KALAMAZOO – Dokidokon, a celebration of anime, gaming, and all things nerd culture, returns to Kalamazoo July 19 to 21, and the promoters promise the 2024 event promises to be an electrifying extravaganza for fans of anime, gaming, cosplay, and everything in between.
Dokidokon 2024 will transform Kalamazoo into a haven for enthusiasts, bringing together thousands of like-minded individuals to revel in their shared passions. Attendees can look forward to an action-packed weekend filled with exciting events, special guests, interactive panels, thrilling tournaments, and much more.
Highlights of Dokidokon 2024 include:
1.Team events: Join forces with your friends or make new allies as you compete in thrilling team-based challenges and activities. Pick from one of three teams. From cooperative gaming missions, silly games, to dodgeball. Team events at Dokidokon offers a unique opportunity to collaborate, strategize, and bond with fellow fans.

1. Special Guests: Prepare to meet and mingle with some of the biggest names in the anime and gaming industries. From voice actors and content creators to renowned artists and industry insiders, Dokidokon 2024 will feature a star-studded lineup of guests eager to connect with fans.
   
2. Gaming: Gamers rejoice! Dokidokon offers a wide variety of gaming options. With a Video game room equipped with arcade cabinets and a major selection of systems including PCs. There are hundreds of gaming options. You are sure to find something to play. When it comes to Tabletop Gaming Dokidokon offers everything from Dungeons and Dragons, to Uno. With a selection of hundreds of tabletop games, there will never be a dull moment.
   
3. Cosplay Masquerade: Show off your creativity and craftsmanship in the epic cosplay contest. Strut your stuff on stage as you bring your favorite characters to life, and compete for fabulous prizes and recognition from a panel of expert judges. Cosplay enthusiasts won’t want to miss this chance to shine!
   
4. Panels and Workshops: Delve deeper into your favorite fandoms with insightful panels and workshops covering a wide range of topics. Whether you’re interested in cosplay tips, gaming strategies, anime analysis, or industry trends, Dokidokon 2024 has something for everyone.
   
5. Artist Alley and Vendor Hall: Explore a bustling marketplace filled with unique treasures and one-of-a-kind creations. From handmade crafts and artwork to rare collectibles and merchandise, the Artist Alley and Vendor Hall offer endless opportunities to find that perfect souvenir or addition to your collection.
   
6. Community and Connections: Forge new friendships and connections with fellow fans who share your passion for anime and gaming. Dokidokon 2024 is more than just an event – it’s a vibrant community where lifelong friendships are made and memories are cherished.
   

Tickets and more information are available at https://www.dokidokon.org/.

TLDR; into videogames, anime, EDM, programming, etcetera.
👋 Hi! I was born in Mexico, and haven't left the country since. I was born on July 28, 2003, which makes me today 20 years old. I'm on college, second semester to be exact, and I want to study Software Engineering! I know native Spanish and fluent English, and I plan to learn Japanese in the future!
⭐ Here's the list of things I like!

• 🎮 Videogames.
  • My favorite game is Geometry Dash! I've been playing it since I was in middle school, and nowadays I genuinely believe it's a pretty underrated game. I know it's kinda niche, and also infamously difficult for beginners, but if you give me a chance I can introduce you to this amazing game!
  • Rhythm and/or Bullet Hell games. While I'm not into all of them, in average I'm more likely to like a game if it's a rhythm game or a Bullet Hell. For one, I love the music! Second, plenty of them are visually pretty. So yeah. Some of the rhythm/music games I like are: osu!, Just Shapes & Beats, Project Arrythmia, Friday Night Funkin', Muse Dash, Touhou, etcetera.
  • Card / Tabletop games. I prefer Monopoly, UNO and Chess when it comes to popular games, and I also really like Yu-Gi-Oh!
  • Visual novels. My all-time favorite is Steins;Gate, it made me cry. I also played the Danganronpa games, and Doki Doki Literature Club.
  • Others. I also like Minecraft, particularly if I play with someone else. Same with VRChat and Among Us. I played Undertale too. I'm also a semi-retired Fate Grand Order player, and I wanted to try out Arknights but haven't found the time to do so. I'm willing to try out any other game you like, as long it's free or cheap, and lightweight or not too heavy for my PC.
• 🌸 Anime and Manga.
  • My favorite anime-related story is Steins;Gate, the visual novel. I haven't watched much of the anime, but I prefer the VN.
  • My favorite anime movie is probably A Silent Voice, and Your Name close second.
  • I'm into various genres. Comedy, Romance, Drama, Mystery, etcetera. There's some particular genres I'm not as into, such as Sports or very Action-centered, but if it's good I'm willing to make exceptions.
  • Honestly, I haven't been watching much anime lately, but I can still say I like it. I like the artstyles, I like the humor, I like its culture, and all that good stuff.
  • Some animes I have watched (that I remember, in alphabetical order): Attack On Titan (Season 1 only), Blend S, Cells At Work!, Death Note, Demon Slayer (Season 1 and 2 only), Dr Stone (Season 1 only), ERASED, My Hero Academia (Season 1 only), Re:ZERO (Season 1 only), Spirited Away, Sword Art Online (first anime I ever watched... yikes), The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, The Promised Neverland (Season 1 only), Tokyo Ghoul, Yu-Gi-Oh! (First show only and some movies), Zombieland Saga, among others.
  • As far as manga is concerned, I read some short ones casually sometimes. My favorite is probably Girl's Last Tour. I also really like My Monster Secret, it's an underrated comedy gold mine. I have also read The Promised Neverland and We Never Learn in their entirities. I still need to finish Komi-San's...
• 🎶 Music.
  • Mainly EDM, or in other words, electronic dance music, or just electronic music for short.
  • You name it, Disco, Drumstep, Vaporwave, Electro, Trap, Progressive, Techno, Trance, Dubstep, Chiptune, Glitch Hop... etcetera. If a song is part of any of those genres I just listed, chances are I may like it!
  • Some artists I enjoy listening to: Camellia, t-pazolite, Hinkik, Geoxor, tn-shi, Moe Shop, Panda Eyes, Teminite, MDK, TheFatRat, The Caretaker, Creo, Knife Party, meganeko, and many, many others.
  • I'm also into other types of music! Piano, orchestra, ethereal, liminal, Vocaloid, among others.
  • However, there's some genres I dislike. Particularly Reggaeton, Latin trap, Salsa, among others.
• 👨‍💻 Programming & Coding.
  • I've been wanting to become a game developer for a long time, and I'm actually working on one right now!
  • Of course, I'm into coding overall. I'm interested in making apps and websites too.
  • I mostly use Godot 4, and its native programming language, GDScript 2.
  • I use C at school, and I used Python for a bit when I just started.
  • I know HTML, CSS, and basic JavaScript.
• 🗣️ Languages & International Culture.
  • I'm not super into it, but I am interested to learn multiple languages throughout my lifetime, at the very least I want to know 3.
  • I was born in Mexico, so naturally my native language is Spanish.
  • I knew how to speak fluent English by the time I was 16, and I just got better since.
  • I wanted to learn Japanese since I was in middle school. Mostly due to my newfound like for anime at the time, but nowadays I'm also interested in Japan, its people, culture, and marketing potential.
  • Some languages I'm interested in learning, IF I learn fluent Japanese: Korean, Chinese, German, French, Russian, etcetera. I am definitely not doing all of them, but it's nice having long-time goals, I think.
• ▶️ Youtube.
  • I mostly watch random Youtubers, as long their content is entertaining.
  • Of course, I'm aware of the big names and OGs, such as Pewdiepie, Mr. Beast, Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, etcetera. Although I don't watch them very often.
  • As someone who likes anime, I naturaly like VTubers too! I mostly watch random ones, but I usually enjoy content creators like Filian, Henya, Meica05, Mint, Neuro-Sama, Vedal, Shylily, among many, many others. Sometimes I watch Hololive VTubers too, I particularly like Fubuki's cuteness, Pekora's comedy, Ame's gremling vibes, etcetera.
  • Here's a list of random Youtubers I watch ocasionally that I like or just watch: pannenkoek2012, penguinz0, GothamChess, Rev, Nexus, GD Colon, Game Theory (and the other channels), Vailskibum, Vsauce, AugustTheDuck, Kurzgesagt, Fireship, Nick Crowley, ERB, IHE, SMG4, and many, many others.
• 🌌 Other.
  • SCP Foundation. It's pretty neat. Its community is pretty creative, great science fiction writing online for free!
  • Memes. Who doesn't love memes? Okay, maybe a couple... but I certainly do enjoy them! As most people do.
  • Math. Yes, you read that correctly. I like math... compared to the average student at least.

Thank you for reading until the end, have a nice day!

