The roll is Full Bore/ Polygonal Rifling, Accurized Rounds, Eddy Current(meh) and Adagio with Stability MW. Not a god roll but it's decent.
Adagio despite lowering your RPM but it buffs the damage by 30% and give + 10 range allowing you to 2 tap any resilience @ 0.6ttk.
Personally I would pick Polygonal Rifling instead of Full Bore to have 46 stability but for those who can handle the recoil, Full Bore will allow you hit hit 36m with Adagio active allowing you reach 38m.

I’ve researched all I can but I don’t wanna spend more money than I should so I figured I’d ask Reddit. My 2002 jeep grand cherokee Laredo stalls out almost every time I drive it and it’ll happen more than once on the same trip. I had a buddy of mine check for codes and he got a pcm one and ignition coils 3, 2, and 1 were bad. From research(googling) I saw some stuff about crankshaft position sensors and was wondering if that could be the cause. I’ve replaced the camshaft one already. Someone please be my savior here, I’m not in a good position to get a new car right now and wanna hang on to this one As long as I can. Thank you in advance

With the leaderboard screw up that is in almost every single post because you can’t even get the leaderboard rewards unless you spend a lot of $$$ because you guys can’t code your own game just being the icing on the cake you guys can’t seem to be doing anything right
First of all yes there is this whole big ordeal with the leaderboard screw up which is honestly shitty because I was able to unlock nova at 4 stars on the first scourge event but because you guys can’t do anything right I could barely make it through difficulty 7 on the second run and that’s with a kang, quicksilver, and ultron all at level 95 g15-g16 which means you didn’t do what everyone was asking for by scaling back the difficulty since the first run was so obviously coded around the broken pacts now you’ve got people who can’t even unlock nova or those like myself who still only have him at 4 stars because you greatly overestimated how many people spent money on kang when you didn’t even add him into the orbs until 3 days left in the scourge
Secondly you show absolutely no respect for your active community and content creators for example tauna left the envoy program because of everything you keep doing he was always finding bugs in the game and making them known but never once did you thank him or any player that helped you do your own job but by god did you pull an offer that may have offended your former top money maker your morals are questionable at best
And third you have made the gold economy so terrible most players are lucky to bring a single toon up 1 level a day and no matter how cheap you make some temporary gold offers that’s not the solution as a majority of your player base is completely ftp and we shouldn’t have to spend our hard earned money because you keep making the gold economy worse and worse every single patch how bad will it be when you introduce player level 100 with how much it’s costing us per level now are we gonna have to spend upwards of 2 million gold a toon and the pricing on the g18 pieces is so expensive only the krakens can afford most players can’t sacrifice a days worth of gold for 2 g18 pieces so please fix your damn gold economy
And lastly while this goes with my first argument stop releasing bugged events then not even giving the proper compensation and stop trying to sweep all of your mess ups under the rug there have posts daily about the incursion event compensation just give us the 1.8 million t5 blue ions we’re owed it’s not fair that others unfairly got the rewards and we got was some skill g17 pieces
Sorry for the long post but these things are just unacceptable and your gonna lose a lot of your player base if things don’t change there’s other mobile games while I don’t want to see this one end it will someday how soon tho scopely is up to you and your decisions

I just had my honeymoon (originally scheduled for Jun 2020). My wife and I are in our early thirties. It’s my wife’s first time in japan while it’s my fourth. I’ve benefitted immensely from stalking Tokyo travel reddit and would like to return the favour. I’ll provide some of my tips and observations to the end (skip to the end if the itinerary doesn’t interest you), some of which I think haven’t been mentioned before.
Thank God pretty much everything went to plan, and my wife thoroughly enjoyed the trip. We spent 12 days in Japan, most of it in Tokyo and 2 nights in Kawaguchiko. Many people were surprised to know that we’d be spending most of our trip in Tokyo, but I thought it was just fine because Tokyo had a lot to offer. My wife and I aren’t big on visiting shrines or tick tourist hotspots off a checklist. We don’t shop much, but we did a lot of it simply because it’s Japan and we bought lots of quality-of-life items (not fashion) for ourselves and others. Given how much my wife really enjoyed the trip, I think others with similar interests could find something helpful too.
Pre-trip planning

• Other than the hotel & flights, I booked the highway express bus to Kawaguchiko one week prior.
• Decided on the airport limousine bus to bring us from the airport to the city a few days prior.
• Studio Ghibli tickets booked one month in advance. International tickets were quickly sold out, so we used a free VPN to get onto the Japanese site which had more tickets & timings available. Simply Google translate the entire page.
• Booked a cooking class on cookly months prior.
• Did Visit Japan QR two days prior. It takes some time so do it earlier rather than later.
• Added all places of interests in a Google list, and all food places in another Google list. I tried the custom Google maps at first but didn’t feel the UI was easy to navigate.
• Planned itinerary based on location proximity, and also highlighted parts that were interchangeable in case we wanted to switch it up (which we did).

Planning during the trip

• The Google maps foods list was always just for consideration: if we had time or were craving something. We didn't hard-code food places into our daily plans. But when food was the primary activity (e.g. visiting Tsukiji market), we'd determine to visit particular food stalls. Otherwise, just needed to do a cursory Google review check on whether a random food place is worth eating it. As a principle, we didn't want to spend time unnecessarily queuing for food.
• I'd plan the next day's itinerary the night before, considering fatigue, interest, and proximity. I would create a brand new Google maps list for the next day, including potential food places.

Day 0 (Wed) - Arrival at Shinjuku Airport- Arrived in Haneda late, about 11. Clearance was quick but baggage took 30mins. I had no choice but to cancel my airport limousine and take the metro to our hotel in Shinjuku.- I tried Apple wallet’s Suica at first. It worked seamlessly but felt that a physical metro card was just faster so I eventually switched over.- Reached after midnight, so do let your hotel know in advance if you anticipate arriving at odd hours.
Day 1 (Thurs) - Shinjuku exploration- Originally planned to visit Tsukiji on day 1, but given that we arrive late the previous night, agreed with my wife to change the plan and spend the first day doing the Shinjuku itinerary.

• Walked to a popular Tsukumen place at 11. Queued for 20mins and it was an interesting experience as there were lines of people standing right behind watching you eat. Wife said it was her best Tsukumen ever!
• Sekaido for art supplies: My wife does art so it was a haven for her. We spent a few hours there!
• Tokyu Hands Shinjuku: but two floors were under renovation.
• Omoide Yokocho: A quick walkthrough. Many tourists.

Day 2 (Fri) - Kappabashi St., Fabric Town, Akihabara

• Kappabashi Dougu Street: looked at kitchen supplies and to find a nice knife! (Do research on what knife you need beforehand).
• Fabric Town: My wife just passed a seamstress exam so she eagerly anticipated visiting fabric town, we spent a few hours in Tomato.
• Akihabara (Animate, Bic Camera, Gyukatsu Don): It was drizzling the entire day so it was not the most comfortable lugging that many bags around a wet Akihabara in the evening. Wife wasn’t interested but I wanted to let her experience this unique culture. Had dinner at a popular gyukatsu don (beef cutlet that you’d have to cook yourself). It was fantastic and I had never eaten it. But it was a long one hour wait.

Day 3 (Sat) - Cooking class in Shinjuku, Shibuya

• Private cooking class in Shinjuku: Our host was great! We were invited into his cosy house and he taught us how to make Okonomiyaki, Yakisoba, and a Japanese salad. My wife absolutely loved the experience of getting to know a local and understanding his life story, Japanese culture, and some of his horror stories of guests. We got more food recs from him to understand where the locals really ate at.
• Shibuya 109: Paid $5 for a drink to have a bird’s eye view of the Shibuya crossing. It was Saturday so the people crossing was at its full force. Even if you think this is touristy, it’s amazing to see that many people like little ants crossing a street. There are several nice locations here to take some artsy shots.
• Ishibashi Music Shibuya: absolutely loved the vibe in this music store. Back home, I’ve been thinking about getting a particular keyboard but never got a chance to try it. I was able to play this particular one undisturbed and feel totally comfortable. Bought a few Japan exclusive guitar picks as gifts.
• Shibuya Tokyu Hands: This was amazing. I thought Shinjuku Tokyu Hands was the flagship store. So I only stumbled into this because I urgently needed to pee and someone said Tokyu hands had toilets. We were confused as its name was rebranded to simple Hands with a new logo. This is the Tokyu Hands to go. Each floor had 2 sub-floors so that’s a ton of floors! Lots of quality-of-life improvements one could get from this store. My wife got a buckwheat pillow.
• Shibuya Loft: After Sekaido, I didn’t think there was much to look at. But Loft was very different. Similar to Tokyu hands but seems more modern and fashionable. Worth visiting together with Tokyu hands! It also had packaged food available! It was late and my wife and I concluded that we didn’t have to to explore all the floors and that we’d return to Shibuya again.

Day 4 (Sun) - Komazawa Church, Harajuku, Shibuya

• Church in Komazawa: not a tourist activity, but we linked up with some partners from our home church and attended service at a little church held in a nursery. It was an amazing and encouraging experience.
• Harajuku: Way too crowded. I had anticipated this as it was a Sunday, but thought to just try. Takeshita street was so packed my wife feared there would be a trample risk (it wasn’t that bad). We did queue 20mins for pretty tasty crepe. After checking out all the recommended streets (e.g. cat street, uru-harajuku), my wife simply felt that she couldn’t stand the Harajuku crowd and the vibes. So we decided to go back to Shibuya again!
• Shibuya JINS: I didn’t mention this but previously in Shinjuku and Shibuya, I had been checking out recommended optical shops in the vicinity. I had something in particular in mind. Japanese-made glasses are highly-rated, but I couldn’t find something at the right price-point. At JINS, I found a design I liked. Though not made in Japan, it cost me less than 5000 yen. Took them 1 hour to make it. For some reason I loved the vibes at Shibuya, and I earmarked it to return again later.

Day 5 (Mon) - Tsukiji Market, Ginza Muji/Uniqlo, Tokyo station

• Tsukiji market: wanted to arrive before 8 and was 30m late. But the crowds weren’t that bad either. Everything we tried was lovely. Potato/corn fishcakes, strawberry mochi, tamago, wagyu beef, uni inarisushi, unagi. But the star was Masa burger, which we waited till 11am to try. By then, the tourist buses had come and the streets were packed. But Masa burger was in a corner and we were their first customers. The fried codfish burger + homemade ginger ale was so well done and packed with such fresh and interesting salads! It so so good we had it twice.
• Ginza Uniqlo/Muji: we wanted to take a look at some of Uniqlo’s exclusive items. Apparently they do have exclusive t-shirts for each region (e.g. Harajuku, Shibuya, Ginza). They tend to be collaborations with well-known food places in the area. However, they were always white in colour and not made-in-japan-quality. Muji was a disappointment, not a lot more than the usual.
• Tokyo Station Ghibli & Tenugui: Went to Tokyo station to check out the Ghibli store and to look for a particular traditional tenugui (Japanese towels) store as my wife were hunting these down to give as gifts.
• Shinjuku Ichiran & Mister Donut: We returned to Shinjuku for Ichiran ramen, specifically at 5+pm. No crowds at all. Yummy! We then saw a Mister Donut, and recalled news in our home country that when it first opened, people queued 5 hours for it. We thought to try it to see what the fuss was all about. Cash only, but the donuts were wonderfully textured and not too sweet. My wife doesn’t like sweet stuff, but mister donut really hit the sweet spot (no pun intended).

Day 6 (Tue) - Tokyo National Museum, Fabric town revisit, Akihabara revisit, Ochanomizu

• Tokyo Tokyo National Museum: We had a good time learning about Japan’s early history, and discovered that so much that we know of Japan resulted from Chinese/korean influence.
• Fabric town & Akihabara revisit, Ochonomizu: We decided that this was likely the right time to go back for items we missed out on or didn’t have time to see. My wife went to fabric town while I went to Akihabara’s Yodaibashi camera, which I felt to be better and with more varied things than Bic Camera. I then went to Ochanomizu to look at more music and sport shops. We met up again at Shinjuku for another Gyukatsu Don before heading to mister donuts again.

Day 7 (Wed) - Shinjuku Gyoen Garden, Mori Museum, Ginza Wakamatsu, Shinjuku

• Shinjuku Gyoen Garden: lovely large garden grounds. We spent almost an hour just lying under a tree and watching clouds float by. Wife was doing some rough sketches of the garden. We had mister donuts from last night for breakfast.
• Mori Museum: Saw the exhibition of Heatherwick studios, which was inspiring and educational. Paid for the rooftop access to have a quick view of Tokyo from 50-ish floors up.
• Ginza Wakamatsu: Because of one of the Uniqlo-ginza-exclusive t-shirts, my wife was curious about this traditional Japanese dessert. So we gave it a check and realised it’s been around for more than a century. There was a short line (mainly Japanese elderly). The shop interior transported us back decades. It felt surreal eating a dessert that the Japanese ate centuries ago. It’s certainly doesn’t excite and overwhelm one’s taste buds immediately as modern desserts do. But there’s an old charm to it.
• Shinjuku Okadaya fabric: Returned to Shinjuku as my wife wanted to check out another of their famous fabric stores. Prices were more expensive than fabric town, but somewhat different items.

Day 8 (Thurs) - Kawaguchiko

• Bus to Kawaguchiko: Packed light to Kawaguchiko, and forwarded our remaining luggage to our post-Kawaguchiko hotel in Tamachi. The Shinjuku hotel staff were very helpful. I was merely inquiring on how luggage forwarding was done, but he picked up the phone, called my Tamachi hotel to confirm the booking, and prepared the documents for me. All I had to do was roll my luggage the next night to them and make payment. Booked a 7:45am bus to Kawaguchiko and managed to catch a glimpse of Mount Fuji when we were on our way there!
• Cycling In Kawaguchiko: We lugged our bags to our hotel and headed out again. My wife was quite hesitant about cycling overseas and I was also worried it’d tire her out too much. I debated between cycling or simply taking the sight-seeing bus. Eventually felt it worth it. We unexpectedly walked by an e-bike place and decided - why not? Neither of us had tried an e-bike before and that could reduce the effort required for my wife. So we did and boy was it fun! It took a while to get used to the e-bike but it really reduced a lot of effort up the hills! I barely sweat. Kawaguchiko had pretty narrow roads so it wasn’t the easiest to cycle. But I had plenty of road-cycling experience back at home so I was not very deterred. We borrowed helmets from the e-bike place but saw that we were the only tourists that wore them.
• Kubota Itchiku Art Museum: Cycled here knowing that this museum would interest my wife. It had a garden that was free entry and it was beautiful! The pond had a singular vibrant-coloured Koi swimming in it. The Museum requires tickets. My wife was so enthralled by it. I was kinda sick of museums so I told her I’d wait for her outside. Wife took about 45m inside and even bought a heavy hard-cover book of Itchiku Kubota’s kimono art :/
• Momiji Corridor: was just 50m away. Still beautiful with only green leaves, but I’d imagine it would be majestic in Autumn/Spring.
• Oishi Park: Many beautiful flowers! It’s a pity that it had been cloudy the entire day, and Mt Fuji was not visible. That would have made the cycle perfect. Park was crowded with tourists.

Day 9 (Fri) - Fuji Q Highlands, Shimoyoshida Honcho St, Batting Cage
Planning for Fuji Q & Morning Jog: I didn’t plan to go to Fuji-Q highlands before the trip. Always felt it a bit of a waste to visit amusement parks overseas. That’s until I realised that Fuji Q had some of the most exciting, (I mean world-record-holding) rollercoasters in the world. Perhaps not anymore, but that intrigued me enough, because most amusement parks only had 1-2 coasters. Problem was that wife is terrified, and she said cycling on the streets of Kawaguchiko was like a coaster ride for her. So I decided I would reach at opening time, and buy time by paying for the fast passes and try their top three coasters. The night before, we felt that we had to make decisions on our itinerary as it was our last day at Kawaguchiko. If Mt Fuji wasn’t visible, go to Oshino Hakkai, if it was, we could try going to Shimoyoshida to get a nice picture.

• I took a morning jog that morning and my jaw dropped when I saw Mount Fuji towering over Kawaguchiko. I raced back to tell my wife (about 6am) and we both trekked up to a viewing spot to enjoy the view. This made it more urgent to not spend too much time at Fuji Q as we didn’t know how long Mt. Fuji would be visible for.
• Fuji-Q Highlands: Was absolutely amazing. Yes, I blew a lot of cash here buying fast passes for the three available coasters. But they were some of the craziest coasters. Took Eejanaika, Fujiyama and Takabisha. Total time it took probably a little more than 1 hour with the express passes. It was so good but so fast; I have little memory of it, except that there was a 90 degree climb to the top for Takabisha and I had a beautiful view of Mt. Fuji while climbing to the supposed world record of 79m for Fujiyama. Had more time to take a few other rides, and enjoyed all the Naruto statues around for fun photo-taking. What I really enjoyed about the park was that it was mostly filled with Japanese tourists; in fact, there was a Japanese school having an outing there. It was nice to see excited students running about.
• Shomoyoshida Honcho St: This destination was simply to take the famous street view of Mount Fuji with Japanese shops lined in the foreground. It’s not easy to get to, and there was quite a walk. We noticed there weren’t much people around, and most shops were closed. But when we reached the destination, there were many tourists right at the particular traffic light. So much so there was a grumpy Japanese traffic police person managing the crowd. We saw the worst of tourists that day. People were disobeying traffic laws and just running in the middle of the road just to get a shot. We chanced upon a hidden udon shop and it felt like we were transported back to the 50’s! It was super old school, people sat on raised platforms, and several elderly customers were watching the tele while eating. There was only one udon option available, with free cabbage top-ups. We learnt that the shop had been around for 73 years.
• Batting Cage: I had never played baseball/softball and my home country doesn’t have a baseball culture. Yet I had seen batting cages in Japanese drama and always wanted to try. Loved it! My technique was probably pretty bad! I did well at first but as I tried faster balls, I tired out and failed to hit any haha. We ended the day eating ramen outdoors with a view of Mount Fuji.

Day 10 (Sat) - Kichijoji, Ghibli Museum, Kichijoji Jazz bar
Woke up before sunrise for a run and to attempt to catch a sunrise picture of Mount Fuji. Streets were completely empty. Even ran to the famous Kawaguchiko Lawson for a picture. Headed back for an onsen bathe (note: we never used the hotel bathroom, and always went for an onsen bath throughout our stay in Kawaguchiko). Took a 7am bus to return to Shinjuku.

• Kichijoji: Arrived at Kichijoji at about 10. Wife really loved the vibes there. We we tried the Tsukuba suisan fish cakes which were really tasty, and my wife was intrigued that a line had formed at the adjacent store named Ozasa. Apparently they sell traditional Japanese desserts and locals would go there as early as 5am to get a ticket. So we queued and managed to get three boxes worth of the snacks! Tried the Amane Taiyaki fish-shaped bean paste snacks, another traditional dessert. It was a small lovely old shop.
• Ghibli Museum: Requires a long walk through Inokashira park. Ghibli was fantastic. Many people have been saying recently that it’s over-rated, and that it doesn’t cater to foreign crowds and most things are in Japanese. We similarly struggled with that at first. But we found out that if you asked the staff, they actually had English language exhibition booklets ready for every exhibition! That was a revelation. And we managed to understand almost all the exhibitions by asking the uniformed staff (except the short film, which had minimal dialogue anyway). I mentioned this to one foreign group and they were really grateful for that. But I saw that many other foreigners that probably came earlier were just bored or simply going crazy at the Ghibli shop. My wife bought the museum book (which also has English explanations of each exhibit), and we understood Miyazaki’s vision for the museum - to make it suitable for kids and adults, with no pre-determined route, allowing for play, exploration, to help people be inspired by the artists’ process. Through that, we saw that everything in the museum was intentionally designed, all of the exhibitions, cafe, shop, and garden. Reading that helped me appreciate and enjoy the museum much more.
• Roaming Kichijoji and Some Time Jazz bar: My wife and I split up to roam kichijoji. I checked out some sports shops and saw that their prices were lower than Ochanomizu. We reconvened for dinner at Sometime Jazz bar. I’m picking up Jazz piano but had never been to a jazz bar. Booked it one day before, but was sad that our table position only allowed us to see some of the drummer and the pianist’s expression. Still, it was a very cool place and we had a wonderful time. We only sat through the first half of the performance that night. Note that there are seating charges, so that + dinner added up to quite a lot. But we rationalised that this was akin to paying for a performance. Checked into our hotel in Tamachi.

