........................................Subreddit Wiki........................................
Useful posts.....
....for Crate digging How to crate-dig (not hypnotech specific) Emotional hypnotic tracks Downtempo hypnotic Deep, danceable, euphoric, transcendant Trance-inspired Drone tracks Uplifting tracks Fast hypnotech tracks 2010s Techno Short list of dark, hard-hitting, hypnotic
....for Research & Community discussion When did this subgenre begin to be produced? What is your prefered setting for an event? How to differenciate deep, hypnotic, and mental subgenres How do you guys differentiate your hypnotic techno? Favorite tracks of 2021? How do you listen to your hypnotic techno? What are the top 3 tracks that influenced/changed your dj/producer style the past 5 years? Why techno? What are some artists you listen to? How is the local scene in your city? Deep, dubby ambient mixes Other hypnotech communities online Festivals/ Podcasts to recommend What DJs to B2Bs within this genre? Subreddit update If you could buy only 5 new hypnotech vinyls, what would they be?
....for Other associated art Hypnotic Imagery/Art/Videos Thread Other genres
....for Production Struggling with record labels/production Production thread Production thread
....for Record Labels Labels to recommend Labels that have inspired you Favorite labels Upcoming releases you are excited about? UK-based labels
....for Ask Me Anythings' (AMAs) AMA with IO Records AMA with Aarden Records AMA with Hypnus Label Owner, Michel Iseneld
....for Community Playlists Subreddit Wiki containing member-curated playlists Dark Hypnotic Techno playlists by hypnotech collection playlists by
Useful comments in other subreddits that reference the subgenre or may be generally useful: Trancey techno Background of hypnotic techno Artists similar to Cosmic Gate (Late 90s early 2000s style trance) Techno for house lovers Fast French Techno Tracks with loopy vocals DJ sets that would work well in a movie Why is music getting short?

I think I just need a place to rant about my life that isnt my family, I dont really have anyone in person to talk with and I dont really want to bother anyone.
I guess I should start at the beginning, when I was in elementary school my family and I were broke af, like more than I realized at the time. I knew that we didn't have much money and that my dad didn't want to tell me what our actual financial situation was, but I knew it wasn't good. looking in from outside it seemed like I had it all, and it still does...
I should mention, my dad was working full time, with overnight but it didn't pay well enough to sustain a family of 4. he had to quit due to health reasons, the job was literally killing off their employees (that's not an exaggeration), from my current understanding and from what I remember, they had to take these biological shots (I don't know why) and people stopped showing up to work over time. according to the info I got back then, they all died due to some reason like "heart attack" or "organ failure". It was in accordance with the gov and whatnot. So it's either leave or die, my dad's health was declining hard because of this. He had to take up learning health and related things on his own, he's alive and well now.
At the beginning of 7th grade, I somehow got the newest iPhone at the time, the iPhone 7Plus, I was super excited because that was my first smartphone, I kept it all the way till 2020, I still love that phone and the memories that I made with it. Anyway, it was the coolest thing at the time, it wasn't till later that I found out that it was my uncle that paid for it. Life seemed... fine, I was having fun. Nearing the end of 7th grade we had to sell the house, we rented another one close to my school at the time so that I could finish elementary school there.
Everything seemed great till the end of 8th grade, we couldn't stay there anymore since (I believe) we were behind on rent. So we had to move out, luckily enough we have some relatives that we could fall back on but they were a few town/cities over (~230kms), I was trying to do my best to stay positive, in all honesty I don't know if it worked.
Some time after we settled in, we managed to find a stable source of income but there's no paper trail. (we didn't think it was at the time). Now we have the financial freedom to buy whatever and to whatever (within reason obviously)

1. "Friends"

After leaving my home town, I only stayed in contact with a couple of friends till a couple years ago (2022). one of my childhood friend's who I thought as a "best friend" couldn't be more wrong, he said he didn't want to be friends anymore, which was weird because we went through thick and thin together, we did everything together, you could've mistake us for brothers. He ghosted me for a whole month, I called up a mutual friend to ask about him and put us in a 3-way call, that's when he said "I don't think we should be friends anymore". That's when I truly realized that I was alone, although I did make some "friends" in high school. I know that I'll never have anything as close to that friendship ever again, there isn't some 2nd chance to get a childhood friend.
I went to high school in the new city with my cousin, that was my only saving grace. We were pretty close and still are. At the very least I met a couple people that have become good friends even after graduation.
I remember clear as day, 2 of my close "best friends" in 8th grade promised each other that we would get manual cars as our first cars, so far from that I scraped from social media and what I last heard about them, I'm the only one that went through with it. Not that a promise meant much to me, it never had.
Actually if you're reading this, what does a promise mean to you? I know doctors are not allowed to promise anything, so that tells me it's supposed to be impactful. I guess I have a life full of broken promises.

1. Relationships

After grad in elementary school I got into my first relationship thanks to my school's "bully" (he wasn't really targeting anyone, just picks on everyone (except in his friend group)) at least he knows and acknowledges it according to his instagram/snapchat story (years later).
One day in 8th grade, he just straight up tells this girl that I like her while walking past a doorway (which I didn't, I was interested in another girl but we had went our separate ways already) I was right behind him... after graduation, it gets a bit blurry but we got into a relationship because I didn't have the heart to say no (this haunts me later on), she broke up with me because of "long distance" but a short couple years later she told me that it was all a facade, she just wanted to know what it was like to be in a relationship, not that she had any interest in me. I- am still conflicted about it.
In freshman year of high school, I got asked out by a guy who was a year older, we were in the same club, I didn't have the heart to say no so I was in that for less than half a month, I still don't know how to feel about it.
Not too long after I asked a girl out (also a year older) and they said yes! Confidence boost +1. they wanted to identified as non-binary. It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows though, the longer I was in that relationship, the more I learned about this person, the sooner I wanted to give up, disappear, they weren't the right one, they were nice but had some issues that I wasn't ready to deal with at the time. they kept talking about their ex, being abusive and such. after leaving that relationship I heard something that they said about that was similar to what they said about their ex, so what they said about their ex was a possible lie as well. good thing I left when I did.

1. Life

We are pretty well off now, still living with aforementioned relatives.
I got my first car halfway through grade 11, I wouldn't ask for any other car, its the manual version of my mom's car, she got that car when I was born so there is quite a bit of sentimental value to it even though I had just got it.
For this next part I swear I'm not trying to flex or anything, around 2021 I bought the newest macbook, ipad, iphone, etc. (my old ones either didn't work or didn't have) a fresh start.
but now I feel somewhat depressed, I don't think I have depression but at the same time I think I might. It's just lonely, Covid19 did not help. Whenever I think about it my heart aches, now I'm lost, I feel alone, I don't know what to do, I'm scared.
Somehow this is the only place I can turn to. The uncertainty of the future is truly scary.
I don't really say it in real life but, I'm sorry, for it being this long, for taking up space. I don't think anyone is actually going to read all this, but if you did, thank you, and I'm sorry for wasting your time.

Yo, I know a lot of you are complaining constantly about overpriced vendors. Well, let me tell you why I charge more.
With the new influx of players, like what, 10x more than used to exist, items have suddenly become extremely rare. Once a plan is learned, it’s gone forever, (If you find a vendor with a vintage water cooler you already used all your luck for that day) the prices need to stay high because there is more demand than ever for items, especially for what I call “antiques” because these things were in the game before I and the rest of the new players started playing.
I am sorry we wrecked your economy but if anything it has gotten better. At 500 hours in game my favorite hobby is to buy and resell and I have highly curated my vendor so that I only have interesting items. Moo moo backpacks, Brahmin couches, plushies, lamps, shards, just fun stuff. My work as a trader is no joke. I can vendor hop for 6 hours a day because I love the hunt but I will get paid for it and so should you.
You don’t have to pay for the prices I set, but who is anyone to value what it is worth to any of us vendors. Do you scream at the dealerships because you can’t afford a Lamborghini? I go out of my way to make sure I’m not selling the same 47 plans everyone else leaves in the vendors. (Seriously just trash your ultracite and pianos plans, nobody is buying them) the quality of vending in this game is pretty low and the people with good stuff have their vendors turned off because they have max caps and nothing else to buy. This is why it’s important to keep prices high.
I’m sorry if you feel priced out at level 50 but I work my ass off to provide a good service with luxury and hard to find items. Who knows if some of them will ever come back too.
Bottom line is everything is worth what someone is willing to pay for it you have no right to call it “price gouging” when you didn’t do the potential hours of work to find it in the first place.
I just sold two mothman mounts for 9k each within two days of putting them up! I should have charged more and I don’t feel guilty about that.
Charge more for good homeware stuff and drop the junk that has never sold. It raises the quality for everyone. Nobody doesn’t have the potential to make the same caps in this game.
Also, Bethesda, please raise the cap allowance so we can actually do some high value trading without a third party system.

I want to start off apologizing for the grammar mistakes and unorganized thoughts that will soon occur.
AIO to my boyfriend comparing me to other girls? For context, I (22F) and my boyfriend (21M) have been together for almost a year now (in a week). We met online and instantly connected. I was going to school in another state so we did long distance for most of our relationship until he moved in with me. Now we both live together in a studio with two cats (one we got together).
Our relationship has been good, the typical ups and downs but we usually get over it. We both struggle with being extremely insecure but he definitely externalizes it while I internalize it. Most of our issues stem from his retroactive jealousy and him feeling very insecure. I try my best to reassure him but a lot of times he doesn’t believe me. I struggle with comparing myself to others especially looks wise. I have seen the type of influencer and people that he’s attracted to (early into the relationship)and I am in no way shape or form close to looking like that which made me more insecure in our relationship. He does reassure me that I am the prettiest girl and whatnot but because of my insecurities I have trouble believing that. I have voiced this to him especially in regards to social media.
I really don’t want to air out his business but I think it is essential to the story. He claims himself to be a loser since he works a minimum wage job and feels that he doesn’t do much to support me. I recently just graduated with my BSN and my BA and have quite the future ahead of me and he has told me he is very jealous of that since he isn’t a school person. I was given lots of scholarships which I used to pay for a lot of our stuff because I know he struggles with money since he has to pay for his car and insurance and whatnot. I really don’t mind this but he really hates that I pay for a lot of our stuff. He voiced to me that he hates that he isn’t able to provide for me like I have for him. He said he resents me for being “perfect” as most of our problems have stemmed from him and not me. He struggles to believe that a girl like me could love him and questions my love for him which brings us to a few days ago.
Just a few days ago, he confessed that he looks at other girls on his suggested or people you may know on instagram and compares me to them. He said that he imagined what it would be like to be with them and how they would feel about him. He admitted to doing this for a month. I asked him if he found these people attractive and he said yes. It hurt me so bad. I asked him if he has done it with me in the room and he also said yes. It hurts me that he claims to love me so much and that I am the girl he wants to marry but then he does this. I don’t know why these girls being “normal” people affects me so much and could be people he potentially knows.
From his perspective, he doesn’t know why he did this. He still claims that he loves me so much and that he wants to marry me and only sees a future with me. Through his comparisons he realize that I love him for who he is, and that he thinks I am the only one who would/will. He said he did it because he is so insecure and thinks that I will just leave him so he imagines being with other people. He also just didn’t believe that I love him. I asked him why he just didn’t come to me for reassurance and he doesn’t have an answer. He is begging me to stay with him and says that he will do anything to earn my trust back. I just don’t understand why he did this and if he’s being honest with his reasoning.
I want to more than anything try and work this out but it hurts so much and I don’t know why. I am trying to find reasons to justify this or blame myself for doing something wrong or not being enough. I just don’t understand why and I can’t bring myself to believe that someone who loves me so much would do that. I think maybe this is normal but this is something I would never do. We are on the verge of a break up and idk am I overreacting. I don’t know if this is something I can get over easily. I feel more insecure than I have ever felt in my life. Every time I look at him or think of the situation I just cry. He has left the decision to me to whether we stay together or break up. I leave for my trip to Asia in a few days and will be gone for 3 weeks. I don’t know how to work this out if we’re long distance again with a time difference, how to trust him, how to feel good about myself, and not overthink. I don’t want to throw away this relationship because the thought of us not together also hurts. On the other hand, if we do break up this is the perfect time as he would have three weeks to pack and move without us having to interact much.
I really don’t know what to do. I really want to stay and work on it because I do think that he is being genuine in what he is saying but I don’t know how to get over this and trust him fully. What should I do?