Hello all; I see alot of argument and misinformation being traded back and forth in the comments lately, and I've been doing my best to get ahold of an expert so I'm not so lost with these documents but that has stalled.
I elected to instead Google translate a few of the associated research and news articles posted on the internet archive by Alfredo Lissoni to demonstrate some basic facts that are claimed to be associated with the case.
The whole case DOES NOT rely solely on the documents sent in the 90s. Ive seen this so many times its gonna make my head explode. If you parrot this falsehood; you are not being intellectually rigerous and reading everything you need to read.
Find Roberto Pinnoti and friends full claims about the 1933 case here.
https://forum-termometropolitico-it.translate.goog/259673-x-files-fascisti.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp
No where else that I can find ties everything together like this link. If your serious about connecting claims to documents you must read the whole thing.
I'm rather certain that every newspaper I'm looking for in relation to the link above is on the archive but I'm having alot of trouble connecting a claim with a document in most cases because well, I don't speak/read Italian yet( am learning slowly)
Here's a few documents from the archive that were plainly important. I very carefully went over the Italian and English text as many times as my brain will allow so you'll have to forgive a few spelling discrepancies. In most cases I was typing the words from the newspaper word for word because of the image quality. This is not an easy task. It's no wonder that no one has done all this for free yet; because it's alot. I only did .01 percent of the work here and It's full of leads to study the actual historical side of this case.
This is not my final conclusions on the case; in fact I've gone to the beginning like this because I've already moved on a long way and connected alot of puzzle pieces in the timeframe after RS33.
This element of the case is trivial compared to the intreague and power dynamics between the germans, italian fascists, the vatican and the Americans.
A name you should look out for in the link above is Galeazzo Ciano.
My work is more focused broadly on this person because his diaries would later be coveted by Allen Dulles.
Allen Dulles personally visited Italy multiple times for these diaries and I am going to prove this action was not only because of their political importance but also because of their connection to the activities of the RS33 research. This work here ultimately has nothing to do with that element of my research; this should simply posit that the case from a historical standpoint has a real event associated with it.
Now I will say that the rest of the work must be done to independently verify the claims in the link above; but what I've seen is enough for me personally to go forward on.
I'm not claiming to have proven anything here on this post. Let's get that extremely clear because im not going to argue about it.
It's simply information.
Translated document 1
https://archive.org/details/cabinet-rs-33_20230330/page/n17/mode/1up?q=rs33
1.)A capo del Gabinetto RS/33, fin dalla sua istituzione, fu designato Guglielmo Marconi, sebbene il noto scienziato avesse più volte espresso l'opinione che al suo posto venisse designato l’astronomo Gino Cecchini. Mussolini -su parere di Giovanni Gentile- incaricò Marconi, senatore e di provata fede fascista, che ne faceva un elemento prestigioso ed anche politicamente affidabile.
Marconi però non partecipò mai a nessuna delle sedute del Gabinetto RS/33 che si tennero lui in vita, ma delegò costantemente un suo collaboratore che era indicato come dottor Ruggero Costanti Cavazzani, e che evidentemente era un nome di copertura di un personaggio mai identificato.
Altri componenti del Gabinetto RS/33 (RS stava per Ricerche Speciali) furono, nel corso del tempo e per periodi diversi, i professori : Dallauri, Pirotta, Crocco, Debbasi, Severi, Bottazzi e Giordani; nonché il conte Cozza quale referente organizzativo ed elemento di collegamento logistico con le massime gerarchie del regime: Mussolini, Italo Balbo, Galeazzo Ciano.
Il Gabinetto si riunì alcune volte per discutere di fenomeni oggi denominati ufologici e che all’epoca erano collegati ad attività di aeronautica militare. Il parere più diffuso tra gli esperti era che gli aereomobili sconosciuti fossero prototipi di velivoli inglesi e/o francesi. Solo in un paio di occasioni fu dichiaratamente posta la questione se tali oggetti fossero strumenti di volo interspaziale, e la questione rimase essenzialmente aperta. Il prodotto più consistente del Gabinetto RS/33 fu un dossier di una trentina di pagine che esaminava dettagliatamente tutta la casistica italiana, dal 1933 al 1940. Con lo scoppio della guerra (10 giugno 1940) il Gabinetto RS/33 fu ancor più militarizzato, e -cosa assai significativa- il governo nazista chiese più volte notizie, dati e dossier all’ente italiano.
Il Gabinetto RS/33 raccolse anche alcune fotografie di oggetti volanti non identificati ed anche un breve filmato realizzato sulle Alpi in occasione di un avvistamento notevole. Tali notizie sono ricavate indirettamente da altre fonti, poiché l'archivio del Gabinetto fu trasferito in Germania ed attualmente risulta irreperibile.
1.)Since its inception, Guglielmo Marconi was designated head of the RS/33 Cabinet, although the well-known scientist had repeatedly expressed the opinion that the astronomer Gino Cecchini should be designated in his place. Mussolini - on the advice of Giovanni Gentile - appointed Marconi, a senator with proven fascist faith, who made him a prestigious and also politically reliable element.
Marconi, however, never participated in any of the sessions of the RS/33 Cabinet which were held during his lifetime, but constantly delegated one of his collaborators who was indicated as Doctor Ruggero Costanti Cavazzani, and who was evidently a cover name for a person who was never identified.
Other members of the RS/33 Cabinet (RS stood for Special Research) were, over time and for different periods, the professors: Dallauri, Pirotta, Crocco, Debbasi, Severi, Bottazzi and Giordani; as well as Count Cozza as organizational contact and logistical link with the highest hierarchies of the regime: Mussolini, Italo Balbo, Galeazzo Ciano.
The Cabinet met a few times to discuss phenomena now called ufological and which at the time were connected to military aeronautics activities. The most widespread opinion among experts was that the unknown aircraft were prototypes of English and/or French aircraft. Only on a couple of occasions was the question openly raised whether such objects were interspace flight instruments, and the question remained essentially open. The most substantial product of the Cabinet RS/33 was a dossier of about thirty pages which examined in detail all the Italian cases from 1933 to 1940. With the outbreak of the war (10 June 1940) the Cabinet RS/33 was even more militarised, and - what is very significant - the Nazi government asked the Italian body for news, data and dossiers several times.
Cabinet RS/33 also collected some photographs of unidentified flying objects and also a short film made in the Alps on the occasion of a notable sighting. This information is obtained indirectly from other sources, since the Cabinet archive was transferred to Germany and is currently untraceable.
2.)Pirotta, Pietro Romualdo. Botanico (Pavia 1853-Roma (1936). Professore di botanica all'università di Roma (18831924) e di fisiologia vegetale pure presso l’ateneo romano (1924-28), fu l’ideatore e uno dei fautori più attivi della creazione del Parco nazionale degli Abruzzi. Copiosa è stata la sua produzione scientifica. Fra l’altro si occupò della peronospora e degli altri parassiti della vite, di istologia, anatomia ed embriologia vegetale. Scrisse anche un trattato di fisiologia vegetale; si occupò pure della flora romana ed eritrea, e del massimo interesse sono le sue pubblicazioni sulla storia della botanica. Senatore del regno, accademico d’Italia, dei Lincei, dei Quaranta e di varie Società di cultura italiane e straniere. Si ricordano le sue pubblicazioni sulla storia della botanica, in specie la Flora rorzana (1900-01), e il suo trattato di Fisiologia vegetale (1929). Fondò (1885) la rivista «Annuario del Regio istituto botanico di Roma», cui seguirono, dal 1903, gli «Annali di botanica». Alla scuola di P. si formò il nucleo iniziale degli studiosi italiani dei cicli biologici delle piante e dell’embriologia vegetale.
2.)Pirotta, Pietro Romualdo. Botanist (Pavia 1853-Rome (1936). Professor of botany at the University of Rome (1883-1924) and of plant physiology also at the Roman University (1924-28), he was the creator and one of the most active supporters of the creation of Abruzzi National Park. His scientific production was copious. Among other things he dealt with downy mildew and other vine parasites, histology, anatomy and plant embryology. He also wrote a treatise on plant physiology; and Eritrea, and of the greatest interest are his publications on the history of botany. Senator of the kingdom, academic of Italy, of the Lincei, of the Quaranta and of various Italian and foreign cultural societies. We remember his publications on the history of botany. in particular the Flora rorzana (1900-01), and his treatise on Plant Physiology (1929) the magazine «Annuario del Regio botanico di Roma», which was followed, from 1903, by the «Annali di botany» The initial nucleus of Italian scholars of plant biological cycles and plant embryology was formed at P.'s school.
3.) PIROTTA, Pietro Romualdo. — Botanico, nato a Pavia il 7 febbraio 1853. Ivi laureatosi in scienze naturali nel 1875, frequentò per qualche anno quel laboratorio crittogamico; nel 1879-1880 fu a Strasburgo per perfezionarsi presso il De Bary; nel 1880, in seguito a concorso, occupò la cattedra di botanica dell'università di Modena e nel 1883 fu chiamato a Roma, dove insegnò per 4i anni botanica e dove, nel 1924, passò alla cattedra di fisiologia vegetale che venne fino al 1928, epoca in cui fu collocato a riposo. Spetta a lui il merito di aver fondato a Roma, tra il 1884 e il 1889, l’Istituto e l'Orto Botanico attuali. Egli ha anche fondato e diretto per molti anni l'Annuario del R. Istituto Botanico di Roma e gli Annali di Botanica. È stato l'ideatore e il fautore più attivo della creazione del Parco nazionale d'Abruzzo, Nella sua copiosa produzione scientifica sono da rilevare principalmente i lavori sulla peronospora e gli altri parassiti della vite, i numerosi contributi all’istologia, all'anatomia e all'embriologia vegetale, le pubblicazioni sulla storia della botanica, in particolare quelle sulle Tabulae Phytosophicae del Cesi, la Flora Romana, la Flora Eritrea, il trattato di Fisiologia vegetale. È socio nazionale della R. Accademia dei Lincei, membro dei XL, e dal 1929 accademico d’Italia.
3.) PIROTTA, Pietro Romualdo. — Botanist, born in Pavia on 7 February 1853. Having graduated there in natural sciences in 1875, he attended that cryptogam laboratory for a few years; in 1879-1880 he was in Strasbourg to perfect his studies at De Bary; in 1880, following a competition, he occupied the chair of botany at the University of Modena and in 1883 he was called to Rome, where he taught botany for 4 years and where, in 1924, he moved to the chair of plant physiology which remained until 1928, period in which he was laid to rest. He deserves the credit of having founded the current Institute and Botanical Garden in Rome between 1884 and 1889. He also founded and directed for many years the Yearbook of the R. Botanical Institute of Rome and the Annals of Botany. He was the creator and most active supporter of the creation of the Abruzzo National Park. In his copious scientific production, the works on downy mildew and other vine parasites, the numerous contributions to histology, anatomy and to plant embryology, publications on the history of botany, in particular those on Cesi's Tabulae Phytosophicae, the Roman Flora, the Eritrean Flora, the treatise on Plant Physiology. He is a national member of the R. Accademia dei Lincei, a member of the XL, and an academic of Italy since 1929.
4.) Il Governo italiano promuove, il 3 aprile 1933, una legge speciale che fissa il finanziamento per la costruzione della Sede del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche
Subito dopo il Direttorio del Consiglio dei Ministri affida lo studio del progetto al Comitato Nazionale per l'Ingegneria, costituendo allo stesso tempo un'apposita Commissione di studio presieduto dal Senatore Luigi Cozza
Il progetto definitivo viene redatto da Dagoberto Ortensi, che si occupa dell'impostazione architettonica e della decorazione e dell' arredo degli ambienti
L'edificio si estente su una superfice di 2.105 mq, a cui si aggiungeranno altri 1.720 mq di ampliamento previsti, Ha un volume di 54.445 me articolato su sei piani, per una altezza complessiva di circa 25 mt°
l'edificio viene realizzato dall'impresa di costruzione Tommaso e Alberto Mora, sotto la direzione di Antonio Carlini e inagurato il 21 Novembre 1937
4.)
On 3 April 1933, the Italian Government promoted a special law establishing the financing for the construction of the headquarters of the National Research Council
Immediately afterwards the Directory of the Council of Ministers entrusted the study of the project to the National Engineering Committee, at the same time establishing a specific study commission chaired by Senator Luigi Cozza
The final project is drawn up by Dagoberto Ortensi, who takes care of the architectural layout and the decoration and furnishing of the rooms
The building covers a surface area of 2,105 m2, to which another 1,720 m2 of planned expansion will be added. It has a volume of 54,445 m and is divided into six floors, for a total height of approximately 25 m.
the building was built by the construction company Tommaso and Alberto Mora, under the direction of Antonio Carlini and inaugurated on 21 November 1937
5.) Còzza, Luici, conte, — Ingegnere (Acquapendente 1867 - Roma 1955). Laureato a Roma nel e nel corpo del genio civile; dal 1925 al 1930 fu presidente del Consiglio superiore dei Lavori pubblici. È stato l’istitutore e l'organizzatore del Servizio idrografico italiano ed è autore di varie pubblicazioni sulle opere idrauliche. Senatore del Regno (1934)
5.)
Còzza, Luici, count, — Engineer (Acquapendente 1867 - Rome 1955). Graduated in Rome in and in the civil engineering corps; from 1925 to 1930 he was president of the Superior Council of Public Works. He was the founder and organizer of the Italian Hydrographic Service and is the author of various publications on hydraulic works. Senator of the Kingdom (1934)
6.)
Giordani, Francesco. Chimico (Napoli 1896-ivi 1961). Già accademico d’Italia dal 1930 al 1943, socio nazionale dell’Accademia dei Lincei dal 1935, ne divenne presidente nel 1958. Dal 1936 al 1943 fu presidente dell’IRI e dal 1956 al 1960 del CNR. Fu professore di elettrochimica e di impianti chimici presso la Scuola di ingegneria di Napoli e direttore dell'Istituto chimico di quella università. I suoi numerosi lavori (che gli valsero nel 1929 il premio reale per la chimica) riguardano specialmente l’elettrolisi, la catalisi e la cinetica chimica.
Si occupò anche di problemi economici, particolarmente rispetto alle zone sottosviluppate del Mezzogiorno (fu presidente dell’Associazione per lo sviluppo dell’industria nel Mezzogiorno).
6.)
Giordani, Francesco. Chemist (Naples 1896-ibid. 1961). Already an academic of Italy from 1930 to 1943, a national member of the Accademia dei Lincei from 1935, he became president in 1958. From 1936 to 1943 he was president of the IRI and from 1956 to 1960 of the CNR. He was professor of electrochemistry and chemical plants at the School of Engineering of Naples and director of the Chemical Institute of that university. His numerous works (which earned him the Royal Prize for Chemistry in 1929) concern especially electrolysis, catalysis and chemical kinetics.
He also dealt with economic problems, particularly with respect to the underdeveloped areas of the South (he was president of the Association for the development of industry in the South).
7.)
Vallauri, Giancarlo. Scienziato (Roma 1882-Torino 1957). Dopo aver frequentato l'Accademia navale di Livorno, si laureò in ingegneria presso la Scuola superiore politecnica di Napoli. Nel 1916, quando a Livorno si costituì presso l’Accademia navale l’Istituto elettrotecnico e radiotelegrafico della marina, V. ne divenne il capo e l'animatore di iniziative e di ricerche, di cui uno dei più mirabili frutti è l’eguazione di V., che rappresenta la prima teoria analitica del funzionamento dei tubi elettronici. Nel medesimo tempo si dedicò alla costruzione del Centro radiotelegrafico di Coltano, uno dei più grandiosi e moderni dell’epoca. Importanti sono gli studi da lui condotti nel campo del ferromagnetismo, che portarono alla conferma indiscussa dell’esistenza dell’isteresi magnetica rotante, allora assai controversa in campo internazionale. Intra-
7.)
Vallauri, Giancarlo. Scientist (Rome 1882-Turin 1957). After attending the Naval Academy of Livorno, he graduated in engineering from the Polytechnic High School of Naples. In 1916, when the electrotechnical and radiotelegraphic institute of the navy was established at the Naval Academy in Livorno, V. became its head and animator of initiatives and research, of which one of the most wonderful fruits is the equalization of V., which represents the first analytical theory of the functioning of electron tubes. At the same time he dedicated himself to the construction of the Coltano radiotelegraph centre, one of the grandest and most modern of the time. The studies he conducted in the field of ferromagnetism are important, which led to the undisputed confirmation of the existence of rotating magnetic hysteresis, which was then very controversial in the international field.
8.)
E' morto ieri a Torino il prof. Giancarlo Vallauri
Torino, 7 maggio
E' deceduto stamane all’ospedale delle Molinetto. dov'eth ricoverato fin dai primi di gennaio, il prof. Giancarlo Vallauri, eminente figura di scienziato. Nato a Roma nel 1882 da (umiriza Gi . origine piemontese, dopo ver partecipato Alla prima guerra mondiale come ufficiale di marina, diresse l'Istituto elettrotecnico della Marina fino al 1025, quando venne a Torino quale insegnante al Politecnico. di cu fu poi direttore dal 1933 al 1934,
Nominato membro dell'Accademia d'Italia, ne divenne vicepresidente per le scienze fisiche, matematiche e naturali. Fu membro del Consiglio superiore dei Lavori Pubblici. e del Comitato superiore Tecnico per i servizi elettrotecnici e delle comunicazioni; presidente di sezione del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche: esperto della Societa deile Nazionj per ll servizio deile comunicazioni; presidente generale dell'Associazione elettrotecnica Italiana: presidente dell'Istituto nazionale « Galileo Ferraris» di elettrotecnica, componente del Comitato tecnico Interalleato delle Radiocomunicazioni.
Numerosi suol studi e pubblicazioni sia nel campo dell'elettrotecnica che della radiotecnica. Tra l'altro fu il primo a lurinulare la teoria matematica della valvola termoionica che si riassume nella e equazione di Vallauri ». Fu anche il precursore della misurazione a distanza del campo elettromagnetico irradiato da una stazione trasmittente
8.)
Prof. died yesterday in Turin. Giancarlo Vallauri
Turin, 7 May
He died this morning at Molinetto hospital. where he has been hospitalized since early January, Prof. Giancarlo Vallauri, eminent scientist. Born in Rome in 1882 of Piedmontese origin, after having participated in the First World War as a naval officer, he directed the electrotechnical institute of the Navy until 1925, when he came to Turin as a teacher at the Polytechnic. director from 1933 to 1934,
Appointed member of the Italian Academy, he became vice-president for the physical, mathematical and natural sciences. He was a member of the Superior Council of Public Works. and of the Higher Technical Committee for electrotechnical and communications services; section president of the National Research Council: expert of the Society of Nations for the communications service; general president of the Italian Electrotechnical Association: president of the "Galileo Ferraris" National Institute of Electrotechnics, member of the Inter-Allied Technical Committee of Radiocommunications. He studies and publishes both in the fields of electrical engineering and radio engineering. Among other things, he was the first to formulate the mathematical theory of the thermionic valve which is summarized in the Vallauri equation." He was also the forerunner of remote measurement of the electromagnetic field radiated by a transmitting station
Page 10 is unreadable to me
9.)
XIV GAETANO ArtURO Crocco - Commemorazione di B. Finzi. Il discorso inaugurale del secondo corso ebbe per titolo: « Dall’antiaereo alla base orbitale ». In essa affacciò l’idea del polistadio per accrescere la gittata, adombrò il problema del rientro per satelliti con equipaggio e quello del rifornimento nello spazio.
Fra le altre pubblicazioni ricordo quella su « La sopportazione fisiologica nei missili a reazione », la Nota lincea intitolata « La barriera della temperatura nei missili geodetici », quella su « Quesiti sui missili geodetici » del Seminario matematico e fisico di Milano. Ricordo altresì le belle sintesi «I fondamenti dell’astronautica », « Dal dirigibile al missile », « Anticipazioni di nautica interplanetaria », « Il primo passo verso l'astronautica » e molte altre, fra le quali sono degne di particolare rilievo le Note lincee « Formulazioni di Meccanica astronautica » del 1955, quella dell’Accademia pontificia « Possibilità e limiti della cosmonautica » del 1957. E’ stato memorabile il suo discorso inaugurale al VII Congresso astronautico internazionale di Roma nel 1956, nel quale, partendo dal satellite artificiale, si avventura nell'esplorazione siderale, valendosi della teoria della relatività. E' pure memorabile la sua proposta « Giro esplorativo di un anno Terra-Marte-Venere-Terra », ancor oggi detta « missione Crocco ». L'epoca più favorevole per la missione sarà il giugno 1971,
Nella Nota dell’Accademia pontificia del 1957 Crocco così profetizza: « L'alimentazione endogena del getto propulsore viene riserbata allo stadio finale di marcia, e si usufriusce dell’alimentazione esogena per partire dalla terra, frenare e ritornarvi. Gli stadi intermedi saranno percorsi a velocità uniforme senza consumo e le totali distanze valicabili consentiranno di scegliere le ricognizioni entro una sfera contenente 20.000 stelle. La più lontana richiederà 28 anni di vita dell'equipaggio per andare e tornare. Utopia! »... Ma, continua Crocco, «è stato detto che tutta la nostra civiltà è sbocciata dall’utopia ».
Dopo il volo del primo Sputnik, che realizzava quanto egli aveva vaticinato, concluse, al di là degli ottant'anni, la sua miracolosa attività di scienziato e di profeta col magistrale discorso al VII Convegno internazionale delle comunicazioni, tenutosi a Genova nel 1959, « Le determinanti dell'era astronautica », con quello tenuto nell'adunanza solenne del 1960 ai Lincei « Anticipazioni extra-terrestri » e con il suo contributo all'opera «Il mondo della tecnica » del 1962 « Il momento astro-cosmonautico ». E’ questo un piccolo trattato sull'attività spaziale dalle origini al volo di Gagarin, nel quale si spinge anche nell’ambito della teoria della relatività e della propulsione fotonica.
Ricordo infine i titoli di alcuni studi e meditazioni su problemi che esulano dall’aeronautica: « La proprietà scientifica », « La degradazione della ricchezza », « Il diavolo e la ricerca atomica » (storia della bomba atomica), « Discorso del gradiente » (riguardante l’accelerarsi esasperato del progresso scientifico), « Premesse scientifiche al diritto spaziale
9.)
XIV GAETANO ArtURO Crocco - Commemoration of B. Finzi. The inaugural speech of the second course was entitled: "From anti-aircraft to the orbital base". In it he presented the idea of the multi-stage to increase the range, he outlined the problem of re-entry for manned satellites and that of refueling in space.
Among the other publications I remember the one on «Physiological tolerance in jet missiles», the Nota lincea entitled «The temperature barrier in geodetic missiles», the one on «Questions on geodetic missiles» of the Mathematical and Physical Seminar of Milan. I also remember the beautiful summaries «The foundations of astronautics», «From the airship to the missile», «Previews of interplanetary nautical», «The first step towards astronautics» and many others, among which the Notes are worthy of particular note lincee « Formulations of Astronautical Mechanics » of 1955, that of the Pontifical Academy « Possibilities and limits of cosmonautics » of 1957. His inaugural speech at the VII International Astronautical Congress in Rome in 1956 was memorable, in which, starting from the artificial satellite , ventures into sidereal exploration, making use of the theory of relativity. His proposal for a "one-year exploratory tour of Earth-Mars-Venus-Earth" is also memorable, still known today as the "Crocco mission". The most favorable time for the mission will be June 1971,
In the Note of the Papal Academy of 1957 Crocco prophesies as follows: «The endogenous power supply of the propulsive jet is reserved for the final stage of travel, and the exogenous power supply is used to start from the earth, brake and return there. The intermediate stages will be traveled at uniform speed without consumption and the total distances that can be crossed will allow the choice of reconnaissance within a sphere containing 20,000 stars. The furthest will require 28 years of crew life to get there and back. Utopia! »... But, Crocco continues, «it has been said that our entire civilization blossomed from utopia».
After the flight of the first Sputnik, which realized what he had prophesied, he concluded, beyond the age of eighty, his miraculous activity as a scientist and prophet with a masterly speech at the VII International Communications Conference, held in Genoa in 1959, « The determinants of the astronautical era", with the one held in the solemn meeting of 1960 at the Lincei "Anticipations extra-terrestrials" and with his contribution to the work "The world of technology" of 1962 "The astro-cosmonautic moment". This is a small treatise on space activity from its origins to Gagarin's flight, in which he also delves into the theory of relativity and photonic propulsion.
Finally, I recall the titles of some studies and meditations on problems that go beyond aeronautics: "Scientific property", "The degradation of wealth", "The devil and atomic research" (history of the atomic bomb), "Discourse on the gradient" (concerning the exasperated acceleration of scientific progress), « Scientific premises for space law
10.)
Supponiamola di cinque, cioè “cinque volte quella che si risente in volo rettilineo o sulla superficie della terra, presa come unità. Trattasi di un elevato. ‘valore; di acrobazia pesante. In tale sopportazione. il peso del corpo del pilota diverrà mediamente di 360 chili, di cui 300 graveranno sul seggiolino e gli altri sui ‘comandi.’ Le sue braccia, distese sul volante o sulla leva di guida aggraveranno di una ventina di chili ciascuna e le gambe allungate verso la pedaliera dovranno complessivamente sostenere il sovraccarico di un centinaio di chili. Il cervello premerà per quasi sette chili sulla base del cranio; gli occhi affonderanno nell'orbita, generando il fenomeno del veder nero e le palpebre si appesantiranno come per sonno improvviso; i visceri s'insaccheranno nell'addome; la respirazione si farà difficile;
il cuore dovrà sospingere nelle arterie un liquido che per effetto della centrifugazione verso il basso assumerà una densità quintupla della normale.
tutto avverà come se il corpo del pilota venisse d’un tratto a trovarsi alla superficie di un pianeta, che diremo il pianeta X, ove la gravità fosse ‘cinque volte quella terrestre. Un tal pianeta non esiste nel sistema solare; perché su Giove, il più grosso, essa è appena due volte e mezza; ma la immagine è suggestiva ai fini della nostra esposizione.
Quali conseguenze anatomiche e funzionali l’organismo umano questo temporaneo gravame? Evidentemente’ non ne avrà se gli organi del volatore, appena cessata la manovra, saranno in grado di riprendere in piena immunità le loro funzioni; ed il tal caso quel pilota
10.)
Suppose it is five, that is, "five times what is felt in straight flight or on the surface of the earth, taken as a unit. This is a high one. 'value; of heavy aerobatics. In such endurance. the weight of the driver's body will become on average 360 kilos, of which 300 will weigh on the seat and the others on the 'controls.' His arms, stretched out on the steering wheel or on the driving lever, will weigh on the the pedal set will have to support an overload of around one hundred kilos in total. The brain will press almost seven kilos on the base of the skull; the eyes will sink into the socket, generating the phenomenon of seeing black and the eyelids will become heavy as if due to sudden sleep; the viscera will become encased in the abdomen; breathing will become difficult;
the heart will have to push a liquid into the arteries which, due to the downward centrifugation, will take on five times the normal density.
everything will happen as if the pilot's body suddenly found itself on the surface of a planet, which we will call planet X, where the gravity was five times that of Earth. Such a planet does not exist in the solar system; because on Jupiter, the largest, it is just two and a half times; but the image is suggestive for the purposes of our exposition.
What anatomical and functional consequences does this temporary burden have on the human organism? Evidently there will be none if the flier's organs, as soon as the maneuver has ceased, are able to resume their functions with full immunity
11.)
Dal 1951 in poi l’attività scientifica di Crocco, ormai vecchio, fu rivolta al volo nello spazio extra-atmosferico e all’astronautica. Già nel 1923, a dire il vero, aveva precorso i tempi con la Nota lincea « Sulla possibilità della navigazione extra-atmosferica », in cui proponeva di valersi della reazione provocata dall’efflusso dei prodotti della disintegrazione di materiale radioattivo. Si trattava, in sostanza, della propulsione ionica, ancor oggi non ancora realizzata praticamente. Nel 1927 aveva iniziato ricerche anche sperimentali sui propellenti solidi per i razzi, in collaborazione col figlio Luigi, e aveva poi ripreso tali ricerche fra il 1932 e il 1935. Segnalo altresì la Nota lincea del 1946 « Sulla applicazione dell'energia atomica alla navigazione interplanetaria ». Nel discorso inaugurale del primo corso di missilistica e astronautica, tenuto a Roma nel 1951, parlò dei missili geodetici, trattando dei propellenti e del calcolo delle traiettorie nell'ipotesi di terra piatta e in quella di terra
11.)
From 1951 onwards, Crocco's scientific activity, now old, was aimed at outer space flight and astronautics. Already in 1923, to tell the truth, he had been ahead of his time with the Nota lincea «On the possibility of extra-atmospheric navigation», in which he proposed making use of the reaction caused by the outflow of the products of the disintegration of radioactive material. It was, essentially, ion propulsion, which has not yet been practically achieved today. In 1927 he had begun experimental research on solid propellants for rockets, in collaboration with his son Luigi, and had then resumed such research between 1932 and 1935. I would also like to point out the Note line of 1946 « On the application of atomic energy to interplanetary navigation ». In the inaugural speech of the first rocketry and astronautics course, held in Rome in 1951, he spoke about geodetic missiles, dealing with propellants and the calculation of trajectories
12.) Pretty sure that's all the relevant pages for this one; the rest are either superfluous or establishing identity of those above, the Numbers are just To keep organized, not Page numbers.
Translated document 2
https://archive.org/details/ufo-crash-at-vergiate
1.)
Sullo stradale ira Novara e Magenta cinque operai che rincasavano in bicicletta durante un temporale sono stativi investiti dal fulmine e gettati violentemente a terra. Uno di casi è rimasto gravemente ferito.
1.)
On the road between Novara and Magenta five workers were returning home by bicycle during during a storm they were struck by lightning and violently thrown to the ground. One of the cases was seriously injured.
Soon to be translated document 3
https://archive.org/details/marconis-death-ray/mode/1up
This is going to require alot of help. My will To do this with a language I don't know is at an end for this moment.
The archives of the Newspapers reflected by Pinnoti may be fully available on the archive but without more expert translation Services I'm not totally sure. Let this be a baseline That the documents most likely exist. There are more things available to those to speak Italian I simply need someone to read it all; figure out which pictures are which and translate appropriately.

Disclaimer at the end! This is my first ever article on Reddit, feel free to comment for suggestions or corrections! 

Disclaimer: In this blogpost I shared my personal experience Please note that I am not paid in any way by anyone, nor am I an expert or content creator. I am not encouraging you to do the Ha GIang loop with kids, but if I you search more info I hope this helps. Take into account that it can be a dangerous trip with steep mountain roads. I cannot be held responsible for anything. Check your insurance before going. If you want to copy some of the content, it's free, just let me know and don't forget to reference to this post please. 

Disclaimer: In this blogpost I will share my personal experience of doing the Ha Giang Motorbike loop with kids. Consider it some kind of practical guide that I would love to have had before doing it. Please note that I am not paid in any way by anyone, nor am I an expert or content creator. I am not encouraging you to do the Ha GIang loop with kids, but if I you search more info I hope this helps. Take into account that it can be a dangerous trip with steep mountain roads. I cannot be held responsible for anything. Check your insurance before going. If you want to copy some of the content, it's free, just let me know and don't forget to reference to this post please. This is my first ever article on Reddit, feel free to comment for suggestions or corrections! 

TLDR?

• You & your kids better be adventurous and do not expect much comfort
• You should have motorbike license & driving experience if you want to drive yourself with the kid behind.
• Your kids should be 8 years or above (if not they could fall asleep on the motorbike)
• Book with a company
• Avoid the party tours and hostels
• If above conditions are met, you should have a GREAT time!

