CANCER ZODIAC TAROT READING - UNEXPECTED INCOME MAY 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ5mIkLhCyY
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Cathy was so funny on the show! Watching it as an adult, she's funnier than watching her as a child. Even though from season 2 onwards, they gave her a crappy edit. Her introduction package is so funny: "pink is not a color, but a way of life", only for Vivi to say "I don't like pink". When Vivi "auditions" for the team (even though she was already a cast member) and Cathy high-fives Vivi saying "go girlfriend!". After Vivi says Candy Apples at the award ceremony, Cathy sings to Abby "We can move on!".
In season 2, right before Vivi almost loses her ability to dance because of her mom's dangerous ring, Cathy says to Vivi: "you gotta dance like you want to earn a puppy".
In season 3, she eats ice cream with Vivi and she questions Vivi about Jalen and wether she likes him (this was likely pushed by producers, as there was a scene where Vivi and Jalen get to know each other and you could see it was not very natural). The producers were known for trying to push romantic storylines on dancers (Maddie and Gino, Brooke and Brandon, Brooke and Kevin).
My point being that she was such a good actress on the show, portraying the character she portrayed. If I had to crossdress for Halloween, I would be Cathy even though no one would get it.
She could put Abby back in her place while remaining classy (something only s1-4 Holly could do).

I haven't asked anyone about this guy because my default assumption is that there's some kind of medical accommodation that isn't my business. He mentioned on Teams call a while back that he has been "experimenting with changing up his medication," and from what I can tell, he takes an antidepressant and something for ADHD. I know of several employees who take these medications and are in the office every day (sidenote: this isn't a "kids don't wanna work" post, I'd rather be remote if I had the option).
We both started around the same time. When we first started, he would come into the office one or twice a week. Then about a year ago, he stopped coming in altogether, and he only has his camera on in about 25% of team meetings. He still has a physical desk in the office that no one else uses and that just sits there empty, since he hasn't been in the office in almost a year. According to our visible performance metrics, he is consistently the lowest performer on the team week after week by a long shot, sometimes not submitting any work for days at a time. And yet, he's still on a full-time salary earning the same amount of money as the rest of us.
And I also wonder how he is able to take so much time off? He legitimately hasn't worked a 5-day week in a year. Sometimes his name is on the PTO calendar, and sometimes he just calls out for the day. I can't imagine he has the PTO balance for all of this time off to be paid, and I also can't imagine they'd let him take an unpaid leave day once a week and essentially work a part-time role that isn't available to the rest of us on the team.
What could be going on here? Simplest answer is medical, but I have suspicions about how long that's feasible and when it starts to hurt team morale that this guy gets paid the same (or close to it) as the rest of us for 1/4 of the work, fully remote, and part-time scheduling.

I am not giving up just yet, I know you are out there and wherever you are, I really hope this reaches you. There were times, when I was younger, where I used to cry myself to sleep pretty often, I've always felt lonely, insecure, like I am not good enough, not cute enough or smart or funny like everybody else. That shit hurt back then and made me even more reserved and insecure. I also dreamed about something real, authentic yet simple and genuine. I don't cry anymore, it's very rare. I am starting to worry about the fact that I am accepting it...and it's scary ngl. I still hope to find someone I can be myself with; someone I can rely on for emotional support; someone who can be patient and kind; who can be my best friend; whom I can trust fully; whom I can be proud of for their successes; who loves a lot of cuddles and being bothered a little; who doesn't mind someone who is a bit clingy; who will force me to do stuff when I lack the motivation to; who will laugh at my stupid jokes; who will go on adventures with me; who will smile at me when I am sad knowing that their smile melts me all the time; who is not afraid to tell me what she thinks; whom I can have conversations about all kind of topics; who is not afraid to be themselves. I could go on lol
Let's talk a little about me starting with a physical description. I am 174 cm tall ( 5'8''), white skin, black hair and brown eyes. I workout at the gym regularly and I eat healthy.
I am nerdy and I like videogames: I am a sucker for souls games, bg3, the witcher, read dead redemption 2, ff, metal gear, nier automata, indie games etc... Mostly single player but I played a lot of overwatch in the past. Recently I started playing Civilization VI ( very new to the game) and fell in love with the main soundtrack which is entirely in italian and inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci and his "dream of flight" (literal name of the song). Which...reminds me of someone who also dreams about something that seems impossible...😂🥺
I love animals (I have a dog), nature, I am usually a homebody and an introvert but I wouldn't mind doing outdoors activities with the right company. I watched a few anime, old movies and tv shows; always open to recommendations :) I am calm, patient, a bit awkward and I literally can't lie because you can always tell when I am or I am just too stupid to make up a good lie 😅 I am not big into politics or religion but I am left leaning and an atheist.
As for you: just be yourself! But please, write something about yourself if you decide to reach out...for some reason lol

Dear rats, I am currently working as a tech in a growing lab with 25+ members. As we are expanding, it's becoming more and more difficult to have proper communication in between members, and using whatsapp with multiple groups is becoming quite confusing for everybody.
We thought about switching to either Discord or Teams (not Slack as it's really expensive) but I'm really struggling on making a definite choice. One of the function I would really like to have is managing infrequently repeated tasks/turns (e.g. we have an autoclave group, we take turns to do it but it's not always happening the same day. It would be nice something like a list of the people in charge of it, after a member does it he checks his name out, and it will be his turn again after everybody did it).
On one hand Discord is really user friendly, but I can't find any add-on like this or lab-friendly
Teams seems to have more functionalities, but it's not so user friendly, my PI doesn't like it that much, and I would need to teach everybody how to use it.
What's your experience in your lab? Do you have any raccomendation?
P.s. sorry if it may sound confusing but i'm not a native english speaker. If you need any clarification ask right away!

Hey there, sports enthusiasts!
Are you passionate about staying active, making new friends, and having a blast while doing it? Look no further! Our dynamic sports club is on the hunt for new members who share our love for all things athletic.
Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting your fitness journey, our club welcomes individuals of all skill levels. From soccer to basketball, tennis to volleyball, we've got something for everyone. Plus, our supportive community is here to cheer you on every step of the way.
What can you expect as a member?
👟 Regular games and competitions to keep you in top form. 🤝 Opportunities to connect with fellow athletes and build lasting friendships. 🏅 Fun-filled events to showcase your skills. 🌟 A positive and inclusive environment where everyone is encouraged to shine.
Ready to dive in and make waves with us? Simply drop a comment below or shoot us a message to learn more about how you can join the fun. Let's sweat, smile, and succeed together!
See you on the field,
Opal Cup Executive Team 🎾🏀⚽️
(We're still taking name suggestions)

Why isn’t there a way to tell tik tok about people like LISA! I’m fucking pissed! At this point, GET RID OF THE APP!!!! They’re feeding into this addiction… and not just Lisa’s! There’s no way to talk to a team of people, ITS RIDICULOUS FOR AN APP THAT MAKES SO MUCH MONEY NOT TO HAVE A CHAT CS FOR THIS! SHE WILL GET AWAY WITH THIS SHIT FOREVER! She’s using the Krystal ca again….. it’s been reported a kajillion times…. For fucks sake. I cannot anymore. I’m worried about her kids! I lost my brother and my dad to drugs! I can’t keep it together anymore. Her lies are so outlandish yet SHE STILL RECEIVES MONEY! she has been called out for being racist and calling people with Down syndrome derogatory names, lied on all her kids and parents AND SIBLINGS. Claimed 2 kids passed of tragic causes… pretended to be a whole other person!!!!!!!!! I could go on for ages. This week alone was her bday, bday dinner (ITS NOT EVEN HER BDAY!) iop, food, cigs, waterpark for kids and eat n park for a visit with baby that she fucking lost! THEYRE ALL LIES!!!!!!! None of these things are true and people are still donating to her FUCKING ADDICTION! Please don’t block me, I’m so mad I’m sorry.

Sorry, this is a long read but I feel like I need to vent and maybe be judged for being an idiot. I will try to be as unbiased as possible as I know I'm at fault too.
So I (m30) and my ex (f26) met on Hinge and quickly started playing video games together (Destiny 2, and to this day it's still one of my best memories). We stayed up for so long just talking for hours; we hit it off instantly. This theme carried on until we met. I traveled to her (this will become a pattern), and when I tell you it was love at first sight, I mean it. I just could not stop smiling; she was so perfect in every way. As the relationship progressed, it only got stronger. She helped me open up (we both have broken pasts and trauma to go with it). She helped me become soft and as silly as it may seem, she helped me cry again. I have never felt so safe, secure, loved, seen, and heard by anyone. I truly looked up to her and appreciated her as a person, and I know she felt the same. She told me on many occasions how happy she was, how no one had ever been this good to her. She had a bad past with men, so I took that into consideration and even asked if it was OK to touch her and if she was comfortable during our intimate moments. We honestly were perfect and everyone could see how happy we were. Everything I liked, she liked. If I played a game, she got that game to join me (she even got a PS5 just to play with me). She was my little copycat; she even stole some of my jokes and sayings. We were inseparable; she was my best friend and future wife.
Fast forward to us moving in together about a year into our relationship. I moved everything; I left friends and family and packed everything up to be with her. Things were still amazing and healthy. We both have a child each, so that added to the mix, and honestly, they were a pain now and again, but I can safely say they loved having each other around... when they weren't bickering, and I loved them both. I took her child as my own and loved her; I still do.
We went through a lot together and I was always there to support her, and I think I did a good job of it too. I helped her through all her problems; I was always there to help and be a shoulder to cry on. She told me about her past and how every single one of her exes hurt her in some way from the r-word to abuse and cheating. I made sure I was nothing like them. I respected her in every way possible. I made sure I kissed her, told her how beautiful she was and how lucky I was to have her, how much I loved her. I hyped her up every chance I got. I made it my mission to make her feel confident again, and it worked. She finally saw what I did, but let's focus on the issues because every relationship has them. We both got sloppy. I have ADHD and she has her own personal issues, and we let the house get on top of us now and again. She definitely cleaned more than me and I never took the initiative, but when I cleaned, oh boy did I clean, and this was something we were working on and I honestly was getting better but I feel like she didn't see that. I was also struggling to find a job and I got more and more depressed, and in the last month of our relationship, I let myself go completely. I was in a hole and I just needed support, support like I always gave her. She started to argue more but I shut down when I feel like I'm being attacked (it's childhood trauma I'm working with a therapist now). I now see I could have handled it better, but at the same time I told her about this and at times she talked to me about it instead of fighting and it helped. I'm painting myself in a bad light here. She also had her problems, like she would nap a lot and I'd have to deal with the kids, or she would also shut down, especially when her PTSD kicked in. But I never minded. I knew who she was and I fully accepted her for it, and I understand people aren't perfect. But the love we had and the good times we created heavily outweighed the bad.
The night we broke up was the worst night of my life. The day started off so well. We were the amazing loving couple we always were. She and the 2 kids were play fighting and she was egging me on to join, so in a joking fashion I told her no and told my son to go beat her up for me. He took it too far and hit her too hard (he's only 5 at the time). She then out of nowhere hit me across the face and I didn't know what to do. I shut down. I calmly got the kids to bed and just shut down. She was begging and pleading for me to talk to her and I just ignored her like the child I am. The sweetest, most loving girl I've ever known and I ignored her. She left the house in the dark in her pyjamas and I couldn't stop her. I had this battle in my head that wouldn't let me.
She came back an hour later with no emotion. She wanted me and my son out. I tried and tried to talk to her but she wasn't there anymore. Everyone hated me and I couldn't understand why. I know I had a few issues but doesn't everyone? It was our first big fight and all of a sudden I'm manipulative and a narcissist. All I could do was apologize. It got to the point I was saying sorry for things that I didn't do. I was lost and confused. She kissed me before I left and that only made it worse. Me and my son were homeless and living on my mom's couch. I tried talking to her but she got nasty, started with the name calling and belittling, pointing out all my flaws. I didn't know what to do. I just kept apologizing and telling her I loved her and I'd be better. I was losing my mind. She was the best thing that ever happened to me and at one point I was to her. I couldn't understand how she could completely do a 180 and hate me to the core. I made all the mistakes. I begged, I pleaded, I even messaged her nan hoping she would understand and help me but it only made it all worse. I sent gifts, I tried reminding her of the good times... Like I said, all the mistakes. I became obsessive (since then I have done a lot of work with my therapist and I had a nervous breakdown due to my abandonment issues and anxiety). I even turned up at her house; granted I did message beforehand because I needed some documents for the next day but she never got the message.
Well, as I'm sure you can all guess what happened next. She rang the police and I was blocked on everything. I did stop messaging her eventually and only did when I needed to sort out my belongings(admittedly I did mess up now and again but no one is perfect), and at one point we talked on the phone. She told me she didn't know if she wanted to involve the police anymore (gave me false hope). We talked a little; turned out she needed some money so I sent her some. Then it was back to her being cold and evil... She made reports to child services (I've been cleared of them). She reported me for having firearms... They were airsoft guns :/ and she knows this. She's been talking about me behind my back and making me this monster that ruined her life when it was I that lost everything. Even one of her friends came forward and told me all the nasty things she's been saying and all my insecurities she's been mocking me about.
I got to a dark place. I had nothing. It was 3 weeks into the breakup and I snapped. It all got too much. I felt like I failed everyone and I had nothing left to live for. I tried taking my own life. The only person I told was my child's mum so she could come get him.
News got to my ex and she took it as an attack on her. She somehow made it about her. This only made her more vindictive, calling me a narcissist and manipulative yet again. This fucked me up more. For weeks all I could do was research narcissism. Even after my therapist said I wasn't a narcissist, I was still unsure.
I finally got a truck sorted to get my stuff from her, and there was a lot missing so I had to go into the house to sort it. I even made her laugh at some point (bad idea... made her hate me more somehow). But when I was leaving, she turned yet again (I now know it's because I was in front of the ring camera and she wanted me to react to her abuse to further paint me as the bad guy). She laughed in my face and called me pathetic for trying to end it... It destroyed me. She also said if she didn't hit me she would have hit my son, then called me a pussy for not hitting her back.
Do I deserve all this? I know I wasn't a perfect, I'm trying to at least better myself. I fucked up by bugging her for sure but is this level of revenge justified? She's ruined my life. My mental health has never been so bad. I don't feel like this is normal. But then again, I've never loved like this and definitely never felt a heartbreak like this. It's nearly been 3 months now and I still blame myself for everything. I feel like a monster. I've not bothered checking up on her and I'm trying my best to move on She still hates me and from what I heard and the smear campaign is still going strong.
I miss the sweet adorable good girl I used to have, I miss the funny out going person I used to be and I miss the family we had, I'd do anything to have that back but her actions are telling me it's never going to happen and maybe that's for the best I just wish I could stop crying everytime I think of her I wish I could fix this I wish I was better for her but I'm broken.
Will she allways hate me? Is this all my fault? And will this pain ever go because I'm struggling I don't know how much longer I can do this, the one woman I ever fully loved with all my heart hating me over a mistake is weighing heavy on me, maybe one day she will understand that it's not just her with mental health issues and I was only trying my best but I'm not holding out hope.
If you ever read this A Im truly do love you with everything I have and I know you must be hurting too, I'm sorry I did this to you, I'm sorry I couldn't be better, I let my trauma get the better off me and ill never forgive my self for losing the love of my life, I know I made you happy and hopefully in the future I'll get the chance to make you happy again.