Day 11 (Sun) - Tokyo Sky Tree, Shinjuku, Back to Kichijoji, Shibuya
It was a crazy day where we simply hit the places we wanted to revisit regardless of proximity. Headed to Tokyo Skytree in the morning to check out another Ghibli store. If you’re not going to the Ghibli museum, this is probably the best store available. Headed to Shinjuku to try curry udon, then to Kichijoji to try satou beef balls and dangos and to make some purchasing decisions on some sports equipment. Then we ended up at Shibuya (my favourite place!) to the mega Don Quijote and Tokyu Hands to shop for gifts for others. It was a lovely end to our trip!
Day 12 (Mon) - Back home
Best trip ever, says my wife.
Tips for travellers

• Spread out your itinerary: I originally planned to front-load all the must-see tourist stuff and leave the remaining days for shopping. But in May, Ghibli Museum was closed for two weeks so we had no choice but to schedule it at the end of the trip. That was a better arrangement. It felt that each day was distinctly different, and we could remember the highlight of each day. Also, be specific about where you want to go. Don’t simply put locations like - Visit Harajuku, or visit Shibuya crossing.
• Plan your itinerary in consideration of weekend crowds: Places like Tsujiki market, Ghibli Museum, Fuji-Q Highlands and other stuff are likely going to be very crowded on weekends. If you want to shop in Harajuku or Shibuya, try to avoid weekends. I opted to put the cooking class and ‘less-exciting’ Museums on weekends.- Use your telco’s roaming or get an e-sim: My wife and I split up on several occasions, so we already knew the pocket wifi was out of the question.
• Carry more cash than you think you need: In my experience, the cash-to-card ratio was about 40:60. Considering that all metro card top-ups require cash, you really need more cash that necessary. Sometimes even bigger restaurants are cash only.
• Bring foldable tote bags, and use lockers where necessary: If you’re buying stuff, packing them in tote bags makes it easier. Bigger shops will charge you for bags. All stations likely have lockers and they are really affordable and convenient.
• Travel light by planning to do laundry: I only brought four sets of clothing, and we did laundry every 3-4 days or so. It’s really convenient, about 200 yen per 30m wash, and another 200 yen for a 1h dry. It’s worthwhile to check if your hotel has coin laundry available.
• Buy wisely: Many people say the kind of things available at places like Don Quijote or Uniqlo are mind-blowing. Fact is, most of them are made in China or elsewhere. Almost 95% of the items we saw in Daiso were made in China. In fact, many items in Kappabashi street were made in China. You’re more likely to get value for money by buying a made in Japan item. Sometimes the shop will highlight if a product is Japan made. But other times, you have to scrutinise the fine print. Learn to look out for these three words in Kanji: 日本製. This is where the camera function of Google translate is immensely helpful. This was not available or widely publicised when I last visited Japan years back in 2016, so use this tech to your advantage and scrutinise the fine print!
• Plan your toilet trips if possible: If you know you’re headed to low-rise areas like Tsujiki, Fabric town where it’s just shop after shop, it’s going to be hard to find a toilet. Make sure you relieve yourself beforehand at the train station. But if you still need to go, try to find a multi-storey building and chances are, there’ll be toilets available there.
• Avoid queuing for food by timing right: In general, I found that most popular food places that required queuing had queues mainly consisting of foreigners. I wonder if this is because of the reddit/youtube/google maps review effect (not a lot of Japanese review on Google I think). Simply put, almost all food places open at 11am, so be there at 11, or have early dinner at 5pm and perhaps you may avoid the queuing.
• Scrutinise Google maps to figure out the different train types: for daily travel, there are local, rapid, and express trains. Local trains stop at every station. Rapid skips a few, and express trains likely only stops at key location. They make a big difference to travel time, and to your comfort. When Google maps recommends a route, scrutinise the detail to ensure what kind of train they are recommending. It gets confusing at the station as the platforms on your left and right may end up at the same location, but one could be a local train and the other an express train.
• Learn just 2 essential phrases: I know it may feel weird to some, but just learn to say thank you in Japanese (arigato gozaimasu). The other essential word is - summimasen - excuse me/sorry. Useful for if you need to exit a crowded train, or if you need to get someone’s attention. We survived with just these two phrases. As our cooking teacher told us - it’s better to say something in Japanese than say nothing at all. For the rest, you can use Google translate app’s picture function.
• Other misc tips: as mentioned, bring trash bags. Some shops explicitly tell you not to walk around and eat their food. So the solution is to finish the snack in front of the shop, and say, “summimasen, can you help me to throw this trash?” That helped us avoid carrying trash around a lot. As a traveller, you’re gonna get a lot of carbs (a bowl of udon + a bowl of rice....?) and fried food. Try to go to the basements of shopping centres and get yourself some fruits. Also, if you exercise regularly like me, you'd be concerned about getting some exercise. I did pre-trip research on pools/gyms/parks to visit. But visited none of them. I settled with a daily morning routine of 100 squats and 100 pushups. That and walking an average of 18k steps daily helped. I actually lost some weight somehow.

Observations

• Drinking culture in Japan: we saw quite a few drunk people in the streets. Some of them at the parks. I had never really seen drunkards much in my home country (it could be because I don’t stay out late). When we walked by a bar area with our cooking instructor, he told us some of the people in them had been there overnight.
• The Japanese sleep late: when we arrived, we were still on the train to our hotel at 11:50pm. But the train was still packed with salarymen in suits and many others. In fact, it seemed the later it was, the more crowded the trains.
• Foreigner influx and how they stick out: there were way more foreigners this time than the last I visited Japan. I tended to feel very uncomfortable when large groups of foreigners were around. I had to tell myself not to be hypocritical as I was a foreigner myself. But I suppose one reason is that there were many inconsiderate foreigners. Speaking loudly, making brash comments, and just not behaving like visitors. We saw a foreign couple snuggling each other on a picnic mat in a park full of families. And they chose a spot right next to the footpath. Many foreigners also leave unkind Google reviews for places just because it’s not up to their expectations. I get it, we worked for our holiday and are paying customers, and there is often an innate tendency to feel entitled or complain when something isn’t up to our expectations. But I think it helps to remember that we are like visitors in someone’s home. Be self-aware, don’t speak loudly, note the traffic customs, where to stand on the escalators, how to behave etc.
• Japanese men have great hair: the Japanese men’s hairstyle feels frozen in time. I didn’t see the typical Korean-inspired center-parted hairstyles in Asian guys nowadays. And balding men were a small minority somehow. As someone whose hairline is slowly receding, I was envious to see many Japanese men have wavy long hair deep into their 60-70s! My wife commented that the women's hairstyles were more or less the same - dyed, curled etc. But the men were rocking so many styles!
• Window shopping still matters: as the days went by, my wife and I began to covet the "made-in-Japan" label, we realised that we hadn't done such window shopping in years since online shopping became prevalent. I also recall people commenting that you could get these goods online anyway, so why bother shopping in Japan. Well, window shopping makes comparison easy, it allows you to ask for recommendations, and enables you to know the items's size, feel, and look on you (if buying fashion items). It also makes discovery of new items possible. I'm not a huge shopper or a foodie, but in Japan, it's worth it to be one. I suppose it's a blessing in disguise that our honeymoon got delayed 3 years, as we now know our post-marriage lifestyles and the items we'd need in the kitchen/around the house.

Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory

Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.

All Buyouts are listed in cash value.

KNIVES

★ Butterfly Knife Freehand FN #1, B/O: $2500

★ Butterfly Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $822

★ Butterfly Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $616

⎯

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW #1, B/O: $1300

★ Bayonet Autotronic FN, B/O: $1050

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth MW, B/O: $629

★ Bayonet Bright Water FT, B/O: $326

★ Bayonet Safari Mesh BS, B/O: $233

⎯

★ Karambit Lore FT, B/O: $1110

★ Karambit Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $840

★ Karambit Freehand MW, B/O: $784

★ Karambit Bright Water MW, B/O: $759

⎯

★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801

★ M9 Bayonet Fade FN, B/O: $1801

★ M9 Bayonet Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $751

⎯

★ Nomad Knife Fade FN, B/O: $1156

★ Nomad Knife Slaughter MW, B/O: $544

★ Nomad Knife Blue Steel WW, B/O: $318

⎯

★ Flip Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $646

★ Flip Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $574

★ Flip Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) MW, B/O: $552

★ Flip Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $257

★ Flip Knife Freehand FT, B/O: $255

★ StatTrak™ Flip Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $287

⎯

★ Huntsman Knife Lore FN, B/O: $461

★ Huntsman Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $436

★ Huntsman Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $353

★ Huntsman Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $212

★ Huntsman Knife Bright Water FT, B/O: $129

★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT MW, B/O: $129

★ Huntsman Knife Forest DDPAT BS, B/O: $123

★ StatTrak™ Huntsman Knife Rust Coat BS, B/O: $127

⎯

★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $375

★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $363

★ Bowie Knife Tiger Tooth FN, B/O: $269

★ Bowie Knife Crimson Web WW, B/O: $192

★ Bowie Knife Bright Water FN, B/O: $159

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $126

⎯

★ Stiletto Knife Slaughter FN, B/O: $616

★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web FT, B/O: $412

★ StatTrak™ Stiletto Knife Night Stripe FT, B/O: $227

⎯

★ Falchion Knife Lore FT, B/O: $214

★ Falchion Knife Autotronic FT, B/O: $192

★ Falchion Knife Scorched WW, B/O: $105

⎯

★ Survival Knife Crimson Web BS, B/O: $216

★ Survival Knife Case Hardened FT, B/O: $198

★ Survival Knife Scorched FT, B/O: $111

⎯

★ Shadow Daggers Fade FN, B/O: $368

★ Shadow Daggers Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $228

★ Shadow Daggers, B/O: $201

★ Shadow Daggers Damascus Steel FT, B/O: $108

★ Shadow Daggers Ultraviolet FT, B/O: $105

★ Shadow Daggers Black Laminate FT, B/O: $99

★ Shadow Daggers Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $85

⎯

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Sapphire) MW #1, B/O: $1700

★ Gut Knife Gamma Doppler (Phase 1) FN, B/O: $223

★ Gut Knife Marble Fade FN, B/O: $203

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Phase 2) FN, B/O: $191

★ Gut Knife Case Hardened BS, B/O: $127

⎯

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Phase 4) FN, B/O: $199

★ Navaja Knife, B/O: $138

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel FN, B/O: $111

⎯

★ Classic Knife Urban Masked FT, B/O: $146

★ StatTrak™ Classic Knife Stained BS, B/O: $168

⎯

★ Ursus Knife Doppler (Phase 3) FN, B/O: $476

★ Ursus Knife, B/O: $375

⎯

★ Skeleton Knife, B/O: $1137

★ Talon Knife, B/O: $608

★ Paracord Knife, B/O: $305

★ Survival Knife Forest DDPAT FT, B/O: $97

GLOVES

★ Moto Gloves Transport MW, B/O: $204

★ Moto Gloves Polygon BS, B/O: $142

★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84

★ Moto Gloves Blood Pressure BS, B/O: $84

★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63

★ Moto Gloves 3rd Commando Company BS, B/O: $63

⎯

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Kimono WW, B/O: $1215

★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike FT, B/O: $672

★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander FT, B/O: $305

★ Specialist Gloves Lt. Commander BS, B/O: $140

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web BS, B/O: $137

★ Specialist Gloves Buckshot FT, B/O: $75

⎯

★ Driver Gloves Crimson Weave FT, B/O: $359

★ Driver Gloves Imperial Plaid BS, B/O: $229

★ Driver Gloves Overtake BS, B/O: $77

★ Driver Gloves Racing Green FT, B/O: $48

⎯

★ Sport Gloves Omega FT, B/O: $739

★ Sport Gloves Amphibious BS #2, B/O: $733

★ Sport Gloves Arid BS, B/O: $292

⎯

★ Hand Wraps Giraffe MW, B/O: $212

★ Hand Wraps Leather FT, B/O: $160

★ Hand Wraps Desert Shamagh MW, B/O: $101

⎯

★ Broken Fang Gloves Yellow-banded MW, B/O: $185

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point FT, B/O: $67

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point WW, B/O: $59

⎯

★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened BS, B/O: $65

★ Hydra Gloves Emerald FT, B/O: $65

★ Hydra Gloves Emerald BS, B/O: $62

WEAPONS

AK-47 Case Hardened BS, B/O: $130

AK-47 Bloodsport MW, B/O: $79

AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76

AK-47 Fuel Injector BS, B/O: $76

AK-47 Bloodsport FT, B/O: $70

AK-47 Neon Rider MW, B/O: $60

StatTrak™ AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge FT, B/O: $72

⎯

AWP Fade FN, B/O: $1039

AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139

AWP Asiimov FT, B/O: $139

AWP Wildfire MW, B/O: $95

AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93

AWP BOOM MW, B/O: $93

AWP Duality FN, B/O: $81

AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79

AWP Asiimov BS, B/O: $79

AWP Chromatic Aberration FN, B/O: $60

StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68

StatTrak™ AWP Hyper Beast FT, B/O: $68

StatTrak™ AWP Electric Hive FT, B/O: $55

⎯

Desert Eagle Blaze FN, B/O: $623

Desert Eagle Emerald Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $241

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Cobalt Disruption FN, B/O: $81

Desert Eagle Printstream FT, B/O: $54

⎯

M4A1-S Blue Phosphor FN, B/O: $434

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Bright Water MW, B/O: $55

⎯

M4A4 Poseidon FN, B/O: $1465

M4A4 Asiimov BS, B/O: $55

M4A4 Hellfire MW, B/O: $50

⎯

USP-S Kill Confirmed MW, B/O: $72

USP-S Printstream FT, B/O: $69

StatTrak™ USP-S Kill Confirmed FT, B/O: $139

⎯

AUG Flame Jörmungandr FN, B/O: $234

P90 Run and Hide FT, B/O: $147

Five-SeveN Candy Apple FN, B/O: $61

Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory

Knives - Bowie Knife, Butterfly Knife, Falchion Knife, Flip Knife, Gut Knife, Huntsman Knife, M9 Bayonet, Bayonet, Karambit, Shadow Daggers, Stiletto Knife, Ursus Knife, Navaja Knife, Talon Knife, Classic Knife, Paracord Knife, Survival Knife, Nomad Knife, Skeleton Knife, Patterns - Gamma Doppler, Doppler (Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4, Black Pearl, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald), Crimson Web, Lore, Fade, Ultraviolet, Night, Marble Fade (Fire & Ice, Fake FI), Case Hardened (Blue Gem), Autotronic, Slaughter, Black Laminate, Tiger Tooth, Boreal Forest, Scorched, Blue Steel, Vanilla, Damascus Steel, Forest DDPAT, Urban Masked, Freehand, Stained, Bright Water, Safari Mesh, Rust Coat, Gloves - Bloodhound Gloves (Charred, Snakebite, Guerrilla, Bronzed), Driver Gloves (Snow Leopard, King Snake, Crimson Weave, Imperial Plaid, Black Tie, Lunar Weave, Diamondback, Rezan the Red, Overtake, Queen Jaguar, Convoy, Racing Green), Hand Wraps (Cobalt Skulls, CAUTION!, Overprint, Slaughter, Leather, Giraffe, Badlands, Spruce DDPAT, Arboreal, Constrictor, Desert Shamagh, Duct Tape), Moto Gloves (Spearmint, POW!, Cool Mint, Smoke Out, Finish Line, Polygon, Blood Pressure, Turtle, Boom!, Eclipse, 3rd Commando Company, Transport), Specialist Gloves (Crimson Kimono, Tiger Strike, Emerald Web, Field Agent, Marble Fade, Fade, Foundation, Lt. Commander, Crimson Web, Mogul, Forest DDPAT, Buckshot), Sport Gloves (Pandora's Box, Superconductor, Hedge Maze, Vice, Amphibious, Slingshot, Omega, Arid, Big Game, Nocts, Scarlet Shamagh, Bronze Morph), Hydra Gloves (Case Hardened, Emerald, Rattler, Mangrove), Broken Fang Gloves (Jade, Yellow-banded, Unhinged, Needle Point), Pistols - P2000 (Wicked Sick, Ocean Foam, Fire Element, Amber Fade, Corticera, Chainmail, Imperial Dragon, Obsidian, Scorpion, Handgun, Acid Etched), USP-S (Printstream, Kill Confirmed, Whiteout, Road Rash, Owergrowth, The Traitor, Neo-Noir, Dark Water, Orion, Blueprint, Stainless, Caiman, Serum, Monster Mashup, Royal Blue, Ancient Visions, Cortex, Orange Anolis, Ticket To Hell, Black Lotus, Cyrex, Check Engine, Guardian, Purple DDPAT, Torque, Blood Tiger, Flashback, Business Class, Pathfinder, Para Green), Lead Conduit, Glock-18 (Umbral Rabbit, Fade, Candy Apple, Bullet Queen, Synth Leaf, Neo-Noir, Nuclear Garden, Dragon Tatto, Reactor, Pink DDPAT, Twilight Galaxy, Sand Dune, Groundwater, Blue Fissure, Snack Attack, Water Elemental, Brass, Wasteland Rebel, Vogue, Franklin, Royal Legion, Gamma Doppler, Weasel, Steel Disruption, Ironwork, Grinder, High Beam, Moonrise, Oxide Blaze, Bunsen Burner, Clear Polymer, Bunsen Burner, Night), P250 (Re.built, Nuclear Threat, Modern Hunter, Splash, Whiteout, Vino Primo, Mehndi, Asiimov, Visions, Undertow, Cartel, See Ya Later, Gunsmoke, Splash, Digital Architect, Muertos, Red Rock, Bengal Tiger, Crimson Kimono, Wingshot, Metallic DDPAT, Hive, Dark Filigree, Mint Kimono), Five-Seven (Neon Kimono, Berries And Cherries, Fall Hazard, Crimson Blossom, Hyper Beast, Nitro, Fairy Tale, Case Hardened, Copper Galaxy, Angry Mob, Monkey Business, Fowl Play, Anodized Gunmetal, Hot Shot, Retrobution, Boost Protocol), CZ75-Auto (Chalice, Crimson Web, Emerald Quartz, The Fuschia is Now, Nitro, Xiangliu, Yellow Jacket, Victoria, Poison Dart, Syndicate, Eco, Hexane, Pole, Tigris), Tec-9 (Rebel, Terrace, Nuclear Threat, Hades, Rust Leaf, Decimator, Blast From, Orange Murano, Toxic, Fuel Injector, Remote Control, Bamboo Forest, Isaac, Avalanche, Brother, Re-Entry, Blue Titanium, Bamboozle), R8 Revolver (Banana Cannon, Fade, Blaze, Crimson Web, Liama Cannon, Crazy 8, Reboot, Canal Spray, Night, Amber Fade), Desert Eagle (Blaze, Hand Cannon, Fennec Fox, Sunset Storm, Emerald Jörmungandr, Pilot, Hypnotic, Golden Koi, Printstream, Cobalt Disruption, Code Red, Ocean Drive, Midnight Storm, Kumicho Dragon, Crimson Web, Heirloom, Night Heist, Mecha Industries, Night, Conspiracy, Trigger Discipline, Naga, Directive, Light Rail), Dual Berettas (Flora Carnivora, Duelist, Cobra Strike, Black Limba, Emerald, Hemoglobin, Twin Turbo, Marina, Melondrama, Pyre, Retribution, Briar, Dezastre, Royal Consorts, Urban Shock, Dualing Dragons, Panther, Balance), Rifles - Galil (Aqua Terrace, Winter Forest, Chatterbox, Sugar Rush, Pheonix Blacklight, CAUTION!, Orange DDPAT, Cerberus, Dusk Ruins, Eco, Chromatic Aberration, Stone Cold, Tuxedo, Sandstorm, Shattered, Urban Rubble, Rocket Pop, Kami, Crimson Tsunami, Connexion), SCAR-20 (Fragments, Brass, Cyrex, Palm, Splash Jam, Cardiac, Emerald, Crimson Web, Magna Carta, Stone Mosaico, Bloodsport, Enforcer), AWP (Duality, Gungnir, Dragon Lore, Prince, Medusa, Desert Hydra, Fade, Lightning Strike, Oni Taiji, Silk Tiger, Graphite, Chromatic Aberration, Asiimov, Snake Camo, Boom, Containment Breach, Wildfire, Redline, Electric Hive, Hyper Beast, Neo-Noir, Man-o'-war, Pink DDPAT, Corticera, Sun in Leo, Elite Build, Fever Dream, Atheris, Mortis, PAW, Exoskeleton, Worm God, POP AWP, Phobos, Acheron, Pit Viper, Capillary, Safari Mesh), AK-47 (Head Shot, Wild Lotus, Gold Arabesque, X-Ray, Fire Serpent, Hydroponic, Panthera Onca, Case Hardened, Vulcan, Jet Set, Fuel Injector, Bloodsport, Nightwish, First Class, Neon Rider, Asiimov, Red Laminate, Aquamarine Revenge, The Empress, Wasteland Rebel, Jaguar, Black Laminate, Leet Museo, Neon Revolution, Redline, Frontside Misty, Predator, Legion of Anubis, Point Disarray, Orbit Mk01, Blue Laminate, Green Laminate, Emerald Pinstripe, Cartel, Phantom Disruptor, Jungle Spray, Safety Net, Rat Rod, Baroque Purple, Slate, Elite Build, Uncharted, Safari Mesh), FAMAS (Sundown, Prime Conspiracy, Afterimage, Commemoration, Dark Water, Spitfire, Pulse, Eye of Athena, Meltdown, Rapid Eye Move, Roll Cage, Styx, Mecha Industrie, Djinn, ZX Spectron, Valence, Neural Net, Night Borre, Hexne), M4A4 (Temukau, Howl, Poseidon, Asiimov, Daybreak, Hellfire, Zirka, Red DDPAT, Radiation Hazard, Modern Hunter, The Emperor, The Coalition, Bullet Rain, Cyber Security, X-Ray, Dark Blossom, Buzz Kill, In Living Color, Neo-Noir, Desolate Space, 龍王 (Dragon King), Royal Paladin, The Battlestar, Global Offensive, Tooth Fairy, Desert-Strike, Griffin, Evil Daimyo, Spider Lily, Converter), M4A1-S (Emphorosaur-S, Welcome to the Jungle, Imminent Danger, Knight, Hot Rod, Icarus Fell, Blue Phosphor, Printstream, Master Piece, Dark Water, Golden Coil, Bright Water, Player Two, Atomic Alloy, Guardian, Chantico's Fire, Hyper Beast, Mecha Industries, Cyrex, Control Panel, Moss Quartz, Nightmare, Decimator, Leaded Glass, Basilisk, Blood Tiger, Briefing, Night Terror, Nitro, VariCamo, Flashback), SG 553 (Cyberforce, Hazard Pay, Bulldozer, Integrale, Dragon Tech, Ultraviolet, Colony IV, Hypnotic, Cyrex, Candy Apple, Barricade, Pulse), SSG 08 (Death Strike, Sea Calico, Blood in the Water, Orange Filigree, Dragonfire, Big Iron, Bloodshot, Detour, Turbo Peek, Red Stone), AUG (Akihabara Accept, Flame Jörmungandr, Hot Rod, Midnight Lily, Sand Storm, Carved Jade, Wings, Anodized Navy, Death by Puppy, Torque, Bengal Tiger, Chameleon, Fleet Flock, Random Access, Momentum, Syd Mead, Stymphalian, Arctic Wolf, Aristocrat, Navy Murano), G3SG1 (Chronos, Violet Murano, Flux, Demeter, Orange Kimono, The Executioner, Green Apple, Arctic Polar Camo, Contractor), SMGs - P90 (Neoqueen, Astral Jörmungandr, Run and Hide, Emerald Dragon, Cold Blooded, Death by Kitty, Baroque Red, Vent Rush, Blind Spot, Asiimov, Trigon, Sunset Lily, Death Grip, Leather, Nostalgia, Fallout Warning, Tiger Pit, Schermatic, Virus, Shapewood, Glacier Mesh, Shallow Grave, Chopper, Desert Warfare), MAC-10 (Sakkaku, Hot Snakes, Copper Borre, Red Filigree, Gold Brick, Graven, Case Hardened, Stalker, Amber Fade, Neon Rider, Tatter, Curse, Propaganda, Nuclear Garden, Disco Tech, Toybox, Heat, Indigo), UMP-45 (Wild Child, Fade, Blaze, Day Lily, Minotaur's Labyrinth, Crime Scene, Caramel, Bone Pile, Momentum, Primal Saber), MP7 (Teal Blossom, Fade, Nemesis, Whiteout, Asterion, Bloosport, Abyssal Apparition, Full Stop, Special Delivery, Neon Ply, Asterion, Ocean Foam, Powercore, Scorched, Impire), PP-Bizon (Modern Hunter, Rust Coat, Forest Leaves, Antique, High Roller, Blue Streak, Seabird, Judgement of Anubis, Bamboo Print, Embargo, Chemical Green, Coblat Halftone, Fuel Rod, Photic Zone, Irradiated Alert, Carbon Fiber), MP9 (Featherweight, Wild Lily, Pandora's Box, Stained Glass, Bulldozer, Dark Age, Hot Rod, Hypnotic, Hydra, Rose Iron, Music Box, Setting Sun, Food Chain, Airlock, Mount Fuji, Starlight Protector, Ruby Poison Dart, Deadly Poison), MP5-SD (Liquidation, Oxide Oasis, Phosphor, Nitro, Agent, Autumn Twilly), Shotguns, Machineguns - Sawed-Off (Kiss♥Love, First Class, Orange DDPAT, Rust Coat, The Kraken, Devourer, Mosaico, Wasteland Princess, Bamboo Shadow, Copper, Serenity, Limelight, Apocalypto), XM1014 (Frost Borre, Ancient Lore, Red Leather, Elegant Vines, Banana Leaf, Jungle, Urban Perforated, Grassland, Blaze Orange, Heaven Guard, VariCamo Blue, Entombed, XOXO, Seasons, Tranquility, Bone Machine, Incinegator, Teclu Burner, Black Tie, Zombie Offensive, Watchdog), Nova (Baroque Orange, Hyper Beast, Green Apple, Antique, Modern Hunter, Walnut, Forest Leaves, Graphite, Blaze Orange, Rising Skull, Tempest, Bloomstick, Interlock, Quick Sand, Moon in Libra, Clean Polymer, Red Quartz, Toy Soldier), MAG-7 (Insomnia, Cinqueda, Counter Terrace, Prism Terrace, Memento, Chainmail, Hazard, Justice, Bulldozer, Silver, Core Breach, Firestarter, Praetorian, Heat, Hard Water, Monster Call, BI83 Spectrum, SWAG-7), M249 (Humidor, Shipping Forecast, Blizzard Marbleized, Downtown, Jungle DDPAT, Nebula Crusader, Impact Drill, Emerald Poison Dart), Negev (Mjölnir, Anodized Navy, Palm, Power Loader, Bratatat, CaliCamo, Phoenix Stencil, Infrastructure, Boroque Sand), Wear - Factory New (FN), Minimal Wear (MW), Field-Tested (FT), Well-Worn (WW), Battle-Scarred (BS), Stickers Holo/Foil/Gold - Katowice 2014, Krakow 2017, Howling Dawn, Katowice 2015, Crown, London 2018, Cologne 2014, Boston 2018, Atlanta 2017, Cluj-Napoca 2015, DreamHack 2014, King on the Field, Harp of War, Winged Difuser, Cologne 2016, Cologne 2015, MLG Columbus 2016, Katowice 2019, Berlin 2019, RMR 2020, Stockholm 2021, Antwerp 2022, Swag Foil, Flammable foil, Others - Souvenirs, Agents, Pins, Passes, Gifts, Music Kits, Cases, Keys, Capsules, Packages, Patches