Content Table:

1. introduction
2. Options with kids
3. Practical guide for kids on a motorbike
4. Driving yourself or hiring a driver?
5. Considerations with kids on the bike
6. Equipment and luggage
7. Tips for driving a semi-automatic motorbike
8. Why semi-automatic?
9. Other tips & tricks
10. Before & After the Tour

========

1. Introduction

What is the Ha Giang Loop & Why should you consider it? Please read into other social media & blogpost why the Ha Giang loop is really worth it if you love stunning landscapes.
We did a 4 days tour in clockwise direction with a tour operator March 2024. Our kids are 8 and 10 years old.
This is not your normal “family activity”. It is mostly targeted to young people 20-40 years, but not for kids. We only met one other couple with kids in 4 days (all behind an easy driver). 95% of the people on the loop were between 20 and 30 years. I think (rough counting on the stopping points) that there were about 300 tourist starting the same day as us, with different companies. Some very small (1-3 bikes) to very big groups (50 bikes).

2. Your options with kids

1. Doing the tour by car: most comfortable option, but it is very rare in practice, we only saw a handfull of cars doing it. If your kids are younger than 8, I think this is the best option anyhow.
2. Take the ride on the back of a motorcycle driven by an experienced guide. This is the" Easy Rider" option. This means you will need to pay a guide for every member of the family.
3. Drive a motorbike yourself with a kid behind you. This can either be done in the context of a group or you can do this yourself.
4. Drive on a bicycle … We only saw one guy do this, respect. But not an option with kids I think. There are not many facilities for repair, no-one offers it at the moment. Maybe in some years there will be e-bike options? Or you can start a business for it.
5. Take some friends with you who look after the kids in a nearby hotel with pool for 4 days while you do the loop ;-)

If you consider option 2 or 3, continue reading!

3. Choose a good company (or not)

• inform yourself on google maps, TripAdvisor or Reddit. 40+ companies & hotels are doing organised tours. Contact the operator to see if he is OK to take kids (I can’t imagine they will refuse but check). Contacting via Whatsapp works great everywhere in Vietnam.
• Search for a "small group", max 10 bikes.
• search & make a reservation between 1 month & 1 week before your planned start
• We managed to have a very small price discount for the kids but don’t count too much on this, since they will also take a place on the motorbike, a bed and will need to eat.
• I suppose you want a “non party tour”, so check with the operators to make sure it’s not a party hostel with music until midnight where your kids can’t sleep.
• Driving in an organised tour (your self or with an “easy rider”) has many advantages:
  • The tourguide knows where to stop for nice views
  • Most tours have someone speaking English which is always helpfuill
  • In case of trouble (mechanical or accident or road-specific conditions) they always will find a solution
  • They know where & when to fill-up on gas (included in price)
  • You don’t need to look at your gps all the time and you can enjoy the scenery
  • Part of the fun is also some animation in the evening, lunching together, playing a game or singing karaoke.
  • Your kids will love a small group where they can have contact with new people. Even it they don’t speak English they will pick up some words.

4.. Driving yourself or hire an Easy Rider? Things to consider:

• Legally, you are only allowed to drive a motorbike if you have a valid international driving license (IDP they call it here) for a motorcycle. There are police checks in the beginning. I heard in some groups they have a work-around where a local guy takes over before the checkpoint and you go back on it afterwards, but I would not risk this with my kids.
• We had driven motorbikes (>600cc) 10 years ago. More recently we drove automatic scooters in Thailand & Laos (Thakhek-loop and Bolaven-loop) so that helped us to get comfortable again. For the Ha Giang loop the semi-automatic motorbikes are mostly used (see later for more details).
• Make sure the guide is well aware of your driving skills (advanced or beginner) so he does not start too quickly. Also ask to drive just behind the first driver (mostly the guide).
• Most roads are quite ok to ride on these days. On the 4 days tour we only had 10% of muddy roads. 40% of the roads have some potholes here and there. The most dangerous is when there is gravel in the hairpins going down.
• Driving yourself is very fun but you have less energy & time enjoying the landscape.
• It’s less expensive driving yourself then paying a driver. But don’t let this be the major decision maker, it’s more important to have a safe journey.

Of course, you copuld also consider a combination of 3 easy drivers, and 1 freerider bike.
Driving completely on your own without a group has some advantages anyhow:

• you master the complete planning, speed & distance,
• you can stop where you want to take pictures.

3 days or 4 days?
If you can afford it, the 4 days off course. In our tour, the 2 tours were together as 1 group the complete first two days until the border with China & a bit further. On the third day, the 3 day tour rode back a very long distance (150 km if I’m not mistaken). This is maybe too long for the kids but I can’t talk from experience. I would advice against it. If you have only 3 days, maybe consider a smaller tour, talk with your company to check the options.

5. Practical guide for Kids on the bike

• Explain the kid how to hold on to you if needed (and not on the shoulders). Normally ask them to lean backwards on the luggage. This is easier for the driver.
• Communication: Most of the guides don’t speak English, make sure your kids can communicate with them or you if there is something important to stop. For example a double tap on the shoulder.
• Hop on the bike: it’s important they always let you know before jumping on it, so that you can keep the motor in balance. When you are clipping on the helmet, you can't balance or brake when a kid suddenly jumps on the side of the bike.
• Hop off the bike: ask them to react quickly when you ask them to step off. Handy when parking the bike on a hill or when on a muddy strip. Let them step off on the left side so they can’t touch the hot exhaust pipe.
• Kids getting bored? It didn’t happen with our kids, it really surprised us. Just make sure you give them enough attention when there is a stop.
• Keep the kids busy, help them to invent a story in their head or give them a photo camera. Learn them how to film. Ask them to count numbers on number plates, ... Take some games with you for the evenings, for example a card game works really great, also with other guests who do not speak your language (Uno).
• Sleeping: most companies will go for a dormitory in a hostel. If you think your kids won’t sleep there, you can always try to negotiate or pay extra for private rooms. We and the kids managed to sleep in the dorms without any issues.
• Stops: take into account that there will be multiple short stops the whole trip. Don’t leave anything unattended. Make sure the kids always keep their stuff on them. You don’t want the group to wait because your kid left the camera or water bottle or sunglasses on the previous stop. Take into account that when the group leaves, it can go quite fast, learn the kids to react quickly to this. Make sure they drink enough and go to the toilet directly at a stop, so you don't miss the group when they get off again.

6. Equipment and Luggage

• (Kids) Helmet: don’t underestimate a good fitting helmet. It can be good at first sight, but imagine the helmet taking wind at 50 km/h, then it slides back on your hat. So double check that and strip it tight enough. It is rare that they have a kids helmet but you can be lucky, better check this in advance with the tour you booked. If needed, you can add a buff or something so that it better fits on the head. Avoid helmets with large chin protection (as some motocross helmets) since they could hit you in the back every time you break … Most helmets however don’t have chin protection.
• always wear long pants, even if it’s hot. It avoids wasps flying in, but also protects against mud or in case of in accident would occur.
• Wear closed shoes.
• Bicycle Gloves (optional);: more comfort when sweating & long driving (just don't loose them)
• Buff around the neck, can help for dusty roads or when driving a little bit faster when you hit an insect.
• Some companies offer knee protection. Ours did not, but we saw this a lot with the younger tourists. However after the second day, no-one was wearing it anymore. It’s of course safer so you can always ask.
• Luggage Our company asked a bag no more then 10 kilo’s per bike. We took 2 of our travel backpacks (+/-40 liters but not fully loaded). They put them in a rain & dust proof bag and stripped that very tight on the motorbike. This has just one disadvantage: if you need something at a stop they have some work undoing this. Try to take as least as possible. Don't worry about taking many clothes with you, it's backpacking!
• I would advice against a suitcase (for all travel in Asia even).
• Don’t forget that the luggage will be stripped very hard to the bike and that the kids will lean on it, so be careful when putting fragile things in it. We left all big electronics at the hotel.
• My number 1 advice: wear some small belt bag or shoulder bag for things you need all day on the road:
  • some money,
  • driving license,
  • sunglasses,
  • toilet paper
  • sun cream.
  • (We also had eye-drops in it)
• Water will normally be provided by the guides and will also be stripped behind at reach.
• Swimming wear and a travel towel is advised if your tour stops by a waterfall.
• Take a good camera or GoPro or give one to your kid that is attached to him so it can’t fall too easily

7. Driving a semi-automatic motorbike

• Gearing down from 3th to 2nd is the hardest part from our experience. Practical tip if you experience this:

1. Stop revving the engine (right hand)
2. Click the pedal down backwards with your left heel (or tip)
3. Release it SLOWLY while revving a little bit.

• Gears: you will mostly drive in 2nd gear in the mountains, either going up to have enough power, or going down to break on the engine while also using the back brake.
• Some rare parts were muddy and there were some guys struggling before us. We managed quite well in 2nd gear very slowly. But if you are hesitant for more difficult passages, ask your kid to step off and go by feet some meters.
• Braking: as you should have learned when taking your motorbike license:
  • Avoid hard breaking in corners, slow down before & go to 2nd gear when needed.
  • Squeeze the front brake SLOWLY so that you avoid blocking the front wheel, prefer the back brake with the right foot.
• speed: mostly around 40 km/h but on big roads this can go to max 60 km/h. Depends also on the guide & companies.
• Ask if you can ride in 2nd position just behind the guide. This way you can follow the best line on the road to avoid potholes. Also if something is wrong, he will see you are stopping and will stop the whole group. If you feel he drives too fast, you can slow down and he should notice. On bigger roads or when driving faster, don’t follow in his wheel but a bit more left or right.
• In the villages, don’t ride on the far right side as you would do in Europe, other motorcycles use the right side as the insertion strip without looking. If you are lucky, they will honk just before. Also be aware there can be dogs & chicken crossing the street at any moment.
• Honking will happen at all time when someone overtakes you, it does not mean someone wants you out of the way ;-) Don't forget to do it yourself or before a tight hairpin.

8. Why semi-automatic motorbikes?

• in most of Thailand & Laos the automatic motorbikes are the most popular for renting by tourists since it's simpler (110cc or 125cc).
• Semi-automatic bikes are also available & cheaper but more difficult to drive. Our tour operator insisted on driving the sem-automatic because it’s safer in the mountains. They indeed have some advantages:
  • the right power at the right time.
  • Lighter then Automatic bikes
  • being able to use the engine-brake.
• If you have never driven a semi-automatic, search on YouTube “driving semi automatic motorbike Asia” and you will find usefull tips.
• Our motors were a Honda Blade 110cc and had 4 gears. This is the most common model for tourists over here. Many guides had a 150 cc manual bike. This serves them well, since they need to move two adults mostly.
• I saw some tourists with a cross-motor which is maybe useful if you are too tall.

9. Other practical tips & tricks

• if you are a tall person (> 1m75), take into account that most motorbikes are not very big. I heard one tall guy who loved being at the back the first day, but decided to take a taxi afterwards because it wasn’t suitable for him. Before driving the motorbike, take a good test ride. I am 1m65 and had only one minor issue when gearing down from 3th to 2nd. I had difficulties putting the heel down backwards, so sometimes I just moved the tip of my feet to put it down one gear.
• Sitting behind: the nice thing is that all backpacks will be fitted thightly behind, so you can lean back on them as in a chair.
• Restrooms: every stop has a restroom, but they are mostly super basic and you will mostly need to bring your own toilet paper.
• Accidents: we did not saw accidents with tourists, but we heard that there were some in the groups where young people drive themselves. Top 2 causes of accidents:
  1. driving hairpins downwards without proper anticipation on gravel.
     • 2) a dog crossing the road in towns. This was more an issue in Laos & Thailand, we did not had this problem on the Ha Giang Loop.
• Don't hesitate talking to the guide. Most guides don’t explain much since most have limited English, but if you ask them questions and if you are interested in them, they are willing to explain a lot. Google Translate is your companion here.
• Meteo: we had some cloudy and even rainy moments, but our company had very good rain protection even for the kids. They offered rain-pants and even plastic going over the shoes. I didn’t feel comfortable to use the plastic on the shoes when driving myself for changing the gears so I removed it after the first stop.
• You can’t trust the weather apps, they all say something different in the mountains, just trust your guide on this.
• It can be quite cold in the mountains even if it’s warm in Ha Giang. The kids were glad to have their sweaters morning & evening.
• Food: in our organised tour, there was a buffet every lunch and dinner, mostly the same stuff but very good. There was tofu, pork & beef, along with many vegetables and rice of course. Drinks you need to buy yourself everywhere.

10. Before & After the trip

• Most tourists come to Sapa with the sleeper bus. Some arrive at 3h in the morning, and wake up at 8h to start the tour! I would not advice this if you drive yourself. Make sure you have a daybus and a good night sleep. We arrived from Cat Ba around 21h and could sleep for free at the tour operators’ dorm. Also if you are sleeping in a dorm, don’t be surprised when people are coming in the room at 3 o’clock ;-)
• After the tour, you could opt for 2 nights in a good hotel with a pool if you need to relax and your budget & schedule allows it.

As said before, these are my personal observations, I hope it's usefull to someone. If you want to copy some of the content, feel free to do so but let me know & reference to this post please.
We did do the loop with Ha Giang Vision Tours, who where great! But there are lotst of other great options. You can follow them on Instagram to get some more inspiration.

I have been simmering on the finale since I watched it and finally decided to try and write some of my thoughts out in an attempt to reach some catharsis. And I'm posting it in the hopes that someone else might also find peace. Most, if not all, of my points have been hashed by others plenty, so don't expect a brilliant new analysis if you lurk WoT subs.
TLDR: I'm a big fan of Wheel of Time, I'm a hobbyist who loves theater, film, TV shows and performative storytelling, and I have thoughts on the Wheel of Time Season 2 finale.
Based on the intro, you would be forgiven for thinking I hated Season 2 as a whole and/or the finale. I didn't. Overall, I found I enjoyed season 2 though that may be because I'm trying to look at it with the expectation set by Season 1: that things from the book will be changed. Also a, perhaps optimistic, thought that the creators of the show did not set out to destroy a beloved franchise, but to adapt it to a different time and medium.
A bit of my background so you don't think this is some unhinged rant by a disgruntled redditor.
I have read the entire Wheel of Time book series. I've probably read the first third 5-6 times, the second third 3-4 times, and the last third twice. When I read the books, I frequently used the glossary in the back to make sure I had a correct understanding of who was who, where things were and what was related to what. When I was in the thick of the books, I practically lived them. I will say, it has been a few years since my last reread, so I may be foggy on some precise details, but I still have a strong understanding of the whos, the whats, and the whys of the main action. I am by no means the biggest WoT fan, but I am also not a casual consumer of the show.
I am not in the entertainment industry, but I have always loved movies, shows, and the process of making them. I have made a few amateur video productions, love to watch behind the scenes footage, and have been heavily involved in theater. I feel like I have a competent understanding of what it takes to produce a show. I also have been a Game Master for dungeons and dragons for more than 15 years so I think I have a good grasp of storytelling and narrative flow.
I don't mean to say that I could have done better, because conceptually knowing how a stick shift works is not the same as knowing how to drive a manual. I'm just hoping this illustrates why I feel that my opinion is informed.
On to the main bit.
The finale of S2 left me feeling... Conflicted. I struggled to meaningfully communicate to my wife why this was, so I'm hoping this helps me. This post is not meant to apologize for any issues, just to hopefully clarify the assumed intent. Also, I'm only going to address the finale.
My Assumptions: 1) At least one of the writers has read all the books. 2) There is a specific story they are trying to tell that is based on the books. 3) The majority of changes to the source material are intended to serve the larger story arcs or are a result of trying to condense 14 (very large) books into 8 seasons of television with only 8 episodes each as opposed to trying to insert their own fanfic or headcanon. This may not be true. 4) There are certain scenes or events that are iconic to the books that the show runners feel they need to include in the show.
My brain puke: * It's clear that the show runners wanted the Two Rivers 5 to be together at the end of the episode. And not just all in Falme, but reunited. This coupled with assumption #4 is what I think resulted in a lot of writing/editing/story decisions that many people had issues with.

• The fact that they wanted to have everything happen in the last episode created a (to my mind) artificial crunch where they had to squeeze as much in this one episode as they could.
  
• Moraine needed to be close enough to Falme that she could regroup with everyone after, but not close enough to really influence the outcome because she's too competent and would have avoided many pitfalls the others faced. This is likely why they had Lanfear kick her out at the (puzzlingly placed) Waygate.
  
• Matt's arc needed closure, but because it's a show there still has to be tension. The reintroduction of the dagger introduces that tension of whether he will succumb to the dark or not. Although, Padan Fain being able to just give it up willy nilly did seem odd to me.
  
• "We got the horn somehow" was kind of dumb, but at least they threw in a line about Lanfear giving it to them instead of just ignoring how they got it (like they ignored the fact that Loail and Uno were dagger stabbed in S1 and then never talked about it again). Again I can understand this shortcut in the context of trying to make some room in this already dense episode for other key events. Like...
  
• Ingtar's arc was hinted at in previous episodes, but they decided it wasn't worth going into fully. I'm not upset or surprised that they didn't reveal he was a dark friend since they had just had the Barthanes reveal, which due to how they set it up was more shocking and impactful. Having Ingtar revealed would have confused some viewers and been ignored by many others. Even as a barely onscreen side character, his heroic sacrifice could still have been satisfying if he'd actually held the Seanchan off for longer than 5 seconds and the group had escaped in that time instead of just watching him die and then not been chased somehow.
  
• Renna cutting off Egwene's braid instead of her tongue I think was supposed to symbolize her being cut off from her home and who she was, but it had been so long that anyone had talked about the Two Rivers custom of women braiding their hair when they come of age that unless you were going back in a full episode review, you likely would never have made that connection. Maybe there was a line in an earlier episode that got cut where Egwene explains to renna the importance of her braid. As it was, it seemed weird that Renna would assume cutting her hair would cow her.
  
• Why did Rand ignore Egwene when he saw her? Wasn't that the whole reason he went to Falme?
  
• I was sad we didn't get a cool duel with Turak and instead got an Indiana Jones reference. I do understand though, because while he did talk to the blade master in Cairhien and had a brief pointer from Lan, there was nothing in Season 2 to show Rand's proficiency with the blade. Him beating Turak in a duel would have looked ridiculous and out of place. Speaking of out of place, Rand leaves Egwene, goes to kill Turak because... he had Egwene? And then goes back to find Egwene? I'm not sure how that all tracks. But I will point out that the scene with Turak does illustrate a couple things. 1) it shows the fanatical nature of the Seanchan (guy kills himself). 2) It shows Rand growing into his power a bit more. (Maybe too much considering how little he has done with it up to this point and how overwhelmingly he destroyed Turak et al.)
  
• Nyneave and Elayne scene explains that Sul'Dam can be collared because they can use the Source. Cool.
  
• Hopper has to die because he does in the books, but in the show it serves the dual purpose of completing Perrin's transition to yellow eyes. The following series of events (presented in reverse order) happens as a visual shortcut to reach the end state (presented first). Dain Bornhald hates Perrin and knows he's from the Two Rivers (as shown in a previous episode) << Dain sees Perrin kill his father << Dain's dad kills Hopper << Hopper attacks Valda << Valda attacks Perrin. This whole sequence of events I can kind of get behind (except Hopper just showing up in the middle of the fight?) In the books, Dain has an unhinged hate of Perrin because of the belief he killed his father based on veeeery circumstancial evidence. This way, we know Dain hates Perrin, we know why, and it sets up future events very nicely. Plus it illustrates Show Perrin's bloodlust in battle and may lead to his use of and/or distaste for axes.
  
• The Shadar Logoth dagger is a lightsaber? This bit lost me. Also, there's no way wrapping the dagger to a stick and tying it with string is holding it on for longer than a single swing. I honestly think it's just a lazy shortcut to get Matt the Ashanderai. Don't love if that's the case. Although, the lightsaber bit does come in handy to cut open the box that can't be opened. And the only reason it can't be opened is because the plot needs there to be a plausible reason why the horn hasn't been used until now.
  
• Matt isn't a hero of the horn. Show Matt, is I guess, but I personally dislike, in the very strongest terms, this particular show choice. I can only understand it as another shortcut to get Matt his memories and battle acumen without having him go through the doorway. Also, him being and remembering being, a Hero of the Horn undercuts... His entire character as an unlikely and reluctant hero. So, not sure what they're gonna do with Matt in the future.
  