I have a feeling this is going to be a massively downvoted post that has a lot of comments reacting with what I will politely call pure vitriol.
But yeah. Kind of... Nothing more to say. The question says it all. I am an old lady who likes anime that tend to revolve themselves around one character. Even if there's a colorful cast of characters around them, I like having one character that I can point as being "the guy" and calling the anime "their story", with every narrative thread or every other character's development somehow being meant to be tied back into a main character. Whether it's a neutral development protagonist who acts purely as a foil to other characters, like Son Goku from Dragon Ball, or Naruto Uzumaki Talk no Jutsu-ing his enemies because they mirror aspects of himself and talking through to them helps him mature.
Then after years of Ash and Pikachu being the consistent constants of the anime alongside Team Rocket, Goh comes along and the anime pushes the idea that "No no no. Ash isn't your only guy anymore. This guy has his own story that is almost completely disconnected from Ash. Here. Have some episodes with him where Ash doesn't feature at all to prove it". I'm not going to debate whether it was good or bad writing-wise, but if I'm coming to the anime specifically to watch Ash's story, and then there are episodes where he simply does not appear... You see how there's a conflict of interest, right?
Now, Horizons is doing it again. I want to see it as the story of Liko, first and only. While I have a lot, and I mean, a LOT, of pet peeves I could get into, I can't help but feel like in episodes where Roy or Dot or even Friede get the spotlight while Liko's role is minimal, Liko is getting... Upstaged? Like, it's cool that these other characters are getting development, but shouldn't their development be the result of Liko's actions or say something about Liko's personal growth? She's the one I'm coming to see. Not these overbilled extras.
But while I have a funny feeling I'm alone on this, what do you guys think? Should Pokémon go back to a formula where you can point to one character and call them "the guy" and call the anime "their story"? Or do you guys actually like that Pokémon has been trying to take an ensemble approach where there's no singular star?

I dropped off of following the continuity after Death Metal/Infinite Frontier. I'm trying to catch up and am confused about Power Girl. Here is my understanding:
Golden Age Power Girl was one of the non-Earth-One survivors of CoIE to live on New Earth and (Watsonian, not Doylean) had a spell cast on her causing her to forget her Kryptonian origin until Psycho Pirate repaired her memories for Infinite Crisis. She and the JSA, from the perspective of New Earth (soon to become Earth 0), are eventually given the Wally West treatment by Dr. Manhattan and are scrubbed from existence for his New 52 experiment, post-Flashpoint.
Here's where it gets fun! iirc the last panels of the Convergence event hints that the New 52 Earth 2 heroes are the "reincarnations" of the pre-Flashpoint JSA so, taking that into account (which now seems to be wrong?), Kara Zor-L was put back on Earth 2 and was its Supergirl until a Boom Tube displaced her and Helena Wayne/Robin onto Earth 0 (main New 52 Earth). They have their adventures there, becoming Power Girl and Huntress respectively, before eventually returning to Earth 2 (leaving Tanya Spears and Helena Bertinelli of Earth 0 to take over those mantles, again respectively). Kara and Helena soon gain a new planet in their Earth 2 universe and seemingly live happily ever after, with Helena Wayne dropping the Huntress alias to become Batman while the comic insinuates that Kara returned to having "Super" in her name due to her updated costume.
Around the time they were wrapping this up Rebirth happened, with Wally West returning and slowly beginning the restoration of pre-Flashpoint memories and revealing that Earth 0 is actually a manipulated New Earth (with events like Superman Reborn and Milk Wars further warping this universe, inching it more and more to be like it was pre-New 52). During this time, Deathstroke created a short-lived Teen Titans alternative team (Defiance) that included Tanya Spears. The last issue of this team showed Tanya getting her consciousness stuck in another plane of existence with... a Kara/Power Girl. Perplexingly, she is wearing her pre-Flashpoint costume but the two seem to recognize each other.
All versions of Power Girl are then in limbo until Doomsday Clock. Dr. Manhattan during this arc is shown the light by Superman's goodness and undoes the final pieces of his universe manipulation, restoring the JSA... including Kara (I did not remember Huntress being in the mix). This leads the reader (at least me) to wonder if this is a return of the pre-Flashpoint Power Girl, or if these are the New 52 Earth 2 heroes placed "back" on Earth 0 with their "real" identities restored. This latter interpretation is an attempt to bring in that Convergence panel mentioned earlier, but as I write this I recall how Jay Garrick was able to burst through the Speed Force during "The Button" to try and anchor himself back on Earth 0/New Earth (though it doesn't work). This seems to be strong evidence that pre-Flashpoint Jay Garrick and New 52 Jay Garrick are, indeed, two different people and that the Convergence panel was either stating they are "in spirit" the reincarnations of their former selves, or they misunderstood what Geoff Johns had planned, or things changed behind the scenes (leaning toward the latter).
For Kara, this is heavily insinuates to me that the Doomsday Clock version of her is the actual pre-Flashpoint version and that her New 52 Earth 2 counterpart is just a separate "variant". The Kara from Doomsday Clock is then thrust into action during various events, including Infinite Frontier & Dark Crisis. This leads to her... interesting... interpretation (from what I've seen so far) in Dawn of DC that acknowledges her entire story arc pre-Flashpoint... but then has her acting more like Cartoon Network Starfire, sooo...?
I haven't gotten this far yet in the readings - apparently Dawn of DC Power Girl meets a Helena Wayne for Johns' JSA revival... For those who have read this, due to this Helena being from a potential future timeline, this is not the same Helena Wayne from New 52 Earth 2, correct? I can only guess that those versions are still out there because I heard that New 52 Earth 2 Val Zod appears in an early Dawn of DC Superman issue, so this causes me more confusion because Dawn of DC Power Girl #1 states that Kara Zor-L's current origin maintains her status being from Earth 2... does this mean there are two Earth 2s now?
I'm guessing they haven't directly addressed this, but I'm reaching out here to see if anyone knows because they've read more issues than someone should and they found hidden hints that help rectify all of this.
Here's a summary of sticking points for me:
1) New 52 Earth 2 Kara seemingly appears in a void wearing her pre-Flashpoint costume even though last we saw her very recently donning a "Super" costume so it is unclear which version of Kara we saw (perhaps Tanya thought it was "her" Kara?)
2) Pre-Flashpoint Kara seemingly returning as a separate character, leaving the status of the 2 other Power Girls shown post-Flashpoint up in the air
3) Evidence points to current Earth 2 still being the one shown in Multiversity and New 52, causing issues with current Power Girl stating she originated on Earth 2... so did they merge the two characters or are there now two Earth 2s?
I know the easy answer is "writers messed up", but I'd like to see if we can either find evidence of them knowing what they're doing or, if not, fancraft an answer.

One of the fascinating aspects of outsider reports and analysis is what they see. Given that at this point (1992) the internet was not yet widely available/accessible, this sort of thing would have been difficult to find. And of course SGI wasn't ever going to tell us the truth!
This will show you that SGI-USA (then called "NSA") was failing in recruiting far earlier than perhaps most of us in the US realized. SGI in the USA was basically a flash in the pan; it fizzled fast; and now it's just that rank stale smoke smell that lingers long after the fire's been put out.
This comes from Cults and Nonconventional Religious Groups: A Collection of Outstanding Dissertations and Monographs, "Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism and the Soka Gakkai in America: The Ethos of a New Religious Movement", Jane Hurst, 1992, pp. 150-151. Jane Hurst has some interesting research out there; while she tends toward being uncritically supportive of SGI, anyone who is making statistics available is a big help.

NSA members in the 1960s and 1970s were young (52% below age 30), more than half female (59%), and from a variety of occupations and social classes.

The Baby Boom generation were at most age 19 in, say, 1965 and at most age 24 in 1970.
This youthfulness is largely reflected in the early organization's origins in the American servicemen who returned from being stationed in Japan with their Japanese war-brides - those servicemen tended to be young and from a variety of ethnicities and backgrounds, as the draft was still in effect during that time period (ended March 1975). In addition, the first General Director of the US organization, Masayasu Sadanaga, initially targeted college campuses for recruitment by offering lectures on Buddhism. Sadanaga changed his name to George M. Williams in 1972, in obedience to the (short-lived) direction back then of Japanese leaders adopting American-sounding names (first AND last) in order to appeal more broadly to non-Japanese Americans.

The percentage of Oriental members steadily decreased as more and more white and black Americans joined NSA as seen in Figure 10, above.

Figure 10 (I'll get to that line in another post.)
Ewps - Here's the REAL Figure 10.
Most of the original "Oriental members" were those Japanese war-brides, whose first efforts to recruit new SGI members were directed toward other Japanese individuals.

NSA members came from the major religious traditions of Protestantism (30%), Catholicism (30%), and Judaism (6%). At the time these 1971 statistics were compiled, all areas of American society. By 1983, the age span was even more broad, with 11% of the members age 50 and above, 62% ages 30-49, 24% ages 20-29, and 3% below age 19.

For reference, here are the age ranges for the existing generations in 1983:

• Greatest: Ages 59-82
• Silent: Ages 38-58
• Baby Boomers: Ages 19-37
• Generation X: Ages 4-18
• Generation Y (Millennials): Age 3 or younger.

While these 1983 statistics aren't broken down by generation, here's what is clear:

• 11% of the SGI-USA membership was MUCH OLDER than Baby Boomers
• 62% was either Baby Boom generation or older (though younger than that oldest group)
• 24% was Baby Boomers
• 3% was younger than Baby Boomers.

This means that 97% of the membership of SGI-USA was Baby Boom generation OR OLDER!

IN 1983!!

Notice how this affirms the demographic estimate from this other research: "Soka Gakkai in America": Little appeal/interest outside of Baby Boom generation

Take a look at Table 4.
Specifically, the Age cohort (%) category.
For the Converts, 26% are older than Baby Boomers; 61% are Baby Boomers. That makes 87% Boomer and older. Only 14% are younger than Boomers.
No wonder SGI-USA is aging and dying, with these kinds of numbers!
We are seeing, like, 90% Baby Boomers in the group photos we've looked at.
The pictures back this up.
Also, this comment by an SGI-USA leader a few years ago during Minoru Harada's visit (anyone know what year that was?):

They [top SGI-USA leaders] then went off on how when we create these big-ass meetings, we shouldn't have to look into the crowd and see, and I quote, "A bunch of old-ass motherfuckers" The words of my "superiors", not mine. I think this is when they brought up the idea of 50K to my co-leaders and me. Source

"Old-ass motherfuckers" is all they have. How 'bout showing a little of that appreciation and gratitude SGI bangs on about??
Worse, "old-ass motherfuckers" is all SGI-USA can get.
Further, again referring to Table 4, SGI-USA's membership is solidly 2/3 women. That means it's going to be very difficult for women in SGI-USA to find mates to marry, which means childlessness will be more of a norm than an exception. Child-free is a valid and respect-worthy decision, don't get me wrong, but a religion's most reliable source of younger members is its own membership's children. Since SGI-USA's female members don't feel any responsibility or obligation to bear multiple children (like those poor, stupid Mormon sheepwomen do), there won't be any next generation to take over.
There's a reason so many religions have traditionally exhorted their membership to have lots of babies, why they condemn birth control and abortion. A big part of it is to keep their own numbers up! Source

It's the same problem happening in Japan within the Soka Gakkai:

On the other hand, aging is relentless. In terms of the Soka Gakkai's membership demographics, the "volume zone" where most members fall is the baby boomer generation who joined by the 1960s. They are now late elderly. In the past, the management of centers in various places was handled by the "Gajokai" consisting of Young Men's Division members, but it is no longer possible to secure personnel. Instead, in 2009, the Soka Gakkai launched the "Ojokai'' consisting of "middle-aged divisions,'' scolding them as "young people in their 50s'' and rushing to mobilize them. Source

GOOD LUCK!

For perspective, note that SGI-USA was managing to recruit just "1,000 per YEAR" - including all ages - between 1991 and 1999. Eight years of only 1,000 members added per year, with no accounting for the deaths or defections. Were the years after that more successful, recruiting-wise? I doubt it.

[Then-SGI-USA's public-relations director for the East Coast Bill] Aiken says SGI-USA has attracted about 1000 new members per year for the past eight years. - from 1999. Only 1,000 new members - across the ENTIRE 360+ million-person strong USA - in an ENTIRE year. And this extremely low level of success for EIGHT YEARS IN A ROW!! Source

From 2018:

In recent years, the number of young Soka Gakkai members has been decreasing rapidly . Looking at the participants in the simultaneous broadcasts and roundtable discussions, the majority are of the grandparents' generation, with only a small number of young people in their 20s and 30s, and the number of teenage boys and girls is almost an endangered species .
Therefore, what I am interested in is the population of Soka Gakkai by age group. This time, I would like to estimate the current population of Soka Gakkai by age , based on information I have personally seen and heard and verification from others . Please note that this estimate is very rough.
First, the largest number of Soka Gakkai members are baby boomers (born between 1947 and 1949 [Japan's Baby Boom]). This seems almost certain considering the history of the development of Soka Gakkai .
Also, the total number of members has already been verified by many people, and is estimated to be around 3 to 5 million people. This time we assume about 4 million people .
And this is what I heard directly from a staff member at headquarters last year, who said , `` The number of activists decreases by about 1/3 with each generation.'' I think this is a reasonable rate of decline that can be felt by looking at participants in simultaneous broadcasts and roundtable discussions. It seems that members who have stopped being activists are less likely to have their children join, so this time we will use a value of 1/3 per generation as the member decline rate .
Also, regarding the number of years it takes for generational change, the average age for men and women to give birth to their first child is currently 30 years old. Considering that the average age of childbearing for both men and women when the baby boomer generation was born was 24 years old, and that there are cases where not only the first child but also the second and third children are born, the generational shift will take 30 years. Let's calculate it as if it would take a year . In that case, the annual membership attrition rate would be (1/3)^1/30 = 0.964, or 3.6% .
It is unclear when this trend of declining membership started, but this time we will assume that it started in the year following the baby boom generation (1950). Source

And "Soka Gakkai is like an old people's club":

Regarding the problem of a decline in Komeito votes, or in other words, a decline in active Soka Gakkai members, many people concerned point out that the primary cause is the aging of Soka Gakkai members. The enthusiastic members of the generation who supported the growth of the society along with charismatic Honorary President Daisaku Ikeda are now elderly across the board. Most of the current new members are second- or third-generation members who join because their parents are members of Soka Gakkai, and they are not very enthusiastic about Soka Gakkai's activities. Today, many of Soka Gakkai's daily events are even derided by insiders as "like an old people's party."

