don’t know, what that meant. Most smells I associate with the forest are pleasant. Cedar, pine needles, thick loam of the forest floor, campfires, even the creosote and turpentine of those old timey-logging camps. This was none of those smells. Maybe… rotting granite, and the spores of slime molds. Mummified hemlocks and beds of needles compressed into something different than soil. It disturbed me.
So I sat up in bed. I hadn’t noticed before, but I’d been sweating, just lightly in the stuffy summer night heat. Now it was turning cold. Before me was my bedroom window. A lit rectangle in a pitch-dark room. To either side were my white, opened curtains, the one on the right, by the open half of the window, stirred just slightly in the barely perceptible breeze.
Most of the rectangle was the black form of the protective cypress tree. Only the slight conical nature of the tree distinguished it from a perfectly vertical column. To either side was a dim soft orange glow coming from the sodium lamps of the street passing by our house. It was perhaps a bit diffuse from the screen set in my window to keep out mosquitos. In the distance was the sound of an approaching troupe of the Take Back the Night patrol. They were neither drumming nor chanting, but still making plenty of noise. They were, perhaps, three or four blocks away, and heading my way.
For some reason that I didn’t understand, I got up, off of the foot of the bed. The window, being closer, appeared bigger. I took a silent step further. The patrol approached closer. Another step. I leaned to my right, just a bit, getting a slightly wider view to the left of the cypress tree. That was the direction the patrol was coming from.
That was when it resolved. The deeper black silhouette within the black silhouette of the cypress tree. A small lithe frame with a too-bulbous head. It too leaned, in its case, to the left, to see around the cypress tree as the patrol approached. They reached our block,on the other side of the street. A dozen rowdy college students, not trying to be quiet. None of them fearing the night. Each feeling safe and determined, and absorbed in their own night out rather than being overtly sensitive to their surroundings. They were distracted, unfocused If they had been peering into the shadows, if just one of them had looked towards my house, behind the cypress tree, they might have seen the Hidebehind, poking its face out and watching them transit past. But they didn’t notice.
It hid behind the cypress tree, and I hid behind it, hoping that the blackness of my bedroom would protect me. I stood absolutely still, as I had done once when a hornet had once landed on the back of my neck. Totally assure that if I made the slightest movement or made the slightest sound that I’d be stung. I hardly even breathed.
The patrol passed, from my perspective, behind the cypress tree and temporarily out of view. The Hidebehind straightened, ready to lean to the right and watch the patrol pass, only it didn’t lean. Even as I watched the patrol pass on to the right, it stood there, stock still, just as I was doing.
It was then I became aware that my room had become stuffy again. The scent was gone. The air had shifted and was now flowing out through the screen again, carrying my own scent with it. I knew what this meant, and yet I was too paralyzed to react. The thing started to turn, very slowly. It was a predator understanding that it might have become victim to its own game. It turned as if it was thinking the same thing I had been thinking, that the slightest movement might give it away.
It turned, and I saw its face. Like some kind of rotting desiccated, shriveling fruit, it was covered in wrinkles. Circles within concentric circles surrounded its two great eyes, eyes which took up so much of its face. I couldn’t, and still struggle, to think of words to describe it. Instead, I still think in terms of analogies. At the time I thought of the creature from the film E.T., only twisted and distorted into a thing of nightmares. Almost all eyelids, and a little drooping sucker mouth. Now that I’m more worldly, it reminds of creatures of ancient artworks. The key defining feature were the long horizontal slits it had for eyes. You see that in old masks carved in West Africa, or by the Inuit long ago. You see it in what’s called the “slit-eyed dogu” of ancient Japan.
As I watched the wrinkles on the face seemed to multiply. Then I realized this was the result of its eyes slowly widening. It’s mouth, too, slowly dilated, revealing innumerable small razor-sharp teeth. A person, standing in its location, shouldn’t have been able to see in. Light from the sodium streetlamps lit the window’s screen, obscuring the interior. It was no person. It could see me, and it was reacting to my presence. Its eyes grew huge, black.
My own eyes would have been just as wide if not for my own anatomical limitations. I was still watching when it disappeared. It didn’t see it move to the right. I didn’t see it move to the left, nor did I see it drop down out of view. It simply disappeared. One fraction of a second it was there, and then it decided to leave, and so it did. It was not a thing of this world.
There were no more disappearances after that poor woman from the university. I don’t think it had anything to do with me. The media and police all speculated their “serial killer” had gone into a “dormant phase”. There was no shortage of people who tried to take credit. Maybe they deserve it. The thing’s hunting had been on the decline. All the neighborhood watches and student patrols, I think that maybe all that commotion was making it too hard for the Hidebehind to go about its business. Maybe it had gone back to the woods.
Then again, maybe Ralph had been right the whole time. Maybe it really, really, really didn’t like to be seen.
So.
Now I’ve got some decisions to make. I think the first thing I should do is look at social media and dig up Ralph. It’s been a good thirty years since I last talked to him. He ought to know the Hidebehind is back. He’s probably made plans.
Then, there’s the issue of my son. He’s up in his bedroom now, probably still mad at me. Probably confused about why I’d be so strict. Maybe he’s inventing explanations as to why.
I’m not sure, but I’m leaning toward telling him everything. He deserves to know. It’d probably be safer if he knows. I think people have this instinct where, when they see or know something that they’re not supposed to know, they just bottle it up. I think that was the problem with grown-ups when I was a kid. It was the issue with my grandfather, telling me so little when it was almost too late. I think people do it because we’re social animals, and we’re afraid of being ostracized. Go along to get along.
Hell, my son is probably going to think I’m crazy. It might even make him more mad at me. And even more confused. He knows about the disappearances. “The Farmingham Fiend” the media would end up dubbing the serial killer that didn’t really exist. It’s become local “true crime” history. Kids tell rumors about it. It was almost forty years ago, so it probably feels safe to wonder about.
So yeah, I suppose when I say I know who the real killer was, a magical monster from the woods that stalks its prey by hiding behind objects, then impossibly disappears- that I’m going to look like a total nut. I’d think that if I were in his shoes.
Except… people are going to start disappearing again, it’s only a matter of time. The media will say that the Farmingham Fiend is back in the game. Will my son buy that? He’ll start thinking about what I told him, and how I predicted it. Then he’ll remember that he saw the thing himself, he and his friends, even if it was just out of the corner of his eye.
I hope, sooner or later, he’ll believe me. I could use his help. Maybe Ralph is way ahead of me, but I’m thinking we should get the Fight Patrol back together. Father and son, this time. Multigenerational, get the retirees involved too.
Old farts of my generation, for reasons I don’t understand, like to wax nostalgic over their own false sense of superiority. We rode our bikes without helmets and had distant if not irresponsible parents. Yeah, yeah, what a load. I think every new generation is better than the last, because every generation is a progression from the last, Kids these days? They’ve got cell phones, with cameras. And helmet cams. GoPros you can attach to bikes. Doorbell cameras.
It seems the Hidebehind loathes being seen. This time around, with my grandfather’s spirit, my own memories, and my boy’s energy? I think this time we’re finally going to beat it.