• Why the feck is Uno a Hero of the Horn? I disliked that they killed him earlier on, and bringing him back like this was just dumb. In my opinion. I also I can't think of what storytelling reason they had for bringing him back like this.
  
• Elayne getting hit with an arrow was meant to show Nyneave's block in full force. This whole season everyone has been talking about how strong she is, but the audience needed to see her block as a real liability since up to this point she's always been able to channel when she needed to. I also think having the captured sul'dam die was so Nyneave would be in shock and not be able to Hulk out. That said, Elayne seemed entirely too calm during the entire exchange, and then just walking off without bandaging the wound was... A choice.
  

*Egwene standing up to her sul'dam shows she still has spirit. Great! Egwene ignoring the rules of the A'dam and not just putting one on Renna, but ignoring any repercussions as a result of all the following actions? Not great. I think you can have a strong character who isn't broken by hardship, that still needs to be saved sometimes. And being in an A'dam is one of those times.

• I... Don't really want to talk about the fight on the tower because I don't have any idea what the writers were going for.
  
• Okay, not entirely true. I know Rand receives a wound that cannot be healed during this fight. In the show it could be difficult to show and explain why a wound from Ishamael would have that property so I can understand why they had the Ishy fakeout and Matt's dagger create the wound. Although at this point it's really becoming Dagger Ex Machina. Kind of a shame really.
  
• Elayne heals Rand's wound. I don't mind this because it reiterates a couple points: Egwene is a weapon and Nyneave has a block. The wound clearly isn't completely healed, showing the corruption leaking out after she's finished. Finally, Rand hasn't met Elayne yet, so this sets up their future romance.
  
• When I watched the part where Moraine burns the ships, I didn't immediately wonder how she got around her oath (to only use the one power as a weapon as a last resort and only in imminent danger to her life or the life of her warder). My thought was, "Since when is Moraine strong enough to destroy an entire fleet of ships, killing all the Damane and Sul'Dam onboard? Discounting that no other channeler felt or saw the weaves and counteracted them.
  
• What's with Moraine having to weave up the signs and wonders? Can't a good old fashioned prophecy just be fulfilled by the Creator as was intended? But seriously, that's what you do for a False dragon, not the real one.
  

Anyway, mostly unsatisfied with how it turned out, but I guess I can understand why they did some of the things they did from a storytelling and adaptation perspective.

https://youtu.be/OixMuscDqVI?si=Rh_hMiUnK6RlqrBe Or should I say: scamming people and committing literal fraud....
Perhaps this has been discussed here. Apologies if it has.
Hopefully, the majority of the H3 audience has learned not to immediately kill the messenger and to listen to the message first. But Clara (simulated cp) and horse porn defender-Sorrenti feels justified in defrauding thousands of people. I understand that H3 doesn't like destiny, but I want to ask this community to try to engage in what is being shown here and not who these people are as people (or who they think they are)
Keffals started a gofundme to bring a lawsuit against her (former) local police department (London PD, Ontario) after she was swatted. She also claimed that she wanted to use some of the money to relocate after she was "swatted" There is no lawsuit to this day, 2 years later. There will likely be videos with even more evidence documenting how she spent this money, but until then, it's worthwhile to ask where the money went?
Instead of spending it on a frivolous lawsuit against the police, keffals went to Ireland https://youtu.be/z7Q1iuab4_0?si=3FtvTnRbfxxF7Fme) perhaps defenders and skeptics might say she went there to flee the harassment keffals was getting after attacking kiwifarms, yet the entire time keffals was posting photos and updates on social media that lead to her subsequent doxxes(literal updates of her live location), even admitting that she "made herself a lighting rod" so that "kiwi farmers continued harassing her" (https://youtu.be/HCL2bEMsPpI?si=3tALoNX11oiWqV7u) this doesn't sound like someone that is scared of kiwifarms, or harassment in general. (Not to say that kiwifarms isn't mostly unhinged NEETs that need help.)
After being accused of using her gofundme earnings as a scam, keffals admit to struggling with drug addiction. Addiction is a serious illness and isn't something to make fun of, but addiction leads people who otherwise wouldn't make poor decisions, to be bad people, and to hurt those around them (regardless of addiction struggles, it is still appropriate and necessary to hold those people accountable for their actions, at least to some extent. None of us would defend a man struggling with alcoholism that was sexually aggressive to women around him while he was drunk, simply because he suffered from alcoholism.) (https://youtu.be/mZn2GdM6YL0?si=4M4cxR3BwFWkHFnG)
Sidebar: Keffals has every victim card and will use them all. If you criticize her (or her friends) as a Cis person you're transphobic, if you do it as a straight person you're homophobic, if you do it as a fellow addict, then you don't care about addicts, if you make fun of her having your phone number that she gave you while feeling suicidal, you don't care about suicide and are ableist. She uses identity and struggle as if they are Uno-Reverse cards to use to gain internet points. Ethan was 100% right about her using her trans identity like armor against criticism, ironically severely damaging the trans activist cause).
This post is longer than necessary already, but if any more context or evidence is needed for the claims I'm about to make, inquire in the comments. If you've read this, get a life, but im also thankful for you..
Keffals crowd funded. 100k dollars to bring a lawsuit against London County PD, Ontario. This lawsuit doesn't exist. What does exist is tons of examples of her spending money on traveling, friends, streaming equipment, and drugs, right after she made copies of money on gofundme.
This next part is fan service for the H3 audience, but keffals has a history of making racist, abliest comments as well as transphobic and homophobic comments (https://youtu.be/CC_mOu-vxIk?si=UREaEqKBv4FDtsk7)
She is a hypocrite, a liar, and a bad person, and that's the tip of the iceberg.
Again if anyone that has read this far and is willing to skim through the evidence provided in the videos has issues with the creators that made that video, I implore you to adress the arguments and n9t the people giving them, unfortunately there isn't a NYT write up on this so I have to resort to these.
And if any of these creators give you 'bad vibes' for the coverage they have on ethan and/or hasan, let's not ignore her recent attacks on ethan and her hit pieces on hasan.(https://www.youtube.com/live/7b9WLa-vCkk?si=cQ_wTAvltN4RmvL9, https://youtu.be/1etcWeND4Qo?si=xFDQ2-kK5p3-bTMs, https://youtu.be/vlQHOb-4Oa8?si=Cx2CnF3HzzU6LF4M, https://youtu.be/7G_Z0F-he0E?si=iOC3SNKbx96DYi2t, https://youtu.be/HJM_TFzCsRk?si=QX6DskwXDsKSP8hshttps://youtu.be/PgtZJ5tNMvk?si=v4K1O38Sko_6PMnc)
All the lore is compiled here. Sorry if you hate the messenger, but he has receipts. If you want to argue, argue with those, the only thingthat has changed is now she streams to 10's of veiwers, not 1000's, but this details what ive mentioned, as well as her promotion of DIY hormones for minors, testimony by previous partners and friends (and the deceased themselves) of the dead that keffals chose to use as a bludgeonto further her own cause, and people she has used for sheilds in defense of her own story: https://youtu.be/ba383Zux0Mo?si=6QtPpA6KcNmSV3zV
I expect the 'get a life' replies, but if i can even have a chance at getting this criminal embarrassed off the internet, I will have done my job. She shouldn't have a platform, and I hope her recent displays are proof enough if this isn't.
Keffals still likes to act like she took down kiwifarms. She didn't. It's up and running to this day, even covering this current drama last I checked while making this very post.
Ultimately, let's not get distracted by his few defenders. Vaush is a loli loving horse fucker.

Gregueries-XIII Id: xxx Category: God and Man Date: 2024-01-04 19:02:00
GPT:
"This text delves into various complex philosophical concepts, linking ethics, logic, and ontology in intriguing ways.
Summary:
The categorical imperative and the prophetic mandate appear as sibling concepts that define goodness in man and God, respectively. However, their veritable relationship and truth remain ambiguous due to the logical complexity of propositions such as p=~p and ~p=p, which challenge traditional notions of identity and causality. The author suggests that identity does not require causality, and vice versa, leading to reflection on how the meaning of a proposition is intrinsically related to the meaning of all others within a prevalent 'figurative form' that encompasses self-awareness, the world, and reality. This approach emphasizes the interconnection between logic, existence and divinity, and how propositions are structured and understood can reveal fundamental truths about these topics.
The text also explores how figurative-pictorial forms and the characteristics of propositions can simultaneously avoid and not avoid the madness, with God-fearing contingency, while embracing humanity. Through a series of analogies and cultural references, the author argues that understanding the relationship between elements, forms, and facts requires an effort of comprehension that goes beyond formal logic and enters the realm of ethics.
Finally, the author proposes that the vision of the world «sub specie aeternitatis» (under the aspect of eternity) is unsatisfactory for science and the understanding of God, who appears inherently inferior to man due to limitations in his form of being. This argument concludes with a reflection on the nature of becoming and the Logos, suggesting they must be the same as they lack freedom and unleashing. It presents a personal vision of figurative-pictorial form, comparing Wittgenstein's perspective with that of the author, who sees himself as a creator transcending conventional tools of creation and understanding." **************************************************
The categorical imperative is the little brother of the prophetic one. The first determines you as a good man, the other as a good God, and vice versa.
We don't know where the truth is because we don't know where (the logical sign) is in the proposition p=~p, ~p=p.
An identity relationship does not need any cause-effect relationship and vice versa. If p→p, if q→q, if p→q.
The meaning of a proposition has an internal and necessary relationship with the meaning of all the others... in the same figurative way. Self-awareness, the world, reality, the logical structure, the substance and its objects, created or uncreated, are there for that.
The logical sign finds its place in the equation p=~p so that p makes its truth conditions explicit. "P" is the tautological and contradictory proposition in its general form.
Figurative forms do and do not prevent madness. The same thing happens to the traces of the proposition. That is why God is frightened by contingency, embracing man.
Thank goodness that the lawyers of the traffic accident, in the description of the elements of Wittgenstein's figure and his coherence with the facts of the world, were not in a sex shop. It would only be necessary to make an added effort to understand involving meaning, objects, substance, facts, elements, logical form, self-awareness, and traces. There is an implicit ethical act just because there has to be proportionality between the «elements» of the figure, the figurative-pictorial form and the facts, including substance, objects and other stuff.
It is not only the model, or not the model, that reaches reality. It is the figurative-pictorial shape, implying worlds, solipsism, and reality. God fights against himself. Witt. 6.423 is wrong.
The "bad" life is seeing the world "sub specie eternitatis". Otherwise, why would God be unhappy?
Science is another object of the figurative-pictorial form, on demand.
God will always be less than man. There is no other way to be God.
Becoming and Logos must be the same because they must possess neither freedom nor unleashing. The first God is the one who has gone through the "Regressus ad Infinitum."
Wittgenstein's form of figuration is that of a blind man with a cane or a potter. Mine is that of a creator who does not guess or recreate objects with tools.
*************************************************************
Gregueries-XIII Id: xxx Category: God and Man Date: 2024-01-04 19:02:00
GPT:
«Este texto profundiza en varios conceptos filosóficos complejos, vinculando la ética, la lógica, y la ontología de maneras intrigantes. Aquí tienes un resumen:
El imperativo categórico y el mandato profético se presentan como conceptos hermanos que definen la bondad en el hombre y en Dios, respectivamente, pero su verdadera relación y verdad se mantienen ambiguas debido a la complejidad lógica de las proposiciones como p=~p y ~p=p, que desafían las nociones tradicionales de identidad y causalidad. Se sugiere que la identidad no requiere de causalidad, y viceversa, lo que lleva a una reflexión sobre cómo el sentido de una proposición está intrínsecamente relacionado con el sentido de todas las demás dentro de una "forma figurativa" común que abarca la autoconciencia, el mundo, y la realidad. Este enfoque subraya la interconexión entre lógica, existencia, y divinidad, y cómo la forma en que se estructuran y entienden las proposiciones puede revelar verdades fundamentales sobre estos temas.
El texto también explora cómo las formas figurativas y las características de las proposiciones pueden simultáneamente evitar y no evitar la locura, con Dios temiendo la contingencia mientras se abraza a la humanidad. A través de una serie de analogías y referencias culturales, se argumenta que comprender la relación entre los elementos, las formas, y los hechos del mundo requiere un esfuerzo de comprensión que va más allá de la lógica formal y entra en el ámbito de lo ético.
Finalmente, se plantea que la visión del mundo "sub specie aeternitatis" (bajo el aspecto de la eternidad) es insatisfactoria tanto para la ciencia como para la comprensión de Dios, quien es visto como inherentemente inferior al hombre debido a las limitaciones en su forma de ser. Este argumento se cierra con una reflexión sobre la naturaleza del devenir y el Logos, sugiriendo que deben ser lo mismo al carecer de libertad y desencadenamiento, y presenta una visión personal sobre la forma de figuración, comparando la perspectiva de Wittgenstein con la del autor, quien se ve a sí mismo como un creador que trasciende las herramientas convencionales de creación y comprensión.»
***********************************************************************
El imperativo categórico es el hermano pequeño del profético. Uno te determina como un hombre bueno, y el otro como un Dios bueno, y al revés.
No se sabe dónde está la verdad, porque no se sabe dónde está el signo lógico en la proposición p=~p, ~p=p.
Una relación de identidad no necesita de ninguna relación de causa-efecto, y al revés. Si p→p, si q→q, si p→q.
El sentido de una proposición guarda una relación interna y necesaria con el sentido de todas las demás... de una misma forma figurativa. La autoconciencia, el mundo, la realidad, la estructura lógica, la sustancia y sus objetos, creados o increados, están ahí para eso.
El signo lógico busca su sitio en la ecuación p=~p para que p haga explícitas sus condiciones veritativas. «P» es la proposición tautológica y contradictoria en su forma general.
Las formas figurativas evitan y no evitan la locura. A los rasgos de la proposición les pasa lo mismo. Por eso Dios se acojona por la contingencia, abrazado al hombre.
Menos mal que los abogados del accidente de circulación, en la descripción de los elementos de la figura de Wittgenstein y su coherencia con los hechos del mundo, no estaban en un sex shop. Solo habría que hacer un esfuerzo añadido de comprensión que implica sentido, objetos, sustancia, hechos, elementos, forma lógica, autoconciencia, y rasgos. Hay un acto ético implícito solo por tener que existir proporcionalidad entre los elementos de la figura, la forma figurativa y los hechos, incluyendo sustancia, objetos y demás stuff.
No solo el modelo, o no el modelo, es lo que llega hasta la realidad. Es la forma figurativa, implicando los mundos, el solipsismo, y la realidad misma. Dios lucha contra sí mismo. Witt. 6.423 es erróneo.
La mala vida es ver el mundo «sub specie aeternitatis», si no, ¿de qué iba a ser Dios infeliz?
La ciencia es un objeto más de la forma figurativa, a demanda.
Dios siempre será menor que el hombre. No hay otra forma de ser Dios.
Devenir y Logos deben ser lo mismo, porque no deben poseer ni libertad ni desencadenamiento. El primer Dios es el que ha atravesado el «regressus ad infinitum».
La forma de figuración de Wittgenstein es la de un ciego con un bastón, o un alfarero. La mía es la de un creador que no adivina ni recrea objetos con herramientas.

Ret popped up on the screen, waving.
Ret: “Hey guys, Ret here! My creator’s losing his commitment to write at a fairly rapid rate, and he has no idea how the fight should go, so sadly he won’t be writing our epic fight with Ducc and Slug…but that’s all! Onto Part 11!
As we cut back to Mount Everlast, Ducc and Slug were beaten and bruised on the ground, Indie holding the shard in his hands.
Indie: “Alright you two, it’s over.”
Oversight: “Yeah! We messed you up good!”
Ducc: “Heheh, that’s what you think…”
Slug: “Hit it, Ducc…”
Ducc pressed a button on his suit, the suit beeping and flashing a red light.
[SELF DESTRUCT SEQUENCE INITIATED]
Slug: “If we’re going down…”
Ducc: “WE’RE TAKING YOU WITH US!”
Ret: “Wuh oh.”
Indie: “Welp, time to go.”
Ducc and Slug started laughing maniacally as Indie opens a portal, hopping through with Ret and Oversight in tow. Meanwhile, Indicate, Denial, and Signal were all playing UNO. Indi was stuck drawing cards.
Indicate: “OH COME THE FUCK ON! GIVE ME A GREEN CARD!”
Denial was snickering at his anger and Signal was just shocked.
Signal: “Calm down, man. It’s just a game…”
Indicate: “SHUT U-“
A portal appears behind them, Indie, Oversight, and Ret stepping out.
Ret: “Cmon, guys! The mountain’s gonna blow!”
Indicate: “Wait, what? Why?”
Indie: “Some of Aid’s minion’s got in…”
Indicate: “How? We were on the guard the whole time!”
Oversight: “Doesn’t matter! Come on!”
The Indicates hopped into the portal, appearing on top of a hill far, far away from the mountain as it blows up in the distance.
Ret: “Phew…that was a close one…”
Signal: “Yeah…did you guys get the shard?”
Indie: “Sure did.”
Indie spins the shard on his finger.
Indie: “Now then…what’s say we go ahead and head over to the final-“
As if on cue, a sword popped out of thin air, stabbing Indie through the chest.
Signal: “INDIE!”
As the sword is pulled out from his chest, All Aid reveals himself, chuckling.
All Aid: “I must thank you imbeciles for doing the dirty work for me, but unfortunately your services are no longer required.”
Aid kicked Indie down as the life was drained out of his body, taking the shard and piecing it together with the one he has.
Indicate: “…he’s…he’s gonna get back up, right?”
All Aid: “Oh nononono my dear Indi, he’s gone…for good.”
Indicate sat there shocked, sitting there wide eyed, while Ret was absolutely pissed off.
Ret: “YOU LITTLE SHIT!”
As he rushed towards Aid, he aimed a palm at his face, firing a gigantic beam that caused the universe to shake a little bit, but as the dust settled, Aid only had a few scratches, dusting himself off.
All Aid: “That was it? Pathetic.”
Aid socked Ret in the gut, knocking the wind out of him before ripping his own soul out and crushing it in his hands, causing his lifeless body to fall onto the ground.
All Aid: “I was expecting you all to be stronger…”
Oversight went in for a sneak attack behind Aid, enlarging his fists and was just about to slam it onto him, but Aid turned around, letting out a shockwave that left him frozen in place.
Oversight: “…welp, I tried.”
Aid aimed a finger gun at Oversight.
All Aid: “Bang.”
A giant hole was left in Oversight’s chest as he fell over. Denial and Signal charged in to fight, but Indi was stuck in place, as if he was frozen in fear. He knows he should fight, but he’s reminded by someone…someone who made him truly feel fear for the first time. He dropped to his knees, grasping his head.
Indicate: “Get out of my head…get out of my head…get out of my head…”
Denial was pelting Aid was fireballs while Signal was throwing punches at his face before kicking him back. Aid slammed his sword into the ground, stopping himself from sliding any further. Denial tried to get the jump on him, but Aid slammed the hilt against his face, knocking him back.
Signal: “YOU…YOU KILLED MY FRIENDS!”
All Aid: “Yeah, I’m aware. But don’t fret…”
As Signal tried to throw another punch, Aid grabbed her fist.
All Aid: “You’ll be joining them soon.”
He grabbed Signal by the neck, squeezing the life out of her throat as she attempts to fight back, but to no avail. Eventually, she stopped kicking as she was dropped on the floor. Denial sees this, a single tear rolling down his face.
All Aid: “Now then, who wants to join her nex-“
Denial socked him in the face, sending him flying back.
Denial: ”YOU MOTHERFUCKER!”
Denial suddenly gained a red aura, two neon red horns and a devil’s tail popping out of his body.
Denial: ”I’M GONNA FUCKING RIP YOU APART!”
He lets out a pain driven yell, charging towards Aid, who summons a forcefield. He started to rapidly punch the forcefield as it slowly cracked.
Denial: ”DIIIIIEEEE!”
One of his hands turned into claws, piercing through the forcefield and grabbing Aid, slamming him into the ground.
All Aid: “Heheh, not bad old friend. You forgot one thing though…”
Aid suddenly faded away into dust, another one appearing behind Denial.
All Aid: “I can’t be caught that easily…”
As Aid raises his sword, Indi snapped out of his trance.
Indicate: “NO!”
Indi jumped infront of Denial, and Aid brought the sword down…
SLASH!