I want to ask before I buy this product.
The product costs $180. When you go to checkout, they automatically put insurance protection for your package and charge you $6. That is on top of the $15 standard shipping cost.
I took a look at the “Shipping Policy” and it says, “COMPANY is not responsible for packages after they have left the warehouse. COMPANY is also not responsible for lost or stolen packages after the tracking says they have been delivered. Please consider using Route Protection as an insurance to protect your package due to unforeseen circumstances from the third party shipping carriers, loss, or theft.”
This feels really odd and sort of scammy. I was curious if this is enforceable. Like if my package did not get to me for whatever reason? Can they still say they are not responsible?
I understand that it might fall to the carrier’s responsibility once shipped… but doesn’t that mean the carrier’s to repay the seller? Why am I the one who has to pay for the insurance then?
Additional info: I don’t think I’ll buy the product now because it seems fishy, even with the insurance. Also I checked the BBB and they have an F rating. I’m in the USA.

I used to teach fitness classes up until last week. I have always been a good employee, I showed up early, I left late, I attended all of the unpaid trainings and meetings and was an enthusiastic employee. I thought I was pretty well regarded. This was a side part time job for me and not my primary form of income.
But I began to notice some things with management that made me uncomfortable. The company group chat became a dumping ground for announcing whenever someone screwed up. My phone would go off from 4am-10pm daily with messages. The required social media posting changed from 3x a week to nearly 3x per day. We started being told that if we didn’t show up for “optional” unpaid trainings that we wouldn’t be able to teach those specific classes even though the training courses were available online to do on our own time.
Then I had an incident where I client was let into my class a few minutes late, against company policy, and I received a call from my GM telling me it was unacceptable and couldn’t happen again. I’m not sure how I should have handled that situation with the late client as I was actively instructing in front of many people, but I took accountability and tried to move on. I thought the phone call was actually nice and while I knew what happened wasn’t okay I didn’t feel demeaned. About 5 minutes after that call the owner gets on the group chat with 40 other employees and calls out what happened, making it very clear I’m in BIG trouble. Written up, will be terminated if it happens again. The following morning I’m contacted by my direct managers and written up for this incident. At this point I’m just defeated, I don’t know how I was the one in the wrong but they were clearly out to make an example out of me. The following day the managers reach out and tell me they are taking one of my weekly classes away and giving it to another instructor.
Three days after this the owner of the company posts camera footage of her 7 year old son bursting into a class and causing a huge ruckus. She said things like “isn’t this so cute” and praises the instructor that was teaching for how well she handled that situation. The instructor teaching was my direct manager that JUST wrote me up.
At this point I’m just calming down from getting in trouble and trying to move on, but seeing the same thing happen and the reaction by and with management being completely the opposite set me off.
It really ripped this rose colored filter off my face about where I was working and I just kept getting more and more upset as time went on. I did not speak to management about how upset I was, and I own that I likely should have.
But I decided I was going to quit. For a side gig the pressure was too high, the unpaid commitment was too much, and the way they handle discipline was too harsh for me. I taught one more class and texted the management in a group chat letting them know I had taught my last class and I was done. Took my personal property out of the studio and put my phone on do not disturb for the first time in a year. Went home and played volleyball with my kid.
Now the owner is calling me telling me she’s baffled and doesn’t understand why I would leave and the GM is trying to call me too. Days later.
I don’t feel particularly proud about the way I left, but I also don’t feel like I acted in a way that was inappropriate to their style of management. I’m self employed and have managed people for 15 years, my business has had no turnover for 3 years! I can recognize good or bad management and I know how I would feel if an employee would do this to me, but I also know that I haven’t created an environment where my employees would feel they need to.
So Reddit, AITA? Should I have given notice or better reasoning or a phone call?
TLDR: I got written up at a job that was increasingly demanding of my time, peace and expected a ton of unpaid labor from me for a situation I had zero control over. Then publicly called out in front of my peers and punished by losing a class, therefore income. I quit with no notice over a group text.

I am looking to start teaching some surf lessons and I have a decent idea of how I am going to do it, I just don’t have everything fleshed out. As I wrap up finals I am going to really go full throttle into this plan and I am looking to start this within the next few weeks, so keep that in mind:
My idea is to teach group surf lessons, different from the standard private lessons that are often pricey. It would be a one hour group lesson, with surf boards provided. After the lesson is over, I would allow them to keep the boards for the following hour to surf by themselves.
I would hold these classes starting once a week on Saturday mornings. Ideally I would run a group of 5 every 2 hours. The first class would start at 8, I would instruct for 1 hour, and then they could surf until 10, when the second group would be starting.
I will be buying 5 used foam surfboards which I can get for $50 each. Group surf lessons aren’t too big of a thing here, so that’s why I am looking to do group rather than private. I want to eventually have both new and recurring students and potentially branch out to private lessons later on.
I want to advertise using community boards, and also promote the swim team I used to coach at my local community pool. I will make flyers with a QR to an instagram page that has all the info.
Now for my questions:
1) What is the best way to accept payment? I was thinking venmo.
2) What kind of contract would I need my students to sign regarding injury/liability? How do I make one?
3) What information should I include on my flyers? Prices, times? I don’t want to put too much info, because if I want to change rates / times, I would need to create all new flyers.
4) Should I separate my classes by age group? Or should I have an age minimum? I want to market to both kids and young adults, but I am not sure if they should be together.
5) What's the best way for me to have people sign up and should I require a small deposit to save their lesson?
6) Is there any oversight I have? I feel like I am somewhat covered. Get a few boards, post a few flyers, and teach! Let me know.
I am also going to post on a surf forum to get more surf specific advice about teaching, but I am posting here for some business advice. Thanks!

Reasonable is a subjective term...
Warning: Long and insane rant incoming.

Preface

I’ve been spending way too much time responding to individual comments recently, so I decided to put all my thoughts into one post.
I’ll start by getting it out of the way that I’m not a racist or sexist. I’m a Japanese American man who happens to think Adewale and Aveline are among the coolest protagonists in AC and has no issues with an African, Indian, Korean, etc. protagonist, man or woman, in any setting where they make sense. (More on the making sense part later.)
Kassandra is also one of my favorites, but while she and Eivor were better than nothing, they were both essentially just female skins. Their stories should’ve acknowledged their gender in some way imo, and I’ve argued way more than I should’ve with people who pulled the historical accuracy card on them.
I agree that some of the people who complain about Yasuke sound like racists, but I think you can legitimately object to his being a co-star without racism being involved. (I’m also slowly coming around to accepting Yasuke.)
I also realize that I shouldn’t judge the game too harshly yet, as it hasn’t been released yet... But we do have the trailer.
With that out of the way, as an Asian male and longtime fan of the series, I’m disappointed that they squandered the perfect opportunity to have a positive/cool depiction of a Japanese male in the Japanese and first East Asian entry in one of the most popular series in the world given the decades-long history of western media’s marginalizing and demeaning Asian men. I mention AC’s popularity to point out the potential it has to positively influence a wide audience.
I'll respond to most of justifications I've seen for Yasuke as a protagonist in an AC game set in Japan one by one for easier reading.

“Yasuke is a better audience surrogate...”

This is a weak excuse. No one has ever complained about this, because the series has always had the perfect surrogate in the form of the modern-day protagonist.
And let’s face it, an info dump is an info dump. No one wants to hear extended explanations on the finer points of Japanese society, no matter who it’s conveyed to. The database can handle the deeper stuff, and any info necessary for the player could’ve just as easily been explained to a slightly unaccustomed Japanese rookie samurai.
“Better audience surrogate” is a solution to a problem that didn’t exist.

"But Naoe is Japanese...”

This justification falls flat on me, because the problems have always been different between Asian men and woman in western media. Portrayals of Asian women used to focus on exotic sexualization, but because of that, they got comparatively more screen-time than their male counterparts.
The Naoe defense also ignores that fact that we could've had both a Japanese female AND male protagonist if Ubisoft followed their most recent 4-game (if you count Origins) track record of male and female protagonists that are both of their setting. It just doesn’t sit right with me that they decided to change this formula among others with the first East Asian setting.

“But people didn’t complain about Nioh’s white protag...”

This accusation falls flat on me too, because Nioh is not a good comparison. It’s a straight-up fantasy game that focuses exclusively on fighting supernatural enemies. It doesn’t pretend to have an ounce of historical accuracy or realism.
It was also made by a Japanese company that has a track record of including Japanese protagonists. That track record gives them some leeway to change things up without being accused of whitewashing Asian characters.

"But Yasuke is a real part of Japan's history..."

He's a footnote in Japan's history. If we're being honest, the only reason we even know about him is because he was black in a time when there were almost no black people and was a retainer for Nobunaga. Nothing in his historical record mentions him doing anything else of much significance, most likely because there was very little he could do in his position. It's not racist to acknowledge this.
Again, as a longtime Japanese American fan of the series, I'm happy that AC Japan is finally here but disappointed that Ubi decided to inflate a small part of "Japan's" history and slap him on the cover as one of its representatives. I would feel the same (worse actually) if it was William Adams there.
I'd also feel the same if a hypothetical white protagonist who was a footnote in an African nation's history took the place of a fictional African protagonist. I think most people would feel the same too, and the uproar would surely be greater.

"But Yasuke WAS an actual samurai..."

I think the debate about whether he was or wasn't a "samurai" is largely irrelevant and completely misses the point. I agree that he was a "samurai," but historical records also make it sound like he was Nobunaga's favored trophy pet (if we're being completely honest). (The preceding sentence got me permanently banned for "racism" on the main AC subreddit, but I don't think it's racist to acknowledge racism, even the overt form it took in the past.) It's entirely possible (and likely) that he was made an honorary "samurai" for that reason alone. Because "samurai" is technically just a title and privileged position.
The real question is, "Did Yasuke fit the classic image of a badass armored warrior or robed ronin most people imagine (and that appeared in the trailer) when they think 'samurai'?"
The Japanese (especially in the past) actually use a different word when they're being specific about warriors fitting that image, and it's "bushi" (as in "bushido" or "way of the warrior"). That word is conspicuously missing from Yasuke's historical record. There's probably a reason for that.

"But Yasuke's story deserves to be told..."