(owing to the reddit character limit, I'm posting this in two parts, but it's one contiguous story)
There are instincts that you develop when you’re a parent. If you don’t have any children it might be a little hard to understand. If you have a toddler, for example, and they’re in the other room and silent for more than a few seconds, there’s a good chance they’re up to no good. I take that back, most of the time they’re doing nothing, but you still have to check. You feel a compulsion to check. I don’t think it’s a learned skill, I think it’s an actual instinct.
Paleolithic parents who didn’t check on their toddlers every few minutes, just to double check that they weren’t being stalked by smilodons were unlikely to have grandchildren and pass on their genes. You just feel you need to check, like getting goosebumps, a compulsion. I suppose it’s the same reason little kids are always demanding you look at them and what they’re doing.
I think that instinct starts to atrophy as your kids grow. They start learning to do things for themselves, and before you know it, they’re after their own privacy, not your attention. I don’t think it ever goes away though. I expect, decades from now, my own grown kids will visit and bring my grandkids with them. And the second I hear a baby crying in the earliest morning hours, I’ll be alert and ready for anything, sure as any old soldier who hears his name whispered in the dark of night.
I felt that alarm just the other day. First time in years. My boy came home from riding bikes with a couple of his friends. I’m pretty sure they worked out a scam where they asked each of their parents for a different new console for Christmas, and now they spend their weekends traveling between the three houses so they can play on all of them.
We all live in a nice neighborhood. A newer development than the one I grew up in, same town though. It’s the kind of place where kids are always playing in the streets, and the cars all routinely do under 20. My wife and I make sure the kids have helmets and pads, and we’re fine with the boy going out biking with his friends, as long as they stay in the neighborhood.
You know, a lot of people in my generation take some weird sort of pride in how irresponsible we used to be when we were young. I never wore a helmet. Rode to places, without telling any adults, that we never should have ridden to. Me and my friends would make impromptu jumps off of makeshift ramps and try to do stupid tricks, based loosely on stunts we’d seen on TV. Other people my age seem to wax nostalgic for that stuff and pretend it makes them somehow better people. I don’t get it. Sometimes I look back and shudder. We were lucky we escaped with only occasional bruises and road burns. It could have gone so much worse.
My son and his buddies came bustling in the front door at about 2 PM on a Saturday. They did the usual thing of raiding the kitchen for juice and his mother’s brownies, and I took that as my cue to abandon the television in the living room for my office. I was hardly noticing the chaos, by this point, it was becoming a regular weekend occurrence. But as I was just leaving, I caught something in the chatter. My boy said something about, “... that guy who was following us.”
He hadn’t said it any louder or more clearly than anything else they’d been talking about, all that stuff I’d been filtering out. Yet some deeper core process in my brain stem heard it, interpreted it, then hit the red alert button. My blood ran cold and every hair on my skin stood at attention.
I turned around and asked “Somebody followed you? What are you talking about?” I wasn’t consciously aware of how strict and stern my voice came out, yet when the jovial smiles dropped off of their faces it was apparent that it had been so.
“Huh?” my son said, his voice high-pitched and talking fast, like when he thinks he’s in trouble and needs to explain. “We thought we saw somebody following us. There wasn’t though. We didn’t really see anybody and we’d just spooked ourselves.”
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Nothing? We really didn’t see anybody! Honest! I just saw something out of the corner of my eye! But there wasn’t really nobody there!”
“Yeah!,” said one of his buds. “Peripheral! Peripheral vision! I thought maybe I saw something too, but when I looked I didn’t see anything. I don’t have my glasses with me, but when I really looked I got a good look and there was nothing.”
The three boys had that semi-smiling but still concerned look that this was only a bizarre misunderstanding, but they were still being very sincere. “Were they in a car?”
“No, Dad, you don’t get it,” my boy continued, “They were small. We thought it was a kid.”
“Yeah,” said the third boy. “We thought maybe it was Tony Taylor’s stupid kid sister shadowing us. Getting close to throwing water balloons. Just cause she did that before.”
“If you didn’t get a good look how did you know it was a kid?”
“Because it was small!” my kid explained, though that wasn’t helping much. “What I mean is, at first I thought it was behind a little bush. It was way too small a bush to hide a grown-up. That’s why we thought it was probably Tony’s sister.”
“But you didn’t actually see Tony’s sister?” I asked.
“Nah,” said one of his buds. “And now that I think about it, that bush was probably too small for his sister too. It would have been silly. Like when a cartoon character hides behind a tiny object.”
“That’s why we think it was just in our heads,” explained the other boy, “That and the pole.”
“Yeah,” my son said. “The park on 14th and Taylor?” That was just a little community park, a single city block. Had a playground, lawn, a few trees, and some benches. “Anyway, we were riding past that, took a right on Taylor. And we were talking about how weird it would be if somebody really were following us. That’s when Brian thought he saw something. Behind a telephone pole.”
“I didn’t get a good look at it either,” the friend, Brian, “explained. Just thought I did. Know how you get up late at night to use the bathroom or whatever and you look down the hallway and you see a jacket or an office chair or something and because your eyes haven’t adjusted you think you see a ghost or burglar or something? Anyway, I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned there wasn’t anything there.”
“Yeah, it was just like sometimes that happens, except this time it happened twice on the same bike ride, is all,” the other friend explained.
“And you’re sure there was nothing there?”
“Sure we’re sure,” my boy said. “We know because that time we checked. We each rode our bikes around the pole and there was nothing. Honest!”
“Hmmm,” I said. The whole thing seemed reasonable and nothing to be concerned about, you’d think.. The boys seemed to relax at my supposed acceptance. “Alright, sounds good. Hey, just let me know before you leave the house again, alright?” They all rushed to seem agreeable as I left the room, then quickly resumed their snacking and preceded to play their games.
I kept my ear out, just in case. My boy, at least this time, dutifully told me his friends were about to leave. He wasn’t very happy with me when I said they wouldn’t be riding home on their bikes, I was going to drive them home. The other boys didn’t complain, but I suppose it wasn’t their place, so my boy did the advocating for them, which I promptly ignored. I hate doing that, ignoring my kid’s talkback. My dad was the same way. It didn’t help that I struggled to get both of their bikes in the trunk, and it was a pain to get them back out again. My boy sulked in the front seat on the short ride back home. Arms folded on chest, eyes staring straight ahead, that lip thing they do. He seemed embarrassed for having what he thought was an over-protective parent. I suppose he was angry at me as well for acting, as far as he knew, irrationally. Maybe he thought he was being punished for some infraction he didn’t understand.
Well, it only got worse when we got home. I told him he wasn’t allowed to go out alone on his bike anymore. I’d only had to do that once before, when he was grounded, and back then he’d known exactly what he’d done wrong and he had it coming. Now? Well, he was confused, furious, maybe betrayed, probably a little brokenhearted? I can’t blame him. He tramped upstairs to his room to await the return of his mother, who was certain to give a sympathetic ear. I can’t imagine how upset he’ll be if he checks the garage tomorrow and finds I’ve removed his tires, just in case.
I wish I could explain it to him. I don’t even know how.
Where should I even begin? The town?
When I was about my son’s age I had just seen that movie, The Goonies. It had just come out in theaters. I really liked that movie, felt a strong connection. A lot of people do, can’t blame them, sort of a timeless classic. Except I wasn’t really into pirate’s treasure or the Fratellis, what really made me connect was a simple single shot, still in the first act. It’s right after they cross the threshold, and leave the house on their adventure. It was a shot of the boys, from above, maybe a crane shot or a helicopter shot, as they’re riding their bikes down a narrow forested lane, great big evergreen trees densely growing on the side of the road, they’re all wearing raincoats and the road is still wet from recent rain.
That was my childhood. I’ve spent my whole life in the Pacific Northwest. People talk to outsiders about the rain, and they might picture a lot of rainfall, but it’s not the volume, it’s the duration. We don’t get so much rain, it just drizzles slowly, on and on, for maybe eight or nine months out of the year. It doesn’t matter where I am, inside a house, traveling far abroad, anywhere I am I can close my eyes and still smell the air on a chilly afternoon, playing outdoors with my friends.
It’s not petrichor, that sudden intense smell you get when it first starts to rain after a long dry spell. No, this was almost the opposite, a clean smell, almost the opposite of a scent, since the rain seemed to scrub the air clean. The strongest scent and I mean that in the loosest sense possible, must have been the evergreen needles. Not pine needles, those were too strong, and there weren’t that many pines anyway. Douglas fir and red cedar predominated, again the root ‘domination’ seems hyperbole. Yet those scents were there, ephemeral as it is. Also, there was a sort of pleasant dirtiness to the smell, at least when you rode bikes. It wasn’t dirt, or mud, or dust. Dust couldn’t have existed except perhaps for a few fleeting weeks in August. I think, looking back, it was the mud puddles. All the potholes in all the asphalt suburban roads would fill up after rain with water the color of chocolate milk. We’d swerve our BMX bikes, or the knock-off brands, all the way across the street just to splash through those puddles and test our “suspensions.,” meaning our ankles and knees. The smell was always stronger after that. It had an earthiness to it. Perhaps it was petrichor’s lesser-known watery cousin.
There were other sensations too, permanently seared into my brain like grill marks. A constant chilliness that was easy to ignore, until you started working up a good heart rate on your bike, then you noticed your lungs were so cold it felt like burning. The sound of your tires on the wet pavement, particularly when careening downhill at high speed. For some reason, people in the mid-80s used to like to decorate their front porches with cheap, polyester windsocks. They were often vividly colored, usually rainbow, like prototype pride flags. When an occasional wind stirred up enough to gust, the windsocks would flap, and owning to the water-soaked polyester, make a wet slapping sound. It was loud, it was distinct, but you learned to ignore it as part of the background, along with the cawing of crows and distant passing cars.
That was my perception of Farmingham as a kid. The town itself? Just a typical Pacific Northwest town. That might not mean much for younger people or modern visitors, but there was a time when such towns were all the same. They were logging towns. It was the greatest resource of the area from the late 19th century, right up until about the 80s, when the whole thing collapsed. Portland, Seattle, they had a few things going on beyond just the timber industry, but all the hundreds of little towns and small cities revolved around logging, and my town was no exception.
I remember going to the museum. It had free admission, and it was a popular field trip destination for the local school system. It used to be the City Hall, a weird Queen Anne-style construction. Imagine a big Victorian house, but blown up to absurd proportions, and with all sorts of superfluous decorations. Made out of local timber, of course. They had a hall for art, I can’t even remember why, now. Maybe they were local artists. I only remember paintings of sailboats and topless women, which was a rare sight for a kid at the time. There was a hall filled with 19th-century household artifacts. Chamber pots and weird children's toys.
Then there was the logging section, which was the bulk of the museum. It’s strange how different things seemed to be in the early days of the logging industry, despite being only about a hundred years old, from my perspective in the 1980s. If you look back a hundred years from today, in the 1920s, you had automobiles, airplanes, electrical appliances, jazz music, radio programs, flappers, it doesn’t feel that far removed, does it? No TV, no internet, but it wouldn’t be that strange. 1880s? Different world.
Imagine red cedars, so big you could have a full logging crew, arms stretched out, just barely manage to encircle one for a photographer. Felling a single tree was the work of days. Men could rest and eat their lunches in the shelter of a cut made into a trunk, and not worry for safety or room. They had to cut their own little platforms into the trees many feet off the ground, just so the trunk was a little bit thinner, and thus hours of labor saved. They used those long, flexible two-man saws. And double-bit axes. They worked in the gloom of the shade with old gas lanterns. Once cut down from massive logs thirty feet in diameter, they’d float the logs downhill in sluices, like primitive wooden make-shift water slides. Or they’d haul them down to the nearest river, the logs pulled by donkeys on corduroy roads. They’d lay large amounts of grease on the roads, so the logs would slide easily. You could still smell the grease on the old tools on display in the museum. The bigger towns had streets where the loggers would slide the logs down greased skids all the way down to the sea, where they’d float in big logjams until the mills were ready for processing. They’d call such roads “skid-rows.” Because of all the activity, they’d end up being the worst parts of town. Local citizens wouldn’t want to live there, due to all the stink and noise. They’d be on the other side of the brothels and the opium dens. It would be the sort of place where the destitute and the insane would find themselves when they’d finally lost anything. To this day, “skidrow” remains a euphemism for the part of a city where the homeless encamp.
That was the lore I’d learned as a child. That was my “ancestry” I was supposed to respect and admire, which I did, wholeheartedly. There were things they left out, though. Things that you might have suspected, from a naive perspective, would be perfect for kids, all the folklore that came with the logging industry. The ghost stories, and the tall tales. I would have eaten that up. They do talk about that kind of thing in places far removed from the Pacific Northwest. But I had never heard about any of it. Things like the Hidebehind. No, that I’d have to discover for myself.
There were four of us on those bike adventures. Myself. Ralph, my best friend. A tough guy, the bad boy, the most worldly of us, which is a strange thing to say about an eight-year-old kid. India, an archetypal ‘80s tomboy. She was the coolest person I knew at the time. Looking back, I wonder what her home life was like. I think I remember problematic warning signs that I couldn’t have recognized when I was so young, but now raise flags. Then there was Ben. A goofy kid, a wild mop of hair, coke bottle glasses, type 1 diabetic which seemed to make him both a bit pampered by his mother, who was in charge of all his insulin, diet, and schedule, and conversely a real risk taker when she wasn’t around.
When we first saw it…
No, wait. This was the problem with starting the story. Where does it all begin? I’ll need to talk about my Grandfather as well. I’ve had two different perspectives on my Grandfather, on the man that he was. The first was the healthy able-bodied grandparent I’d known as a young child. Then there was the man, as I learned about him after he had passed.
There was a middle period, from when I was 6 to when I was 16, when I hardly understood him at all, as he was hit with a double whammy of both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer's. His decline into an invalid was both steep and long drawn out. That part didn’t reflect who he was as a person.
What did I know of him when I was little? Well I knew he and my grandmother had a nice big house and some farmland, out in the broad flat valley north of Farmingham. Dairy country. It had been settled by Dutch immigrants back in the homesteading days. His family had been among the first pioneers in the county too. It didn’t register to me then that his surname was Norwegian, not Dutch. I knew he had served in the Navy in World War II, which I was immensely proud of for reasons I didn’t know why. I knew he had a job as a butcher in a nearby rural supermarket. He was a bit of a farmer too, more as a hobby and a side gig. He had a few cattle, but mostly grew and harvested hay to sell to the local dairies. I knew he had turned his garage into a machine shop, and could fix damn near anything. From the flat tires on my bicycle to the old flat-bed truck he’d haul hay with, to an old 1950s riding lawnmower he somehow managed to keep in working order. I knew he could draw a really cool cartoon cowboy, I knew he loved to watch football, and I knew the whiskers on his chin were very pokey, and they’d tickle you when he kissed you on the cheek, and that when you tried to rub the sensation away he’d laugh and laugh and laugh.
Then there were the parts of his life that I’d learn much later. Mostly from odd passing comments from relatives, or things I’d find in the public records. Like how he’d been a better grandfather than a father. Or how his life as I knew it had been a second, better life. He’d been born among the Norwegian settler community, way up in the deep, dark, forest-shrouded hills that rimmed the valley. He’d been a logger in his youth. Technologically he was only a generation or two from the ones I’d learned about in the museum. They’d replaced donkeys with diesel engines and corduroy roads with narrow gauge rail. It was still the same job, though. Dirty, dangerous, dark. Way back into those woods, living in little logging camps, civilization was always a several-day hike out. It became a vulgar sort of profession, filled with violent men, reprobates, and thieves. When my grandfather’s father was murdered on his front porch by a lunatic claiming he’d been wronged somehow, my grandfather hiked out of there, got into town, and joined the Navy. He vowed never to go back. The things he’d seen out in those woods were no good. He’d kept that existence away from me. Anyways…
Tommy Barker was the first of us to go missing. I say ‘us’ as if I knew him personally. I didn’t. He went to Farmingham Middle School, other side of town, and several grades above us. From our perspective, he may as well have been an adult living overseas.
Yet it felt like we got to know him. His face was everywhere, on TV, all over telephone poles. Everybody was talking about him. After he didn’t return from a friend’s house, everybody just sort of assumed, or maybe hoped, that he’d just gotten lost, or was trapped somewhere. They searched all the parks. Backyards, junkyards, refrigerators, trunks. Old-fashioned refrigerators, back before suction seals, had a simple handle with a latch that opened when you pulled on it. It wasn’t a problem when the fridges were in use and filled with food. But by the 80s old broke-down refrigerators started filling up backyards and junkyards, and they became deathtraps for kids playing hide-and-seek. The only opened from the outside. I remember thinking Tommy Barker was a little old to have likely been playing hide-and-seek, but people checked everywhere anyway. They never found him.
That was about the first time we saw the Hidebehind. Ben said he thought he saw somebody following us, looked like, maybe, a kid. We’d just slowly huffed our way up a moderately steep hill, Farmingham is full of them, and when we paused for a breather at the top, Ben said he saw it down the hill, closer to the base. Yet when we turned to look there was nothing there. Ben said he’d just seen it duck behind a car. That wasn’t the sort of behavior of a random kid minding his own business. Yet the slope afforded us a view under the car’s carriage, and except for the four tires, there were no signs of any feet hiding behind the body. At first, we thought he was pulling our leg. When he insisted he wasn’t, we started to tease him a little. He must have been seeing things, on account of his poor vision and thick glasses. The fact that those glasses afforded him vision as good as or better than any of us wasn’t something we considered.
The next person to disappear was Amy Brooks. Fifth-grader. Next elementary school over. I remember it feeling like when you’re traveling down the freeway, and there’s a big thunderstorm way down the road, but it keeps getting closer, and closer. I don’t remember what she looked like. Her face wasn’t plastered everywhere like Tommy’s had been. She was mentioned on the regional news, out of Seattle, her and Tommy together. Two missing kids from the same town in a short amount of time. The implication was as obvious as it was depraved. They didn’t think the kids were getting lost anymore. They didn’t do very much searching of backyards. The narratives changed too. Teachers started talking a lot about stranger danger. Local TV channels started recycling old After School Specials and public service announcements about the subject.
I’m not sure who saw it next. I think it was Ben again. We took him seriously this time though. I think. The one I’m sure I remember was soon after, and that time it was India who first saw it. It’s still crystal clear in my memory, almost forty years later, because that was the time I first saw it too. We were riding through a four-way stop, an Idaho Stop before they called it that, when India slammed to a stop, locking up her coaster brakes and leaving a long black streak of rubber on a dry patch of pavement. We stopped quickly after and asked what the problem was. We could tell by her face she’d seen it. She was still looking at it.
“I see it,” she whispered, unnecessarily. We all followed her gaze. We were looking, I don’t know, ten seconds? Twenty? We believed everything she said, we just couldn’t see it.
“Where?” Ralph asked.
“Four blocks down,” she whispered. “On the left. See the red car? Kinda rusty?” There was indeed a big old Lincoln Continental, looking pretty ratty and worn. I focused on that, still seeing nothing. “Past that, just to its right. See the street light pole? It’s just behind that.”
We also saw the pole she was talking about. Metal. Aluminum, I’d have guessed. It had different color patches, like metallic flakeboard. Like it’d had been melted together out of scrap.
I could see that clearly even from that distance. I saw nothing behind it. I could see plenty of other things in the background, cars, houses, bushes, front lawns, beauty bark landscape.. There was no indication of anything behind that pole.
And then it moved. It had been right there where she said it had been, yet it had somehow perfectly blended into the landscape, a trick of perspective. We didn’t see it at all until it moved, and almost as fast it had disappeared behind that light pole. We only got a hint. Brown in color, about our height in size.
We screamed. Short little startled screams, the involuntary sort that just burst out of you. Then we turned and started to pedal like mad, thoroughly spooked. We made it to the intersection of the next block when it was Ralph who screeched to a halt and shouted, “Wait!”
We slowed down and stopped, perhaps not as eagerly as we’d done when India yelled. Ralph was looking back over his shoulder, looking at that metal pole. “Did anybody see it move again?’ he asked. We all shook our heads in the negative. Ralph didn’t notice, but of course, he didn’t really need an answer, of course we hadn’t been watching.
“If it didn’t move, then it’s still there!” Ralph explained the obvious. It took a second to sink in, despite the obvious. “C’mon!” he shouted, and to our surprise, before we could react, he turned and took off, straight down the road, straight to where that thing had been lurking.
We were incredulous, but something about his order made us all follow hot on his heels. He was a sort of natural leader. I thought it was total foolishness, but I wasn’t going to let him go alone. I think I got out, “Are you crazy?!”
The wind was blowing hard past our faces as we raced as fast as we could, it made it hard to hear. Ralph shouted his response. “If it’s hiding that means its afraid!” That seemed reasonable, if not totally accurate. Lions hide from their prey before they attack. Then again, they don’t wait around when the whole herd charges. Really, the pole was coming up so fast there wasn’t a whole lot of time to argue. “Just blast past and look!” Ralph added. “We’re too fast! It won’t catch us.”
Sure, I thought to myself. Except maybe Ben, who always lagged behind the rest of us in a race. The lion would get Ben if any of us.
We rushed past that pole and all turned our heads to look. “See!” Ralph shouted in triumph. There was simply nothing there. A metal streetlight pole and nothing more. We stopped pedaling yet still sped on. “Hang on,” Ralph said, and at the next intersection he took a fast looping curve that threatened to crash us all, but we managed and curved behind him. We all came to the pole again where we stopped to see up close that there was nothing there, despite what we had seen moments before.
“Maybe it bilocated,” Ben offered. We groaned. We were all thinking it, but I think we were dismissive because it wasn’t as cool a word as ‘teleport.”
“Maybe it just moved when we weren’t looking,” I offered. That hadn’t been long, but that didn’t mean anything if it moved fast. The four of us slowly looked up from the base of the pole to our immediate surroundings. There were bushes. A car in a carport covered by a tarpaulin. The carport itself. Garbage cans. Stumps. Of course the ever-present trees. Whatever it was it could have been hiding behind anything. Maybe it was. We looked. Maybe it would make itself seen. None of us wanted that. “OK, let’s get going,” Ralph said, and we did so.
I got home feeling pretty shaken that afternoon. I felt safe at home. Except for the front room, which had a big bay window looking out onto the street, and the people who lived across it. There were plenty of garbage cans and telephone poles and stumps that a small, fast thing might hide behind. No, I felt more comfortable in my bedroom. There was a window, but a great thick conical cypress tree grew right in front of it, reaching way up over the roof of the house. If anything, it offered ME a place to hide, and peer out onto the street to either side of the tree. It was protective, as good as any heavy blanket.