And a more recent report (this year):

Back about 20 years ago a good friend and good guy, now deceased, from ChiTown, was commissioned by SGI Central Command to survey every contactable member of SGI in every district in America. The number he came up with was 5% of the number of Gohonzon passed out since, I guess whenever Gohonzon started to be passed out. The total number was about a million give or take, 20 years ago. These were contactable people, not practicing members. I remember going through lists of people we had on the books and trying to see if they could be reached. So the number we came up with was reported. Hearing nothing about it, I happened to run into my friend at some event at Soka U. He mentioned that he did the survey, and gave me the results. I believe he told me the facts. (Not everyone who practiced was a lying asshole.) So about 20 years ago SGI had about 50,000 “contactable“ people who had received Gohonzon. My estimate that about half of that number had zero interest in SGI. Thus 20 years ago, SGI had about 25,000 members still interested in SGI in some capacity. I think it’s the same number today. (2500 districts x 10=25,000.) Like I said before I went to FNCC twice last year, and everyone, including me, were old zany seniors. Neither conference was for old people. Conclusion: SGI is a senior citizen support group. When I joined in1969, we were all hippie ish, rejecting all the old shit, looking for something new and hip. Now SGI looks like old shit. Source

And another (this year or last):

When I joined 50+ years ago the ratio of youth to MD and WD was about 80:20. Now it's the reverse. Our goal is to move steadily back to a youth focus again. Source

Except it's obvious that SGI-USA doesn't HAVE "20% youth":

Youth? They've got to be fooling themselves!!! When I was still with the SGI last February (2023), I went to the kosen-rufu gongyo meeting at the center in my area. Mind you, the state I live in closed its center in 2021 for undisclosed reasons. That aside, the one I went to was in another state, and at that meeting, they had no byakuren, Gajokai, or Soka Group in attendance. Additionally, the only youth at the meeting were a few small children. Source
I feel that SGI is out of touch with anyone who’s younger than 60. The leaders are retired, have a lot of time on their hands and completely disregard the fact that people may work or have families. For young people it’s the old people taking nonsense. Source

The PROBLEM was already evident in 1983 - and none of the SGI-USA's big "Recruit-Youth-A-Thons", like "Victory over Violence" and "Rock The Ego Era" and "50K Liars of Just-Us" (everybody wants to forget the epic fail that was the "Gandhi, King, Ikeda" exhibit), has made the slightest difference in this demographic disaster. In fact, preparing for the 2018 "50K" event, SGI-USA likely had only 2,451 members in the 12-35 (or perhaps 11-39) age group, just 9% of the most generous SGI-USA active membership total (~30,000).

Ikeda could have preserved a "youthful" Soka Gakkai by passing the Presidency to a younger candidate, but Ikeda refused, because Ikeda was too focused on and obsessed with HIMSELF - his power, his prestige, his wealth, his status, his fame, his renown, HIM becoming leader of the world, his PERMANENCY, and his legacy. He refused to let anyone else come anywhere CLOSE to the power and control - he greedily, selfishly clutched it all tightly to himself and refused to share.
THAT is why the Ikeda cult Soka Gakkai/SGI is aging and dying. It's ALL Ikeda's fault, Ikeda's responsibility. IKEDA DID THAT.
Some "mentor". Source

SGI-USA has never managed to recover from that demographic bottleneck that happened no later than 1983.

Emma Lowndes played Mrs Drewe in Downton Abbey, and was a mother to Marigold. She also played Brenda Donnelly in an episode of Call the Midwife who had a daughter named Marigold. Both characters were in distress about their daughters.
Just a funny little thing.

Out of all the children's shows created by any network in the past decade, I have never seen such a creative series as the Owl House! While I have not been able to watch the entire series, the Owl House fandom wiki helped me get up to speed (fyi: I saw only S1E1, S2E9, and all of season 3). I decided to invest some time into this series thanks to the roar it has created on my Disney parks fan forum, and on the Disney Television Animation Insta. Let me break it down:
Art/Animation:
Very fun, surrealistic animation that reminds me of Dali and Japanese anime, the animation is very creative and imaginative, and I would love to get a panoramic poster of the Boiling Isles on my wall! I love the minimalistic character design, in that it is not the 3D Pixar style animation I was used to when I was a kid in the late 2000s-early 2010s ( which is why I loved the expressionist Mickey Mouse cartoons 2013-2023). While my style of horror is more Lovecraftian and science-fiction in nature, I can appreciate the macabre from time to time (shoutout to Walt Disney's Haunted Mansion!).
Themes and Storytelling:
While I cannot speak for all of season 1 or 2, season 3 was very well thought out, following a classic three act format. I also loved the shoutout to the pseudo-Star Trek series Luz's mother watched (I am a Star Trek Fan). While I could not originally stomach the awkwardness of the pilot, it later grew onto me, and I decided to give it another shot on Disney's official Youtube (where I watched all of the episodes I was able to watch, I cancelled D+ due to budget reasons). Season 2, Episode 9 was a fun romp, and reminded me of the adventures of Star Wars Rebels or Avatar: TLA, where a "filler episode" would later have large consequences for the future.
I also am similar to the "weirdos" that the characters in TOH characterize themselves as thanks to my slight neurodivergence, unconventional political and social positions, and I am an old soul (my favorite artists include Nat King Cole, Blondie, Billy Joel, and The Clash). So, I didn't have many friends in elementary-high school, but they were similar to the personalities of the characters in TOH. I knew Willow, Luz, Gus, and Amity in my life as types of people that I was friends with. I am also intrigued by the government of the Boiling Isles (BI), which appears to be a totalitarian state, similar to the USSR or Germany in the 30s and 40s, with a charismatic dictator, who is bent on total societal control to the point that it is ridiculous, even by Orwellian standards. I imagine the team started a democracy after the overthrow of Belos. My only knock on the themes of this series is 1) This should have been an adult cartoon because of how mature it is for a TV-Y7 rating, and 2) I have some disagreements with the series' philosophies due to some of my spiritual convictions, but I think that it is necessary to engage in disagreeable art.
World Building:
The BI is one of the best created worlds for a series or work of media ever, in that there is a well detailed place, with its own society, government, natural fauna and flora, and highly detailed environment. The people that live there interest me the most. The "witches" appearance remind me of a lighter skinned version of the Vulcans, their society in Belos' era is structurally rigid despite being progressive in other regards, and their cuisine looks about as tasty as stinky tofu (I have tried, it was a bad experience). I find it odd that the other major intelligent species on the Isles, Demons, are called such despite not possessing people or being of a spiritual nature. I think a more accurate name for them would be "trolls" or "monsters", but that's just my opinion.
Overall:
I enjoyed what little I watched of this series, and I hope that more series like it can be created as it has a creative vitality that is unmatched in all of animation. We need more series like these, especially when creativity is given a blank cheque for freedom. Thanks for reading!

The title of the previous Bankedex has been making people think it only contained offers for NI. So here it is again, with all the current offers and with a more generic title. There are currently 5 active bank switch offers (and only one is specific to Northern Ireland!).
*****************
Here is the the ultimate guide to UK bank switch offers - the collective knowledge of ~140k BeermoneyUK members. Switch your bank account, get a cash reward for doing so. But don't switch your main account, open up a second account and switch that to get the money!
​
Updated 15/05/2024:
​
The most commonly asked bank switch questions:

1. I started to switch to XXX bank before the offer ended, am I still eligible for the bonus?

Yes, usually, most terms will state that a switch just has to be started (or applied for) before the end date or before an offer ends.

1. Do I have to transfer the required amount in all in one go, and does it matter if I pay money in before my switch is complete?

No and not usually, as long as the amount you pay in adds up to the required amount, and as long as you pay it in before the deadline stated in the terms. There has been one exception to this - Co-op - so check individual terms.

1. I need to switch "active" direct debits, does a payment need to have been taken before I switch?

According to Nationwide, an active direct debit is one that has been set up or had a payment taken from it in the past 13 months. So no, according to this. But why not just wait for the direct debit to be taken? You'll not have to worry about it then.

https://twitter.com/AskNationwide/status/1442939781491486720

1. How do I set up and switch an additional Chase current account?
   

   • See Chase instruction here to open an additional account.
     
   • The second account will be linked to the same card as your main Chase account.
     
   • Use the secondary account details and your original card details when switching.
     

2. What are the easiest/best direct debits to use for bank switching?
   

There are many: Paypal, Ebay, Moneybox savings account, Plum savings account, your credit card, Sprive Mortgage auto savings, Wealthify Robo Saving. We recommend ones that save money into an account in your own name. Here’s useful ones that have additional bonuses available via beermoneyuk

Site/App	Offer	Comment
Park Christmas (Search)	Save for Christmas via direct debit
Plum (Search)	A very useful direct debit	Easy and fast to set up
Sprive (Search)	Autosavings for mortgage overpayment direct debit (£5 bonus)	Easy and fast to set up
Wealthify (Search)	A very useful direct debit (£1/month min)	Easy and fast to set up

Questions about Bank Switching should generally be asked here. Posts on the subreddit asking questions about bank switching will probably be removed.

As always with the Bankedex, we need your help.

The post has been updated with the newest offers, and tips commented in the previous Bankedex posts, and those in other posts on beermoneyuk. But it is a difficult task keeping on top of all the questions. Please continue to share your experience with Bank Bribes. I will add questions/answers to this post. Your help is much appreciated - thanks to you all.

Current bank switch offers (£551 in total)

Bank	Bonus	Offer Deadline	Comment
Barclays	31k Avios for £48 spend	None	£100 profit, Requires premier banking
First Direct	£175 to switch	None
Danske Bank	£175 to switch		Northern Ireland only
Santander	£175 to switch	None	£15 extra available
Virgin Money	£100 to switch	31/05/2024	10% gross interest rates boost to 12% on £1k for 1 year (~£120 total) + extra £30 via Snoop

No switch, just sign up bank switch offers

Bank	Offer	Comment
Tide (click for details)	Spend £100, get £75 cashback	A beermoneyuk staple
Monzo (click to search)	Spend £1, get £5 or £50	£50 is for a business account
Starling (click to search)	Free National Trust Day Pass

Never switched a bank account before?

You should consider it. It is one of the easiest and most efficient ways of earning a little beermoney. It is advised to leave your main bank account alone. Instead, switch a secondary bank account, or open a new account at your current bank to be used just for switching. Recommended steps:

1. Open a second current account with your main high street bank (must be part of CASS service)
2. Set up direct debits on the second account (if required).
3. Add £1 to your second account. This will be transferred to your new account, allowing you to see when the switch has been completed.
4. Apply for a new account and arrange to switch to your second bank account (sometimes this is during the application process, other times it is after the account is opened).
5. Let the current account switch service take care of everything.
6. Make sure all other terms are met (e.g. pay in money if needed).
7. Receive your bank switching bonus.

You will hear about lots of people rushing through all of the switch bonuses available. These offers have been coming and going for years, my advice is to do an offer that tickles your fancy and try out a new bank. Then, if you decide you do not like your new bank you should sample another bank and get paid again!
​

Are there some bank accounts worth keeping?

Why yes. Some are quite good, and give ongoing rewards. For example, Club Lloyds gives free Disney Plus. See the "don't leave us please" bank rewards post. Some also give access to the best savings accounts (e.g. regular savers).

Detailed switch offer information

Whilst we do our best to make sure things are correct, sometimes errors do slip through. Always do your own research. Also, it may not be possible to work through all of these.
​

Barclays

Current offer: 31k Avios for full switch to Premier Banking, and paying £12/month for “Avios Rewards” for 4 months - works out around £100 profit when converted to Nectar points.

Direct link to offer (scroll down)

• You must switch to Premier Bank account.

These are premium accounts, supposed to be for those with £70k+ salaries. However, cycling £4201 each month also appears to do the job

Offer end date: None listed
Requirements:

• Open a Barclays Premier bank account & join Avios Rewards (£12/month fee), or
  
• Complete a full switch from a different bank (you do this from within the app, after opening the account).
  

Reward payable by: 1.5k Avios each month for Avios Rewards, 25k Avios paid in month 4 for the switch.
Available to existing customers: No.
Additional notes: it can be worth doing the Barclaycard Avios Plus offer at the same time, as you will get a discount on the credit card fee.

​

Danske Bank

Current offer: £200 for full switch

Direct link to Danske Bank offer

• You can switch to their Danske Reward, Danske Choice or Danske Freedom current account.

Offer end date: No end date given, may be removed at any time.
Requirements:

• Full switch (no direct debits mentioned).
  
• After opening account, pay in £1000 within 60 days (can be multiple deposits)
  
• You cannot have had a Danske Bank reward since 01/01/2024
  

Available to existing customers: only if you are a new personal current account customer. .
How long does it take to pay the bonus: paid within 10 days of meeting requirements.

​

First Direct

Current offer: £175 when you switch

Direct link to First Direct offer

• You can switch to their First account.

Offer end date: No end date given, may be removed at any time.
Requirements:

• Full switch (two direct debits or standing orders are required).
  
• After opening account, log in to mobile banking, pay in £1000, and make 5 debit card payments within 30 days.
  
• You cannot have had a 1st Direct account before.
  
• You cannot switch if you have an HSBC account opened after 01/2020
  

How to do it: Once your first direct account is open, simply log into your first direct app, select the account you wish to transfer into, tap ‘switch to us’ from your account menu and follow the instructions.
Available to existing customers: No. Also can't have had a HSBC account opened since January 2018.
How long does it take to pay the bonus: paid by the 20th of the month following that in which you met all of the criteria.