Similar to the badass warrior aspect, nothing in the historical record specifically mentions that he learned the language or integrated into the culture particularly well, so any portrayal of that sort is wishful appropriation at best imo.
At that point, are you really telling his story? Is there value in promoting fanciful conjecture that is based on essentially nothing? Obviously, there’s a monetary incentive for Ubi to capitalize on the popular trend of farfetched depictions of Yasuke, but is that it?
It’s a given that the real Yasuke probably lived a fascinating life, but Ubi will likely gloss over the actual struggles he faced as a complete outsider in a frankly very racist time and place. It almost seems disrespectful to attribute all sorts of things that probably weren’t true just to spice things up for a video game. (And yes, I think Ubi should've included at least some examples of the struggles Kassandra and Eivor would've surely faced, but at least they were made up people.)

“Go play Ghost of Tsushima...”

These people are probably the worst. Honestly, I think Ubi is also guilty of agreeing with the underlying sentiment in this line of thinking. Contrary to others, I think Yasuke was less of a “woke” diversity decision and more of a “GoT already did a Japanese guy” decision.
I think that borders on racism when you consider that that’s never a concern when it’s the umpteenth white protagonist in a medieval European setting (or any setting). It implies that Asian characters are just too similar to each other to be marketable too close to each other.
But they’re only similar to each other in western-made media because western writers cling to tired tropes like honor and stoicism. The perpetuation of such stereotypes has an impact. I’ve seen people here claim that it’s a fact that Japanese people are uniquely less capable of resisting societal constrictions, hence the choice of Yasuke.
Another implied that historical codes of honor are things that most Japanese people still live by. They’re not, and that person obviously doesn’t know too many Japanese people and probably got their misconception from one-sided media portrayals.
Just like the codes of chivalry for European knights, the codes of Japanese honor were simply the ideals of the people that wrote them, who were themselves just a small subset of their population. It’s impossible to think that all or even most of the people back then actually abided by them, samurai or not.
And I'm a fan of the AC series. I'm not interested in playing GoT.

Historical accuracy vs believability

While there are definitely significant historical accuracy issues with that portrayal of Yasuke, they’re comparatively minor next to the replacement issue in my mind. Historical accuracy is really only an issue for me in the context of a more general believability issue.
Why would anyone, Assassin or Templar, choose the only black person in Japan as their secret agent in the field? Firsthand accounts describe crowds of onlookers offering money to catch a glimpse of him wherever he went.
An extremely-conspicuous total-outsider is simply the least ideal protagonist in a series about remaining inconspicuous while murdering dozens of people. Previous protagonists could fully navigate their environments because they were a part of them. Knowing their lands, languages, peoples, and cultures and fitting in with them, I can believe that they successfully moved through them while keeping their actions (and names) hidden from the pages of history.
I can even buy that Kassandra and Eivor existed despite “historical accuracy.” Because half the population of any group of people is women, the two could conceivably blend in and be forgotten imo, especially when you consider that they also lived MUCH further back in time. There's much more we don't know about that far back in history.
This might be another thing that's falsely construed as racist, but it's a fact that local populations don't take kindly to singularly-unique foreign outsiders cutting down their friends and loved ones, regardless of who their boss is. Yasuke would’ve been (in)famous and lived on in legends told for generations, even if the Templars tried to erase his historical record. He would've surely been seen and positively identified as Nobunaga’s famous black samurai by hundreds of witnesses as he did all the things the non-stealthy one of the two protagonists does.

“But Leonardo da Vinci didn’t actually help assassins build a hidden blade either...”

The central conceit of the AC series has always been playing with the idea of secret organizations, conspiracies, ancient beings, and sci-fi artifacts being involved with figures and events within the blank spaces of history. Yes, Yasuke’s blanks are big, but again, they wouldn’t be big if he was doing the things we saw in the trailer.
Any believability issues that previous AC games had are multiplied tenfold by Yasuke being a combination of real, black, and not an NPC in Sengoku Japan. It’s a substantial layer of unbelievability added on top of a base that already existed in previous games that did in fact claim some semblance of believability. Yasuke is just on another level, and while I think it’s fine to enjoy him in Shadows as pure fantasy, let’s not pretend he makes any sense. Which brings me to my main issue...

Representation and the replacement issue

Considering the nonsensical nature of Yasuke as a protagonist, it makes his taking the spot as the series’ first Asian male lead in a mainline game all the more off-putting to me. In the best-case scenario, Ubi is simply trying to capitalize on the popular cool black samurai trend as I mentioned. But they’re still doing it at the expense of an Asian male lead.
I admit that western media has gotten a lot better at representation, but it’s still a fairly recent thing and there’s still a long way to go. A recent hot-take of an IGN article made at least one correct claim that Asian representation shouldn’t be confined to ninjas and samurai.
But the solution to the problem isn’t to take away some of the only positive but one-sided representations we have. The solution is to broaden Asian representation to portray them as ordinary people with diverse appearances and personalities in all walks of life. Until that becomes a norm, Asians should be allowed to star as ninjas, samurai, kung fu masters, etc. as long as the depictions aren’t negative caricatures. In fact, they can be gateways to diversifying their portrayals.
If Ubi really wanted to differentiate itself from GoT’s Jin, they could’ve just given Shadows’ samurai a completely different personality instead of lazily changing his race. It’s about time a western dev broke away from the tired stoic warrior trope. "But this is Ubisoft... They're incapable of nuanced portrayals of minorities..." That's cop-out excuse imo.
No one game can reverse decades of marginalization and negative stereotypes, but individual movies, shows, public discourses, and yes, video games make up the collective whole of media, which has a massive impact on perceptions within a society. I believe individual representations make a difference, so I support increased diversity in every piece of media as long as it’s not at the expense of good writing and not at the expense of opportunities for other marginalized groups.

Conclusion

If you read everything this far, thank you. Again, I realize that the game isn’t even out yet and that I may be proven spectacularly wrong somehow. Either way, I can now focus my ire on the excessive monetization and live service BS that Shadows and the Infinity hub will surely have, and you all should too :) Or maybe I'll just touch grass.
NOTE: This post was initially removed from assassinscreed because "it covered a topic covered within the last 7 days." I've since been permanently banned from that subreddit for a separate reason mentioned in the post, so I've reposted here. I revised the original post by adding some points and making it more readable, but it's essentially the same from before.
Mods, please don't remove this or ban me. I spent a lot of time and thought on this, and I think it's respectful to everyone.

I know this is a long shot but had to try!
Does anyone have an idea about when this promotion end? It’s essentially a buy two days get two days free deal. I called guest service and the rep said she has not heard anything about the promo’s end date and that I should be good to wait a few days, but she couldn’t be certain. I have to get permission from work before I can book, so that’s why I gotta wait.
Thanks in advance, even if no one knows!

Family Matters was a great track. It gave me similar vibes to “Against All Odds.” It was his Tony Montana moment, shooting at everyone with his best work all at once so he can end the beef. His red button.
However, this song was not good enough to end this beef, as Drake might have hoped. Nor was it the best diss track in this battle. People are giving it too much love, which is fine, but there are fundamental issues that can't make it better than other songs in the battle.
This track for as great as it is, lacks in a few components:
1. This song was never gonna end the beef. Since it dropped as a reply to Euphoria/6:16, it temporarily giving Drake an advantage before Kendrick replied. So it could never be that red button that ends the battle cause Kendrick wouldn't allow it
"How many more do I got in stock, 1 2 3 4 5 plus 5."

• If we are to believe Kendrick, he was not only gonna reply but he was bound to have the last word in this battle.

2. Drake dropping this song as a REPLY to Euphoria was mismanaging the battle, and a poor strategic move. If Family Matters was one of the last songs on the beef, then Drake could have won, no doubt about it. Or at least shifted the tide.

• Easy to say it in retrospect, but I think Drake should have kept it only about bars here. He brought up the Whitney/Dave Free accusations too soon. Drake's initial reply to Dot was "I'm that guy, I'm the biggest," so Dot replied with "yeah but you also a bigger bitch." Drake should have dissected Kendrick right back, play into those emotional battles, asking why Kendrick is so mad.

3. The song itself is inconsistent and while it does hit hard at Kendrick, it doesn’t have anything to stick. The entire first verse is invalidated by the false claims that it makes.
Gonna dissect some of the bars as an example.
"You know who really bang a set? My nigga YG You know who even bang a set out there is CB"

• Calling out Kendrick for DV, but shouting out Chris Brown in the same track? Also shortly after "Not Like Us" dropped, YG reposted on his IG story and showed support.

"Always rappin' like you 'bout to get the slaves freed You just actin' like an activist, it's make-believe Don't even go back to your hood and plant no money trees"

• Even ignoring the first line being a questionable bar from Drake, the second part is a blatant lie. Anyone who follows Kendrick knows this.
  "Why you never hold your son and tell him, "Say cheese"? We could've left the kids out of this, don't blame me"
  
• I know that ain't who I think it is
  

The second and third verses really are the meat of this track. Some of Drake's best work tbh. But even that had a couple of bars that have aged badly.
"What the fuck I heard Rick drop, nigga? Talkin' somethin' 'bout a nose job, nigga Ozempic got a side effect of jealousy and doctor never told y'all niggas"

• Doesn't really hit the same with the images that got leaked about Drake using ozempic for the weight loss.

"K-Dot shit is only hittin' hard when Baby Keem put his pen to it"

• I'd like to believe that Drake is talking about Keem writing GKMC/TPAB, which is funny as fuck lol. Imagine Keem writing TPAB at 13. Crazy. But it was obvious he's referencing Dot's work from 2021 onward. And again, this is just not true. Also hypocritical coming from Mr Ghostwriter himself.

"A cease and desist is for hoes, can't listen to lies that come out of your mouth"

• An email surfaced of OVO's team trying to get the track off radio play, which was then reposted by Metro himself. Another bar that doesn't hit the same now.

"Your back is up against the curb, you diggin' for dirt, should be diggin' for proof"

• This one is a bit controversial, but Kendrick already did address this on Euphoria, saying "Why would I call around tryna get dirt on niggas? Y'all thinkin' my life is rap?" But at the same time, Meet the Grahams does kind of support Drake's claim as well. I'll leave this one up to your interpretation.

4. The replies to Family Matters with "meet the grahams", was a strategical masterclass. With everyone online buzzing about what Drake had dropped, he picked a perfect time and a perfect song to reply with.

• If Drake's game is numbers/views and public perception, then Kendrick got him back hard. All the streamers on to react to this, with information that is just as harmful to Drake as it is to Kendrick.

"Your back is up against the curb, you diggin' for dirt, should be diggin' for proof"

• If I am to believe Drake, then it's another misstep in his battle. If Family Matters is true, and Drake team had really given Kendrick fake info, there's no reason why they should have lobbed Kendrick a reply to diss your red button. You had to dead that the same day. But Drake replied confirming the fake info 2 days later on THP6. It makes no sense.
• For this reason and the post online from Ebony, IMO Drake did NOT have an OVO mole.

5. BBL Drizzy/Not Like Us completely lost the battle and sent Drake into retreat mode.

• Not Like Us is charting #1 in the US right now. Top song of the summer. Kendrick played Drake's own game and beat him with it, while also maintaining his lyrical best in Euphoria/6:16
• Troll game is now against Drake with BBL Drizzy too, which IMO was a great move from Metro too.
• One underrated aspect was that with Push Ups, everyone EXCEPT Kendrick could not reply cause fans did not care. Rick Ross sent a diss, and people didn't care. Kanye "Yo Dot I got you," we didn't care. ASAP ain't even reply. Metro was told to shut up and make drums, I thought he would be finished too. But the way he actually LISTENED TO DRAKE, and turned it against him? Honestly play of the series right there.