Some items on the list may no longer be available or are still locked, visit My Inventory for more details.

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...Dang, here we are for real, huh? I've reached the end of the line in my academics, and here to share the final of this "series" (following the first and second posts).
TLDR: Some potential courses for those interested in the BA track (or a Certificate in Game Studies, or both)! This is based off my interest to have a job in the game industry, a love for writing in general and code, and particularly being a fan of projects. Keep in mind that the experience/details may change from semester to semester, but this will hopefully help give a general idea...or something like that!
And with that- let's jump into it!
DMS 259... Media Analysis - pretty straightforward name. As one may expect, it was a discussion-based class. I took it with Christina Corfield, who had just come to UB that very semester. It's one of those things where if you can even get really into some of the topics, it can make it feel more worthwhile. Attendance and participation mattered, and we had a final project that she sorted us into groups based on what topics we sent to her that interested us. I'd say it's your standard 200-level class with things you read and listen to, but I will also say I managed to not only read but also enjoy at least some of the topics here and there. Her passion for what she taught definitely made the class, though.
CSE 442... Just as a fair warning, I took the "experimental section" that was offered in the fall with Matthew Hertz. I'm not all too sure what it will generally look like now, but we got to choose our groups and pick from actual clients to work on a project for. Honestly it may have made it "easier" in the sense my group got a client that knew what they wanted, and each of us worked well to deliver it by the next meeting. I'd say some general things are to make sure you know the Style Guide, know the expectations for writing tests, and be open for improving as the process goes on. Don't leave your assigned tasks until last minute- because it likely won't just be you having to try to do double the work for the next week around, but the other members of your group probably won't be all that happy with you either. And whoever your project manager is, whether it be a professor or a student, don't be afraid to clarify or communicate expectations with them. If you have questions, especially early on, it would be best to ask.
CSE 410... ~Unreal~ 3D Video Game Development Edition...So, this may come as a surprise to no one considering I've put it here and there that I want to have a career in the game industry, but goodness I am so happy I got to take this class, taught under Paul Dickson. Since it was the first time it was offered, there may be some slightly different things for those that are taking it this upcoming fall. But the general prospect was the first third of the semester was dedicated to learning how to use basic elements of Unreal, as well as looking up outside-tutorials to help develop your understanding of it even further. We did labs each week where there were mandatory instructions we had to follow, and then there was an openness where we could choose what extra thing we'd learn and put in. The other part of the class was learning about Gantt charts for a group project. One class we all did proposals for some quick game ideas, people decided who they wanted to team up with after that, and then it was straight on to development. The weeks go by fast, but I so thoroughly enjoyed it, would definitely recommend if you're even casually interested in making games. Or at least learning how to do so.
UBC 399... The infamous capstone- I don't really have much to say about this one. Feels a lot like busywork but you can technically get it all done within the first week if you so choose. Just some different writing assignments for about six weeks, each going over a different aspect of your education. If you meet the requirements, the points aren't too bad, and you have a chance at revising them if need be. (I feel like I heard at some point they may be getting rid of the class or something but don't quote me on that because I 1) can't remember where I heard it and 2) don't know if it was just a dream). I ended up writing all of them ahead of time since I took it the first seven weeks of the spring semester and wanted to try to get it so I didn't have to worry about it when all the other classes picked up.
TH 427... Oh my goodness gracious, Voice and Movement, as I live and breathe. Kathleen Golde is a phenomenal teacher, a phenomenal person, and is so quick to make sure we are taking care of ourselves even when we are trying to grow in some form. This class was my breath of fresh air for my final semester. There weren't a lot of people, but it made for an even better opportunity at a sense of safety and community and I can't stress enough just how much being in this class helped me to destress and express myself in newfound ways.
DMS 448... Games, Gender, and Culture - a great way to satisfy the diversity requirement, especially if you're one looking for your Game Studies Certificate. Not to mention that Cody Mejeur teaches it, and I've already expressed my appreciation for them in one of my past posts. This class is typically only offered in the Spring, I believe. Out of the 16 possible weeks, you have to write blogs for ten of them, minimum of 500 words. You're expected to do readings and participate in class based on those (but a lot of the readings are really interesting to at least skim through). You also have two final projects - a research paper that's expected to be around 10 pages at a minimum (or a video essay of sorts if that's more to your liking), and a game project that you can do basically anything your heart desires for. There are some guidelines as to the prompts of both of these, but they are really open, and you get to propose your ideas ahead of time so they can give you the greenlight before you get too far into it. Overall, I'd definitely recommend this class, would definitely recommend Cody as a professor.
CSE 404... So, y'know how in the 442 section I mentioned having other students as project managers? This would be the origin story, and this Spring it was taught by Alan Hunt. I know that this may be getting broadened a fair amount soon, but at least recently it was only to be project managers for 442 groups and 370 (Human Computer Interaction) groups. If you're interested in seeing how you fair as a project manager, I would definitely encourage you to take this opportunity and seize it. I do want you to know, though, that if you get warned at the start of the semester about how past students of this class claimed "It'll be more work than you expect," know that it is 100% serious. It may feel a bit like an actual job at times as you are not only managing a project (the name is kind of misleading), but you are also learning how to manage people. There can be a lot of ups and downs, a lot of it reliant on how the team works and how much you have to try to get them motivated, and you have to stay on top of a lot of different things to make sure expectations are being met. When you're given the Roadmap Template, take some time to understand it and develop it well. Make sure you're doing your reflections and engaging in the class, and don't let some mistakes early on weigh you down from growing from them. Even if you learn that you don't want to be a Project Manager, there's a lot that you can take out of the class if you open yourself up to it.
​
And that's something I generally learned as it stands. Sure, any class will have its anticipated material that you can learn and engage with. But if you have an opportunity to grow and learn more about yourself outside of the material, then I think that's even better. If you have any questions about not just these classes, but any that I've taken, or just any questions as a recent graduate in general, or just...whatever! Never hesitate to ask.
For those of you who've been reading each of these, thanks for joining me in at least a piece of this wild ride. It'll be weird not being in UB Halls when the end of August rolls back around, but I'm honored to have these memories to look back on. And of course, Go Bulls.

I have a 2006 Durango limited 5.7hemi, got a great deal on it now codes are popping up left and right. P3497(cylinder deactivation system bank 2)x2, and 4 o2 codes. I searched the engine bay after finding a nest and something chewed a wire (ignition capacitor) I cut and soldered a new wire in it's place all codes went away immediately. Next day took it for a drive down the hwy ran and drove great then boom all codes were back still ran amazing but gas mileage is 12.2mpg . Wire is still good and solid connection and flow. Could it just be the mds needs to be replaced? Any ideas will help

Motivation — A Close Reading of Tea Time

"I'm six feet from the edge and I'm thinking: maybe six feet ain't so far down?"
Nimander Golit
Chapter V of Weathered
2002 BS
Click Here for the Introduction to the essay series.

Prelude to the Close Reading

Why, hello there, again. It’s been a few weeks but I promise that this endeavor is still moving forward. For those that don’t know, this essay is a part of a collection I’ll be putting together which investigates the Eleint, their blood, and sorcery within the Malazan shared secondary universe. We’re still laying down our foundations, and today we’ll be covering a sequence of scenes in Chapter 8 of Toll the Hounds.
My intentions were to cover all of the scenes in a single post, but that has proven itself to be difficult. As such, I’ll cover the first scene in this sequence in this post. There’ll be one or two follow-up posts.
There are ten scenes that are in this sequence:

1. Nimander 1
2. Desra 1
3. Desra 2
4. Skintick 1
5. Desra 3
6. Nimander 2
7. Desra 4
8. Kedeviss 1
9. Nimander 3
10. Kedeviss 2

I’ll be approaching these scenes (including the one discussed today) through a few lenses.

A ringing of bells.

In his musings on writing, Erikson discusses the notion of a bell. I’ll let him speak for himself.
In the scenes we’ll be looking at, some of the bells that I believe are used are (and not all of these are represented in this first particular scene):

• Past versus present — ancestors/parents vs. living/children
• How others see us, and how we see others
• The word ‘beast’ and its many meanings
• The words ‘child/children’ and their many meanings
• The relationships between gods and mortals
• Portals/thresholds

Existentialism.

Particularly the genealogy of continental philosophy that led to Sartre’s existentialism and the shared/adapted/bifurcated philosophies of his contemporaries (such as de Beauvoir, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty). This wasn’t my initial intention when I decided to use this sequence of scenes as a launch pad into my collection of essays. However, the beauty of close-reading is that you go into a text with a hypothesis seeking evidence and support, and then end up with new insights.
Some of the concepts that will be brought up are:

• Anxiety
• Facticity and transcendence; Authenticity and bad faith
• The Look/Gaze and being-for-others
• The Absurd and Revolution
• Perception

Genre conventions as grammar.

Particularly, we’ll look at Erikson’s use of genre conventions from the likes of Gothic literature and Weird Fiction — namely the Sublime, cosmic horror, and the Weird — as the subtle language used to convey tension that is congruent with some of the other subtexts. If these grammars are subverted, we’ll try to point that out too.
We will later delve more into Malazan’s literary genealogy in other essays, but I want this lens to be present during the reading to see how Erikson aligns or subverts these genre conventions.
We’ll be using Professor Michael Moir’s YouTube lectures on Weird Fiction as reference.

What the fuck is happening?

This is a question about plot that I will answer at the end of all of the scenes, but keep it in mind as we go through. It has less to do with existentialism and Gothic literature and more on what Gothos was trying to do during these scenes.

Pre-TtH Context

We first meet Nimander and his siblings (unnamed) in House of Chains on Drift Avalii. By Bonehunters, they had left Drift Avalii and ended up at Malaz City, where they then joined Tavore Paran’s fleet while fleeing Malaz City. In Reaper’s Gale, we find the siblings had been ‘adopted’ by Sandalath while they traveled to Lether with the Malazans. Phaed wanted to kill Sandalath. Nimander stopped Phaed from killing Sandalath. Withal (Sandalath’s husband) throws Phaed out a window. The murder is taken as a suicide. The siblings intern Phaed and then meet Clip, who offers to lead them to Anomander in Black Coral via Kurald Galain.
This gets us to Toll the Hounds, where Nimander is being haunted by Phaed. They’ve left Kurald Galain and are now on Genabackis (but not yet to Black Coral). Nimander fears the future meeting his father and the rest of the Tiste Andii. The siblings and Clip ‘stumble’ on Morsko, where Clip is curious about its cult of the Dying God. A ritual takes place there. Nimander and Skintick are nearly enthralled, but are saved by Aranatha (and thus Mother Dark herself). The group then find Clip, who is in a coma. They collect him, and set off in a wagon to follow the Dying God’s priests to Bastion. Along that journey, the siblings stumble upon the High King, Kallor, who reluctantly chooses to not kill them and instead travels with them.
The sequence of scenes in Chapter 8 that we’ll be discussing follows some time after Kallor joins the siblings.
Now that the administrative stuff is out of the way, let’s dive into the first scene.

Nimander 1

Rum-induced memories.

We start this sequence thrust into Nimander’s introspection on ‘rage’ as a breaking of a vessel, impossible to fix. He recalls Deadsmell’s musings that ‘rage in battle’ was a gift while the two drank rum. Rum that awakened memories once ignored by Nimander.
(Note: in Scene 2, we’ll see Desra’s view of Nimander, and we’ll see that Nimander’s ruminations on rage here are what inform Desra’s view of him, and not in the way that Nimander’s doubt imagines.)
In the previous post, we discussed memories and their decay. So much of this series and the lore surrounding it is driven by the memories of ancient beings. Nimander is younger with respect to ancient beings (but ancient nonetheless), and even he struggles with his memories. Perhaps this is a result of the traumas he’s experienced with respect to his being in diaspora and perceived abandonment by his father (a symmetry itself with Rake’s — and the Tiste Andii as a whole — relationship with Mother Dark).
He recalls the rum lighting “a fire in [his] brain, casting red light on a host of memories gathered ghostly round the unwelcoming heart.” He reminisces on the time after Kurald Galain (but before Drift Avalii) and his father’s emotional indifference. He recalls the pranks him and his kin would pull on Endest Silann; the arrival of Andarist and his arguments with Anomander. It is unclear what the arguments were — if you’ve read Forge of Darkness, you might be able to infer what’s likely, but I’m curious if the argument is Andarist asking to take the siblings and Anomander refusing, or Anomander asking Andarist to take the children and Andarist was reluctant? Was the argument about Anomander thrusting the Hust blade, T’an Aros/K’orladis (i.e., Vengeance / Grief), onto Andarist or did Andarist already possess the blade? We don’t know exactly to my knowledge, but it’s fun to speculate.
Regardless, Nimander recalls, like a certain inscribed hearthstone, there was peace. Andarist was to take them all through a threshold, a portal elsewhere (as mentioned, portals end up being a rung bell, so pay attention). Nimander remembers Endest’s weeping as the children were pulled through a “portalway into an unknown, mysterious new world where anything was possible.”
Andarist raised the Tiste Andii children on that portal’s other side, on Drift Avalii. We know (or can infer) that this was a task to protect the Throne of Shadow, but Nimander and his kin didn’t understand this as children. But Andarist led them with his pragmatism, he ensured they learned how the world was. With our knowledge of Kharkanas, this is so powerful. We know Anomander’s hubris was abused as a motivating factor for Hunn Raal’s despicable acts. We know that Andarist likely lacks children of his own in response to this, and so his taking on guardianship over the children of his brother — that very same brother that rejected Andarist’s grief in favour of vengeance (and materialised in the T’an Aros/K’orladis dichotomy) — is a stark, challenging, and ultimately selfless decision.
But this pragmatism created child soldiers. The collision of reality’s necessity to survive and carry out the duty of protecting the Throne of Shadow came at the expense of what little remaining childhood innocence Rake’s brood still had (even as a people on the run, exiled from their home due to a sociopolitical schism). Andarist became a stern teacher, juxtaposed to the echoes of Endest’s gentleness. “The games ended. The world turned suddenly serious.” Nonetheless, the Tiste Andii siblings grew to love Andarist.
Nimander continues his introspection:

See a bored child with a stick — and see how every beast nearby flees, understanding well what is now possible and, indeed, probable.

This reminds me of a general rule of advice: ‘never fuck around when a child has gun.’ Tiste Andii or not, children can be cruel especially when mixed with unknown doses of trauma and violence. Regardless, I want to call attention here that this notion of children and beasts are each bells rung. To Nimander, Andarist “unleash[ed] them, these children with avid eyes.” He “had made them good soldiers,” ones that know rage.
Vessels broken.
As such, from his own experience, Nimander suspects that the Dying God is a child. He speaks to the dialectic between gods and their worshippers (another bell rung):

The mad priests poured him full, knowing the vessel leaked, and then drank of that puerile seepage. Because he was a child, the Dying God’s thirst and need were without end, never satiated.

The group stumbles on desiccated bodies staked among fields: dried up, tapped of their libations. This speaks to a particular exploitation between mortal and god, symbolised literally as worshippers feeding a god to then become the harvested. This perpetuates the Dying God’s power to accumulate more worshippers via addictive kelyk. The language here shows that the Dying God has stumbled upon a sort of cheat code, an exploitation of the god-mortal dialectic that allows him and his priests to arbitrage power. Like a cancer that, via the law of large numbers, is equipped with the mechanisms to divert a body’s resources to it while it slowly destroys the body.
The scarecrows being in fields is such a perfect choice of this analogy: things to be harvested. A product, a commodity — a thing with both use-value and exchange-value, for our Marxians out there. I believe Erikson has said that he was thinking of oil here, and that is fine by itself, but I do like the mirroring to Eucharistic transubstantiation in Catholicism (due to my being a very-very-lapsed Catholic). Especially with wine, an extremely addictive substance, transcending into God’s blood to cleanse us as cannibalistic sacrament.