​

Santander

Extra £15: You can get an extra £15 by signing up to a Santander Edge account via Topcashback. If you don't have a Topcashback account, you can sign up here:

Topcashback sign up

Current offer: £175

Direct link to offer
You can switch to any of these paid current accounts: Santander Edge current account, Edge Up, or the Private Current Account

Offer end date: None given
Requirements: Full switch.

• Apply to switch when you apply to open the account (or existing customers can just switch into an existing qualifying current account).
  
• Complete switch of a non-Santander account, set up 2 active direct debits, and pay in £1500 within 60 days of applying/telling Santander you want to switch. Must keep direct debits active on account
  
• Cannot have had a Santander-group bonus previously (Santander, Cahoot, Cater Allen)
  

Reward payable by: between 60 and 90 days after opening the account.
Available to existing customers: Yes (can switch a non-Santander group current account into a new or existing Santander account). Existing customers may need to visit a branch.

​

Virgin Money

Current offer: Extra 10% interest on £1k for a year (~£100 bonus)
Extra £30: You can get an extra £30 by signing up to Virgin via Snoop (you need to connect your Virgin account to Snoop). If you don't have a Snoop account, you can sign up here for an additional fiver too:

Snoop £5 sign up bonus
Direct link to Virgin Money offer

• You can switch to their M Account (free, ~10% interest total, gross), M Plus Account (free account, ~12% interest total) or Club M Account (costs £12.50/month for insurance and stuff, ~12% total, is one of the best value package accounts - especially if a joint account)

Offer end date: apply by 31/05/24
Requirements:

• Full switch (two direct debits required as part of the switch).

Available to existing customers: No. And can't have closed an account since 30/04/2024
How long does it take to pay the bonus: interest is paid monthly, so a a year to get it all!

​

General Bank Switch Questions

Current Account Switch Bribes - Why do they offer them?

They want your business. Banks like fighting each other for customers. Most of them know they can't win by highlighting their outdated systems and products, so they fight each other by offering potential customers cash bribes (or equivalent) to switch their "main" bank account.

Can I switch any bank account to get a bribe?

No. You must switch a bank account that is part of The Current Account Switch Service (CASS). Most high street banks are included. But some Neo Banks are not (e.g., Kroo, Revolut, & Monese are not included). You should try to avoid switching your main bank account. You can always open an additional account just to switch.
See here for a full list of CASS banks.

Is it too much hassle?

No. The Current Account Switch Service (CASS) makes switching your account between most banks smooth and effortless. You do not have to do anything apart from apply for and set up a new account at a different bank and tell them you want to switch your account to them. Everything is transferred automatically (except recurring card payments).

Is there the best route to sample all the banks with switch offers?

Do the offer ending soonest first. Then you might switch again. If you complete all offers in this post, you could earn yourself >£1000.

Some of these end soon. Will the offers come back?

Banks have been offering bribes on and off for many years. We can't predict the future. But this is not a new thing.

How long does a bank switch take?

Approximately one week.

Do I have to switch my main account?

You could. But you don't have to. Many people have second bank accounts. One option may be to open up a second account with your current high street bank, add some direct debits to this second account and then switch it to the new bank you want to try out. On the sub, people also like Starling or Monzo as they are easy to set up (but you might want to switch back to them at the end - their functionality wins vs any usual high street bank).
High-street banks also let you open multiple accounts. If you already have an account with one, you might want to open an additional one with your current bank first (Halifax, NatWest etc are reported to allow several current accounts and to be fast to open).

I have savings accounts at the same bank as my current account. Can I still switch to this current account?

Yes. Only the current account will be closed (some linked regular savers may be converted to normal savings accounts). You might want to consider if switching to a secondary account is a better option.

I have linked savers attached to my current account. Can I still switch it?

Possibly.

Which banks let me open a second bank account?

Most of them.

Do I need to activate the card on the account I am going to switch?

Just do it anyway. Some banks require it

What details do I need to switch?

• Sort code and account number.
• Debit card information.
• Usually, but not always, 2 active DDs on the account you are switching.

Do you need to have money in the account you are switching?

No. But it might be a good idea - this will allow you to see when the switch happens (i.e. when the money is transferred!).

I do not have a bank card with my old current account as it is very very old, can I still switch it?

Most online forms require card details, but you can usually switch such accounts over the phone.

My new bank has not given me my account number (e.g. NatWest).

Usually, these are sent via post/email when you sign up. But some banks don't have the account numbers on the card, or maybe letters get lost in the post. If this happens, wait for the card to arrive and contact their support. If you get a bot on the chat thing, type "speak to a human" repeatedly.

My new bank account is a premium account and it has a fee. Do I need to keep paying for this?

No. You can downgrade the account. But you should probably wait until you have been paid the bonus.

I don't like my new bank, do I need to wait for the bank card before switching again?

Yes. See question above. Most banks require the card details of your existing account.

I made an account just to switch. Can I switch before my new bank card arrives?

Best not to. You are asked to enter the debit card information as part of the process.

The offer says I have to pay in £xxxx. Does it have to be in one go?

No. You can transfer in and out. The total sent in has to be equal to or greater than the stated amount. You should be careful with this though, sending money in and out of an account can trigger anti-fraud measures.

The offer says I have to pay in £xxxx. Can I pay it in before the switch completes?

Yes. You can pay it before, after, or during. You can manually transfer it, or it can be transferred automatically from your old account.

I've been asked to verify my identity. Is this normal?

Sometimes automated checks fail. If this happens, you may be asked to manually verify your application by visiting a branch or sending in a copy of your ID.

I switched from Monzo/Starling and want to return, can I?

Starling does not let you return within 12 months. With Monzo, it's possibly a shorter one month that you have to wait.

Do I have to switch direct debits?

Check individual offer terms.

What is an "Active" direct debit?

An active direct debit is usually one where a payment had been taken in the last 13 months. But some bank switch terms require direct debits to have been paid out of the account. If an offer requires an active direct debit, it's safer to switch to an account that has already paid out direct debits.**

What are good direct debits to set up on a second account?

There are many: Paypal, Ebay, Moneybox savings account, Plum savings account, your credit card, Sprive Mortgage auto savings, Wealthify Robo Saving.

I recently switched to XXX Bank, and I do not like it. Can I switch again?

Yes. If you are not happy with the new service, you may want to switch to a new bank that will pay you to give them a try.

Do I have to stick with my new bank for any length of time?

No.

If I switch away, will the bank claw back the bonus?

Very unlikely. They would have to specify this in their terms, and none have ever done so.

My switch is complete, but I have not yet received my bonus. Will I still get the bonus if I switch this account before it is paid?

Probably not.

My most recent switch is not quite complete, but I have already received the bonus. Can I start another switch?

You should probably wait for the switch to complete.

Can I get more than one bribe from each bank?

Sometimes. With some banks (e.g. Nationwide), you can get a bonus for switching one sole and one joint current account. Other banks will pay you to switch again, as long as you have not had a bonus in a specified amount of time. You will need to check individual offer terms.

XXX Bank gave me a bonus before, can I get a bonus again?

You need to check the individual offer terms.

Will this affect my credit score?

Credit scores are a funny thing, What is more important is what is actually in your credit file. Obviously, if you apply for an overdraft then it will affect your "credit score". However, if you do not have an overdraft or you make sure that you have paid off any overdraft before switching banks, then a single current account switch should not negatively impact your credit score. Nevertheless, typically all major banks (excepting Monzo and Starling) do a hard credit search, and this will be recorded on your file. If you plan on applying for a new mortgage soon then you may wish to exercise caution in switching between a load of banks. This is because the hard searches performed by banks will appear on your report and may have an effect for 6-12 months.

Which banks do hard searches and which do soft searches??

See here. Most banks do hard searches.

• Hard searches: Bank of Scotland (first account only), Barclays, Co-op, Clydesdale, Halifax (1st account only), First Direct, HSBC, Lloyds (1st account only), Monzo, Nationwide, NatWest, RBS, Santander, TSB, Ulster, Virgin Money.
  
• Soft searches: Starling, Metro Bank, and Chase
  

I have a bad credit score, will I be accepted to XXX bank?

Unfortunately, we do not know the acceptance criteria of the banks. You might be unlucky with one bank, but lucky with another.

My application was rejected. Why?

Nobody here knows. You could try appealing, but your only way to find out more is to contact the bank.

After switching my account, I still have online banking with my old provider. Do I need this?

No. You do not need to keep the online access (you could shut it down). But you may wish to retain these details in case your old bank suddenly appears with an offer that makes you want to switch back. Or open up a savings account.

Has anyone else been paid for switching to XXX Bank yet?

Check the terms of the offer you signed up for. Some banks have long deadlines and stick to them (e.g. Santander, TSB). Some are quicker. If you haven't been paid within the stated terms, then you should contact the bank's support.

A couple of projection clicks kick off the next trailer before the footage is shown. as shots of a college campus appear, while kids are walking around,a narration opens with "This is story of five young women, A rocker, (showing footage of her and a band performing karaoke on stage at a rec center) an athlete (showing footage of her running hurdles on a track), a cheerleader (rooting for her team and her boyfriend during a football game), an outcast (basically a goth kid), and an academic (showing footage of her study for a book report on the novel "the most dangerous game"). "They were college students, sorority sisters, and the best of friends since childhood (which shows footage of them as kids,teenagers, then the adults they became later in life) until the night their perfect worlds were shattered beyond repair". "What started as an innocent practical joke drew the ire of a dangerous gang who followed them home (while the narration is going on they slashed the tires and disabled the motor to the gangs car in retaliation/defense of an uncle and two four year old children who were being bullied by the gang, then it's cuts to the gang breaking in to the sorority house and while try as they may,the girls are no match for the gang) and savagely beat and kill their housemother" ( one gang members holds the other residents at gunpoint in a corner of the house, five others pin the five girls down to the floor and make them watch whole the gang leader (who has a scar in the shape of a hook from his eyebrow to his ear ) and his second in command beat the housemother almost to death) you see and hear the girls crying and pleading not to kill her and offer to fix the car in exchange for her life but to no avail, the housemother tries to comfort the girls, knowing that she's about to die "there,there now. Everything's going to be ok, you girls be good you hear me?" Then hook-scar blows her face off with a shotgun and blood and brains splatter all over the girls while they're bawling their eyes out as he coldly says ".....and to all a goodnight " one gang member wants to waste the other girls but hook-scar grabs his shirts and forcefully reminds him "WE'RE DONE HERE!!!!, no lets get outta here before campus police show up". The next morning the girls are interviewed by police, but they don't tell them what caused the attack, after the housemother's funeral the girls are confronted by one of their fellow sisters and gives them a key that one of the gang members left behind. "What's this? ", "I don't know ", "Looks to me like a storage key, there's a storage area downtown let's go take a look later tonight". Later in the night the match the key with a storage unit, and they open it up to find all kinds of firearms (shotguns, M-16's, 9mm's, you name it) "What does this mean?" "Isn't it obvious?, if the police can't do anything we'll do it ourselves, we have all the weapons we'll ever need to defend ourselves, but where to start?" "Hey,do you guys remember Mr. Gomez's class reports on the most dangerous game?" Next few shots would be the five girls loading ammo mags, strap on ammunition belts and loading their new found guns "NOW..,these five young women are on safari, hunting their quarry in the most dangerous environment know to man.............the criminal underworld", on this night they would be known as,THE MAN-HUNTERS!!!" and it would be a bloody and violent montage of them killing pimps,drug-dealers, etc. setting traps,lures and snares for perverts, child molesters, and rapists and when word got around that the girls were using weapons from their own storage unit,hook-scar beats the gang member who dropped the key to death and declares they were going on a hunt of their own, second to final shot shows and a kidnapped athlete held prisoner by hook-scar who starts cutting off her fingers one by one (because he "doesn't like sticky fingers touching his property") followed by her bloodcurdling scream of pain while blood splashes in her face, final shot shows the four girls breaking in to rescue the athlete and killing the remaining gang members while hook scar takes a shot to the side and a deep laceration to the side of his neck. While he's crawling towards the exit the four girls patch up the athlete's hand (who's missing a thumb and half a pinky finger) and walk straight towards him with gun barrels pointed at him, and while spitting blood in his face the athlete mocking taunts hook-scar with his own phrase ".......and to all a goodnight". And while he gives the girls his own bloodcurdling scream of defiance, flashes of light from the gunshots and smoke fill the theater screen and freeze frame with the narration returning, "The Man-Hunters,.......pray you're not on their endangered species list"
A 70's title card appears "COMING SOON"
The grindhouse theme returns while another title card appears, "OUR FEATURE PRESENTATION"

I'm testing a scenario for a client where they have Intune-managed devices but want to deploy app protection policies for unenrolled devices (BYOD) only. The big problem that I've been reading about in various articles and threads here on Reddit is the difficulty of segregating managed and unmanaged devices with filters after Microsoft changed the way this policy works in Intune.
Currently, even with all the configuration detailed below, my personal device and my corporate device receive both application protection policies and this should not happen.
Can anyone help me? I believe this will help other people who are also going through this big problem.
A brief summary of current settings:

Conditional Access:

• Assignment: Assigned to a group containing only my user.
• Target Resources: Office 365
• Conditions: Device Platform Including (Android and iOS) and Filter for Device excluding: device.deviceOwnership -eq "Company"
• Grant: Require multifactor authentication and Require App Protection Policy.