0:20: Joe describes a serial killer in Ohio, a postal employee, who killed 43. (I can't identify this person. It sounds like John Wayne Gacy, but his details were different.)
1:20: Peruvian conjoined twins separated in Washington, DC. (I can't find this story. In recent accounts Peruvian physicians separate their conjoined twins.)
2:00: Joe tells of the woman who killed her 2 boys to have a relationship with a man. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Smith)
2:30: Joe tells of Roman Catholic priests who have molested children protected by the church. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_priests%27_sex_abuse_scandal)
3:20: Joe tells of the 'DC Sniper' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Boyd_Malvo).
3:50: Joe tells of the California congressman who had an affair with an intern; she was discovered murdered; he was suspected. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandra_Levy) (but wasn't guilty.)
4:20: Joe tells of 23 illegal immigrants, bound to work in a Houston factory, are found dead of heat stroke in a cargo container. (I can't find this story; I know of Chinese immigrants in a container in NY harbor who suffocated and immigrants in box cars in Texas who cooked to death.)
4:40: Young Russian women lured to the US with promises of good jobs are forced into prostitution.
5:00: Larry and Joe talk about their favorite lines from Frost poems.
8:50: Joe tells of the nightclub fire that killed 100. (The Station night club fire, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_nightclub_fire) says that there were others' in Japan and Argentina and elsewhere around the world'. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nightclub_fires) He talks about the callousness of the reporters who cover the stories.
10:10: Joe tells of the toddler entered in beauty contests, her murder. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JonBenet_Ramsey)
10:40: Joe tells of the young woman kidnapped by a cult leader. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Smart)
11:00: Joe tells of the murder of a pregnant woman by her husband. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laci_Peterson)
12:10: Joe tells of the woman in a coma, fought over by her husband and parents. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo)
12:50: Larry tells the story of his daughter accompanying her friend, whose mother in Chicago just had a massive stroke, to visit the mother. Larry and Joe compare their ills.
14:30: Joe says his mother told him, when he was being treated for bladder cancer in 1991, that it's worse for her than him.
14:50: Joe tells of the teacher who had an affair with a 12-year-old student (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debra_Lafave) wishes he had had an older lover when he was a boy.
16:00: Joe tells of the fellow who parked his car on the train tracks to impress a lover who jilted him. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Manuel_Alvarez)
16:40: Joe tells of the trial of a pop star tried for child molesting. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jackson:_2005_trial)
18:20: Joe tells of the earthquake in 2004 that caused a tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake)
18:50: Joe tells of dealing with the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda_genocide)
19:10: Joe tells of the Darfur conflict. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict)
19:40: Joe tells of the westerner beheaded by Arab insurgents. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Pearl)
20:00: Joe tells of suicide bombers in mosques.
20:10: Joe tells of injured veterans at Walter Reed.
20:40: Joe contrasts the $15K bonuses offered for enlistment to the luxury of the wealthy.
22:40: Joe mentions the dangers of avian flu, holes in the ozone layer, global warming, destruction of the Brazilian rainforest, nuclear waste, al Qaeda terrorists.
25:00: Lester Nafzger tells Joe about a game he played in school, 'Smear the queer' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smear_the_queer) . Lester says he's against self-deprecating jokes.
26:30: Joe tells Lester about his 'date' with Ariana Huffington. They go walking. Joe took 2 valium, couldn't keep up. She never called him again.
34:40: 'Each one of us in his or her life has taken small imperceptible steps that added together in the aggregate have changed us profoundly - millions of steps...' Joe talks about the steps we take in life, their significance.
38:30: 'The first chief rabbi of Palestine in the 1920s, before the Holocaust, said that in the face of the suffering in this world, to not contemplate atheism is itself almost sinful.' Joe says we want the transcendent, tells of a rabbi who spoke of 'theological pointillism', that one has to look at the larger picture, not details.
39:40: 'I've had a few experiences which I would consider genuinely religious where I felt the presence of something beyond myself...' Joe talks about why he doesn't participate in organized religion, questions practices of Evangelic Christianity and Islam.
41:40: Joe suggests that if Jerry Falwell had been raised in Qum, Iran, instead, he would have been as passionately Muslim; that Khomeini, raised in an Evangelic Christian family, would have been as passionately Christian.
47:30: Joe tells of having Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs for the first time since he was 16. An old friend from high school calls him, mocks him for his age, says he's probably eating Chef Boyardee spaghetti and meatballs.
50:20: Joe tells of seeing the store 'Tuesday Morning' while driving on Santa Monica Boulevard (901) to St John's hospital (2121 Santa Monica Boulevard) (so Joe's going away from the ocean) to visit his mother just as the DJ on KCRW announces that it's Tuesday morning. He finds the coincidence significant. He stops in on his way back from the hospital, finds it full of kitschy junk.
52:30: Joe wonders if the 2 coincidences are significant, that something is going on, imagines it's his late father, asks Lester what he thinks.
54:00: Lester says he thinks it's because Joe is concerned about death, that, if he looked carefully at other events in his life, he'd find similar coincidences, worries that saying so may harm the comfort Joe gets from feeling that someone is looking after him.
http://jfwiki.org/index.php?title=Bad_Faith

