double

Oh, but had the artisan who made me created me instead – a worthy woman... ...I would say "how lucky am I"

Father in heaven who did miracles for our ancestors with fire and water... ...Who would then transform me from a man to woman? Were I only to have merited this being so graced by goodness...

What shall I say? why cry or be bitter? If my father in heaven has decreed upon me and has maimed me with an immutable deformity then I do not wish to remove it. the sorrow of the impossible is a human pain that nothing will cure and for which no comfort can be found. So, I will bear and suffer until I die and wither in the ground. Since I have learned from our tradition that we bless both, the good and the bitter I will bless in a voice hushed and weak: blessed are you [HaShem] who has not made me a woman.

i have a file or folder on my pc that i want to share with other people. let's call it gayshit.mp3

unfortunately gayshit.mp3 is 750mb and im not paying for discord nitro so i need another way to send it

i put it into qbittorrent and it makes a torrent file. this is essentially a very small file that points to gayshit.mp3 so other computers can find it. kinda like a treasure map

i send this tiny file to my friend, who loads it into qbittorrent. their computer takes a moment to find mine over the vast expanse of cyberspace and then (as long as my pc is running and the file is still where it should be), it gets copied from my hard drive to theirs

this is the cool part: if somebody else loads that tiny file, they can download it from both of us. if i'm offline but my friend is on, the third person can still get it. this also means that if two people have separate halves of the file, they can download the other half from each other. as long as some combination of people have the pieces between them, they can all have the whole thing.

crucially this does not require a server!!! you can just upload the file to a few people and as long as they keep it, it's still accessible. as long as somebody, somewhere is still connected, it's available forever. the only way it goes away is if everybody disconnects from it.

DECORATORS WE'RE EATING TODAY

Sound on.

A guy like that walks into your tower with a toothpick in his mouth, takes one look at your summoning circle and goes

“I see yer problem. You used chalk B12 instead of S3. B12 is only for transmutation circles. Gimme a sec I think I have a piece somewhere here.”

He fixes your circle, test summons an imp and goes.

“The chalk? I always use that chalk, it’s never been a problem.”

“Ah - yes. This stuff will work just fine for most circles, but, uh - here, take a look with my loupe. You see the off-color flecks? Can’t hardly see them with the naked eye, but those are impurities. Silicates, might even be some iron in here, to be honest. Usually won’t cause a problem, but - you said you hadn’t tried this particular summons before?”

“First time trying a 5th level, yeah.”

“Those silicates will make your scribing a little fuzzy when viewed from the astral plane. You see, for example, these three fine lines here? With this chalk, on the astral that looks like one thick line with fuzzy edges. They can’t tell exactly what you want, and they’re picky lil’ critters so they just won’t do anything in response.”

“Really? Oh. I always thought the expensive chalk was just fancy to be fancy.”

“Making pure chalk is difficult, you need a dedicated production line or dust gets in the finished product. To be honest, you don’t need to bother with it for most things, but 5th and up, 5th level and up, it actually is necessary. Anything with lines within about two millimeters of each other.”

“So I need to start over?”

“Unfortunately yes. You’ll have to erase all this, but with some good chalk it should work just fine. Next new moon your summons should go off without a hitch.”

“Dang. At least it’s not my sigils, I was worried it was my sigils.”

“Nah Your sigils look good. Even and balanced. You know what you’re doing, it’s just an equipment problem.”

“Thanks for the help, sorry to make you come all the way out here.”

Anxious looking client, poring over her personal grimoire in the hopes of finding answers: "Yes, and I was so careful with my invocations, and I spent hours on the sigils and I busted out the fancy incense and everything and I just don't know what got muddled. It's not my chalk, is it? It says it's certified on the package.."

Wizard: "Nope, your chalk's good quality, you didn't get stiffed there. Your sigils all look good too, and I read the invocations while Gary was driving us over, and they seemed perfectly appropriate. Say hello, Gary."

Gary: "Hi, I'm on a work placement, so I'm shadowing him."

Wizard: "Alright, kid, what's rule number one?"

Gary: "Double check everything. You've gone over the invocations, we've both seen the circle and the materials, there was nothing in the stars last night that ought to have interfered... I'm not sure, honestly. This ritual should have worked."

Wizard: "Uh huh, it's a competently put together rite. So why didn't it work?"

Gary: "Uhhhhhhh... ma'am? Are you currently or have you ever been haunted, or perhaps impugned the Good Neighbours?"

Client: "Not to my knowledge, no."

Wizard: "Good instinct, but here's rule number two for ya, kid. Never assume an otherworldly vendetta when slapdash maintenance is still on the table. Ma'am, do you rent this ritual space?"

Client: "Yes, I don't have the space for a full sanctum at home."

Wizard: "The guy you rented it from hasn't maintained the wards correctly - I assume that was part of the rental agreement?"

Client, outraged: "Yes! It was!"

Wizard, nodding sadly: "Take a look at the threshold, Gary. You see the runes on the doorjamb?"

Gary, squinting: "Uh, barely."

Wizard: "Exactly, they oughta be hummin' away in the back of your mind. But they aren't, because?"

Gary, spinning around in shock: "Oh damn! The door sticks in cold weather, right?"

Client: "Yeah.."

Gary: "The force of shoving it open has scuffed the carving of some of the runes, brought down the entire ward around the door."

Client: "Bloody fool. Why wouldn't he just carve them deeper?"

Wizard: "Easier to sand down and rent for non ritual purposes, if it comes to that. Doesn't have to replace the whole doorjamb. It can work, but you need to reinforce them with oil and blessed pigment more frequently than you would runes that were carved deep. Every two weeks instead of once a lunar month. Guy's done the bare minimum and is hoping you won't know enough to blame him when things go wrong."

Client: "That incompetent arsehole! I'll haul him in front of the Wizard's Council for this!"

Wizard: "You really should, ma'am. This could have been a lot worse than one of the fellas downstairs popping in. Unwarded portals are a magnet for unspeakable monstrosities from the Dungeon Dimensions. Trust me, once you get those guys infesting your space, you lose all your tools, the space itself and sometimes even your magical name to the purification process. Along with every other ritualist in the building, and the schmuck who caused the problem. What have we learned, Gary?"

Gary: "Double check every ward, every time you invoke?"