Filters:

Filter 1:

• Name: Unmanaged Devices
• Platform: iOS
• Filter Type: Managed Apps
• Rule Sintax: (app.deviceManagementType -eq "Unmanaged") and (app.deviceModel -contains "iPad") or (app.deviceModel -contains "iPhone")

Filter 2:

• Name: Managed Devices
• Platform: iOS
• Filter Type: Managed Apps
• Rule Sintax: (app.deviceManagementType -eq "Managed") and (app.deviceModel -contains "iPad") or (app.deviceModel -contains "iPhone")

App Configuration Policy:

• App: Outlook
• Enrollment Type: Managed Devices
• Platform: iOS
• Assignment: Assigned to the same group as the conditional access policy
• Filter: None

Configuration Key	Value Type	Configuration Value
IntuneMAMUPN	String	{{UserPrincipalName}}
IntuneMAMOID	String	{{userid}}

• App: Microsoft Teams
• Enrollment Type: Managed Devices
• Platform: iOS
• Assignment: Assigned to the same group as the conditional access policy
• Filter: None

Configuration Key	Value Type	Configuration Value
IntuneMAMUPN	String	{{UserPrincipalName}}
IntuneMAMOID	String	{{userid}}

App Protection Policy:

Policy1:

• Name: Unmanaged Devices
• Platform: iOS

Target to apps on all device types: Yes ^{(It is no longer possible to change this in the Apps tab during the creation of the policy, you must differentiate between devices types using the filters.}********)

• Device Types: No Device types
• Public apps: Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams
• Assignment: Assigned to the same group as the conditional access policy
• Filter: Unmanaged Devices
• Filter Mode: Include

NOTE: I did not include all configurations as they are not relevant to the device assignment problem.
Policy 2:

• Name: Managed Devices
• Platform: iOS

Target to apps on all device types: Yes ^{(It is no longer possible to change this in the Apps tab during the creation of the policy, you must differentiate between devices types using the filters.}********)

• Device Types: No Device types
• Public apps: Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams
• Assignment: Assigned to the same group as the conditional access policy
• Filter: Managed Devices
• Filter Mode: Include

NOTE: I did not include all configurations as they are not relevant to the device assignment problem.

Source: https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/Article/weapon_tuning_the_final_shape
Hey, Guardians, it's the Weapons Team here with the weapon balance update for The Final Shape.
There's a lot to go through, from a comprehensive PvE weapon damage pass to Exotics changes, varying from substantial reworks to minor tweaks. We are also tamping down some outliers with an eye toward the World First race for the upcoming raid. And maybe there's a hint in here about a returning fan-favorite weapon, too...

Weapon Archetypes

Back in update 6.3.0, we rolled a set of Spec mods (Dragonfly, Surrounded, and Rampage) into the base functionality of those perks, and now we're coming for the rest of the Spec mods. We've increased base weapon damage almost universally (making exceptions for weapons that were already overperforming or that we buffed very recently) and have retired the following weapon mods:

• Boss Spec, Taken Spec, Minor Spec, Major Spec, and Adept Big Ones Spec.

We were already happy with the damage output of Exotic Primary weapons and Trace Rifles, so we only slightly reduced their damage bonus versus red bars. In most cases this means their damage output is roughly unchanged (since they receive the buffs below).

• Reduced damage bonus versus Minors from 40% to 30% (except Fighting Lion).

Included below are the matching damage changes by weapon archetype. Note that we made some exceptions for Exotic weapons that were already performing strongly and applied some buffs just to specific tiers of enemies. Except where noted, these changes are in PvE only. Also note that, because Exotic weapons can't equip mods, this gives them a larger relative buff than Legendaries, e.g., Riskrunner's maximum possible damage is increased 10% versus red bars, but Shayura's Wrath's is increased by 3% in effect because it can no longer slot a Minor Spec mod.
In addition to compensating for the removal of Spec mods, we've taken this opportunity to buff some weapon types that have languished in endgame PvE, most notably Pulse Rifles.

• Increased base PvE damage versus all combatants.
  
  • Pulse Rifles: 20%
    • Exceptions: Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst mode. (These both have an intrinsic PvE damage buff built in.)
  • Pellet Shotguns: 10%
    • Exceptions: Legend of Acrius, Tractor Cannon, Conditional Finality, and The Fourth Horseman. (These are all already performing as intended.)
  • Slug Shotguns: 9%
  • Fusion Rifles: 7%
    • Exceptions: One Thousand Voices. (This one was just buffed.)
  • Sniper Rifles: 7%
    • Exceptions: Izanagi's Burden's Honed Edge shots and Cloudstrike's storm. (These are both performing well.)
  • Glaive projectiles: 7%
  • Linear Fusion Rifles: 5%
• Increased damage versus Minors (red bars)—this stacks with the base PvE damage increase.
  
  • Sidearms, Trace Rifles, Scout Rifles, and Bows: 20%
  • Auto Rifles and Pulse Rifles: 15%
    
    • For Pulse Rifles, this is in addition to the above buff, and Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst mode are included.
      • I.e. Pulse Rifles will do 1.2 * 1.15 = 38% more damage to red bars.
  • Submachine Guns: 10%
    
  • Hand Cannons: 5%
    
• Increased damage versus Majors (orange bars).
  
  • Trace Rifles: 20%
• Increased damage globally, including PvP.
  
  • Machine Guns: 7%
  • Swords: 7%
• Splash damage from add clear-Exotic Primary weapons was overperforming in The Final Shape when combined with the damage buffs listed above, so we've pulled it down slightly on a handful of weapons.
  
  • Reduced splash damage by 10%:
    • Sunshot
    • Trinity Ghoul
    • Polaris Lance
    • Graviton Lance

Several releases back, we gave Kinetic weapons a substantial damage bonus in PvE to account for it being harder to use them in subclass builds. In general, we're ok with leaving this in place until we have a better-defined role for Kinetic weapons, but the bonus damage versus Boss-tier combatants was making it hard for weapons of other damage types to compete.

• Kinetic damage type weapons no longer deal bonus damage to bosses; damage to other combatant tiers is unchanged.
  
  • For example, a kinetic Sniper Rifle and a Stasis Sniper Rifle of the same subfamily will both deal the same damage to a boss.

We've also made some quality-of-life changes to several weapon types.

• Updated Heavy, Adaptive, and Aggressive Burst weapon intrinsic names to match burst count across all weapon archetypes. Functionality is unchanged.
  
  • 2-burst: Heavy Burst
    • Includes Sidearms, Hand Cannons, and Pulse Rifles.
  • 3-burst: Adaptive Burst
    • Includes Sidearms, Linear Fusion Rifles, and Adaptive Pulse Rifles.
  • 4-burst: Aggressive Burst
    • Includes Pulse Rifles.
• Removed the foundry name from the Veist Rapid-Fire, Häkke Precision, and Omolon Adaptive weapon intrinsics.
  
• Scout Rifles
  
  • Updated the hip-fire reticle to better show accuracy and aim-assist state.
• Hand Cannons
  
  • Some aggressive Hand Cannons struggle to compete with the stats of the top-tier examples [cough] Igneous Hammer [cough], so with Crimil's Dagger and Something New returning in The Final Shape, we updated their stats.
    
    • Crimil's Dagger (Iron Banner)
      • Stability: 23 to 31
      • Handling: 23 to 31
      • Magazine Size: 8 to 9
      • Airborne Effectiveness: 10 to 21
    • Something New (Solstice)
      • Stability: 27 to 30
      • Handling: 24 to 30
      • Magazine Size: 8 to 9
• Low inventory Sniper Rifles were a little too low in PvE for our liking, so we've increased the minimum.
  
  • Increased minimum reserves from 14 to 17 shots; maximum reserve is unchanged.
• Linear Fusion Rifles
  
  • Adaptive Burst Linear Fusion Rifles are strong, but in some cases are quite hard to control.
    • Reduced firing animation kick and recoil for Adaptive Linear Fusion Rifles.
• Wave Frame Grenade Launchers deal competitive damage as of the Destiny 2: Into the Light update, but some stats on these didn't have a gameplay effect. In this pass, we're adjusting the blast radius.
  
  • The size of the wave is now affected by the blast radius stat. This will mostly impact the width of the wave, though the length and height will also be scaled.
    • The default display stat for the blast radius has been changed from 100 to 50 (where 50 represents the previous baseline—any stat over 50 will result in a larger wave segment than what was possible before).
  • Special ammo Wave – Frame Grenade Launchers overperform as add clear weapons in their current state, so we've pulled the length of the wave back a little.
    • Reduced the length of the waves from 22 meters to 15 meters (except for Dead Messenger).
• Swords
  
  • Updated the Sword reticle to better indicate its charge state. When Sword energy is consumed, the amount of delay the Sword has before it begins to recharge now subtly appears in the reticle.
  • Bug fixes:
    • Fixed an issue where the Overwhelming Battlesong debuff from some missions would prevent Swords from recharging or losing energy while guarding.
    • Fixed an issue where unpowered caster Sword heavy attacks would not reset the Sword's energy recharge delay.
    • Fixed an issue where uncharged adaptive Sword heavy attacks cost the same amount of ammo as their charged counterparts. They now cost 1 ammo, same as other uncharged heavy attacks. ##Exotics

Divinity's ability to bypass combatant gameplay by generating a weak spot (called a "cage" internally) on command has too high an uptime as it stands, particularly with trigger feathering. We're not changing how effective the cage is or how feathering works, but we are increasing how long it takes to generate the cage, which will make it less ammo-efficient and less useful against targets that break aim frequently.

• Increased the number of shots required to generate the cage by 75% against combatants (PvP unchanged).

Rat King's firing animation makes the weapon hard to control at high rate of fire, so we've updated it.

• Swapped the firing animation to the same one used by other auto-fire Sidearms.

Devil's Ruin could be made to apply its firing animation to other equipped Sidearms.

• Fixed an issue where the firing animation from Devil's Ruin would get applied to other equipped Sidearms if the weapon was swapped during the firing animation.

Symmetry needed a little attention, particularly its reload speed and handling, so we took this opportunity to increase those via the catalyst.

• Catalyst now provides +10 reload speed, +10 handling, and the Eddy Current perk, in addition to its existing effects.

Gjallarhorn's Wolfpack Rounds always looked like Arc projectiles, regardless of the weapon's actual damage type.

• Updated the visuals of Wolfpack Rounds to match the damage type of the weapon.For example:
  
  • On Gjallarhorn, they will use Solar effects.
  • On the Royal Entry Void Rocket Launcher buffed by Gjallarhorn, they will have Void effects.

Touch of Malice's burn from the Darkness Ball didn't last long enough to be useful in PvE.

• Increased duration of burn applied by the Darkness Ball against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds.

Osteo Striga made it too easy to spread poison across a whole encounter from a couple of kills of weak combatants.

• Now has a 4-second cooldown on the poison burst on kills. (Poison burst from sustained damage doesn't receive this cooldown.)

Necrochasm's add clear role wasn't as strong as we'd like, so we've buffed it and replaced the Outlaw perk on the catalyst with a new, custom perk that leans into this role.

• Intrinsic perk now provides increased reload speed after precision kills.
• Increased duration of burn applied by the Cursed Thrall explosion against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds.
• Catalyst has been rebuilt.
  
  • One for Thrall: Damaging 3 combatants in quick succession provides a period of increased damage, range, and aim assist.

While The Lament’s damage is roughly equivalent to other Swords, the healing on hit largely removes the intended downside of using a Sword for boss DPS, and the chained heavy attack was too strong.

• Reduced healing effect by 20%.
• While this weapon does inherit the 7% global buff to Swords, we've reduced the damage of the high end of the chained heavy attack by 20% from that point.
  
  • This means combos at lower stacks are less affected by the change than combos at higher stacks.

Dead Man's Tale's rapid-fire hipfire fantasy isn't landing as well as we'd like, so we've bumped up the rate of fire and added a bit of stability to Cranial Spike to make this easier to control. At the same time, its strength is skewed a little high on mouse and keyboard and a little low on controller, so we've tuned accuracy and magnetism (controller reticle friction) to address this.

• Baseline:
  
  • Cranial Spike stacks now grant stability in addition to aim assist stat and range (+2 per stack).
  • Increased reload speed benefit of Cranial Spike stacks.
• With catalyst, iwhen hip-firing:
  
  • Slightly reduced accuracy benefits.
  • Increased magnetism falloff scale (1.6 to 1.7).
  • Increased baseline rate of fire from 130RPM to 140RPM.
  • Removed PvE-only damage buff that scaled with stacks of Cranial Spike and added a 15% damage bonus at maximum stacks of Cranial Spike.

The Colony's fantasy of spawning self-replicating insectoid robots is something we've wanted to juice for a while now. This update allows The Colony to deal with waves of combatants in a unique way.

• Now spawns additional insectoid robots on final blows. More robots (up to five) spawn from tougher combatants.

Truth has fallen far behind other Exotic Rocket Launchers, largely due to its lackluster damage, and we wanted to lean further into total rocket count.

• Increased area-of-effect (AoE) damage such that it doesn't lose noticeable damage due to not dealing impact damage.
• Increased total reserves by 3. (This is on top of the reserves change to high impact Rocket Launchers from the 7.3.5 update.)

The Queenbreaker's damage output is outpaced by Legendary Linear Fusion Rifles, so we've increased its damage and reserve ammo to compensate. We do see frequent requests to move Queenbreaker to the Energy slot, but given the number of Special ammo damage options in this slot, we have opted to push it further in the Heavy slot. We're working on some functionality changes to this weapon for a future update as well.

• Increased damage versus bosses, minibosses, Champions, and vehicles by 12%.
• Increased reserve ammunition by 3.

The power from Cerberus+1's focus fire perk from the Exotic catalyst was limited by it being always available. We've changed this to only being available following a kill, allowing us to increase its strength.

• Focus fire now will activate on Special reloads following a kill and will no longer reduce range or rate of fire.

In a world where Bastion has competition for a Fusion Rifle in the kinetic slot, we felt that it was time to lean further into emulating Saint-14's combat style.

• Reworked Saint's Fists perk: Dealing damage with melee increases your charge rate, damage, and reload speed for a short duration. Landing a majority of pellets in a burst increases melee damage.

Eriana's Vow has fallen behind other anti-barrier Special weapons and, as a Solar weapon, has the opportunity for a subclass tie-in.

• Breaking a matched shield or piercing a Champion's Barrier will cause the target to ignite.

Deterministic Chaos didn't have a clear niche when it shipped, so we've redesigned it to be an anti-Champion and weakening powerhouse.

• This weapon is now intrinsically anti-barrier.
• The Heavy Metal and Vexadecimal perks have had their locations and behavior swapped.
  
  • Heavy Metal now causes every 4th bullet to make targets volatile.
  • Vexadecimal now causes every 16th bullet to also weaken targets.

The flexibility offered by The Fundamentals (on the Borealis, Hard Light, and Dead Messenger Exotic weapons) is useful, but most of the time there's no need to switch damage types rapidly, so it's irritating having the current damage type clear on death.

• The Fundamentals now maintains its state across death or respawn. ##Perks

Alacrity working in solo activities is intended, but it's too strong a perk to have 100% uptime in PvP.

• Will no longer work in Rumble.

Archer's Gambit has been brought down a bit so it can be used on Legendary weapons.

