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An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part One

A lot of these posts are going to be just my impressions, things I love, cool things to point out, I don’t know.  Rambles about how much I love this game and everything about it.

To start off I’ll talk about my OC a little bit, and how I got into Mass Effect. Then we dive into the prologue.

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My OC

So we all have our Main OC Shepards. Mine is Annakie.

Annakie is a name from an MST3k episode that I have loved since the first time I saw it in the early 90′s.  I started using the name Annakie in IRC shortly thereafter, specifically in the SciFi channel’s IRC server, which used to be fairly active back in the day.  And by the day I literally mean circa 1995. They used to host some pretty cool, especially for 1995, events there, like authors and writers of their shows would come in and do Q&A’s, including Kevin, Mike and Bill from MST3k.  Kevin Murphy recognizing where my nick came from immediately was a moment of pride for me.

So I’ve basically always been Annakie online, even after knowing that it’s a real actual name some people have, I’ve still managed to snag it most places on the internet.  And most of the time when I play a new game, I start out playing Annakie, or one of two or three other names I regularly use sometimes.  But naming my first Shepard Annakie and having her look more or less like this every time I play is just... what I normally do.

Also I normally play goody two-shoes the first time I play through any game with moral decisions.  The first time I played through Mass Effect, though, she was an engineer.  I think the second time onward she’s always been a vanguard.  

She’s a Spacer, because I love having her mom alive and get to talk to her.  I like that she didn’t start from trauma.  But she’s a sole survivor, because I like how that shows how strong she became.  I also like that it gives her extra incentive to hate Cerberus later on.

Discovering Mass Effect

I’ve been gaming since I was seven in 1982 when my parents brought home our first Atari 2600.  When RPGs became a thing I liked JRPGs a lot on the family Nintendo and some action RPGish games like Super Metroid, but when Western-Style RPGs like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights came out, I found my true video game love.  

Before Mass Effect, my favorite game was Knights of the Old Republic.  And it’s still way up there in my list of favorite games of all time.  And I really loved Carth Onasi. Although I’d loved other video game love interests before him, Arin Gend, Valen Shadowbreath, Celes/Locke... Carth was my favorite.  That also inspired me to try my hand at fanfic for the first time.  That never saw the light of day and I’m pretty sure I lost it like 3 hard drive crashes ago.

So when I heard that the same company that made KotOR was making a new, non-Star Wars space game, I was excited.  Until I went and looked at some of the trailers, gameplay preview videos, etc, and saw no female protagonist option.  I must have looked somewhat early on because even on message boards I looked at the answer was “they haven’t said anything” or “I don’t think so”.  And I was *crushed*, then stopped paying attention to that video game. After it came out, I heard it was a pretty good game, but if you could only play a guy, I wasn’t that interested.  

It wasn’t until 2009 when I finally got an XBox 360 and realized I had no idea what games to play on it that I didn’t already have on PC.  I joined a game trading thread on a forum I was on, and bought a few titles, and someone was selling Mass Effect cheap, so I thought... what the hell, I’ll probably like it even if I have to play a dude.  

A few nights later I was curled up on my couch with controller in hand and... hmm this music is pretty good.  OK New Game... Create Profile... wait what?  Custom or default Female character?  You can play as a woman?!? WHAT??  Damn, I should have looked at this game more closely.  Okay.

So I made my Annakie Engineer... and honestly I don’t remember what origins I picked then... but the game started.

I recognized one of the first two voices I heard but couldn’t place it.  And then a third guy was talking over these space scenes and someone walking scenes and... hang on, is that Seth Green?!?!  Neat!  Real cool space imagery here, great music... and then the intro was over and another guy started talking.

That. Is. Carth. Onasi’s. Voice.  

I SCREAMED.

Then I stood up walked into my office, sat down at my PC, googled “Carth Onasi Voice Actor Mass Effect”, found the character’s name, then googled “Kaidan Alenko romance”.  Found the wiki page, saw the answer was yes, and screamed again.  Really, really mad at myself.  This game had been out for two years.  A space RPG where you can play as a lady and the same voice actor I already ADORED was in it playing another romanceable character.  I knew then, two minutes into the game, that I was going to fucking LOVE THIS GAME and I should have played it TWO YEARS AGO.

I went back, played all night, and for the next several nights until I beat the game.  And then joined forums and everything I could get my hands on to find fellow fans, then replayed the game, and played again, and again, and again until I had all the achievements.  Then I bought it on PC so I could get all the achievements on PC and be ready to import saves for when Mass Effect 2 came out.

The one good thing about waiting so long to play ME1 was, I only had a year to wait until ME2.  That year was basically all about Mass Effect for me.

The Prologue

Anyway, while we’re here, let’s talk about the prologue.

First off, who else, the first time you played, when in character creation you heard the “Profile Corrupted!” message thought you fucked something up or maybe your game disc was bad.  Anyone?  Not just me, right? I  may have restarted my Xbox.

The class descriptions I think are a little wonky.  I chose Engineer the first time through because I like utility classes and I like healing.  But the classes don’t really... play that way I guess.  Hitting F to heal (or whatever it’s mapped to on the controller) doesn’t really matter, and a couple of classes have access to First Aid.  Nobody is really a “healer”.  Hence switching to Vanguard later.

The prologue itself does a really great job, though, of setting up the game, and the world.  It starts with the great move of telling you a little bit about your own character, helping you to understand those choices that you made “Spacer” “Earthborn” “War Hero” “Sole Survivor”,  That was a good move.  It took me until my second playthrough to connect those two guys talking about me to being Anderson and Udina.  

Also, nice that they explained what Mass Effect actually *is* and placed you in a year, so you have an idea how far ahead this game is from our own time.

And then this...

Majestic.

But it’s great how they start with a shot of you, looking at Earth

 then you see Jupiter, with an establishing shot of the spaceship you’re in.  (OK I didn’t get a great screenshot of this, I’m using gifs that are going in a gifset posting tomorrow)

And then you fly by Neptune

Then... wait what the fuck is this thing?

Along with Seth Green talking to... someone?  And the movement through the ship, giving you glimpses of Jenkins, Pressley, crewmates doing their jobs, the camera constantly sweeping, something big is happening!  Something exciting!  You’re not sure what all of it is but... it sounds cool!

The camera swings around on the person you’ve been following, and you already kinda know it’s your character, but there you are, in a very cool sweeping reveal.

The music swells.  Then the big glowy weird scissors thing... eats the spaceship and spits it back out.

It’s all so effective.  It’s kind of breathtaking to watch even for what must be like my 30th time, not exaggerating.

And I can never wait to do it again.  What a great way to start this game.  

What I learned when I stumbled upon some amazing history of Concert A440 and the  Treaty of Versailles.

How did I get here?

I had an amazing journey I wanted to share if only because it showed me why I live to learn and discover and uncover -- just for the fun and inspiration. I will die if I lose the curiosity that allows this sort of adventure. It took me weeks to share this, but I just wanted to because it was so much fun to learn this. I could have gone to Wikipedia and gotten a partial summation of this information, but as usual, if you look yourself, you get a whole bunch more context and in this case can see there is much more about the topic than just ‘the answer’.

Several weeks ago, I watched a You Tube video produced great educator and who goes by the handle of 12Tone. I love music history and theory videos. His friendly videos are usually really interesting.  The topic of this video was right up my alley and exposed me to what I eventually discovered is a partial myth that seems to continue to be perpetuated, But it seems not to finish the story. What’s even more amazing is what I learned after the initial digging. I ended up learning all sorts of new things about imperialist politics, poison, antique automobiles, and more. I will post on these discoveries later. But this first post is about The Treaty of Versailles and its relation to Diapason Normal.

Diapason Normal

It started with this video https://youtu.be/BzznBt8tVnI from 12Tone. In the video he describes how the diapason normal was placed into the Treaty of Versaille (ratified 1919) which amazed him and certainly raised my scepticism. 

As a very short background as to what Diapason normal is, you can watch the video or I will summarize it very simply here. When groups of instruments are about to play together there needs to be some way for the musicians to establish agreed pitch. If I was singing and you came along and started to sing with me without listening or trying to match the same note pitches, it would sound awful. This is what they call tone-deaf singing (which usually also accompanies relative tone deafness, too).  So when a group gets together, the instruments set a pitch synchronicity. Usually this pitch is based upon a single note shared and adjusted to match that baseline to with all other notes will be played (relative to that note). Picture the pitch pipe being pulled out just before singers are going to sing together. 

When you think about it, that single pitch (note) that is used to synchronize  everyone can be anything, The perfect analogy is that it is like when folks synchronize watches. It almost doesn't matter what the first watch is as long as all the watches synchronize to it.  Diapason normal was/is an attempt to formally standardize what ALL musicians will use as the baseline. Think of it like Greenwich Mean time based upon Big Ben (not really, though) or U.S. clocks standardizing on the Colorado atomic clock. We all use a reference clock to synchronize time. Diapason normal standard for musical tuning would be like the atomic clock standard for time.  

The Treaty

If you followed the 12Tone video and/or if you do any rudimentary search on Diapason Normal (or even just ‘A 400 why?’) you quickly get to the point where everyone say the answer is in the Treaty of Versaille. Even I knew what the Treaty of Versaille is. But like most folks, I assumed it was simply the WWI armistice treaty and that it represented war ending types of things like who gets what, who concedes what, etc. 

I started my quest to actually SEE the reference of D.N. in the Treaty of Versaille, Yes, in fact there is a reference to diapason normal in the treaty. But, the most interesting fact is that it is not directly there. Almost all of the simple Googly research keeps just saying the it’s in the treaty. All common references do actually specifically refer to Section 2-  Article 282 (22) which does in fact directly mention the establishment of concert pitch. 

and later down the line (22)...

And, since common use in my lifetime means that this is A400 (as all my piano tuning forks attest) is the definition so defined in this proclamation, This is where everything I saw on the subject leaves this. 

But, if you are interested in the actual problem being addressed by this little sentence and if you understand that that half of the standards battle was about WHAT the value would be for diapason normal, you’d not be satisfied that this was what was meant in this sentence. “...establishment of a concert pitch” would definitely mean A440 as many folks presume online today. Or it could mean something else like A335, A445, or any value, actually.   

Here is where the fun really began. If you look above at the text in the treaty, there are a whole bunch of other things that jump out at you; even more so if you actually skim through most of the text of the treaty (170 plus pages) PRIOR to getting to this point where an odd, tangential reference is made to a musical standard in the middle of a war treaty. Think about how funny that sounds. It turns out that section II, Article 282 is far more interesting to me than all of the rest of the treaty. As expected, the rest of the treaty is about who gets what land, and how reparations will be made, etc. But this one article has a whole bunch of stuff in it that seems totally strange. I will come back to this later. It was half of the fun; but later. 

In that sentence is refers to another document. It references the “Convention of November 16 and 19, 1885...″ This is actually where the concert pitch is defined. It is NOT in the Treaty of Versaille. 

So to look into this take a bit more foot(finger)work. It is not intuitively obvious what this convention is until you poke around in the musical history.  As many have written and as is in the 12Tone video, the argument over common concert pitch has been going on for centuries. In fact, it links into the scientific megatrend of the mid-19th century. If you follow greater history, there are times of great public interest in science and discovery. In the mid 19th century on the toes and heals of the industrial revolution there was a lot of investment and interest in standardization and mechanisms to control and measure “things” using science. Lot of stuff was being given formal standard measurement tools like weights going from a common stone to being an actual piece of man-made metal with temperature and density requirements for the manufacture of weighing devices and for many other things like length. In fact, there is reference to this in the treaty, too (See #20). In the mid 1800′s there was work done to create a tool and standard to make music (tonation) standardize. In my opinion, this was following a lot of the social trends of that era. I am not a historian, but in seeing some of similar references from a common timeframe, it seems likely that in 1880′s scientific calibration and standardization was popular. Furthermore,  the Industrial Revolution relied upon cooperative standards even if there were often conflicting ones. It is still an issue today with competing and evolving standard for many common and uncommon things.

I finally found the document, in Italian. It is called the  Triattati e Convenzioni tra il Regno D’Italia e Gli Altri Stati. 

  And then you have to skip down to November, 1885...

There is it! I didn’t even need to translate (yet). It shows reference to diapason unico with these other countries! Is that ever interesting. I researched this document and work that looks like it was ongoing for a long time in in the 1880′s.  I suspect I could have enjoyed several days of just looking into that whole document and its context. But I was at this time on a mission.  What it is that this convention approved? I needed to keep digging. 

And on page 727, here it is! 

I still didn’t need a translate except for the monito secondo where I have to assume the vernacular is half second. [Side note: for several minutes I was freaking out because I thought it said “minute second” and didn’t know what that meant. It clearly says, “minuto” - as-in small (I assume to mean half-second).]

But wait? 870/2=435. 435 Hz is NOT 440Hz. So now officially, The Treaty of Versailles DOES NOT say that diapason normal is 440, it explicitly says that the value is 435 Hz. This was good news in that I got to the basis of the Internet claims that the treaty defined the standard, but the value proclaimed in the Treaty of Versailles is 435 Hz which, frankly maps better to what my little knowledge of what Europe wanted and used in the early part of the century.

The huge issue now was, why does (nearly) everyone in Western music use A440 and not A435?  The research had to continue. 

Before I go there, it is also fascinating to read the footnotes for the above. Basically in 1885, the scientists devised a formal way to make sure that a simple “tuning metal” would be used. This required semi-tight standards for manufacture of the metal and for temperature control of the standard measuring device.  This comes back to hit us on the head -- almost literally -- in a minute. 

If you break this down, you get a detailed description of who and how you get to the the device that perfectly creates a now-standardized 435 Hz pitch. It describes how the metal is made and what temperature it must be in order to produce exactly 435 Hz frequency ‘ringing’.

At this point I decided I was now waste deep in my research. But I am only half done. The standard so far is NOT 440 Hz!   So all of these references to the treaty are just the starting point. As of 1919, Diapason Normal is locked-in for the world at 435 Hz.  How did we get to 440 Hz as today’s norm? 

I did the work, and sort-of know why how 440 happened. It isn’t as simple as Wikipedia says, either. I just looked at Wiki-p and it has some of the details. I will write up the next phase in my next post. It involves a lot more than just a standards body decision. Teaser: There are some U.S. national security interest involved. Yes, seriously.    

MCU Rewatch: Guardians of the Galaxy

My god, I had forgotten how much of a sucker punch right to the solar plexus the opening three minutes of this film are.

I mean, I remembered that it opened with Peter losing his mom, but not how insanely fucking painful it was to watch the child actor, who knocks that tiny but critical part out of the goddamn ballpark. It probably doesn’t help that I became a parent between the last time I saw the movie and now, and so the emotions in that scene felt way more real thanks to having an actual relationship in my life to map them onto. And with all that hitting so damn hard, the suddenness and unfairness of the abduction comes through in blazing contrast; I really felt the despair of losing any chance at closure that I already understood intellectually that it represents.

(I realize I’m doing the thing where I write about myself rather than the movie, but I was so totally unprepared for my response to its opening that I can’t not discuss it.)

Anyway, after paying the Despair Toll, the rest of the movie is still superb; the worst I can say about it is that, three viewings in, some of the shininess has worn off, but nowhere close to like with Avengers. The vast majority of jokes still work, thanks to excellent delivery and timing (even the bit where Quill flips off the police officers processing him, which by all rights shouldn’t be funny once you know it’s coming because it’s just about the shock value, still works beautifully because of Pratt’s incredible facial expressions). It also continues to amaze me how not just non-terrible but actively good the character of Rocket is; despite looking on paper like a cringingly stupid gimmick, the combination of Cooper’s voice acting and the amazing subtlety the animation gives his body language turn him into probably the most real character in the crew after Quill himself.