I'm sure someone on the other side will do the same with the other songs, and they should. I would very much like to see it too, cause Kendrick also got some bars that ain't age well. But with that said, while Family Matters was a great track in my opinion, it wasn't enough in this battle.

You never know the pull of a small town until you trade your entire life to live in one.
Dazzling city lights made way for grassy fields blanketed in soft sunsets, local papers filled with names I knew by heart. When the honeyed hair of the local florist came out in patches due to the stresses of life, sixty people brought steaming bowls of food to ease the ache. A singular church brought the townsfolk together, and perhaps that was the most foreign part of it all to me.
I was a kid, so I watched the entire thing unfold through the innocent lens of child, keenly watching the camaraderie of this town really peak outside the doors of that church. It didn’t look like much, a steepled dream imagined by the townsfolk of before, but it meant everything to the people. I even understood that back then, even though I didn’t quite buy the concept of a god yet.
The Sundays were a monotonous part of our week, only pedalled by my parents who desperately wanted to fit in with the town’s culture. They wore their masks well, nodding in the right places as we sat in the same pew every time, my father often discreetly checking the football scores in the sleeve of his jumper. Nothing ever happened in that tiny town, and then everything happened all at once.
It started with the miracles. Our pastor, Pastor Jon, liked to have the troubled souls of that week sitting in the front row so he could clutch their shaking hands one by one, channelling the energy of God through him in the hope that someday, hope could be brought to those lacking in it. It was a brief affair, usually just the joining of skin and a short prayer, but that Sunday was different. Rain hammered against the roof, leaving Pastor Jon’s prayers lost in the low, threatening rumble of thunder.
It meant when the sun shone through the clouds and caressed the face of a pained Wilson Brewster, it already felt a welcome intrusion.
“May your broken leg heal quickly,” Pastor Jon smiled warmly, steeling a hand on the calf of the waiting boy.
He, like me, was just a child. He didn’t feel the urgency of the situation, he was probably only grateful his throbbing leg wasn’t pulsating with pain anymore. He breathed a quiet ‘cool’ and that would have been that, had his parents not asked exactly what was cool about his leg being touched later that night. The news spread like wildfire - as per the medical centre, his parents said, Wilson Brewster no longer had a broken fibula.
There was some debate, of course. My parents mumbled in the kitchen about how clearly he’d never had a broken leg, and how odd to make him hobble around in a cast if that was the case. The sentiment was echoed tenfold, until something a little more tangible happened that changed the course of that town, and our lives, forever.
Pastor Jon didn’t mean for the glass to shatter in his hand during service, nor did he mean for a chunk of it to embed itself in his palm, gushing reams of blood racing down his arm in a bid for the floor.
“Gross!” one of the kids shouted with glee, the rest of us paling as crimson spilled from his wound. He was a deer in the headlights, utterly unprepared as we all looked on in awe. This was not how church usually went - this was quite the deviation. Several people stood to help, but they needn’t have bothered, because the divine was ready to intervene.
“Oh dear,” Pastor Jon muttered in a panic, using his bloodied hand to block the intense ray of sunlight threatening to stream through the glass into his eyes. It bathed the blood in a golden glow, and quicker than it had gone in, the chunk of glass began to slide from the wound till it smashed to the floor, exploding into a million pieces. That was not the crescendo, though, rather it was the sight of his skin tightening and knitting together - months of work in a moment - blood congealing and leaving behind nothing but memories of a wound.
“Pastor?” Mary-who-makes-the-blueberry-pies breathed, reaching out to touch him with bulging eyes. Pastor Jon could only open and close his mouth uselessly, his voice barely coming out in a whisper when he did finally speak.
“It’s a miracle,” he wheezed, and by all accounts, I suppose it seemed it was.
I was young, but I remember the bustle - the town was as I’d never seen it. The people of the church had vowed to keep it our little secret because, as Pastor Jon said, we had been given a gift and it was not appropriate to turn it into a spectacle. This gift was sporadic, though. People queued through the double doors of that church, sobbing and praying for their own slice of God, but few were to be given it. Little Laurie Lee and her dislocated jaw cleared up within the hour. Farmer Noel had a sudden epiphany about what the lottery numbers were to be.
Our town was blessed.
For two days, we marvelled. The rest of the world can have a piece later, we reasoned, but this was for us, just for now.
The church was fuller than it had ever been, people spilling out into the back and waiting with baited breath, snippets of conversations could be heard, and as they had been for the last two days, they all echoed one another.
“-a believer. I mean, Aunt Lillian said it was the light. The light closed up his wound, there and then!”
“-jaw. I saw her get hit with the cricket bat! Terrible thing, little lamb was inconsolable. And then next thing I know, she comes here and those shards are just welded back together again! Well, I told Janie-”
“-need to make the church bigger. Look at everyone! If only-”
So when Pastor Jon stood before us practically trembling with glee, it was hardly the weirdest thing that had happened all week. His voice was thick with emotion, eyes darting manically around our congregation.
“I have a message,” he breathed, and the crowd gasped at the connotation of it. I remember my father swearing, a low rumble of expletives I didn’t usually hear falling from his lips. I didn’t fully understand what this meant, but the atmosphere in that room morphed in a heartbeat.
“Tell us,” Christie Baker cried, hands clasped as tears welled in her eyes, “Oh, please tell us!”
Pastor Jon visibly shook, holding a trembling hand outstretched as if to reach us all. “He came to me last night,” a single tear raced past his cheek and made a home on his lip, “He spoke to me.”
“Praise God!” a man cried from next to me, and I shuffled closer to my father at the sudden burst of noise.
“It is… Him,” Pastor Jon uttered in a blissful exhale, sending the room bursting into chaos. Tears, cheers and prayers filled the space, but my father just clutched me tighter and my stomach churned uncomfortably. It took at least ten minutes for the room to quieten, but when it did, he had their rapt attention. “I am told that I will be His vessel. I will pass on what must be passed. We are not to spread the word, yet - only our pocket of civilization is ready. Only ours.”
You could replicate what happened a thousand times, and somebody would mess it up, sending a message of the divine to their great aunt in Auckland. But not us. That secret stayed within the confines of our town for the sixteen days hell shined upwards at us. Everybody had a thousand questions, but Pastor Jon only hushed us. “You must trust me,” he said, tone more regal than I’d ever heard it. And trust him the people did.
So on the second day when he returned to church and his eyes were dark-rimmed, nobody questioned it. He was chosen. Who knows what that does to a person’s sleep cycle? The following day when he went for his morning walk and the smile didn’t quite reach his hollow eyes, that was fine. He was a vessel, not a performer. And then that morning at church when he addressed us and kept rubbing the angry red welts on his wrists, who were we to ask questions of God’s messenger?
Nothing went terribly wrong until the baptisms. We all wanted to be part of this - even my anxious parents who signed me up to be bathed in holy water - and so we queued towards the front of the church, eager to hand ourselves over. I was second in line, right behind Mrs Awkins who had been the school nurse for the last 26 years, apparently. She was gleeful as Pastor Jon set up, speaking rhymes I barely listened to as I bounced on the balls of my feet, eager to go next. My stomach flipped at the words, knowing that my turn was only seconds away. People wouldn’t usually queue, but this was different. It was all different, now.
“I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
I didn’t expect the awful fizzing noise the liquid made as it hit Nurse Awkins’ head, nor did I expect the guttural wail that fell from her lips as she clawed at her own scalp. Smoke billowed up from her disappearing tresses and as I was yanked backwards, I caught a glimpse of her exposed skull. Most people will go their entire lives without the smell of burning flesh lingering in their nostrils, but not me.
“I- No! That wasn’t- oh!” Pastor Jon had cried, tired eyes bulging out of his head as people leapt to their feet to assist.
It was carnage, but not carnage I witnessed for long. My mother’s grip on my arm was vice-like, her eyes swimming with terror I know still plagues her to this day. I recall my father on the walk home, murmuring to my mother in low tones I wasn’t meant to hear.
“This isn’t right, Rach’. Jesus, did you see her? That was almost our son!”
My mum’s voice was shrill, the sound of her heels clacking against the pavement not quite masking her voice. “The police will be called - we don’t even know if she’ll survive! I think I’m going to throw up.”
But she was wrong on both counts. She didn’t throw up and the police weren’t called, because we rallied together. This was bigger than us and bigger than Mrs Awkins. Sure, nobody else tried to get baptised, but this was a blip. People surmised that the almighty didn’t want her as part of his flock, that she hadn’t been a believer when it mattered. Nobody was to utter a word about it, and because church was every morning now, my parents were almost too scared not to go. As a child, I didn’t understand it, but all these years later, I think I’d have bent to the fear of the almighty as well.
But it wasn’t the almighty who knocked on the door.
It became all the clearer that morning when Pastor Jon turned up with eyes so sunken and empty that we startled at his presence.
“Pastor.. Pastor, are you feeling alright?” one of our neighbours fussed, “Will you be okay for service?”
Pastor Jon didn’t answer. It was almost as though he didn’t hear her as he dragged his feet up to the front, turning so slowly towards us that it almost felt eerie. A large, jagged and bloodied cut spanned the entire back of his neck, disappearing behind him as he eyed us all, one by one.
“He’s here,” he murmured, words that on paper, should have sent the entire church reeling with joy. But you could hear a pin drop. You could hear any soul whisper in the large room, and yet his utterance only caused goosebumps to spread across my skin as a sort of icy stillness washed over me.
“He’s… here?” a woman in the front row asked, and Pastor Jon took too long to answer. An unnatural, slow smile spread across his face as he tilted his head towards the source of the noise. He didn’t respond, instead slowly lifting his hand to his lips, letting his finger linger there for a moment. When nobody spoke, he let his mouth fall open and began to chew loudly on the finger, drawing gasps from the crowd.
“Don’t look,” my mother shimmied closer to me and lifted a trembling hand to my eyes, but I could see through the cracks in her fingers. Pastor Jon continued to sloppily chew his finger, eventually snapping his head up and inhaling sharply as he spat blood out of his mouth.
“Your bodies are so fragile,” he sneered, lifting his dripping finger to the skies, causing several people to leap from their seats and make a bolt for it. My mother was one of them, and with horror, I watched as the Pastor’s eyes scanned the room and locked onto mine, tilting his head. “Stay,” he hissed with bared, bloody teeth, and we did. Not through choice, but rather, a sickening whoosh of air that skimmed past our faces and forced us all back down.
“What’s going on?” someone shrieked, but we weren’t to know, not really.
Pastor Jon only smiled blissfully, reaching his arms outwards as if to accept us. “I’ve come to bless you all,” he whispered mockingly, fingers outstretched as the sun hit the stained glass to the left of him. But it was all wrong. Sunshine streamed in and as it hit the red of a decorated sunrise, an image which had been there years before us, the colour changed. It was only moments until the church had the appearance of being bathed in blood, shimmering red bouncing off every surface to create the illusion we were all swimming in hell.
Nobody spoke.
Those who didn’t quite make it to the doors stood frozen; we who remained in our seats cowered in the heaviest kind of fear. Red drowned us and we clutched one another, eyeing Pastor Jon as though he were a wild animal. Finally, someone dared speak.
“Where is God?” he murmured, eyes swimming. Pastor Jon’s neck snapped towards him as he licked the blood from his finger, shuddering. When he spoke, his words were cold, distant. As though they were from somewhere else entirely.
“He hasn’t been around for a while.”
There was no time for his words to punch at my stomach, because in no time at all Pastor Jon was crumpled on the floor, wailing as he regarded his chewed, bloody finger. The bone was exposed and yet nobody helped him as he looked at us pleadingly, too many eyes on him as his whimpers turned to whispers. When he spoke, we listened.
“You need to keep coming to church,” he breathed, a single, bloody tear trickling down his cheek, “It will be worse if we don’t.”
So we did.
The Sunday Fair was cancelled, and pies that had been baked to share in sunny gardens went stale and grew mould. People packed duffel bags and made for their cars, arguing fiercely with those who decided to stay. My mother and father disagreed, but their argument was far more muted.
“Please, we have to go,” my father pleaded, shaking his head as I watched from the shadows, “Listen, I don’t know what the fuck that was-”
“I can’t explain it,” her voice was shaken, quiet, “But I know it will be worse if we go. I know it. Please just trust me. Trust Jon.”
So as my father always did, he believed in my mother. Each day in church was torturous, everyone sitting rigid with fear as Pastor Jon read slowly and shakily from the bible, bruises littering his gaunt body. When the holy book in his hands would launch into flames, he’d calmly drop it into the bucket of water he’d prepared and retrieve a new one. One time, every window in the church smashed and we all winced, ducking to avoid the onslaught of glass.
Darkness watched us.
We all felt it, and I know it visited members of the flock in the shadows. I was plagued by it one particularly torturous night as I lay in bed, blanketed in darkness with the covers pulled up to my chin. I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling I was being stared upon, squeezing my eyes shut as laboured, wet breaths left my body. But they weren’t my breaths.
I’d realised it straight away, that my hurried gasps for air didn’t match the gargling, strangled heaving that echoed around my head. From under the covers, I didn’t know much, but I knew one thing - the uncomfortable, heavy presence laying on my legs was my only source of comfort. Through all this, I reasoned, that if my beloved dog was with me, hell itself couldn’t come and claim me.
But I was wrong, because outside, my dog howled into the night.
Terror like that wasn’t something I’d felt before, and as my stomach bottomed out, I stopped breathing altogether. It must have sensed my fear, because those gargling breaths heaved closer and closer to my face as it dragged itself up my body, inch by inch. The smell of rot and ash burned into my nostrils, a horrific weight settling above my nose as my lungs started working again, so quickly that I would surely die then and there. If it had a face, it was twisted and pressed into mine, the thin bedcover my only source of protection.
But I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move, so I let it pant gravelly air into my face, let it lay on top of me for hour after hour, till the birdsong indicated morning had come. All night I sobbed stifled cries, chest shaking as I squeezed my eyes shut and felt it pressing into me. Felt it hating me, felt it wanting to rip its claws into my stomach and pull out my intestines. But it didn’t. And when I awoke late the next morning - I must have passed out through fear alone - it was gone.
The rest is all a bit of a trauma-soaked blur, to be honest. I know my parents couldn’t understand why I wasn’t speaking the next day, why I barely reacted when evil finally descended that morning at church. The rest of the townsfolk screamed for their lives, ran as fast as they could, but I just stared with a hollow, broken gaze. As the rivers of blood waterfalled down between the pews, I watched Pastor Jon’s eyes grow dark as midnight, empty and soulless as he bellowed inside those four walls and called upon something worse than any of us could likely ever imagine.
I recall the fire starting, remember Pastor Jon’s slack jaw as he regarded us all so horribly, moving jaggedly towards my family with a growing demonic, gleeful grin.
“I remember you from last night,” he’d uttered darkly, but his voice came out in a thousand jarring layers and I could see hell in his eyes.
“Leave us alone!” my father tried to shield us, lifting a crucifix and wielding it towards Pastor Jon as though it would protect us. He simply laughed, an awful noise of horrific dissonance that I still sometimes hear alone in my bed at night. In complete horror, my parents could only watch as this thing wrenched the crucifix from my father’s hand, grinning as his jaw split and shattered each second he opened it impossibly wider. The sound of his bones cracking reverberated as his skin split and his mouth gaped, wide enough to drop the crucifix right into his waiting, blood-soaked mouth and swallow it, right in front of us.
When he met our gaze, his broken jaw hung limply from his face, sad morsels of skin stitching a once-good man together. Whatever blur those hours were, that, I remember.
It was an anti-climax, really, because while I expected him to descend upon us all and rip us into thousands of pieces, he simply boomed his words, jaw still hanging as his evil spoke directly into our souls.
“When I return in 20 years, it is not just your small town that will bleed.”
Pastor Jon has been missing for 20 years. I’m not sure when he started his countdown, but I awoke this morning with a dread so sickening that I’ve barely stopped emptying my stomach. If it’s over and the earth turns to rubble, I hope somebody finds this and can at least piece together why it all came to a sad, premature end. We townsfolk kept our vow of quiet for this long, but there comes a point when silence is deadly.
I think today, Pastor Jon will be found.