Honestly, I'm not sure how much I believe in the entire concept of a Soulmate.
​
How many times did I think I found that person and, Hoo boy, it was bullshit?
Doesn't stop this dumbass heart of mine, though. Let's get through that shark-infested water and make it to the magic island filled with love, laughs, and endless stupid jokes.
I'm not looking to make you "The one" immediately or anything.
​
I want someone also looking for a shot at being happy with another person but not using that other person as the SOLE reason they are happy. I fight hard to love myself and I hope you do the same so you BELIEVE me if and when I tell you that I also love you.
​
That you feel you deserve it and don't push me away if you are that person for me and I to you.
I don't care about your flaws as long as you're not a person who revels in misery or the misery of others. Bitch about your boss? I get it. Talk shit about your friends all day long but smile to their faces the next day? Kick rocks. You'd throw my butt under the bus, too.
I wanna do cute shit with you, possible soulmate, including nose kisses, show eye blinks like cats, and booty spanks after a rousing game of Uno. I wanna tell you every day that you're "Fucking rad and pretty" and want you to say something equally dorky but endearing.
STARTER STUFF:
I want us to go out and do stuff to get to know how we are around each other. Get to see if that chemistry is really there before we go all in on the dorky and cute shit. I'd prefer we didn't have sex right away, but I guess enough Step Brother references and tasty food/and or drink may open some doors and I won't be judgy about it. I am not an easy lay, okay?
ABOUT ME:
Love Languages: Touch and Quality time (Also Lasagna)
I am a nerdy dude. I love board games, gaming in general, anime, manga, comics, collecting nerdy crap when I have the funds.
I'm a Polymath so it's a fancier way of saying I have ADHD and endless curiosity. I want to be a tattoo artist, stained-glass artist, blacksmith, jewelry smith, lasagna-eating champion, video game creator, animator, and ninja just this year alone, and learned a lot.
I made a horrible version of the USS Enterprise using CSS and I am proud of it.
Romantic, but not vanilla. So, touch my butt and cover me in pudding, like the dirty, dirty boy I am.
I love The Princess Bride so much that Alexa ignores my references now.
I love horror movies and Alamo Drafthouse movie parties. I love date nights and doing stuff. Especially hitting arcades!
I don't fold my undies and just kinda toss them in a drawer organized by fav pile vs "Last resort" pile on laundry days.
I hate when people say they get the "ICK" and it's about something stupidly on the pet peeve spectrum at best.
I REALLY LIKE COOKING AND IT'S HOW I SAY I ADORE YOU.
------------------------------------------
If you like what you read or feel any sort of "Pull", please bug me! I'm the type that likes to meet as soon as possible to get that in-person vibe right away. A coffee date is cool with me for the first meeting. Same with an arcade if you're more adventurous.
Thank you!
​

On July 12th, 2023, 68 Spirit Island players began a difficulty 14 game against Habsburg Mining Expedition (Level 5) with 12 extra thematic boards in an archipelago configuration. One hundred and thirty four days and almost thirty thousand comments to plan, coordinate, and scheme later, on Thanksgiving Day (US - Nov 23), we won a Terror 3: No Cities victory.
The 68 player game of Spirit Island was such a sprawling ambitious game that we’re skeptical that anyone could write a comprehensive summary. We had a dedicated Newsroom channel but it wasn’t able to keep up with the insanity that occurred– like asking your college newspaper to cover World War 2.
Originally proposed by Lemurkin on the SI Discord, the game was played with every spirit and every printed aspect for a total of 68 players. In order to prevent cheese strategies, Lemurkin chose the Habsburg Mining Expedition so that all problems could not be funneled into a single land without triggering a loss condition. The spirits were divided between 12 islands with 4-6 boards each plus two full thematic boards that started the game empty: The Abandoned Isles. It was hoped that the presence of twelve empty boards would provide an outlet for especially creative plays and demand collaboration between players.
You can find the full setup here.
This history is primarily from the perspective of Islet 10, specifically Shroud, Stone, and Violence, who helped write this post. Required reading for this post is also our collection of 68p memes, most of which won’t make sense unless you’ve read this history. (We also made a hype video for Operation: Cities Crumble, but it's on Discord and you may need the PBP role to see it. It's too big for reddit and imgur.)
Our Islet consisted of Base Shroud, Stone, BODDYS, Vengeance, Lair Lure, and Violence Bringer. We identified a few things very early on: one, we wanted to rename ourselves to “Alcatraz Island”, intending to formalize our islet as a prison for the invaders from which they could not escape and would be endlessly tormented. Two, we realized that our islet was almost perfectly constructed to create the ultimate fear farm: BODDYS escapes invaders into the farm; Shroud keeps cities and towns at low HP; Lair and Stone add badlands; Violence hammers them with damage minors; Vengeance keeps disease in there to stave off ravages. We thought an ideal case would be Violence repeatedly playing a 1 energy damage minor like Devouring Ants to dream kill 7 cities for 35 fear.
By the time the game started, some of us hadn’t even received Nature Incarnate in the mail yet. Stone offered to host some TTS games for practice and a few of the islet jumped on some impromptu calls to play the matchup. (We won.)
At some point in Turn 2, Lemurkin (the mad genius host for the 68 player game) posted into our channel:
​

“For a bit I was thinking, hey can’t we get like absurd combos where we funnel power cards into BoDaN to repeat Consuming Void several times and generate absurd fear. Then I realized, destroying 5 cities does a grand total of 30 fear, + 4 from base and that’s… a whole tenth of a single fear card. Now if the cities were softened up it could be more but it would be hard to have that many softened up cities… And it can’t destroy the same invader multiple times. So the whole victory condition is sorta a failure xd”

Completely reasonable and, as it turned out, completely wrong. We did get that many softened up cities. And we did destroy the same invader multiple times due to portal shenanigans. And a Total Fear Victory condition was completely feasible. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
In T2, a few notable things happened. First, Violence Bringer drafted Unrelenting Growth. Second, Stone drafted Bargains of Coursing Paths. Third, Vengeance drafted Bloodwrack Plague. These initial cards laid the groundwork for a few key multi-spirit plans that we called Operations.
UG was the cornerstone for “Operation Ouroboros”, a convoluted strategy for the two Snake players to absorb each other and as many other spirits as possible while getting boosted to 4 card plays. There’s no limit to the support that Snake can give with its left innate, so repeating Absorb Essence many times in Turn 2 paid a consistent return on investment for the rest of the game, as did getting both of our sleepy sneks awake as soon as possible.
Bargains, found first by Stone but later by other players, became an intricate system of portals known as the Aperture Prime Shipping Network that moved an innumerable amount of items across the boards. The Bargains portals in a game this scale are busted: a Discord thread and spreadsheet kept track of all portal locations and players were able to request Dahan movement, tokens, move any new invaders directly to the Ocean (or the Alcatraz Fear Farms), or even grow into a portal and add presence anywhere on the game.
While spinning up these combinations, Bloodwrack Plague kept Alcatraz safe in the first few turns as Vengeance pumped out a massive defend across the central island.
We had a few friendly visitors in those first few turns that kept us from feeling isolated. Amorphous Shadows was a key ally in positioning Dahan; they later used Wrap in Wings twice to clear Shroud Icebox lands in the later game. Mentor gave us some elements. Downpour jumped onto our coasts and helped with a bit of defense. And Locus joined us as a fellow madman interested in breaking the game wide open – the Locus had a hand in nearly every Operation or combo in the game. It turns out when your innate can repeat the most powerful card or strategy employed, you can always find insane uses for it in a game this scale.
By the end of T3, a lucky Cities Rise event helped us establish a small fear farm in Islet 10, Board A, Land 8 - abbreviated 10A8. We could avoid HME loss condition if we kept it to 7 cities with no blight. Our portal network meant any BoDaN dream deaths were pushed into helpful locations (often the ocean, or back to 10A8), and, as predicted, Vengeance kept the farm stocked up with disease to prevent any ravages while Shroud kept the cities all at 1 health. Violence Bringer didn’t just get Devouring Ants; he filled his hand with damage minors thanks to creative trading via Entwined Power. By the end of Turn 4, we also filled it with 8 badlands. As it turned out, this was only the beginning of the fear farm degeneracy.
Side note: we had a lot of conversations on whether a fear farm of this nature was massive cheese, but in a 68 player game we figured that someone had to advance the fear clock to this degree– and we were very careful to avoid strategies that lead to an instant win. We had an interesting conversation on the potential of a repeated Melt Earth that would result in super exponential scaling of fear, but decided against such cheats. (It did create some of the best memes though).
Besides, other islets were doing similar shenanigans. Here are a few examples - but this list is not even close to comprehensive:

1. The massive migration of spirits - particularly Sharp Fangs variants - to protect the Abandoned Isles
2. Volcano cooking up a 10 presence explosion that, due to Weave, Finder adjacencies, and some abuse of Archipelago Rules, would hit half the coastal lands in the game - this was called “Operation: Coastal Bombardment”
3. Behemoth adding an extra board via an early thresholded Dream of the Untouched Land
4. Foreboding Shadows and Lair Lure creating pets with Beast of Wrathful Stone
5. Earthquake’s absurd Turn 4 quake with multiple thresholded majors to clear both their board and a large section of the Abandoned Isles
6. Base Lighting and Base River playing their classic synergy - but with the twists that lightning was playing 2-3 extra support cards / turn, and that they had a Bargains portal perfectly positioned to teleport literal dozens of invaders anywhere in the game
7. SRG playing Gift of Proliferation three times on T3
8. Finder jumping to as many islets as was feasible to help spirits dodge “taxes” - our name for the archipelago rule that resolving a support action targeting a spirit on a different islet from you costs an energy. A popular question in the support channel was, “Are you on the Finder network?” with a pinned post of “Where Your Finder Is Now.”
9. Locus Snake enabling a dozen different abuses, either through effortlessly thresholding support majors like Entwined and Exaltation, or through repeating the most broken majors at the Locus Incarna. We got 2 more Bargains portals and another Unearth a Beast that way as an afterthought.

Just because Alcatraz was engaged in some serious degeneracies didn’t mean that others weren’t getting in on the fun.
And, as it turned out, managing the fear farm required a lot of support from anyone who had a support card to offer. It became a running joke that Violence Bringer was a utility monster; a typical Turn 3 Slow Phase saw Violence getting Lightning’s Boon, several repeats, additional minors / majors thrown at the farm, etc. You can’t argue with results: the fear farm generated 161 fear on Turn 4, 929 fear on Turn 5, and could’ve easily generated ~2000 fear on Turn 6 if we hadn’t preferred a Terror III win.
How? As written up by Violence, let’s see this from the perspective of Ohlsdorf, a small satellite town on the edge of the thriving communities in Islet 9, Board D, Land 7:
​

First, Ohlsdorf gets hit by the outlying damage from Operation: Coastal Bombardment. The Volcano is many Islets away, of course, but Finder makes the land adjacent to the Volcano, dealing 8 damage. That kills several cities and does 1 damage to Ohlsdorf.
Next, Sunbright Whirlwind resolves Irresistible Call targeting 9F8, gathering Ohlsdorf in. 9F8 is one of about a dozen Bargain of Coursing Path portals, and so Ohlsdorf - along with 3 other towns and 4 explorers - is immediately moved to any one land. Towering Roots, the creator of that particular portal, chooses the Haunted House at 10A8. There, Ohlsdorf and other Islet 9 towns join 7 cities and 6 towns that had previously arrived.
Now Violence can resolve Infested Aquifers, which was made fast by Locus’ Exaltation of the Incandescent Skies. Ohlsdorf is at 1hp, so it is dream killed, generating 3 fear. All of the cities are at 1hp, so they are dream killed, generating 5 fear each. The other towns are at 2hp, but that’s okay - 10A8 has 8 badlands, so the Aquifers damage is boosted sufficiently to dream kill them too.
Ohlsdorf and the other towns are pushed to an adjacent land: 10F8. 10F8 is yet another Bargains Portal, this one created by Stone. Stone chooses to send Ohlsdorf back to 10A8. Violence has received 5 repeats of Infested Aquifers (half of them from Locus’ left innate - Locus absorbed Violence 4 times and frequently sent their Incarna to 10A8); the first 4 simply repeat this loop. Violence also has Quicken the Earth’s Struggle and 3 repeats for that, so Ohlsdorf is dream killed a total of 10 times, generating 30 fear. On the last dream kill, when Ohlsdorf is pushed to 10F8, Stone chooses to send everything to Base Ocean instead of back to 10A8. Because Ohlsdorf was merely one of 10 towns and 7 explorers enjoying this kill loop, Base Ocean receives them all - almost 30 health of invaders. Ohlsdorf ends its long, nightmare-filled journey drowned in the ocean. 10A8 ends the fast phase with exactly 7 cities and dodges the loss condition.
In the slow phase, other spirits send yet more towns and explorers to 10A8. Meanwhile, Violence resolves Devouring Ants, Unquenchable Flames, Bombard with Boulders, and Sunset’s Fire, doing lots and lots more dream killing.
And that’s the Haunted House.

As mentioned above, our play was one of many. Volcano’s Operation: Coastal Bombardment went off on T5 Fast and blew up 151 lands, killing 146 explorers, 91 towns, 34 cities, and resulting in the tragic loss of 78 Dahan. We had just barely gone Blighted, but by this point no one was worried about losing the game. We started to think about how we wanted to win it.
A few things were clear: first, we could trivially win a Total Fear Victory. Second, it was clear that most players didn’t want to end the game this way. We knew, due to a poll we’d run in the general channel, that most players wanted a No Cities Victory. Third, we knew that a few spirits had received unprecedented amounts of support for their insane plans while everyone else played a much more modest game. We wanted to give those other spirits a turn of fulfilling their power fantasy before ending the game.
We launched two final operations: Operation Equity, proposed by Stone, to coordinate and give support to any of those spirits that hadn’t had supercharged turns yet, and Operation Cities Crumble, to plan the destruction of every city sometime in Turn 6 Fast. The two plans synergized nicely as the spread-out nature of the final Cities required spread-out support.
Both were enormous successes. Because of Fractured Days, Shifting Memory, and Base BoDaN, we knew both the event and 2 of the fear cards: Wavering Resolve, Trade Suffers, and Unsettled. These were extraordinary lucky pulls; all three could be used to remove cities and, because we knew them in advance, winning the game didn’t require a plan for all the cities; just a sufficient number that these cards could handle the rest.
What followed was a flurry of collaboration that is only possible in a game with 68 players: because the cities were so spread out there wasn’t one degenerate combo that could address the problem. We needed a hundred micro-optimizations so all spirits, large or small, could clear most of the cities on their board– and micro-optimize we did. Base Lightning, for example, ended up slinging 22 separate actions on the final turn, most of which were support cards for other players. The two operations had destroyed far more cities than was necessary due to the impending Fear / Event cards.
On Thanksgiving Day (in the US), HME 5 + Extra Board was formally announced as defeated. No one has dared even try to calculate the points.
And that concludes the game from our perspective– but we encourage other participants to share their stories in comments. As we said at the beginning, we couldn’t begin to cover everything that occurred and so our tale is necessarily weighted towards our home on Alcatraz.
The 68 player game was an amazingly fun game that brought the community together in a unique way. Interest in play-by-post games exploded as the game drew near to a close and many of us are now enjoying smaller scale games, sometimes with friends from the 68p game! Lemurkin is still cooking up insanity to this day. His latest inventions are a quantum game of Spirit Island where you switch boards every turn and some abomination where you play Spirit Island and Uno simultaneously. Don’t ask. Or do! Join us on the discord and get involved in the fun. We’d love to have you.
A huge thanks to:

• Lemurkin, the host of the game.
• Danpour, who took care of the North West islets.
• Alexandria, who took care of the North East islets.
• FloDaN, who took care of the South West islets - and was therefore responsible for handling all our nonsense. What an absolute legend!
• Mysticsquire, who took care of the South East islets.

Without them the game would not have been possible!
With love,
Shroud, Violence, and Stone

Hey guys so for the past 6 years I have been having an identity crisis. I F20 have identity as straight uno until this point because I am confused. All my life, starting as early as preschool, my attractions have centered around cis males. However, there was an incident when I was 5 when a girl french kissed me, I reciprocated because I didn’t know any better, but I didn’t feel anything nor wanted to reenact it with her or any other girls. I don’t believe I’ve ever shared any lgbt experiences such as having crushes on same sex teachers, peers, fictional characters, having any same sex fantasies, taking am I gay quizzes, watching same sex content creators, seeking lgbt friendships or communities, feeling different when my girl friends would talk about boys or relating to girls who liked girls. I would say that my experiences were the complete opposite. The only thing I’ve ever wanted and thought about was a boyfriend. I mean I never shut up about boys I had crushes on and whether they were peers, celebrities or fictional. I was confident in my heterosexuality until I was 15. Like many individuals, I went through puberty and started feeling aroused and began exploring my body and mind with erotica (wattpad) and pornography. Initially, this material was strictly heterosexual, until I believe I randomly started watching lesbian porn and only lesbian porn. However, the consumption of this genre of porn never correlated with my real life desires. In fact, I found the idea of being intimate with females gross. But one day I started having persistent anxiety about being a lesbian or bi and it is something I’ve been struggling to wrap my head around ever since. Unfortunately, the thought makes me very depressed. Growing up I can remember acknowledging when a woman was beautiful and feeling insecure because I wanted to be her so more boys would like me. I sometimes used to get sad at the thought of settling down because I would never get to be with every man I ever like or liked lol. Did this ever happen to you guys before realizing you were bi?

For some reference - I've gone from being the kind of guy who went to the movies 3+ times a week and loved anything in the Criterion Collection to the kind of guy who only goes to see dumb comic book movies or anything that will look good on a big screen, i.e. I've become everything that's wrong with the cinema industry today. Here's my movie ratings for Summer 2023:

• Guardians 3 - 7/10 (would've been a 6 but I love those characters, even though they overstayed their welcome)
  
• Super Mario - 8/10 (lifelong Nintendo fanboy who, at 38, didn't realise how much I wanted Nintendo movies)
  
• John Wick 4 - 5/10 (more of the same, should've stopped at 3)
  
• Fast X - 6/10 (as a comedy this was a 7/10. Not a fan of these 2-parter movies tho)
  
• The Flash - 6/10 (didn't hate this but can't stand that Flash guy and the VFX company must have super underbid)
  
• Transformers 7 - 4/10 (saw this at 11am on a Friday; went to lunch around the 65 minute mark)
  
• Indy 5 - 6/10 (this was enjoyable but ultimately forgettable; never thought I'd appreciate Crystal Skull so much)
  
• Spider-Verse 2 - 6/10 (this was almost as good as the first and would've been a 7 or even 8 if they hadn't broken it into 2 parts. Learn to tell a singular story, guys)
  
• M:I 7 - 6/10 (same problem as Spider-Verse, but with even less of the charm. They built a whole 2+hr movie around that bike jump stunt that they already showed us in trailers for 5 months. Needlessly fluffy story, who needs rewrites when the studio wants a 2-parter?!)
  
• Oppenheimer - 7/10 (this was a truly great in-cinema experience; the kind of thing that reminds you why you still go to the movies. However, focusing on the political aftermath rather than the nuts and bolts of the process and history made me less likely to ever rewatch this. If it had been 40 minutes shorter I'd have given it an 8).
  
• Barbie - 7/10 (I'll probably never watch this again but I remember being totally entertained and bought into the universe the whole time, even despite its messy messaging)
  
• The Creator - 8/10 (trust Gareth Edwards to bring a mid-2010s DeviantArt digital painting to life. Love his vision and would like to see more from him, just let someone else write it next time; felt like he tried to drag out a short story into 2+hrs and the pacing went haywire in the last 25)
  

I think the most obvious trend with summer 2023's blockbusters are that only one on this entire list (The Creator) wasn't adapted from an original property. I think the box office numbers are showing how for the most part we're all just over franchises and sequels and are dying to see something new; I know I am. I also know we'll still get a Pokemon movie and a Spider-Verse Pt 2 and Mattel are clearly going to turn everything from Hot Wheels to freaking Uno into a movie 🤷🏻‍♂️ Personally I can't wait for Todd Phillips' gritty take on the origins of the Fisher Price Phone....
If any studio execs are reading, here's my take: You've had it good for a while. You've been making easy money hand over fist with comic book movies and space wizards but that time is over now. It was a good run. Now please give us something new and we'll come back, promise.