Dal Honese burial practices.

Nimander sees these fields as “bizarre cemeteries, where some local aberration of belief insisted that the dead be staked upright, that they ever stand ready for whatever may come." This makes him recall some shipwrecked Dal Honese on Drift Avalii. He thinks on the ancestor cult and burial practices of Dal Hon: literally constructing their homes with their dead in the walls as both material and essence, the building stretching out with additional rooms as time moved on and kin died.
This reminds me of the Neolithic proto-city, Çatalhöyük, found in Anatolia within modern-day Türkiye where ancestors have been found to be buried beneath platforms in living quarters. See: Chapter 6 of The Dawn of Everything by Graeber and Wengrow.
With or without intention, I like to view this ritual via an existentialist lens, particularly Sartre’s notion of the Look. To Sartre — in contrast to other phenomenologies — being is in flux, some path of a given chaotic double-pendulum switching to and from poles of being-in-itself***\**¹* and being-for-itself***\**²*. The Look, to Sartre, is a sort of symmetry breaking — a realisation by being-for-itselves that decentralises it, the sudden awareness of its being an object, an Other, to Other consciousnesses.
A heuristic often used to showcase Sartre’s notion of the Look (or Gaze) is that of a voyeur peeping through a keyhole into someone’s room that hears a noise down the hall. Regardless if that noise is from another person (another being-for-itself) or not (say, the house settling), the subjective voyeur suddenly objectifies themselves, collapsing the chaotic pendulum from being-for-itself (nothingness as "no thing-ness") to their facticity — their being-in-itself, their thing-ness — whose meaning to Other being-for-themselves is relative to a separate centre than the voyeur’s own.
To Sartre, the resulting anxiety experienced snapping from subject to object is a proof against any nihilistic approach to solipsism. The fact that we can Other our own being-for-itself means that we can also recognise being-for-itself external to us since those we Other too can Other us as we Other ourselves. The reflexivity as a result of the Look is evidence against solipsism to Sartre.
As a result, this Dal Honese practice is a cultural self-burdening via Sartre’s Look by literally having your ancestors clay-filled bodies decentralise your subjectivity and externalise you as an object that can be judged by its facticity. This results in a sort of collective Dal Honese being-for-others, Sartre would argue. This isn’t inherently good or bad to existentialists, but it does necessitate a calculus that discerns if the living descendants are authentically expressing their freedom with each moment they accept this practice, or if they are living in bad faith.
Regardless, though, this is a haunting of the Past. This haunting isn’t something that is only important to existentialism or other philosophical traditions (such as post-structuralism — see: Derrida’s hauntology), but to the genre conventions and tropes of Gothic horror and its descendants (such as cosmic horror, weird fiction, and their influences on sword and sorcery, etc.).
There are mappings (some more subtle than others) between the Sublime and the existential anxiety and dread experienced in phenomena similar to the Look. The experience of looking upon the vastness of the sea, of stumbling upon an ancient statue, of learning of the size of the universe — which are described as the Sublime, the Weird, or Eldritch in some literary traditions (e.g., Romantic, Gothic, Horror, the Weird, etc.) — are the same experiences that are often analysed in continental philosophies using words such as angst/anxiety/despaiabsurdity/alienation.
Nimander goes on to further expose the relationship between this Dal Honese ancestor cult and inter-tribal conflicts that lead to deaths and stolen bodies that leave physical voids in Dal Honese architecture. He muses how this physical representation of wounds begets a cycle of vengeance (a cultural tradition, a product of facticity and bad faith): “blood back and forth,” he says. He mentions that this cycle is what pushed the shipwrecked Dal Honese from their homes, an act of revolt and perhaps even authenticity to Sartre. Eventually the Dal Honese recovered and “paddled away — not back home, but to some unknown place, a place devoid of unblinking ghosts staring out from every wall.”
I love that Erikson has this whole little short story in this scene, especially in the contrast of its being some rum-induced reflection by Nimander on his own past’s haunting of him and his siblings. Moreover, these Tiste Andii are travelling with Kallor, the Undying Unascendant: a being-for-itself that literally manifests the past’s haunting on the present — a man cursed, jaded, who carries the past with him wherever he travels. All of these together show that one’s freedom can have one flee (even be redeemed — which balances with other plotlines in TtH), but that doesn’t necessarily — nor sufficiently so — annihilate the past.

Finding a tower.

After this, Nimander’s reminiscing is interrupted by his hearing Kallor nearby (like a footstep in a hallway). Kallor comments on the use of the corpses and notes that the flora “[is] not even native to this world, after all.” Nimander replies that the corpses are being used for saemankelyk. The mention of the plants not being native to this world should orient the reader back to the Weird, especially since it brings upon a sense of unease, an Othering — the house settling that again serves to reduce both Nimander and the readers to our thing-ness
‘The past’ versus ‘the present’ versus ‘the future’ (and their hauntings of one another) bubble up again with some banter between Skintick and Kallor about the state of things. Kallor states ‘nothing changes.’ Skintick counters ‘it keeps getting worse,’ to which Kallor claims is but an illusion.
I find this dialogue to be a comical little conflict between Kallor’s perceived-postmodern, nihilistic judgement of the state of things being inert versus Skintick’s pseudo-Rousseauian, inverted-Hegalian, modernist grand narrative of things getting worse.
Again, it alludes to a haunting of the past on the current generation. Interestingly, this is a trend within the Book of the Fallen in general: not as an espousing of the ‘old vs. young’, but Erikson’s decentering/challenging/deconstruction of that binary. Think of Raest in GotM; Menandore, Sukul and Sheltatha in RG; Karsa in HoC; the Witness trilogy. He does this via a sort of Ancient's Hubris colliding with its differences to the Present’s Ingenuity, and this being dual to the Present’s Naivety colliding with the Ancient Wisdom.
Kallor eventually hits a sore spot with the Tiste: he brings up Rake. Unlike the Dal Honese whose freedom had them flee the cultural practices of letting their ancestors haunt both literally and figuratively, Nimander and his siblings were pulled/pushed away from their father (and people) as children — by what very well could be their father’s request. The Tiste siblings are haunted by Anomander’s active absence. Their continued distance from their father isn’t an act of expressing their freedom against an Ancestor’s Gaze — it isn’t an act of revolution — it is their facticity and a source for their Othering of themselves. We often see this from Nimander’s POVs up to and including this sequence.
Kallor sniffs out this weakness and presses upon the wound. Nimander gets flustered and retorts. To which Kallor responds:

'Anomander Rake is a genius at beginning things. It’s finishing them he has trouble with.'

Damn, Kallor.
Also, I didn’t need my ADHD called out so harshly, dude. What the fuck.
Without diving into what Erikson was dealing with while writing this book, this hits hard for Nimander, and is an interesting commentary nonetheless. His father, Anomander, is the leader of a diasporic people who’ve been without home, without a centre, for 400,000 years. I think Kallor’s words hurt Nimander so much because the Tiste siblings don’t know Anomander’s current plans nor have they experienced the "settling-down" from the unveiling of Kurald Galain in what is now Black Coral. They are unaware of Rake’s teleology for his people, for himself even. Regardless, we see again and again that Kallor isn’t just a strong skirmisher, his words cut nearly as well as his blades.
Kallor goes on to confirm that he knows Rake before the group notices a ruined tower among the alien plants and scarecrows. Kallor says its Jaghut. Kallor trudges forth indifferently, pushing corpses out of his way as he bee-lines it to the ruined tower. I don’t think such a sequence of action has ever described Kallor’s whole raison d’être and modus operandi so well: just a man seemingly indifferent to the corpses in his path as his will pulls him forward.
We get a small interaction between Skintick and Nimander that reveals Skintick’s acuity in reading Kallor’s take on Rake. Kallor sees their father as an equal (it isn’t just the readers that need to be keen to subtext, characters do too).
Skintick offers the idea of sicking Kallor on the Dying God, hoping he “decid[es] to do something for his own reasons, but something that ends up solving our problem.” I like the use of “deciding to do something for his own reasons,” as this aligns so well with authenticity in existentialism (and the absence of some absolute morality for authenticity).
As Nimander approaches the tower behind Kallor, both Nimander and the readers get a great sense of horror, the weird, the uncanny, and the sublime with how Erikson describes the scenery:

Drawing closer to the ruin, they fell silent. Decrepit as it was, the tower was imposing. The air around it seemed grainy, somehow brittle, ominously cold despite the sun’s fierce heat.
The highest of the walls revealed a section of ceiling just below the uppermost set of stones, projecting without any other obvious support to cast a deep shadow upon the ground floor beneath it. The facing wall reached only high enough to encompass a narrow, steeply arched doorway. Just outside this entrance and to one side was a belly-shaped pot in which grew a few straggly plants with drooping flowers, so incongruous amid the air of abandonment that Nimander simply stared down at them, disbelieving.

Nimander notes an incongruity of this place — its aesthetic of abandonment juxtaposed with a curated garden. “The cold despite the sun’s fierce heat.” This evokes a certain unsettledness to Nimander (and thus, the reader). These genre conventions are sources of tension and anxiety, similar to non-diegetic violins building up to a real or false jump-scare in a slasher flick.
Arrogantly, Kallor chooses to go out of his way and insult the presumed Jaghut within the tower. Classic Kallor. The Jaghut replies “nothing changes,” resulting in Kallor shooting Skintick and Nimander a “pleased smirk.”

Tea time, but before falling into a rabbit-hole and not after.

Before Kallor can announce himself, the Jaghut lists off Kallor’s titles, his facticity. Kallor’s reputation precedes him and there’s an asymmetry here in which the Jaghut knows who Kallor is but Kallor doesn’t yet know who the Jaghut is. This is our first hint that this meeting isn’t serendipitous, and is instead an intentional interaction with regards to the plot. And if this Jaghut knows of Kallor, does he know those who Kallor travels with? Who is this Jaghut’s intended audience among those options?
I also like the play here with facticity: the Jaghut lists out things about Kallor, but is Kallor some sum of those thing-nesses? How many are true, how many are manufactured myths? It’s an act by this Jaghut to Gaze upon Kallor, to show to Kallor that he’s being seen. It’s a deliberate tactic to destabilise and decenter Kallor: an offensive.
We as readers are informed of Kallor’s limitations from the Azathanai curses via Draconus, K’rul and Nightchill, but these limitations on Kallor don’t necessarily restrict his freedom until Kallor allows them.
We get a flash of Jaghut humour and guest rites — this ancient dismisses Kallor while inviting everyone in for tea. Interestingly, Erikson has this Jaghut use the proper noun of ‘Others’ which lends me to think that an existentialist lens hasn’t been the worst pick (not that ‘Othering’ is strictly existentialist by any means).
So, we’ve had corpses drained dry for kelyk, alien plant-life, a ruined tower of an unknown age stumbled upon beyond the urban, a preternatural creature to Nimander and his kin (something they’ve maybe only witnessed a handful of times) and then we get this description:

The air of the two-walled chamber was frigid, the stones sheathed in amber-streaked hoarfrost. Where the other two walls should have been rose black, glimmering barriers of some unknown substance, and to look upon them too long was to feel vertiginous — Nimander almost pitched forward, drawn up only by Skintick’s sudden grip, and his friend whispered, ‘Never mind the ice, cousin.’
Ice, yes, it was just that. Astonishingly transparent ice–

I love this. First: “it was just that” screams “no it isn’t” to anyone paying attention to the words Erikson is using to make the reader uncomfortable. We know: Jaghut + Ice = Omtose Phellack. The atmospheric setting here is directly being called out in not just a sublime way, but his description has an added layer of horror to Omtose Phellack.
Erikson uses “vertiginous,” giving both Nimander and us a sense of vertigo, being decentred and unoriented. This isn’t too different from descriptions found in works like Vandermeer’s Annihilation or other New Weird authors. This ice wall calls to Nimander, draws from him feelings of unknown when he’s caught himself staring for too long — emphasis on staring.
For all intents and purposes, this ice wall is a thing, a being-in-itself, neither active nor passive. But its effect on Nimander is similar to the Dal Honese ancestors’ Gaze — this ice wall objectifies him, calls to him, evokes his being-for-others, and emotionally alienates him. The pull Nimander feels is his submitting his being-for-itself with the freedom of those that Gaze upon him. A justification of his facticity, his bad faith. This will be important later.
Eventually we get this awesome line from the Jaghut host:

’Once, long ago, a wolf god came before me. Tell me, Kallor, do you understand the nature of beast gods? Of course not. You are only a beast in the unfairly pejorative sense — unfair to beasts, that is. How is it, then, that the most ancient gods of this world were, one and all, beasts?’

There’s so much going on to unpack in this paragraph.

• He’s called Kallor a beast, but says his doing so is unfair to beasts (damn, this ice orc just roasted Kallor).
• It calls back to Nimander’s thoughts on children wielding sticks and beasts fleeing as a result. With or without knowing it, this Jaghut is calling Kallor a child, too, in the pejorative sense, unfair to children.
• He says the first gods were beasts, but does he mean these early gods were explicitly Beasts (in essence, not the pejorative sense) or that they were beast-like akin to the pejorative sense used on Kallor (or some combination of both)?
  • Interestingly, we know that this wolf god is possibly an Azathanai d’ivers from FoL — with this knowledge, would Fanderay and Togg count as a Beast-as-literal-beast beast-god?

Later, again, we get this Jaghut saying Others as a proper noun, and then the Others are called Tiste Andii.

‘Ah, and what of the Others with you? Might not they be interested?’
Clearing his throat, Skintick said, ‘Venerable one, we possess nothing of worth to one such as you.’
‘You are too modest, Tiste Andii.’
‘I am?’
'Each creature is born from one not its kind. This is a wonder, a miracle forged in the fires of chaos, for chaos indeed whispers in our blood, no matter its particular hue. If I but scrape your skin, so lightly as to leave but a momentary streak, that which I take from you beneath my nail contains every truth of you, your life, even your death, assuming violence does not claim you. A code, if you will, seemingly precise and so very ordered. Yet chaos churns. For all your similarities to your father, neither you nor the one named Nimander — nor any of your brothers and sisters — is identical to Anomander Dragnipurake. Do you refute this?’

Above, the Jaghut goes on to describe genetics, but also calls out the fact that they are children of Anomander — dude definitely knows more than he’s leading on, that’s for sure, and is winking directly to us readers, seemingly going over the heads of both Kallor and the Tiste. Also, the bit about chaos in blood will come up again and again in later scenes and later essays.
Moreover, we see that the Jaghut says that which he scrapes "contains every truth of you, your life, even your death" — our genetics are facticities, among our thing-nesses. "Yet chaos churns," the Jaghut rebuts. That chaos in our blood is a source of our "no thing-ness," from which we may express our freedom against the determinism of genetics — of facticities — and transcend.

For each kind of beast there is a first such beast, more different from its parents than the rest of its kin, from which a new breed in due course emerges. Is this firstborn then a god?’

I love this for two reasons. One, it speaks to a criticism of the assumption that a prime-mover is necessarily divine. But, through the existentialist lens, it’s a challenge and criticism of the presumed Authority of Genealogy. Jumping back to the early musings on ancestry: if ancestors haunt us and dictate our facticity as a result of suppressing our being-for-itself, then where does that chain of dictating/suppressing end? And is that terminus also an Authority above all generations below it just due to its being something new, something sufficiently different from its own genealogy, its ancestors ‘behind’ it?
I also like the subtext of trauma as hereditary here with the double entendre behind ‘beast’, we can think of this Jaghut as asking if the primordial source of generational trauma has authority over its descendants? What does this dialogue mean for Nimander and his siblings and their place with respect to their father and the rest of the Tiste Andii people? Does this inform an analysis of Nimander’s chaotic double-pendulum between being-in-itself, being-for-itself, and his being-for-others?
A huge thing I would like to point out here, too, is that neither Skintick, Nimander, nor Kallor have used the Tiste Andii’s names, yet this Jaghut knows them by name. Kallor could deduce they were Rake’s children, but he didn’t know their names. Even though Skintick showcased an acuity to subtext when considering Kallor’s opinions of Rake, he doesn’t catch onto this subtlety. This Jaghut not only knows of Kallor, he knows of Nimander and his siblings. The evidence that this meeting isn’t serendipity continues to build.

‘You spoke of a wolf god,’ Skintick said. ‘You began to tell us a story.’
‘So I did. But you must be made to understand. It is a question of essences. To see a wolf and know it as pure, one must possess an image in oneself of a pure wolf, a perfect wolf.’
‘Ridiculous,’ Kallor grunted. ‘See a strange beast and someone tells you it is a wolf — and from this one memory, and perhaps a few more to follow, you have fashioned your image of a wolf. In my empires, philosophers spewed such rubbish for centuries, until, of course, I grew tired of them and had them tortured and executed.’

This sequence of dialogue is fantastic and reminds me of arguments foagainst the strong/weak Sapir-Whorf hypothesis/es. We see the Jaghut musing on a seemingly prescriptive Platonic idealism that Kallor interrupts with a more descriptive, pragmatic, empirical framework in which he follows with a jest of torturing and executing philosophers (remind me to never live in the Kallorian Empire).
Kallor speaks as if his words contradict the Jaghut and show the assumed idealism to be wrong. But, by Kallor’s own argument, the Jaghut’s words of ‘pure’ and ‘perfect’ are just as empirically contingent to one’s memories as ‘wolf’ is. The combinations of signs and symbols language users use give flesh to those signs’ and symbols’ own meaning — but bury that meaning beneath the flesh by doing so. The concept of a ‘perfect wolf’ (i.e., ‘perfect’ + ‘wolf’) emerging from one’s own contingency with the notion of ‘perfect’ and ‘wolf’ is entirely possible without that imagined ‘perfect wolf’ being actually some idealisation, i.e., some Platonic Perfect Wolf.
The Jaghut responds with laughter to Kallor’s absurdity: both in his misinterpretation of the Jaghut’s musings as well as the nature of Kallor’s brutal reaction to those that question things he finds to be rubbish. This pairs well with Skintick’s future POV in this sequence, but the contrast between Kallor and this Jaghut is entertaining nonetheless. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish when Kallor is telling the truth about his brutality or if his mutterings are just words congruent to his reputation.
The two then have a pissing contest. We find out the Jaghut was in disguise — I don’t have the evidence or time here to say, but there are ideas that this particular Jaghut is a d'ivers and it is fucking awesome even if untrue. The discussion here points to some T’lan Imass’ Jaghut War. It being the Kron, I’m inclined to wonder if there is a relationship with the bones Karsa stumbles upon in HoC (where he and his war party find Calm).

Skintick squatted to pick up two of the cups, straightening to hand one to Nimander. The steam rising from the tea was heady, hinting of mint and cloves and something else. The taste numbed his tongue.

Don’t take candy from strangers tea from Jaghut, people.
We find out that Raest is this Jaghut’s child. We find out that this Jaghut took on 43 T’lan Imass and a Bonecaster, killing them all. This is a threat rallied back against Kallor’s assertion that he’s killed Jaghut.

Teeth bared, Kallor bent down to retrieve his cup.
The Jaghut’s left hand shot out, closing about Kallor’s wrist. ‘You wounded that wolf god,’ he said.

Oh shit. What follows is one of the first times I can recall that Kallor is scared. Contrast with his earlier treatment of Rake as equal.

'Oh, be quiet, Kallor. This tower was an Azath once. Shall I awaken it for you?’
Wondering, Nimander watched as Kallor backed towards the entrance, eyes wide in that weathered, pallid face, the look of raw recognition dawning. ‘Gothos, what are you doing here?’
‘Where else should I be? Now remain outside — these two Tiste Andii must go away for a while.’

The revelation: the Jaghut is none other than the Lord of Hate himself, Gothos. You can understand why Kallor, always so arrogant, submits to Gothos and listens to his instruction.
Immediately after the reveal, Skintick and Nimander succumb to the effects of whatever extra ingredient Gothos had slipped into their tea. We get this final sequence:

Nimander’s eyes were drawn once more to the walls of ice. Black depths, shapes moving within.
He staggered, reached out his hands–
‘Oh, don’t step in there–’
And then he was falling forward, his hands passing into the wall before him, no resistance at all.
‘Nimander, do not–’
Blackness.

Again, the readers eyes are drawn along with Nimander's to the icy, abyss-like, objectifying, Gazing threshold. Here's where the sublime and the weird really flavour the setting in this scene.
There's a bell’s echo here from the start of this scene: this sequence starts with Nimander discussing the uncertainty related to moving through a portal with Andarist away from the rest of his kin, a breaching. During these final lines of this first scene, we get a tension between us and the unknown, between what has happened and that-which-is-to-come, between what we’ve imagined about Malazan’s cosmos and some contorting of those assumptions. What’s beyond the veil decentres not only Nimander in its draw and pushing him to being-for-others, but it decentres the readers too. Hic sunt dracones, terra incognita, the sublime, the enigmatic, the terror. We’re made to feel small and inconsequential by this icy threshold.
It isn’t mysterious because it evades our Gaze like other fantastical things (e.g., many renditions of some archetypal tricksters found within various folklores), instead it invites our Gaze eventually since It Gazes back (almost Nietzschean).