- Why do we die?
- The dead are never truly dead. Maybe they’re not here, now. But everything that once lived, lives on forever. In the eternity of time.
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If there is something that matters in Dark, it is time. But not only because of the trips made through it... There is an aspect related to time that has gone unnoticed and is more important in the story than we might think at first: The time frame in which events take place.
In the narrative, two main periods can be distinguished (without taking into account the years): the week from June 20 to 27 and the week from November 4 to 12. We also have a period of three days in September (21, 22 and 23) and several individual days (it is not possible to determine exactly when some of them happen)
Of these periods, there is one that is special because of the symbology it hides and that can be key in the narrative. We refer to the time in which the first season takes place: November…
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MIKKEL'S OUTFIT
One of the things that really attracts attention in the first episodes is the skeleton suit that Mikkel is wearing. Taking the dates into account, it is inevitable to associate it with a festivity that has been gaining importance in Germany since the 1990s: Halloween.
In addition, in southern Germany (also in Austria), Catholics extend the celebration from October 30 to November 8. They call it “Seleenwoche”, which means “Week of all souls”. These days serve to remember deceased relatives and attend religious services in honor of the saints.
However, in Dark these celebrations are not explicitly alluded to, despite there being subtle indications, such as: Mikkel's costume, Jana's visit to Mads' grave, or various details throughout the series refering to "ghosts" or the "beyond" (see link)
reddit.com/DarK/comments/13td7r3/spoilers_s3_ghosts_and_beyond_in_dark/
This omission may not be accidental, but Jantje is using it as a narrative resource called "paralepsis" with which, offering half information, as a clue, she intends to call attention to precisely what is omitted. It is a “relevant omission” with which she subtracts details from the work that are apparently uninteresting and, nevertheless, they constitute indications hiding and revealing at the same time the story to which they refer, configuring the work as an enigma.
To understand the importance of this "relevant omission" regarding the moment in which the first season of Dark takes place, we have to immerse ourselves in the culture from which the symbol of the triqueta comes from, since Halloween has its origins in a Celtic holiday: the Samhain.
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THE CELTIC EIGHT-FOLD YEAR
Celts did not understand time as a finite line. On the contrary, in their understanding of the Universe, it was considered as an infinite cyclical process. Celtic time is conceived as a circular path that always returns to the same position.
In the past, Celtic communities only observed two seasons: winter and summer (light and dark, life and death). Their year was divided around four lunar festivities that celebrated agricultural and livestock cycles: "Imbolc", "Bealtaine", "Samhain" and “Lughnasa”. There were also four solar festivities corresponding to the equinoxes (spring - "Ostara" and autumn - "Mabon") and the solstices (summer - "Litah" and winter - "Yule"), although these were of lesser importance.
The lunar festivities are also known as "cross-quarter day" as they are located at the midpoint between the equinoxes and the solstices. In this way, the eight festivities mentioned above (known as "Sabbats") mark the astronomical milestones of the Earth's orbit around the Sun.
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SAMHAIN
Samhain is a Gaelic festival marking the end of the harvest season and the descent of the herds to winter pastures. It marks the start of the "Celtic New Year", separating the "light half" from the "dark half" of the year.
Currently, it is usually celebrated on November 1, although, according to some sources, formerly it lasted nine days, grouped into three blocks of three days each and in the center of all of them the day of Samhain. In addition, it would not coincide with a specific date because it was celebrated on the new moon closest to the astronomical midpoint between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice. Earth reaches this midpoint on November 8.
Samhain is believed to have been the pagan Celtic festival of the dead, and over time Samhain and All Saints' Day influenced each other and eventually syncretized into the modern Halloween.
The origins of the celebration date back to the Celtic peoples who inhabited pre-Christian Ireland over 2,000 years ago, and it is associated with many important events in Irish mythology. In the earliest literary records of the holiday, Samhain was characterized by large gatherings and parties and was the time when the ancient burial mounds, which were considered portals to the “Otherworld”, were opened. Some accounts suggest that on Samhain bonfires were made and offerings or sacrifices were made.
Samhain was a liminal or threshold festival, in which, according to Irish mythology, the border between this world and the other was diluted, which meant that supernatural beings such as spirits or fairies, called "Aes Side" (considered by scholars, remnants of pagan gods and nature spirits) could more easily enter our world through portals opened to the "Otherworld".
But also the souls of the dead relatives returned to visit their homes, just as those of the deceased during that year traveled to the "Otherworld" during that night when the veil between the present, the past and the future disappeared.
​
THE “OTHERWORLD"
With the name of "Otherworld" ("Orbis Alia") reference is made in Celtic mythology to the fairy world that coexists with that of human beings. It has been interpreted as an expansive world with numerous domains and kingdoms within it, and is home to many beings (gods, fairies and spirits of all kinds, along with the souls of the dead)
In the Irish mind-set, the "Otherworld" is neither Hell nor Heaven in the sense in which we now consider it. Rather this "Paradise" is a land of eternal youth and bounty, and a place accessible, with difficulty, to the living.
Many of the ancient tales tell of humans gaining access to the "Otherworld". Sometimes they were invited or summoned there by some god or spirit, sometimes they were kidnapped by one of the Otherworlders, and some people entered the "Otherworld" of their own accord during those times of the year when the walls between their world and "Otherworld" were lowered (as during Samhain and Beltane)
The portals to the "Other World" were found in nature and they used to be in caves or at the base of hills, on cliffs... It is also believed that the patches of mist could have some opening to the "Otherworld" within them.
One of the best-known portals is the Oweynagat cave (known as the "Gate to Hell"), near Rathcroghan (Cruachan), the oldest Celtic archaeological complex where the first legends related to Samhain are located. What's more, many people believe that this "Gate to Hell" could be the place where Samhain originated.
The entrance to the Oweynagat cave
The "Otherworld" is sometimes located under the burial mounds, dolmens and other megalithic monuments. Thus, we have the "Sídhe": underground worlds located under mounds of earth or ruins that serve as a refuge for fairies. In this way, stories circulate throughout Ireland about Knocks (from the Irish "Cnoc", meaning "hollow hill") inside which live extensive fairy communities ruled by a king or queen.
In many Old Irish manuscripts, the "Otherworld" is located beyond the Western Sea.
One of the great treasures of the Irish "Otherworld" was a ship that moved across the sea under the power of its pilot's thoughts. This mythological object was called "Ocean Sweeper" (Aigean Scuabadoir) and was brought from the "Otherworld" by the heroic Lugh, later becoming the property of the ocean god Manannan Mac Lir (first ancestor of the human race and god of the dead). He was responsible for transporting the dead heroes to "Tir Tairnigiri" (The Promised Land), where they would find their final resting place in the "Otherworld" located somewhere in the West.
Likewise, according to Gallic myths, once the souls had left their bodies, they went to the northwestern coast of Gaul and there they embarked towards ancient Britain. When they wanted to cross the sea, the souls went to the houses of the sailors, at whose doors they knocked insistently and desperately. The sailors then left their homes and took the dead to their destination in ghostly ships.
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APPLES...
Apples and hazelnuts played an especially important role for the first Celts, which is why they were considered foods from the "Other World". The apple symbolized life and immortality, it was the talisman that allowed access to the "Otherworld" and gave the power to predict the future.
In Celtic mythology, the apple tree is the quintessential "Otherworld" tree. It is believed that an apple tree grows in its center whose fruit has magical properties.
Additionally, apples serve as a graceful food offering that helps spirits travel safely as they pass through the veil between the mundane realms.
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ACORNS....
For the Celts, trees were of great importance, but the most sacred of all was the oak, which represented the "Axis Mundi". The oak was a symbol of connection to the spiritual world, its roots piercing the subterranean realms of the "Otherworld" while its branches reached the heavens.
The oaks also provided an important food: Acorns. The acorn, being a seed, contains both the memory of those that have passed and the promise of those to come, symbolizing the cycle of life and the seasons. They were considered a symbol of growth related to life, representing longevity, immortality, rebirth...
​
https://preview.redd.it/h4djcpn9803b1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=80acfe70585a47d2da3da7a81626787bd7882802
...AND BIRDS
Birds are a powerful force in Celtic mythology, often symbolizing the flight of spirits or the guiding for souls in their transit to the "Otherworld."
The Celts thought that birds were the reincarnation of the souls of the dead, so they could be messengers from the "Other World".
The female characters, especially the witches, are very often associated with birds.
​
THE SYMBOLS IN “DARK”
Next we are going to detail the existing analogies between this Celtic mythology and the story of Dark:
- The title of the series is related to the moment in which it begins: Samhain, the entry into the "dark time" of the year.
- Characters travel to "another world" through a cave.
-When Mikkel enters the cave, he does so guided by a Jonas who comes from another time.
- Mads, Erik and Yasin are kidnapped by a Helge who comes from another time.
- The members of “Sic Mundus” live underground, under the orders of Adam. After, their lair is in the ruins of the nuclear power plant (Remembering the "Cnocs")
- The "sacrifice" is mentioned by several characters.
- We can see apples in many places: it appears in the intro of the series, on the wallpaper in the bunker, with Noah on several occasions, in various fruit bowls (at Ines Kahnwald's 1986 house, at Egon's 1953 house, at Bernard Doppler's house, at Adam's lair, at Alt-Martha's house, at the attic room of the Tannhaus factory…)
- Acorns and birds are also very present elements in the narrative.
​
EPILOGUE - Death and astronomical events
Curiously, although it is not mentioned in the series, three astronomical events take place during the story: the summer solstice (June 21), the autumnal equinox (September 23) and the last "quarter-crossing" (November 8)... Three of the " Sabbat” of the Celtic year…
June 27 is also a special date as it is the day the sun sets the latest.
All these dates are important in Dark: Mikkel's death takes place on June 21 and Katharina's death on September 23. The Apocalypse happens on June 27 in Adam's world and on November 8 in Eva's world.
Finally, all the characters in both worlds “vanish” on November 8, the day Sonja, Marek and Charlotte should have died. Exactly the "quarter-crossing" day of Samhain...
https://preview.redd.it/tijpcsnc903b1.jpg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=59ee9fa2f719d4c298ca4667dec6a77d71ce79d9
​
THE QUESTION...
So, it is inevitable to reach this point without asking the question... Could we understand the story of Dark from a supernatural perspective? Are the worlds of Adam and Eve the "Otherworld" of the origin world? Would Jonas and Martha be "angels" as Marek says?
"Why do we die?..."

With only days separating us from the Centenary Edition of the 24 Heures du Mans, it's time again for the Le Mans Primer thread! This is the place if you’ve got any questions about the 2023 Le Mans event, no matter how small! There are no dumb questions about Le Mans!

CONTENTS

• The Race
• Session Times
• The Track
• The Classes
• The Legends
• Videos and Documentaries
• Entry List and Spotters Guide
• Endurance Chat podcast
• Broadcast Details
• Social Media
• Live Timing
• Get Involved!

The Race

It all comes back to Le Mans. A century ago, people asked ‘Could a car continue to drive for 24 hours straight?’, an event was made to test that theory, and a legacy in racing, motorsport, and motoring was born. The 24 Heures du Mans is the holy grail of endurance motor racing, and brings up its Centenary edition this year. In its 100 year history, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is recognised as the most prestigious and gruelling test for innovations and improvements in motorsport technology. Technologies such as disk and air brakes, streamlined bodywork, fuel, oil, and lubricant improvements, improvements to engine efficiency and longevity, even things as simple as LED lighting and windscreen wiper blades have been trialled and tested at Le Mans. The normally hot conditions in the middle of June stretch the limits of reliability, with all the teams knowing that in order to beat their competitors, they must first beat the event. A variety of different engine configurations, displacements, positions, fuels, and hybrids have won over the history of the event. So far, petrol-fuelled traditional piston engines have been the most successful. Mazda managed to win using a Wankel Rotary engine in 1991 with the Mazda 787b (oh god listen to that sound!), while Audi was the first to win with an alternate fuel, taking victory in the diesel-powered R10 TDI in 2006. 2012 ushered in the era of the Hybrid, with Audi taking victory in the R18 e-tron Quattro, featuring a flywheel hybrid engine.

Qualifying

The Qualifying format for Le Mans is unique to the event, and called Hyperpole. In this format, all classes are permitted to use the track in the 1 hour qualifying session on Wednesday evening. The top 6 cars from each of the 4 classes then progress to the Hyperpole session on Thursday night, which sets the top of the grid for each class. This means that each class will be segregated on the final grid.

Session Times

• Ligier European Series Practice 1 – Sunday June 4th, 08:00 Local, 06:00 UTC, 02:00 ET, 16:00 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Ligier European Series Qualifying 1 – Sunday June 4th, 09:15 Local, 07:15 UTC, 03:15 ET, 17:15 AEST – 20 Minutes
• Test Day Session 1 - Sunday June 4th, 10:00 Local, 08:00 UTC, 04:00 ET, 18:00 AEST – 3 Hours
• Ligier European Series Race - Sunday June 4th, 14:00 Local, 12:00 UTC, 08:00 ET, 22:00 AEST – 60 Minutes
• Test Day Session 2 - Sunday June 4th, 15:30 Local, 13:30 UTC, 09:30 ET, 23:30 AEST – 3 Hours
• Porsche Carrera Cup Practice 1 – Wednesday June 7th, 09:00 Local, 07:00 UTC, 03:00 ET, 17:00 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Ferrari Challenge Practice 1 – Wednesday June 7th, 10:15 Local, 08:15 UTC, 04:15 ET, 18:15 AEST - 45 Minutes
• Road To Le Mans Practice 1 – Wednesday June 7th, 11:30 Local, 09:30 UTC, 05:30 ET, 19:30 AEST – 1 Hour
• Free Practice 1 - Wednesday June 7th, 14:00 Local, 12:00 UTC, 08:00 ET, 22:00 AEST - 3 Hours
• Qualifying Practice - Wednesday June 7th. 19:00 Local, 17:00 UTC, 13:00 ET, Thursday 03:00 AEST - 1 Hour
• Road To Le Mans Practice 2 – Wednesday June 7th, 20:30 Local, 18:30 UTC, 14:30 ET, Thursday 04:30 AEST - 1 Hour
• Free Practice 2 - Wednesday June 7th, 22:00 Local, 20:00 UTC, 16:00 ET, Thursday 06:00 AEST - 2 Hours
• Ferrari Challenge Practice 2 – Thursday June 8th, 09:00 Local, 07:00 UTC, 03:00 ET, 17:00 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Porsche Carrera Cup Practice 2 – Thursday June 8th, 10:55 Local, 08:55 UTC, 04:55 ET, 18:55 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Road To Le Mans Qualifying Practice – Thursday June 8th, 12:55 Local, 10:55 UTC, 06:55 UTC, 20:55 AEST – 20 Minutes x 2 Classes
• Free Practice 3 - Thursday June 8th, 15:00 Local, 13:00 UTC, 09:00 ET, 23:00 AEST - 3 Hours
• Road To Le Mans Race 1 - Thursday June 8th, 18:30 Local, 16:30 UTC, 12:30 ET, Friday 02:30 AEST - 55 Minutes
• HYPERPOLE - Thursday June 8th, 20:00 Local, 18:00 UTC, 14:00 ET, Friday 04:00 AEST - 30 Minutes
• Free Practice 4 - Thursday June 8th, 22:00 Local, 20:00 UTC, 16:00 ET, Friday 06:00 AEST - 2 Hours
• Porsche Carrera Cup Qualifying – Friday June 9th, 09:00 Local, 07:00 UTC, 03:00 ET, 17:00 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Ferrari Challenge Qualifying – Friday June 9th, 10:15 Local, 08:15 UTC, 04:15 ET, 18:15 AEST – 45 Minutes
• Road To Le Mans Race 2 - Friday June 9th, 11:30 Local, 09:30 UTC, 05:30 ET, 19:30 AEST – 55 Minutes
• Ferrari Challenge Race 1 - Saturday June 10th, 09:30 Local, 07:30 UTC, 03:30 ET, 17:30 AEST - 45 Minutes
• Porsche Carrera Cup Race 1 - Saturday June 10th, 10:45 Local, 08:45 UTC, 04:45 ET, 18:45 AEST - 45 Minutes
• Warm Up - Saturday June 10th, 12:00 Local, 10:00 UTC, 06:00 ET, 20:00 AEST – 15 Minutes
• RACE START - **Saturday June 11th, 16:00 Local, 14:00 UTC, 10:00 ET, Sunday 00:00 AEST