This is a sample of D.B. Myrrha's excellent work, her latest at RENdezvous! Please visit for more: https://renegade328.wordpress.com/
October 6, 2023 Analysis
a lyrical analysis by D.B. Myrrha
Ren’s recent offering, Down on the Beat, featuring the deep-voiced Brighton rapper with pretty cheekbones, Viktus, is a clever, bar-rich hip-hop offering over a driving, bass-heavy, EDM beat.
As I’m neither a musician nor a producer, I’ll be mostly focusing here on the poetic form and wordplay, only briefly pointing out things I’ve noticed musically. This should take me a lot less time than my last dissertation. It might also have fewer dick references, but it probably won’t.
I’ll also be concentrating on my own interpretation of the lyrics, which means they will likely not be as comprehensive. I have watched several reactors, although I thought I might die if I watched sixty this time, so I only watched the sexiest ones. I welcome comments adding other interpretations, or nicely telling me I know fuck-all.
Now, on to the meat.
The Lyrics
(Hook) When I put it down on the beat I’mma make it sound so sweet When you hear the sound of the gun That’s a cue to run
When I put it down on the beat I’mma make it sound so sweet When you hear the sound of the gun That’s a cue to run (bla)
Immediately, the EDM beat kicks in. The vocals are flattened and distorted. Ren seems to be electronic-ifying his voice to make it part of the EDM sound itself (I’m pretty sure I just made up a word, but fuck it.) The sound is pretty cool and, when played loud, makes me want to take a bunch of ecstasy and dance in an abandoned car park waving glow-sticks.
Ren struts in with a flex on his tongue. He’s gonna spit some bars. When he tells you to run when you hear the gun, it means you’d better be prepared to try to catch up with him. What exactly is he putting down on the beat? It it simply the vocal track? Could it be detractors? Is this some sort of foreshadowing?
This here is the starting gun, and he’s about to Usain Bolt out of here: good luck catching up. It’s a race, a competition, a challenge to match his skill.
He is also intimating that he is the starting gun. He’s the instigator of the art, but also the one who’s in control. He reiterates this by repeating what he said again.
The bla! at the end of the verse is only one of many vocalized sounds Ren uses in the song to blend with the instrumentation. That boy is certainly good with his mouth. His pretty, pretty mouth. (At least that’s what your mom told me.)
(Verse) When I put it down on the beat I’mma make it sound so sweet Likkle men love to speak I don’t lose sleep in the whispers of sheep
In this first section of verse 1, Ren uses near end rhymes (beat, sweet , speak, sheep) to create a steady rhythm. Internally, he uses two types of rhyme. Down and sound are both internal rhymes that echo one another, while sleep joins the end rhymes aurally (and also orally, as they come out of Ren’s mouth.)
Here comes Ren’s initial attempt to confuse Americans with the use of a British colloquialism. He’s given up trying to pander to us, and left us to struggle, as we often do, with the English language. The word likkle means “little” and it’s a word borrowed from Jamaican patois. We already know Ren has a great appreciation for the Jamaican sound. For what it’s worth, Amy Winehouse uses the word in her song I’m No Good (“likkle carpet burns”) and no one complained about that.
Ren doesn’t lose sleep in the whispers of sheep. While he found himself miscounting them in Suicide, he is sleeping soundly now while “sheep” (little men, detractors and nay-sayers) are baaaah-ing their nonsense. He feels no need to follow the herd, either. He has his own things to say, as he goes on to tell us.
When you hear the sound of the gun Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat, that’s my tongue Spit like thunder come Drums in Moria, boom, boom, rum-rum-tum
This verse is simply exploding with onomatopoeia. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat, boom, rum-rum-tum, all exploding sounds, warning of dangerous spitting to come (like thunder.) Simple end rhyme keeps the sounds contained. For now.
Ren’s giving us some more tongue-action in his rat-a-tat-tat-lickety-flickety rap style. He’s coming at us fast (I’m assuming “thunder come” isn’t another soup ingredient.) This thunder can be heard in the drums of Moria, the deep Dwarven realm in Lord of the Rings, the first film reference of many in this song.
Moria is the realm of the Balrog who, like Ren, is/spits fire. The competition needs to fuck right off: they shall not pass.
I’m a king, who’s the king? I’m a king, I’m the king of the ring, I’mma run this thing I’m a don, yan-ying on a ying-yang thing Jump upon that swing of the drum, vim-vim-vim
Continuing with the Lord of the Rings theme, Ren claims to be a king. In fact, he’s king of the ring (Sauron, the all-powerful?) It is also possible that the ring refers to his other two ring-based passions: the boxing ring (referred to in countless other songs) or the wrestling ring (Swanton bomb references are common, and Love Music, pt. 3 contains a juicy Hulk Hogan reference. –Apropos to nothing, Hulk Hogan and I share a birthday. Yay, Leos!) Technically, there could be another reference, to a ring he put his finger in like Frodo. I mean he seems to find joy in surprise anal penetration, which could definitely cause a competitor to lose focus. YOLO.
The repetition of the word king adds percussion to the flow, as well as punctuating the lines with internal rhyme. The beat also drops here (between “I’m the king” and “of the ring”) with a thumping bass that rises up from the basement.
He then calls himself a don again. If this were a boxing reference, he could be referring to Don King, the famous American boxing promoter. Maybe he is throwing us a Toblerone after all. Of course, a don is the “kingpin” of any mafia family, and Ren is definitely part of a close-knit “family.”
Here, though, Ren flips the switch into a new scheme with a verbal upset. Yan Ying was a Chinese philosopher, a contemporary of the better-known philosopher Confucius, described as “by far the most creative thinker of the Chunqiu age”. So, I guess it didn’t matter what Confucius said when Yan Ying was around. Ren flips the name into yin-yang, the Chinese concept of opposite but interconnected forces, Chinese concepts being Yan Ying’s “thing”. The idea of the yin-yang, of all things containing both dark and light, is a common refrain in Ren’s personal philosophy, as well as being one of the main themes of “Hi, Ren.” He seems to be saying that he is a master of both good and evil, dark and light, and he’s gonna jump on that rhythm like he jumped in the back seat with your girl on the back streets of Brighton.
Incidentally, there is also a hip-hop duo called the Yin-Yang Twins. Just a fact for funsies.
As Ren jumps on the vim-vim-vim of the drum, he swings us into the next quatrain.
Voom-voom, blat, come through like that I’m not new to rap on a Zulu cap And I do do tracks, and I do make stacks What do you do, lad? are you true to that?
Voom-voom, more onomatopoeia, drums down upon the beat of a verse containing a nice set of internal to external rhymes. In fact, this quatrain contains double internal rhymes because Ren’s just a king like that.
voom/ through, blat/ that new/ Zulu, rap/ cap do do/ do, tracks/ stacks you do/ you true, lad/ that
This is some fancy writing, lad, I’m not going to lie. Ren has laid down a challenge to all comers. He’s not new to rap, and he can kick your likkle bum back to wherever it is you came from. The Zulu may refer to the mastery of Black OG rappers in referring obliquely to Shaka, the king of the Zulu nation, known for his ass-kicking military prowess. By using the term cap which in slang refers to something fake or dishonest, it can be assumed he’s letting the likkle sheep know he’s not trying to be anything he’s not. He’s no wannabe.
After all, what has he been doing? He’s making tracks, one after the other, and he’s becoming more successful, and he’s (perhaps) exaggerating his income, because he’s a rapper and he’s gotta make stacks (And I’m sure he does have a stack of 34 common house potatoes somewhere. That counts, right?)
When he refers to the recipient of his flex, he calls him “lad,” as if he’s a kid. I know British youth refer to their mates as lads, but in this context, it seems as if he’s talking down to him. What do you do? Are you as devoted to it as I am? Are you as good as I am? I doubt it. He’s the king, and everyone else is a peasant.
On this beat I’m fat like a sumo My name’s Ren and I know my judo Candlestick killer, kill them like Cluedo Numero duo? Numero uno.
This song, which switches flow in this section, has a lot of fat beats, especially with the throbbing bass line. Ren is also “phat”, a ’90s rap slang term meaning “excellent” (when not referring to a woman, wherein it usually meant “hot as phuck”. ) A Japanese sumo wrestler, of course, is professionally fat and lauded for it, as they are also strong and can steamroll (literally, if they wanted) over their opponents.
Ren tells us what his name is in several songs: Hi Ren, What You Want, Sixteen Bar Challenge, and Love Music pt. 2. Perhaps he’s afraid we’ll forget, or perhaps he’s just asserting dominance, putting his name out there like an O.G. Yeah, you still know me.
The real question people want to know, though, is, “Does Ren really know judo?” Taking into account his skills at basketball and boxing, we may have reason to doubt this claim, but since Ren is king, he can say anything he fucking wants to, and we’re intimidated. Judo, like Sumo, is a Japanese art, so it fits the theme as well as the scheme.
The game Cluedo is called Clue in the United States, which is why some reactors just thought it was a funny rhyme when it was really, again, just English. In the game of Clue/do, one of the potential murder weapons is a candlestick. There was also a real murderer who killed someone with a candlestick in 1958, but that was a gay hate crime, so I’m pretty sure Ren isn’t referring to that. He is getting back into that sexy Murderer vibe, though.
Clue was also a movie starring Tim Curry, who is English and took the role even though the title was spelled wrong. A true martyr for the Crown. Snake Venom V, one of the most awesome reactors out there, pointed out that a lot of Ren’s references are movies, and whether or not they were conscious (Ren does love movie references) it’s worth pointing them out.
Lastly, he queries, “Numero duo? Numero uno.” I’m not number two, I’m number one. And I’m extra sexy because I speak Spanish. If, as I suspect, Ren is directly or indirectly challenging someone, he has directly relegated them to the number two spot, and no one wants to be Number Two.
The verse starts a lovely repetitive lean on the vowels u-o, with sumo, judo, cluedo, numero, duo, uno. That last line is a doozy, with four u-os in a row. It leads us into the next quatrain, which could really just be seen as a continuation of the last one.
You know, speak so frank like Bruno Hey- Cera he loves Juno, Hugo Boss man drip with a new flow— true though Sharingan killer, they call me Naruto
Here go the u-os: you know/ Bruno/ Juno/ Hugo/ New flow/ true though/ Naruto. Not all of these are perfectly true to the u-o scheme in an exact sense, but they scan aurally, and everyone appreciates good aural.
On the superficial movie tip, Bruno, Juno, and Hugo are all films, and there are several anime movies in the Naruto series.
Digging a likkle deeper, though, there are a lot more obvious references to be found.
“Speak so frank like Bruno” is a good example. Lots of people immediately jumped to the movie Bruno (also known by the mock title Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt) , and its titular character played by Sacha Baron Cohen. Bruno is pretty frank, saying basically any outrageous shit he wants. However, the reference more likely points to Frank Bruno, a British boxer with a 95% knockout-to-win ratio. He lost to Mohammed Ali twice, and was a popular celebrity even after he retired. He was known for being very open about his battles with mental health.
We love how the next line opens with Hey– Cera which reminds us of “Que Sera”, which might be a coincidence, but its a nice mental resonance. Fans of Arrested Development (which we might say is a problem Ren battled in Love Music pt. 4), will know Michael Cera, who was, of course in the movie Juno with Eliot Page. Cera’s character plays Paulie, Juno’s BFF/ babydaddy/ boyfriend.
Hugo Boss is a fashion empire started by boss man Hugo Boss in Germany in 1923. His career really took off after he started producing sexy uniforms for the Nazis. Still, he’s dead now, and his house still creates some boss fashion and cologne. Ren is not a Nazi, but he is a boss, and his drip (cool and fashionable ) flow is undeniable. Ren is the boss man, dripping with a stylin’ new flow.
Ren may be the flow OG, but as he has shown us numerous times, even in this offering, he is a huge nerd. After the Lord of the Rings bars, he tops it with a dollop of anime. Naruto is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. Naruto was created as a one-shot manga in 1995, but soon became an important pop culture figure in the late ’90s and 2000s. There are 72 volumes of Naruto manga in the series. Enough to binge for at least two weeks, probably.
The Sharingan killer reference puts Ren back into the role of ruthless and inescapable murderer. In Naruto manga and anime, the Sharingan is an ability that allows a ninja to copy, by mere sight, their opponents’ techniques while gaining incredible reflexes and perceptive abilities. So Ren is flexing that he can learn anyone’s skill and reflect it back better and stronger. So, if you don’t think he’s the master rapper, he’s saying, fuck y’all. He’s Naruto.
(Hook)
Verse 2
Verse two opens up with a new voice (which somehow some reactors missed–I mean, Ren does change his voice a lot, but it’s a totally different accent, guys!) It’s Viktus, the Brighton lad with the rich deep tone and great cheekbones (as pointed out by outrageously flirtatious/ horny Canuck “The Wolf” Johnson.)
When I put it down on the beat I’mma keep the ground on my feet I don’t wear no crown on the street But you still know me
All of a sudden we realize that Ren’s posturing might not have just been for show to his general public, but focused on a more local target. Even if the bars weren’t pointed directly at Viktus, the younger rapper seems to have taken offense at Ren’s claim to superiority. There is a challenger to the king.
Viktus, then, would be the “lad” referred to by Ren in the previous verse; the one warned to “run” when Ren fires his thunderous tongue-gun.
Internal verse-by-verse flexing battles are no new thing. It’s a game played in character. Here, Ren is the boss man confronted by a cheeky newcomer who seems prepared to challenge Ren for the title of sovereign.
It’s Viktus’s turn to put it down on the beat, and by this perhaps he means to put his rival down to the beat of the verse (for isn’t that what he perceives Ren just did to him?) It’s also, of course, just his turn to master a verse and put the king/murderer in his place like in some Shakespearean tragedy.
However, Viktus claims he has no need to brag about his sovereignty. He keeps his feet on the ground and doesn’t need to parade around with a crown to show his status. Everyone, at least in Brighton, still knows who he is.
And here he dips into the Forgot About Dre reference that Ren used in Love Music pt. 4: scooping it up from right under him. “You still know me.”
Vik has his own command of internal/external rhyme with down/ beat, ground/ feet, crown/ street, not to mention the end word me, a near rhyme that segues into the next stanza with
Still the same old V Still the same old house on the same old street With a brand new flow on a same old beat And it turns to gold every time I speak
“Still the same old V ” echoing “Still the same O.G.” quoted by Ren in Love Music pt. 4. This suggests that he and Ren know one another. Vik proposes that Ren has changed, become inflated in his ego, while Vik has stayed down to earth; no less known or regarded, except by Ren, his rival.
Viktus is still a home boy in the literal sense. He still lives in his same house in his same street. He is a neighborhood fixture, and everyone knows him. His flow, though, is new, suggesting that he is fresh, ready to take on the self-proclaimed King and assimilate his territory. (Is resistance futile? Who knows what we will find out by the end of the song.) Viktus does proclaim that his words turn to gold with his new flows, so its obviously he is taking up/presenting a challenge.
The scheme is similar to some of Ren’s above with the repetition of the word old: old V, old house, old street, new flow (breaks up the monotony), old beat. Flow near-rhymes with old, and the “new flow” shows that not everything is exactly the same in the old neighborhood.
If the characters Vik and Ren espouse in the song grew up in the same estate (estate= British housing projects) then this plays out as a musical turf-war, like it might in any ‘hood in the U.S. Two rappers head-to-head, fighting for local, if not worldwide, supremacy. Vik seems determined to show himself equal to Ren.
Look me in the eye, bro, thriller like Michael Wait, delete that, I made a typo. Michael Myers, Halloween psycho Light them fires, arsonist, pyro
The freaking bass, man. It seems to be turned up to eleven here, just to underscore Vik’s deep tone, and it hits hard.
Viktus goes hard, jumping into a Michael Jackson bar, then spinning the Thriller into a new scheme.
Oops, he says, “I made a typo”, He referenced the wrong Michael, and the wrong type of thriller. He’s talking hardcore horror, man, not just MTV zombies. Michael Myers is the psychotic killer in thirteen Halloween movies (movie references are not just one sided in this battle, I guess.)
Vik is flexing that he is dangerous, insane, maybe a worse murderer than Ren because he’s a ruthless psycho. He’s an arsonist, compelled and ready to light fires: make things hot, fire up (initiate/instigate) a competition, cause controversy (hot topics) He’s a pyro, he can’t help setting things aflame.
The rhyme scheme here (eye bro/ mi-chael/ ty-po/ my-ers/ psy-cho/fi-res/ py-ro…leading into spy–ro and Frodo) depends on a two-syllable rhythm with an I-o emphasis. Vik’s accent allows the near rhyme of “Michael” blend in almost effortlessly. Myers and fires are a little farther outfield, but they mirror one another and with the I-uh scan, they can easily get caught up in the flow.
Spyro dragon, I’m Frodo baggin’ All the shit you’re chatting, your teeth get smashed in Extracting like dentist grafting Nitrous oxide gas, no laughing
While Spyro and Frodo mirror the rhymes in the previous quatrain, the scheme changes to the second word in each phrase, ending with -in. Internal/external rhymes include dragon/baggin‘ and grafting/laughing (which rhyme perfectly when accent is taken into account.)
Spyro dragon is a video game reference to a late 90’s Playstation game. Spyro is cute and purple, he looks harmless, but he has fire for breath, so once again, Spyro Vik is the arsonist coming from the sky. Don’t underestimate the newcomer.
Viktus spins Ren’s LOTR reference into a diss. “I’ll be ‘Frodo Baggin’ the teeth I’ve just smashed out of your shit-talking mouth. The teeth right out your mouth, bitch.” Apparently someone has heard Life is Funny.
“After your mouth meets my fist,” he claims, “you’ll need oral surgery, and even with laughing gas, it’s gonna seriously hurt.” (Guess life’s not that funny, after all.)
Vik is making it clear he’s no joke.
When I put it down on the beat I’mma lay her down in the sheets Take her to the circus, she’s a freak Vegan girl, she still likes my meat
Now Vik really starts talking shit right back at Ren. Ren starts into the chorus, but Vik interrupts. He’s upping the ante here by taking it to a personal level. He’s gonna put his rhymes down on the beat, and what’s more, he’s laying a girl down in the sheets where they are gonna make a new beat together.
Apparently this young lady is quite a freak in these sheets, willing to do whatever Vik, and now we, to be honest, are vividly imagining. She’s likely gonna both condone the bone and eat it like Toblerone.
Apparently, Viktus’ penis is not triangular, however, as he refers to it as some type of “meat” which happens to be appetizing even to a vegan girl. Perhaps it looks like a veggie sausage? Regardless, they are obviously going to grind something, and it’s not impossible burger.
Feed the girl ’cause it’s time to eat Toes curl when I’m in too deep Fucked your girl, and now you really wanna beef Oh, shit! He’s knocking on the front door, leave!
Oh, it ‘s time to eat? We now have an inkling how this is going down, so to speak. Apparently Vik is good at laying down the beat as her toes are curling, which is a positive sign. And he didn’t even have to lock her in the basement. But what? It’s Ren’s girl? (We didn’t see this coming, did we?) Of course, now he’s rubbing it in Ren’s face (the facts, not his proverbial meat stick) that he got his woman freaking down in his sheets. Now Ren wants beef? More like Viktus is the one calling for war.
And who’s that at the door? Better get out of here, girl!
Interestingly, this scene brings to mind the possible response Screech might have had to Patrick if only he had known…
This is also a karmic twist to Ren’s actions in Right Here, Right Now where he banged his friend’s girl, then had to go Usain Bolt when her brother showed up at the door. Interestingly, Ren handed Vik a Stella and gave him some brotherly love in that same video; the last person he interacted with before saying he’s gonna go undercover with someone’s lover. Maybe this is some sort of payback? That Ren. He’s a naughty boy.
Viktus just played him a dirty hand, nonetheless. The rhyming continues in a similar internal/external scheme with girl/eat, curl/deep, girl/beef and then the final “Leave!”
Ahhh, what the fuck?
Ren doesn’t sound pleased. He probably just saw his half-dressed girlfriend fleeing the scene. This little fuck-boi just crossed the line. It’s time for Ren to go beast-mode.
Verse 3
Step back, sucker, fuck up the scene Tuck my socks up, chop chop I’m a millipede on my feet Mohammed Ali with my reach Biting double D’s in my teeth
Uh oh, Ren’s back, pissed and ready to fight, with his Adidas socks tucked up (over his tracksuit bottoms? I swear, he’s the only human in the world who can make that look cool.)
Internal rhymes are once again used to figuratively “punch up” the stanza: sucke fuck up, socks up/ chop chop. Then there’s the Ali/ double Ds , and the end rhymes -pede/ feet/ reach/ teeth (ee/ea sound.)
A millipede has hundreds of feet (most species have about 300 legs), so Ren is both stable and steady. It’s not easy to knock him off kilter, even if you’ve just Tobler-boned his girl. Chop, chop, better run, boy.
Obviously, with 300 feet, Ren can get where he needs to go and move swiftly back and forth, which will aid in his Muhammad Ali “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” act (Ali and/or boxing are referenced in nearly a dozen songs as I pointed out in the last analysis.) Not only was Ali known for his quick reflexes and ability to dodge O.P.P. (other people’s punches), but for his awesome reach when he, in turn, punched people. Also reach could easily be a reference to the fact that Ren is getting recognition everywhere; his reach extends worldwide, while Vik is still local. It’s a little tap in the face.
As a woman, the line about biting double D’s in his teeth is a bit terrifying and seems a bit extreme. I made a desperate attempt to discern an alternate meaning for this line and sadly, found little help on the interwibbles. Perhaps this is why his girlfriend was looking for another option. Of course, if she’s a freak in the sheets, who knows what she likes. A “double D” is also, apparently, a Pilates exercise, but even though Ren claims to be a “P.T.” in the next stanza, I don’t think these two are exchanging workout tips.
I’m a freak, I’m a goated PT on the beat You’re a neek, you’re a little fuckboy, you’re a geek Let me speak, I’mma cut like Troy when I preach I’m a beast, I’mma come Loch Ness, unleashed, preach!
Oh, see? He admits he’s also a freak, so that biting thing makes sense. Maybe he and his girl met on FetLife?
We know Ren is the G.O.A.T., and of course he has to remind this little upstart of his standing. The meaning of P.T., however, is not really clear in this context.
According to my academic resources, P.T. can refer to: physical therapist, a popular but discontinued Japanese psychological Horror Game (published in 2014 by Konami for Playstation), play time (sex), post text, public thot, pussy twitch (a guy so hot he makes girls twitch), Pacific Time, a pint of codeine and promethazine with a seal on top, P.T. Barnum (the famous circus dude and purveyor of “freaks”), public transport, “penis twerk”, or “pound town”. Several of these might fit Ren’s repeated themes, but I like to think he means “pussy twitch” because he is reasserting his sexual dominance. Either that or the Murderous video game or the Freak Master. He’s the king of both fucking and killing, so watch out.
He goes on to call Viktus a mere fuckboy: an easy, callous lay, a jerk, or a worthless weak-ass wonton worth nothing. For what it’s worth, fuckboy has over 300 definitions in the Urban Dictionary, but “cheap lay,” is the basic gist. Vik might of fucked his girl, but it doesn’t make him anything better than a quick trick.
Not only is Vik a sexual empty set, he is also a neek. Neek is a word that blends the words nerd and geek. I know where Ren is trying to go with this, but isn’t this the pot calling the kettle black, considering Ren’s multiple reference to certain movies and video games? Never mind. He’s the murderer, he gets to say whatever he wants.
The word geek implies a weak, harmless, boring person with no social skills who is low on the popularity totem pole. Once again, Ren is telling Vik that he is nothing in comparison to Ren’s swagger and popularity. A geek was also originally a term referring to a type of circus performer who entertained the audience with gross acts like biting off and swallowing chicken heads. I guess we’re all freaks here, only some are apparently sexier than others.
Ren is certainly a wordsmith with a tongue like a weapon (as mentioned in Genesis, as well as in the first verse of this song.) In this case, it’s a knife and it’s about to slice Viktus to shreds. Troy is another movie reference. This movie is about the battle of Troy, a city in ancient Greece. The Trojan war was waged over a devastating decade of massive bloodshed. It was also a battle over a woman.
Speaking of ruthless women, Ren now invokes Nessie, the Loch Ness monster. Ren is a monster rising from the depths…he’s huge and will easily overwhelm any geeky little fuckboy.
Ren is here to preach. He’s about to tell the truth, lay it down for reals, blud.
Personally, this might be my favorite part of the song. Not only are the rhymes skillfully syncopated, but they are actually sung if you listen closely. It’s rare, though not impossible, for a rap cadence to have a melody. Here it feels almost incidental, as if Ren can’t help it because the bars lend themselves to a certain musicality.
The repeated assonance using the ee sound is slithery as an eel. freak/ P.T. (that’s two!)/ beat/ neek/ geek/ speak/ preach/ beast/ unleashed/ preach! Both the first and last lines have three rhyming words, while the middle two have two ee rhymes and an oy rhyme. This secondary rhyme, fuckboy/ Troy is mirrored visually by goated and Loch, even though they don’t rhyme aurally.
Who’s that boy who moves like a raver Oi, oi, oi, a new tasty flavour Anakin flow, I glow like a saber No sweat, bro, I’m loving the labour
Back to a simpler rhyme scheme, Ren’s obviously referring to himself as the raver, waving his glow sticks in the air, and as a tasty treat.
A hot young chav yelling “Oi” is yes, a new tasty flavor. A mating call for all the freaks, for sure. Personally, I’d happily take a bite of that house potato. He knows he’s hot. There’s always another girl ready and waiting. It’s no longer about his (likely) ex- anyway, it’s just the insult/challenge Viktus laid down that’s the problem now.
Anakin flow is an obvious reference to Star Wars (who were you calling a neek, again?) Anakin, as we all know, is evil, so Ren’s (not surprisingly) channeling the Dark Side, (Murderer) and glowing like a lightsaber. Thanks again to Snake Venom for pointing out that a light saber is really just a giant (yet lethal) glow stick. We must not forget, either, that Ren glows with energy, radiance, and fame. Of course everyone sees him and wants to bask in his light. Vik is obviously one of those.
No lie, he loves this work: all he has to do is be who he is and look how far he’s come. He’s the king.
Work, work, work, a work workaholic She twerk, twerk, twerk, she’s twerking right on it One on the backseat, one on the bonnet Grabbing my William, this is my sonnet.
Is Ren the workaholic referred to here, “loving the labour” as seen in the last stanza (aside: my American keyboard does not love the flavour of the English language) or does this line refer to the twerker who is putting all of her focus on “twerking right on it” (obviously a play on “working on it.”)
Obviously girls are aplenty around here, as Ren has one in the backseat and Vik has one on the bonnet (“hood” for you hapless U.S.ers) of the car. Obviously, while they may be beefing, it’s not so bad that they can’t be “beefing” in/on the same car simultaneously.
Geez, Ren, all this automobile intercourse is giving me flashbacks. I can’t see how that can be comfortable, bruv. However, if it comes down to it, I’d rather be in the backseat than on the bonnet, at least in public… I’ll have to think about it. A lot. Alone. Late at night.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter since you had to bring William Shakespeare into the mix. I’m pretty sure he’s be amused at your ribald willie joke, after all, he’d totally get it on with your mum if he could. Your (presumably new) girl’s grabbing of your William has become your new love poem. You, sick boi, are the height of romance.
Mirroring the repetition of “oi, oi, oi” in the previous stanza, Ren keeps chopping the beat up with “work, work, work, a work workaholic” and “twerk, twerk, twerk, she’s twerking right on it.” I think we can assume what “it” is.) Following up –aholic and on it with bonnet and sonnet completes the scheme. Backseat and bonnet (two syllables, b-t, b-t) offer a nice mirror-image between them, especially since Ren and Vik each take one part of the line.
I’m that fella sipping Stella we call that an in-ter-stellar I’m a rapping Cinderella, serve it like its mozzarella Acapella, say it better, bend a beat like Uri Gellar Go getter, trend setter , on your feet like David Guetta
Stella Artois is a delicious and popular beer in the U.K. (As I pointed out earlier, Ren hands Vik a Stella before going off to bone some other guy’s girl in Right Here, Right Now.) So does interstellar just refer to a Stella in the belly? Interstellar also means “in between the stars”, perhaps referring to the fact that he’s a rising star, or up among the stars. (Interstellar is also a movie, for those counting up the film titles.)
Cinderella happens to be cockney rhyming slang for fella (thank you, English person whose name I’ve forgotten who mentioned this. ) It is, of course, also a fairy tale (he sure does love his children’s literature!) The question is: does he turn into a pumpkin at midnight? (Shout out to Ray Vibes for the inquiry.) Or is it simply that his success is like a fairy tale, magical and coming out of nowhere? (Never mind that Cinderella only succeeded through the help of others. I don’t see Ren naming his fairy godmother. Rude!)
He’s about to serve his rhyme now like it’s mozzarella. Cheese will be referred to again several times, as it’s a slang reference to money, but here it could be a different type of cheese, as mozzarella could refer to anything fine, pleasant, attractive, or sexy, like his phat bars.
Acapella means no music, so, when rhyming acapella, what one says really stands out. One has to “say it better,” as they can’t hide behind the music. Ren also bends a beat like Uri Gellar, a magician and mesmerist who claimed he could bend spoons with his mind. (Probably still does, as he’s still alive and commented on the video, grateful for the shout-out.)
David Guetta, for those who aren’t aware, is a famous French D.J. and music producer; he makes the audience “get on their feet” to dance.
Once again Ren plays it up with the machine-gun rhymes, the rat-a-tat-tat tongue he bragged about in verse one. (fella/ Stella/ stella Cinderella/ mozzarella/acapella/ betteGellagettesetteGuetta.) If you include some of the preceding words, too, you will see he is also utilizing syllabic quadruplets in the first three lines (and in the last with “David Guetta”), which carry the flow along at a staccato pace. He then alters the central syllables in the last line to smoothly carry the rhythm into the following stanza.
Better and better, I serve it letter for letter The alphabet upsetter, I make the cheese, I make cheddar I got the berrrrrrrrrrrrrrretta vendetta , I’m spitting pepper When I skrrrrrrrt impeccable rhythms, the rap Mecca on the beat.
Ren claims that he is is getting better with every word/bar he spits. Each letter counts; he is serving it up and it is supreme.
–etta is the main rhyme ending used in this stanza (bette lette alphabet(ta)/ upsette chedda Beretta/ vendetta/ peppe …pecca…/ Mecca.) Ren’s accent leans into this scheme which wouldn’t work the same without it. Note how he adds an extra -uh syllable on to the end of alphabet just like he does in Illest of Our Time with “alphabetti spaghetti” (Although “Alphabetti Spaghetti” is a real thing in the U.K., so it really chaps my buttocks that the printed lyrics just say “alphabet.”) Once again, his tongue takes on the role of weapon, trilling the R on berrrrrrretta (which is a gun, as all Americans would obviously know.)
The architect of alphabet, Ren again scatters the letters and reconstructs them into mozzarella. And also cheddar. He makes money. Lots of money and even more money. This bitch could buy a lifetime supply of wonton soup if he had to.
Deep into his Berretta vendetta, he’s obviously not done with Vik, despite banging girls simultaneously on the same motor vehicle. Can’t let sleeping chicks lie, apparently. Ren wants to make it clear that what he’s spitting (pepper) is as hot as anything Vik can put out.
Skrrrrrt is a sound used in EDM and trap. It indicates a hard turn or drift with an automobile, getting to a place fast, so here he is referring to his ability to rap fast, change schemes and flows on a dime. A flex.
Mecca is a holy place where Muslims make pilgrimage (Muhammad Ali performed haaj in 1972.) Of course, Ren is the creator of bars others can only pay homage to with reverence.
He wouldn’t be the first king who thought he was God.
Hook/Outro
The song concludes with several repetitions of the hook flowing into the outro. These vary in style, with sounds replacing more and more of the words as the outro progresses, leaving the rap behind as it melds into the electric dance beat to lead us out.
Final Thoughts:
This song is catchy and ultimately danceable. I could easily hear it bumping on a dance floor in a club I could not get into.
Viktus’s interplay with Ren is delightful, and he definitely holds his own. Although his style of rap is not the same as Ren’s, it’s good stuff (go check it out and give Vik some love at @Itsviktus on YouTube and @its_viktus on Instagram.) I have no doubt he’s going to go far.
Who knew Brighton would be the upcoming rap center of Britain, and maybe the world? At the very least, it will be the center of rappers battling out in the backseat and on the bonnet.
Until next time, Oi, Renegades!
c. 2023 D.B. Myrrha.
Blog at WordPress.com. Rendezvous
A Renegade Journal