• Reduced draw time buff from 66% to 60%.
• Reduced buff duration from 8 to 4 seconds (but it can now stack up to 8 seconds).

Grave Robber needed some extra love.

• Will now activate on dealing damage with a powered melee, in addition to standard melee kills.

Chain Reaction is too strong on Special ammo weapons in its current form, so we've branched it between Heavy and Special ammo weapons and will be shipping it on new Special weapons in The Final Shape.

• Special: About 15% smaller AoE size and 20% less damage.
• Heavy: Same AoE as before and 30% more damage.

Eddy Current was a little too slow to activate and didn't provide a strong enough bonus, particularly when amplified.

• Now takes 1.5 seconds of sprinting to activate instead of 3 seconds.
• Also provides a bonus to handling and a 5% scalar on each stat at base.
• Being amplified will immediately activate the perk at its maximum effectiveness.

Underdog was shelved a long time ago, but we wanted to swap it out for a more viable perk on weapons that still had it.

• Instances of Underdog have been replaced with Pulse Monitor.

Osmosis and Permeability have some interesting build-crafting potential, but when all they do is change damage type, they don't have enough general utility. It's also irritating when the perk effect falls off when you don't actually put your weapon away.

• These no longer drop off when pulling out a Ghost or similar actions.
• Now partially refill the weapon's magazine on activation.

The previous Chill Clip change hurt slow rate of fire weapons disproportionately and left Rapid-Fire Fusion Rifles as the clear best option, so we've branched the functionality to account for this.

• Adjust the number of slow stacks applied based on properties of the weapon.
  
  • In this case, Rapid-Fire Fusions like Riptide will still require 3 shots to freeze, but slower firing Fusions only require 2.
• All other archetypes have been un-nerfed and only require 2 shots to freeze.
  

High Ground's functionality wasn't delivering on the concept strongly enough, so we've granted it better baseline functionality while retaining the fantasy.

• Reworked to provide a stacking damage bonus when getting kills in any context (like Rampage) or instantly granting the maximum amount of stacks when damaging an enemy from the high ground.
• PvE max bonus increased to a 25% damage bonus, and PvP max increased to 15%.

The Killing Tally perk on the original 21% Delirium Machine Gun has been updated to match the version found on random-rolled weapons.
Perks that currently match your equipped subclass have been changed as follows:

• Osmosis and Tessellation now match the damage type of your equipped grenade.
• Permeability and Elemental Capacitor now match the damage type of your equipped Super.

Deconstruct had a variety of issues that cropped up when it started to appear on AoE weapons. It's been updated to address bugs and prevent exploiting ammo generation:

• Now refills from reserves instead of from thin air and should trigger more reliably across weapon types. ##The Future

Now that we’re largely happy with weapon damage in PvP, we’re going to move the PvP-specific tuning out of the game modes and into base weapon tuning in the future. This will give us the ability to fine-tune damage per weapon subfamily, e.g., on precision Hand Cannons instead of all Hand Cannons.
We also have some big systems changes we’re working on for a future release, including redesigns of the PvP and PvE ammo economies, introducing more player choice into weapon mods and more new weapon types.
And that's all we had for today. We hope these changes will help you better understand how your arsenal will fare once The Final Shape arrives on June 4 and that you can better prepare your loadouts for the new raid. Be on the lookout for another sandbox-focused article coming on May 22 about abilities and Exotic armor.

Source: https://www.bungie.net/7/en/News/Article/weapon_tuning_the_final_shape
Hey, Guardians, it's the Weapons Team here with the weapon balance update for The Final Shape.
There's a lot to go through, from a comprehensive PvE weapon damage pass to Exotics changes, varying from substantial reworks to minor tweaks. We are also tamping down some outliers with an eye toward the World First race for the upcoming raid. And maybe there's a hint in here about a returning fan-favorite weapon, too...

Weapon Archetypes

Back in update 6.3.0, we rolled a set of Spec mods (Dragonfly, Surrounded, and Rampage) into the base functionality of those perks, and now we're coming for the rest of the Spec mods. We've increased base weapon damage almost universally (making exceptions for weapons that were already overperforming or that we buffed very recently) and have retired the following weapon mods:

• Boss Spec, Taken Spec, Minor Spec, Major Spec, and Adept Big Ones Spec.

We were already happy with the damage output of Exotic Primary weapons and Trace Rifles, so we only slightly reduced their damage bonus versus red bars. In most cases this means their damage output is roughly unchanged (since they receive the buffs below).

• Reduced damage bonus versus Minors from 40% to 30% (except Fighting Lion).

Included below are the matching damage changes by weapon archetype. Note that we made some exceptions for Exotic weapons that were already performing strongly and applied some buffs just to specific tiers of enemies. Except where noted, these changes are in PvE only. Also note that, because Exotic weapons can't equip mods, this gives them a larger relative buff than Legendaries, e.g., Riskrunner's maximum possible damage is increased 10% versus red bars, but Shayura's Wrath's is increased by 3% in effect because it can no longer slot a Minor Spec mod.
In addition to compensating for the removal of Spec mods, we've taken this opportunity to buff some weapon types that have languished in endgame PvE, most notably Pulse Rifles.

• Increased base PvE damage versus all combatants.
  
  • Pulse Rifles: 20%
    • Exceptions: Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst mode. (These both have an intrinsic PvE damage buff built in.)
  • Pellet Shotguns: 10%
    • Exceptions: Legend of Acrius, Tractor Cannon, Conditional Finality, and The Fourth Horseman. (These are all already performing as intended.)
  • Slug Shotguns: 9%
  • Fusion Rifles: 7%
    • Exceptions: One Thousand Voices. (This one was just buffed.)
  • Sniper Rifles: 7%
    • Exceptions: Izanagi's Burden's Honed Edge shots and Cloudstrike's storm. (These are both performing well.)
  • Glaive projectiles: 7%
  • Linear Fusion Rifles: 5%
• Increased damage versus Minors (red bars)—this stacks with the base PvE damage increase.
  
  • Sidearms, Trace Rifles, Scout Rifles, and Bows: 20%
  • Auto Rifles and Pulse Rifles: 15%
    
    • For Pulse Rifles, this is in addition to the above buff, and Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst mode are included.
      • I.e. Pulse Rifles will do 1.2 * 1.15 = 38% more damage to red bars.
  • Submachine Guns: 10%
    
  • Hand Cannons: 5%
    
• Increased damage versus Majors (orange bars).
  
  • Trace Rifles: 20%
• Increased damage globally, including PvP.
  
  • Machine Guns: 7%
  • Swords: 7%
• Splash damage from add clear-Exotic Primary weapons was overperforming in The Final Shape when combined with the damage buffs listed above, so we've pulled it down slightly on a handful of weapons.
  
  • Reduced splash damage by 10%:
    • Sunshot
    • Trinity Ghoul
    • Polaris Lance
    • Graviton Lance

Several releases back, we gave Kinetic weapons a substantial damage bonus in PvE to account for it being harder to use them in subclass builds. In general, we're ok with leaving this in place until we have a better-defined role for Kinetic weapons, but the bonus damage versus Boss-tier combatants was making it hard for weapons of other damage types to compete.

• Kinetic damage type weapons no longer deal bonus damage to bosses; damage to other combatant tiers is unchanged.
  
  • For example, a kinetic Sniper Rifle and a Stasis Sniper Rifle of the same subfamily will both deal the same damage to a boss.

We've also made some quality-of-life changes to several weapon types.

• Updated Heavy, Adaptive, and Aggressive Burst weapon intrinsic names to match burst count across all weapon archetypes. Functionality is unchanged.
  
  • 2-burst: Heavy Burst
    • Includes Sidearms, Hand Cannons, and Pulse Rifles.
  • 3-burst: Adaptive Burst
    • Includes Sidearms, Linear Fusion Rifles, and Adaptive Pulse Rifles.
  • 4-burst: Aggressive Burst
    • Includes Pulse Rifles.
• Removed the foundry name from the Veist Rapid-Fire, Häkke Precision, and Omolon Adaptive weapon intrinsics.
  
• Scout Rifles
  
  • Updated the hip-fire reticle to better show accuracy and aim-assist state.
• Hand Cannons
  
  • Some aggressive Hand Cannons struggle to compete with the stats of the top-tier examples [cough] Igneous Hammer [cough], so with Crimil's Dagger and Something New returning in The Final Shape, we updated their stats.
    
    • Crimil's Dagger (Iron Banner)
      • Stability: 23 to 31
      • Handling: 23 to 31
      • Magazine Size: 8 to 9
      • Airborne Effectiveness: 10 to 21
    • Something New (Solstice)
      • Stability: 27 to 30
      • Handling: 24 to 30
      • Magazine Size: 8 to 9
• Low inventory Sniper Rifles were a little too low in PvE for our liking, so we've increased the minimum.
  
  • Increased minimum reserves from 14 to 17 shots; maximum reserve is unchanged.
• Linear Fusion Rifles
  
  • Adaptive Burst Linear Fusion Rifles are strong, but in some cases are quite hard to control.
    • Reduced firing animation kick and recoil for Adaptive Linear Fusion Rifles.
• Wave Frame Grenade Launchers deal competitive damage as of the Destiny 2: Into the Light update, but some stats on these didn't have a gameplay effect. In this pass, we're adjusting the blast radius.
  
  • The size of the wave is now affected by the blast radius stat. This will mostly impact the width of the wave, though the length and height will also be scaled.
    • The default display stat for the blast radius has been changed from 100 to 50 (where 50 represents the previous baseline—any stat over 50 will result in a larger wave segment than what was possible before).
  • Special ammo Wave – Frame Grenade Launchers overperform as add clear weapons in their current state, so we've pulled the length of the wave back a little.
    • Reduced the length of the waves from 22 meters to 15 meters (except for Dead Messenger).
• Swords
  
  • Updated the Sword reticle to better indicate its charge state. When Sword energy is consumed, the amount of delay the Sword has before it begins to recharge now subtly appears in the reticle.
  • Bug fixes:
    • Fixed an issue where the Overwhelming Battlesong debuff from some missions would prevent Swords from recharging or losing energy while guarding.
    • Fixed an issue where unpowered caster Sword heavy attacks would not reset the Sword's energy recharge delay.
    • Fixed an issue where uncharged adaptive Sword heavy attacks cost the same amount of ammo as their charged counterparts. They now cost 1 ammo, same as other uncharged heavy attacks. ##Exotics

Divinity's ability to bypass combatant gameplay by generating a weak spot (called a "cage" internally) on command has too high an uptime as it stands, particularly with trigger feathering. We're not changing how effective the cage is or how feathering works, but we are increasing how long it takes to generate the cage, which will make it less ammo-efficient and less useful against targets that break aim frequently.

• Increased the number of shots required to generate the cage by 75% against combatants (PvP unchanged).

Rat King's firing animation makes the weapon hard to control at high rate of fire, so we've updated it.

• Swapped the firing animation to the same one used by other auto-fire Sidearms.

Devil's Ruin could be made to apply its firing animation to other equipped Sidearms.

• Fixed an issue where the firing animation from Devil's Ruin would get applied to other equipped Sidearms if the weapon was swapped during the firing animation.

Symmetry needed a little attention, particularly its reload speed and handling, so we took this opportunity to increase those via the catalyst.

• Catalyst now provides +10 reload speed, +10 handling, and the Eddy Current perk, in addition to its existing effects.

Gjallarhorn's Wolfpack Rounds always looked like Arc projectiles, regardless of the weapon's actual damage type.

• Updated the visuals of Wolfpack Rounds to match the damage type of the weapon.For example:
  
  • On Gjallarhorn, they will use Solar effects.
  • On the Royal Entry Void Rocket Launcher buffed by Gjallarhorn, they will have Void effects.

Touch of Malice's burn from the Darkness Ball didn't last long enough to be useful in PvE.

• Increased duration of burn applied by the Darkness Ball against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds.

Osteo Striga made it too easy to spread poison across a whole encounter from a couple of kills of weak combatants.

• Now has a 4-second cooldown on the poison burst on kills. (Poison burst from sustained damage doesn't receive this cooldown.)

Necrochasm's add clear role wasn't as strong as we'd like, so we've buffed it and replaced the Outlaw perk on the catalyst with a new, custom perk that leans into this role.

• Intrinsic perk now provides increased reload speed after precision kills.
• Increased duration of burn applied by the Cursed Thrall explosion against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds.
• Catalyst has been rebuilt.
  
  • One for Thrall: Damaging 3 combatants in quick succession provides a period of increased damage, range, and aim assist.

While The Lament’s damage is roughly equivalent to other Swords, the healing on hit largely removes the intended downside of using a Sword for boss DPS, and the chained heavy attack was too strong.

• Reduced healing effect by 20%.
• While this weapon does inherit the 7% global buff to Swords, we've reduced the damage of the high end of the chained heavy attack by 20% from that point.
  
  • This means combos at lower stacks are less affected by the change than combos at higher stacks.

Dead Man's Tale's rapid-fire hipfire fantasy isn't landing as well as we'd like, so we've bumped up the rate of fire and added a bit of stability to Cranial Spike to make this easier to control. At the same time, its strength is skewed a little high on mouse and keyboard and a little low on controller, so we've tuned accuracy and magnetism (controller reticle friction) to address this.

• Baseline:
  
  • Cranial Spike stacks now grant stability in addition to aim assist stat and range (+2 per stack).
  • Increased reload speed benefit of Cranial Spike stacks.
• With catalyst, iwhen hip-firing:
  
  • Slightly reduced accuracy benefits.
  • Increased magnetism falloff scale (1.6 to 1.7).
  • Increased baseline rate of fire from 130RPM to 140RPM.
  • Removed PvE-only damage buff that scaled with stacks of Cranial Spike and added a 15% damage bonus at maximum stacks of Cranial Spike.

The Colony's fantasy of spawning self-replicating insectoid robots is something we've wanted to juice for a while now. This update allows The Colony to deal with waves of combatants in a unique way.

• Now spawns additional insectoid robots on final blows. More robots (up to five) spawn from tougher combatants.

Truth has fallen far behind other Exotic Rocket Launchers, largely due to its lackluster damage, and we wanted to lean further into total rocket count.

• Increased area-of-effect (AoE) damage such that it doesn't lose noticeable damage due to not dealing impact damage.
• Increased total reserves by 3. (This is on top of the reserves change to high impact Rocket Launchers from the 7.3.5 update.)