TIME:
Wednesday’s (Occasional Friday) at 20:00 GMT +1 for 2-4 hours, recurring.
REQUESTED:
1 New member for “The Wayward Wanderers”. 1 of my 3 groups roaming Nexovius.
I am looking for 1 more player so we get the group back to six. Have posted quite recently in LFG where I had found 2 great players. 1 player to fill the gap of 1 party member leaving due to wanting to switch to a different tabletop system. 1 player so the party will be of similar size of 6 players like my other 2 groups roaming Nexovius.
Unfortunately did the second player I had found through LFG run into some serious scheduling problems with his work changing his shift. Disallowing himself from being able to participate on the Wednesday sessions, he left shortly after thanking everyone and saying his goodbyes.
But The Wayward Wanderers of Nexovius still require 1 additional member! Will you heed the call?
The First big arc has concluded and 1 of the new players has already been integrated into the group. The party is currently standing at a crossroads and are about to head deeper into Cardolenor. Giving the new player plenty of room to enter the party.
STILL READING? NICE!
HOMEBREW WORLD INTRODUCTION:
Welcome, brave adventurers, to the vast and diverse world of Nexovius. Once united, the races that inhabit this world have been torn apart by conflicts and betrayals, leading to a fracture of trust. As a result, they have chosen to split up and establish their own communities across the realm.
In the era known as the Time of Great Factions, the world witnessed the rise of powerful alliances and the establishment of trade routes that connected the scattered settlements. The prominent factions that emerged during this period include the Exalted Bastion, Mirage, Fynelenor, Bhar'Baduhr, Chi'Lokk, Gur'Rul, and Mïrë. These factions quickly realized that they were interdependent, relying on one another for sustenance and resources.
While civilization thrived and pushed back the forces of darkness, monsters still lurk on the outskirts of civilization, haunting the busy trade routes and taking refuge within the many dungeons and caves scattered throughout Nexovius. To combat this menace, mercenaries are hired to protect the caravans that travel these routes, ensuring the safety of the valuable goods.
However, even as the races sought to coexist and prosper, the world of Nexovius faced new trials. The enigmatic Mïrë, along with the rest of Argentus, retreated into obscurity, their voices lost to the winds of time. A global pandemic cast a shadow of despair for a quarter of a century, testing the resilience and perseverance of all who remained.
From the depths of the ocean emerged Ternion, an ancient force that stirred the waters and disrupted the delicate balance of power.
In the midst of these struggles, the EoS, a collective of powerful wizards and sorcerers, came together to form a place of knowledge and trade—the Eye of Omniscience. This center of learning and commerce became a beacon for those seeking wisdom and an avenue for the exchange of ideas and goods. Knowledge itself became a valuable commodity, sought after by all.
Innovation also thrived within Mirage, giving birth to the invention of the Arcane Caravaans—a revolutionary means of trade and travel. These caravans traversed land and sea, further enhancing the world's interconnectedness and facilitating the exchange of goods and ideas. However, the frequent use of land trade routes attracted the attention of lurking monsters, necessitating the employment of mercenaries to safeguard these valuable caravans even more.
Though the different races can be found scattered throughout the world, each faction has a dominant race that shapes its culture and ideals. Certain races may face discrimination and mistrust
Brave adventurers, the world of Nexovius awaits you, teeming with diverse cultures, ancient secrets, and challenges that demand your valor and cunning. As you traverse its lands, unravel its mysteries, and forge your own destiny, may you find your place amidst the tapestry of races, factions, and the ever-changing tides of fate.
Will you answer the call?
WHO AM I?
My name is Kane (28) and I’ve been a gm for almost 2 years now with my real life group and our 1 year anniversary with the 2 online groups all wandering around in Nexovius is coming up. Having a humble 48 sessions +2 one-shots under my belt in total, but who keeps track am I right... Beside Dming I work several days a week and attend a master of architecture and urbanism at university.
WHAT KIND OF DM AM I?
I like making a lot of maps for my party to immerse them more in the game. I also 3D-print mini’s for my offline group their, NPCS and monsters they encounter. Online I make use of Owlbear Rodeo and make tokens and maps to immerse the players.
I’m the kind of DM who thinks the immersion and fun are the most important aspects of a good game of dungeons and dragons. I’d love to immerse my players in my world and fulfill their wishes and needs in a fitting way in the campaign, through combat and interesting story telling. I try to implement backstories as much as possible within the story. Always trying to make each player feel unique and important within the story. So if you ever got some ideas you would like to discuss with me feel free to do so and we’ll see how we can make it fit within the narrative. Be reasonable with this and don’t start asking for unreasonable requests. The campaign will a good mixture of serious roleplay and humor. I try to roleplay/combat like 60/40 I’d say. Might be the other way around I think it heavily depends on where the party is within the story.
HOW ARE WE PLAYING?
We'll be using owlbear rodeo for the V.T.T. and Discord for voice calling. Using various maps, imagery and theatre of the mind.
CROSS-PLAY HOMEBREW WORLD
I’ve set up a discord server called the Chronicles of Nexovius wherein a lot of information about Nexovius will be displayed for your party. Think about maps you obtain/certain, NPC’s you met, monsters you have encountered, information about the world, cultures, locations and its inhabitants. You can always make your own notes of course. Currently we have 3 groups roaming around in Nexovius. If you would join I would highly suggest checking out as much as you can to read up on what happened so far. Or don’t and be surprised along the way.
The discord server I host functions as a hub for all three the groups to hang out in and discuss the world and whatever pops up.
The idea is to have multiple parties take on an adventure within the world of Nexovius. Wherein together with other parties you slowly fill in this chronicle. Your party saved a king? It will come up in the timeline. Another party went rogue and are now wanted. It will now be displayed on the timeline. A meteor crashed somewhere? It will now be displayed in the timeline. Want to sell this item your party doesn’t use? Sell it on the grand exchange, a place where you can buy and sell goodies to the other parties! This way you experience more from the world you are playing in. Making it feel more alive, interactive and immersive. I also like to come up with one-shots taking place in different regions of the world. So you fully get a feeling of what happens in other parts of the world. It also allows you to play together with party members from different groups.
We’ve had a one-shot where the party had to extract an orc-chieftain from Borealis and it’s legion of warforged. Currently we’re scheduling part 2 (Two-Shot Technically) of a desert-race through The Scorch a mystical desert of sorts.
SETTING?
Experienced and new players are both very welcome.
High fantasy, Gritty realism/middle, Early Steampunk/medieval
Custom crafting/gathering system
Rules are guiding. Changes will be written in the homebrew rules to make it more fun and fitting per group!
WHAT WILL THIS GAME BE LIKE?
It’s an open world like RPG wherein the world map is provided and the party can go wherever it pleases by foot or by caravaan. The map is provided with a lot of Points of interest. During overworld travel there is also a chance of experiencing random encounter like monsters that attack the party on the road or an NPC which approaches the party. Based on where the party goes on the map that’s the adventure they might go on based of certain plot hooks. Once the party arrives at a POI I will try to tell a linear story if the party engages with the plot hooks. But the outcome is truly dependent on the actions, words and deeds of the party.
YOUR ACTIONS MATTER AND WILL IMPACT THE WORLD
STILL READING? NICER!
That means I somehow intrigued you. Please use this google form: https://forms.gle/p3X1xDy58h8gEhYG6 and answer these questions to apply.
Thanks for showing interest and hope to be speaking to you soon!
QUESTIONS?
Feel free to comment down below or send me DM through reddit.
THANKS FOR YOUR TIME!

