My latest big hobby has been Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA), basically medieval sword fighting. It’s a great workout for mind and body and is filled with nerds into swords and the history of it haha

Also big into swing dancing, ultimate frisbee, and board/video gaming

Been a mix of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Crab Champions on PC. The latter is surprisingly good for a game I thought was just a meme

I once hiked Longs Peak in Colorado. It’s an intense hike and has had a lot of people die on it over the years (quick search comes up with ~70 people). It took me and my friends about 12 hours to get up and back down.

Anyway, I was younger and dumber and wore my normal street shoes, which happened to have almost no grip left on them. I vividly remember a portion of the hike near the end where you came up to a ledge (overlooking vast nothingness), you turned to your left and climbed up a 45 degree rock slope. If I had lost my grip on that ledge, I would’ve tumbled down and out into space. I had lost my grip with my shoes multiple times that day before that last section.

I obviously didn’t slip or otherwise die that day, but I think about it pretty often. In a multiverse scenario, I figure quite a few of my parallel selves were lost that day haha

Not sure if “secret” applies, but you know I’m dancing when that perfect song comes on at Walmart or the grocery store or wherever.

Does anyone have any book/article recommendations if I’m unfamiliar with this topic, but may want to start down this rabbit hole?

Something is so wrong with this system x[

The finger curls as you feel a wave of exhaustion settle over you. Finally. You crawl happily into bed and drift to sleep immediately. You wake up to your alarm the next morning, but something is off. Why are you still exhausted? You feel as though you can barely function. You stumble through your morning routine and get to work just on time.

Seven. That’s the number of times you drifted off while at work while trying your hardest to stay awake. Something is definitely off. Days and weeks pass with no change. The doctors are baffled. After all, sleep has never been the best understood human feature. You randomly fall asleep from exhaustion on a daily basis and nothing you do seems to stop it. Maybe there’s a silver lining to this whole situation? At least any time you want to fall asleep, you’re out instantly. Your wish, it appears, was granted.

The finger curls. A user responds, fully explaining how the monkey’s paw works. The user discusses how the wish should be granted, but that it’s granted in such a way that the person regrets the wish. They even managed to convey the nuanced difference between that and just “it’s granted but this other random bad thing happens” that’s not in true monkey’s paw fashion (following the original short story that anyone can look up).

The community seems to gain traction from this post and new people flood in. It doesn’t take long before the shift starts becoming apparent. More and more wishes and responses appear that begin breaking lemmy instances’ policies, being filled with hate messages for particular groups. Where is it coming from?? As the community begins getting banned across the fediverse, the truth comes out. The user that had posted in response to the wish had brought it. They were from another banned community looking for a new home for their group’s hate. They found it in the monkey’s paw.

The post that started it all stood as a shining example of how the monkey’s paw works, but not seen by any in a banned and abandoned community.