The Queenbreaker's damage output is outpaced by Legendary Linear Fusion Rifles, so we've increased its damage and reserve ammo to compensate. We do see frequent requests to move Queenbreaker to the Energy slot, but given the number of Special ammo damage options in this slot, we have opted to push it further in the Heavy slot. We're working on some functionality changes to this weapon for a future update as well.

• Increased damage versus bosses, minibosses, Champions, and vehicles by 12%.
• Increased reserve ammunition by 3.

The power from Cerberus+1's focus fire perk from the Exotic catalyst was limited by it being always available. We've changed this to only being available following a kill, allowing us to increase its strength.

• Focus fire now will activate on Special reloads following a kill and will no longer reduce range or rate of fire.

In a world where Bastion has competition for a Fusion Rifle in the kinetic slot, we felt that it was time to lean further into emulating Saint-14's combat style.

• Reworked Saint's Fists perk: Dealing damage with melee increases your charge rate, damage, and reload speed for a short duration. Landing a majority of pellets in a burst increases melee damage.

Eriana's Vow has fallen behind other anti-barrier Special weapons and, as a Solar weapon, has the opportunity for a subclass tie-in.

• Breaking a matched shield or piercing a Champion's Barrier will cause the target to ignite.

Deterministic Chaos didn't have a clear niche when it shipped, so we've redesigned it to be an anti-Champion and weakening powerhouse.

• This weapon is now intrinsically anti-barrier.
• The Heavy Metal and Vexadecimal perks have had their locations and behavior swapped.
  
  • Heavy Metal now causes every 4th bullet to make targets volatile.
  • Vexadecimal now causes every 16th bullet to also weaken targets.

The flexibility offered by The Fundamentals (on the Borealis, Hard Light, and Dead Messenger Exotic weapons) is useful, but most of the time there's no need to switch damage types rapidly, so it's irritating having the current damage type clear on death.

• The Fundamentals now maintains its state across death or respawn. ##Perks

Alacrity working in solo activities is intended, but it's too strong a perk to have 100% uptime in PvP.

• Will no longer work in Rumble.

Archer's Gambit has been brought down a bit so it can be used on Legendary weapons.

• Reduced draw time buff from 66% to 60%.
• Reduced buff duration from 8 to 4 seconds (but it can now stack up to 8 seconds).

Grave Robber needed some extra love.

• Will now activate on dealing damage with a powered melee, in addition to standard melee kills.

Chain Reaction is too strong on Special ammo weapons in its current form, so we've branched it between Heavy and Special ammo weapons and will be shipping it on new Special weapons in The Final Shape.

• Special: About 15% smaller AoE size and 20% less damage.
• Heavy: Same AoE as before and 30% more damage.

Eddy Current was a little too slow to activate and didn't provide a strong enough bonus, particularly when amplified.

• Now takes 1.5 seconds of sprinting to activate instead of 3 seconds.
• Also provides a bonus to handling and a 5% scalar on each stat at base.
• Being amplified will immediately activate the perk at its maximum effectiveness.

Underdog was shelved a long time ago, but we wanted to swap it out for a more viable perk on weapons that still had it.

• Instances of Underdog have been replaced with Pulse Monitor.

Osmosis and Permeability have some interesting build-crafting potential, but when all they do is change damage type, they don't have enough general utility. It's also irritating when the perk effect falls off when you don't actually put your weapon away.

• These no longer drop off when pulling out a Ghost or similar actions.
• Now partially refill the weapon's magazine on activation.

The previous Chill Clip change hurt slow rate of fire weapons disproportionately and left Rapid-Fire Fusion Rifles as the clear best option, so we've branched the functionality to account for this.

• Adjust the number of slow stacks applied based on properties of the weapon.
  
  • In this case, Rapid-Fire Fusions like Riptide will still require 3 shots to freeze, but slower firing Fusions only require 2.
• All other archetypes have been un-nerfed and only require 2 shots to freeze.
  

High Ground's functionality wasn't delivering on the concept strongly enough, so we've granted it better baseline functionality while retaining the fantasy.

• Reworked to provide a stacking damage bonus when getting kills in any context (like Rampage) or instantly granting the maximum amount of stacks when damaging an enemy from the high ground.
• PvE max bonus increased to a 25% damage bonus, and PvP max increased to 15%.

The Killing Tally perk on the original 21% Delirium Machine Gun has been updated to match the version found on random-rolled weapons.
Perks that currently match your equipped subclass have been changed as follows:

• Osmosis and Tessellation now match the damage type of your equipped grenade.
• Permeability and Elemental Capacitor now match the damage type of your equipped Super.

Deconstruct had a variety of issues that cropped up when it started to appear on AoE weapons. It's been updated to address bugs and prevent exploiting ammo generation:

• Now refills from reserves instead of from thin air and should trigger more reliably across weapon types. ##The Future

Now that we’re largely happy with weapon damage in PvP, we’re going to move the PvP-specific tuning out of the game modes and into base weapon tuning in the future. This will give us the ability to fine-tune damage per weapon subfamily, e.g., on precision Hand Cannons instead of all Hand Cannons.
We also have some big systems changes we’re working on for a future release, including redesigns of the PvP and PvE ammo economies, introducing more player choice into weapon mods and more new weapon types.
And that's all we had for today. We hope these changes will help you better understand how your arsenal will fare once The Final Shape arrives on June 4 and that you can better prepare your loadouts for the new raid. Be on the lookout for another sandbox-focused article coming on May 22 about abilities and Exotic armor.