Ronan the Accuser... still really sucks as a villain. The movie does pay lip service to the Kree/Skrull war that sets up his motivation, but it (quite rightly) doesn’t spend any time actually exploring that backstory, and so it leaves Ronan as what I thought was the single most one-dimensional cardboard-cutout MCU villain until I finally watched Ant-Man a few days ago. They vaguely try to make him funny? but it’s nowhere near enough, and he just kind of sucks all-around; neither genuinely threatening nor campy enough to be worth anything.

But okay, if you’re still with me after three and two-half paragraphs of random farting around, I want to actually talk about something this movie does exceptionally well: shockingly rarely for the MCU, every single action scene actually means something and teaches us something about the characters. We’ve got five heroes and two villains, and each of them have a physical fighting style that reflects their personality and outlook, such that seeing them fight is part of how we learn about them. 

Consider Rocket, for instance: trying to capture Quill on Xandar [1] he uses traps and snares, keeping himself distant from the actual fight; we learn that he’s a sneaky and opportunistic bastard, and begin to form a mental picture. When shit goes down in the Kyln, however, as soon as he gets some guns he’s up on Groot’s shoulders, spinning around and firing wildly and screaming in some kind of crazed rictus. In other words, beneath the cool, sly exterior there’s some really uncontrolled anger.

I’m not saying that these are shocking and revelatory observations about Rocket; I’m just pointing out that they’re both elements of his character that we first encounter via the action scenes, before the more complex and subtle exploration of them in dialogue. And this is true for every character, from Ronan’s first onscreen act being crushing a dude’s head with a gigantic sledgehammer to Quill’s signature move (as we see in his very first fight scene) being using hidden jets in his boots to run away from tense situations (which, again, comes before we get a single line of dialogue expositing adult Quill’s serious avoidance issues). Not even to mention the incredibly-obvious-but-nevertheless-perfect metaphor of the Xandarian forces fighting literally via the power of friendshipunity

Also, every fight scene has a purpose to the plot; there’s not a single action sequence that’s the equivalent of “Captain America beats up some more Nazis” or “Iron Man shoots up some terrorists.” Every fight has at least two clearly defined sides, whose motivations for that particular fight are clear and sensible, and in which the shape of the battle and its outcome are determined by/determinative of character and narrative. 

Contrast this with, say, the battle against the giant fire robot thingy from Thor. Why is it there? Loki sent it, presumably, because... he suddenly wants to kill Thor? He is punishing the Stupid Buddy Crew for their accessory to treason? He hates cutesy little coffee shops? Why is it a giant fire robot? Like, ice has associations in that movie, but not ones that set up a direct contrast (Asgard, after all, is associated with gold). I mean, I know that the gun was hung over the fireplace in the first act, but why was the gun there at all? Why that gun?

Whereas every element of every action sequence in Guardians makes perfect sense and fits into a broader picture. Nothing is arbitrary, and it means that even on a third watch, everything is still exciting, because even the bits with no dialogue are integral parts of the narrative.

So yeah. I am pleased to discover that Guardians remains one of the best films in the franchise.

[1] I absolutely had to look up that name, but after my wife gave me shit about “Indiana or somewhere” from my Iron Man 3 writeup actually being Tennessee I wasn’t going to try and reconstruct it from memory. Otherwise I’d be calling it “the white planet” throughout this post.

Crazy Al’s Last Rodeo: June 23 - 30

Zoey started her thru-hike of the Tahoe Rim Trail (165 miles, ~10 days) a few minutes ago and after writing this I’m headed back to Berkeley. How did we get here? What happened to the PCT?? It’s a long and heartbreaking story...

Last Tuesday, riding the high of our low mileage creekside day and my amateur culture critique, we set out for our next campsite/water source, 21 miles away. We came across our first trail register early in the day and before I could stop her Z signed us in under the name “Crazy Al.” By 1 pm I was already blasting Kate Bush through my fancy new athletic headphones, which didn’t bode well for my physical and mental state given we still had 10 miles to go. At 3 pm we took a break under a big tree on a ridge and triple checked the maps to confirm: yep, there was our final destination far, far in the distance. My left foot was starting to hurt (as it had since our second day) and my legs were more disgusting than ever (feet pics available for paying subscribers - Venmo me $5). Side note can you believe I brought condoms on the trail?? LMAO but hey at least I didn’t bring TWELVE like Cheryl Strayed in Wild…damn gurl.

By 5 miles out my foot was completely trashed and I limped/used my pole as a crutch/tried not to cry/breathed through my mouth like I was in a fkn Lamaze class for those final miserable hours. We finally arrived at the creek and were bitten by literally hundreds of mosquitos instantly. We also discovered that Zoey had developed trench leg, and since mine was looking even worse we started freaking out that maybe it was poison oak and who knows how many times we had touched our faces and eyes and why didn’t we have LTE so we could do some research?? Morale was extremely low (mostly me).

Wednesday morning we hiked five miles to the highway to hitch a ride into Burney, our first resupply stop. We were picked up by a nice off-duty truck driver who bless him had a cooler full of water bottles in the front seat. I asked him about his work and he said he used to drive 11 hours a day without any days off for up to three months and that his new local gig is much better, though the pay isn’t as good. It got me thinking about what “good money” means to a lot of people, especially outside of the Bay Area tech bubble, and what they have to do to live decently. It makes me mad and also makes me feel like a piece of shit for wanting to never work a comfy well-paid desk job again.

Anyway, we got dropped off in Burney around 10 am and discovered that every motel in town was booked for the night. We went to a diner while we figured out what to do and ate our first off-trail meal (Z: sweet potato pancakes and fruit, Me: a chicken fried steak ofc). I slowly broke the news to Zoey that despite my lifelong dream of being airlifted I was scared to keep walking on my busted foot and get stuck somewhere/ruin my body. We also realized that a “historic” heat wave was about to hit the West Coast and even if Zoey continued on solo she’d be hiking in ~105 degree heat for a week or more. So, I convinced Z to head back to Berkeley with me to regroup.

We killed the next four hours loitering at various locations in Burney while waiting for the bus to Redding. The diner was full of characters and I had a lot of fun eavesdropping. Highlights included an overly affectionate couple who were DEFINITELY having an affair, a teen with a shaved head who hates small towns and everyone in them (lol), and an asshole Elvis lookalike who tried to incite a fight between two waitresses while his hot wife(?) sat silently and was either mortified or used to it, I’m not sure which is worse.

We eventually left the diner and posted up in front of the post office, Rite Aid, and finally the sporting goods store. Rite Aid is the best pharmacy because they sell their in-house brand of ice cream, Thrifty, which is all around delicious and also makes my favorite crazy flavor: lemon ice cream (NOT sorbet) with pieces of lemon warhead candy mixed in. WTF!! My mom took me to Rite Aid the day I got my first period and bought me baby tampons and a double cone with chocolate chip cookie dough and chocolate malted crunch, so it felt right to get a scoop on yet another day of transition and bodily trauma.

I’ve never really loitered before and it was actually pretty fun. So many random people stopped to talk to us about the PCT. One woman who had spent the morning collecting cans and was off to enjoy her day with a tall boy and a pack of cigs stopped to chat and as she walked away said, “Be careful!” but then corrected herself, “Actually, don’t be careful, be safe!” We loved that, so badass. Sound off in the comments if you think we should get that tattooed somewhere, maybe on our rib cages.

We caught the bus to Redding, where we spent the night in a motel room that smelled like smoke and had no shampoo. I booked us a queen bed but the front desk guy was like, are you sure?? and upgraded us to a king. I’ve had this happen more than once when I’ve checked in to a hotel with another woman. It’s like they think two women shouldn’t sleep in the same bed and a bigger bed is more appropriate. Like bigger bed = fewer opportunities for us to accidentally brush feet in the middle of the night and suddenly become gay?? These people need to stop watching Carol. Also if we were actually gay I think we’d be more hyped than anyone about the upgrade cuz king beds are the sexiest thing ever. ANYWAY.

Thursday morning we took the train back to Berkeley and were rescued by our housemate Amy, who drove us back to the Bog (our co-op). The best part of coming home was reuniting with our housemates’ dog Blossom, who considers us her crazy aunts. After the novelty of being able to shower and sleep in a bed wore off, I slipped right back into my pre-PCT depression. Three cheers for staring at the ceiling all day and eating Popeyes in my car! Even Zoey was uncharacteristically angsty 😬

The good news is that my foot isn’t broken, but almost a week off the trail and it still hurts to walk on. The heat wave persists and wildfires are starting already along the PCT (the town where we were supposed to resupply this week is currently under evacuation warning). As bummed as we are to change plans after months of planning, we think the best thing to do is bail on the PCT for now. After Zoey finishes the Tahoe Rim Trail, she’s heading to Washington state for a few days with her mom before we reunite in Portland for the remainder of July. We’re hoping to thru-hike the Oregon Coast Trail in late July/early August, but may bikepack it if my foot is still busted.

So stay tuned, Bog Girl Summer hobbles on! Lucky for you, the future holds significantly less trench leg content and more ice cream, bikes, and Portlandia vibes.

In the wise words of Dawes, “Things happen, that’s all they ever do.”

xoxo,

Crazy Al

On the Brink of Losing A Moment

C9 and TSM hit on the Rift for among the Greatest stakes Games in LCS history. C9 could lose all of it.

The last time I spoke to some buddy in person was over five weeks ago. I have locked myself to the 1 mile radius around my flat, venturing up to the Ralph's to pickup markets. There, I am just two blocks from the subway, which is just a forty-five second ride to everywhere in Los Angeles. It is a surreal moment that resembles a balloon being gradually inflated, and I am waiting and watching for it to popup. Only it does.

Back in April, as Cloud9 attracted the brunt of the weight back on the FlyQuest Nexus to procure a 3-0 sweep at the LCS Spring Finals, you can observe a concentrated Licorice on his participant camera tear his headset off in pleasure. Seconds after a C9 team member storms the area with a bowl of confetti he throws throughout the area, and he's followed by a couple more staff members, such as proprietor Jack who's carrying a decoration. There's not any thunderous applause from an audience of tens of thousands. The sound does not echo off the scene's dome roof. You do not find the dejected faces of their FLY members. It is, rather, very silent. This is our lives last five months.

Following that, we saw as Covid-19 uprooted what we took for granted as being ordinary, and gradually, but surely, an increasing number of events were postponed or cancelled. This comprised this season's Mid-Season Invitational, in which Cloud9 could have progressed to for the very first time in franchise history (that can be a very mad fact considering they have literally never overlooked Worlds). They have been a group that turned it in the summertime, making their slip in the previous month so shocking. It is a reverse-results sort of season for C9, just they were not rewarded using the MSI excursion in the Spring.

And today we're one Best-of-5 from seeing their entire year entirely with no single global excursion to show for this. This is a Cloud9 roster which started the year off on a 35-2 and seemed nigh unstoppable. They posted the best single season winning percentage in the Spring and opened on a 9-0 tear at the summer that had us asking not if they would win but by how much. Losing here could be catastrophic, but maybe it could be a fitting metaphor for the way the year has performed beyond the Rift.

Cloud9 losing could be, in some ways for me personally, a soda up. The entire fanbase will be wrested from their perch, where it felt as though they had been watching the best group NA has ever generated, and you would begin to wonder exactly how much of the season was real. I know I've been asking that question on a virtually daily basis. It seems just like not Cloud9 that has dropped all of these games in the previous month but a bogus team sporting inexpensive Halloween costumes of C9. Gone would be the huge snowballs out of Blaber from the first game. Gone would be the 3k gold prospects at 15minutes that ballooned to a 10k gold guide just 10 minutes afterwards. Gone was Zven's 100+ KDA and gone was Nisqy's omnipresence on the map.

Instead they would find themselves facechecking bushes to protect against the enemy group from procuring a Dragon Soul. They would find themselves outnumbered in a skirmish since they were slow into a drama, and they would discover that the very same opponents they had beaten into submission in the Spring were now striking back. I have stared at the screen in disbelief over once this divide since Cloud9 floundered. I am sure they have also. It seems like we're on the verge of being robbed of a minute, and the second isn't one which has transpired but one which never did.

We got to observe a summit Cloud9 this season take on the likes of G2 Esports or even JDG. Lately, Broxah said in an interview he was sick of seeing individuals concentrate on the drawbacks when searching at the very best teams in NA, and while I agree with him, it wasn't actually something we found with C9's achievement. We concentrated mostly on the positives there, and any warning was tied to NA's history of collapse compared to what C9 really looked like. I had not been this eager to see a NA team on the global stage in a very long time -- not because the first iteration of Cloud9 -- and in this stage it sort of feels as though we are not around to eliminate a minute but instead we have.

They could go to take down TSM this weekend and it won't be exactly the exact same. They would need to go on a complete tear -- a 9-0 blazing ball of anger directly to a repeat name -- to recapture that magical, and even then you would enter Worlds knowing they have fought this season. You understand they could battle again. As soon as you're scratched for the first time, and also the scar sticks, then you do not have to become invincible again.

Nonetheless, there's a part of me who has not fully come to terms with Cloud9 being on the edge of elimination, only as I have not come completely to terms of losing the normalcy of the previous five months for this outbreak. It does not feel fair whatsoever to have lost some of this, but we are, also for Cloud9, at least, all their battles could be washed out for today using one Bo5 win within their oldest rival. We may have lost summit C9 once and for all, but they do not need to be summit Cloud9 to triumph on Saturday. And then -- who's to say what's going to happen ahead? Nothing about this season has made feel, however for C9, perhaps particularly if they were winning, it wasn't about making sense.

I’m tired and I’m frustrated

The title says it all. To start it all off, I wanted to make my first post a backstory for everyone.

Disclaimer: this might be too graphic for some of you.

Where it all started: When I was at my previous job, I didn’t realize it, but I had a lot of issues. I had 3 bouts of “food poisoning”. I call it that because one instance I woke up in the middle of the night and I had projectile vomit, shortly following diarrhea. Thank God I was wearing a pad LOL! This lasted for about 20 minutes. The other two instances was I was in a coworker’s car and after I got out of the car, I vomited once and then took pepto bismal. Another time I was in the train and I felt so nauseous, I got off and missed my stop and vomited once and felt terrible the whole day. About three months ago, I had to leave my current work because I felt so sick. Strong nausea, stomach pain and no vomiting (thank God).

When I took PPI’s: this was back in late December early January. I had this gradual gnawing pain in my stomach. I felt hungry, but also not. This awful dull stomach pain occurred for about an hour and a half and then went away. Came back in between and during meals. I also felt so nauseous. I felt like I needed to pass gas, but could not. While I was analyzing data, I was bending over the chair to “relieve pain”. Pain got so bad I went to the doc. Doctor told me it was gas pains. Physical exam consisted of pressing down on my stomach. It hurt so badly when they did that on my left side. They did a specific blood test and told me it’s nothing serious. Well, I was not okay. I emailed them back the next day and I explained that I also had some acid reflux. They told me to take proton pump inhibitors such as omeprazole and gas-X. I did that for a week. First few days was glorious!!! Then, a week and half later it was worse. I called the ER Kaiser hotline and an ER doc said that he’d prescribe me a stronger PPI. I took that for 2 weeks. Again, felt better and then got significantly worse. I stopped it all together. Ten days later, I felt better.