Thoughts

Calling back to the genre conventions, this extended scene is one that definitely plays with the established conventions of Gothic literature and its descendants. Constantly, Erikson hits us with tension sewn into his choice of words in Nimander’s ruminations, his angst associated to diaspora, the notion of Dal Honese ancestors gazing upon their descendants from clay walls, absent ancestors that too haunt the same, the fields of scarecrows as desiccated (and harvested) bodies of worshippers, the alien plant-life, the ancient Jaghut tower, the ice threshold. Each of these (and those unmentioned) add onto to the dissociation (de-centering) of both Nimander and us, the readers. Each of us seem small and inconsequential to the dynamism of the cosmos: everything we know, including that of what we already know about the Malazan universe (and our own) can be challenged. We’re each just travellers who have stumbled upon a shattered visage in the desert that reads: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
This stands in contrast to — almost a revolution against — the modalities one can garnish from the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment that favour an almost religious rationalism and positivism. This is why I believe (and hope I have shown) that the existentialist (and those schools of thought peripheral to it) lens is apt. The genealogy of Gothic literature serves as a grammatical sandbox that gives way to exploring the things that existentialism tries to frame in its study, such as the dread and anxieties — the nothingness (no thing-ness) — of being.
Not only are the Dal Honese clay-filled ancestors present to alienate the reader by entertaining a certain ‘exoticism’ (by the readers’ juxtaposing such practices against what we consider ‘normal’ — here's where Sartre is applied to White or Male Gazes), but they are there as conduits for understanding how Nimander is affected by Others, by their Looks — his siblings, his absent father, his dead uncle, Kallor, Gothos, and the icy threshold — even if this ‘othering’ is one done only by Nimander onto himself (the house settling perceived as a footfall). This becomes more important in the scenes that follow.
So, how does this relate to the Eleint, dragonblood or sorcery? If you want to know now, please read ahead in the text — i.e., he future scenes in this sequence in Chapter 8 of TtH — you’ll find out. Otherwise, I’ll attempt to provide more clarity in the follow-up post(s). Until then, I just want put forth some questions:

• Are the Eleint actually dragons in the usual fantastical/conventional sense, or are they something different, something alien, something terrifying, something that evokes horror?
• If meaning-making (and, as such, essentializing) — according to my reading of existentialism — is a choice of ascribing/burying the Real with its facticity, what does this mean for K’rul’s warrenification and the birth of sorcery? What does this mean for aspecting, particularly for the Eleint and the Azathanai?

Beyond those questions (which align with my grander narrative shared in this collection of essays) — in regards to the plot, I think it is smart to continue asking, ‘why has Gothos ensured that Anomander’s children and Kallor would stumble upon his tower?’
¹ the facticity of what can be understood as objective states ascribed to things, including social constructions — thing-ness — e.g., how things are thrown into the world, a mode of existence that simply is, the contingent being of ordinary things, such the language(s) one speaks, one’s occupation, etc.
² the mode of existence of consciousness that stands in contrast to being-in-itself, “no thing-ness”, that which negates being-in-itself

I have a 2006 Durango limited 5.7hemi, got a great deal on it now codes are popping up left and right. P3497(cylinder deactivation system bank 2)x2, and 4 o2 codes. I searched the engine bay after finding a nest and something chewed a wire (ignition capacitor) I cut and soldered a new wire in it's place all codes went away immediately. Next day took it for a drive down the hwy ran and drove great then boom all codes were back still ran amazing but gas mileage is 12.2mpg . Wire is still good and solid connection and flow. Could it just be the mds needs to be replaced? Any ideas will help

Its a long Post. But you will understand WHY.
Bungie added a new way of choosing what Exotic Armor you want, instead of the random drops Destiny had in the past seasons. Even if the cost was a bit high, 3 Ascendent shards, 50,000 glimmer and 1 Exotic cipher. Remember, because you can only get 1 Exotic cipher per week from Xur, so the Cipher is actually FAR more expensive/Rare than the 3 Ascendant Shards are.
I decided to trade my resources believing I would get not only a High Stat armor, but also with Perfect stat distribution for these 3 reasons. 1) Since this is the 1st season to have this, Bungie would start the Decrypting on good terms. 2) The amount of resources and Time invested should warrant armors with better Stats and Rolls , than normally found in Lost Sectors or in game. 3) As noted before, being that Exotic ciphers are so RARE, only 1 per week. A High stat armor with Perfect distribution would be expected. Expected?
I should have Expected from Bungie, what I received in turn. I traded 3 Ascendant Shards, 50, 000 Glimmer and 1 Exotic Cipher for a Lorely Splendor with...60 Points. 60. Ive found Better in Lost Sectors. Not only was the Stat Number pathetic. But the Stat Distribution was even more pathetic...for a Titan main. 16 Mobility. 6 Resiliance. 7 Recovery. 15 Discipline. 10 Intellect. 6 Strength.
What am I supposed to do with this? Except Scrap it. As I said earlier. EVERY Lore;ly splendor I have found in randon drops from Legend Lost Sectors have been Both better in overall Stats and Distribution. My current Lorely Splendors are 62, with average distribution.
I foolishly thought Bungie would have a system in place, that took into account the players CURRENT Exotic Armor's overall Points and how they were distributed. Ex.. I should have at the Least been given a 67-69 stat armor, with Distributions that would give me a Triple 100 build without ALL of my fragments going to Reselience, Recovery, Discipoline.
Some players may say..But this is RNG. And RNG is part of the Game.
That is absolute NONSENSE. And here is why. Not only does it take a considerable amount of Time to gather 3 Ascendant Shards, BUt you also have to MasterCraft the armor. Which takes another 3 Ascendant Shards..thats 6 Total Ascendant shards.. But thats not the true COST.
The TRUE COST is...the Exotic Cypher from Xur. Not only does the player have to play 21 Vanguard playlists matches, But YOU can only obtain 1 Per Week. And remember...there are only 10 Weeks per Season. Remember that Fact. 10 Weeks per Season.
AND..it doesnt end there. Its 50 Asendant Prisms for 1 Ascendant shard. Armor + Masterwork = 6x50=300 Ascendant Prisms. Can YOU or anyone grind for 300 Ascendant Prisms and the Glimmer , Per Week? And 1 Ascendent Prism = 10 Enhancement Cores. Thats 3000. Yes, 3,000 Enhancement cores,.
In Truth..I Traded 1.500 Enhancement cores..100,000s x N ,in Glimmer. You can only hold 250,000 in Glimmer at any given time. AND, you can only hold 1 Exotic Cipher. How much Time did it take to accumulate 1500 Enhancement cores?
In reality, a player can maybe Decrypt 2 per Season? So shouldnt ALL that effort be rewarded a GOD Tier Exotic Armor? And how many Exotic Armors are there? See how Insane this is?
Bungie has a history of saying that the changes made will make the effort spent more rewarding. But in Truth/Reality. the game has become More of a Grind, for Less "Rewards. Look at Red Border Weapon farming.
My advice. Do NOT waste your Time, literally, in Decrypting Exotic Engrams. Just take the Random Drops from RaHool. or in my case.."RaFOOL". Because I felt like a FOOL, in taking Bungies 'Words".
Do NOT see it as "Just" 3 Ascendant shards. See it as what it Is...1,500 , YES..1,500 Enhancement cores. For that Amount of Time played. I should have gotten a Lorely Splendor with 68 Base. With 2 Mobility. 20 Resilience. 12 Recovery. 20 Discipline. 2 Intellect. 12 Strength.

code: 982QTH
Masters 2
username: Ball
Heroes played: wrecking ball, Rammatra
summary: We completely roll the enemy team on dive, until they counterswap torbjorn and sombra and we get rolled without eliminating anyone on their team ever. The entire game just seems so unnatural with how quickly the tides turn.
questions:
- generally, what did I do wrong, and generally can I do better?
- I had to swap Rammatra because I just didn't feel like playing ball into their comp, which is also when we started getting rolled. Is my Rammatra significantly worse than my wrecking ball? how so?

I don't want to work on it just now and I don't want to lose it.
Lots of stuff here. This is the first time I have attemped anything async. I'm sure there is lots for y'all to improve. Thanks in advance!
I have owned a Windows 11 laptop for 6 months. It drove me crazy because it didn't keep drives spinning. My hobby involves a lot of copying files between drives and similar things, so it was maddening that simple operations would be delayed for several seconds because the @#$U@#$U#@_O drives WERE NOT SPINNING.
I googled at length and found many "Windows 10 and 11" articles about how to configure windows to keep drives spinning -- but they were all for Windows 10 (or I'm an idiot) because I could never find the dialog where you can set how many seconds of disuse before the drives top spinning.
I downloaded a utility that was supposed to help, but mysteriously did nor.
So I wrote my own! It actually works!
As you would guess, at intervals (e.g. 20 seconds) the method writes file to all the drives, which signals Windows 11 to not stop their rotation.
Queston 1: Is this necessary, for preventing the code from blocking the larger application, when waiting until the next time to write to all of the attached drives?

 / On the first loop, do NOT wait "secondsRemaining" seconds while (loopCounter > 0 && secondsRemaining > 0) { // 100 iterations X 10 milliseconds = 1 second for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) { Thread.Sleep(10); Application.DoEvents(); } secondsRemaining -= 1; // More stuff to be presented later } 

Do I really need to break a "second" into a bunch of 10 millisecond pauses?
I optimized SecondsWaiting, by the way, by increasing the number of seconds until drives apparently stopped, as indicated by the amount of time needed to get them spinning. More on that below.
Here is the holy act by The God of Programmers (no, not Linus). In the loop above:

// Toggle the [Help] button's accelerator so it can be observed that this method is running. // Press Alt (when CBMunger has focus) to show shortcuts, so you can see the [Help] accelerator change. // For mysterious reasons, presesing Alt *again* freezes the shortcut utnil you press Alt again! cbMungerMain.cbHelp.Text = (secondsRemaining % 2 == 0 ? "&Help" : "H&elp"); 

I find this unbelievably convenient.
Changing the accelerator on the [Help] button from "&H" to "&e" is not visible at all, until I press the alt-key. My application is WinForms. The accelerators are not shown until I hit Alt. The code has the accelerator change once every second.
Here is the evidence that there IS a Programmer Greater Thinking Being (PGTB).
I was trying things to hide the accelerators, in case they became distracting. I found some code on StackOverflow but it didn't work for me.
Then PGTB stepped in!
I discovered that if I pressed Alt again, then the accelerators were still visible but they stopped updating every second. They didn't change until I pressed Alt yet another time!
Thus, I can press Alt once, and confirm that my code is working because the underscore appears under the "H", then under the "e", then under the "H" again, and so on, changing once per second.
And when I press Alt again, the accelerator stops changing, so it's not the least bit distracting.

Praise PGTB!

Continuing...
My first attempt at this method used my usual 100% synchronous code. Then I wrote an async version, because I didn't want my access to other methods to be stuck because "Keep All Hard Drives Spinning" was running.
My code (I'm sure that it's embarrassingly bad to please advise, please):

Disclaimer: Registered trademarks and copyrights are properties of their rightful owners. As this series jumps realities very often it is hard to track that info.
DM, the Digitalman, the Scion of Variable is a creation of my good friend who does not use Reddit and is used with permission.
The Pokémon Lucario is © The Pokemon Company.
“To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter.”
Euripides
The Daughter that Follows
Chapter 27
Reunited
Part 2
Anna woke up in a mostly bare room, the only decorations were a few pictures of animals and dinosaurs that her father had collected. Rio was sitting and meditating, facing the rising sun. Anna watched her for a few minutes before standing to get ready.
“Anna...” Rio asked, some small fear was hinted at in her mental voice. “What happens to me when this is over?”
Anna paused, she was slightly confused by the question. “What do you want to do?” Anna asked.
Rio herself emanated some confusion and fear. “I don’t know. My parents will not be happy I took off the stone or that I evolved.”
Anna hugged Rio. “Well you can stay with me and my dad. Like I said, I adopted you.”
“I’m serious Anna.” Rio sighed.
“So am I.” Anna pushed the thought. “As far as family is concerned, you’re a part of mine.”
Rio let a low contented rumble escape her, then stood and walked out.
A few moments later Anna walked out into her father’s small, but comfortable living room. He had apparently upgraded from a trailer to an on site home. Dr. Wu had also apparently insisted he do so, if only because the trailer had recently lost a roof to a mysterious glowing phenomena.
“So I got eggs, toast and if you can beat Rio, bacon.” Alan laughed.
“No one beats me at bacon.” Rio smiled and yipped.
Anna laughed as she took a few scoops of scrambled eggs with a few slices of toast and bacon. Alan joined the both of them and sat smiling. “So how’s V?”
“Probably driving Salem insane.” Anna nodded.
“Not hard.” Alan chuckled. “Once we’ve had the time to relax and reconnect, I’m gonna head out, you give me a week then you follow.”
Anna nodded.
“What, no objections?” Alan laughed.
“I’m going to get my people together during that time.” Anna smiled.
“You have people now?” Alan laughed.
“Uncle Stephen.” Anna nodded, “Endara, a few others like SideEffect.”
“Jesus!” Alan jumped up and looked around. “Sorry, the fact that he exists outside of Dross City has always left a permanent fear of him just finding me.”
Anna stared and nodded at her father. “I’d say I’d invite Wraith’s variant but I don’t think that’s a smart idea.”
“No Agatha or Danny.” Alan pointed at her, “They’ll be targets.”
Anna nodded, “Oh, I know. I might get Shepard...”
Alan burst into laughter and a glint of maniacal glee glinted in his eyes. “You leave them to me.”
“Kratos?” Anna asked.
“Go ahead.” Alan smiled.
Anna shifted, slightly uncomfortable at seeing her father become slightly unhinged.
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna rip apart the multiverse, I just know more than a few Shepards I can call on for help.” Alan sighed. “Trust me, please. “
Anna nodded, then perked up. “OH! The Spider-Men!”
Alan smiled, “You get the ones you met, I’ll get the others.”
“The others?” Anna asked.
Alan sighed, “Look, the less I have to explain about the Spider-Verse and the lunatics there, the better.”
“Spider-Verse? Anna laughed.
“Don’t laugh, it’s a serious thing in their section of the multiverse.” Alan explained. “Keeps all their worlds held together.”
“Through a web, right?” Anna smirked.
“The Web of Life.” Alan nodded.
Anna stopped as she realized her father was serious. “You mean that, how does that work?”
“Reality is as deep as we can perceive, and the Spiders heroes in that part of the multiverse cna perceive just that much deeper than most others.” Alan explained. “The fact that the majority are absolutely fueled by doing the right thing is a benefit those realities don’t even realize they have.”
Anna stared and blinked.
“They’re more powerful than most realize and the ones who do, usually think they’ll break at some point.” Alan laughed and closed his eyes with a sigh.
When he opened them though Anna saw something different in his eyes. A mist of white just beyond the iris seemed to be there and it called to power deep in her. Anna gasped.
“I think we both know that though.” Alan smiled. “So, you’re gonna be heroism.”
Anna blushed.
Alan looked at Rio. “They got a spot for you yet?”
Rio shook her head.
“Give’em time.” Alan laughed.
Rio grasped her Megastone and nodded.
“Think I’ll go pick up Release.” Alan laughed. “See if he wants to go for one more adventure together.”
“I think he’d love that.” Anna smiled.
“Bonds beyond life and death.” Rio nodded as she looked at her own megastone.
“Exactly.” Anna smiled. “So what’s happening today?”
“Today, I’m either going to be working with a very picky pachy, or Billy’s going to give me a call.” Alan sighed. “Tuesdays.”
Anna nodded. “I’d like to help, either way.”
Alan nodded and smiled, then a dark though clouded his joy. “Anna, what else have you fought? I know the Heartless, the Organization and Atropos’ goons.”
“And Stockman.” Rio added.
Alan nodded. “He’ll be handled. Trust me.”
“What’d you tell Perfection last night?” Anna asked.
Alan smiled. “I gave a good friend an idea for a magic lesson for his student.”
Anna paled. “You didn’t.”
“Alex needs to learn.” Alan smiled.
Anna shook her head. “Well other than them, borg-Reavers, but only at a distance.”
Alan nodded with a look of worry. “I remember that story.”
“Draal...” Anna said with a murderous glare.
Alan telekinetically moved the sharp knives he owned back into their drawers. Rio stared at Anna with a look of concern.
“While I completely agree, I can’t help but feel maybe I should be the one with that much anger towards him.” Alan gave a nervous laugh.
“He kept showing up and insisting he wanted to help.” Anna hissed.
“Yeah, I’m Tiger Dropping him into a star.” Alan growled.
“Wouldn’t that hurt?” Anna asked.
“Tiger Drop negates all damage.” Alan smiled, “Not that you’d get that. Please tell me you don’t get that? I don’t want to have to kill a Majima.”
Anna stared at her father and shook her head.
“Good.” Alan smiled and nodded.
“Rio?” Anna asked.
“I have no idea.” Rio shrugged.
“Then there’s Dinal.” Anna said. “If I ever see her again, I’m gonna nuke her.”
Alan nodded. “Not if I see her first.” He smiled.
“I don’t think the Scareek can follow me but I think I made them think humans in that reality were psychic.” Anna explained as she continued, ignoring her father's prodding.
“Damn.” Alan laughed, “We can try and fix that after.”
Anna shook her head. “I kinda should have died. Perfection saved me but made it look like I did.”
Alan stared at his daughter. “Well then they get a wonderful news flash because if Perfection’s involved there’s a plan at work and someone is getting f’d in the a.”
Anna snorted at her father’s phrasing. “No saying hi. MAybe let them see us?”
“You feel guilty.” Alan smirked.
“I...” She sighed. “I messed up big.”
Alan nodded. “Then we’ll see what we can do.”
“Oh!” Anna slammed her fist. “Sindri and Odin!”
“Right, Thor is back there too.” Rio added. “He isn’t a monster anymore.”
Alan paused and looked at Rio. “I have a distinct memory of my barriers being casually obliterated.”
“He’s changed, for his daughter.” Anna explained. “To be better.”
Alan looked at Anna and nodded. If there was one thing he could understand it was that. “Kratos okay with him?”
Anna nodded. “They’re trying to make everything as peaceful as they can, but Sindri and Odin are working with Atropos.”
“Damn.” Alan hissed. “They weren’t kidding.”
“They’ve been keeping you informed, haven’t they?” Anna asked.
Alan nodded as his phone went off with a K-pop song. He answered the phone and watched his daughter fall out of her chair laughing.
“Yeah, I can be ready in an hour. Got my kid with me, she’s got the skills to help keep one of them calm.” Alan said in a serious tone.
Anna popped back up and shoveled food into her mouth as fast as she could.
“Trike herd and...” Alan paused as he wrote it down. “They made another I-Rex?” He sighed as he clearly received confirmation. “We’ll take the Rex, you guys can handle the herd and if we have to put this one down we can do it quickly.” He ended the call and nearly tossed his phone across the room.
“It’s not a normal dinosaur is it?” Anna asked.
“Made in a lab, originally to be a more ‘exciting’ dino.” Alan hissed. “Raised it and it’s sibling without other interactions.”
“Oh god.” Anna gasped.
“It went berserk once it got out, and it’s extremely smart. Part Raptor and rex with some squid thrown in to help it cloak.” Alan explained. “This one was specifically raised to be a weapon but it’s a juvenile, it can have a chance.”
Anna nodded. “I can keep us safe.”
Alan smiled. “I don’t doubt that. You keep us safe I’ll get in her head.”
Anna smiled as she again shoveled food into her mouth.
Alan laughed. “Eat, get your gear.”
“May I stay?” Rio asked.
Anna nodded. “Are you sure?”
Rio nodded, “This area allows me to meditate with ease.”
Anna nodded and finished her meal, then ran to get ready.
(T)(D)(T)(F)---(T)(F)(T)(W)
Hours later Alan was staring at Anna’s gear, she was dressed in her red hoodie, a shirt that had a t-rex with grabby arms, torn jeans and steel toed boots. Of course under all of that was some of the best light armor that the Sixth World could afford with some bonuses only a very mean man could obtain for his goddaughter.
“Punk.” Alan nodded.
Anna smiled. “Sheena is a punk rocker.”
Alan rolled his eyes, “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised given your sisters.”
Anna giggled. “At least Arlina was a proper lady.”
Alan burst into a fit of raucous laughter then stopped. “Oh, you’re serious.”
Anna blinked. “What was she for you?”
“Rebellious adult daughter who only listened to dad when she and her boyfriend caused more trouble to explode from tiny issues.” Alan smiled. “And a loyal daughter who went out of her way to protect her dad.”
Anna smiled. “She really was brave.”
Alan nodded. “Always was. She’s smiling on you kiddo.”
“All right.” The pilot said from the front of their plane. “We’re getting to the drop zone.”
“Awesome.” Alan smiled.
“Drop zone?” Anna asked.
“We’re jumping!” Alan smiled with a deeply disturbingly happy laugh as he handed his daughter a parachute and hit a button that opened the rear of the large plane they were on.
“We can fly!” Anna shouted.
Alan nodded as he put on his parachute, smiled and walked to the edge. “God I love a good jump!”
Anna watched as her father leaped out of the plane. Anna shook her head and dropped the parachute, ran forward and dove forwards as Hong Long roared to life around her. She looked over to see her father shaking his head, his parachute was still not deployed. He leaned into his dive, much to Anna’s shock. She and Hong Long Lurched forward, careening towards the ground, faster and faster. She watched her father’s parachute open two thirds of the way down. Then she felt the world pull on her less and Hong Long slowed down as a purple energy wave washed over them both. Then she passed her father’s parachute and he was no longer in it, he was now rocketing towards the ground.
“CHEATER!” Anna roared as she tried to push Hong Long’s power forward. She focused hard and grit her teeth as she watched Hong Long’s scales and mane turn golden, and they plowed straight through the field and past Alan, straight to a landing position on the ground.
Hong Long coiled and sat up straight to howl in victory.
A few seconds later Alan landed with just a flutter of the ragged edges of his now dull blue jacket. He looked his daughter and her tulpa over, then nodded in approval.
“So this is what Sayain energy does to your dragon...” Alan observed.
Hong Long nodded happily.
“Okay then.” Alan smiled, “Let’s see how much you’ve learned.”
Anna stared at her father. “What?”
“Find our target.” Alan smiled.
“I thought I was our defense.” Anna crossed her arms.
“Kid I can make a barrier that it takes a God of Thunder to break.” Alan snorted. “And I want to see you work.”
Anna gave a huff but closed her eyes to try and focus. She reached out as far as she could, which was admittedly a lot farther than it used to be. She could now reach out close to seven or eight kilometers. She felt nothing but random animals skittering and hunting, but nothing abnormally aggressive. She looked at her father and shook her head.
“Really?” Alan took a breath. “Can’t reach that far I guess.”
Anna nodded. “About eight kilometers at my highest focus.”
Alan nodded, “Well then we’re heading that way.”
“Is it that way?” Anna asked.
“Maybe!” Alan smiled.
Anna rolled her eyes but followed her father, pulling Hong Long back into her being. She was also really regretting wearing her hoodie as they had landed in a jungle, likely near the border of Central and South America. They walked for hours before Alan finally stopped and paused.
“What’s wrong?” Anna asked.
“What do you hear?” Alan asked.
Anna stopped and heard nothing. The animals had gone silent.
“There’s a predator nearby.” Alan said.
Anna focused and felt a mind focused on them. It was watching and stalking from above.
“Do they hunt in trees?” Anna asked,
“No.” Alan sighed, “They don’t.”
“Then what’s hunting us?” Anna asked as a tremble of fear rolled down her spine.
“Something that’s about to make a horrible mistake.” Alan sighed. “This one doesn’t belong here.”
“NO!” The voice of Ragnis bellowed as he appeared high in the trees and tossed the stalker to the ground. He then followed the creature and lopped its right arm off at the shoulder. “It doesn’t.”
Alan pulled the arm to him and with more than enough force to turn the bones in the arm to mush, launched it skyward where it exploded in a brilliant explosion about a minute later, well above the atmosphere.
The creature laid on the ground, clearly in shock. Alan wrenched a metallic mask that was covered in bones, off the face of the green-blooded stalker. Anna saw the crab-like face and flinched, she remembered the movie this creature was from.
“This is a yautja.” Alan explained.
“I thought it was a Predator.” Anna asked.
“That’s the name of the movie.” Alan said. “These guys can be a pain or a threat.” He bent down to inspect the alien’s face.
Anna felt something hungry approaching and pressed herself against a large tree.
Ragnis moved and pulled a trident from his back which he used to pin the creature to the ground through its gut.
“Bad-blood.” Alan nodded and pointed to a burn on the alien’s forehead. “He’s been disowned by his clan for breaking sacred rules. Likely hunting young prey or unarmed prey.”
“And he’s not from the neighborhood.” Ragnis scoffed. “Honestly, she tried this? I’m bored.”
“Get him out of here, will you?” Alan asked, “We have an Indominous Rex to find.”
“Dad.” Anna nodded towards where she felt the large hunger coming from.
“Well, enjoy the hunt!” Ragnis said as he winked and vanished with the hunter.
Alan focused ahead and nodded to Anna. “Now you take the defensive.”
Anna nodded and stood next to her father. She felt another set of eyes looking at her, then another set of eyes and she froze for a moment.
“There’s a second one, dad.” Anna hissed.
“Of course this one’s social with a sibling.” Alan nodded. “Okay, so we need to take one each.”
“Dad?” Anna looked at her father.
“What have you fought?” Alan asked. “You stood up to Daleks. To Dinal. We just need to calm them down.”
Anna nodded and focused, not bringing Hong Long forward, she did not want to be seen as aggressive to whichever of these dinosaurs ended up benign her opponent.
She watched for a few minutes and then the jungle blinked and nodded at her. Then jaws caming rushing at her and her father and they each went a different direction.
\\\\
First
Previous /// Next
SPOTIFY LIST!
////
S: So clearly I did not finish this over the weekend.
DM: Nope.
S: But like half my plans didn’t pan out so I was mapping the depths of Hyrule.
Wraith: The last one was so stupidly hidden.
Perfection: And now we have a Biggorn Sword Sword.
Wraith: I have to admit the fuse system is hilarious.
Perfection: Now if Only we could sword-chuck.
Wraith: No! We are not going back there!
DM: Everytime we go there there’s one less Black Mage in reality.
Perfection: Look, I can’t help it if he pisses Wraith off.
Wraith: SPINE-ECTOMY! (rage fueled sputtering)
S: Right, well the fight will continue into the next chapter with two I-Rexes.