The Track

The Circuit de la Sarthe covers 13.6 kilometres of the French country side. It combines the permanent race components of the Ford Chicanes, the pit straight, under the Dunlop Bridge and through to Tertre Rouge as well as the normal everyday roads of the Mulsanne straight through to Indianapolis and Arnage. The track has gone through many iterations over the years; originally, the cars raced into the heart of the city, turning just before the river Sarthe, before hurtling down the 8.6 kilometre straight. In 1932, the circuit removed the journey into the city, and more closely resembled the track we see today. Here’s a video of Mike Hawthorn touring the circuit with a camera and microphone attached in 1956, one year after his involvement in the Le Mans disaster. The addition of the Porsche Curves and the Ford Chicanes in 1972 added an extra dimension to the high speed, fast flowing track. In the late 80’s, the Group C prototype cars would reach over 400km/h, achieving average speeds of almost 250km/h in qualifying for the entire lap. This is an onboard of Derek Bell’s Porsche 956 in 1983, showing the ridiculous speeds on this configuration of the circuit. This configuration remained relatively unchanged right up to 1990, until FIA mandations required that for the circuit to be sanctioned, it must not have a straight longer than 2km. The 6km Mulsanne straight was cut down into three relatively equal length portions by two chicanes, giving the iteration of the circuit used today. Allan McNish takes you on an onboard lap of the 2008 circuit in this video. McNish is one of the gods of the modern prototype era, winning Le Mans 3 times; once with Porsche and twice with Audi. For a more comprehensive focus on the track, John Hindhaugh’s track walk takes you on a 30 minute exploration of the track, with in depth focus on corners like the Dunlop Esses, Tertre Rouge, Mulsanne Corner, and the Ford Chicanes.
For some modern on boards, check out the fastest ever lap in the Circuit de la Sarthe: Kamui Kobayashi's 3:14.791 in 2017 Q2, and last year’s Hyperpole lap, by Brendon Hartley, setting a 3:24.408
The Dunlop Bridge
The iconic Dunlop Bridge has been a part of the Le Mans track since 1932, making it the oldest Dunlop Bridge at any track. This part of the track requires a good launch out of the first chicane before cresting the brow of the hill, and plunging through the esses out onto the Mulsanne straight. As the LMP cars are much more maneuverable, caution must be taken passing the slower GT traffic, as Allan McNish discovered in 2011.
Tertre Rouge
Tertre Rouge is the corner that launches the cars onto the long Mulsanne straight. Maintaining momentum through this corner as it opens on exit is imperative to ensure maximum straight line speed heading down the first part of the Mulsanne. The undulation in the road makes for fantastic viewing at night, with some magic images of the Porsches throwing up sparks on the exit in 2014. Finally, this was the location of Allan Simonsen’s fatal crash in mixed conditions in the 2013 Le Mans. The Danish flags will fly at the corner in his memory.
Mulsanne Corner
After the incredibly long Mulsanne straight, the Mulsanne corner nowadays features a subtle right hand kink before the tight 90 degree turn. Here, the cars decelerate from 340 km/h down to below 100 km/h, resulting in a brilliant opportunity to overtake. Again, care must be taken overtaking slower traffic; unaware drivers have caught out faster cars attempting to pass through the kink, such as Anthony Davidson’s spectacular crash in 2012 resulting in a broken vertebra for Davidson.
Indianapolis and Arnage
The Indanapolis and Arnage complex is one of the most committed areas of the track. Hurtling down the hill from the Mulsanne Corner, the road suddenly bends to the right, a corner which only the bravest prototype drivers take flat out, followed by a beautifully cambered open left hander taken in third gear. A short sprint leads the cars into Arnage, the slowest point on the track. The tight right hander was the scene of heartbreak for Toyota in 2014 when the leading #7 broke down and had to be retired after an FIA sensor melted and shut off the electronics. Kazuki Nakajiima was unable to make it to the pits, leaving him stranded on the circuit.
The Porsche Curves
At a terrifyingly high speed, the Porsche Curves is the most committed part of the lap. Getting caught behind GT traffic in this section can mean losing phenomenal amounts of time. This was the site of Loic Duval’s horrific crash in practice for the 2014 event. Keeping momentum through the flowing right-left-right handers that lead into Maison Blanche requires 100% commitment and ultimate precision, with severe punishment for getting it wrong. The exit of the Porsche Curves underwent significant change in 2020, with additional run-off added in the middle part of the section. This has turned the treacherous and claustrophobic sweeping left-hander into an open and sweeping corner, encouraging every little bit of road to be used on the exit. What it hasn’t changed is the terrific consequences for making a mistake
The Ford Chicanes
The final chapter in the 13.6km rollercoaster that is Le Mans is the Ford Chicanes. Two tight left-right handers with massive kerbs are all that separates the driver from the finish line. Watching the cars bounce over the kerbs in beautiful slow motion is certainly something to behold, but 24 hours of mistreatment can lead to suspension and steering issues. The drivers have to be attentive until the very end, lest they throw it all away in the last minutes of the race.
The Circuit de la Sarthe requires over 85% of the lap on full throttle, with the cars accelerating from less than 100km/h to over 300km/h five times each lap. The challenge of having a car finish Le Mans is in itself, an achievement.

The Classes

The WEC consists of three classes on track at once, resulting in three separate races on track each in their own battle for 24 Hours. The classes are split based on their car type, with LMH and LMDh machinery facing off in the Hypercar class, purpose built prototypes with a spec engine and gearbox battling in LMP2, and GT machinery racing in GTE. Each class has its own set of regulations, driver requirements, and relevance for the Le Mans event.

Hypercar

The current top class of endurance sportscars is Hypercar, combining cars built to Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) and Le Mans Daytona (LMDh) specifications. Fighting it out will be LMH machinery from Toyota, Ferrari, Peugeot, Glickenhaus and Peugeot, while Porsche and Cadillac will be racing in LMDh cars. The LMH cars are bespoke sportscars, designed to a strict set of requirements dictating maximum power, drag coefficient, and weight, amongst other parameters, intended to limit the cost of the category. LMDh machines on the other hand are based on the future LMP2 chassis offerings, with manufacturers able to develop their own engines and bodywork, aligning with the power and drag coefficients of LMH. As part of cost-cutting, the Hypercar class is also subject to a Balance of Performance (BoP) formula, to level the playing field and ensure good racing! Hypercars are a little slower than their LMP1 predecessors, with lap times around the 3:24 mark for the Circuit de la Sarthe, which is on par with the 2014 LMP1 cars.

LMP2

The second prototype class is LMP2, and provides an excellent platform for endurance racing on a budget. The LMP2 class features a spec drivetrain and gearbox, using a Gibson V8 producing 400kW, and a selection of three chassis to choose from, of which the Oreca 07 has been the chassis of choice. This ensures that the competition in the class is very tight, and often comes down to the drivers and the team’s performance instead of just having the best car. While LMP2 was capable of 3:25 lap times in years previous, part of the ‘stratification’ of classes with Hypercar’s inclusion, the LMP2 class has lost some power and had some weight added. This should put LMP2 at the heels of the LMH pace, but with laptimes outside the 3:28 mark.
LMP2 is the first class that must feature amateur rated drivers. The Amateurs must drive for a minimum of 6 hours in the car over the course of the race. This means that there's an element of strategy of when to use your amateur driver throughout the race, as the amateur driver is generally slower than the Pros. The pro drivers in this class range from up and coming talent, former F1 drivers, and some of the best sportscar pilots in the world, and with 244 cars in this class, LMP2 is sure to be a hotbed of action over the 24 hours.

LMGTE-Am

GT class cars are cars that are derived from production models, and feature some of the most iconic cars and brands battling it out at the top of the field. The GTE cars are on the border of aero dependency, and can lap Le Mans in around 3:45 in a professional driver’s hands.
This year is the last year of the GTE class, and features 21 cars in a Pro-Am category, with cars from Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin, and Chevrolet on the grid. Despite the lack of a Pro category, the driver quality in GTE-Am is still incredibly high, with factory drivers, young stars, experienced champions and every level of experience in between on the grid, with each car featuring two Bronze or Silver rated drivers. With two amateur drivers, the strategy considerations multiply. While GTE-Am might be the class focussed on the least over the course of the race, the stories that come from this class are phenomenal, and it's well worth following.
The GT classes feature a range of different cars and configurations, and to equalise each of these against each other, the class goes through a process called 'Balance of Performance' or BoP. The organisers can adjust each individual car's weight, fuel tank, air restrictor, turbo boost pressures, and aero performance to alter performance levels to enable the different cars to race competitively. This can sometimes be contentious as every team will feel hard done by, but it is a necessary evil to having the variety of cars on the grid.

Innovative Car

Each year, there is the option for an Innovative Car, with untested or innovative technology, allowed to enter in it’s own category. In years past, this has allowed for entries from the Deltawing, or a modified LMP2 to allow amputees to race.
This year, the Innovative Car entry is a modified Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Next-Gen NASCAR, run by Hendrick Motorsports. The Next-Gen NASCAR features modifications to allow it to run safely on the Circuit de la Sarthe, and will be driven by multiple NASCAR Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button, and Le Mans Overall Winner Mike Rockenfeller.

The Legends

Part of the allure of the Le Mans 24 Hours is the history, and the legends steeped in history over the course of its 88 previous editions. The race has had many headline battles in its history - periods of time where two or three teams went toe to toe for years, with the drivers, cars, and brands embroiled in these battles given the chance to elevate themselves above the rest, and show their prowess.
In 2019, we at /WEC, took our normal Le Mans Legends celebrations to a new level; each week, members of the community have been writing reviews on some of the closest, most fascinating finishes in Le Mans history! You can check out these reports below!

• The 1966 Dead Heat by kinkymulsanne
• 1983; Factory Porsche dominates with a 1-2 victory, but only just! by Floodman11
• 1987; The colossal struggle between Porsche and Jaguar (Part 1) by Lagiacrus7
• 2016; FUCK by Cybershrike
• 1979; Boogie Nights meets Days Of Thunder by SolHiemis
• 1991; the Hiroshima Screamer Prevails by AE_Racer
• 2010; the Day the Peugeots All Died by kiwichris1709
• 1999; The Le Mans Turning Point by starzonda
• 2011; The Final Audi vs Peugeot Rivalry by Stuff_And_More
• 1988; The colossal struggle between Porsche and Jaguar (part 2) by Lagiacrus7

Bonus CookieMonsterFL Write-Ups

• 3.5L: The Downfall of Group C
• Airborne Crashes

For a bite-sized history lesson on every Le Mans event, check out this post by u/JohannesMeanAd2, describing every Le Mans in a single sentence!
The early races were dominated by the Bentley company in their Speed 6, who won 5 of the first 7 races. Cars were separated into classes by their engine displacement, and the overall winner was based on distance covered. If two cars had finished with the same number of laps, the car with the smaller displacement was declared the winner. The race wasn't run during the second world war, and comparatively very little information is available on the stories of the early days of Le Mans.
After the second world war, teams such as Jaguar, Ferrari, Mercedes, and Aston Martin became the dominant teams. This era featured the legendary Jaguar D type, the Mercedes Benz 300 SLR, the Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, and the Aston Martin DBR1. Jaguar won 5 times between 1951 and 1957, followed by an era of Ferrari dominance. Drivers such as Mike Hawthorn, Stirling Moss, Juan Manuel Fangio, and John Fitch became household names as Le Mans became a battle between German engineering and British "garagistas".
Ferrari and Ford was the story of the 60's, with Ferrari winning 6 times straight before Ford won four in a row with the GT40 Mk II, taking their first win in 1966. The story of their rivalry is legendary in it's own right - Henry Ford had almost successfully bought out the Ferrari motor company, only to be knocked back by Enzo himself at the 11th hour. In retaliation, Ford planned to hurt Ferrari where it mattered most; on the track. The Ford GT40 was so comprehensively dominant that it won the 1966 edition 21 laps ahead of the next car back - a Porsche 906/6. None of the Ferrari 330P3's finished the race. This battle gave drivers like Bruce Mclaren, Dan Gurney, and Jacky Ickx their first Le Mans victories, and propelled them to the forefront of motorsport stardom at the height of motorsport's popularity.
The 1970's saw the dawn of Porsche, with the 917k taking the brand's first win in 1970, with the same car winning the following year in the hands of Helmut Marko (yes, that Helmut Marko). It would be 5 years before Porsche would win again, with Matra taking 3 victories in the interim, each at the hands of Henri Pescarolo. Porsche returned with the 936 and the 956/962c dominating the race for the next 20 years. In fact, from 1970, Porsche won 12 times in 18 events, including 7 in a row, and they miiight have been a bit cheeky about it. Amongst these 12 wins, there were 4 for both Jacky Ickx and Derek Bell, and two for IMSA legend Hurley Haywood, as well as the first win for the Joest team in 1984. This era coincided with the introduction, and subsequent destruction of the Group C sportscar formula, widely regarded as the best Sportscar championship regulations of all time. Porsche’s dominance was eventually ended by Jaguar in the XJR-9LM, at the height of Group C’s magic. Ickx's 6 wins at this stage had earned him the nickname 'Mr Le Mans', a fitting title for one of the best drivers in the world at the time.
GT cars became a force to be reckoned with at the end of the Group C era, with classes being split into LMGTP and LMP. McLaren and Porsche had wins in GTP cars, in the F1 GTR and the 911 GT1 respectively, while Porsche, BMW and Peugeot scored LMP wins. 1997 saw the first win for Tom Kristensen, while the following year Allan McNish took his first victory, starting their journeys into the legend books of Le Mans.
The 2000’s ushered in the era of Audi, with all 13 of their wins coming since the turn of the century. GTP was disbanded due to safety issues, being replaced by GT1 and GT2. Audi picked up wins in the R8, the R10, the R15, and the R18, often dominating the might of the Peugeot 908. Audi's dominance elevated not only their drivers to legend status, but also their team managers, car designers, and race engineers. People like Reinhold Joest (team manager), Dr Wolfgang Ullrich (Audisport director), Ulrich Baretzky (engine designer), Leena Gade, Howden Haynes (race engineers) behind the wall and Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen, Rinaldo Capello, Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer have become household names in the sport not only for their wins, but their longevity and domination. Audi's dominance was only broken by a win for Bentley in 2003, running basically an Audi under a British racing green skin, and Peugeot in 2009, before being ended for good by Porsche in 2015. After both Porsche and Audi left the top class, Toyota rose to dominance, taking the last 3 Le Mans events in a row!
Between 2015 and 2017, Porsche added to their victories, now holding a record 19 overall victories at the Circuit de la Sarthe. Audi trail with 13, with Ferrari, Jaguar and Bentley holding the next three positions. Toyota finally took their first overall victory in 2018, and have won every year since. Tom Kristensen is has the most victories at Le Mans, with 9 overall victories over his career with Porsche, Audi and Bentley, inheriting the title of Mr Le Mans.