Several months ago: I knew I had IBS, but my symptoms were getting worse. I asked to speak to a GI doc, I was fatigued, depressed, bloated, gassy (hydrogen sulfide gas smell), abdominal cramping, and the best one constipation. My doc did an over-the-phone questionnaire and told me I have IBS-C. She said to get on gas-x again and start the low-FODMAP diet. The gas went away, but my bloating and other symptoms did not. My doctor then insisted we do a colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy to rule out IBS-C, but I wasn’t buying it. I felt like there was something deeper going on with my microbes that was the issue. Why would I be bloated all the time and it would get significantly worse by the end of the night EVERYDAY?!

During this time, I got my Viome results back. They noted that I was a fast-fermenter, which I probably was experiencing moderate abdominal discomfort, bloating, excessive gas, and possible GI discomfort. I was like O M G, that is 100% correct. When I looked at my overall GI health, it is not good...all of the markers they use to measure GI health were 50 or lower out of 100. Big red flag.

Again, I just felt like something wasn’t right. Sure, I’d eat out on the weekends once or twice, but my food choices were very strict during the weekdays. I worked/workout 5 times a week, always with my face red and my body aching the next day. The other two days I would and still go out for a walk for a minimum of an hour to 2 hours.

I’ve been tracking my weight since quaratine and I went from 123 lbs to now today 127 lbs. body fat % has went up and it has been 5 months. I have reached out to others and the last piece in terms of aiding weight loss is calorie counting. For the past three days now along with my SIBO diet I am following (I will discuss that more later), the app has told me I am not eating enough?! What?! So I did a dummy test and added two pieces of sourdough bread that I would eat here and there if I didn’t eat oatmeal and I am still in a caloric deficit. This is insane.

So yes, I feel so awful and so frustrated. I asked my G.I. Doctor if I could get a GI MAP test that can identify any negative microbial activity occurring in the gut. It is more specific than Viome. Doctor said they didn’t have it AND she doesn’t want to do it anyway because I don’t have diarrhea, an indication for parasites. Ummmm....wow....

Then, I started digging deeper and read into clinical studies. I discovered SIBO as a result of just simply typing “bloating all day and it gets worse at night”. I came across and article that IBS patients also had SIBO up to 78%. Link is here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5347643/

I told my doctor about SIBO testing and shown her a few articles I found about the linkage of SIBO and IBS. She said Kaiser didn’t have that test. Go figure. She also said she was not thinking about testing me for it because I didn’t have predominant diarrhea, yet I did have some. It also was diarrhea that was accompanied by undigested food particles. What is up with this diarrhea thing? Just because I don’t have one symptom, you don’t even think to test someone for something? Instead, she told me she could prescribe me antibiotics for two weeks to help treat my suspected SIBO? I asked her about diet changes and she told me to adhere to the low FODMAP diet. If doctors were more aware of the two different types of SIBO, they would know methane-dominant SIBO is significantly harder to treat as the small intestine is overpopulated with archaea (bacteria in small intestine eat the fiber -> production of hydrogen gas -> archaea use the gas -> production of methane gas), not so much bacteria. Ironic, right? Add that with slow transit time of stools and you got microbes fermenting your food longer than normal. 🙃 in the wrong area of the G.I. tract!

I then finally reached out to amazing and to-the-point certified holistic nutritionist named Alyssa. She went over my symptoms and told me I need to get tested for SIBO ASAP. When we spoke about my gut and she listened to my concerns, we were ON THE SAME PAGE! My symptoms are like a lot of other people she has seen hundreds of times. Wow.

So here I am waiting for my results. I ordered the test, took it (prepping is awful) and should get my results anyway now. I did become a rebel because I am so f’ing tired of looking like a pregnant woman that I started the SIBO plan specific for methane-dominant SIBO, which includes the overall comprehensive diet for SIBO. I started taking the supplements for methane-dominant SIBO. More to come on that very soon.

What is important is that no matter how crazy people may think you are, listen to your gut - LITERALLY!!! I plan on changing docs once again. It’s a battle I know is going to be a long road, but I am goal-set. I am ready to take on whatever microbes are harming me, because bloating all day EVERYDAY is NOT normal. Sudden weight gain is NOT normal.

The Number I

Chapter 4: Before We Do Anything Else Though Let’s Talk About Math For Forty-Five Minutes

Very nervous. The more I post, the more I box myself in with potentially bad unworkable ideas that I won't be able to back out on in the middle of chapter 20. Oh well!

Things are gonna start moving pretty quickly from this point on once the setup finally wraps up. Very nervous about that too.

God this thing’s probably ridden with typos again.

Thank you again to @cateringisalie, @fury-brand​, @limbostratus​, @auncyen​, and everyone else I bothered to write this dumb garbage.

Four years after meteor-fall and Cloud Strife still isn’t himself. The thing that haunts him comes always at the same time… and when it does, on a distant far-off world, a needle moves. Twisty AU. Warnings for future chapters.

The click of the door to the decontamination airlock opening up was what woke up Aeris, and she quickly gathered up the few possessions she had brought with her and nudged Tseng awake. Cissnei was already awake somehow, and had already proceeded through ahead of her. Aeris was quick to follow -- the room was cold and humid, and an automated notification from the intercom had notified her that the other half of the team were on approach and would be using it in an hour or so.

The last airlock on the way out led into a small antechamber that would open up into the main facility. Aeris stepped out through the door, and it clicked shut behind her. Aeris looked down the long hall that stretched out in front of her, and began to lead the way down it.

"It's hard to believe it's all real," said Cissnei from behind her. "I guess someone had to be the person that realised you could actually send people into space, but it's still..."

"I guess so," she replied, heading deeper into the compound and passing through the first ring, mostly containing supplies, and into the second, containing living quarters for the crew. "All the numbers check out in the simulations, anyway." Another luxury they had now that they didn't the first time around.

They branched off into their own rooms, laid out like the spokes of a wheel. There were ten in total, though only six would be occupied. Aeris dropped off her candies in one of the rooms, claiming it as her own, and quickly followed after Tseng and Cissnei.

The next ring in was the biology lab. Tseng was already unpacking his briefcase onto the desk provided. The whole thing seemed almost too big for just one, maybe two people, and this section of the building alone probably had as much money sunk into it as the next three rings combined. Who needed eight different kinds of microscopes? Tseng did, apparently.

It had several doors leading into the next innermost ring, the medical ward; close enough to the labs for quick response in case of accidents, deep enough into the facility to prevent more of them through potential biohazard leaks. Hopefully.

There were two more rings, increasingly smaller, both separated from the sections in front and behind them by airlocks, containing a veritable jungle of computers and machines and detectors that might not ever get used. The idea was to never have to outsource anything they might find outside the facility and have it all done in-house.

Aeris took a deep breath and steeled herself in front of the airlock door of the second-to-last ring of the building, glancing at Cissnei, who nodded, not entirely sure what to expect.

"Excited?" she asked.

"Yes. Nervous, too. My feet are tingling a little."

"That could also be because we're pretty much on top of the generator right now," said Aeris. The entire thing was buried underground and heavily insulated, but the sheer amount of power on tap still made the whole area slightly charged with static.

"...Is that safe?"

"Yes," said Aeris grimly. "They wouldn't have let us build this place without getting it reapproved sixteen times. See for yourself if you don't believe me." And with that, she pushed open the door.

It seemed an unimpressive enough space upon first glance -- several computers along the outer wall, a large screen built into the inner ring. Desks, a whiteboard, and a couple servers.

Slightly more unusual was the rack of towels, and the raised metal disc about two metres across, covered by a glass panel and wired up to one of the more formidable computers in the room.

And of course, the large tank in the centre of the room. That too.

Aeris ran a hand over the side of it, suppressing a thrill of giddiness. It came up to her chest in height and was twice as wide, with a lid that was presently closed over the top. There were ten times as many wires leading from this one as there were the metal disc, and in particular three thicker ones were linked to the screen mounted on the wall.

"Spooky," remarked Cissnei, also staring at the tank, unwilling to touch it. "You're not worried?"

"Even if I was, it wouldn't matter." Truth be told, she was immensely worried. The simulations guaranteed no risk, sure. The lab rats they'd used in the trials seemed to be doing okay, sure. There would be five other people in the room with her in case something as stupid as her flipping over and choking on neuroconductive fluids happened, sure. The medical wing was intentionally right next door, sure.

A wild thought crossed her mind as she considered just jumping in the tank right now before she got cold feet. She even went as far as tipping up the lid. It was empty at the moment, of course, the drain in the bottom clearly visible. That would change in a matter of days, or perhaps hours if they were fortunate enough.

"It's exciting, too," she said after a moment, closing the lid. "We may as well get started with setup. Have everything running for when everyone gets here."

"'We'?"

"You could help, I guess. Get everything switched on and running."

"I am not touching the devil tank, though."

Aeris put her hands on her hips and frowned. "It won't do anything, even if it were on. You aren't in it, and we haven't picked a signal to replicate."

"What if you're wrong?"

Aeris gave the tank a firm pat on the lid. "Then we learn a valuable science lesson. Come on, give me a hand with the contact disc."

They worked for several hours after that. While a good majority of the simpler functions were automated, the instruments themselves weren't. Most of it wound up being staring at loading screens, waiting for systems upon systems to boot up. At about six hours into prep, Tseng joined them, having finished his work in the biolabs.

"You seem busy," he said, glancing over the pair of them. Cissnei had been pacing in circles around the room's circumference and seemed to have somehow managed to annoy herself with it, and Aeris was staring at a monitor watching driver 56 of 1189 load, a thin stream of drool of going down her chin.

"We're sciencing. What have you been doing?" Aeris shot back defensively.

"Much of the same thing," he admitted. "You aren't accomplishing anything at the moment. Neither am I. We may as well retire for the time being."

"Isn't this important?" objected Aeris, as Cissnei all too willingly went right for the door.

"Yes, but we're not supposed to be doing much without half the staff present anyway," she said. "Eat something."

"Fine, but I'm staying here," said Aeris. "I'd like to get a head start on finding a good anchorpoint. If they like, they can tell me to pick a new one when they get here."

Their meals consisted of prepackaged rations. They could have been quite a bit worse, considered Aeris as she dug into some sort of precooked meat pie-esque thing. She had offered the gummy bears and allsorts again, and no one had been particularly interested.

After another half hour of waiting for the system to be fully online, the light beneath the glass-covered disc flickered on as Aeris sat at the computer next to it and began to enter in a string of numbers -- the data from the first bridging experiment.

Once it was determined that the planes of reality they had discovered more or less had atoms the way they were understood in their own, there came talk of visiting said planes using the same technology. The process was simple, in explanation anyway. Safely sending a remote-controlled drone through to another universe had been considered, but ultimately was impossible -- there would be no way know what was on the other side without observing it, and there was no way to observe it that didn't involve sending a billion dollar rover through and hoping it didn't come out on the other side miles underground, or in the vacuum of space. The method considered by the late Dr. Gainsborough involved energy signatures -- the human consciousness was really little more than electricity, and if there were a point of reference on the other side that they recognised and had already mapped, one could use that as a jumping-off point to send their own signal through.

The problem with that, however, was the same catch-22 with the drones; there was nothing for them in the other dimension to see if there was anything for them in the other dimension.

That, and the fact that it sounded ridiculous and essentially ended her mother's career.

Eventually, she and her husband (nee Dr. Gast) had decided someone would have to be the first one in the pool. The effort had been privately funded, unsupervised, and ultimately, fatal.

People had died for these numbers.

It wasn't until three years ago that Aeris realised that they must have succeeded directly prior to the whole thing quite literally blowing up in their faces. The data was garbled enough that it had nearly been discarded, but it was there, and she had worked through it all herself, filtering out distortion, correcting for bugs, and deciphering what she could from burnt papers.

They had their signature, and with it their waypoint.

The glass-covered disc flickered on a few moments later, and pinpricks of light began popping up on its surface. All of them were instances of the pattern they had identified. Some were steadier than others. Most of them didn't remain fixed for more than an instant, and were limited in scope. She sifted through the options, watching them flicker in and out of existence, until she zeroed in on the most consistent one she could find. Good scope, steady source, very few variations. Perfect.

She scooted over to another computer and began running the calculations for it. It would probably take a lot longer on her own, but a head start was still a head start, and Cissnei and Tseng probably had a limited understanding of particle physics and the numbers that went into it anyway.

She was about five hours deep into her work before she turned to look at the disc again and swore.

The waypoint she'd been setting up calibrations for had terminated, she realised. All of them had. She could continue, but the results would be skewed with the signal truncating as it had. Perhaps she could wait a while and see if it picked up anything else.

She got up to retrieve the container of allsorts, and noticed another waypoint. Very steady, decent scope, but not particularly strong -- it had barely registered at all.

It was better than nothing, though, and five hours wasted was still five hours wasted. She scrapped the work she'd done for the first point with a heavy sigh and began on the next one, this time frequently checking to see if it was still there.

She peeled her face off the desk sometime later, not having realised she had fallen asleep. At some point someone else had left another ration pack next to her. She picked it up and went back to the outer ring to the living quarters.

Cissnei was there waiting for her. "It's about time you left that room. They're getting out of decon in ten minutes."

"Who? Oh." Aeris wiped a drool stain off the side of her face and allowed Cissnei to lead her around to the other side of the ring. "Where's Tseng?"

"Asleep," said Cissnei. "He probably didn't want to admit he was still nauseous in front of the project's head."

"I'll get him. You can say hi for me," she said, and started off down the hallway again.

"Should you be here if you're in charge -- okay, goodbye," she heard Cissnei say behind her.

By the time she got back with a decidedly less-put-together Tseng, Cissnei already appeared to be having a conversation with the three men that had just arrived, and Aeris paused uncertainly for a moment.

The first was clearly who the Netherlands had sent, what with the blond hair and blue eyes and the significant height advantage he had on most of them. He seemed mostly content to watch the others. Perhaps this was because of the language barrier, as Cissnei was presently engaged in a conversation in German with the second man. He seemed to be the oldest of the three, a few years older than the blond man, his black hair streaked with grey in places, and Aeris was fairly sure she recognised him from the meetings. She could tell even through the reserved, formal way he carried himself that he had been dying to talk to someone all day.

Aeris was half convinced the third was an intern that had wandered in by mistake. He was significantly taller than all of them and oddly musclebound for a physicist, and looked about as young as she was. He hadn't stopped fidgeting with the sleeves of his scrubs and was clearly bored out of his mind. Her mind went back to the dossiers after another moment -- by process of elimination, the lab in Hawaii had sent him over.

Cissnei paused mid-conversation and turned to Aeris and Tseng, who quickly made an effort to straighten the collar of his shirt.

"Dr. Gainsborough aus dem Vereinigten Königreich Großbritannien und Dr. Tseng aus der Volksrepublik China," said Cissnei, gesturing to each of them as they exchanged handshakes. She turned to Aeris. "Dr. Angeal Hewley from the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. Lazard Deusericus from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and Dr. Zachary Fair from the United States of America."

They each gave a polite nod at the mention of their names. The blond man, Dr. Deusericus, smiled. "It's an honour to work with you on this project, Dr. Gainsborough."

"Likewise, and Aeris is fine," she replied. "It'll be too stuffy if we keep up the titles the whole time we're here." She turned on her heels again and began to move back towards the sleeping quarters. "Well, get yourselves in order. We've got a lot of work to do."

The tall one, Fair, blinked in surprise, but if he would have said anything she wouldn't have heard it, already on her way towards the fifth ring, unable to keep the grin off her face.

"So, uh... that went well, I guess?" Zack watched the project head disappear around the corner and went back to messing with the sleeves of his uniform.