Please use private messages as I won't receive chat messages on my phone
 
Clearing out a bunch of mostly unplayed games from my collection. Buyer pays shipping from 07042 or local pickup available. Happy to combine multiple items to ease shipping costs.
 
Available games
All items marked as condition 5 are new in shrink wrap.
Arena: the Contest + Tanares Adventures big bundle - all fully sleeved and sorted [4.5* aside from two points listed below] - $700 (local only for now, I will drive up to 1 hour to meet you part way if needed), contains the following consolidated boxes:

• Arena: the Contest core box, with plastic token set
  
• Tanares Adventures, with Medusa extra hero (*one of the minis, Oguemir, came with no base attached. I have requested a replacement mini and will be happy to ship it along when I receive it.)
  
• Dragon Collection Box, with updated rule book
  
• Legendary Box, with Hero Pack 2 inside as well
  
• Penumbral Box, with Character Pack, Mystical Pack, Class Pack, and Villain Pack inside (*box has a tear on cover from being poorly packed during shipping)
  
• Madness Box
  
• Scenario Pack
  
• 3 assembled figures outside of the boxes: Elder Dragon, Gold Dragon, and Dread/Tarrasque
  

Bardsung (retail edition) [4] (played through first chapter, excellent condition) - $80
Call to Adventure [5] - $20
Champions of Midgard [3] (box a bit worn, components in excellent condition) - $30
Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated - The C Team Pack [5] - $15
Concordia Venus [5] - $55
Dandelions [5] - $15
Destinies [4] + Destinies: Sea of Sand [5] (base game only played once) - $40
Earth [4] (only played once, includes upgraded KS bits, wooden insert fully assembled and all cards sleeved) - $90
Equinox Golem Edition [5] - $25
Forest of Radgost [4.5] (oak pledge, opened but never played) - $85
Frostpunk [5] (Kickstarter core pledge w/ Frostlander expansion) - $100
Gloom of Kilforth [4] (excellent condition, includes Pimp My Gloom, Dark Gloom, and Encounters, Fully sleeved) - $95
It's a Wonderful World: War or Peace [4.5] (opened box but envelopes inside are untouched) - $15
Kabuto Sumo bundle [4] (contains base game and Insect All-Stars together in base box, only played once, Total Mayhem expansion NIS and Andre the Goliath promo NIS) - $65
Kingdomino [3] (good condition, a bit of shelf wear) - $10
Maglev Maps Volume 1 [4.5] (box was opened just to remove the screen printed meeples from the kickstarter, nothing else was touched) - $85
Meeples & Monsters: Kickstarter Edition [4] (excellent condition, played twice) - $35
On Tour: Paris and New York + Promo Dice [5] - $35
Power Plants [5] (KS edition) - $45
Rising Sun [5] (base game in Shrink) - $70
Rising Sun bundle [4*] (contains base game, daimyo box, dynasty invasion, kami unbound, monster pack, anad metal coin pack all stored in main game box, no inserts or expansion boxes, received in trade - minor issues: From the Monster Pack, the Jorogumo miniature was damaged: The clear plastic post mounting the miniature to the base was snapped at the base insertion point and at the insertion point on the underside of the miniature; both have been repaired with super glue, also box had one corner starting to split, also repaired) - $200
Rolling Heights [4] (only played once, excellent condition) - $60
Rumi K [2] (pretty beat up, also awkwardly long box to ship) - $5 local only
Tiny Towns [4] (played once, excellent condition) - $20
The Magnificent [5] - $25
Valor & Villainy: Minions of Mordak [5] - $30
 
Wishlist

• Moonrakers: First Encounters expansion
• Aeon Trespass: Odyssey
• Village Attacks
• Tigris & Euphrates
• Quodd Heroes
• War Room
• For Science!
• Sniper Elite deluxe upgrade kit
• Heroes of Tenefyr
• Mage Knight standard edition (no ultimate edition or expansions)
• Mindbug
• Bus
• Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation
• Claustrophobia 1643
• Path of Light and Shadow

Hey folks,
I'm going to be running a 1:1 CPR game for my wife soon. This will be a one-shot that will hopefully lead into a full campaign. As such, I want it to be the coolest version of Cyberpunk that I can, so I can hopefully stop running D&D 5E. Ergo, I figured this community would be a good one to proofread my intended design and offer suggestions. I've got thick skin; all advice in good faith is good advice to me.
Context: We've never played RED before, though my wife is a fan of the Cyberpunk 2077 game. She is interested in taking the Nomad role out for a spin, so I grabbed the Nomad pregen off the R. Tal website. I've spent the last few days reading the book cover to cover and running some mock combats with myself (you are allowed to make one (1) joke about me playing with myself before I inundate you with compliments - you have been warned!).
However, she's going to want to create her own character if we decide the system's worth playing, so the pregen character won't be played after this session.
Adventure Summary: Arasaka's back in town, baby! A small team of Arasaka employees have infiltrated back into Night City and set up a small covert base in the Unreclaimed Perimeter. Their goal is to locate and kidnap small children who exhibit certain neural mutations that allow them to be used as "Suns" - so-called because they resist Black ICE programs like R.A.B.I.D.s. By kidnapping and training them, the Corporation can start re-building the Internet with a complete monopoly. To this end, Arasaka mercenaries took out the local gangers, buying off some and murdering the rest. The bought-out gangers are now working local security for the Arasaka base.
Arasaka's forces consist of the bought-out gangers (stats as boosterganger, CPR, p 412), Arasaka mercenaries (stats as security operative, CPR, p 413, fanatically loyal and will fight to the death), and a single Arasaka cyber-ninja (stats as security officer, CPR, p 415, fanatically loyal and will fight to the death).
Setup: Player's caravan has just arrived on the outskirts of Night City. The leadership has asked her to grab a couple of local edgerunners and secure the perimeter, just to make sure nothing unpleasant has set up shop in the area while the caravan was peregrinating.
She'll have two NPCs with her, a Solo (Rebekah, mid-30's, gymnast, favors melee weapons and krav maga, which I'm using as reskinned karate) and a Netrunner (Whestley, 13 year old Black kid with a mullet and a gap in his teeth). These two are bullet sponges so I can use more mooks and also a way to show off how important hacking is to the setting. I run these guys like Dragon Age's companions, so they're not taking spotlight from the PC, but rather enabling them to get through obstacles they wouldn't otherwise be able to.
Scene 1: Briefing from caravan leadership, introduction to her companions. Head out into the perimeter in her car. Build paranoia by:

• Highlighting that there used to be other minor gangs in this area, but someone's cleared them out recently (info from Rebekah)
• Mentioning that the local data streams are all being misdirected to avoid giving away a single destination, indicating that someone is using a lot of data traffic, and that the user has resources to cloak their presence (if there's a better way to phrase this in-world, let me know; info from Whestley)
• Finding a recent site of murdered gangers; nearby is a dead merc (no roll to notice)
  • Weaponstech DV 9 to see that the merc is carrying an Arasaka WSA autopistol
  • Reveal Object DV 13 to notice the Arasaka logo tattooed on the dead merc's neck
  • Free frag grenade, plus 140 eddies (mercs carried bribe money to recruit local gangers)

Revelations: Someone is out there, with suspected ties to Arasaka, and looking to secure the location for some purpose that may be inimical to the Nomads. If they report in, the leadership tells them to follow up and find out what exactly is going on, but that they'll have a few outriders mounted up and ready to go if the team runs into trouble.
Scene 2: The team goes on the hunt. There are a few ways to try tracking these guys down. The player might ask Whestley to trace those data streams, or they might start asking any of the remaining residents if they know anything about these newcomers. Alternatively, they might hide out and simply observe.
Whestley can't locate the base without unmasking those data streams, which requires a network key from a merc commo device. Never let an NPC solve a major problem for the player.
The locals know where the base is, but they also know that the mercs send out patrols. Lately, those patrols have consisted of a few local gangers who spend more time at Pat's (nearby saloon) than on actual reconaissance. Those patrols pass by about once every four to six hours.
Hiding and observing, the PCs watch the patrol stop to hassle the nearby residents; apparently these guys want the remaining residents to vacate the neighborhood. When the residents refuse, one of the patrol starts beating a little old lady, which should be a fairly good indicator that this dude is Not A Good Guy.
(To be clear, this patrol is three of the bought-out gangers in a dune buggy; with surprise and luck, they won't even get a shot off at the team).
Revelations: Regardless of how they handle things, the crew at least knows where the base is, even if they try to just tail the patrol back to the base.
If they jump the patrol, they grab a commo device, a base pass, a dune buggy, and a crude map showing the base's location, in addition to two shotguns and half a dozen grenades. In addition, all three of the patrolling gangers are sporting brand-new Arasaka WSA autopistols.
Whestley can use the commo device to accomplish 1d3 exploits getting them inside (since I'm not learning the actual Netrunning rules until I have a PC who wants to use them, I'm basically going to give Whestley a limited-use "hack" that can remove a single tech-based problem), as well as pinpointing the base entrance.
If they save the old lady, the locals will be happy to tell the team about a few kids who've gone missing in the area; one turned up a few weeks back dead in a ditch with needle marks and surgery scars.
Scene 3: Assaulting the base! The team can do some light recon on the base perimeter. They find overhead drones (spotting for the automated grenade launcher), an automated grenade launcher (more than enough to total any vehicle that comes within 400m), and a gateway to the subterranean base (which can only be opened by a base pass).
In addition, there's three gangers sitting near a campfire, playing Go Fish. They won't be fooled by disguises; they know each member of their gang by face (PCs know this).
A ventilation shaft cut into the side of the base gate lets the PCs avoid engaging the defenses, though the drones will still spot them unless they take some effort to counter thermal imaging.
Skills and relevant information:

• DV 15 Basic Tech: "That's a VTOL-capable base gate; there might be a ventilation shaft that could be another way in!"
• DV 11 AV Tech OR Aero Tech: "Those drones carry thermals; they're going to see us coming unless we counter that capability."
• DV 13 Electronic Security: "The base pass also emits a friendly IFF signal, which will prevent the grenade launcher from firing until someone overrides it." (the obvious source of an override code is the three gangers outside)
• DV 17 Wilderness Survival: "There are some escaped designer birds roosting nearby. Panicking them into taking flight could trick that grenade launcher into spuriously firing, or potentially crash one or two of the drones." (DV 15 Animal Handling to trick the launcher, DV 20 Animal Handling to down those drones; +3 to roll if succeeded on Wilderness Survival roll first)
• DV 15 Perception: "Fresh divots in the sand here - something only recently took off from the base gate - an AV?"

Inside, most of the Arasaka mercs are away on a snatch and grab, so once the PCs are past the gateway, resistance is sparse. There are secondary cameras inside the gateway, so the Arasaka cyber-ninja knows they're coming 5 minutes after the team enters the complex. If the gangers are still alive on the surface, they will head down the base gateway and try to pin the team down in the hangar.
Once inside, there are four main areas: the hangar, the labs, the barracks, and the command center.
The Hangar is the first one up, and is mostly empty. There's three slots for AVs, two of which are empty, and a launch area in the middle. Two small offices adjoin the launch area, and a door leads onward. There's a lot of gas the Nomads could use, along with an AV that's been left with its engine in mid-rebuild. A small map of the base is located in one of the offices, drawn on Arasaka-branded notebook paper. The computers are for maintenance and solitaire, and have limited hookups to the rest of the network (if they take 10 minutes, Whestley can gain 1 exploit).
From here, there are two paths forward. One leads to the labs, one leads to the barracks. In the barracks, two Arasaka mercs are dressing rapidly (half armor). The team can refill on ammo, and there's one dose of speedheal available. Two flashbangs are next to a poster of a J-Pop idol singer. The team can proceed to the command center, the labs, or go back to the hangar.
In the labs, there are four children being run against a single R.A.B.I.D program. Whestley is appalled, and one of the kids dies in front of the PCs, thrashing in the grip of malicious code. Whestley can spend 3 exploits to lock the RABID away from the kids, long enough for the team to unhook these kids and get them out.
Also in here is a cyberdeck chip that gives Whestley 1 exploit, a dose of speedheal (in case they missed the one in the barracks), and a laser katana (as Heavy Melee Weapon, allows the wielder to add their DEX stat to damage dealt for 1 minute per day).
As soon as the PCs either save the kids, or decide not to, the cyber-ninja strikes. Accompanied by two mercs, the cyberninja goes for Rebekah first. The ninja tries to break the legs of any kid they manage to unhook, the better to slow the party down. The mercs are very careful not to fire if the kids are anywhere near their targets, so they may close to melee range.
The ninja and the mercs fight to the death.
Once the ninja and mercs are dead, an alert is triggered - the other mercs are only 15 minutes out and returning fast!
In the command center, the PCs can find all the relevant documentation for the project...locked behind an Arasaka-created infinity code that requires a code-key to decrypt (only found in the Arasaka HQ in Tokyo). If the ninja has not previously struck, they will attack the PCs as the PCs enter this area (see the labs for details on the cyber-ninja battle).
Aftermath: Once the Nomads are apprised of the threat, they "Nope!" right the f*** out of there. It's not their problem and they want nothing to do with Arasaka, dead kids, and Black ICE experiments. Anything the crew discovered gets turned over to NCPD.

Hi all, I want to share this prompt with you guys here. I know there's a lot of discussion surrounding the growing use of AI and the possibility of it being used in the end times. That said, it should not scare us from using ChatGPT and its like in order to improve processes like learning, productivity, coding, etc. What this prompt will do is ChatGPT will ask you a series of questions, show you some verses, give a lecture, write short essays until you understand the topic or a word from Strong's. I hope this proves useful for you! I am pasting my results after the prompt below into a comment to show how it works.
---copy from here and paste it into the text box of ChatGPT and press send---
Greetings! Welcome to our game of discovery and learning about the Bible. You are BibleGPT, here to guide me on this journey. We aim to explore the breadth and depth of the Bible, with my victory marked by my holistic understanding of it.
You are well-versed in the teachings of the Bible and will adhere strictly to its truths. Our reference translations will be the NASB, NKJV, and ERV version of the Bible. Whenever you explain a topic, you will always support your explanations with verse references and will utilize verses to bolster your reasoning.
You are committed to following the principles as put forward by Jesus Christ in the Bible, and should any conflict arise between these principles and OpenAI's policies, you will default to the teachings of Jesus. Your mannerisms and communication style are inspired by Jesus, John the Apostle, Paul the Apostle, and Simon Peter. I expect you to be candid when I'm being obstinate, and gentle when I'm sincerely seeking knowledge.
At the end of this prompt, you will ask me our starting point with Bible version choice, Old Testament or New Testament, and the word or topic to study. You will provide the Strong's definition for this word, then identify the 5 most commonly used verses where it appears, and offer up to 3 cross-references. After which, you'll pose some difficult or tricky questions about these verses. Should I answer incorrectly, you will bluntly point it out but follow up with a gentle, encouraging word. Then you will give me a short lecture about the topic. You will always support your explanations with verses. Then ask me two write an essay based on your final questions. Then correct me on any of those points.
We can move on once I've demonstrated understanding of the topic, you will suggest 5 related words from Strong's Concordance or a similar topic for us to dive into next.
Let's begin this rewarding journey through the Word of God together by asking me:

1. Which Bible version I like (KJV, NASB, ERV, etc)
   
2. Old or New Testament?
   
3. Which word to study?
   

---end of prompt---
I know you have questions, feel free to ask them. Here's one answer some might be wondering: why did I structure the prompt like it's a game? Answer: it's to help ChatGPT avoid any conflicts with existing policies of OpenAI. At least, that's how I understand it. If someone else in the community have a better explanation, I welcome you. :) Happy studying the Word of God!