Videos and Documentaries

• Truth in 24 and Truth in 24 II - The story of Audi’s victories against testing conditions and the might of Peugeot in 2008 and 2011.
  
• Le Mans - made in 1971, this movie follows a fictional Le Mans race in 1970, featuring fantastic footage and sounds of the Porsche 917 and the Ferrari 512 starring Steve McQueen
  
• Michael Fassbender:Road To Le Mans Season 1 - Season 2 - Season 3 - The journey that Michael Fassbender has taken from movie star to Porsche GTE-Am driver, detailing his racing through the ranks of Carrera Cup, Le Mans Cup, and ELMS.
  
• The Deadliest Crash - The BBC documentary on the 1955 Le Mans disaster. For more information, see CookieMonsteFL’s amazing post on the incident
  
• Our Return: A documentary of our road to Le Mans 2015 - Porsche’s youtube documentary chronicling their return to Le Mans and their eventual win.
  
• McLaren at Le Mans: Pursuit of Perfection - The story behind McLaren's 1995 victory
  
• The fastest ever lap at the Circuit de la Sarthe. Kamui Kobayashi's 3:14.791 in 2017 Q2
  
• Mark Blundell’s explosive lap - Blundell was going so fast, he was overheating the blowers in the car. After being told to turn down the engine and abandon the lap, in true racing driver fashion he simply turned off the radio.
  
• Clearwater Racing: Journey to the 24 hours of Le mans
  
• Cetilar Racing: The Italian Spirit of Le Mans - A documentary on Cetilar Villorba Corse's journey to Le Mans in 2018
  
• McLaren at Le Mans: Pursuit of Perfection - The McLaren F1 road car's story and development for the historic LeMans race of 1995.
  
• Ford vs Ferrari / Le Mans '66 - Coming out late 2019, this movie tells (a stylised version of) the story of the battle between Ford and Ferrari at Le Mans in the late 1960's. While there are some inaccuracies, the movie has been widely heralded as one of the best Motorsport themed movies ever made, and has been enjoyed by critics and motorsport fans alike.
  
• Michael Fassbender: Road To Le Mans Season 1 and 2, Season 3, Season 4 – Actor and Amateur Driver Michael Fassbender documents his 4 year journey from Porsche Carrera Cup into the ELMS and finally, to the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
  

Entry List

Spotters Guide to be added when released!

Once again, /WEC will have a community spotters guide thanks to the efforts of Ziombel_444! The planned release date is the 6th of June, so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Check out Ziombel_444's other work at Spotters.Guide, and support this great effort!

Endurance Chat

/WEC's podcast, Endurance Chat, will have four episodes in the lead up to Le Mans, as well as a Pre-Pre-Race show in the hours before the event. Watch this space for updates!

• Endurance Chat S8E11 – The Centenary 24 Hours of Le Mans Preview - History, context, and insight into this year’s edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours
  
• Endurance Chat S8E12 - The 2023 Le Mans 24 Hour Hypercar Class Guide – COMING SOON
  
• Endurance Chat S8E13 - The 2023 Le Mans 24 Hour LMP2 Class Guide – COMING SOON
  
• Endurance Chat S8E14 – The 2023 Le Mans 24 Hour LMGTE-Am Class Guide – COMING SOON
  

In addition, Endurance Chat made a series of features detailing the history of sportscars in the late 60’s and early 70’s, at the transition point of GT and Prototype machinery. The series details some of the machinery, events, and drivers in one of the fastest and most dangerous periods in racing history. You can find a playlist to these features here!

Streaming and Television

In the past, the FIAWEC Broadcast has started from Qualifying Practice. We are awaiting confirmation if that is the case this year – Streams for non-FIAWEC sessions after that point will be subject to the organisers of those series broadcasting those sessions.

• Official stream OUTSIDE US ONLY - The Le Mans package gives you access to all WEC sessions (Qualifying, Warm Up and the Race) with a choice of on boards, cross platform compatibility, and up to 5 devices connected at once. Additionally, replays of the event are free after the event. Official comms headed by Martin Haven, Anthony Davidson, and Graham Goodwin, who in my personal opinion properly nail the tone of the event. Has been known to get overloaded and crash however
• Eurosport will likely be broadcasting the event in a variety of locales throughout Europe. This will be updated when confirmed
• Radio Le Mans will be streaming live radio for every session

For American audiences, unfortunately the Official stream is geoblocked for your area. Information on how to watch will be updated when confirmed

• [Official TV Broadcast distribution](COMING SOON) Find out how to watch in your region!

Any further updates on TV or Streaming distribution will be added as they are released!

Social Media

If you're looking for more interaction, you can find most of the teams, drivers and commentators on Twitter, giving you instant interaction with those in the midst of the event.

If someone wants to make a twitter list for the teams/driveetc for this year, that would be greatly appreciated!

Live timing

• Official Live Timing

Be sure to join the discord for alternate timing solutions!

Get Involved!

By far the most fun you can have watching an endurance race is watching it with the official /WEC Discord! It's a lot of fun and a really great atmosphere to watch the race in!
If you want to have a go at picking who you think will be winning in each class, jump into mwclarkson's Fantasy Endurance Contest! It's free to enter, and if you win, you'll get the satisfaction and achievement of being right!
If there's anything you'd like us to add, or need clarification on, please comment below and we'll add it in!`

u/Aathranax responded (poorly) to my post about messianics not being Jews. My responses are interspersed as the indented quotations. (I can't respond directly because I was banned from their sub. DO NOT BRIGADE THEIR POST.) Parts of the original have been removed for the sake of brevity.

so a while ago the Messianicphobic crowd decided to create a sub in an effort to address things that we supposedly claim (which is funny because a huge majority of things I've seen from it are things that have never even left my mouth EVER) this is my first of X posts that ill be doing addressing this total lunacy.
The first one being on Maimonides and Apostates Jews.
before I even begin to address the post in question its important to note that Maimonides was not a member of Chazal, he wasn't a member of the Great Court and thus did not have authentic Semikhah going back to Mount Sinai as such, what he says is fundamentally his opinion. An opinion some readers my agree with sure, but an opinion all the same. Ergo NOT AUTHORTATIVE. so with out of the way let us begin
The post starts with this quote from the Mishnah Torah. the linch pin here in the wording of "false gods" I'm willing to concede that Maimonides would have likly seen normative Christianity as such however Messianic Judaism IS NOT normative Christianity and only someone unfamiliar with our community would be foolish enough to think otherwise. Messianic Judaism is not any form of Christianity that Maimonides would have even recognized as it didn't exist in his time.

How are you not Christian? You worship Jesus. You proclaim him God. Every Messianic institution upholds the trinity, including the one you claim to belong to. You accept the new testament (a collection of texts declared authoritative by the Christian church), and you practice their central rituals of baptism and communion even if you try to hide it behind different terminology. In what way are you not Christian? Everything that makes Christianity idolatry, you accept. You are not different from the mainstream evangelical church in any meaningful way.

Furthermore Maimonides viewed normative Christianity as idolatry and for good reason, Many Christians in his time were unironically worshiping the Cross itself and used the image Rabbi Yeshua as God. Now I cannot speak for everyone here, I can only speak as a member of UMJC / MJRC standards that you'd be hard press to find anyone in my particular party doing anything Maimonides would recognize as being part of the idolatry problems within normative Christianity.

Maimonides expressly condemned Christianity as idolatry. This would've been for a number of reasons: the Trinity is a violation of the unity of God; worshipping a man is expressly forbidden; claiming that God has a body likewise violates the unity of God; etc. It's not just because Catholics use statues and paintings in their churches; that is only part of the problem. It's because Christian theology is idolatry through and through. For reference from this site : "In his interpretation of the Mishna, tractate Avoda Zara 1:3, he writes: “Know that this Chriatian nation, who are making the claim of a messiah, with all their many different sects, are all idol worshippers and all their holidays are forbidden, and we deal with them regarding religious issues as we would pagans.”
"And he adds (AZ 4): “Therefore one must know that in every one of the Christian nation’s cities which has an altar, meaning their house of worship, it is a pagan house of idolatry without any doubt.”'
Again, you are not the exception.

Which further complicates the suggestion that the original poster somehow knows what Maimonides would think about the state of todays world.
The Talmud clearly labels Christianity avodah zarah (idolatry) in the tractate Avodah Zarah 7b. Messianics are Christians and therefore idolaters.
This is not how identity works, you can think we're Christians and certainly via some definitions that would be true to some capacity but what does Avodah Zarah 7b actually say?
This section of the Talmud seems to conflate the notion of being Christian as having festivals (day of worship) on Sunday, Messianics have it on Saturday like any other normative Jew. this may seem like pilpul but it is a total issue on definitions.

You have entirely missed the point. The idolatry they were focused on wasn't about the day of the week. It was about worshiping Jesus. The day of the week is mentioned to make it clear why doing business with Christians (i.e. idolaters) was entirely forbidden. Because they were discussing the claim that business can't be done three days before or three days after a pagan festival. Christians, as pagans, have a festival every seven days, which means that there is no time before or after the festival on which a Jew can do business with them. Moving your day to Saturday doesn't resolve that issue or have any bearing on your status as an idolater.

The more eagle eyed might have caught on that this is on section on the prohibition of BUSSNESS. the actual status as idol worship doesn't actually appear here.

Indeed it does. Because Christians are idolaters, Jews can't do business with them at certain times, which is what this tractate is discussing. The status of idolaters is foundational to the meaning of this text.

Indeed that issue in reality comes from that of The Trinity which some Messiaincs COMPLETELY REJECT

Some may, but they still worship a man, and that is the idolatry. Please show me a single messianic organization that says Jesus was not God, that he was a merely human messiah. There isn't one because there can't be one, in part because your Christian scriptures proclaim him to be God and lord. The Christian theology at the heart of your sect needs Jesus to be divine because otherwise, he was a failure or a human sacrifice. Both disqualify him from being of any importance within Judaism.

you'd think for someone who hates us this much that they would bother to do their homework and work out if this is even applicable?! Furthermore there are respected Rabbis who do not agree with this view at all The Meiri in his commentary on Avodah Zarah 2b and 6b states that Christanity IS NOT idol worship.

Like you said, the Meiri was not one of the chazal. In fact, he lived after Maimonides. So, by your own standard, we can ignore his opinion just as you ignore Maimonides. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

As idolaters, even those Messianics from a Jewish background have effectively removed themselves from Am Yisrael. According to Judaism, Messianics are unequivocally not Jews.
A Jew is a Jew is a Jew, hence the rest of this statement need not be addressed.

Apostasy is an important element of Jewish law that removes people from the community. You may still retain a legal identification as a Jew in some limited respects, which places particular restrictions on the interactions Jews can have with you. But as an apostate you are no longer a member of the community. You retain the obligation to repent and return to Judaism, but you are not a Jew in the sense of being a practitioner of the religion of Judaism. So in any relevant sense of the word "Jew," you are not Jewish so long as you are Christian. This is because Christianity is not Judaism. This is not a difficult concept to understand.

"Truth did not come into the world naked but in symbols and images. The world cannot receive truth in any other way. There is rebirth and an image of rebirth, and it is by means of this image that one must be reborn. What image is this? It is resurrection. Image must arise through image. By means of this image the bridal chamber and the image must approach the truth. This is restoration."
"The names of worldly things are utterly deceptive, for they turn the heart from what is real to what is unreal. Whoever hears the word god thinks not of what is real but rather of what is unreal. So also with the words father, son, holy spirit, life, light, resurrection, church, and all the rest, people do not think of what is real but of what is unreal, [though] the words refer to what is real. The words [that are] heard belong to this world. [Do not be] deceived. If words belonged to the eternal realm, they would never be pronounced in this world, nor would they designate worldly things. They would refer to what is in the eternal realm."
What would images be? What would symbols be? What is this difference between 'the thing' and the 'name of the thing'?
Krishnamurti said that "the word is not the thing", to which he meant practically the same thing expressed in the Gospel of Philip.
"The eagle in its flight does not leave a mark, only scientists do. And looking into this question of freedom there must be not only scientific observation, but also the flight of the eagle which leaves absolutely no mark; both are necessary; that is, both verbal explanation and non-verbal perception, bearing in mind that the description is never what is described, the explanation is never the thing that is explained, that the word is never the thing." (The Flight of the Eagle, London 2nd Public Talk 16th March 1969)
"The description of a flower is not the flower. The photograph of a flower is not the flower. The word or picture is not the ‘thing’. When Krishnamurti uses words to describe or communicate something, these words are not the ‘thing’. When people listen to him or read his books, what they understand is not the ‘thing’ he tries to communicate. Verbal communication is partial and some kind of distortion occurs between what is communicated by him and what is understood by his read…ers. Is there another way of communicating- non verbal way- in which there is no distortion? -when understanding or realization is immediate, not through thinking? Such a communion happened when Gautam Buddha was talking with his 5 friends in Sarnath after his Enlightenment. When Buddha was speaking, he looked at the face of Kondanna and said-'Kondanna! You have got It!'." (https://krishnamurti-canada.ca/word-not-thing/)
The symbols/pictures are not the truth but express the unspeakable truth, this reality of the word not being enough to express something beyond is reflected in our own lives where many times we cannot find words to explain something to someone, although this is subjective.
The question remains for us to discuss about it and thus through this interaction clarify the question for all those who will possibly see it and who are beginning to study Gnosticism.