"Swimmingly," came Lazard's voice behind him, sounding somewhat amused as Angeal heaved a heavy sigh behind him. Zack had decided almost immediately to be on a first-name basis with everyone he was in decon with. Lazard had tolerated it good-naturedly, more or less. Angeal had responded by looking at him exasperatedly and accidentally-on-purpose not hearing him on occasion.

"So... Ange. Can I call you Ange?"

Zack received another stern look.

"Angeal, then. It's unprofessional to ignore your coworkers, Angeal."

Angeal sighed and proceeded down the hall to the living quarters.

"This relationship's off to a great start," said Zack, heading after him.

"You can't blame us for wanting to maintain a professional environment," said Lazard.

"Yeah, but we're basically bunkmates now," said Zack, looking at one of the identical white doors Angeal had just disappeared into. "Can you imagine spending a month at a time living with someone you couldn't stand? Like a girlfriend, but you can't dump them, because it's her house, and also you've lost the keys, and there are no windows and neither one of you can leave without causing an international incident."

"That's... certainly colourful," said Lazard.

"Tell me about it," muttered Zack, and picked a room at random.

It was fairly minimalist -- a bed in the corner, with a couple pillows and some blankets. He'd have to see if there were any more pillows in the supply section.

He spent a full two minutes just sitting on his bed and staring at the mirror over the sink in front of him -- it was the first time in a month he hadn't had any cameras pointed in his face. His jaw ached from the constant need for a "winning smile". He scowled at the mirror over, which was immensely satisfying, which involuntarily made him smile again, which started the cycle over.

A knock on the door dragged his attention away from the mirror. "They're setting up for the first round," came Lazard's voice. "You're needed in the fifth ring."

Zack got to his feet and stepped outside. "What, already?"

Lazard began to lead him back. "Yes, already. Apparently they'd been taking care of the preliminary work over the last day or so. Nothing left to do but start."

Zack took his time making it through the facility -- he spent a few minutes watching Tseng and Lazard hurry around medical, and offered to feed the five rats they had available to them, until Tseng had to shoo him away when he tried to take one out to pet. He probably shouldn't be getting attached to something that he'd have to watch get dissected, but then that was why he wasn't a biologist.

Another two airlocks led him into the fifth ring, where Angeal and Aeris were already deep in conversation, with Cissnei mediating between the two. Aeris was the first to greet him.

"I don't recognise you from the meetings," she said eventually. "So you're... Zax?"

"It's Zack," he grumbled. "That's a typo. And... yeah. Cosmologist. I was kind of a last minute addition."

"How last minute?"

"Try three weeks. They briefed me on the way over."

Aeris frowned, and he quickly continued. "That big scary room one door over? That was my design." She continued watching him, which he took as a sign to continue. "Partially my design, anyway. They figured, y'know, since I built it, they might as well have me operate it too. So, I'm here!" He waved. "Hello!"

"So how's it work, then?" A test. He hoped it wouldn't be like this the entire time he was working.

"The last one just ripped a hole open in spacetime for stuff to be fed through. It was, uh... brilliant, I'm sure, but wound up with some... casualties," he said, crashing into every single elephant in the room on the way to his desk. "That one just tears the hole at you."

"That sounds lethal."

"Oh, it is," said Zack, shrugging. "But by then you're in another universe. Kills you and brings you back before the laws of physics have time to realise you're dead."

It finally got her to look away, at least. "Well, welcome to the project, Zack."

"You too," he replied, turning back to his own screen and hiding a grin. Test passed, first name basis achieved.

Everyone spoke very little during the first part of setup. Deusericus, after getting set up in the medical room, had joined Tseng in observing everyone else until they were needed. Hewley, thank god, was finally present to help fine tune the calculations she'd made in a hurry and without much sleep, with Cissnei helping to translate the occasional communication or two -- it seemed he understood some English, but spoke very little of it himself. That left Fair hovering over their shoulder, apparently making Angeal nervous.

After a while, Aeris spoke up again. "I'm still sort of surprised they have someone else this young on the project," she said. "I was involved from day one, and I recommended Cissnei. What's your story?"

"Maybe they thought it'd be good publicity or something if they sent someone from Mauna Kea." He shrugged, leaning on the desk. "Genius from a poor family, y'know. Makes a good Lifetime movie. I don't think it's bragging or anything to say I'm pretty photogenic, either."

Aeris frowned. "You're awfully up-front about it."

"Hey, I said that was one of the reasons," he said, looking mildly offended. "You don't think I got my doctorate off a basketball scholarship, did you?"

"Well, you can show me," she replied, and passed him a set of papers. "Help get the overlap signal set up."

Zack looked through them, still looking mildly stung. "What's this from? I thought we'd never done this before."

At this Angeal spoke up, and Cissnei began translating.

"'We've never done this with a human before. We have tested the process on rats, using a weak partial signal. We know it's nonlethal as long as one doesn't choke and drown, and we know some kind of connection has been made, but the rats can't tell us what they're experiencing, what they've seen, or what the process is like,'" she relayed. Angeal then addressed Zack directly. "Ten days, ten rats. All fine."

"How does that work out for you?" he asked Aeris. "You'll be comatose, right?"

"That's what this is for," chimed in Deusericus, gesturing to a large screen that seemed to be more heavily wired up to the tank than the others. "This will be the first test to make sure it works."

"...And if it doesn't?" asked Zack.

"It has to," said Aeris, tying her braid more closely to her head in a bun. "They didn't tell you much, did they?"

Zack shrugged. "They went over the math itself, and the work I'd be doing. And the gateroom. Y'know, making sure anyone that goes in there comes back out in one piece. Not so much about the hell tank."

Cissnei pointed, looking triumphant. Aeris quickly continued, cutting her off.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-eight," said Zack. "You beat me by a year, looks like." He grinned, and Aeris again for a split second wondered if he mightn't have been an intern.

"Did you want to be here, or did they just send you over?" asked Aeris. "Why are you involved?"

"Well..." he scratched his neck. "I mean, of course I wanna be here. It's really exciting, you know? I wanted to be a part of it. That's why the rest of us joined, right Lazard?" he said, turning to Deusericus for support.

"Something like that," said Lazard, clearly amused at the familiarity. Zack had probably been doing that all through decon. "There are many reasons. The challenge, the honour for one's nation, having something nice on one's retainer..."

"And that's why you're here?" said Aeris, leaning away from the computer screen to let Angeal have a final look.

"More or less," he replied. "There's a suit for you on the examination chair. I'll meet you inside in five minutes for a physical before we start."

Cissnei flashed her another thumbs up as Aeris stood and left the room.

Lazard emerged ten minutes later following the physical, with Aeris behind him. After confirming she was in decent enough shape to not have a heart attack midway through the process, she had changed into what appeared to be a cream-coloured wetsuit, with silvery spots of conductive foil running down the spine. She'd tied her braid back up into a bun (showed them about her ribbon being work-inappropriate), and hauled herself up to sit on the ledge next to the lip of the tank as she watched it slowly fill.

She sat patiently as Lazard enlisted Cissnei's help in attaching electrodes to spots on her head and neck, as well as several more sensors monitoring her vitals. She very slowly slid her feet in -- the fluid itself was slightly viscous, and had a silvery tint to it -- and felt them drag through it with a bit more resistance than water. It had been diluted somewhat, and gallium generally wasn't known for being poisonous, but Aeris couldn't help but think of pitcher plants.

They passed her sealed oxygen mask and helped her secure it to her face. Apart from air, there would also be a mild sedative mixed in, enough to keep her from unconsciously thrashing around and flipping herself over. She and Cissnei flashed another thumbs up, and Aeris carefully lowered herself into the tank. The fluid had been heated slightly, but she still shivered as she carefully positioned herself to float on her back.

"The first set's active," she heard Tseng say from somewhere to her right. "Count down from ten."

Aeris felt her thoughts skip a beat, and she felt as though they were sagging slightly, leaving a small space underneath them. The large screen flickered on.

The sedative began to kick in, and the sagging smoothed out, leaving the space within reach. Aeris focused on it, and began to count.

Numbers began appearing on the screen, neatly typed: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

"Spooky..." she heard Zack mutter. She was sure Cissnei would probably be inclined to agree. 

"Now up from twos," came Angeal's voice. On a new line below the first came 2-4-6-8-10. Ready.

"The screen's online. The main set's coming in two minutes," said Lazard. "Good luck." The lid was closed over her, leaving her in complete darkness.

The large screen was essential for two of reasons -- once she'd made contact, she'd essentially have no knowledge of her surroundings, and no way to communicate in the event of an emergency. There would be no way to take notes, either, lacking a presence any more physical than electrical signals, and vital information could be lost due to simple human forgetfulness. The screen doubled as both.

A microphone in the lid of the tank directly over her clicked on, and Zack's voice wafted through, echoing slightly in the confined space.

"We're sending a partial at first, to see how you handle that," he said. "Just keep talking to me until you can't."

"Shouldn't a doctor be doing this?" said Aeris. The sedative had fully set in, and the warm water (well, some of it was water) she was suspended in made it feel a bit like a hot tub.

"Lazard's looking over your vitals right now and Cissnei's on translation duty. Besides, I am a doctor," he replied, and she could still hear the toothy grin in his voice.

"So 'm I."

"Well, then we're fine. You've got twenty seconds. Can you count for me?"

"Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen..." Spots of light began to appear in her vision. Minor hallucinations, something they'd expected. She made a note of it on the screen for them to go over later. The darkness in the tank suddenly seemed a lot bigger. Zack was saying something else to Tseng, and she could hear them all moving around her. The lights began flashing faster, and she shut her eyes.

"...four, three, two --"

Once, when she'd been four years old, Ifalna Gainsborough had taken her daughter to the zoo. It had been the height of summer, and while Aeris would have likely preferred to stay outside staring at the ostriches all day, her mother had successfully managed to corral her into the indoor deep sea exhibit after she started turning pink. One of her earliest memories was looking through those tanks, and coming across the informational video about dead fish, drifting to the abyssal zone at the bottom of the ocean, where there wasn't any light, until something much bigger and stranger than it snapped it up.

It was unimaginably deep here -- and at the same time, empty. It was absence, and yet she felt something incomprehensibly huge around her, and there was nothing around her at all, because here was nothing. She felt the nothing pass through her, and a low, deep noise began getting louder, like howling wind, even though there was no noise, and no wind.

Suddenly there was something, actually, and she was stunned she had missed it before. She was clearly seeing something, but for some reason her eyes didn't want to focus on it -- because of course, she had no eyes, and she was looking at nothing that existed, as far as her brain was concerned. Everything seemed distorted and distant and somewhat dreamlike.

She was in an enclosed space. That much she could make out. There was ground beneath her, and noises that she couldn't properly hear around her, because of course she wasn't hearing anything, there was nothing to hear.

She was here. She was looking at another world.

She began frantically taking stock of everything around her that she could see, which was not a lot. She wasn't entirely sure where the signal they'd overlapped with had come from, and she found she was unable to look around freely. Maybe an anchored point? That didn't make sense.

There was, at least, solid ground, or something that looked like it anyway -- that was already a promising start. She couldn't "see" particularly well, and every few seconds they plunged back into darkness, but the space around her seemed more or less Euclidean, though she would know for sure when she traversed it herself.

She was interrupted about thirty seconds later with the realisation that her chest hurt. That wasn't right, was it?

The pain got worse, and she made a note of it. Ten seconds later, she saw a tank lid slide open above her with a concerned Lazard leaning over her and offering her a towel. She tore off the mask and took deep breaths of air, even though she hadn't had any trouble breathing before.

She pulled herself out of the tank. Zack was still staring at the screen, looking gobsmacked, as was Angeal, whom Cissnei was translating for in a low, rushed voice. Tseng looked almost ready to express an emotion.

"You did it," said Zack. "You really, actually did it. Holy shit..."

"That's not workplace language," she said.

"We just discovered another planet in another universe," said Cissnei, also busy staring at her notes, "I think we deserve a 'holy shit' or two."

"Feedback," said Tseng brusquely. "We gave you two minutes. Tell us everything you can."

Aeris hesitated for a moment, wiping the accumulated moisture from her face with the towel, getting her words in order. "...It was a bit scary," she said. "I... saw something. Almost definitely objects and not hallucinations. Couldn't move for some reason. It sort of felt like I was choking."

Angeal turned around. "The partial?" he asked. Aeris shrugged.

"Can't think of any reason otherwise. Your head stayed above the surface the entire time," said Lazard.

"There's other issues we need to fine tune," said Zack, finally turning away from the note screen to look at Aeris, thumbing back towards it to direct her attention there. Prominently displayed was

minor hallucinations look like lights

very dark here, spatial distortion or limited human perception

amazing sol4igroundηdid232 lλわooks enclosed struχ24ure cave meれt maybe sign2αλわ111 yos1れ deの twowall 33tΘ1子14 metrρe供 unmer

hurtπ痛ain 6chest mine

Aeris frowned. "That's... not what I wrote."

"We figured as much," replied Lazard. "You're lucky we managed to parse the last bit. That's a safety concern we need cleared up before we try this out in full. Get cleaned up and meet us back here to disseminate our findings."

A couple hours later, they had discovered most of the difficulties had been due to it being a "test run" in the first place. The choking sensation had its roots in the same problem: higher brain functions had registered, leaving the more basic ones behind.

They'd been deemed unnecessary and a waste of power on a test run.

"Maybe you don't need to breathe, but your brain thought you did," explained Tseng. "Just as it had decided you had no nerves with which to move. Easily fixed."

Other issues lacked the necessary data for them to do much more than guess. Strangely enough, the pattern they'd used to get here seemed to be missing parts of it, snuffed out by Aeris's own, yet the signal had been more or less maintained. And there was the matter of her notes.

"I took measurements of what I saw," she explained. "Don't know how accurate they were. There shouldn't be that many numbers."

"We don't know what's making it do that," said Zack. "Shouldn't we -- "

"No" interrupted Aeris. "We're doing the next run tomorrow, and it'll probably clear up with the rest of the issues we had when we do it for real."

"And if it doesn't?" asked Tseng.

"Then we do it anyway. I'll just have to remember everything until we get it worked out." She was met with silence. "Think about it. Do we have any alternative? We've come this far."

Angeal said something else, and it took Cissnei a moment to tear her eyes away from the note screen, realise he was talking, and relay it to everyone else.

"'We keep going. We've made incredible progress, and we're about to make more. Would it be possible to do it with the lid off, and watch you directly?'"

"Probably. Maybe a bit of sensory bleed, but I can keep my eyes shut," she replied. "I'd say we do the next run today, but I don't know if I want to be drugged twice in one go."

Angeal said something else.

"'It's all about finding the path of least resistance. From our end, at least. We have a limited understanding of physics that --' I didn't translate that for you. How did..." Cissnei trailed off, looking between Aeris and Angeal, who sighed.

"I felt it would be prudent to allow you to continue translating. I assumed there was at least one other person in the group that would also require your skills," said Angeal curtly. "Clearly no one else thought the same."

"...You spoke English this entire time," said Cissnei slowly.

"Yes."

"Everyone here speaks English."

A chorus of affirmatives from the group.

"I -- why am I here, then?!" she sputtered.

"I assumed someone else would need the help," said Angeal.

"So did I," added Tseng.

"...If it helps, I know Spanish," offered Zack, scratching his neck. "If you wanna leave, the airlock's that way."

"Well, perhaps I don't!" she huffed. "Perhaps I am going to stay here anyway so you can all continue to spare my feelings!"