“Try to do this bitch in one take, or somethin'...”
“What's the point of bein' rich when you wake up alone? What's the point of goin' home when it ain't nobody there? Fuck that, I grab my bike and phone home in the air. And I pedal through the city with the wide frame steer. With that tall pale boy that I met last year. Grape, that's what I call him, love, that's what I fall in. Fell in, I ain't like sports growing up, but now I'm ballin'. I guess I'm a late bloomer. Ayo, look, high tide bottoms 'cause the neck on lunar. Them GOLF le FLEUR unos 'cause, we don't do Puma, nah. 20k pairs, gone in 3 seconds. You ain't gotta like him and you ain't gotta respect him. For playin' chess with these nggas. That think that they're bench pressin'. Leg day is getting skipped, guess who really runnin' shit? Young Teezy, it ain't easy, feelin' wheezy in this bitch. New slaves got y'all nggas feelin' breezy on the ship. Pour a Fanta in your poison so its easier to sip, huh? Haha! My shit leaked two weeks before that release date. First week, did dos, a thousand off, beat Meek. Shout out Meek! Two nggas first week top 3! And I can't even get a song to play on the radio. But tripled in them ratings, TV channels still pay me tho, haha. P told me not to trip. I am in my Ziploc, ngga. Feel like I got the best album out, uh. I know I got the best album out, preach.”
I had some of the best fucking sleep. My bed sheets even left marks on my arms. I’m still not used to my new pillows. Apparently you’re supposed to replace them every few years. I have not been doing that, so I decided I should. It’s important to get sleep, especially good sleep. Get on that shit.
I wasn’t going to shower since I showered as soon as I got home last night. But once I saw how my hair looked, I HAD to shower. I threw on a hoodie, some cargo pants, and my Yeezys, didn’t really feel like doing anything more than that today.
I made it to my class early, we mainly talked about that strengths test we took last week. We honestly didn’t even do much shit. I tried getting my group focused but once I saw everyone was on their phones, I just did the same. We got out half an hour before it was over. Honestly didn’t really learn much of what we talked about. Shit could’ve been sent on an email.
I then went home, I had some lunch, made sure to actually eat before heading to work. Also started working on my journal, but I decided to get some time to chill and get ready for work instead. I should’ve washed my uniform though, I noticed a few stains. But that’s not the end of the world. I do think I’ll have to buy some new clothes for work soon.
I got to work without any problems. Today, we will be serving a 48 person dinner to celebrate a theatre’s premiere for their new play. Originally, it was for 80 people, which would’ve made it more of more challenging. But 48 isn’t a problem at all. I wasn’t too upset about the change, I was more cool with it if anything. Still should make a decent amount out of it.
I think it went really well besides for the old lady who was mad dogging me the whole time. I always saw her shaking her head towards my direction every time I glanced toward her area. Like I poured her friends some more Pinot Noir, and I saw her from the corner of my eye with a nasty look on her face. My peripheral vision is no joke.
Whenever I have to deal with guests like that, I just give them less attention. That usually gets them to be nice.
Once everyone started leaving, I started working on cleaning everything up. The clean up was pretty easy, and I’m happy that we started quick, usually cleaning gets people to leave. That doesn’t happen when people are drunk though. I need to start doing those events less.
My uncle then dropped me off home. I showered as well, I needed it. I then got extremely high. I must’ve made a breakthrough or something, it fucked me up more than usual. But that’s no problem.
Looking Back on 9/14/22:
I can’t believe that I actually uploaded it. Makes me cringe a bit looking back on it. I do know that I meant every word when I typed it for what it’s worth. I seemed very fucking lost and manic though.
I still deal with my mental health, it can be difficult, but I do my best to still remain positive. I don’t want my life to be controlled by negativity or anger (which is essentially my past lol), it’s just not allowing any progress to be made. That’s mainly why I wanted to start living more in the present these last few months, and I think it’s working quite well. I’ve been in a better state of mind. Self-medicating might’ve helped on that though.
Song Of The Day: Tyler, The Creator - ZIPLOC
Genre: Rap
Had this pop up randomly on the playlist one day, I forgot how great Tyler was on this beat.

Hi everyone! how are you? hope you are doing alright!
I've started to see a lot of people who either started recently or have been going for a couple of months as content creators, but now say that they are burned out and/or want to let go of content creation.
Of course, that decision is mostly up to you, but there's something that needs to be said...
All the people who say it has a certain pattern: 1. They are fresh content creators. 2. Always point out things that are unnecessary for starting content creators, as god knows what kind of PR etc. 3. one way or another point out "slow growth" 4. saying that they've tried everything and that it's not worth it
I've already said a few words in some of those posts, and of course, it's people's decision what they do, but please take what I say into consideration and decide if you want to drop content creation or even rethink if you want to keep doing content creation.
First hard medicine to swallow: Chance that you are going to grow your channel as fast as Corporation Vtubers is close to none, they have a chain of methods they do to promote their Vtubers even before they debut and most likely they gain around 100k subs in a matter of 24 hours after first posts about them and their channels, another sad truth is that you are not going to be as entertaining because they are trained to do what they are doing, they have entire teams behind them, managers, PR team (ENTIRE TEAM), people that teach them new tricks that's something you don't have, and you won't have unless you'll get into "talent agency" it doesn't have to be Hololive or other corporation like that because there's a lot of YouTubers that fall under such agencies like Purplecliff and others. Another thing is that you are going to be rather annoying than interesting or entertaining if you treat your channel as a business or something like that from the very start, which only shows your greed and nothing else.
that being said there's some more...
Content creation is not difficult; you just sit down and do your thing, and that's it. You can even spend 2 hours every couple days, and that's going to be enough. You don't have to force yourself to do shorts, Instagram posts, or TikToks; you don't even have to make 8–10 posts on Twitter (or x); the most that is a 1+1 pack with content creation is letting people know that you are, for example, streaming right now, or that you've posted a new video around some platforms just so everyone who is watching you could see that.
Content creation shouldn't be a chore but a hobby until it won't be a hobby anymore, and that's something a lot of people don't see. A lot of people say it, Smallants, Pewdiepie, Jacksepticeye, and Markiplier all successful YouTubers with POWERFUL COMMUNITY and you know why their communities are so strong? BECAUSE THEY'VE STARTED WITH THAT EXACT RULE.
And before you mention it, they started early on YouTube, so there were not THAT many other content creators, so the time stretched a bit, and still, despite the low number of content creators, it took them around 2 years, so now with the amount of new content creators it would be around 4–5 years no matter what.
The bonus of slow growth is that you can slowly get to know your community, learn what they like, control what kind of people are coming through your channel, eradicate negativity, and keep positivity to make it a better, more comfortable space for you and the people that come around.
also if you are so interested in numbers here's some statistics: Mori Calliope - 2,28 mln subs (as of current state) - most popular video (ASMR from 2 years ago) 1,8 mln views which stands 78% of her subscribed audience - current views per stream from the current 4 weeks the weakest VOD 36k views which stands 1,57% of her subscribed audience - strongest VOD 288k views which stands 12,63% of her subscribed audience Mori now flactuates on her stream between 1% - 12% of her audience after fast growth
Takanashi Kiara - 1,49 mln subs (as of current state) - most popular video (UNO collab from 2 years ago) 1,1 mln views which stands 73% of her subscribed audience - current views per stream from the current 4 weeks the weakest VOD 38k views which stands 2,55% of her subscribed audience - strongest VOD 146k which stands 9,79% of her subscribed audience Kiara now flactuates on her streams between 2% - 10% of her audience after fast growth
Ninomae Ina'nis - 1,54 mln subs (as of current state) - most popular video (Debut stream from 3 years ago) 1,2 mln views which stands 77% of her subscribed audience - current views per stream from current 4 weeks the weakest VOD 43k views which stands 2,79% of her subscribed audience - strongest VOD 235k which stands 15,25% of her subscribed audience Ina now flactuates on her streams between 2% - 15% of her audience after fast growth
which is VERY low as for youtubes standards for example My channel - 282 subs (as of current state) - most popular video (Stream where I was drawing Ina from 7 months ago) 861 views which stands 305,31% of my subscribed audience - current views per stream from current 4 weeks the weakest VOD 7 views which stands 2,48% of my subscribed audience - strongest VOD 49 which stands 17,37% of my subscibed audience I'm now flactuating on stream between 2% - 17% of my audience after slow growth
As you can see, my lowest percent is on the same level as theirs, but my highest percent is way higher than theirs. This is healthy growth, a healthy percent; of course, it's not 25%, 50%, or 100%, but that's still something to be proud of. With more people around, the percent might even get higher, who knows?
Also, of course, let's look at it fully. We are not capable to see what percentage of those views are actually subscribed views, and since we don't have those statistics I'm also not going to include mine.
SO... just chill out, do what you want while streaming, don't bother with making clips, don't bother with making Instagram posts or TikToks, just relax and treat it as a hobby because it's not sad because you want to drop out of content creation, but sad that you even thought that it was going to be a cakewalk and become new YouTube stars overnight (of course that's a metaphor; it doesn't matter if it was even a year; it just doesn't).