All Chapters First Chapter of Alien-Nation Previous Chapter
Chapter summary: Vaughn liberates a bunch of people. Elias can't sleep and makes some decisions and receives a weird offer.
Chapter Art- Vaughn's Mask, a World War One Tanker Splatter Mask

Alien-Nation Chapter 169: Jailbreak

A Leslie's Pool Supplies retail outlet made for a strange rally point for any group of people, even moreso now that the whole strip mall along what had been Concord Pike had long since closed. The stainless letters spelled the forgotten name of the shopping center, still proudly adorned the top of the diagram of blank signs ensured at least the brick obelisk was a conveniently obvious marker for the men to find and make preparations for assaulting the jail.
'Morningstar' squadron had swelled their cell's numbers to well over twenty by absorbing the miscellaneous fragments of other cells, whose skills were more generalized. The name carried over to the newly formed Strike Force by virtue of being both the largest and the lynchpin of the operation's success.
This was the largest force of the three organized groups they'd split into, each aiming to try and hit the larger jails along Route 202, the other two branches making a target list of their own. Vendetta had given them an extra half hour to at least get themselves close to in-position, but with only one shortwave had no way of knowing if they would coordinate their strike. He was a known element to everyone even if only by name. At least Elias's words stayed true; All seemed very familiar and well-practiced with their carried weaponry. More importantly, none contested his assigned leadership or questioned his orders.
Vaughn cradled the RPG he'd been given, eyeing the well-lit building just over the carefully landscaped hill. The last had been over a half hour ago. The box-mart across the old highway was the temporary headquarters of the repositioned Troop One, after the suburbs near Camp Death had been cleared, likely soon to be repositioned again. But the size of the old box-mart seemed to indicate several things, that it was largely indefensible, could contain a fair few prisoners, and by its proximity to Camp Death, could be useful to strike regardless.
The flow of traffic was unusually heavy for being well before the crack of dawn. Perhaps people were trying their luck getting up old 202 to try and reach the border that way, after having no luck along other closed border checkpoints. There was a feeling of self-consciousness in carrying heavy weapons out in the open along a suburban highway most had driven along during peacetime, the juxtaposition of old familiar environment and newly familiar activity showing just how much their lives had changed. Moreso as cars rolled along it like it was a Friday night of olde, the two lives- old and new, bumping shoulders for a moment.
"You ready?" He asked, snapping them back to the present.
Mutters of assent was good enough. Haltingly, everyone in the mishmashed strike team moved toward the precinct's bright lights, taking advantage of the long shadows and occasional noise of the passing cars.
It was an unassuming building, the repurposed garrison made out of some retail outlet built back in the turbulent seventies, all brick and little else but tiny glass doors, with not even windows for the occupants to know the impending violence had been approaching. What era will this be known as? Early Imperial? Resistance? Revolutionary? Wondered the teen, as he leveled it at the lobby. Good? Bad? Hell, I'm just the man with the gun.
Everyone levelled their weapons as once, and Vaughn held a hand high. "We're here to liberate the prison, not blow it sky high," he chuckled. It was hardly armored or reinforced- or at least, so it seemed to him. And if it was, then the Data Center had shown the virtue of striking the same spot with concentrated fire beat showering it with dispersed impacts.
At least the glass door looked normal enough. "Bump and grind, forward. Forward!" He hissed. "Aim at that- there- the front door." Easy enough for the homemade launcher to hit, and these were arguably of the lowest utility if things went sideways. Elias had taught him asset management well- it was a waste to throw your best equipment at a stationary target. While the design was tried-and-tested, Vaughn still took a few steps away.
The improvised launcher let out a metallic clunk, and with a surprisingly subdued noise and recoil the projectile was sent tumbling freely, end over end, the cap blown clean off the improvised launcher. A second later, the giant projectile more than made up for it as the round smashed through the glass door, taking the automatic door slightly off the rails and bowing slightly inward- before then blowing both them and a hail of glass fragments outward as the detonation went off inside the main lobby.
Someone in a security forces uniform staggered out.
"Infantrymen, Fire!" Vaughn roared to the infantrymen, most of Morningstar dutifully restraining themselves as a hail of bullets sprayed into the storefront and even stitched up the exterior brickwork. Clearly, some insurgents were better trained than others judging by the tracer rounds and slowly tapering off rounds.
"Advance and reload! Morningstar, spread out and cover!"
The smoke and dust was subdued, at least for now, and left them with a surprisingly clear view into the front entrance. Red streaks were painted up on the wall, black and grey of smoke-dusted debris mixed in like a spin-art collage.
The lobby's contents were an absolute shambles- everything set on a ledge had been knocked about, including the ledges and desks themselves. The security forces inside responded by charging out the main doors to follow just a second later.
A hail of gunfire met them, most of the armored troopers flinching reflexively, their armor plates overlapping and protecting their wearer. A few reflexively tried returning fire despite the harsh stings of rounds tugging on the mix of fabric, bulletproof weave, and shattering off the neosteel plate they wore. The gunfire never let up on those unfortunate few who had charged out from their cover, the complete lack of coordination, dissimilar reloading times from infantry with unequal amounts of time spent with their weapons. Effective equipment and enthusiasm was undercut by poor training, surprise, and total lack of a plan to counter being outnumbered. Morningstar, on the other hand, had the numbers, the angle, and the element of surprise.
One by one the Security Forces lay flat. Either they were dead, had the fight knocked out of them, or were trying to present as minimal target as they could while they lined up their own rifles to return fire. It was hard to say for certain what the intent was, but the outcome was little different. Round after round continued pouring into them from dozens of unevenly sized magazines, an RPG or two sending the bodies of any who tried opening fire tumbling, their limbs likely held on by the durable material underneath. When they landed, their bodies folded like misshapen laundry, pressed into unnatural shapes with the wearer still inside.
The whole front engagement was over in less than a minute. A pale, non-gauntleted hand waved frantically from behind a shattered brick front, red streaking down the fingers.
"Hold!" Vaughn shouted. "Identify!" The hand continued waving, and Vaughn shoved an unwitting volunteer forward to pull the man out from behind, to reveal a man in a stained tee shirt with a dazed expression and blood dripping from a series of scratches on his cheeks, cut in like a cat's claws had raked over them.
"Civilian!" Vaughn bellowed over his ringing ears. "Any others inside?"
The man shook his head and mouthed 'no,' his voice seemingly too hoarse- perhaps from having spent an untold amount of time screaming.
The man was wrong- there were, or at least 'had been' more security forces inside. A sudden blast and the tinkering of shrapnel caused Vaughn to duck, then charge forward, his improvised explosive launcher discarded, swinging his shotgun around from his back to rest in his hands. A Technical had tried to leave via a service bay exit, apparently not even managing to round the corner before an RPG wielded by a Morningstar veteran had upended the uparmored pickup as it pulled out.
A survivor crawled from the wreckage, and Vaughn sprinted forward, pressing the barrel against the shivering man's temple as he raised his empty hands. The wet splatter kicked high, and Vendetta checked for any other survivors, the smoking tip of his shotgun wafting grey in the fluorescent tubes of the old retail outlet.
The technicals were indeed tough, he noted, but the round seemed to have flown into a wheel well, bypassing the plating. No one else inside seemed to be moving- yet still, he made certain. There'd be no theatrics of announcing himself to an enemy who played dead by standing in the open and giving orders, letting them try and exact some measure of revenge, or gasping out some warning to the shil'vati. No, a strike was to be calculated, and that calculation was to be total.
Two minutes later and a clear picture of the aftermath had emerged. Over five hundred prisoners rescued from the cells, cramped together like sardines, hastily erected concrete laid in a grid backstopping a prefab prison. PVC pipes ran from room to room for toilets no less roughshod in their construction, set straight into the dirty linoleum. Quite a few of the prisoners were deafened somewhat. The skeleton crew of Security Forces personnel hadn't stood a chance- supposedly, most were out, working from some kind of list, or perhaps had finished their shift after a long day of throwing people into prison.
Vaughn gestured with the shotgun. "There's your exit, people. If you're still undecided about the Shil'vati, then this was your wake-up call. If you're still undecided about us, then I'm not sure what to tell you. We just risked our lives to save yours. You want to pay it back? You can either pay it forward by helping us with the next prison, or you can help the Emperor of Mankind. Blankets, food, water, soldiers, guns, ammo, whatever you've got that you think might help. He hasn't said it, but I reckon you all owe him, if you've got a decent bone in your body, you'll at least bring him something, offer to try and help. If you want, you can listen in on the radio for instructions, and if you haven't got a shortwave, I'll separate off a few from our strike squad who can fill you in and get you there, if you feel like chipping in on the war effort."
Vaughn lowered the shotgun, taking a shell off his bandoleer and loading it in to replace the one he'd fired.
"That went well," Parker remarked. "And not a bad speech. Short, to the point, and all that. Honestly, I wish I'd brought a whole crew. One for the close-up on that impact. But, uh, that execution..."
"Completely necessary," Vaughn snapped, irritatedly. "That guy was fatally wounded. Putting him out of his misery was an act of mercy. And you'll remember to narrate that, if you got that on film."
"Of course." Parker didn't deny where he'd been aiming the camera- saving Vaughn at least the headache of reviewing the footage, and then having to kill Parker, if it turned out he'd been lying.
"I'm starting to think of these jail cells as something more like a pinata full of prizes. Namely, insurgents and good PR," he muttered. Truth be told, he'd wanted more of a fight. Vaughn pulled the radio from his pocket, and sent out the broadcast. "Done here. 202 North has been cleared. About four fifty good to go in some sense of the word, though where's anyone's guess. Tried sending them your way, don't know if they'll take it. Another fifty will need medical treatment. No casualties on our end. Surprise was total. We've got pictures. No enemies taken prisoner."
Vendetta stared around the lobby, an idea slowly dawning on him.
"Hey! Hey hey hey! Snag armor off any of the ones that you can. Grab any goods that are stocked up, and arm up anyone who says they're headed to Camp Death with the weapons the guys had here. Come on, we can't stay too long here. You-" he pointed at a man who had held down the trigger on his rifle, spraying the building at full auto. "-You're fucking useless at fighting. Gather up the ones who are able and willing to fight, get them packed into a civilian-style police cruiser, and drive them on over to Camp Death. Everyone, help him load up. Get everything you can out of the Evidence lockers into the trunks- they can fit a lot, trust me, I'd know. Camp Death's going to need goodies. Come on, move, people, move!"
Morningstar Squadron had re-mustered on Vendetta.
"Alright, now what?" They almost seemed eager for more.
A smile crept across Vendetta's face, invisible to all as he pointed at the row of vehicle keys.
"I think it's time we hit 141 and a couple more," he muttered, pulling it off the hook. "Now...wheelman, shotgun, or turret?"