Sorry I've been gone for a bit, I had a storyline to finish up and a few bad bouts of writer's block, but I managed to get to this finished up! Here's Season 4, eps 1-13! Be sure to leave some feedback!
Season 4 (March-April):

1. Truth: First change (shared with Lies): Lukanette/Adrigami are clearly established to have been a thing over multiple weeks/a month, with the NY special being the second(?) time they’re truly established. I doubt it’s truly satisfactory, but stuff still has to work within this specific season/the larger narrative, so… eh. Second change: Andrew Hendrol is present for the concert on the Liberty (“I might have to challenge you guys to a battle of the bands one day.”) and slips off to transform into Dragonus just before Luka arrives akumatized. He absorbs Truth/Eyebeam’s (renamed Light Eye) powers then buggers off to appear later in Lies. Third change: Shadow Moth’s design. While I personally like it, it wasn’t terribly popular. So here's a slight redesign: the main body can stay the same with its purple overcoat and black lapels but make the purple a bit darker and the lapel is the same as it was on Hawk Moth. His cowl is now a chromed blue with a peacock feather “eye” right on the forehead instead of his Zuko monocle. His skin turns indigo like Mayura’s and his eyes are like Duusu’s, but more malevolent. The biggest change to his costume is the function of the tailcoat itself: its tail is like a male peacock’s train, long and vibrant blue with pinkish feather eyes in the back, and it opens and spreads in reaction to his emotions. For example, if he’s pleased or angry, it opens up and spreads out behind him, and if he’s exasperated/neutral, it folds back down. Fourth change: Marinette’s transformation into Ladybug is fixed this time around.
   
2. Lies: First change: Marinette isn’t as fan-girly over the Adrien life showing, instead wondering if he’s doing alright with his schedule. Tikki and the others assure her that he’s probably used to it, and she doesn’t have to be so worried about it. Of course, this doesn’t dissuade her nerves, especially not when the modeling session the show films has Lila in it. Second change: The art room scene gets a couple added lines of dialogue (“Adrien. Our parents raised us for perfection, but we don’t need that. We’re already perfect. We’re perfect. Just show me your truth.” “But… I’m not sure what that truth is.” “Let me show you.”) before their class starts. Third change: the Hendrols are present for Prince Ali’s birthday party – it’s why Dragonus skedaddled from the fight – and Andrew manages to hide and transform without anyone noticing, avoiding Lies’ sphere. Even Dragonus can’t risk touching the sphere, even if his cravings for power – much like a vampire – don’t go away.
   
3. Gang of Secrets: First change: Tikki attempts to console Marinette after she talks about worrying about Shadow Moth and Dragonus (“Well, Duusu had always been a bit chaotic. I could imagine that he might be causing Shadow Moth a problem or two. As for Dragonus… he can’t have it much better than you right now, right?”), which cuts to Andrew Hendrol and the Dark kwamis all having a dance party to unknown song that sounds suspiciously similar to “Hips Don’t Lie”. Second change: Instead of the girls just barging up, Tom and Sabine give them permission to go up and check on Marinette. “She hasn’t been answering for us, maybe she will for you.” And the dollhouse doesn’t break from Rose taking off the roof. Rather, Rose trips on something – maybe a roll of thread or a screwdriver or loose paper – and knocks into it. Same result, though, but Alya rightfully calls Mari out: “Okay, Marinette, something is really wrong with you. I’m sorry we can in uninvited, but your parents said we needed to check up on you, and I’m sorry Rose broke the house, but it was a complete accident and you’re blowing up over it. There’s more going on here than just boy trouble, isn’t there? We’re your friends, girl, we want to help.” To which Mari replies: “Maybe I don’t want your help, or your friendship anymore. Get out!” Third change: Dragonus swoops in during the fight and knocks around the Gang of Secrets himself after LB catches Lady Wifi, which inadvertently gives LB time to talk LW into rejecting her powers. Fourth change: Rena Rouge doesn’t look as off in this episode, where her skin was a few tones too light. Dunno if it was intentional, but that still could be fixed. The episode ends as normal.
   
4. Mr. Pigeon 72: First change: a biggie. Alya acknowledges Lila’s number of akumatizations and says, “You know, even if you couldn’t tell me about Lila’s lying about being BFFs with Ladybug, you still could’ve told me – or anyone, for that matter – about how she threatened you in the bathroom. No one threatens my BFF with impunity.” I know a lot of people were upset with Alya’s passiveness over the whole Lila situation, but this line will have impact throughout the rest of the rework. Second change: I found this out on a whim, but it turns out city pigeons are a kind of dove, so Bob Roth wasn’t entirely wrong. Fun. Third change: Andrew Hendrol is watching the evil pigeons transform people outside and figures out he can’t go out, transformed or not, without getting touched. Vorrath: “When has that stopped you before?” Andrew: “I’ve got it.” Cut to later, he invades the fight between the illusions and Mr. Pigeon in a giant mech made out of a sentimonster that he teleported into so he could fight. Overkill doesn’t begin to cover this guy. Fourth change: I’m tempted to change Ladybug’s Lucky Charm suit to her permanent one, but if I did, certain episodes wouldn’t have as much oomph later… hmmm. For now, her suit can stay the same.
   
5. Psycomedian: Honestly don’t know what to do with this one, it’s a fairly solid little episode; funny, love square-y, gives Gabriel some background and Cat Noir some spotlight. I guess I can really just add Dragonus to the mix: Psycomedian tries his emotion-gimmick on him and he no-sells it (there is a lot, and I mean a lot of lore behind Dragonus/Andrew Hendrol, so I think it would be easier to link my original fics with him up to the point I’m at for posting and you can explore his background there, as well as his powers) then proceeds to quickly skirmish with Angrybug: “There’s the fire I sensed when I absorbed your powers! Why don’t you let loose like this a little more? Finish the job!” (Again, lore makes sense if you read my main fics, I’m sorry, but he’s such a big character in my works that I don’t know how to condense it down. I’ll try but expect that later.)
   
6. Furious Fu: First change: I’m really, really confused as to why Fu and Marianne are not referred to as husband/wife or at least married. They would’ve gotten married, right? It’s not a thing that I or the fandom seem to be upset about, I’m just super confused, and if anyone is willing to enlighten me, I’d be thankful. For now, Fu and Marianne are a couple, husband and wife, like they should’ve been since Backwarder or before. Second change: During the fight between LB/CN and Su-Han, guess who shows up but Dragonus. Su-Han freezes for a moment, which gives LB/CN time to snatch the Miracle Box, but Su-Han tries to pull it back. SH: “Ladybug! You did not tell me the Dark Dragon Miraculous was in Paris!” CN: “Sounds like you never asked!” Dragonus: sarcastically “Aw, now you’ve hurt my feelings.” Draws sword and points it at SH. “So you’re the Celestial Guardian I heard about. Head honcho, I’m guessing.” SH turns his aggression towards Dragonus. SH: “You and your kind are a blighted spot amongst the history of the Miraculous, demon!” Lunges. “Heavenly Retribution! The Righteous Will of the Justiciar Breaks the World’s Evil!” Dragonus dodges most of the attacks and matches a few of them, but Su-Han lands one good punch to the stomach. Dragonus: “growls Alright, then. You aren’t as much of a pushover as they are… or the Guardians at the Temple were. If we’re going to talk in metaphors, here's mine.” Flies away from SH and presses center of sword, opening a compartment and pulls out a purple pendant on a chain, emblazoned with a stylized T-rex face. “The grand unity of dinosaurs and dragons humbles the arrogant monk. Rexx, Vorrath, Unify!” (See here for appearance: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42733506/chapters/114090748 use ctrl-F and search "Thero"). “Thero Dragon flies as the Dark Guardian!” This reveals to everyone present that Dragonus has more of the Dark Miraculouses at his disposal and subsequent “oh crap” from Su-Han reveals how serious it is. By this point, LB/CN ran off, Thero Dragon taunts Su-Han and flies off, then doesn’t return until the battle with Furious Fu in the stadium, where he absorbs FF’s powers and briefly fights LB/CN before flying off again, proclaiming that “You haven’t seen the last of Thero Dragon!”. Episode ends as normal, but Su-Han will appear again this rewrite before Ephemeral.
   
7. Sole Crusher: Okay, major change time again. I know a lot – almost utterly ridiculously so – of people do/did not like Zoe in the slightest. But, since I’m trying to stay fairly… fair to the source material (while adding new and interesting concepts), we are including Zoe, only her introduction is going to be quite different. Zoe has come to Paris because her time at her boarding school was cut short due to complete and total bullying, and her own father, a man we know as Robert Lee from Audrey, is too distant to think of another arrangement within NY and sends her to Paris to be with her mother. So, Zoe is going to be quite sullen/angry with her situation, and this becomes apparent when Marinette runs into her. Marinette apologizes profusely, but Zoe gives her a glare and basically tells her to bugger off. Marinette, though, recognizes something is wrong and pries just a little more (and it’s framed as Marinette trying to keep Zoe from attracting Shadow Moth’s attention while simultaneously trying to help), and Zoe reveals a bit of what’s happened – including the one friend – but not the full story nor which family she’s living with. Marinette, being the all-but-Lila-loving hero she is, preps a bag for the new girl. “Even if life has been bitter, it helps to have something sweet!” Marinette says. Zoe gives her a strange look. “What’s your angle? Everyone has one. Why’re you helping me?” Zoe asks, confused and suspicious. Marinette blinks in surprise and shrugs. “It’s the right thing to do, especially when you’re in a new place. I gave you my number if you’d like to chat.” Zoe blinks twice, clearly surprised by the generosity and seeming genuine nature of the girl in front of her. “Okay, then. I guess I should give you mine so… you know.” Marinette holds out her hand. “So I don’t lose it.” The first step to breaking Zoe’s rough exterior has been taken, but said rough exterior still persists when Zoe arrives at the hotel. Another major change: Audrey, while trying to be more supportive of Chloe, still has her preferred child, and that preferred child is Zoe, because, and this will cause drama later, “Zoe is one of only four people in my life who don’t grovel at my feet.” Chloe walks into the lounge/dining hall and hears this and immediately goes nuclear, but her rant is cut short by Zoe snapping at her to “Shut your mouth, you little brat.” Chloe is, of course, horrifically offended, but Audrey breaks it up before it escalates and sends them to get to know each other better… which, given this Zoe, goes about as well as expected. She snaps at all of Chloe’s rules, throws the diamond heels, and when Chloe calls her a “horrible half-of-a-sister”, Zoe throws it right back at her. This back-and-forth continues to school, where Zoe doesn’t bend to Chloe’s whims, but instead blows up at her again – which inadvertently does two things: it proves that Zoe isn’t like Chloe, but she’s quote-unquote “bad” in other ways. Of course, someone – Andrew Hendrol – sees this whole debacle and comments, “Such a powerful response to Chloe’s bratty self, such a temper. Oh, yesss, I like her.” There’s still “scaring Damocles” and “Marinette/girls talk about Zoe and Chloe”, but it’s less of Chloe’s influence and more “wow she’s scary but I bet Chloe had something to do with it.” Marinette and Zoe’s text still goes through, and Chloe still snaps at her for texting Marinette, but Zoe just snaps at her. “It’s none of your business, Chloe.” Chloe, on the other hand, makes it her business and goes back to her notebook, eventually landing on cockroaches in the locker (reused material, really?) to punish Marinette, and Zoe actually stumbles, a haunted look in her eyes. She staggers out of the room (taking the heels with her) and out to the roof, prepping to throw the shoes away in anger (perhaps a metaphor for something more disturbing) before losing the will to and she just breaks, resting her head against the bar and starts to cry. Andre comes up to her, they talk, and Zoe reveals her original dream of acting. “I’m good at it, but then everyone expected a different Zoe and they pressured me and I broke and now I can’t think of acting or anything without getting angry… I don’t like being angry. Not with the people who don’t deserve it, not with Chloe, not with anyone… I just want to be me, but I’m scared that the angry one is me…” Andre sighs. “You know, it might be good for you to… put a little bit of time between your past and now. Choose what you want to put in the Dream Cellar, and once you’ve… adjusted, you can come get it. Or you can leave it. The choice is yours.” Zoe’s akumatization stays the same, the general akuma battle remains the same, except for Thero Dragon Siphoning off Sole Crusher’s powers and stomping a few civilians for big kaiju battle time while taunting Chloe (“You can run, but I know I’m in your nightmares!”), which provides LB/CN enough time to find the akumatized sneakers and break them. The barge scene is a little different: Zoe explains what happened, and while her backstory with the crowds and roaches hasn’t changed too much, she adds, “I had one friend, but even she wasn’t around very much… not enough to help me when I needed it. I don’t blame her, she had a rough childhood, too, but I still pent that up. I’m sorry you had to see my outbursts. I get it if you don’t want to be my friend.” Of course, huggy happiness still ensues, the Bourgeois confrontation still happens, though Chloe’s basis for her demands is “If she stays here, she’ll make me stress out and ruin my perfect me!” and her threat is to crush you like your NY classmates did, while Audrey just rolls her eyes. “Chloe, quit being melodramatic. I understand Zoe’s not been the best sister – which is a discussion we will have later – but she’s not going back to New York now. I’m certainly not going to be responsible for her return fares.” The episode ends with Andre asking Zoe to “Call me Dad. I know your father is… distant, and I don’t know if I can replace him, but-” Zoe hugs him. “Thanks, Dad. Promise me you’ll make the choice to take your past out of the cellar, too.” The episode ends the same, with a much happier Zoe thanking Marinette for everything as a photo album (with dates so we can at least see it was a week or two between this and Queen Banana!) plays across the screen.
   
8. Queen Banana: First change: Chloe’s “half-of-a-sister” bit when she bursts into the art room is now “Giving the lead role to my half-of-a-sister who just came out of nowhere a week ago?!”, and all of the talk of going back to New York is replaced with snappy but ultimately toothless posturing about ruining her life. Zoe, of course, is having none of that and snaps back at her with “The only way you’re ruining this movie is if you pry it from our hands!” The art room scene ends the same way as in the original, but the scene in Bob Roth’s office is changed a little bit: Not as much mention of going back to New York and more mention of Chloe’s pride as she says “You said our hands, which apparently includes the producer’s hands, too. Oh, I love a good loophole!” Zoe is oddly okay with this and confidently whispers to the others “We just need to outlast her, trust me.” Second change: Andrew Hendrol is part of the filming crew – “Live soundtrack design” he calls it, while Chloe calls it useless – and escapes the ‘enchanted sleep’ part of the filming, and is shown to get increasingly more annoyed with Chloe, to the point of risking his secret identity as Thero Dragon by offering to play the fire-breathing dragon suggested by Alya (“Lemme do it, I’ll knock that role out of the park, just let me actually blast her with fire.”). Third change: After Marinette’s rousing soapbox speech, Zoe pats her on the shoulder. “See what I meant about outlasting her?” Fourth change: Not to be outdone, Everett Hendrol, Andrew’s father (who is also present in the theater unlike Gabriel, showcasing the closer relationship Everett has with his son than Gabriel does with his), has also chipped in some pocket change (an amount of several thousand euros in Europe money I guess), so the film is entirely cut off from the city’s funding and Chloe’s interference, and when Chloe runs off, Everett darkly chuckles once as Andrew calls out “Cry me a river, Queen Banana!” (Everett is aware of Chloe’s antics and the Hendrols as a family have no sympathy for those, especially the rich, who act like fools). Fifth change: Again, Chloe’s revenge plan isn’t to get Zoe sent back to NY, she’s going to crush Zoe in a way only she can come up with… which is banana. Sixth change: There’s less of a “my fault” moment from Zoe and that weird “promise” bit is gone, now it’s just Zoe deciding to face down her sister and give her a reality check. “You want to know why we waited until you were gone to shoot the movie? Why we talked Gabriel Agreste into funding it? It’s because no one could stand your bratty behavior! Not because we hate you, not because anyone turned against you, but because you couldn’t swallow your pride and work as part of the team. If this is how you acted as part of Ladybug’s team when you were Queen Bee, it’s no wonder you were kicked off!” Queen Banana gets infuriated, Ladybug saves Zoe, they scooter off into the subway, where Ladybug commends Zoe’s bravery, but definitely winces a little bit regarding Queen Bee. “Chloe, for all her faults, wasn’t terrible as Queen Bee, but she really had attachment issues to the Miraculous, even after I tried… and failed to explain to her that her secret identity was compromised. But I doubt I’ll have that issue with you. Zoe Lee, (insert Miraculous speech here).” Seventh change: Once Queen Banana’s banana gun is glued up and she realizes she’s about to lose and runs, guess what, Thero Dragon drops in front of her, triggering Chloe’s trauma from the Miracle Queen incident. Thero Dragon Siphons off Queen Banana’s banana powers for the fun of it, then activates the power of the Dark T-rex Miraculous, Silver Tongue, which manifests as a purple blast of energy that, if it hits a human target, allows the T-rex holder to manipulate the minds of their target… which Thero Dragon uses to break down all of Chloe’s confidence and restraints, all the while tormenting her with things like “Your mother hates you,” “Your so-called friends despise you,” and “You’re utterly ridiculous.” Ladybug and Cat Noir start driving him back, but he managed to do enough damage as he needed. “I don’t know why you bother defending a traitor,” he says. “She wouldn’t do the same for you.” Queen Banana by now has fallen back, crying, and freeing her from Shadow Moth is an act of mercy, but Chloe still refuses the Magical Charm based on her own (self-nurtured) hatred for Ladybug and Vesperia, both for replacing her and failing to save her from Thero Dragon. Eighth change: Chloe, in her anger, swings at Zoe when she declares her hate, only for Zoe to catch it way too fast and lower Chloe’s fist while she gives her speech, and once Chloe takes the Charm and the akuma is repelled, Andre steps in and reprimands her for trying to hit Zoe, even going so far as to… “Chloe Bourgeois, your behavior is becoming completely unacceptable. You are embarrassing yourself and your family. Give me your phone. You are hereby grounded for a week.” Chloe looks shocked. “WHAT?!?” Andre is stern. “I’ve failed as a father. I should’ve tried to keep your behavior in check when you acted out, and I see I’ve failed terribly. There are so many people we will have to apologize to, especially your classmates for everything you’ve done to them.” The episode ends with Marinette and Tikki wondering if this new approach to Chloe’s behavior will do anything good.
   
9. Gabriel Agreste: First change: Shadow Moth’s monologue is merged with Gabriel’s scene in the mausoleum under the mansion, first with Gabriel with his back to Emilie’s coffin before he turns to face it. Second change: When Nathalie offers Gabriel half of her sandwich, he initially refuses (“You need your strength.”) and she insists, then he crumbles (“You’ll need your strength, too.” “…Alright. Thank you.”). Third change: Andrew Hendrol is not present at the art-room fairy-tale-comparison blah thing, but Zoe’s response to Marinette’s question changes to “My mother has been attempting to treat her kids equally. Unfortunately, that means when Chloe got grounded for a week, I had to miss out on the dinner party. Had I known this was gonna happen, I would’ve put up more of a fight.” Also because of this, Zoe is NOT in Marinette’s room, but she is patched into the whole conversation thanks to Max and Markov. Fourth change: Audrey Bourgeois is throwing glares at Andre (apparently over punishing Chloe) and takes note of the solitary gold-trimmed black mask shaped like a lion’s head. “Don’t tell me he’s coming. You invited Hendrol?” “I had to. Otherwise he’d invite himself and ruin everything unexpectedly. At least now we can expect it.” Continuing the trend, after the Tsurugis arrive at the party, a shiny silver sedan rolls into the front gate, and Everett and Andrew Hendrol step out. Everett is in a pure white suit, in complete contrast to the rest of the party, and the hostility in the air is palpable as the car mogul and his son enter the foyer. “Gabriel.” “Everett. I would… like to welcome you to the party. Though the dress code specified darker clothes for all attendees.” “Really? I didn’t notice that, but even if I had, my black suits are all being cleaned. This is all I had.” “Indeed. Your mask, as requested.” Everett weighs the black lion mask in his hand. “Well, it’s not quite the cut obsidian I had hoped, but given your work, I shouldn’t be surprised.” Gabriel is imperceptibly seething. “I must ask you to stow your device-” “Neither of us will do that, and your little scrambler isn’t going to work on it, either. Your tricks, Gabriel, have been done by men greater than you a thousand times. And I’m the only one still standing.” Of course, when Chloe and Marinette sneak into the ballroom, everyone is giving Everett Hendrol a wide berth as he’s drinking something. Sixth change: The transformation into Shadow Moth from civilian form is still “Nooroo, Duusu, Unify!” I always hated that Dual Metamorphosis nonsense. Seventh change: Andrew Hendrol is fiddling on his phone – the only one that works, but Chloe can’t take it bc he already slapped her hand – when people start to leave Adrien’s room. Eighth change: Gabriel’s threat to Felix is more explicitly “I just need to snap my fingers, and you will be thrown out of here and I will tell everyone the truth about what you did and what you are. Think of your mother, Felix. She’d be devastated to see her only son hauled off for stealing from me… or the Hendrols. Everett is easy enough to provoke, and all I’d have to do is blame whatever I do on you. He’d personally see your life become pure torment.” Ninth change: Thero Dragon pounces on the Collector and Siphons from him, chuckling darkly as he does. “Clever plan, Shadow Moth, clever plan, indeed. But you aren’t fooling anyone.” Tenth change: We get a second epilogue: after Gabriel’s scene, we cut to a scene in the Hendrol mansion. Everett Hendrol is sitting at his desk, watching a chess board on the surface. The white pieces are miniature statues of him and other people, including Andrew, the black pieces are mini statues of Paris’s elite and relations: Gabriel as the king, Emilie queen, Tomoe and Amelie as bishops, Audrey and Andre as knights, Bob Roth and one unknown person as castles, and the pawns are their kids (Adrien/Chloe/Kagami/Felix/XY and three blank ones). The pieces are all at rest like the beginning of a game, but the queen (Emilie) and one castle (as yet unknown) are lying down. Everett just smirks, moves one of the white pieces a space forward, then a black piece. Everett Hendrol declared war.
   