Hello! I’m 21 years old male and a 3rd year nursing student. Lately, I’ve been so tempted to buy a 2nd hand car worth 600k (Mazda 3 2018 1.5L). I have a 1.9m to my name (won’t disclose how but dw, it’s clean money), I have no job or any sideline that generates income. I also don’t have parents (this is a hint why I have the figure above) and I live alone on a fully paid house, only paying the utilities and daily food. I also have 30k limit scholarship per semester. And an older sister abroad but I don’t ask for any financial help since I can sustain myself.
I know buying a car is such a bad financial decision, in relation to my situation. But I just want to know what would my life could look like if I buy that car right now. I just want you all to be brutally honest to me para matakot ako (or not) sa possible na financial move na gagawin ko HAHA!

My wife and I have been married for about 3 years. We merged our finances when we got married so we work out of a shared account that we both have access to. We've not really been hard off, but our "play" money is really reserved for gas and important purchases between pay periods. I used to game a lot before we got married and I built a pretty substantial gaming setup before we tied the knot. She told me after we were married I was never going to build another PC so I interpreted that as I need to make the one I have last. Fast forward a few years and I get really interested in motorcycles. I want to learn to ride and have a bike and all that good stuff. I start looking at bikes online and mentioning how I want to get one so bad. This is taken as me pressuring my wife into getting a bike. She works out a deal with a family member and buys a bike for me. I'm so extatic, but I can't ride yet because I need to wait for the bike to be fully finished out. No problem. For most of that season the bike is in the shop being tinkered with. No real progress is made. Family member takes money he was given for this bike and buys a newer bike for me so I could actually ride. By the time the bike can be ridden the season is over and it gets winterized. Shitty, but oh well. This year, the bike has been dewinterized but is stored with the family an hour away. I can't reasonably make time to go ride because the weekends are the only time I have with my family since wife and I work all week. When we do finally go visit the family, the weather is either bad or we have something else planned. To add insult to injury, the newer bike is experiencing issues and when I try to look into it myself I'm told to leave it alone until the family can get shit together to fix it. I want to work on the bike myself, I want to troubleshoot and fix it and get it ready to go. I don't want to step on anyone's toes or seem ungrateful, but I'm really over running into a brick wall. My family went on a trip without me (really shit situation but essentially I couldn't get the time off from work) and I was excited because I'm watching the family's house and in my head I'm going to get to tinker and ride if I can get the bike working. But I'm told not only can I not ride since nobody is here, but I also can't work on the bike because it needs XYZ but I'm not told specifically what it needs. So instead of doing anything I would like to do with the free time I temporarily have, I just have to sit on my hands otherwise I'm being disrespectful. My computer is now also having issues where it won't post. It's throwing a DRAM code and I can't do anything about it right now because we're supposed to be saving money for a trip to see my side of the family that I don't even want to take, plus we're saving for my wife's maternity leave because she hasn't been at her current job long enough to get paid maternity leave. I don't need a ton of money to fix either issue, but I feel as though I'm being selfish asking to do anything with either of these things. Maybe having a conversation about these things is in order, but especially right now it's hard because my wife's agitated with how the trip is going and might be sensitive to me bringing these things up because she's already drawn a hard line for both things. I just feel like I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. But if I don't, it's just my problem to bear and that seems more amicable than the alternative.

Hey pixel community, what's up.
Are you tired of breaking the rules utilizing the unlimited backup feature from pixel 1-5? Try this instead.
So I was playing around this week and after a few posts, comments, threads, and just about every article online/Reddit - I started my own experiments and found some cool things.
The pixel 1 unlimited storage extends to pictures, videos, screenshots (and anything downloaded directly through your PX1 smartphone), these same rules apply to the PX2/3/4/5 although compressed to 12MP.
So I found out if you'd upload/post/message a folder (.zip for example) you could then download the albums from chrome, discord, etc, and anywhere else you accept the files on your actual PX1-5 device.
Meaning there's several tens of ways to get the unlimited backup quality from other devices without needing to break rules and use synchthings/Magisk spoof BS..
You say "okay, so remind me why wouldn't we break rules?" Because with this information you can actually achieve most things you're aiming to do... Sure you will have to carry your PX1-5 or wait until you get back home (unless you have someone at Homebase who can download from PX1-5 for you while traveling)
and you'll say, but what about my DSLR camera? 99% is good but it's not 100% there... Haha, nah, I got you covered brohams. Absolutely shocked too.
Was playing on my Sony a5100 camera from 2014 (that was gifted to me last year) and while testing out the remote shooting, NFC, QR, Wifi photo transfer functions on the Imagine edge play memories app, I found something really really neat.
You can actually show the device with accurate lens/mp quality info, etc, including date, time + location (which I didn't enable while testing and taking screenshots earlier, but it does work, and does not count towards you storage) .... this is huge! I guess where you're not uploading it directly to the cloud (which my camera does support, but rather you are Pseudo-uploading via download function through your smartphone it counts as a typical download link that you'd otherwise click)
This means I can now use my old Sony camera with HDMI/portable monitor (and I'm assuming any other brand with these transfer features mentioned above) weather it's for landscape videography , livestreaming, or whatever... and not only can I have unlimited run time/pics (at full quality which in my case is 24MP since it's old camera) but this now means my actual camera rig backup is extremely convenient......
You could fill up a massive SD card with RAW/4K/8K files and then just seemlessly transfer them. shocking. Right? I mean 4k-8k uploads always troublesome, but no longer. Incredible.
You can even hook up a drive if it's bigger than 32/64/128gb model. it worked just fine and then it'll just backup as normal when the transfer is complete. amazing. Seriously.
Absolutely huge because now you don't need to buy cloud storage, and super cool because device info, date, time location stuff is all saved. Which is the real point of a direct upload to cloud, no missing info, no missing quality. Just pure convenience....
Although my a5100 is wonderful (even in today's day and age) I'll be updating to the newest 2025 Sony model next year (which is like... more than double maybe close to triple the resolution and specs, meaning I'll then be saving even more storage) ... Absolutely fantastic stuff.
If you're following along this means my yearly cloud membership (which would usually be otherwise necessary) those annual savings alone will now allow me to write off a brand new Pixel phone and brand new camera after enough time has passed (seriously. amazing.)
Please if anyone has a Wi-Fi camera from the past 10 years or so that has a compatible smartphone app with any other brand (that's not Somy) ... Please please please test out if this works the same with other with other brands and applications then post your result below (and/or other upload methods that don't require PX1-5 device modification) so we can REALLY help other people in the community.
Keep in mind I'm specifically talking the cameras unique wiifi ssid/QR code/NFC functions - I AM NOT talking about Bluetooth, direct wifi transfer, direct cloud, or USB cable.
Hope everyone is having a wonderful day and that this can bring you joy like it does for me - actually life changing in my situation and guess what, I'm not actively breaking any rules and trying to weasel my way around the system with synchthings and magisk BS. To the detractors who said I was silly and that I should give up or just break rules.... you can eat my dust haters!!! Proof

Hey all, far and near
I’m a queer 22F who resides unemployed in Ohio, until the past few years, my life has been relatively decent for what I do and do not have. I used to work really hard and try to get what I want to the best of my abilities, although it’s difficult as hell, I try.
I was on top of not only school, but work as well, I was so certain I’d be a great individual and grow up to do amazing things, to be rightfully in the shadow of my hardworking parents. To get the chance to get out of this shit hole of a state, make a name for myself, become successful, meet a wonderful woman, start a family, the typical American dream.
Everything was as peachy as it could be for someone like me, then I graduated from high school in 2020, everything went downhill so fucking fast. I lost my job, had to finish the rest of my courses online, really rough end to my senior year because of Covid 19.
Then later that same year, I started going to college, I was doing good until I met my ex.
I was taking so many classes, I was going full time, so why would I take any less classes? It’s not like I was working.
To sum it up, she sucked up so much of my god damn time that I started to be academically dishonest, I went to community college to study computer science.
Fast forward to spring 2023, I don’t know what the fuck I learned, my ex is still being a pain in my ass, my dad fucking dies, and I haven’t held a job since 2022 (worked retail as a cashier briefly).
Fast forward to today, I’ve been unemployed for well over 2 years now, I can’t get a job in my field, and as if it wasn’t enough, I meet a chick who is from the west coast who I love more than anything on the planet.
I want to restart, I want to be successful with dignity, make enough money to support her and myself, but she’s in an even worse situation than I am, we’re both fucked. Bonus points since she’s way older than I am.
I am fucked
I want to do cybersecurity to try to salvage the little bit that I do know and the knowledge I’ve acquired while getting my associate’s, but it all feels fucking impossible. And even if I do, it seems like IT is eating shit as an industry right now. Now everyone is saying to stay AWAY from IT the moment I graduate (fun!)
I do not feel hopeful, by the time I do anything I’ll be close to my fucking 30s making shit pay and being behind everyone else, and I’m sure my current interest will move on too since I will not be independent fast enough.
At this point, a bullet through my skull is better than whatever this is.
Sorry for this post being long and probably confusing, I can’t think straight and I just want my life to mean something, but right now it truly means nothing.