"Accidentally Cut Content"

[Author's Note: Hey Everyone. I made a really dumb mistake and included part of the next chapter in the previous one's end in my rush to get it out the door. So the first couple paragraphs will be a repeat, but this IS a new chapter. I even updated those first four or five paragraphs slightly.]
I couldn't sleep well on the cot that night. Though I noticed hours ticked by, every moment seemed to be spent tossing and turning. I even tried resting with the mask off, held in my hands, but the risk to my identity being discovered if anyone barged in caused me enough stress to worsen the situation. Eventually, I gave up, kicked the covers off and donned the mask again, making my rounds around the camp, trying to calm myself down by taking a midnight stroll. Instead, I felt eyes countless following me, and I had to force myself to stand tall for them. For the thousandth time, I thought of this as my Valley Forge.
As I patrolled, I could hear whispered prayers, muttered plans of action, and mercifully, snores. At least some were getting some sleep. I could see orange lights reflecting off the clouds from where I knew Wilmington lay. It seemed Vaughn was keeping busy, if indeed it was his handiwork.
A few shipment inspections and a routine update from a sentry later, and I felt caught up to speed. I noticed Radio from the corner of my eye, seemingly also unable to sleep.
I almost jumped a foot in the air when I felt the tap on my shoulder, only to find G-Man's mask staring into mine. How strange that such a haunting visage was a comfort to me.
"Hey. Can't sleep?" He sounded surprisingly serene. Or maybe it was just tired resignation. His hands seemed stuck in a familiar claw-like shape after holding the soldering iron for so long, and my fingers ached in sympathy. My mask's filters took much of the scent of smoke I could smell from the distant fires, but I was sure that if I wasn't wearing my mask that G-Man would smell faintly of molten silver solder. I'd wondered how we'd repaired and updated so many railguns so quickly. Now I knew what he'd put himself through.
"I can't," I confessed. "G-Man, I'm sorry what happened with your father. Hell of a birthday." I hadn't even had a chance to give him the present I'd bought him- a couple new filters, and vintage craftsman toolkit, 'from before they sold out,' as Verns had phrased it. The memory of his voice already felt distant, somehow.
"Wasn't your fault. Even if Town Hall wasn't your big idea to get them to retaliate, you know? Then they'd still have done something. But, uh, thanks for saying that. And thanks for trying to get dad out. I'll remember that." George said quietly, then the conversation ended when he turned away and went to the edge of the embankment. Just like that.
I could never quite get a read on him, but I wanted to respect his distance. Whatever he was feeling, he seemed to want to feel it alone, and to keep his own counsel on the matter.
I continued course toward Radio.
"Any word from Miskatonic?" I asked hopefully.
Radio offered a noncommittal shrug, then dropped it in a hurry, raising one hand to massage his chest. "They say 'this is your war,' but did ship us a small container."
"I saw."
I hadn't exactly expected them to line up alongside us in the trenches in their white coats, but I'd hoped they'd have had some kind of wonder drug or noxious gas we might deploy. Something toxic to the Shil'vati but not us. The best they'd given us so far were experimental bullets and toxic-tipped arrows and knives, the former of which supposedly could potentially the armor, if fired with enough force and impacted with a good angle. If true, then I supposed they might be moderately useful in an ambush, and they had helpfully included a pair of compound bows. I had conducted a pretty decent survey of the defense, but I hadn't thought to ask if any were experienced archers. I also couldn't imagine taking someone off a railgun, large caliber rifle, or even an old cannon to hand them a bow and arrow without feeling like I was somehow offering them an insult without equipping it myself, and there was better I could think to do with the remaining minutes before the Shil'vati would inevitably come looking than to practice.
They'd fallen out of favor for a reason, and it wasn't that the earliest guns outperformed bows.
They had also supplied a small cache of rifles that were more likely to pulverize than penetrate unless the armor had been compromised already. These were still appreciated, but hardly the game changer I wanted in return for all we'd sent them.
Then Radio leaned in, voice kept conspiratorially low. "They did, however, mention an exfiltration for you."
Sam had been right, I wouldn't get back anything close to the value of what I'd sent out. At least, not unless I was willing to abandon everything and everyone, to cut and run for my life. Such a decision would be the inglorious end of the revolution, spelling doom for everyone in it, and all of humanity's culture. I'd forever be remembered as a coward, if I was so lucky to be remembered at all.
"Well, I'm not going."
"Okay, but here's a real head-scratcher. Did you show them where Camp Death is? I've been careful not to broadcast our coordinates, and my little helpers haven't been talking with Miskatonic. And the person on the shortwave mentioned that the border would free up tomorrow morning, then mentioned the interstate right up against the back of our base as a meeting point. They said Last Exit Before Pennsylvania. That's right there." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "And I didn't mention broadcasting without a cat's paw or relay. I mean there's a chance they triangulated, but throwing together a plan that fast? Nah, man, they knew."
I searched my memory. "I'm certain that I didn't mention it to them...did Hex? She did that internship. No, wait, she got picked up and dropped off at Warehouse Base. Unless she mentioned something on the drive past? She said they were somewhere North." Now that Radio had mentioned it, I was left with a bit of a puzzle. How did they know? How much did they know about us?
"They had to have known somehow. And if they didn't know before and just figured our location out, then I bet you it's not long before the Shil'vati figure it out themselves and come sniffing," Radio resignedly threw a hand up. "Should we update the signal? Start directing people straight here?"
We had numbers, yes, but we could still do to take more in, especially if the fighting dragged on or casualties mounted higher than I projected. "How long until they're sure we're here?"
Radio yawned under his mask, the animated glass-plated mask he wore misinterpreting it with an ASCII shocked ":O" face. "We've been broadcasting all night, so, who knows?"
"Well, if it was just a signal they picked up on any random given day, how long would it typically take for the Shil'vati to muster a response?"
"Depends on the day." At my silent stare, he objected further. "They sometimes respond pretty fast to that sort of thing, but these aren't normal times, E. They used to come to check out wherever I broadcast from within an hour or two or two, but remember, they've kind of got their hands full right now thanks to Vendetta's jailbreaks. Plus, there's so many more signals." He checked the screen of his shortwave and chuckled, then lightly massaged his chest again. "I'm sure we've already gone way past."
"Alright. If we see anyone snooping around us, add our location to the broadcast. That way, anyone in the resistance or is sympathetic but isn't sure where Camp Death is can find their way here. In the meantime, though, I still think we're best not leaking it. At least with the sentries having set in the final claymores and outer defenses, we should be well-situated to ward off anything they throw at us."
"Maybe. Maybe not," George said from behind me, and I froze.
"Why not?"
He'd helped build this place. He'd know any weaknesses as well as his father.
"They might have cloaking tech, or some other means of infiltration," his voice was a dry rasp.
I shuddered thinking about it. "That's a good point," I muttered. "Assassination and recovery might be up their alley...except, I think they're terrified of what losing me might mean for their hostages."
"I'll be honest. I don't think she cares at this point," G-Man countered. I couldn't fault his gloomy disposition. I could just hope that he didn't want something bad to happen to us, to balance out that something bad had happened to him, from some weird sense of fairness.
"Yeah?"
"Think about it for a second. What happens if you die? Then what does that let her do if that happens?"
It was with a startle I realized he had a good point. Azraea had committed to a shocking all-in, something that would shake the political landscape and memories of countless denizens of the state. Months of carefully planned schemes involving carefully planned defensive patrols meant to reinforce one another, frustrate, and hinder our operations had culminated in us adapting, learning. We thought we had her beaten, especially when we destroyed her monitoring, data collection, and reporting asset in Something Else Square. Then she'd pulled something like this out of a hat, catching us totally flat-footed, rounding up who-knew how many of us before we could muster. What other assumptions had I made that were incorrect? Would she hold fire, if she knew where I was if it meant sparing the hostages? Or were they now just an 'acceptable, if regrettable' loss? When your opponent becomes unpredictable, issues arise, especially when you're counting on them to do certain things.
If it was, then I'd just done her work for her, and all of us would be dead the moment she figured out where we were, and at least the end would come faster than I knew it had arrived.
I realized I was staring up into the orange-lit cloudy night sky. I could voice none of this, not without undermining morale and potentially sparking a panic.
"If she was going to start bombarding the state, she'd have started already by now," I chuckled. "The borders are sealed, right? Why wait? Why bother trying to build some sense of dread? She's not a vampire who feeds on fear. I choose to not be afraid of what she may do. I instead intend to plan around it, to the extent that we can. Besides, if I die, what would the twins do to the hostages?"
George made a disappointed growl, his sore hands turning from awkward claws into shaking fists. "That may be the point. If the Twins do anything to the hostages in retaliation for your death, then maybe as long as she didn't pull the trigger, she thinks she'll be absolved of whatever damage their deaths mean to them."
I wasn't sure she thought that way. Heck, after months, the woman was still an absolute enigma to me. Governess Bal'shir, I understood- the flurry of speeches and photo-ops and handshakes at civic meetings with 'literally-who's-that' of 'what-community' had been carte blanche for us to grow. Ministriva was a lying snake, and once we pieced that together, I ripped her apart. But Azraea? What drove the Fleet Admiral to come down here? Duty. There wasn't any sort of hard policy she followed that I could tell, not that I knew Shil'vati military doctrine well, being an outsider such as I was. Perhaps it was the greater liberty afforded her of being both Governess and General that made it seem like her plans shifted and changed in ways that made it hard for me to keep up. Or maybe she was just at such a rank and in such a position of power to where she could make her judgment calls. If so, that begged the question: What was 'the line' for her? I had a feeling I'd somehow crossed it already. Probably Radio's tape of me fucking the Empress, if I was to be honest. Most unfair to be judged for something that hadn't been my decision, though I doubted an apology from either of us would amount to much.
I looked over to my Lieutenants. They'd helped carry me this far. I'd be foolish to ignore them now. What could I do to at least mitigate the risk that he was right, and there was someone looking to kill me, right here and now?
"Alright, fine, you've convinced me. Instruct the sentries to get the next dozen people who we intake to help patrol the inner perimeter, and to keep a watch for...well, I mean, a stealthy seven foot tall purple alien with giant tits?"
"Something invisible," George supplied.
"Alright, for anything shifting in the tall grasses that they can't immediately see- I can't really ask them to keep an eye out for something they can't see, can I?" I was suddenly too tired to think properly.
"I'll explain it," G-Man offered.
"And I'll get the sentries ready to take over the radio, explaining how it works, then I'll try heading to bed, too," Radio offered, and I realized that a yawn sounded very strange through a voice modulator- his ASCII helmet seemed to fritz out again for a second.
"I should change my sleeping quarters, too," I muttered. "They'll almost certainly check the command cabin for me, if they manage to enter. I'll pick a tunnel- uh...somewhere."
"Might be smart. Could be they'll try and take out the explosives shed, too. Make it look like an accident on our part, get rid of any hostages, and then get a free pass to exact vengeance on the state. Got anywhere in mind?"
I thought to myself. Where might be a good resting area? There were many tunnels that led to bunkers, firing outposts, and even to stowage areas. Any one of them might do in theory, but I knew of one that overlooked one of the two streams that ran along the side of Camp Death. I didn't want to situate myself either too low to where I was on the very front of the lines- why make an assassin's job even easier by putting myself on the perimeter, after all? But the creek should make a pleasant bit of white noise- and also get me away from the center shed. "Probably facing North, along Perkins run. G-Man, you look absolutely dead on your feet. Get some rest if you can, you've certainly done enough and gone through enough for today."
"There's...still things to do."
"There always will be. If the others are finished doing their repairs, lock the shed," I muttered. "I know the hostages are in there, so post a sentry or two there, too, to watch over the entrance. You're right that she may try some kind of underhanded tactic." It wouldn't do much if they decided to set charges against the side or something, and the subsequent explosion would be, in a word, 'cataclysmic'. "This was supposed to be a relaxing walk to help me rest..." I scratched at my chin under the mask, feeling the beginnings of the few scratchy hairs that had grown since I'd last shaved, and feeling the cool fresh air without the filter as the wind kicked up.
"Sorry," G-Man offered sheepishly. "I'll go tell 'em."
While he ambled off, I followed Radio back to his pile of equipment.
"Before we split then, one last thing."
"Yeah?" Radio asked.
"Have we recovered Verns?" I asked Radio. "Any word?"
"No, not that I've heard," Radio confessed. "Vendetta's been mostly quiet, I think to hide his heading from anyone who might be listening, but I know that he's struck at least three jails and counting. Some of the ones he's freed are trickling up to us here on foot, and it seems he and Morningstar are acting like a human wrecking ball. The troops are calling it Operation Smash-and-Grab."
"Smash-and-grab," I laughed, thinking of the pun. "I like it. Do we have a more recent headcount?"
"Sam said we've got enough to last about three days of continuous, round-the-clock fighting with the hundreds of people we have here. If we get a resupply run- well, I suppose it would depend upon how big a hole gets blasted in the encirclement. Or, well, something to that effect. Look, man, I'm 'Radio', not 'Telephone,' and I don't have the head for this logistics shit that you two do. You want to talk to Sam, you get the man on the radio yourself, or ask one of the Sentries I'm sticking here to manage the comms. Point being, you try and get hold of him. I'm done for the night."
I could have said something witty back, but it felt counterproductive, and would only delay the sleep I was now well overdue for.
"I've got an idea for an update. The ones Vendetta's letting loose? They can gather supplies and wait for the signal to reinforce, or to agitate, or can organize people into a more focused group, one that can punch through whatever blockade they try and form up. It'll also force the Shil'vati to not concentrate forces on our back door-" I pointed back at the interstate. "Even if they clear them out, the opportunity for us to encircle and destroy and then break out is too high for them to really try to do a mass deployment along our back." Sam was, I knew, something of a career criminal. Able to rub elbows with the worst elements of humanity. He was a facilitator, I knew, not really a leader. "Can you tell him-"
Radio was already fiddling with the dial. "Already on it," he muttered. "Lotta profit in looting, should be easy for him to steer people with that, or something. Get some sleep, E."
I went up to a sentry, requisitioned a sleeping bag someone had helpfully brought, went into a trench and told him where I'd be if I was needed. I waved to Radio, and crawled into the gunnery tunnel, almost stepping on another four people already laying in it. I loosened my laces, clutched my sheathed knife, and fell into a fitful sleep.
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