"Actually, maybe you have to!" said Aeris brightly. "You already went through decontamination. Going back out off schedule counts as an emergency. It could set off an investigation and stall the project for weeks. Maybe even months."

"...Thank... you?" said Cissnei after a moment, considering whether or not this was a good thing.

"You're welcome," replied Aeris. "The drugs have made me very tired, and I'm going to take a nap." Which is what she did.

The next two days were spent processing their findings and fine-tuning the tank for their first official launch. There unfortunately wasn't much data to go on about the other universe from the trial run, so most of the focus was on Aeris herself and the tank. Lazard had decided that the lid could be opened mid-process as necessary, but that the lights should remain dimmed. Cissnei would be watching the entire time ready to pull the plug at the first sign of distress, a position that she was determined to take very seriously out of resentment. Angeal and Zack would both be working with Aeris herself to focus on refining the overlap signal. Tseng had been largely quiet the entire time. Aeris walked up behind him and cleared her throat.

"Anything we should know about?" Aeris probed.

"Actually, yes," Tseng admitted. "It's not really concrete. More of a guess than a hypothesis, but... the reason we're able to recognise the signal as a familiar pattern is... I think, partially because it's organic in nature. That must have been what the late Dr. Gainsborough was identifying."

Aeris paused to consider this. "How do you know?" she asked.

"Brainwaves. Or something like them."

"...Is it intelligent?"

"That's difficult to say," said Tseng. "It could be an intelligence we lack the scientific knowledge to comprehend, but based off what we know about biology on Earth, no. Very little, if any brain activity. If there was, there would've been interference the entire time. Some sort of animal, most likely."

"Definitely bigger than a microbe, though?"

"Definitely bigger," agreed Tseng, and it was clear he was trying to downplay his excitement.

"How big did you feel?" asked Zack.

Aeris considered this as well. "I don't really know. It was hard to see, and everything was kind of numbed."

"Y'know, if you want someone else to go in for you --"

"You're volunteering?" she interjected, her eyes narrowing slightly. Zack held up his hands.

"Hell no. You wouldn't get me into that thing for a million dollars. Which is maybe how much they're paying you to do that anyway, so a billion. I thought maybe someone else could volunteer, though."

"It's really not that bad," she said. "A bit unsettling, maybe, but it passes quickly enough."

"You can swim in the hell bathtub all you like, then," returned Zack, turning his chair around to face her.

"I will," said Aeris, "and it'll be groundbreaking for everyone, I'm sure. Now come help me compile this. There's something here Angeal says might be a bug, and we'll need to do the next run perfectly or risk falling behind schedule." She opened the container on the counter to her left and tapped it with her pencil.

"Gummy bear?" she offered.

"Thought you'd never ask," interjected Angeal, reaching over the both of them. It was about time, she supposed.

January 15th; Venice, Italy and Rome, Italy

I haven't updated for a few days now as I've been sick and have now gotten off of Contiki so I've been trying to get myself better, but I've posted pictures! After our beautiful castle meal in Slovenia we headed out the next morning to Venice. It was a full day of driving so we had to get up really early, but it gave us plenty of time to catch up on sleep which was nice. When we arrived we had to get a boat over to Venice itself, because there are no vehicles on the island of Venice whatsoever; it's completely pedestrian and water canals. The architecture was exactly what you expect of Italy, all the windows were flat with shutters, all the walkways were pebbled and all the architecture was ancient and glorious. We had a gondola ride through the canals which was not what I'd expected but was still nice. It only went for half an hour, but where we went it looked like a few steps up to the old houses and apartments were under water; an estimated 3000 years is left before the city is completely underwater. I asked why the city was built the way it was rather than with roads and it was to do with escaping their enemies of war at the time as they had not yet discovered boats. There were dozens of gondolas everywhere you looked, with a guy on the back of each rowing them around. After the gondola ride, we had a few hours of free time, so a few of us sourced the number one priority of being in Italy; pizza. And we weren't disappointed. We had a lemoncello shot with lunch, bruschetta that was the size of a pizza in itself and then a prosciutto pizza for main course. After lunch Marisa and I found a little bar and had the best tiramisu I've ever tasted in my life, with a Bolini; an Italian drink that is made of peach purée and champagne. It was incredible, I'm definitely finding out if they make them on the cruise. We wandered and met with the rest in a pub and all drank Bolini's until it was time for the next tour. We went on a wine and dine tour of Venice, where we went to 3 different bars and got to try a different Venezian specialty food and wine at each place. It wasn't like wine tasting in adelaide where you get to try heaps, we only got to try one red and one white at each place, which was fine anyway. Walking around the streets of Venice would be much more crowded in summer, I think going during winter was a good choice because the streets are really narrow and were hard to fit through with traffic from both directions as it was, I can't imagine during the summer. We got told that it's very easy to get lost in Venice, and now I understand why. All the buildings are stories higher than you, and street signs are far and few between; its like being in a maze. In the main square there are pigeons and birds everywhere, and if you stand in the middle of them there are guys that hand you a handful of bird seed without even slightly asking permission and you get flocked. And then you have to pay them. Like what? I didn't really want to get covered in pigeons but I did so that was an experience. There were heaps of little souvenir stores in the main square as well so I bought an Italia jumper because why not, I haven't bought a hoodie yet on this trip. Through the little side streets there were a lot of boutiques and like Gucci stores that were all really expensive, so I don't recommend shopping in Venice, or in Italy in general. We left at 10:30pm to go back to the hostel and were up again at 7:45am to go to my final destination; Rome. It was another full day of driving, we arrived at around 4pm and dropped our bags off with some difficulty before going on a walking tour and to dinner. I learnt really quickly that Italians are rude, and absolutely suck at organisation. We got put in a room which the first time didn't have working keys, and when we had working keys discovered that there were people already occupying said room. So then we got moved from the 1st floor to the 4th floor in an elevator that probably shouldn't have held more than a small child, and was about the size of a toilet cubicle, to then find out that we in fact didn't have a room there either, so we got taken back down to reception and had our bags put into the luggage area and got given free beer to compensate; overall not a bad deal in my opinion but the other girls weren't happy. We also got an upgraded room; we saw real carpet in the hallway and got excited. After that debarkle we headed out on the walking tour which took us to the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon and the fountain out of angels and demons where Tom Hanks pulls the guy out of the fountain I'll post a picture so you know what I'm talking about; or just google it. It was raining slightly but it wasn't too cold, it was in positives and that was honestly a really exciting moment. Gloves were not necessary for the first time in two weeks. Venice was warm too actually, sunglasses were out! Seeing the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain in person was yet another one of those moments when I realised that photos do nothing any justice whatsoever. I didn't think it would interest me that much, but standing there had a very different effect. I don't understand how thousands of years ago literally thousands like BC level thousands, people, human beings built structures of that scale. Like if you stood 56 of me on top of each other, these buildings are bigger than that. And all the columns are perfectly round and dozens of metres Tall and wide, how do they even exist? The Trevi Fountain isnt even in a featuring position, it's literally all but in the back streets of Rome like WHAT. But the reason for that, is that structures like the well known ones aren't the only ones to their scale; there are buildings throughout all of Rome of the same scale, literally throughout. Rome is entirely ruins with a few hotels and a few McDonalds thrown around. There's random columns like along the side streets and the old gladiator racing strips are just a square in the middle of roads. It looks like so much of it should be a feature but it's not it's just part of the city; it's again, indescribable. We went to dinner and this was the moment that I was at the height of my sickness for the trip, I got light headed and ill and couldn't breathe at all, so I didn't eat much and decided I was going to go straight to bed when we got back. But did I? No. Because it was the last night on Contiki, and I'm an idiot. So I went out drinking with everyone else until 5am, when we had to get up at 7:30am for the Colosseum. WHY NIKKI. GODDAM. Getting up was a struggle and pretty much everyone was still drunk, and one of the guys I've been travelling with lost his metro pass and the tour manager was also still drunk and she had no time to be mothering so everyone was like yeah nah we will see you there, even the people he was travelling with. I felt bad for him so I stayed with him at the train station and we managed to find the right train ticket, the right train and get off at the right stop which was the easy part because it's called 'Colosseo'. We ended up getting there about 40 minutes before the group because they did a walking ruins tour which we agreed neither of us could've handled at that point in the morning anyway, so we gave ourselves a 40 minute colosseum tour before meeting up with everyone else. Again, I feel like I say this too much, but the Colosseum has to be seen to be believed. The outside looks spectacular no doubt but it has absolutely nothing compared to the inside. It is insane. Absolutely insane. Not much if any has been reconstructed at all, it's been left to naturally erode and age over time, which honestly just made it that much more incredible. We walked into the arena and there's an immediate sense of needing to imagine exactly what went on here, you can't help but see it so clearly. We stood on the top level for the best part of half an hour and just stared and took it in, there isn't much else that you can do other than that. We met up with the group and the tour was actually quite shitty, it only went for 15 minutes and didn't really tell us anything that isn't already well known; that the broken half broke in an earthquake, that top seats were reserved for women and slaves and the closest balconies were reserved for priests and important people. One thing I didn't know was how much went on underneath the main floor of the arena. The animals were brought out from under the ground, for effect. The main arena floor is now gone so you can see all the walls where the cages were for the animals, and it was explained how they were hoisted up by slaves pushing the ropes to move and open the trap doors in the arena floors. To be honest I'm glad that we got to the Colosseum first, because we spent about an hour in there whereas the others only spent about 20 minutes. We went to the souvenir shop and I bought a little gladiator helmet, and then because everyone was either drunk or hungover we headed for food. It was bucketing down with rain all afternoon, and i bought an umbrella off of a gypsie for 5€ which was a mistake because of course as soon as the rain touched it the actual handle, not the umbrella, the HANDLE, snapped in half. So that got left on the ground and I actually drove past it about half an hour later in my taxi to my hotel, and I had a bit of a laugh. We got back to the hostel and went to our separate hostels ( those of us that got off in Rome) and met up again at 3pm to do the Vatican. My Hotel was beautiful, it was an air BnB and the guy there was so friendly, it was bit overwhelming to know that I was no longer on an organised tour and had to adult again but the receptionist actually got me a map and taught me how to get everywhere from the hotel which calmed me down a lot. I'm going to say it again, the Vatican was indescribable. I was staying three bus stops from it, THREE, and then just had to walk under an underpass to get to the Vatican square. I picked up in Rome as well that if you walk around with earphones in, the beggars and guys trying to tell you tours and souvenirs don't bother you, so walking around with earphones in even without music is a good way to go. Otherwise they follow you and call out to you until you respond. We did a tour of the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel, both of which I could have spent much more time in and intend to in the future. Leave a good 5 hour window to do the Vatican, because the museums are fascinating, and get an audio guide please for the love of god, it makes it so much more interesting. I was the only one that did and it was the best 7€ I've ever spent. The most amazing thing was seeing ruins and artifacts and tapestries from BC, like yes you learn about the history of BC but standing in front of roman ruins that were actually built BC is just another experience. And not being religious doesn't make a difference, if you know the bible to a reasonable extent then seeing the Vatican is worth doing. There was a hall of tapestries that depicted major events in Jesus' time, that were taught throughout all of my schooling and that i know back to front, the betrayal of his disciples, the last supper, the birth of Jesus, and they were made like 1-2 AD. They were made in the time of Jesus as it is believed, and while it didn't make me Christian or catholic it certainly made me question whether or not some of these events really did exist. Sorry Hughes'. It's very different learning the stories in school and seeing a tapestry woven in the time when it all supposedly happened. Right there in front of you. I will go back to Rome ( technically I have to because I threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain), and when I do an entire day will be dedicated to the Vatican. Contiki has officially ended. To be honest, and don't let this put anyone off of doing a Contiki, but I don't think I'll be doing another one, and if I do it won't be 12 countries in 16 days. Pros: - meeting people - Becoming a literal alcoholic - Seeing the highlights of each country you visit - Having an experienced tour guide - Having people around you that are in the same boat - Seeing a lot in a short amount of time Cons: - the contiki cold. It is NOT a myth, and it WILL NOT go away. - Getting up early every day - Only spending 36 hours in each city, sometimes less. - Not having the time to do everything you want to do - Spending waaaay too much money on alcohol and nice dinners that you wouldnt otherwise spend - Minimal sleep; absolute exhaustion. 16 days was too long, if I were to do it again I would do a week maximum and 2-3 countries. But, in saying all of that I did have an amazing time, meet some amazing people who I'm now going to Switzerland with, and doing a road trip along Australia's east coast with, and I will definitely never forget the experience. I flew back to London last night and am currently sitting on the plane to ICELAND!!!!! I've been super stressed because after being on tour I forgot how to adult a little bit but I'm back on the horse now and ready. Iceland, here we come! Oh and I really need to do some laundry. So Iceland and laundry, here we come! Some memorable things I've learnt so far: - don't be scared to talk to people that you don't know, 99% of the time they're willing to help you. - Don't constantly worry that you're being kidnapped; you're not. - Don't buy premium everything, make do with what you can. I've been blowing my nose with toilet paper for 3 days now, tissues are expensive. - Tipping is ridiculous, but necessary pretty much everywhere except for Australia. - Italians don't line up well; push in. - Polish people don't like you eating in their restaurants, they all stare when you walk in. - Not everyone can speak as much English as you assume, ask everyone you talk to before you talk to them if they speak English, purely by saying "English?" - .Learn how to sleep on transport; once you've got one type down, you've got them all down. Buses, planes, you name it. Buy a neck pillow. - Experiment with food, never stick to what you know when you're travelling. Half of the experience is eating their food. - If something scares you, it generally means that it's good for you. Just do it. - If you have to pay to go to the toilet, hold it. - Napping is a precious skill whilst travelling, learn it and do it whenever you can. - Don't be scared of overseas pharmacies, their products are exactly the same as ours. - Do not be scared to do things that you haven't done before, if you don't know where you're going or what you're doing, just remember that everyone else in the world has done this before, it can't be as hard as you're thinking it is. - Drink lots of water. - Bring lots of Chapstick. - BRING PAW PAW. - Packing a rucksack is easier if you put the cases of stuff on the bottom, and the clothes on the top; they squish better. - In Italy eat as much gelato as humanly possible. - Do NOT pack more than two pairs of shoes, you will not wear sneakers in winter. - Pack less pants and more jumpers; I've been wearing one pair of jeans everyday for 3 weeks, you just change the leggings underneath. - Bring a goddam jacket and don't spend 90€ on one in Amsterdam. - Go to Amsterdam, but don't buy weed stronger than 2 🐾 - They'll try to tell you that Austrian and German are different languages; they're not. - Pack more socks and more underwear than you think you will need...And then some more. - Sometimes in Europe, you can leave without paying the bill. - Sometimes in Europe, you can ride public transport without buying a ticket. - If you go to a thermal bath, pay for the package with a massage. You won't regret it. - Don't be scared of anything, you may think you do, but you don't stand out. You're just another person. - Live with #noregrets.

Sunday, June 6 2021

This is an Adventure!

It’s been several weeks since my last blog post, and a lot has happened in that time! It’s exciting to see our progress and the miles that we have walked so far. At this point we are 652 miles into our journey, only 50 miles until we enter the Sierra Nevada Mountains and leave the desert behind. We’ve slowly built up our endurance and become stronger and stronger, able to complete over 20 miles per day on average over the past two weeks, minus a few days of extreme heat where our mileage was less. But no one wants to hear about that! As hikers, our conversations seem to revolve around how many miles we plan to go, what the weather is doing, the difficulty of the terrain, where the next water source is, and what kind of food we’re eating. To regular people, this must seem quite boring! To us, it’s as normal as talking about football around the water cooler with coworkers (or in Landon’s case, talking about Columnar Basalt for 10 minutes with other hikers around the pool).