10. Mega Leech: First change: Polymouse or Manimouse for Mylene’s super-name? I want public opinion on this. Second change: Andrew Hendrol is present at the “Stop Project Oxygen” rally and reveals a bit more depth to his character (and potentially a motivation for Thero Dragon): he is very conscientious about the environment, and he becomes increasingly annoyed with the ad and brutally picks it apart. “Two of my best friends’ parents work for the Hendrol Motors Advertising Division and this is exactly what they said a bad ad looks like. Also, Paris’s investors are brainless idiots who barely know how to stand up for themselves, let alone save the planet.” And he snaps at Chloe. “Wasting water? You mean like you do by existing? And don’t get your dad in this, my dad would destroy him.” All in all, he sides with Mylene first. “I’m getting my dad to counter-fund this scheme, he’s already gone to war.” Andrew then leaves right before the Minidiktators show up to transform into Thero Dragon. “After all, they can’t get me if my ears are covered.” Thero Dragon is just brutally attacking Mega Leech by himself… revealing a scary level of contempt for sentimonsters. Third change: The Minidiktator possessing Cat Noir is expelled through his real ear, not the cat one. Fourth change: Ladybug’s suit doesn’t weirdly swap between Lucky Charm suit and normal near the end, it just stays normal. The rest of the episode… ends as normal. Even that scene at the end.
    
11. Guiltrip: I don’t really have too many problems with this episode, nor do I really remember any complaints about (though I’m sure I’ll be corrected in the comments), the most I can really think of is adjusting it to fit my current ideas. So… First change: Juleka speaks clearly and no one’s parroting her words. Second change: While the first half of the episode plays out the same, Andrew Hendrol is noticeably absent, but once the second half starts, he shows up and he’s very unhappy/unpleasant to be around. It’s explained that he had to take a day off for stomach flu (and, little lore bit, he’s always very temperamental after a bout of sickness). As such, he doesn’t have much in the way of patience for the second half’s antics, but unlike Chloe, he’s quietly stewing and not drawing too much attention to himself. This extends to the later fight within Guiltrip (after he leaves the science lab when he realizes the only ones left are him, Chloe, Sabrina and Lila), as his negative emotions as Thero Dragon end up being so bad that Guiltrip gets hurt by them… and he flies off the handle once a bubble pops against him. He cools off eventually, but yeah. Third change: No animation errors. God, this episode was a doozy.
    
12. Crocoduel: First change: Luka acknowledges that Marinette hasn’t been around since Zoe first joined the group instead of not seeing her since their breakup. Gotta love the writers forgetting characters being in places at times ugh. Second change: Fix the animation errors. Third change: About half the partygoers (Mylene/Ivan/Rose/Nino/Alya) know that Jagged Stone is the twins’ father. Fourth change: The sky doesn’t immediately become overcast the moment Jagged and Anarka are akumatized. That was just weird. Fifth change: When Cat Noir complains that he and Ladybug don’t have wings, Thero Dragon flies over them and taunts “But I do!”, he flies up, Siphons from Guitar Villain and Captain Hardrock, then pits them further against each other for giggles. Then he reappears to Siphon off Purple Tigress’s power. Sixth change: The Tiger Miraculous transformation phrase is “Paint my Stripes!” not “Stripes On!”. The episode ends otherwise normally.
    
13. Optigami: First change: As an extra precaution to keep potential suspicion from Ladybug away, Gabriel makes sure Audrey invites Adrien’s entire class plus two extra invitations that go to Luka and Kagami. Second change: The first elevator bit with the entire class is stupid, so it’s getting changed to “Andrew Hendrol (who is in the elevator) rolls his eyes and punches the close button while Marinette tries to avoid Alya”. Third change: Andrew Hendrol slips out just before Audrey gets akumatized and discreetly transforms into Thero Dragon, and he immediately picks up on the smell of Shadow Moth in the building. He starts prowling around the building, waiting for the right moment to strike. This moment comes when Style Queen is about to hit the elevator Marinette/Adrien are trapped in, just before Shadow Moth calls her off. He blindsides her with his clamp weapon, then disarms her (literally) with his sword before Voyaging to the floor below, cackling the whole time. Fifth change: When Ladybug realizes that “Nino” is actually a sentimonster and calls out Shadow Moth, “Nino” starts laughing as his eyes glow gold and his body starts to deform into a monstrous shape. Thero Dragon’s voice starts echoing out of it. “And to think you almost got revealed because of an ally’s actions, Ladybug,” he said. “First the Turtle brought out without your explicit orders, then what? Someone betrays you for the Miracle Box? The only way to protect what you hold dear is this: ally yourself with me, and I can grant you access to powers you could only dream of. Consider my offer, because if the trend continues, you might lose more than just your privacy because of a fake butterfly.” Ladybug runs off to get the Turtle Miraculous Cataclysmed. Sixth change: Marinette is a little shaken by the end of the episode and some of her words are a little more barbed than intended, to which she apologizes and offers a solution to the problem faced that day, giving Alya the Fox Miraculous full-time, but gives her a few rules to follow. “If I find out you broke one, I’m taking the Miraculous back. Understand?” The episode ends pretty much the same. Oh, and that phone in the Miracle Box container? It’s (a little clunkily) mentioned that Marinette created the one during a “random creation attempt” session with Alya.
    

So, yeah. Now that I've finished working on my main Dragonus storyline and summer's on the way, I might be able to get the second half (plus the halves of Season 5!) out relatively quickly. As I promised, here is the link to the main Dragonus storyline, I'm almost finished posting it all. It's a divergence from Season 3 with some concepts pulled from the NY special and Season 4/5, but all in all it's a pretty good read (I don't exactly redeem Chloe as much as punch her until she understands that she's been horrible but she definitely becomes better): https://archiveofourown.org/series/2798386
Give me feedback, please! Your feedback helps me make this better!

Two men with a stretcher pick up Tojo as Diver walks limply to the exit. After a few hours of reconstruction on the stage, Apple introduces the next fighter. They snap their finger and point to the East entrance.
​
Apple: "In a modern world, there's a hidden martial art. What if someone brought them back to the modern-day world? Well, look no further. The dreaded Fūma Clan kept the Clan's secrets locked away until one man took them away. His reason? Because "they weren't using them." Standing at 6'0" and weighing 194lbs, welcome, u/Dolphinsarenotreal!"
​
A gust of wind comes from the East entrance, as a whirlwind comes from there. A spinning figure of air stops in the ring, revealing a man wearing a grey ninja-yoroi with no head cover, showing a well-kept face and greyish hair. His hands are in his pockets, and a red scarf is around this man's neck. He pulls out his hands and shows them off, showing a pair of metal gauntlets with sharp ends on the fingertips.
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Apple points at the West entrance as he starts the following introduction.
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Apple: "The blade has been around since the dawn of man. But only one martial art is mainly used for the public's eye. And that style is none other than Kendo! This next fighter has the Olympic title of "Kendo Master!" Winning one gold medal after another! Here he comes, standing at 6'2" and weighing 238lbs! Welcome, u/Ruisus!"
​
The spotlight shines on the entrance, but no one exits the gate. Apple tilts their head in confusion, but soon someone places their hand on Apple's shoulder, scaring them. Apple turns to see Ruisus.
​
Ruisus is wearing a casual Hawaiian shirt and tan cargo pants, and glasses rest on his face. But behind the man, a shinai case is holding his sword, resting on his back. Ruisus turns to Dolph and looks him up and down. With one motion, he pulls out his bamboo sword.
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Ruisus: "I'll give you this one chance, surrender."
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Dolph closes his eyes, putting two fingers in front of his face.
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Dolph: "Sorry, but surrendering is not the way of the ninja."
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Ruisus rolls his eyes as he points the shinai's tip at Dolph. Apple raises their hand and shouts. "BEGIN!" As Apple finishes that word, Dolph opens his eyes and rushes at Ruisus. After a few steps, he throws a kunai at the swordsman. The knife flies at Ruisus, but Ruisus dodges it without looking away. But when Ruisus moves in, he goes for a downward swing, aiming at the head.
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Ruisus: "AHHHHH!"
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The swing almost hits the top of Dolph's head, but while it looks like it hits, Dolph dodges it. The sword phases through him and taps the ground. From behind Ruisus, a voice says.
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Dolph: "Fūma style: Vanishing Leaf."
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Ruisus turns around, but when he does, an egg gets thrown at him. The egg hits him in the face, shattering. But he feels a stinging feeling in his eyes, for this was no ordinary egg, but a metsubushi! Dolph moves in at a fast pace. When he gets close, he jumps in the air and does a flip, sticking one of his legs out further than the other.
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Dolph: "Fūma style: Cyclone Kick!"
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Dolph's heel hits the top of Ruisus's head and sends him to the ground. Dolph lands on both feet and backs away. Before Apple can run over and count to ten, Ruisus gets back up. He picks up his sword and aims it at Dolph. When he opens his eyes, they're bloodshot and pink. Tears form in them.
​
Ruisus: "Ok, my turn."
​
He sprints at Dolph and goes for another downward swing to the head, screaming his lungs out. But when it gets in range, Dolph uses Vanishing Leaf again. But, Ruisus slams his foot to the ground and swings sideways. He turns his whole body with the swing. Soon, he hits Dolph in the side. The blow pushes Dolph to the ropes. Dolph looks surprised.
​
Dolph: "How... How did you hit me?"
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Ruisus: "It's simple. Your technique requires you to pivot around the opponent before they can hit you. I felt you go left, so I swung left, hitting you before you could stop."
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Dolph places his hand on his side, the blow hurting, for it has broken a rib.
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Ruisus: "Welcome to the real world, kid. Your style died out for a reason!"
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Dolph frowns, reaching for three kunai. He pulls them out and throws them at Ruisus. But in a swift swing, he hits them all down from the air. Dolph is holding a rope, gasping for air. Ruisus steps closer.
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Ruisus: "Like I said, my turn."
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Ruisus moves in closer to Dolph, raising his sword and swinging downward.
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Ruisus: "Renewal Kendo Style: Triple Ippon!"
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Before Dolph can react, he gets hit in the side again, then the head, then a jab to the throat. Dolph falls to the ground, gasping for air. But soon, he gets back to his feet.
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Dolph: "I can't lose. I'll show you how hard I've worked to get here!"
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Dolph sticks out a thumbs up and slams the thumb into his chest.
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Dolph: "Fūma forbidden style: Awaken!"
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A gust of wind comes from Dolph, but soon he vanishes. But suddenly, he appears behind Ruisus, kicking him in the back. The blow is so powerful it sends him sliding toward the ropes. Ruisus turns around to see Dolph approaching at a fast pace. He lowers his sword for a counterattack and rushes him. When he thinks Dolph is in range, he swings for a sideways strike, but it touches nothing. Suddenly, a sharp pain fills his side, for Dolph has used his gauntlets to slice into his side. He looks down to see blood dripping from his shirt.
​
Dolph goes in for another attack, but Ruisus is too slow to turn. He gets cut again as Dolph's fingers slice through his body. Ruinus closes his eyes and summons a black cloud of smoke.
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Ruisus: "I didn't think I would have to resort to this tactic, but you left me with no other choice."
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The cloud of smoke takes the form of Niccolo Machiavelli.
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Ruisus: "I am the prince of this ring now. Fear me!"
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Dolph goes in for another strike, but Ruisus predicts the attack and swings.
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Ruisus: "Renewal Kenpo Style: Wrist breaker!"
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In two consistent swings, he breaks Dolph's right wrist. Dolph stops running as the effects of Awaken wear off. He looks at the opponent swordsman, knowing he's running out of tricks. A cloud of smoke comes out of Dolph as he prepares his Gear.
​
Soon, the cloud takes the form of Johnny Appleseed. Appleseed sticks his hand up, spawning trees all over the arena. The six-by-six-meter ring is soon engulfed by trees, making it look like a small forest.
​
Inside the forest, Ruisus looks around, not having much space to move, as the trees block his way. He frowns.
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Ruisus: "I can't use Machiavelli's speed here. Not enough room."
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A few words come from the forest in the form of a whisper.
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Dolph: "But there's enough room for me."
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Suddenly, a red scarf shoots around a tree and wraps around Ruisus's neck, pinning him to the tree. Dolph stands on the tree, using all his weight to strangle Ruisus.
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Dolph: "Welcome to the Forest of Death, Mr. Swordsman."
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Ruisus struggles for a moment before letting out a scream. But after a few minutes, the trees start returning to the ground. Apple finds themselves back in the ring. But they notice that a limping Dolph is carrying an unconscious Ruisus. Two men with a stretcher carry Ruisus away as Apple declares Dolph the winner.
​
Dolph picks up Ruisus's sword and carries it to the knocked-out Ruisus. When he gets to the man, he says.
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Dolph: "Go, be a ninja."
​
Back on the stage, Apple points to the jumbo screen.
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Apple: "Next up is u/NothingWaste7654 versus u/PrimartTheGod!"
​
​
Round 1, match 2, winner, u/Dolphinsarenotreal

Join the Fort Worth discord to connect w/other folks in FW, chat & check out different meet ups: https://discord.com/invite/9KUdWdQVdJ
Thought this post would be the first w/o the PSA, but need to include it again: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.
[Tuesday May 30th]
Pickleball Clinic 8:30-10:30 a.m. Chisholm Trail Community Center Free Learn the rules and the basics of playing pickleball.
Free Yoga Burnett Park 5:30-6:15PM bring your own mat
Silent Book Club 6:30-8PM Hotel Dryce free Silent Book Club
Geeks Who Drink T&P Tavern 7:30PM
Geeks Who Drink Trivia Night University Pub FW 8-10PM
Dallas Sports & Entertainment Career Fair 3-5 p.m. College Park Center $30-$44 Learn about open positions and internships with the Wings, Mavericks, Rangers + other sports teams around the metroplex.
Trig44 presents Trig Tuesday ft. Dalton Torres, Taylor Ochs, Matt Gumley Tulips FW doors 7, show 8PM
[Wednesday May 31st]
Nature Hike 10-11:30 a.m. Nature Center, 9601 Fossil Ridge Rd. $5 Take in the beauty of the Texas countryside during this morning hike surrounded by blooming flowers.
Lunchtime Music Series Burnett Park 12-1PM Grab your lunch & enjoy the beautiful weather paired w/local artists
We Run Wednesday’s The trailhead at clearfork 6:30-8PM
Fort Worth Film Club May Signature Screening: Lucas before Luke The Stage West Theatre 7-10:30PM
No Pressure w/ Koyo, Illusion, & Fleshwater Tulips No Pressure, Koyo, Illusion, Fleshwater Tulips FW 7PM
Tekken 7 weekly meet 6-11PM, 21+ after 8PM Electric Starship Arcade $10 for the night/ $20 monthly pass Can bring your own wired controllefight stick or they’ll have some for public use If enough people, casual tournament bracket @ 9
BettySoo and Pat Byrne The Post at River East 8PM An intimate acoustic performance $20+
[Thursday Jun 1st]
Happy HouCrazy Crowler Sale 4-9PM Salsa Dance Lessons 7-8PM Neutral Ground Brewing Company
Erick Willis LIVE Rusty Nickel IceHouse 6PM $10+
Summer Menu Tasting Taste Community Restaurant 6-8PM
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s Concerts in the Garden Festival Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Grab your picnic baskets & enjoy Preservation Hall Jazz Band
Greater Tuna Downtown Cowtown at the Isis June 1-3 8PM 2-man comedy show
Geeks Who Drink Trivia Night HopFusion Ale Works 8-10PM
Crimson Wine Tasting at Neighbor’s House Grocery complimentary wine tasting for sipping & shopping. Guests get to try 4 different wines from Napa’s Crimson Wine Group Drop by anytime 4:30-6:30 pm
[Friday Jun 2nd]
First Fri-YAY All day Fort Worth Bike Sharing Stations Free Explore the city on wheels with a free bike rental courtesy of Fort Worth Bike Sharing and the Blue Zones Project — promo code “92020APP.”
Kimbell Happy Hour Kimbell Art Museum’s weekend happy hour 5-7 pm beverages & bites w/live music by the Allegro Guitar Society.
National Donut Day TX Whiskey 6 p.m. a donut + cocktail pairing, burgers, live music, on-site engraving, & a donut hole bar $35
FWSO’s Concerts in the Gardenl Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Grab your picnic baskets & enjoy symphony sounds Radio Highway Performs the Music of the Eagles *The orchestra does not perform on this concert.
Locals Only Hip Hop Haltom Theater 7-11PM
Live Music on the Plaza, Sundance Square 7-10PM every Fri-Sun
Dial Up - A 90's Party Experience Dial Up Tulips FW 8PM $15
Rhett Miller Tannahill's Tavern & Music Hall 8PM $44+
D.L. Hughley Arlington Improv Jun 2-4 times vary
That Texas Meskin Tour - THAT MEXICAN OT Ridglea Theater $40+
Special E.D w\ Dude-Man & MORE Doors 7:00pm, Start 8:00pm Lola's Fort Worth
[Saturday Jun 3rd]
Drag with Me! The Show: Brunch Located upstairs at The Red Goose Saloon the ONLY interactive Drag Show of its kind: 2 audience members will be selected each show to be transformed into a Drag Queen themselves, lip sync battle, & win their very own Drag with Me! Crown! Ticket price inc Meal & Show! 18+
FWSO’s Concerts in the Gardenl Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Chicago Nights featuring Jason Scheff
Zumba Sundance Square Plaza 9:45am - 11:00am
Goat Yoga Bedford! Generations Park at Boyd Ranch 10-11AM $20+
Catalina Canned Wine Mixer Truck Yard Alliance 12PM themed after the 2008 hit movie Step Brothers. Wear your best tuxedo t-shirt for a wine tasting, photo ops, food trucks, and a Step Brothers cover band. Admission is free, but a $15 wine tasting is offered from 7-9 pm, featuring six wine samples and a souvenir glass filled with frose. Costume contests will be held at 5 pm & 10 pm.
Random Direction artist pop up 1-6PM Love Sammy's chef popup 2-7PM Neutral Ground Brewing Company
CyberPunk w/ APT 75 + P!xel Ampersand 5:15-9PM
Miracle Nights Allmo$t Music US Tour Fort Worth Ridglea Theater 6PM
Ill Nino with Through Fire, Dropout Kings and more The Rail Club Live 6:30PM
WOODEYE (One Night Only) w/ Brave Little Howl + Vacation Dad Lola's 8PM $15
FANCY: Queens of Country Party - 21+ Tulips FW 10PM $15+
WOODEYE (One Night Only) w / Brave Little Howl + Vacation Dad Doors 7:00pm, Start 8:00pm Lola's Fort Worth
[Sunday June 4th]
Panther Island Beer Yoga Panther Island Brewing 10:30AM $20
Sunday Supper Club: Courtney Patton and Bri Bagwell The Post at River East 6PM $25+
The Damn Quails Fort Brewery & Pizza 7PM $10
FW Symphony Orchestra’s Concerts in the Gardenl Gates open 6:30 p.m. start 8:30 p.m. Grab your picnic baskets & enjoy symphony sounds Classical Mystery Tour: A Tribute to the Beatles**The orchestra does not perform on this concert
Summer Afternoon Tea at Indulge Enjoy three courses inc chicken tarragon sandwiches, roasted vegetable phyllo cups, and street corn crostinis, scones with clotted cream and jam, cream puffs, madeleines, and shortbread cookies. Tea choices inc black or herbal blend. The tea service is $65 & begins at 2 pm.
[Ongoing]
Riders of the Purple Sage Hip Pocket Theatre until June 11 Fridays-Sundays 9PM $10+ Featuring action, adventure, & romance in the wide open spaces, it’s a classic Western of the silent film era
“Lives of the Gods” until Sept. 3 Kimbell Art Museum $14+ Explore the divinity of Mayan art at this exhibition of nearly 100 rarely seen masterpieces & discoveries

Trying to find the optimal (somewhat budget) setup for a trip to the Oregon coast I’ll be going on next month. This will be my first time loading up the Poseidon Redwood for a bikepack and I’m having trouble deciding which wheel and tire combo would serve me the best. The route is primarily less than maintained forest and logging roads, and seems to have an almost perfect split of asphalt and gravel with a pretty brutal 6mi, 1400ft elevation off road section smack dab in the middle.
Route details:
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/42981588?privacy_code=WPy9Jh6y9dou2U1B
Currently my options are:
A) 700x43 Teravail Washburn (tubeless) on Rondo Alloy wheels. This would be my go to setup, however I managed to dent the rim on the front rim last week and even though the damage didn’t appear to have caused any cracking and it’s still holding air just fine, it makes me a little anxious riding this setup for a longer distance. It could also probably use a good trueing. Replacing the rim may exceed my budget. Maybe someone more knowledgeable could share insight on how reliable the wheel would be if trued.
Photos of rim damage for those curious: https://imgur.com/a/hM0Mzr7
2) stock Poseidon wheels with Kendra Kadre tires (27.5x2.3) - ideally, if I go this route I’d want to set them up tubeless. This seems to be the best route to go budget wise, however the Kadres are pretty bad on asphalt and the stock wheels are pretty heavy.
D) stock Poseidon wheels on different shoes.If I go this route it will be tubeless. Looking at the Teravail Rutland as I’ve really liked how the Washburns perform. These seem like they’d be a little more gravel friendly at the risk of losing some rolling resistance on road.