Context:
I’m rewriting my WIP for the fifth (and hopefully last) time to make the story more character driven and make my characters motivations stronger. I’ve changed the first three chapters so many times I have no idea what’s good anymore. It’s a portal fantasy Reverse Harem with fated mates. You only meet two love interests in the intro (and one of them only shows up towards the very end of the set up), but I am just looking to see if my FMC's motivations make sense, or if I have made the Set Up too convoluted and given her too many goals.
**Please note the scenes I am posting have been written as an outline, and is not intended to read line by line like a finished manuscript. I will be writing it in First person POV when I finish plotting.**
Backstory (TLDR; Character A needs to gain access to the Other World so she can make a bargain to trade her Father's life for hers, we open on the 6th anniversary of him being taken, her 24th birthday. I ramble on for quite a bit so if you would like to get right into it please skip to Intro/Set Up)
Motivation:
Character A’s Father was stolen by otherworldly creatures 6 years ago and taken to their lands. Character A harbours guilt and blames herself because she disobeyed her Fathers rules and snuck into the woods with her friends on her 18th birthday to go swimming. Her Father came looking for her and that is when she witnessed him being taken.
In the area they live in, disappearances around the full moon were common, with many losing their loved ones over the last 50 years with no explanation. There were a lot of theories of aliens, bigfoot, cougars, werewolves, and only her Father claimed that magic wielding creatures were responsible.
Character A grew up being told stories about these lands, how the creatures enslaved humans to play in their games until they died for entertainment. Her Father told her magic was real but it was to be feared and to run from any sign of the unusual, forbade her from leaving her house after sunset or from ever going into the woods, and he always tried to keep her close to him.
He had a hard time holding down a job due to the grief he felt from losing Character A’s mother during childbirth and when he would drink he would make it known that he resented Character A for derailing his life, because now he was burdened with protecting her instead of living as a family. Her mother was buried there and her father refused to move away from her body. Character A internalized this, feeling guilty for being the reason he struggled so much, and spent her life caring for her father the way she would a child. Cooking, cleaning, paying bills, etc. She would even get revenge on his bosses for firing him. Her Father always claimed it was never his fault, that they were abusing their power and couldn’t handle somebody smarter than them, and losing his job would send him into an alcoholic depression.
Character A heard her Fathers words, and combined with the way out-of town business men had turned her small mountain town into their own personal resort, developed a deep hatred for anyone that held power. She would find little ways to get revenge on her Fathers bosses, and when she was older, spent her spare time getting revenge on the trust fund kids who didn’t care if their actions had consequences for the people living there.
She had a big dream of leaving her small town and exploring the world, but she felt responsible for her Father. She took care of him, and she was afraid of what would happen to him if she left, but she knew she was suffocating under him. Although her guilt and love for her father prevented her from seeing the full truth of what he was, narcissistic and abusive, deep down she knew and she became restless under his restriction.
When she was young she believed his stories but as she got older and never saw any evidence to back up his claims, the more she chaffed against his rules and started sneaking out. She wasn’t dumb, she always carried a knife and bear spray. She read up on what to do if you encountered a predator in the forest, and she begun stealing what little freedom she could for herself. She didn’t believe in magic, wolves and mountain lions were the only things that made sense to her.
Wound:
After her Father is taken Character A is broken. Everything her Father said was true, all he was trying to do was keep her safe, but she disobeyed him and now he was taken to a magical land to be tortured by never ending games. She is distraught and depressed. She begins sleeping in the woods, hoping to be taken too so her pain can end.
A few months later, at the end of summer, her best friend and boyfriend, the only people her father approved of her spending time with, tell her that they still plan to leave for the year long trip they were all going on. They want to start their lives, they think Character A has become delusional in the wake of her Fathers disappearance, they can’t be stuck there taking care of her, they can’t handle her emotions, they need a fresh start. She realizes they have been having an affair, she internalizes them telling her she is too much to handle and that she is unlovable. She was a burden on her father and then a burden on them. She doesn’t see them again for six years.
Present Day:
Character A has spent the last six years trying to get to the other world during the full moon. The weeks in between she spends physically training, researching anything she can, working just enough to cover her bills for the month, and distracting herself with casual flings or sleeping with the trust fund kids in order to gain access to something she wants to steal from them as payback for something they have done. She never lets herself get too close to anyone, knowing that she plans to disappear, but she partied with whoever is willing to distract herself until the next full moon.
Every passing year on her birthday she grows more and more desperate. She begins researching magic spells and rituals that might show her the entrance to the otherworld. She finds a newly discovered mushroom being sold that claims to help you see what is hidden from human eyes.
Character B:
A month ago Character B was sent from the other wolrld to retrieve Character A. She is the descendant of a lost royal line and they have received a vision from the goddess that she is her Heir, the key to defeating the darkness and restoring balance to the land. Character B does not live a good life in the other world, he is nothing but a glorified prisoner in his own life, and all he’s ever wanted was a family of his own, but because of the queen and his father, he cannot have that. He avoids confrontation, always choosing to run from his problems instead of fight. He first lays eyes on Character A as she is driving a motorcycle into a lake.
He is unsure if the vehicle is supposed to drive under water, so he waits a moment before trying to do a rescue. He doesn’t know it’s her until she swims up into the shore, and begins gathering weeds from the lakebed. he thinks she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen and can’t imagine dragging her back to his world where she could be in danger. He wants to watch the curious human for a bit longer to see what she does
He silently follows her and watches her climb into a window and place the weeds around a man sleeping in a bed, then creep down the hallway to an office where she unlocks a safe and pulls out a stack of papers. She then meets up with somebody, hands over the papers with a hug, then walks into the forest.
She walks and walks and he realizes she heading towards the portal and gets nervous, until she reaches a tree with five different coloured ribbons tied around one branch. She takes a new yellow ribbon , adds it to the branch and continues walking until she reaches another tree with ribbons where she adds another ribbon, then walks to the very centre of both trees and sits down. She softly hums a tune to herself.
She seems relaxed, strong and confident, he thinks this must be some new human ritual he hadn’t heard of yet and her humming is soothing to him, but he notices a shiver. He feels a strong need. To wrap her up in a blanket and make her warm. He decides right then that he cannot take her back and ruin her peace, that he himself would not go back, that he would befriend her and they would hide together her in her world and they would be safe and happy. It was pointless trying to fight anyway, they were never going to win and it would be better for them both to be safe and far away from the evil queen.
The next morning he follows her to her favourite coffee shop, glamoured to look more human and remove his pointy ears, and introduces himself as a man trying to get away from his overbearing parents and family he doesn’t get along with.
Intro/Set Up
Chapter 1
-Character A is thinking about how she has to get laid tonight, because it will be her last chance before she disappears and probably dies. Character A is stealing some documents and a bunch of cash from a safe in The Guys home office, she pulls a bag out of her pocket and with it, a card for the bookstore she works at flutters under his desk. She puts the documents and money in the bag and bends down to pick it up when she notices the family photo on the desk and she stops.
It is a picture of The Guy, His Son that she stole and crashed his bike into a lake last month, and The Other Son that she may have killed nine months ago when she burned his cabin down. She is filled with rage when she looks at the photo and thinks she doesn’t regret what she’s done. Character B calling her phone snaps her out of it and when she hears someone come home, she leaves, but she forgets the card.
-She stops at the bookstore to give Coworker 1 the documents and money. Coworker 1 says she will never be able to thank her, that this was the last thing she needed she could get out of town. Character A tells her good luck and to give them hell. Coworker 1 is leaving town tomorrow, she connected with a journalist who can help her expose The Guy and once she does she won’t be able to come back. Coworker 1 is very grateful to her, and Character A makes sure to tell herself that they aren't friends, because friendship requires a level of vulnerability that Olivia could not give her, but she knew Coworker 1 was a good person and deserved so much more than what she got when The Other Son sexually assaulted her at work while His Son filmed it. How when she received a payout in exchange for her silence they knew it wasn’t the first time. They were determined to find further evidence, and they did. Signed NDA’s from all of the employees they had paid off in the past.
Character B joins them at the store. Character A is petting her beloved bookstore cat and goes to pull some treats out of her bag. Her hand brushes against a vial of red and white mushrooms and Character A hopes that they are the key she has been searching for. For six years she has felt like she has been brushing up against the edge of something, but has never been able to get herself to the other side. She was deep in a witchcraft discussion forum when somebody posted about a new discovery of mushrooms, one that allowed the ingestor to see through the Veil, to show them all the magic they cannot see. The poster was pretty insistent that it wasn’t just a trip, that they were able to see threads of magic. After years of failed meditating, drinking teas, burning herbs,and chanting spells around the ley line conversion and not finding anything, what did she have to lose with some magic mushrooms?
Character B calls her name, startling her from her thoughts and she knocks over a box of alien and bigfoot merch. Coworker 1 cracks a joke about being careful with the product or else the alien truthers will riot, Character A rolls her eyes at the people who flocked there in search of the wrong thing. Character B apologizes for startling her and says he was just admiring one of her new Boxwood Topiaries, three trees of varying height that ended with hearts on top, and she says she finished it yesterday.
She loves plants but, like a cat, she can’t commit to having them because she doesn’t plan to be around long, so she does topiary art as a compromise, and the extra money she earns goes towards buying her herbs and mushrooms. Her Father never managed to save much money and she wasn’t left with much after he was taken. She had to use her savings replacing the furnace in her home shortly after her Father was taken, and now she only worked enough to keep her living until the next paycheck. She spent the rest of her time training and researching. Preparing to go to Wonderland in search of her Father.
Character B is making friends with the cat, having charmed it onto its belly, and Coworker 1 gives Character A a knowing look. Character A shakes her head, says they are just hanging out, nothing serious. Coworker 1 says he could be good for her. She knew they had been hanging out, that Character A had let him stay at her house for the last two weeks. She wasn’t judging though, Character A seemed lighter around him, and he was so nice. She had seen him helping Mrs. Smith with her groceries the other day.
Character A thinks that was what initially warmed her up to him. Coworker 1 was right, she never brought guys home, but the first week that he was here he had never failed to notice when people needed help and always offered to lend a hand. Plus he was fun, and fun to look at, and he was always looking for a new adventure. He took her mind off of what a failure she was for not saving her Father yet, and he seemed relatively harmless. So when he said he had never seen her favorite comedy movie she just HAD to take him home to watch it. And he hadn’t left, she hadn’t asked him to. It was becoming a problem. Because she was going to disappear tonight, and a small part of her was beginning to feel sad she would never see him again. It was why she hadn’t slept with him yet, she knew she enjoyed his company just a little too much and wouldn’t risk any further attachment. Character A agreed that he was a good person but emphasized that it was just casual. Coworker 1 says alright, she will back off, and she will let them get to the party. She needs to finish packing and wants to leave as soon as possible. Character A says she understand, they hug and say goodbye.
Chapter 2
-Character A and Character B are walking to the Board Game party. They are dressed as Clue characters, she is Miss. Scarlet and Character B is Mr. Green. They had played every board game she owned, which was a lot of them, in order to decide what to dress up as for the Your Favorite Board Game Party. He turned out to be a good competitor and got way more into the games than she expected him to.
He hands her a cinnamon bun, her favorite, and tells her he had made a whole batch for her, claiming that he knew she hadn’t gotten one since they were hiking that morning, and all she had eaten that day was trail mix and beef jerky and he refuses to let her party on an empty stomach. She happily takes a huge bite, grateful for this one thing she loved before she left this world forever.
He says he’s been thinking and asks her to go traveling with him. She almost chokes on her food. His words rush out and he assures her he has money and can pay for everything and they can go anywhere she wants. Her heart sinks into her stomach. Before her Father went missing, an offer like that from a hot guy would have been her dream, but she couldn’t now, or ever. She looks at the half eaten cinnamon bun, thinks how he had made them because he had gotten coffee with her every morning for the last three weeks, and he saw how every Saturday and Sunday morning she would get a cinnamon bun the size of her face and eat it. She looks at the Green jacket he wore and remembers laughing in the thrift shop as he tried on a full leather catsuit while they searched for the perfect outfit for the party. He was too good. She begins to think that in another life, they could go. They could adopt an adventure cat and take it with them on their world travels, but that wasn’t possible for her. She wasn’t staying in this world, and even if she was, she was too messed up. Too broken. Too much of a burden. And she could never give all of herself to one person ever again, she did it twice, and was broken by both of them because she was too much.
She decides he’s gotten too close and she needs to push him away, so in the hopes that it will scare him, she explains that she can’t leave because her Father was stolen by a magical creature and taken to the Other World. She tells him the entire story her father told her, of creatures luring people to the Other World and keeping them for the Queen's entertainment, forced to be pawns in her games. They are ruthless and obsessed with games and everything reeks of roses. She tells him its her fault that he got taken and she can’t live with herself until she either gets him back or gets revenge for his death.
Character B begins pleading with her, telling her she shouldn't go. She is surprised he doesn’t balk or think she is crazy. He isn’t looking at her the way Ex-Bestfriend and Ex-Boyfriend did, like they feared she would infect them with her crazy, no, he looks at her with genuine terror in his eyes. She stops walking, they are just outside the party house. What do you know? She says. He inhales and steps forward, desperation etched into hs features, and says that he knows that everything she said was true, and that it is much worse than she even thinks. That if she goes, she will not make it back here. It’s too dangerous, and he just wants to keep her safe. She is flabbergasted, and checks over his features for signs. No pointed ears, no animalistic features such as scales or a tail, no strange eyes. How do you know all this? He doesn’t answer, his mouth works like he’s trying to come up with something and betrayal starts to roil in her gut.
Before he has the chance to lie, two men throw their arms around their shoulders. It is the couple that Character A hooks up with on occasion. They start walking them into the house and the one with Character A asks if she wants to come over later for a joint and to hook up. She tries to muster up a yes, it is what she wanted after all, but she can’t think straight after her conversation with Character B. She turns back to see he’s been steered into a conversation with a few other people and thinks she needs a drink to calm herself and give her some courage.
-She walks into the kitchen for a glass and bumps into her Ex-Boyfriend. She is thrown for a loop again. He says Happy Birthday and remarks that he didn’t think he would find her at a party today, since he knows how much she hates her birthday. Character A is surprised to see him and momentarily forgets about Character B, and asks what they’re doing back in town. He says its because Ex-Bestfriends mom is still missing. Character A says, oh, right. And feels stupid for thinking she wouldn’t run into them. She was devastated to hear Ex-BFFs Mom had been taken, she was like a second mother to her, but after Ex-BFF left she couldn’t stand to look at her Mom anymore and remember what she had lost.
He mentions something about the baby coming soon and Ex-BFF wanting to be as close to her mom as she can. Character A questions the baby and he tells her they are pregnant. Character A flashes back to both of them telling her they were leaving and couldn’t stay in contact with her anymore, that she had become too much for them to handle on the horizon of their new lives. She noted the way they looked at each other and how their knees pressed together, and that was when she knew they had been having an affair. She comes back to the present when he leans in close and says he actually wants to ask her some questions about her dad. She sees a familiar head with a mop of blonde hair moving through the crowd towards them. Seeing Ex-Boyfriend was bad enough, she cannot see Ex-Bestfriend. See her pregnant. And now he wants to hear what she has to say about the disappearances? You can go fuck yourself, she spits and walks away before he can say anything else, and thankfully, before Ex-Bestfriend reaches her. She thinks his betrayal hurt her, but her betrayal broke her.
-She is fleeing the kitchen, heading for the back door, desperate to get away from them, when she bumps into an attractive man in a red velvet sport coat with a red velvet top hat. They are both imprinted with roses. He apologizes for bumping into her and her heart skips a beat, thinking of the Queen's obsession with roses. She asks him who he's supposed to be and he smiles but pauses before saying his name is Character C, he’s friends with Character B, and her heart stops all together. A chill runs through her and Character B interrupts and asks him what he’s doing here. Character C hugs him and says its good to see him and says he thought he was dead. Character C turns to Character A and says that he took off for a month without saying anything, could she even believe it? And they had an important event that the three of them needed to attend tonight. Character B starts to argue with Character C when Character A hears her name called. The Guy she stole from is there, he holds up the card to the bookstore that fell under his desk and said he wants the contents of his safe back, and maybe the sheriff will go easy on her if she returns it, or maybe he won't since he will also be investigating his cabin burning down and one of his sons going missing. Character A plays dumb but he grabs her around the neck and says he knows it was her, she’s a pathetic bum just like her father. Character B punches him, forcing him to release her and they begin fighting. The other partygoers jump to Character A’s defense and start fighting the other guys that came with him. Character C picks up Character A after she was knocked over to keep her from being trampled, and Character B breaks away when The Guy starts fighting with someone else. So they turn and head for the door, but The Guy's Son, the same one from last month who she stole the bike from, blocked the back door.
-Character A turns and together they run into the basement, locking the door behind them. They run down the stairs and into a bedroom where she locks the door again. She whips out her knives and points one at Character C. “Why do you want me to go to the Other World?” He holds up his hands and smiles, “I need your help finding a weapon that will help me defeat the Queen .” “Why me?” “The Goddess showed me in a dream that it is you. I will pay you in gold and return you back here, unharmed, once you find it.” Character A hears them break through the basement door and descend the stairs. “Fine, I’ll help you do it.” Character B protests and steps forward but she gestures the knife at him and he stops. “But first, you will help me find my Father and send him back here. Alive. And healthy.” All she knows about the Other World is what she could glean from her Fathers stories and what she was able to research about lore, but she had no idea what was accurate and what was not. She would be a fool to think she should turn away help if she could bargain for it. “I will help you find you Father, but it won’t be until after tonight, we must attend the Queens party so you can search for the weapon, this is the best opportunity we will have for another year.” The Guy begins banging on the door. She took it back, she was being a fool, she had very little hope that she would be able to fulfill her end of the bargain, but she was out of time, and she may never have a chance to get to the Other World again. “Deal.” She says as she steps forward to shake his hand. Character C grasps it and an electrical charge runs up her arm. He pulls a small vial out of his pocket. He dumps some black sparkly powder on his tongue and a hole appears in the floor. Grabbing Character B’s hand as well they jump through it just as the door breaks open.
If you have read this far, seriously thank you so much and I love you and if you want feedback on anything please direct me to where I can provide it!
I wanted to note that the mention about her potentially killing The Other Son is relevant to the plot because he did not die in the fire, he was lured to the Other World and will be there as an antagonist when Character A shows up. Also, the mushrooms become relevant to her finding the weapon in book 2. She gets sidetracked this book by finding her father and bargaining to take his place in the game (the party they are attending is to watch this game take place) and having to fight her way out of them. The entire first book takes place over the course of one single night.