Despite hiking longer days and doing higher miles, we always seem to be stiff and sore! Especially after waking up in the morning. A few weeks ago, we met another hiker couple who actually met hiking the Appalachian Trail a few years ago and ended up dating on trail and then got married earlier this year. Having done a thru hike before, they told us that this is normal! That we will still feel aches and pains throughout the trail, but we will do so having done more miles and harder terrain as we progress. I have found this to be true! It truly is very rare to wake up and feel excellent. Generally, every day feels rather tough to get moving, and we are very tired when we finally do stop hiking. Our physical and mental fortitude continues to be tested day after day, especially in this last 100 miles of hiking.

Leaving Tehachapi, we entered a heat wave in a rather barren and exposed section of trail. I think of all my time on the PCT thus far, this past week tested me the most. Hiking in 90 plus degree heat climbing up hot, sandy slopes with the blaring sun overhead was one of the hardest physical and mental things I have ever done. We pushed ourselves to either wake up incredibly early (around 4 AM) or hike in the dark in the coolness of the descending sun (until 10 and 11 pm). In the hottest part of the day, we would try to find some shade (not easily found sometimes) and take a rest for several hours. Not even the rest came easily though, as the shade proved to be little relief from the sun, and it was too uncomfortable to sleep much. Water sources were few and far between as well, about 20 miles away from each other (and only that close together due to the kindness of trail angels who maintain water caches for the hikers). We would sit at the water caches and drink several liters of electrolytes to “camel up” before heading out again, carrying 5-6 liters apiece (and sometimes still not having enough). The water weighs your pack down quite a lot, but we have discovered that we prefer to hiker with heavy packs than run out of water. This was another reason for our midday rests, we simply did not have enough water to hike in the extreme heat (nor did it prove to be very efficient). You tend to have to ration your water to a certain extent. Landon and I would set up our tent at night, and have conversations like “if we use 500 ml to make dinner, we can drink 500 ml of electrolytes and that will leave us 1 Liter apiece for the next 7 miles to the next water source. If we wake up at 4, we should be able to make it there with that amount of water before it gets too hot.” Logistics and planning are incredibly important out here. I cannot imagine how much more difficult it would have been to hike the PCT pre internet, pre Guthooks (the amazing app we use that has our maps, shows our water sources, etc). I’m so grateful for modern resources to help us plan our days safely out here!

To those of you like my good friend Tayler, who consistently tells me that I do a poor job convincing her that anyone should ever do this, let me talk a little bit about how incredible this experience is despite the hardships. First of all, the community on the PCT is wonderful. I joke that being on trail is a lot like being back in high school with your friends. You’re all sharing very similar experiences that bond you in a way that only other hikers can completely understand! My best example of this was earlier this week, when we set up a tarp at one of the water caches with our friend Jim. Jim is a lovely person, so friendly and fun to talk to. He is also the dirtiest hiker I have ever seen. He sleeps in the same clothes he hikes in and consistently has thick dirt absolutely caked to his legs. As such, I gave him the trail name Dirtcake, which he seems to have accepted (you can accept or reject a suggested trail name). As we lay under the tarp in our makeshift shade, the temperature being clocked in at 99 degrees by Landon’s fancy watch hanging from his trekking pole, we all laughed as we talked about how miserable and absurd this moment was! The wind was blowing fine grains of sand into us, which clung to our sweaty bodies. I looked down at Jim to see clumps of dirt not only clinging to his legs, but also to his chest hair and speckled across his face as he took a feverish nap. As we drank our hot Propel Watermelon water, we all laughed because this is our life right now, and there is no way around it, only through it, but at least we’re going through it together. At least in these less than ideal circumstances, we can talk and laugh and tell stories and experience life in a way that few people ever do. We can reminisce about having awakened to a beautiful morning in a pine forest just that morning, having filtered cool, clear mountain spring water, and that stark contrast that a few miles and 1500 feet of elevation descent can make. We can tell stories about the worst jobs we ever had and laugh about so and so’s crazy manager, or that one Karen customer that threw a fit that one time 10 minutes before the end of a shift (or about how Jim used to eat leftover food from customers at his high school food service job. He was truly meant for the hiker trash life!) It’s the contrast between these experiences that make little luxuries feel so much sweeter and more appreciated than I ever would have been able to know in my rather comfortable pre trail life.

Our 3 hours of tarp hell, suffered together at least.

Here are some things that I am immensely grateful for currently

- The hospitality of friends and strangers. We stayed for free with two friends in Tehachapi, Mitzy and Kristy, both of whom opened their homes to us to rest, shower, watch movies, soak in a hot tub, enjoy a meal, etc. We’ve also had complete strangers show us great kindness! Two wonderful women gave us a ride from Walker Pass into town yesterday, offering us charging cables for our phones, air conditioning, food in the car, and lovely conversation and company. Even the women running the motel we are currently staying in have been exceptional. They allowed us to do our laundry in their motel washer and dryer, fed us snacks poolside, gave us a discount and opened up an extra room (that is normally withheld) because all the rooms in town were booked. If you are ever in Kernville, CA, please check out Piazzas Pine Cone Inn, it’s an absolute oasis! And I would be remiss to not mention the trail angels who maintain the water caches in the desert. These people spend their own time and money (though we always donate if they have a donation box) to buy and transport water jugs back and forth to these remote dirt roads in the desert, just to help out PCT hikers that they don’t know and have never met. Isn’t that the kindest and most incredible act of service?

Being on trail with these other hikers, the most interesting and dynamic people, surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, is the best cure for cynicism and and upsetting news stories and angry political internet arguments. We’re all working toward a similar goal, supporting each other’s journeys, commiserating and laughing together, learning and growing and hurting and hiking. It’s so hard but it’s so wonderful. A couple of weeks ago, my mom made a comment to me that I couldn’t help but laugh at. She said “You know that you could take all of the money that you saved up for this hike, and just go spend a month or two on the beach in Aruba instead, right?” Ha! Yes Mom, I know. We could do that, and it would be much, much easier. A section hiker named Prospector gave us a button that says “This is an adventure.” And no one remembers vacations the same way that they remember adventures!

So as I sit writing this in the soft and very appreciated bed of our small town motel room, I can’t help but feel extremely happy. I know that in a few hours, I will leave the comfort and air conditioning and replace my heavy pack on my sore shoulders. I’ll put on my extremely worn out shoes that will surely leave my feet sore and give me some new blister or two in the coming days (unfortunately my new shoes never arrived due to a shipping mishap, and I’ve had to wear these about 200 miles past their ‘best use by’ date). I’ll sweat through my clothes and collapse from exhaustion and curse the day I ever decided to hike the PCT. But this is an adventure! You can’t ever lose sight of that. And we’re already 650 miles into this adventure! 25% of the way through! I’m so proud of that. Only 50 miles from the Sierra Nevada’s! Where we will enter a while new set of beauty and challenges, embracing it full on, grateful to leave the desert behind.

Here is my Mantra for the PCT, taken from one of my favorite books (recently read in my pre trail book club) The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd


"Then I would rise, my legs snarled with cramps, my stomach panged with hunger, blisters on my heels—oh, but the world was large and mysterious and I was far from home, journeying with my beloved."

Thanks for reading, see you up the trail!

- Joscelyn

P.S. - I finally got my trail name! I am now AC/DC, which actually has nothing to do with any love of the band or 80s music (though I can get down to Highway to Hell as much as the next person). I was named by another hiker named Southern Hospitality, who gave it to me after hearing me blow up my pad with a miniature air pump that I have carried for the entire trail. As an ultralight hiker, he found it absolutely ridiculous and incredibly funny that I have chosen to carry this. It takes 45 breaths to blow up my pad! I hate it. The air pump is the best luxury and absolutely worth the 3 ounces. Landon’s trail name is Outlast, which he received several hundred miles ago actually. We were sitting in a shelter at a wind farm outside of Palm Springs, waiting out the heat of the day with some other hikers. Someone mentioned that the shelter seemed like a hut that would be built in the Reality TV show Survivor, and Landon told them that he had watched all 40 seasons of Survivor over the course of the pandemic. We spent the next 15 minutes talking about Survivor strategy, with Landon giving his expert tips as a student of the show. Our friend Tidbits told him that he needed a Survivor trail name, and so he was given the name Outlast (Survivors motto is Outwit, Outplay, Outlast). It also seems fitting because you truly have to Outlast the difficulty to be a successful thru hiker!

PIN’s: The Future of Private Link Building

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What I’m going to reveal in this blog post is a strategy that will likely weed out a certain section of the ViperChill audience. In other words, I’m fully aware that this blog post will make a particular type of person unsubscribe from ViperChill and likely never return. It’s certainly not going to end up on the homepage of Inbound.org.

If you are loyal to Google guidelines, the teachings of blogs like Moz and love playing by the book, then you’ll probably realise with this article that we possess a very different perspective. When I first started my internet journey – where I spent day and night trying to make a living online – I tried and tested more website ideas and angles than you would believe.

Today, I’m still pushing the boundaries to see what works. These boundaries most often pertain to SEO, since it’s what I’ve enjoyed the most over the last 11 years.

I’m in the fortunate position that my business it not tied to some employer who dictates how I have to do things when it comes to promoting web properties. As such, I’m always willing to ignore everything I previously thought about marketing and to be open to new ideas and opportunities.

This blog post details one such opportunity, but I realise it will not be for everyone. Not everyone is the position to implement it for their online business, and even if you are, you may question the ethics of what is coming up.

With that disclaimer out of the way, today I’m going to introduce you to the world of PIN’s. Just before I do that, I want to talk about why I think they’re necessary.

I Predict We’ve Got Four to Five Years Left to ‘Do SEO’ As We Know It

This isn’t some “SEO is Dead” article you see go viral in the SEO blogosphere every six months, but a genuine prediction based on how Google search results have evolved over the last few years.

Google make all of their money via ads so quite simply want more people to click on them (and more often). The less success people have with SEO, the more likely they are to move to Google’s advertising platform.

Long gone are the days when we’re presented with just 10 blue links on a page.

The White Space Between Search Results Has Increased

It’s known that the higher up the page a search result, the more clicks it will receive. Therefore, when organic search results are pushed further down the page they’re going to be receiving fewer and fewer clicks. Not only are they lower down now in mobile results due to spacing, but the change is being tested across desktop results as well.

The search result on the left includes the new extra spacing with the ads taking up far more vertical space than the search result on the right (graphic via SEMPost).

There Are More ‘Featured Snippets’ Than Ever Before

There isn’t much to say on this one besides feature snippets are to be found for millions of search queries in every industry imaginable. What, when, how and why questions are often answered with a featured snippet box.

This not only pushes ‘organic’ search results further down in search results, it also attempts to give you the answer right from the results page. We can argue whether or not it’s useful for searchers, but for SEO’s, it gives new meaning to having the top result in Google.

‘Map Packs’ Completely Changed Local Search Results

Some call them ‘map packs’, some ‘the local pack’ and some even call them the ‘snack pack’. Whatever your term of choice, after being introduced a few years ago SEO’s have been trying to figure out how to get themselves and their clients into the pack to compensate for a lack of expected search results.

After all, these local listings take up a large portion of screen real estate.

I’m not complaining about this change; I’m simply pointing it out. There’s no doubt it makes search results more useful and that is Google’s aim (usually) after all. While Google did reduce the listings from seven to three back in August of 2015, the redesign of the listings with adding spacing means not much changed in terms of organic results being seen.

Those Map Packs Now Contain Ads, Too

We’re not going back to Google updates of a few years ago to make a point about Google evolving. Just last month Google announced that the map / local / snack pack would now include ads, as shown below.

This image is a mockup by Barry Schwartz, though the real thing looks very similar

It’s interesting to follow both PPC and SEO guys on Twitter and see the difference in reaction. PPC guys are over the moon since it gives them more traffic opportunities for their clients and SEO guy’s, well…I’m sure you can guess the reaction.

Based on how Google’s past, it’s not one of surprise.

They Have All The Answers

The knowledge graph was released in May of 2012 and it’s almost disappointing when you don’t see it for queries when looking for quick answers. For example, when I want to see how my football team, Newcastle, have fared against Liverpool, I literally don’t have to click anywhere.

Whether you want to learn about how old someone is, what 12 x 56 is or who discovered Radium, Google has the results right there for you. As a searcher, I love these quick answers, but as an SEO, it’s just one more thing which has lessened the likelihood of people clicking on my website if it doesn’t appear in this box.

They Continue to Make People Scared of Link Building

Google are great at making people fearful of performing any type of SEO. After all, this was the company that introduced the rel=”nofollow” attribute so we could link out to websites without giving them “link juice”.

That isn’t the real headline for the article – I’ve got to have some fun in these serious posts – but Google have publicly cracked down on pretty much everything when it comes to link building. The list includes, but is not limited to:

Guest posting for links

Using directories for links

Utilising private blog networks

Adding links to website themes

Adding do-followed links to widgets

They literally created a ‘no-follow’ tag

That’s not all; they openly share how much human intervention is involved in finding people abusing the guidelines, rather than algorithmic. This tweet speaks volumes.

Anglo Rank was a small network being promoted on the Black Hat World forums.

Just think about this for a second. One of Google’s first employees (and former Head of Web Spam), worth millions of dollars, dedicated his time to actively targeting a tiny little network on some private forum just to scare other people away from doing the same.

The simple fact is that Google can’t figure out with absolutely certainty which links are earned, or bought, or manipulative, very effectively.

Now I’m not taking anything away from Google here. Their company is worth hundreds of billions and mine, well…isn’t. They have undoubtedly created the world’s most sophisticated search engine.

But as I said earlier, it’s far easier for them to get us to police ourselves than it is for them to police us.

Big Brands Dominate the Long Tail

As SEO becomes increasingly difficult and searches are more and more dominated by big brands, the long tail will be the final frontier of search traffic opportunities.

When I said we only have a few years left to do SEO as we know it, the long tail will be where the majority of SEO’s focus their time through on-site SEO changes and content marketing.

While we’ll still have opportunities for SEO to ‘work’, long tail search results just don’t seem to be as diverse as they were in the past. It makes sense to me that Google have some kind of ‘filter’ whereby if they’re not sure what to list for a search result, they simply show more results from an authoritative site to be on the safe side.

Logically, this makes sense, but as an SEO, it could be a worrying sign of things to come. You can see this lack of diversification above in my screenshot of the map packs as well, with Yelp dominating the first three organic search results.

The Lack of Diversity in Search Results Will Only Get Worse

If you’ve only found ViperChill recently then it was likely because of my recent article, How 16 Companies Are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results. It has been shared thousands of times on social media and been read over 40,000 times, making it one of the most popular articles I’ve ever written here.

In the article I highlighted how Hearst Media were using their brands like Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan and Woman’s Day to point footer links to a new website of theirs, BestProducts.com.

That strategy, which would get the rest of us penalised, continues to work incredibly well.

“Just follow the Google guidelines.” Why?

Since that post, I was also contacted by a few people associated with the brands I had featured. One of those people I talked with was Tre who works in the growth department of About.com. I had already mentioned in the article how About planned to spin off into many more verticals over the coming months, which he confirmed.

I admit I’m being a little pedantic with my highlighting, but when you’re Director of Growth for About.com you’re going to share which terms are driving traffic to one site with the team that is in charge of another.

I appreciate Tre’s replies and I’m sure there’s only so much he can say, but About.com’s real goal with their spin-off’s is to no doubt own ten search results, instead of one.