It doesn't have to be a holiday season for you to be on the lookout for a wonderful gift.
The Christmas tree may not be there, but birthdays are here all year round, and so is the children's everlasting desire to engage in a fun craft at home.
So, if you have a DIY-oriented little one whose birthday is coming up, you're in the right spot.
We'll show you the ten best DIY gifts for kids that they'll love playing with. We'll also give you more ideas to extend the excitement with kids' activities.
But first, let's see what makes a great gift.

What to look for when buying a birthday DIY gift for kids?

Yet another LEGO set?
Cool; good luck guessing which one the birthday kid doesn't already have.
A kids' knitting kit?
Now, that's a bit more original, but you'll lose the cool aunt/uncle status immediately.
Jokes aside, if you're on the hunt for DIY gifts for kids that will make them work their brains while having so much fun learning, you have to know what to look for. Here are some key criteria we suggest considering when finding an awesome gift:

• Age appropriateness
• Multi-sensory experience
• Size and storage
• Long-term interest
• Ease of cleanup (parents will thank you!)

Essentially, when you're searching for a perfect gift, it's all about merging education, a child's art, and an easy craft.

10 best DIY birthday gifts for kids—so much fun awaits!

Now that you know the theory, it's time to find concrete gift ideas. To save you from scouring the internet for hours, we've compiled a list of 10 wonderful gifts we wish had graced our own childhood. We assure you, kids will have a blast making any of these.

#1 Wacky Robots

Wacky Robots is an educational DIY kit that's perfect for getting little ones into robotics. What better way to introduce kids to the engineering mindset than through fun projects?
As kids build their Wacky Robot, they learn about electronics, motors, resistors, and more, all while watching a super cute character come to life before their eyes.
An invaluable aspect of this gift is that if the kid likes their robot, the fun doesn't end there.
In addition to a one-off delivery, you can also choose a 3, 6, or 12-month subscription plan where a new robot with different components is shipped each month.
After all, subscription boxes are like having multiple birthdays a year!

How do you assemble it?

When it comes to DIY gifts, you don't want to create extra hassle for parents. That's why Wacky Robots come with all the components needed for kids to start tinkering right away.
You can also purchase a tool pack, or get it for free by signing up for a 6-month subscription.
The assembly process is fairly simple, and the instructions are there to ensure that every step is done safely and correctly.

Which age group is it for?

The Wacky Robot kits require no previous technical knowledge and are appropriate for kids aged nine and above.
So, if the birthday kid is new to crafts and science, this is an excellent entry point into the world of engineering.

#2 DIY terrarium—gift giving made easy

In case you want to help kids nurture their green thumb, a DIY terrarium is a wonderful way to do so.
Building a terrarium is a grounding activity, and it's as screen-free as they come.
Although the process is a bit messy, it lets nature-loving kids exercise their creativity and artistic instincts. You'll agree that a bit of soil on the floor is a small price to pay for that.

How do you assemble it?

One option is to buy a pre-made terrarium kit. However, if you want to make the birthday gift more personal, you can get individual elements on your own.
Here's what a basic terrarium set needs:

• Glass container with no drainage holes OR
• A big Mason jar
• Gravel or crushed stone
• Activated charcoal
• Sheet moss
• Sterile potting mix
• Terrarium plants

Terrarium building is a fun kids' craft that proves that creativity knows no bounds.
Whether you choose a humble jar terrarium or a hexagonal chamber, Fittonia, or Pilea plants, your little one will experience creating a unique ecosystem from scratch.
You'll get bonus points if you take them for a walk to independently collect pebbles, branches, or seed and nut pods. Who knew one project could bring on so many kids' activities?

Which age group is it for?

As the assembly requires some manual dexterity, DIY terrariums are best suited for kids aged six and older.

#3 DIY game console

This one's for the gamers of today and engineers of tomorrow.
You probably have at least one kid in your life who's always either playing video games or streaming other people playing games. Well, how about challenging them to build their own game console?
With Nibble, our very own DIY console, you can do just that.
Of course, building a handheld console isn't the easiest task out there, which makes it even more rewarding. Here's what one happy parent says about his son's experience with Nibble:

"He learned some patience, resilience, and the joy of completing a project."

So, what might start as a curiosity-driven endeavor can result in skills that extend beyond the task at hand?

How do you assemble it?

The assembly process consists of several parts.
First, you have to assemble all parts of the console—there's some soldering, too.
Then, you can play the pre-loaded retro arcade games, or code your own games in C++ or CircuitBlocks (a beginner-friendly graphical programming interface). Nibble is as much fun to assemble as it's fun to play with.
As you can see, this great gift is more than a functional DIY console; it also encourages ongoing creative exploration.

Which age group is it for?

Previous coding or technical experience isn't required, making this gift suitable for kids as young as nine and above.

#4 Coding car

Although the star of the birthday party still has a few years until they get their driver's license, there's no reason why they couldn't start driving a toy version of a car right now.
Ideally, you'll decide on a special gift that requires a bit more than unboxing and pressing buttons, such as ELEGOO UNO R3, a smart robot car.
This vehicle is equipped with sensors, so you can play with obstacle avoidance, or draw lines on paper that the car can follow.
Another cool idea to do with this gift is to see how the car navigates different terrains.

How do you assemble it?

In addition to assembling the vehicle itself, this car allows you to add new capabilities by coding. You can use code or program blocks to make the car move in a sequence of directions that you've set.

Which age group is it for?

Bear in mind that this is an Arduino-compatible car, so it does require some electronic and programming experience. Because of that, the product is advertised as suitable for kids aged 12 and up.

#5 DIY CircuitMess Batmobile

You're invited to a Batman-obsessed kid's birthday party. The easy way to approach gift-giving is to buy a pair of socks adorned with the Dark Knight's grin.
However, the right way is to immerse them into the world of DIY with the trilling Batmobile.
As the birthday kid assembles this iconic vehicle piece by piece, they're not just constructing a toy—they're building a tangible connection to their favorite superhero's world.

How do you assemble it?

The best thing about DIY kids' crafts is that they let you understand how something works under the hub. So, by following the instructions and assembling the Batmobile, the birthday kid can become Batman's personal car mechanic!
When the Batmobile is built, you can let it drive autonomously or navigate it with the controller, watch it dance, or play sounds.
To use its capabilities to the fullest, you can also grab a laptop, and program the Batmobile to add versatility in how it moves around.

Which age group is it for?

A wide range of Batmobile's features might sound intimidating but don't worry. Thanks to beginner-friendly guides for building and programming, this is a perfect gift for any superhero fan aged 7 and above.

#6 Basketball catapult—homemade gifts are still in!

Next on our list is a DIY basketball catapult, a slam dunk of creativity and fun. This is a budget-friendly, practical gift because you can build it with common household items.
Creating a basketball catapult is a simple craft that will help your little one explore physics, engineering, and sports.
Also, this screen-free activity is an excellent opportunity for improving fine motor skills.

How do you assemble it?

To create a DIY basketball catapult kit, you'll need the following items:

• Popsicle sticks
• Rubber bands
• Cardboard
• Glue
• White tape
• Plastic ball

You can pack all the components in a nice box for a lovely gift. Better yet, bring the popsicles and ask the party-goers to clean the sticks.
When it comes to assembly, you can choose between various tutorials found online (in video or text) or come up with a unique solution.

Which age group is it for?

Depending on the amount of parent involvement, a basketball catapult kit is a fun gift for kids aged 6 or older.

#7 Make your own LEGO movie

Step aside, indie filmmakers, there's a new player in town! If you know a kid who's into LEGO and filming videos, here's a super fun activity that combines the two.
Crafting your own LEGO movie is an entertaining adventure that also helps nurture creativity and patience. By gifting a LEGO set, you'll give the birthday kid a way to turn their great ideas into captivating visual stories.

How do you assemble it?

LEGO sets, a smartphone, and a stop-motion app is all it takes—no need for a Hollywood studio!
If you don't want to show up empty-handed, consider paying for a video editing app subscription or an unusual LEGO set.

Which age group is it for?

Although younger kids are a serious force when it comes to LEGO disassembly, we suggest leaving this activity to older kids because video editing requires quite a bit of patience.

#8 Wildcraft Art Box—always a fun craft

Any creative kid (and an artful parent alike) would appreciate a special gift that nourishes the kid's creative flair.
And with an increasing number of people caring about sustainability, going with a nature-inspired DIY box is a safe bet. That's why you should consider getting a Wildcraft Art Box.
These art boxes, created by Camp Wildcraft, can mark the beginning of a cycle of giving beautiful gifts.
For instance, the child who receives an art box can then make another homemade gift for a dear friend, a family member, or even as a token of teacher appreciation.
Remember, everybody loves homemade gifts and especially kid-made gifts.
So, when you gift this box, you'll also help kids prepare Mother's Day, Father's Day, and even Christmas gifts. Maybe even some fun friendship bracelets, too.

How do you assemble it?

Supplies that you receive in the box can be an entire project. However, you can also encourage kids to add scrap wood, pipe cleaners, or other materials and create fun designs.

Which age group is it for?

The boxes are intended for ages 6 to early teenage years, making them suitable for anything from unique child's art to intricate creations.

#9 NG's Earth Science kit

Prepare for an expedition through the wonders of Earth's geological treasures with the NG's Earth Science Kit. If you have an aspiring scientist who's always exploring our planet's mysteries, this DIY kit is a fantastic gift to satiate their thirst for knowledge.
The kit includes multiple activities, some of which take days to complete. For instance, growing a real crystal takes three days, teaching kids patience and focus.
Similarly, the provided rocks can mark the beginning of a wonderful collection that can grow for years to come.
We have to mention an additional, related DIY activity here: making crystal eggs.
Following the tutorial from Pink Stripey Socks, the aspiring geologist can also make beautiful crystal formations and compare the results to those from the NG's kit.

How do you assemble it?

The Earth Science Kit comes with all the equipment needed to conduct experiments. In other words, you can go straight to experimenting as soon as you open the box.

Which age group is it for?

Geology may be a complex field, but the kit simplifies its intricacies, making it accessible for kids in the age group of 6 to 8 years old. And if you're looking for more DIY science experiments, check out our list of science experiment ideas for kids.

#10 Bookmaking kit

Who says that reading is merely a passive activity? With a bookbinding kit, like this one, you can turn the little bookworm into an active creator.
Scrapbook paper projects are nice, but you can do so much more. This hands-on bookbinding fun project combines the joy of reading with the thrill of crafting, making it a meaningful and unique gift.

How do you assemble it?

The assembly process involves arranging the pages, attaching the covers, and using the binding tools to secure everything together.
Since precision is the key to creating beautiful books, a ruler should be your best friend here.

Which age group is it for?

Bookbinding requires sharp and pointy tools, so it's best to find something else for younger tots and leave this craft to kids aged ten or older.

CircuitMess has all the best DIY gifts for kids

From wood branches to circuit boards, there are so many ways to explore the wonderful world of DIY!
We hope that our list of great ideas has helped you discover the perfect way to ignite creativity, teach problem-solving, and engage young minds on their special day.
It's not easy to decide between so many fun options, so we suggest that you consider the birthday kid's interests when making your choice.
If they're into nature, look no further than the NG kit or a terrarium. In case the kid is a budding engineer, you can't go wrong with one of the CircuitMess projects, all of which introduce STEM concepts in an exciting way.
Whatever gift idea from the list you choose, you're bound to inspire the young enthusiast with these DIY games for kids, setting them on a path of discovery and growth.

1. The opening scene is an homage to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey."
2. In the same scene, Robbie's Barbie wears the exact swimsuit of the first-ever Barbie doll that Mattel released in 1959.
3. Barbie's closet takes inspiration from the hit movie "Clueless."
4. There are no windows or outer walls in Barbie Land.
5. Her pink gingham dress looks like it was inspired by the 1964 Dancing Doll Barbie.
6. Robbie's character never wears any rings.
7. As Stereotypical Barbie drives through Barbie Land, she passes a movie theater marquee that's playing "The Wizard of Oz."
8. There are multiple references to Midge, a pregnant Barbie doll who was discontinued in real life.
9. "Bridgerton" star Nicola Coughlan has a cameo as Diplomat Barbie.
10. Barbie Land has an airport called BAX.
11. Stereotypical Barbie's pink convertible is purposely a little too small for her.
12. Michael Cera's Allan wears the same outfit as the original doll of the same name.
13. Skipper, Barbie's younger sister, is referenced numerous times in the movie.
14. Dua Lipa and John Cena have cameos as Mermaid Barbie and Merman Ken.
15. Barbie Land has its own version of Bloomingdale's called Barbiedale's.
16. Stereotypical Barbie's gold disco jumpsuit is reminiscent of the 1980 Golden Dreams Barbie.
17. Stereotypical Barbie's hairstyle early in the movie is a nod to the 1964 movie "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg."
18. Weird Barbie making Stereotypical Barbie choose between the pink high heel and the Birkenstock is a nod to "The Matrix."
19. To leave Barbie Land, Robbie's character must drive along a pastel-pink-brick road.
20. Barbie Land's anthem is Indigo Girls' "Close to Fine."
21. Barbie and Ken's neon outfits worn in Venice Beach are likely inspired by the 1994 Hot Skatin Barbie.
22. Ken's legal name in the real world is "and Ken."
23. Barbie and Ken's arrival (and displacement) in the real world pays homage to a scene from "Midnight Cowboy."
24. Sylvester Stallone represents manly men in the "Barbie" movie
25. Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For" is a recurring theme in "Barbie."
26. The string lick from Dua Lipa's soundtrack song "Dance the Night" is also repeated several times during the film.
27. Gloria's daughter, Sasha, shares a name with one of the original Bratz dolls.
28. Oscar-winning costume designer Ann Roth, who's a friend of Gerwig, has a cameo.
29. Aaron Dinkins is the only Mattel employee whose name is stated in the movie.
30. The Mattel CEO makes a reference to Proust Barbie, who is later portrayed by Lucy Boynton.
31. A bunch of Mattel's discontinued dolls have cameos at Weird Barbie's house.
32. There's a Warner Bros. Discovery building in the background of the Mattel headquarters.
33. There's also a General Motors building nearby the Warner Bros. Discovery building.
34. Rhea Perlman, who appears as Ruth Handler, makes meta jokes about the real-life Barbie creator.
35. Sasha makes a reference to "The Shining" during the car-chase scene.
36. An Uno deck pops up twice in the film, likely hinting at Mattel's upcoming project about the game.
37. When the Kens take over Barbie Land, the song switches to "Push" by Matchbox Twenty.
38. When Barbie visits Ken to tell him she's ready for a relationship, he rushes to the door with a book in hand and says, "Oh hey, you caught me reading."
39. When the Barbies reclaim Barbie Land, the Kendom saloon sign and horse are still in Stereotypical Barbie's house, indicating that Ken still has a place there.
40. A scene involving Ruth and Barbie mimics Michelangelo's famous painting "The Creation of Adam."
41. The montage of real women near the film's end features video from the movie's cast and crew.
42. Gloria's husband is played by America Ferrera's real-life spouse, Ryan Piers Williams.
43. When Stereotypical Barbie moves to the real world at the end of the movie, she's now wearing Birkenstocks.

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1. The opening scene is an homage to Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey."
2. In the same scene, Robbie's Barbie wears the exact swimsuit of the first-ever Barbie doll that Mattel released in 1959.
3. Barbie's closet takes inspiration from the hit movie "Clueless."
4. There are no windows or outer walls in Barbie Land.
5. Her pink gingham dress looks like it was inspired by the 1964 Dancing Doll Barbie.
6. Robbie's character never wears any rings.
7. As Stereotypical Barbie drives through Barbie Land, she passes a movie theater marquee that's playing "The Wizard of Oz."
8. There are multiple references to Midge, a pregnant Barbie doll who was discontinued in real life.
9. "Bridgerton" star Nicola Coughlan has a cameo as Diplomat Barbie.
10. Barbie Land has an airport called BAX.
11. Stereotypical Barbie's pink convertible is purposely a little too small for her.
12. Michael Cera's Allan wears the same outfit as the original doll of the same name.
13. Skipper, Barbie's younger sister, is referenced numerous times in the movie.
14. Dua Lipa and John Cena have cameos as Mermaid Barbie and Merman Ken.
15. Barbie Land has its own version of Bloomingdale's called Barbiedale's.
16. Stereotypical Barbie's gold disco jumpsuit is reminiscent of the 1980 Golden Dreams Barbie.
17. Stereotypical Barbie's hairstyle early in the movie is a nod to the 1964 movie "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg."
18. Weird Barbie making Stereotypical Barbie choose between the pink high heel and the Birkenstock is a nod to "The Matrix."
19. To leave Barbie Land, Robbie's character must drive along a pastel-pink-brick road.
20. Barbie Land's anthem is Indigo Girls' "Close to Fine."
21. Barbie and Ken's neon outfits worn in Venice Beach are likely inspired by the 1994 Hot Skatin Barbie.
22. Ken's legal name in the real world is "and Ken."
23. Barbie and Ken's arrival (and displacement) in the real world pays homage to a scene from "Midnight Cowboy."
24. Sylvester Stallone represents manly men in the "Barbie" movie
25. Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For" is a recurring theme in "Barbie."
26. The string lick from Dua Lipa's soundtrack song "Dance the Night" is also repeated several times during the film.
27. Gloria's daughter, Sasha, shares a name with one of the original Bratz dolls.
28. Oscar-winning costume designer Ann Roth, who's a friend of Gerwig, has a cameo.
29. Aaron Dinkins is the only Mattel employee whose name is stated in the movie.
30. The Mattel CEO makes a reference to Proust Barbie, who is later portrayed by Lucy Boynton.
31. A bunch of Mattel's discontinued dolls have cameos at Weird Barbie's house.
32. There's a Warner Bros. Discovery building in the background of the Mattel headquarters.
33. There's also a General Motors building nearby the Warner Bros. Discovery building.
34. Rhea Perlman, who appears as Ruth Handler, makes meta jokes about the real-life Barbie creator.
35. Sasha makes a reference to "The Shining" during the car-chase scene.
36. An Uno deck pops up twice in the film, likely hinting at Mattel's upcoming project about the game.
37. When the Kens take over Barbie Land, the song switches to "Push" by Matchbox Twenty.
38. When Barbie visits Ken to tell him she's ready for a relationship, he rushes to the door with a book in hand and says, "Oh hey, you caught me reading."
39. When the Barbies reclaim Barbie Land, the Kendom saloon sign and horse are still in Stereotypical Barbie's house, indicating that Ken still has a place there.
40. A scene involving Ruth and Barbie mimics Michelangelo's famous painting "The Creation of Adam."
41. Gloria's husband is played by America Ferrera's real-life spouse, Ryan Piers Williams.
42. When Stereotypical Barbie moves to the real world at the end of the movie, she's now wearing Birkenstocks.

Link to article