When I first started selling on Amazon, I quickly realized that understanding the Buy Box was crucial for maximizing my sales. It was a game-changer for my business, and I want to share what I’ve learned about it and how you can win it too.

What is the Buy Box?

The Buy Box is that prominent white box on the right side of an Amazon product detail page where customers can directly add items to their shopping cart. It’s the spot with the “Add to Cart” button, making it the most convenient option for customers. Because many buyers don't look beyond the Buy Box, winning it can dramatically increase your sales.

Why is the Buy Box Important?

Winning the Buy Box was critical for me because:

• Increased Visibility: My products became the default choice for buyers, which boosted their visibility.
• Higher Sales Volume: Most Amazon purchases go through the Buy Box, so winning it meant a significant increase in sales.
• Customer Trust: Products in the Buy Box are seen as more reliable, enhancing my credibility.

How I Won the Buy Box

Getting to that coveted Buy Box took some effort and strategic planning. Here are the key factors I focused on:

1. Competitive Pricing

I quickly learned that price plays a huge role. Amazon favors competitive pricing, and while I didn’t always have to be the cheapest, I needed to offer a competitive total cost, including shipping.

2. Fulfillment Method

Using Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) was a game-changer for me. FBA items are preferred because Amazon handles storage, shipping, and customer service, which ensures a high standard of service. This move significantly boosted my chances of winning the Buy Box.

3. Seller Performance Metrics

Maintaining excellent seller performance metrics was essential. I focused on:

• Order Defect Rate (ODR): Keeping this low by ensuring high-quality orders and minimal issues.
• Cancellation Rate: Ensuring reliable order fulfillment to keep cancellations low.
• Late Shipment Rate: Making sure orders were shipped on time.
• On-Time Delivery Rate: Achieving high on-time delivery rates.
• Customer Feedback: Encouraging positive feedback and reviews to build a strong reputation.

4. Inventory Availability

I learned that having sufficient inventory levels was crucial. Products that are frequently out of stock don’t win the Buy Box. Consistent availability made me a reliable option for Amazon and my customers.

5. Shipping Time

Fast and reliable shipping is key. Offering quick delivery times, especially through FBA, helped me stand out. Prime members love fast shipping, and FBA made that possible for me.

6. Product Listings Quality

High-quality product listings made a big difference. I made sure my listings had detailed descriptions, clear images, and relevant keywords. This enhanced the shopping experience and favored my chances of winning the Buy Box.

7. Seller Tenure and Experience

While not the most critical factor, having a longer history of selling on Amazon with consistent performance definitely helped. Building a track record of reliability earned me more trust from Amazon.

Tips for Maintaining the Buy Box

Winning the Buy Box isn’t a one-time achievement; it requires ongoing effort. Here’s how I maintained it:

• Regularly Monitor Prices: I used repricing tools to keep my prices competitive.
• Optimize Inventory Management: Ensuring I always had adequate stock levels to meet demand.
• Maintain High-Quality Customer Service: Responding to customer inquiries promptly and resolving issues efficiently.
• Utilize FBA: Leveraging the benefits of Fulfillment by Amazon for shipping and customer service.

Winning the Buy Box was a powerful boost for my Amazon sales. By understanding the factors that influence Buy Box eligibility and consistently optimizing my seller performance, I significantly improved my chances of winning and maintaining this valuable spot. It took strategic planning and continuous effort, but the payoff in increased sales and customer trust was well worth it. If you’re looking to succeed on Amazon, aiming for the Buy Box should be a top priority.

Avid gym goer x occasional gamer looking for anyone really. Send in a dm even if you see this post is a few days old!!
…
Hey everyone‼️ I’m 20M from the UK (and as the title suggests) looking for a long term connection with anyone from anywhere really
Just wanna say that I’m active pretty much any time throughout the day so if you see that my post is old by a few days don’t be afraid to hmu
I enjoy gaming (usually single player and campaign driven games since that’s like 80% of my roster but I do play online comp games too sometimes) and read too. Recently got into self help for some reason lmao and enjoy listening to podcasts as well.
Film enthusiast also. Particularly love the sci fi horror genre but I’m open to loads of others too. If you have a favorite film, chances are I’ve already seen it 🤷‍♂️
And yeah, love the gym for the most part. Gave myself eternal body dysmorphia. If you go to the gym then you’re either gonna get it soon or already have it so let’s talk and we can cry over it together lol.
And one more thing, I love Lego. Huge collector of the batman sets idk why this feels important to mention
Hope this blossoms into something long term and maybe we can vc or whatever floats your boat. Don’t be afraid to slide in a dm‼️

Hello all, after going through multiple interviews I found that these measures is what helps me the most soo I decided to share it here:

• first is the most obvious but you need some experience on your resume (work experience, volunteering, projects if applicable).
  
• prior to your interview research the company and how they prefer candidates to answer their questions. If your applying to a large American company like PwC for example many of them prefer you to use the STAR method when answering questions.
  
• when you show up to the interview don’t look too excited or desperate; just be casual and dress well (even if it’s online).
  
• if you don’t know how to answer a question, what you could do is ask them to clarify what they mean or to simply just give you a minute to think about it to buy yourself some time.
  
• when answering any behavioural questions don’t forget that you can use group projects in uni or personal projects you worked an as answers, it doesn’t have to be completely work related.
  
• overall be respectful and have a good vibe; yes they are assessing your skills but they are also assessing whether you’d be a good fit for the company based on your personality as well.
  
• ALWAYS ask questions at the end.