PIN’s: My Version of Fighting Back While I Still Can

When I talked about why I started using private link networks and then continued to use them after Google’s “crackdown”, my primary reason was very simple: Writing quality content and getting ‘whitehat’ links wasn’t working for me. I was being outranked by people with crappy link networks who could build their own ‘relevant’ links on a whim and I decided to fight back.

You could view PIN’s in a similar light. I am utilising them because we’re not competing on a fair playing field, and what is supposed to work is very rarely what ranks, at least in the industries that I operate in.

While I don’t wish to reveal those exact industries, let me give you an example closer to home, with ViperChill.

I will say in advance that this is a search term I really don’t care about ranking for. I have no idea how many times it’s searched for each month and honestly, I doubt it gets many searches at all.

Here are the search results for the query, ‘Future of blogging’.

My site is usually either in 10th or 11th for that term, yet by every SEO standard metric I should be number one.

I have more links to the page ranking than anyone else

I have more ‘domain authority’ than most other pages

My title tag seems more relevant than half of them

Yet in order to get more traffic for this search term, which I think I ‘deserve’ from a 10,000 word article which took me weeks to put together, all I have to do is one thing.

It’s not getting more links. It’s not improving my on-site SEO. It’s not building better connections with influencers.

All I need to do to get my traffic back is to add a sentence to the start of the article which says ‘Last updated: July 25th 2016‘.

This is a search result where how recent an article was posted is more important than whether it’s actually a good page to rank.

I don’t actually have to update the article; I literally just need to make it appear to Google – thanks to that one sentence – that my article was updated recently. This one sentence, this ‘trick’, would bring me back the ranking I feel I deserve. (Though, again, I doubt this even gets searched for. It’s just an example).

This is not theory. If you look at the first sentence of my WordPress SEO guide that’s exactly what I’ve done before, with great results.

This little change is not too dissimilar to what I need to rank in other industries. I don’t need better on-site SEO. I don’t need to build natural links from relevant sites through content marketing. I simply need to add more domains to my private link network and write more guest blog posts.

Yes, these are both tactics that are looked down upon by Google, but they still work incredibly well. In 2014 when I covered Google’s crackdown on private blog networks I did mention that they would now be less likely to care about private link networks.

In my exact words:

What I expect to happen is that Google will ease off looking into private networks. The damage is mostly done.

Why? Because they’ve already made people scared to build them. The best way to deal with people trying to game the system is essentially making us as a community police ourselves so we don’t try to game the system in the first place.

The continued use of private link networks and guest posting for SEO is part of the reason why I will get a lot of criticism from this post. How to implement these tactics more effectively, which I’ll talk about later, will be the larger reason for criticism.

The Approach to Take

One of the first ideas I had when I started out online was to assemble a team of people who could work together to build a huge website. At the time I was following the growth of TechCrunch and Mashable and saw how quickly they were able to grow thanks to having a team of writers.

My idea was to essentially connect a team of people who all worked on one website and in return everyone had a percentage ownership. The logic being that working as a team would result in the site growing faster and even if revenue or a sale price was split, we would have more success than working on our own.

It’s a similar idea a number of ViperChill readers had after reading my last article on the small number of brands dominating Google search results.

While it’s a nice idea, in theory it doesn’t work so well.

Some will want to dictate the direction of a site that others don’t agree with and more importantly, some people will put in far more work than others. If you’re writing more content than others and your articles are getting better traction, you’re going to want to increase your ownership compared to someone barely putting in any effort.

There is another option you can utilise if you wish to team up with others though, and that’s a PIN.

It comes with all of the benefits of creating your own team, without the downsides of worrying about who is contributing what work.

What the Hell is a PIN?

A PIN is a play on the acronym PBN, which is commonly referred to as a private blog or link network.

I’ve received my fair share of critics over the years for talking about PBN’s and their success – and continuing to build them – but there’s a reason I do: They work.

I simply don’t believe that playing by Google’s rules is always going to get me the results I want. In some industries I wouldn’t make the money I do without them. I don’t use them for clients, but do for my own websites.

Going forward, I think PIN’s are going to be crucial to my success in certain industries, and I think they are going to be crucial to a number of people reading this as well.

PIN, stands for Private Influencer Network.

Before you think that just means making some “friends” online and building up your connections, allow me to continue.

I define a Private Influencer Network as a group of people looking to rank their websites in Google in similar industries (but not the same) who work together to help each other reach their objectives.

Essentially, they use any opportunities they have to build links (such as private blog networks, guest blogging, interviews, blogger round-ups) to send backlinks to other people in their network. In return, other people do the same for them.

The end result is that for the work you would do to build ten backlinks, you can get twenty to forty (of the same quality) in return.

A $100,000/m PIN Operating Right Under Your Nose

I first came across a Private Influencer Network a little over a year ago. A few ‘influencers’ in a particular field were using their private blog networks to – quite simply – link to each other.

I didn’t think much of the tactic at the time, until I found another example of this happening just a few months later.

Then three months after that, I found my third example. This time it really got my attention.

A group of just five people (from what I could tell) were ranking in one of the most profitable industries online and undoubtedly making over $100,000 per month in the process. I operate in the niche, which is how I found their collaboration, and know the numbers very well.

This is when I started working on building my own, PIN.

Finally, the idea to write this blog post came to me when I found yet another PIN. One of the members of this network is one of the most well-known SEO’s on the planet and is reading this article. He already “knows I know.”

If you follow the SEO blogosphere, you’ll undoubtedly know who he is.

One of the sites they are promoting also very likely also makes more than $100,000 per month. I’m not involved in the niche, but I know others who are and with the rankings they have, those numbers wouldn’t surprise me.

I reached out to the owner of the ‘money site’ they had all teamed up to promote. I keep a private database of paid link opportunities and one of them costs more than $10,000 per year. I found their website there, so sent the main owner an email.

One months revenue spent on link building is a small price to pay when you’re doing huge numbers thanks to gaming Google.

While some would view four to five guys linking to each other to make more than $100,000/m from a one-year-old website as shady and unethical, I’m personally impressed at how well they are crushing a very competitive niche so quickly.

While there is a chance that a PIN could be “outed”, the last two examples I found were so well put together that I’m almost certain I was the only person who connected the dots.

If you’re not trying to rank in an obvious industry that’s constantly monitored by SEO’s – like blogging and internet marketing – the chances of your PIN becoming uncovered are relatively low. Much lower than having your private blog network discovered.

As you’ve probably already figured out more succinctly than I am at getting to the point, members of a PIN use any opportunity they have to ‘link out’ to take care of their whole team.

While I’ve been fairly slow on the uptake to building my own PIN, I have been slowly building them in a few industries over the last few months and I’m excited to see what the future holds.

I didn’t want to write this blog post until I had a better understanding of how to build and manage them, because managing them is actually the most time-consuming part.

You have to make sure everyone in the network is pulling their weight and giving (and getting) equal opportunities. Opportunities, of course, is code for links.

A Real-World Example of How a PIN Works

One of the websites I find myself checking for ideas and inspiration is Entrepreneur.com.

I recently found an article on the website, published by a contributor and not a staff member, which could serve as a great example for how PIN’s work.

Let me say it in bold (for those just skimming) that the example below is totally legitimate.

I’m highlighting it because it’s natural, but could have been used in a non-natural way.

While the screenshot below might be the longest ever embedded by me into a blog post, there is something much more important that I have to say about it.

There is no specific reason I have singled out this article. It was simply the first article on Entrepreneur.com when I was looking to give an example for this post. Proof of that is the date. This article is going live on July 25th whereas this article I’m featuring below is from July 22nd.

It just happened to be a great example to see a PIN (or what could be a PIN), in action.

I made the article a little shorter than the original (the screenshot was long enough, I know) but you can see the majority of it here. The first thing you’ll notice is four mentions of Weekdone. Unsurprisingly, these are all links to the company that the author works for.

A good guest article, utilised for a PIN, will link to other recommended resources that are connections of the author. The links should be relevant, but also to other people in your network so that you are ‘owed’ a link back.

Now on the surface (without my large logos stuck over the text) this looks like a totally normal article (albeit with a little overuse of linking back to the authors employer). If you do a little more research, you’ll learn that the other two highlighted companies, Zlien and Mavrck, are actually clients of Weekdone.

In other words, Weekdone likely earn some bonus points from their clients for mentioning them in an article on Entrepreneur.com. I see nothing wrong with this and it’s a one-off occurrence so it’s not done for SEO manipulation; I’m just trying to show how a PIN link looks without actually revealing one.

Essentially everything looks natural until you look under the hood. It’s normal for a client to talk about a company they use, as shown below where the relationship continues.

Once again, I’m not saying they’re doing anything wrong here. It was one of the top articles on Entreprenuer.com as I was finishing up this article (the post is only three days old) and happened to make a good example.

The truth is that Entrepreneur.com, along with Forbes and the business sections of the Huffington Post, are great resources to see mini PIN’s in action. The people who write content for these sites generally try to get as much out of writing for them as possible.

They link to their friends, and their friends link to them.

A PIN in Action

I wanted to create a graphic for this section but your understanding of the concept is far more important than your ability to decipher my poor Photoshop skills. Before it gets a little bit crazy, I have assumed that there are just two ‘influencers’ in your private network.

The yellow box is your money website (the website you wish to rank in Google).

The brown boxes are private blog sites you own (optional).

The grey boxes are link opportunities you’ve created through guest posting or similar.

While the graphic is admittedly not the prettiest (I did warn you), the concept is very simple.

Some of your private network domains will point links to the other influencer in your network, as will some of your guest posts on other websites.

In return, the other influencer will do the same for you.

Once you start adding more people to your network, things get a little bit more messy, but the principle remains the same.

When I try to visualise this with four influencers as part of your PIN it gets a little ugly, but here goes.

The golden rule you need to remember is this: If you receive a link from someone from a specific source, you need to replicate the link in kind.

So if you receive a link in a guest post from someone in the network, you need to give them a link from a guest post you write. Essentially meaning that the work you do for 10 links for yourself gets you 30-40 links in return. This number varies because sometimes it’s a bit risky (such as using blog networks) to link out to the same sites which are linking to you but you still receive more links than you would have without your network, for essentially the same work.

The Types of Links Which Are Shared

I originally tried to write these guidelines as if there were four people in a PIN but it became a little bit too complicated to read (and write). Instead, I’ll assume there are only two people in your PIN and show you what types of links you could generate or other ways to help each other.

If there are more people in your PIN, which I highly recommend, then understand that Influencer #1 will sometimes link to #2, while #4 sometimes links to number #3 and so on. It’s basically just varying the following link opportunities to keep things fair for everyone.

The types of reciprocation that can take place.

You can tweet or Facebook share an article from another influencer

You can retweet or publicly thank another influencer for mentioning you

You can utilise a guest post opportunity to link to a relevant quote or article from another influencer

If you use build private blog networks, you can use some to link to other influencers

If you find articles where comments drive traffic to your site, you can inform other influencers

When being interviewed you can link to a relevant quote or article from another influencer

Sharing link opportunities you find on your site they can utilise for theirs

Offering website design advice

Utilising Web 2.0 properties to give links and get the same in return

If performed properly, there is no reason to hide that you have a connection with other influencers in your niche. The only thing you would have to care about is that the obvious mission for having these connections is to help each other’s search engine rankings.

If you are outside of the internet marketing world you don’t really have to worry about other people finding your private link networks, but always keep a few rules in mind to avoid footprints.

Ready to Build Your Own PIN? Here’s My Advice

If you see the benefits of utilising a PIN for your own search engine rankings, and actually getting more than rankings in return, then here’s my advice for setting one up.

A PIN Must Have a Leader

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t want to write about this topic until I had attempted to do it myself.

My short but relevant experience tells me that there has to be one person (or two at most) who is in control of the group you gather together to make sure that everyone in the team is pulling their weight.

In other words, you need to make sure that the people who are receiving links are doing their part in giving them as well.

The leader must also make sure that members of the team are active. It’s no use everyone playing along for the first few weeks while the idea is hot and then dropping off the map.

Bringing Together Your Team

While some of you may be excited about getting started on this – and some horrified that I’m even talking about it – there’s one important caveat to keep in mind.

Do not bring anyone into your team who has never shown any self-drive in terms of search engine optimisation.

If someone:

Doesn’t already have a website they wish to rank

Doesn’t regularly produce content for their own sites or others

Doesn’t have at least a basic knowledge of SEO fundamentals

Don’t invite them to be part of your network.

I assumed this would be the case from the start of building my own, but I’m even more sure of it after trying to get other people excited about the idea who weren’t actually willing to contribute to the rest of the teams’ success as a whole.

A simple test to see if someone would be right to join your network is to send a candidate over to this article and have them read about this concept for themselves.

If they don’t immediately “get” the idea and they don’t reply with something like “I can see this working well” then it’s not someone you want on your team.

You shouldn’t have to convince anyone to work with you. They should see it for themselves. If they’re against it because of ethical reasons, then that’s totally fine (and understandable) but again, it’s a sure sign that they’re not someone you want in your team.

As far as communication goes, there are a few platforms out there that would be useful.

You could create a Skype group where people get together. I certainly recommend that everyone get on a call together at least some point to make sure you all understand each other’s roles.

Slack is another good option, as you can keep up to date via their mobile app and have a history of previous agreements.

A private Facebook group is another good option.

Both Slack and Facebook allow there to be a leader who can add or remove members to the network.

The platform is really up to you. My only recommendation is not to lay out all your plans in Google Docs ;).

Take One Step Back from Your Current Niche

It should be obvious but I’ll state it anyway: You don’t want to work with people who are targeting the same keywords as you.

However, you still want to connect with people who are in a relevant niche (I’ll give you the chance to connect with ViperChill readers at the bottom of this post). For instance, if you’re promoting your real estate website then it makes sense to team up with other realtors, just not for the same region.

If you’re in the weight loss niche then it makes sense to collaborate and grow your audience with other people in that niche, but target different keywords and / or promote different types of products and services.

Whatever niche you’re in, imagine you’re shopping for that specific industry on Amazon but go back one category to find people to work with. Again, I’ll give you the opportunity to find PIN partners at the end of this article.

Footprints are Hard to Find, But Still Be Careful

From the PIN’s I’ve discovered and the ones I’m working on myself, I’ve found you really don’t have to be too careful when it comes to leaving some kind of footprint. After all, it doesn’t ring any alarm bells when Copyblogger keeps mentioning Problogger or Mashable keep linking to TechCrunch. It’s “natural” and something you can expect from the owners of websites who have developed friendships with each other.

Where you have to be careful is primarily with private blog networks and not creating footprints of clearly linking back and forth to each other from the same sites at all times. Of course, you don’t have to use private networks, but remember for each link you give out, you can get three to four back, so it can dramatically speed up the process of ranking your site.

You Need to Know How the Microphone Works

And how to sing.

One of my favourite authors, Daniel Priestley, said the following in his book The Key Person of Influence;

You don’t need to know how the microphone works, you need to know how to sing.

He was referring to the technology behind the microphone and how, when it was first invented, your time would have been better spent learning how to sing than how a microphone worked, if you wanted to reach a lot of people.

When it comes to ranking in Google, I don’t think that’s the case. You need to know how the microphone works and how to sing.

There are going to be people who worry I’m encouraging armies of people to come together to take over the Google search results.

The truth is that I don’t believe people who can’t sing – in this case, can’t produce great results for search engine users – will have much long-term success.

There’s no point putting all of the work into your PIN if the end result is going to be a crappy website.

The third example of a PIN that I mentioned earlier now easily does in excess of over $100,000 per month. What I didn’t yet tell you is that they built a fantastic resource for their industry. The site doesn’t have many pages (less than 50), but each one genuinely solves a question that a particular searcher is looking for an answer to.

I don’t view utilising a PIN as a way to “sneak” up the Google results and send thousands of visitors to an ad-riddled website.

Instead, I see it as a way to help you start getting great content noticed that could attract natural links once it is.

I mentioned at the start of this article that I would likely weed out some of the audience of ViperChill. I want to make it clear though that I’m not trying to help people with shitty websites rise to the top of Google.

While I believe there is a great opportunity here, it isn’t easy. Turning the concept into reality sounds much easier on paper (or in a blog post).

The truth is that when it comes to making money online, most people are, quite simply…lazy.

They may be excited about this idea for a few weeks but if you’re going to use this to rank in an industry worth ranking for, you should be aiming for keywords that take a few months to get any serious traction for.

Links Aside, The Connections You Build Can Be Invaluable

I’ve already briefly talked about the other benefits this kind of network can have, besides link building.

You can connect with people who have a genuine passion for your industry who in turn spur you on to put more work into your site and help you improve your online ventures. Whether that’s giving advice on your design, your writing, your strategy or anything else.

Working online can seem lonely at times, especially if your offline friends don’t have an inkling to do anything online. When you’re aiming to make money from your web projects it’s nice to find other people on the same journey.

In my future of blogging post a few years ago, one of the most popular on the site, I mentioned how some bloggers had worked together to help grow their respective audiences in the same industry.

TechCrunch and Mashable grew incredibly quickly at the same time while investors were putting more and more of their money into web-based projects. They mentioned each other thousands of times.

Smaller operations – though still huge – like Copyblogger and Problogger would guest post on each others’ sites, promote each other’s products, send traffic to each other via their email lists and essentially enhanced both of their own images through their connection.

I took the time to actually figure out how many times some sites mentioned each other, which you can see in the graphic below.

While links were a key factor in all of these partnerships, I wouldn’t essentially class them as private link building. Most of the links didn’t include any specific anchor text and they weren’t to random affiliate sites or anything like that. All of them were trying to build authoritative online businesses and found someone with a similar passion on the same journey.

While TechCrunch and Mashable were almost in direct competition with each other, they still highlighted the stories that the other site got to first. Michael Arrington later sold TechCrunch to AOL for $25m. Pete Cashmore is still the CEO of Mashable though according to Politico.com, is trying to sell the site for around $300-$350m.

That’s a partnership that certainly paid off for both of them. Pete holding out six years on his sale seems to have been a smarter choice, however.

A Facebook Group to Find PIN Partners

For what is probably a very limited time only, I’m giving access to a private Facebook group where people can assemble together to potentially build their own Private Influencer Network.

I don’t want the comments here to be full of pitching opportunities, so let’s take this elsewhere to see what industries you’re working with. To be approved for the group you must leave a comment here with your Facebook name or put your Facebook initials at the end of a comment. Facebook will likely recommend the group to people who have no idea what PIN’s are and I don’t want to do a lot of moderating.

Don’t reveal your exact niche when you start a discussion, just simply zoom out of your niche and reveal a higher category that you would like to work in. You can find the group here (remember to comment to be approved).

Thank you, as always, for reading.

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Old Loggers Path - Loyalsock State Forest, PA

Tom and I have a tradition (2 years in a row now) of backpacking for our wedding anniversary. If we’re going to die young, might as well do it together and in the woods. We had really aggressive plans starting out to tackle the Black Forest Trail, but (thankfully) we reconsidered and decided on the shorter Old Loggers Path instead. Our final trip clocked in at 28 miles over 3 days (Sunday through Tuesday). 

Pictured: One of the amazing views. Seriously I dream about these mountains at night. 

We did the trail counter-clockwise, starting (and ending) from the parking lot at the Cherry Ridge Trail head. As you’ll see below, as of spring 2017 the road at Masten is still out and doesn’t look like there are plans to replace it. A state forest office employee told Tom “oh, we lost those roads a few years ago”. She also informed us that some of the sections of the trail were rough, and boy was she right. We made a donation to the Keystone Trails Association to thank them in advance for the hard work they are going to have to put in there later this year! Even though there were lots of big downed trees to climb around/over, and we think part of the trail that continues along Pleasant Run Stream may have been completely eroded, it still was a very enjoyable hike.  

There are really nice established campsites, mostly near water sources (but not all). Since we were there mid-May, there was plenty of water and the weather was perfect. We saw 2 other hikers the entire time, and they were off trail heading downhill towards a stream while we were going up. We did find plenty of trash, which was frustrating but I guess not entirely unexpected. 

We really got our gear paired down this trip, and wound up carrying about 25 lbs each. That’s not really an ultralight trip but we’re moving closer, getting better about figuring out what we need. That weight doesn’t include water, which we are also fine tuning. We started out with 3 liters just because we didn’t want to risk the streams not being as expected, and were pleasantly surprised. Stopping to filter and refill out water a few times during the day meant less weight to carry and a needed excuse to take a break. 

Pictured: One of the more interesting river campsites, you can see the angled ring/chimney and some stone seats set up. Water was clearly no concern. We didn’t actually camp here, just passing through! 

Speaking of gear, Tom got trekking poles to help with his recent knee/foot issues. He said they really helped. I was poo pooing them at first and didn’t get a pair for myself, but now I kind of want them too. I tested his and it was much easier than I thought to swing the poles forward, they almost effortlessly swing forward on their own. It was comforting to each take one when we went out to hang the bear bag, and really useful for balance when we had to cross Pleasant Stream! Tom also made sit pads for us out of an old camp pad, and it was sooo nice. Those stone seats are not that comfortable! I also made pot cozy’s from reflectix and foil tape we picked up, which we didn’t have before.   

Other trip reports sited bear, snakes and other wildlife but we saw almost nothing. A few birds and some bold mice that tried to snatch our crumbs under our feet one night, that was it. 

Pictured: A beautiful photo collage consisting of (left) Tom & his trekking poles crossing a large part of the road that had been washed out, (top right) the beginning of the stretch of road that had been washed out and (bottom right) the whole side of this cabin must have blown right off during the storm that washed out the roads, there were still many large downed trees and debris from the cabin everywhere.

Nature. It’s powerful stuff man. The photos don’t do the damage justice. This was a great hike that I would recommend checking out in person if you have the chance. 

So on to the important stuff... what we ate. 

Camp Champs Chomps: 

Sunday breakfast: at home, bacon and eggs 

Sunday lunch: sandwiches we packed in the car and ate right before hitting the trail 

Sunday dinner: red beans and rice with chopped dehydrated pork roll, snacks 

Monday breakfast: We packed oatmeal in case we wanted a hot meal, but ate granola bars, snacks and these amazing pour over coffee pouches from trader joes

Monday lunch: tuna salad in wraps, snacks. We packed pouch tuna, relish and mayo packets and mixed in pouch before spreading into wraps. 

Monday dinner: stuffing with TVP, dried minced onions and extra herbed seasoning. I didn’t make it right (added everything at once instead of letting the water come to a boil first), and the bottom cooked but the top was very dry. Guess which portion I got! Tom surprised me with tiny bottles of prosecco for our anniversary so it was OK. Plus we had delicious snacks. 

Tuesday breakfast: Still didn’t eat the oatmeal. We discovered we’re more snacks and coffee people while we slowly repack. 

Tuesday lunch: peanut butter wraps and snacks   

Tuesday dinner: post-trail burgers at this random side of the road biker bar in the middle of nowhere PA 

Trail snacks: homemade beef jerky, dehydrated pork roll, homemade fruit roll ups, homemade granola bars, pepperoni, babybel cheese, wheat thin crackers, dried pineapple, chocolate covered pomegranate bites 

We originally thought we were going to do a 4 day trip, take it reaaaaaallly slow and be out earlier on Tuesday but there was a “nor’easter” forecast for Saturday so we consolidated into 3 days at the last minute. I also overestimated the amount of food we would want to eat.... So I also was carrying some couscous with dehydrated peas, sun-dried tomatoes, homemade herbed seasoning and olive oil as an extra hot lunch option and mushroom risotto with chopped beef jerky + instant mashed potatoes with nutritional yeast and bacon bits for dinner side dishes. When we were backpacking last year it was colder and we had less snacks, so that might be why we ate so much for dinner. I had also packed up gourmet ramen with tons of vegetables we dehydrated and a homemade seasoning pack but had the presence of mind to leave that in the car before we left. I didn’t make nearly enough beef jerky, I bought a chuck roast which was all I could find but it was freaking delicious! We really had to stop ourselves from eating it all the first day and ration. I’ll post the recipe I use soon. 

If you need to stay connected: Sorry, we were both in airplane mode the entire time to save battery/for emergencies/photos also to enjoy each other’s company without the outside world for a few days. 

Useful maps and guides: The most useful map we found was a 17 x 22 printout of the Loyalsock State Forest linked here that we happened to come across at the trail head. It was the last one and I kept it in nice condition intending to return to the bulletin board for the next hiker when we got back, but failed to do. We had printed it on regular 8.5 x 11 in advance, but as you can imagine it didn’t have the level of detail. I’d recommend you get it printed on the larger size if you can. 

I also printed a copy of the map and trail notes from MidAtlantic Hikes. I liked features of both maps and wanted to have them both with us so we could make decisions about where to camp at night on the trail. We also downloaded the MidAtlantic Hikes gps files and loaded them onto my trusty Garmin Foretrex 401 GPS. There was no way in hell we were getting lost this trip! 

Stockholm, plans for the future and nostalgia for the past

Palma EVS – Part 21

April 24th – May 28th

It was more than a month ago that I sat down to write my last post, but I'm back to finish what I started and to present another part of my EVS.

Next up: Another birthday to celebrate, my trip to Stockholm, a new coworker at Acción Balear, preaparations to go to Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Brussels and the return of the Mallorcan beach season.

Before May started there was still plenty to do. Other than some normal work stuff I continued my Spanish classes and my final exam is only a week from now. As time went on I started to like the class more and more, I feel like it brought back my motivation to learn the language and now I can actually see myself trying really hard to improve it even without classes or being in Spain. Learning the basics of Spanish were a big step. Shoutout to all the participants of the class who gave up midway through, having only 4-6 people in the class makes a big (positive) difference.

Our Austrian flatmate, Malin's birthday was also properly celebrated in April. Alles Gute zum Geburstag!

On the first of May I did close to nothing as it was International Workers' Day, but I did book my flight for a few day visit in Stockholm. A fitting celebration of the day I think. Thanks to Ryanair for the strangely cheap tickets!

Early in the month Lisa from France arrived to Palma to start her internship at Acción Balear, so for the  remainder of our EVS we will have an extra coworker at the organization, which is always nice. The extra work of translation checks are not that great, but hopefully I will be able to survive it. After about a 100 pages I'm still alive, but let me tell you I'm not looking for more. Unfortunately it's inevitable.

During the week that Lisa arrived me and Pier found reasonably priced plane tickets to Amsterdam and ones to travel from Brussels back to Palma. So, the hunt for accommodations began. We soon had to realize that staying in Amsterdam in June is not cheap at all. It helped that two of our flatmates, Steffie and Malin decided to join us on our travel. At the end we will spend 3 days – switching accomodations during our stay -  in the capital of Netherlands, then spend a night in Rotterdam before going to Brussles and spend 1 and a half days there before returning to Mallorca. It will also cost more than I expected, but hey, it will be a great one last travel before we say goodbye to each other and EVS. Having said that if anybody out there is willing to offer me a job starting in August I am more than willing to consider it to bring my bank balance to a normal level.

Only a few days after we sorted out the tickets to Amsterdam on Thursday it was time for me to switch Palma to Sweden for a long weekend.

I landed at Skavsta airport around 11 o'clock at night and a 80 minute long bus ride was ahead of me before reaching Stockholm. I was quite lucky with the weather, I believe the coldest it got during my stay was 0°C and during the day it was around 15°C. Not bad at all! It was still colder than Palma though, so it was quite refreshing, which I didn't mind at all. Just like when Pier and me went to Manchester the colder weather made me actually excited. Maybe I am crazy to be happy seeing my breath due to the cold, but that's how I felt. Same thing happened when we drove next to forest. It was a proper forest, with the kind of trees that I'm used to. None of that palm tree madness.

After arriving to Stockholm, finding my hostel, getting some sleep and getting ready for the day my Scandinavian adventure truly began. Having only two full days to discover the city before flying back on the morning of Sunday I had a plan how spend my time. I dedicated the first day to see eastern (Kungsholmen), southern (Södermalm) and middle parts (Gamla Stan). I spent most of the second full day in Östermalm and Djurgården except the night when I went to the center and even to Vasastan. Here is a map, if you want to check were these are located.

Places and things I saw:

Day 1: The City Hall, Rålambshovsparken, Långholmen, Monteliusvägen, the Old Town, the Royal Palace and Armoury, Riksdag, Skeppsholmen & Kastellholmen.

Day 2: Kungsträdgården, Vasa Museum, Skansen, Royal Djurgården, Blå Porten.

Pastries I tried: kanelbulle, kardemummabullar, sockerbullar, kanelbullar, vaniljbulle. Let  me tell you all of these were brilliant, with vaniljbullar being my favourite.

As I was walking literally everywhere it's no wonder that my feet were ruined by the end of all. It was totally worth it though. Hopefully I will return to Sweden someday, because I had a great time and there are still so much left to see in Stockholm. I absolutely loved the different islands connected by bridges, the language which is more than charming, all the pastries, the late sunsets.

The negatives? The high prices for a pint of beer. One night I paid over 60 Swedish crowns for a beer, which is more than 6€. The difference is big between Spain and Sweden in this regard and huge between Sweden and Hungary. Even with that it was worth it.

Stockholm ended up as a great place for my first ever solo trip abroad. I still think that traveling with someone else is much nicer, but even alone it was a nice experience being between all those surprisingly tall Swedes.

After returning to Mallorca I also started trying out the different kinds of sweets I brought back from Sweden, including some things with salty liquorice (salmiak/salmiakki) and I am not a huge fan of those. For me eating salmiak is way too similar to accidentally swallowing some sea water. Luckily I did discover some amazing candies,the best 2 being the original Polly and Bilar Ahlgrens. Those ones I could eat all day, every day.

Back in Palma I got back to normal life. Work continued, Tottenham Hotspur played their last game at White Hart Lane, this season of the Premier League ended and the summer weather returned to the island of sun. So amongst other things we went to the beach twice this week. I also figured out a way to use all my lefover days-off of my EVS. Basically every single weekend will be a long weekend for me as Mondays I will be free from work and towards the very end I will have Thursdays too, when I don't have to work. All that free time should give me enough opportunities to enjoy the beaches of Mallorca before I leave Spain.

As I'm writing this post another week of my EVS is coming to its end, which is on one hand is a little sad knowing that the 8th of July is not so far from now, but on the other hand I had a pleasant surpe earlier today... As I was about to start typing these words I got a call from Ilona and Félix. Now you are probably wondering who are they. Well, they are 2 former EVS volunteers who first met during our on-arrival training, then visited us here in Palma. On the picture up top Ilona is the girl on the right in front of me, Félix is the guy on the left. Currently they are living in Ukrain and planning to move to France. European Voluntary Service is awesome! And I say that even though after our call I ended up in a nostalgic mood looking at pictures from the last 11 months. But all this is part of life.  

Thanks for reading, I will be back with the next part sooner or later.