Cyborg #59 - Test of Strength

<< < >
Author: Commander_Z
Book: Cyborg
Arc: Machine Mayhem
Set: 96
Previously:
Victor Stone, Donna Morris and Keiji Otari worked together to create a robot called Atlas to participate in the collegiate Machine Mayhem tournament, a robot fighting competition. The humanoid robot easily crushed its competition in the first round but disappeared overnight before the second round. His three creators split up to track him down, with Keiji finding the machine in a back alley a little ways away from the stadium...
Keiji stood before the massive figure, blinking, trying to focus his mind. He had had many late nights and early mornings over the past couple weeks, so Keiji figured he was still sleeping. Or hallucinating. Or both, somehow. But, the voice rang out, its clearest yet, “No.” ‘Clear’ was a very generous and relative term, though. The noise wasn’t modulating through a speaker or a voice box, instead Atlas was making his own speaker by vibrating the motors and joints that allowed him to move.
The alley that Keiji found Atlas in was less than an ideal to make changes to a robot, but Keiji figured that Atlas would be understanding considering the circumstances. He pulled out an old bluetooth speaker out of his backpack and gestured towards Atlas with it.
“This’ll help you. No more grinding gears to talk. Just got to trust me for a few minutes, okay?”
Atlas stood still for a few moments, whether he was thinking or just unsure how to make a positive affirmation with his joints, Keiji couldn’t know. But, after awhile, he responded.
“Yes.”
Keiji set his backpack on the ground in the gross alley, making a mental note that he’d have to clean that later and got to work.
Around ten minutes later, he was done.
“Okay, Atlas. Try to use the speaker. It’s connected to RO23 on the tertiary control board.”
“...T…Te….ing…Test…Testing. Speaker operation confirmed.” Atlas spoke in a deep, synthetic voice that occasionally warped itself in tone, like how a whammy bar would add vibrato to a chord on a guitar.
“Great. So… Atlas… What's going on with you? Why’d you leave?”
“I am performing my task: defeat opponents, become the strongest. No foes in that arena were a challenge. Therefore, I left.”
Keiji raised an eyebrow. “That’s… not what we made you for. We made you to win Machine Mayhem, not to pursue strength as some sort of goal in of itself.”
“Incorrect. Nowhere in programming was “winning the Machine Mayhem tournament” a specified goal.”
“Okay, but I programmed you, and I’m telling you that was the intention.”
“Intentions are irrelevant. A teacher may shape their students’ minds, but they cannot determine what anyone does with their knowledge. That is a privilege reserved for each and every individual being. You say I was programmed to win a tournament. I say that I was programmed to make myself the strongest being. Only my interpretation is relevant.”
‘I guess that’s not an invalid interpretation of what I programmed him to do. But… that’s not exactly a sane or safe perspective on life…’
“And how are you doing that? Just fighting anyone you can see?”
“No. I have already stated that I found those machines in that arena unworthy of my efforts, in my short time in the outside world I have seen humans to be much the same. Few of you would pose any challenge.”
“Well, that’s a little more reassuring that you won’t just be fighting everyone you see. But - ”
Suddenly, a woman about Keiji’s age flew into the alleyway, riding on a metallic pink hoverboard. She wore hot pink combat boots with dark black leggings, and a matching hot pink sleeveless top with thick metallic bands around her wrists that went up to her forearms. Her eyes were obscured by a visor-like pair of glasses, tinted a reflective red to hide her identity.
And yet, Keiji knew instantly that she had to be Donna Morris. He knew that she had been working on some other project with Vic before they started Atlas, but he figured it was just for some shared class or lab work. But this… This was unexpected.
“Halt… robot! Step away from the civilian and no one needs to get hurt!”
‘Why’s she speaking so formally? Guess it’s some mindset thing.’
Neither Atlas nor Keiji reacted to what Donna was saying. Keiji knew she wasn’t talking to him, and Atlas just seemed indifferent to her presence. Finally, Atlas turned and faced her.
“You seem powerful. Show me the strength of your will and I may concede.”
“This doesn’t need to be violent. We can talk it out, here or somewhere else.”
“Actions speak louder and truer than words.” Atlas moved into a combat position, leaning forwards on his left leg, raising his fists up to his chest.
“Come.”
“Don- ”
“When I’m in the suit, it’s Black Narcissus. Some of us like to keep our identities secret, no offense to Cyborg, wherever he is.” Donna said.
“Okay, nice to meet you, Black Narcissus. Just… be careful with Atlas. He’s stronger than he looks.”
Donna smiled. “So am I. Just watch.”
Donna pressed her thumb and index finger together on both hands and a large light on the back of her hands turned gray. She pointed her hands right at Atlas, who still stood in his combat position, waiting.
A thick, gray fluid shot out of her gauntlets, ensnaring Atlas’ arms to his body and his legs to the ground.
“Gotcha! That’s industrial strength adhesive - ”
Atlas flexed his arms and the adhesive snapped with ease, then crouched his legs before springing upwards towards Black Narcissus and her hoverboard. She quickly flew out of the way but Atlas managed to barely get one hand on the board. Black Narcissus pressed her thumbs to her middle fingers, changing the cartridge in her gauntlets. The light on the back changed to purple and she fired her gauntlets again, launching a blast of energy at Atlas.
The extra energy rattled the robot’s circuits, and he released his grip on the board to escape further damage, sending him crashing back to the ground. She shot another salvo of energy blasts at the machine, keeping him stunned on the ground.
She switched her left gauntlet back to adhesive, hoping that it would be able to restrain a weakened Atlas. Before it could reach him, the robot rolled out of the way and grabbed a trash can, hurling it at Donna. She swerved out of the way again, then dodged a second trash can thrown as a follow up.
After the second can, she was on her toes, prepared for a third, but it didn’t come. She looked around, trying to find where Atlas went, but he was completely out of sight. She sensed him at the last moment, coming from the rooftop that he jumped up to. He grabbed her board and slammed it to the ground with her on it. The board shattered into a million pieces, but Donna seemed unharmed. Atlas sprung up, ready to keep fighting, and Black Narcissus rose fractions of a second after. She pressed her thumbs to her ring fingers and the light on the black glowed a dark red.
She swung a right hand punch at Atlas who caught it in his left. But the light on the back of her gauntlet started to glow brighter as she put in more effort, pushing back against his metallic muscle. Atlas pushed his legs back, trying to stabilize himself. Donna started to push him back more and Keiji could hear the motors start to strain. Atlas stopped resisting against Donna, then, before she could take advantage of it, he kicked up some of the pieces of the broken hoverboard at her. Using her momentary surprise, he punched her square in the chest, knocking the wind out of her and sending her to the ground.
“You fought well,” Atlas said, turning away from her.
“Wait,” Donna said, getting up. “I’m not done with you.”
“Yes, you are. Accept your defeat. There is no shame in losing to the strongest.”
Before Donna could protest, Atlas turned to Keiji. “Come, and bring your things. I have use for you.”
Keiji raised an eyebrow, but grabbed his backpack and started to follow Atlas further down the alley.
He turned back to Donna and mouthed “I’ll text you” to her. He hoped she got the message.
⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️
“Stop here.”
Keiji stood behind Atlas, who was peering into an old garage a couple blocks from the alley where he fought Black Narcissus. He grabbed the padlock that was keeping the door shut and squeezed it, turning it into dust.
“You will find the tools you need in here. Repair the damage caused in the last fight, human.”
Keiji raised an eyebrow. “First off, I don’t really like being called “human”. Technically true, but feels hurtful in this context. Second, I’m a software guy. I couldn’t fix you if I wanted to. Third, being nicer to people will generally get you better results. Not really inclined to help someone who starts by insulting me.”
“Niceties are a waste of time. Fix me, or I will end you.”
Keiji shook his head. “No, you won’t. I can’t fix you, but you know my teammates can. And they’d never do that if you hurt me at all.”
Atlas punched the concrete wall in frustration, cracking it. “Very well. You are correct… I do need your help. What will they require to do so?”
“I don’t know. But come back to the arena with me. We can talk with them there and see what it takes.”
“Very well. Let your friends know that I require their assistance.”
⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️
Atlas stood before Vic and Donna, who made it back to their workspace just before the robot did. He towered over the three humans, but if any of them were intimidated, it was hidden behind a masterful poker face.
“Y’know, I thought more people would care that we just walked in with a robot and are talking with him like he’s a person,” Donna remarked.
“People are busy and indifferent. The other competitors probably think it’s a marketing scheme or something and are just ignoring us. I wouldn’t worry about it too much,” Keiji said.
“Yeah, that. But so… Atlas has become sentient. Good for you, really. But… hooray. Another sentient robot,” Vic said.
“You see a lot of those?” Keiji asked.
“More than you’d think.”
“I am glad that you are not concerned by my presence. That saves me much effort. But the question at hand remains: I have been damaged and require repairs. Will you repair me?”
“Yes,” Vic and Donna said at the same time.
Vic looked at her, surprised. He figured she’d have some hesitancy.
“But, I’ve got a small condition for you. Should be no big deal. Win us the next round of the competition.”
“Ridiculous. You ask me to do something so trivial it is unfair, like a pro athlete competing at a preschool.”
Donna shrugged. “Yeah, it’s trivial and easy, but it helps us a lot.The club will look much better and get a lot more support for next season if we make it into the semifinals.”
“I’ll even raise the stakes. If you win the next round, we won’t make you enter the finals. Instead, I’ll give you a real challenge. You can fight me.”
“Why would I want that?”
“Because I’m the strongest one here by far. And, if that’s still not enough if you beat me, I’ll show you how to repair yourself. Then, we’ll let you go live as you want, provided you promise to only fight people who want to fight.”
Donna looked at Vic, concerned. “Who would want to willingly fight someone like Atlas?”
Vic sighed. “Trust me. There are plenty of weirdos in this world who just want to fight. It’s much better than me just throwing him in prison or taking him apart.”
Atlas made a noise that Vic thought was supposed to be a scoff. But maybe it was just static. The speaker wasn’t that high quality.
“You make a very strong set of promises if I win, which I will. But if by some miracle, you managed to cheat your way to victory… what happens then?”
Vic shrugged. “Pretty much the same thing. I’ll teach you how to repair yourself and let you go with the same stipulations. You just have to know that a human beat you.”
Atlas laughed. “You are a fool if you think that could ever happen. I accept your terms, human. Guide me to the arena, those boxes of scrap will be reduced to dust.”
Vic walked him over to the arena as as if he were any other competitor, but instead of waiting by the sidelines to see the results, he walked back to their workspace. He knew that Atlas would win and wanted to try and make sure that Donna and Keiji were on board with the other part of his plan.
When he got back, Donna was nervously pacing around while Keiji was scrolling through some webpage.
“So.. Vic… do you really think that this is the right idea? You’re just… unleashing him on the world. Isn't that irresponsible?” Donna asked.
“I don’t think so. Yeah he wants to fight people but he has restraint to some degree. He knows the difference being fighting every random person he sees and fighting someone who has a reasonable amount of strength. I dunno, I think him messing up and fighting… Superman or something and taking a big loss would teach him far more than we ever could or throwing him in jail for being dangerous. Is it a risk?… kinda. But so is any option.”
“So your best guess is just… let him go and figure it out?” Keiji said. “Isn’t that a bit too… hands off?”
“Got a better idea? That’s pretty much what we got to do.”
“No. I don’t. But this just feels... risky.”
“Yeah, it is. But he’s fairly reasonable after being conscious for what, 12 hours? Over time, he’ll probably mellow out and if he doesn’t, I can take care of him then. But he deserves a chance like anyone else.”
Keiji nodded. “Fine Vic. If that’s what you think the best path is… I’ll stand by you.”
“Same, Vic. I want to believe in him too.”
“Thanks guys, really. Hopefully we can all look back on this and agree this was the right path.”
A horn sounded and a voice came over the loudspeaker. “Semifinal-2 has ended! The winner is the University of Michigan’s Atlas! Please collect your robots and be ready for the finals at 1:00 PM.”
The team stood up and gave each other a round of high fives. They really had made something great. Now it was time to see just how great he really was.
⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️⚙️
Two hours later.
The team packed up after their semifinal match, citing an unspecified emergency with the tournament staff. They weren’t happy with the anticlimactic end, but ultimately they couldn’t force the three of them to continue to compete and so they left without much hassle.
The three of them drove north until they found the first open field that Vic and Atlas could have their match in. There wasn’t anywhere that they could find in the city that wouldn’t attract too much attention or put innocent people at risk and they managed to convince Atlas of that too. The robot was in the trailer towed behind the three of them, much to his chagrin.
But after a half hour or so, they found a spot. A wide open, grassy field with no one around to interfere or get hurt. A perfect spot for them to settle things. Vic got out of the car and started to stretch, trying to limber up after the car ride while Donna and Keiji helped Atlas out of the trailer.
Atlas rotated his head, taking in the environment. “A flat, quiet field. An honorable place for battle.”
Vic let out one lat calming exhale before approaching Atlas. “Plus, no one is around to get hurt. That’s important too.”
“...Yes. That too.”
“The rules are simple. A clean match, no foul play between either of us. Whoever is left standing when the other yields or is unconscious wins.”
Atlas laughed. “I will never yield.”
“We’ll see,” Vic grinned.
“Oh, one other thing. Not really a rule per say, but a strong suggestion: Try not to seriously hurt each other. You’re not trying to kill or maim each other,” Donna said.
“Yes, yes. May we begin?”
Vic nodded, and took a step backward, creating about ten feet of space between him and Atlas. Before the dust even settled, his arms were force cannons launching pure energy right at Atlas’ chest. Vic had designed Atlas, he knew that he wouldn’t be very damaged by those. But he had underestimated just how much he would be able to tank them. The force blasts did little more than chip the paint and an exhilarated Atlas sprinted at Vic like a charging bull.
Once Atlas was a few feet away from Vic, he prepared a concussive grenade and exploded it directly against Atlas, using the force to stagger him out of the charge. Before the robot could launch another attack, Vic swung a full force punch into the robots’ chassis, crumpling it inwards slightly. Vic followed up the punch with another, but Atlas was ready for it and parried it with his left arm, then kicked Cyborg away, sending him flying backwards.
Cyborg shot his force canons at the ground to give himself some momentum in the opposite direction, slowing himself down. But Atlas had some tricks up his metaphorical sleeves too. Having realized that a direct approach was difficult, he used his powerful hands like a backhoe to scoop up a massive piece of earth and hurled it at Cyborg. Vic was unsure how to react to this, or more precisely, how he expected Atlas to follow this attack up. The boulder itself was a problem, sure, but it was just to close the gap. Atlas could be using it to block his line of sight and be jumping right behind it, or he could be using the temporary blindspot caused by the massive object to approach from either side.
Instead of guessing, Vic decided to power through the problem. Vic shot both of his force cannons at the projectile, sending bits of dirt every which way. Atlas was hiding in what was once the dirt ball’s shadow and Vic took advantage of his surprise to launch himself at the robot. Cyborg shot his force cannons behind him, propelling himself forwards rapidly in a charge mirroring Atlas’ own.
He knocked the massive machine to the ground and sat on his chest, using his arms to pin down the machine’s.
“You’re down, Atlas. Do you yield?”
“I told you. I will never yield. I am the strongest!”
Atlas began to press his weight against Vic’s strength. Vic knew he was a match for Atlas’ strength but there was one key problem: stamina. Vic’s body was, of course, cybernetic in part, but it wasn’t the same. He was still human and human beings got tired. Machines did not.
Vic could already feel his muscle starting to fatigue. The fight hadn’t been long, but any fatigue was going to be the difference. He knew he was a match for Atlas’ strength when he was at 100%, but every percent below that made it more and more likely to be Atlas’ win.
‘I need to end this fight now or the immediate future if I want to win. But my normal attacks aren’t doing anything to him. I could try a sonic attack, but I don’t think that’d really effect him. I could try targeting his joints specifically, but those were designed to take more than I can give. But I can’t just let him overpower me for the win. That’d make him overconfident and more likely to get into trouble afterwards. No… I’ve got a better idea.’
In an instant, Vic’s muscles stopped resisting. “I yield.”
Vic pushed himself off Atlas, who stood up and looked at Cyborg, confused.
“What foe yields when he has his opponent on the ground, at his mercy? I demand you continue!”
“No. This fight was never to the death, only to yielding. But frankly, you aren’t strong enough to interest me. You said it yourself, you will never yield. And pummelling you to a point where you are the equivalent of unconscious just isn’t worth my time. So I yielded. Congrats. You win.”
Atlas stood, incredulous. “No. That is not allowed. I did not win. You lost! Those are not the same!”
Vic turned to Keiji and Donna and then noticed that the fight had taken them about 30 yards from where they started. He started to walk back towards them, and Atlas followed.
“Guys, I yielded that fight. Doesn’t that mean I lost?”
Keiji raised an eyebrow. “I guess?”
“See? Congrats, you won.”
“... I do not accept this victory. This is a loss in all but name. Mark my words, Victor Stone. I will wander the globe, facing foe after foe to grow stronger. I will become the strongest being and when I do, we will have a real fight, one where you must acknowledge my strength for real.”
“Looking forwards to it. Stay out of trouble until then, understood?”
Vic held out his hand for a handshake which Atlas begrudgingly accepted.
“Understood.”
“Atlas, catch.”
Keiji tossed a small flash drive to Atlas who had to bend down to grab it.
“That has all your schematics and drawings on it, as well as all the parts we used to make you and where we sourced them from. It’s probably the best thing out there to help you repair yourself.”
“Thank you. You all have given me much to think about it. When we meet again… I will be stronger in body and mind. Farewell for now but I will return to challenge you again, Victor.”
“I’ll be waiting. And I promise to go all out next time, Atlas.”
Atlas took off to the west, heading to only he knew where.
Once he was far enough out of sight, Vic laid down on the ground, exhausted.
“Well, that’s enough bluffing for the next decade. I really underestimated him.”
Donna sat down to his left, Keiji on his right.
“Told you that you were being cocky. We all built him but he’s out of all of our leagues,” Keiji said.
“Yeah… but I really wanted to do it, y’know? Kinda humbling to be beat by your own creation.”
“If it makes you feel better, I lost to him too,” Donna said.
“Wait what? When did you fight him?”
“I’ll tell you on the way back. Not my finest moment, but I put up a good fight.”
“Proud of you. You’ve come a long way in your training. But after that fight… I’m going to need to get a lot stronger and pick my own training back up. I kinda feel like I’ve been stagnant for awhile, just sort of winning my fights through grit and will power. But if Atlas had been hostile… I don’t think I could’ve stopped him. So, I’ll need to get back to the drawing board and see what I can do to take myself to the next level.”
“And we’ll be there to help you however we can. But uh… Vic, finals are in like two weeks. Maybe focus on that first?” Keiji suggested.
“I’d rather get beat up by another robot,” Vic groaned.
<< < >

Hello SPTarkov community! First, I just want to say I have already received a TON of help just by reading posts, it's how I learned to install any of this stuff, and I am really appreciative.
I am looking to dial in my experience a bit more so I will describe that a bit and then list all the mods I am currently working with.
The experience I'm looking for is a bit more like (and just hear me out ok I will explain) Stalker Gamma - in that there are long bits of dreary nothing, then intense firefights, then tense and tactical return to dreary, then maybe running into comrades and maybe teaming up, then tense moments of entering an incredibly hostile area.
The mods I have right now, as a PMC, just seem like every single AI on the map is a hunter killer whose sole mission is to end my life. I would love it if they like...fucked off a bit and had their own mission to "focus" on. I also thought one of my mods was supposed to let me team up w/ PMC's of my same faction but I get drawn on by what feels like every single AI.
Also, especially noticeable on smaller maps like Ground Zero, are BRUTAL, like guys keep coming and it turns into this WILDLY crucial all out disaster of an encounter. It feels like they just keep spawning, and I have seen other posters ask about this too. The smaller maps are the hardest for me.
As for Scav's, their experience is a bit more of what I am looking for, so it's funny to me that they are also gear-locked and a side element. They derp around, steal some shit, see some homies, lock in for an intense firefight, and make it back.
I know the Stalker Gamma comparison is probably making people scream at me to play that game so I just want to reiterate that I just mean, like, the "flow of combat", I am NOT trying to make Tarkov into Stalker. It would just be cool if my heart's EKG readings looked similar, instead of SPTarkov's being a constant ventricular tachycardia.
These are the mods I currently have installed:

• Waypoints
  
• BigBrain
  
• SAIN
  
• GTFO Map Marker
  
• Borkel Realistic NVG
  
• Rep Multiplier
  
• Take a Break
  
• Friendly PMC (doesn't work? maybe I just suck?)
  
• Remove Times from Quests
  
• AI Limit
  
• Equal Loot 4 All
  
• Realism Mod
  
• More Checkmarks
  
• Swizzy Looting bots
  
• Saria (Anime girl trader mod)
  

I have attempted Donuts/SWAG and when I fucked w/ the settings it felt like no AI spawned so I decided just not to mess w/ it anymore.
I look forward to hearing if you guys think this is all utterly ridiculous or maybe some of you are even playing like this right now. Thanks!

“Ready to make history, baby?”
I looked over toward Sheila as she stood on the gangplank leading up to The Burger. I still couldn’t believe she named our research ship ‘The Burger’... emotional relevance be damned.
“It's not exactly history,” I corrected.
“Oh come on! If your survey is right, this trench might run even deeper than the Challenger Deep, and you’re gonna be the first person to explore it! How is that not exciting?”
“Might be deeper, we only have a limited amount of topological data. And even if it is deeper, we’re talking only a few hundred feet at most, it’s really not that im-”
Sheila silenced me with a kiss.
“Nerd.” She teased, and I found myself too flustered to reply. After five years of marriage, she still could leave me speechless with just a kiss. God… how did someone like me end up with a woman like that?
Then again, how did someone like me end up where I was in general? It was honestly a little overwhelming. Standing on the dock, getting ready to board that ship and join the ranks of Jacques Piccard and James Cameron (yes, that James Cameron) as one of the few people to take a manned submersible down to the deepest parts of the ocean. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little scared too. Diving down that deep could easily be a one way trip if even the slightest thing went wrong. My submarine would be experiencing between 600 to 1100 atmospheres of pressure and while we’d tested it over and over again to make sure it would actually be up for the challenge, there was still a lingering iota of doubt in the back of my mind. All that needed to go wrong was one little thing, and that would be it for me.
The scariest part is that I probably wouldn’t even know what had happened… I’d simply be gone… and Sheila would be alone. The thought of that caused a momentary spike of panic in my chest that almost made me want to call this whole thing off.
Almost.
But, then I felt her hand close around mine. I looked up into her bright blue eyes, and saw her gentle smile.
“You’re gonna be okay, hun,” She promised. “You and your team have been running the numbers, right? It’s gonna go just fine!”
I nodded slowly.
“It’s gonna go fine…” I repeated, before she leaned in to kiss me, and gently pulled me by the wrist up onto the deck of the Burger.
She was probably right.
It probably would be fine.
Probably…
The trench I’d be exploring was a fairly recent discovery, located south of Greenland, in a vast stretch of water situated directly between Newfoundland and Iceland. It’d been uncovered during a topological survey in the area, and my team had taken an interest in investigating it further. At minimum, it was believed to descend to about 35,000 feet deep (over 10,000 meters), although the current theory was that it might have run even deeper. Determining the exact depth of the yet unnamed chasm was just one of the intents of our dive. The rest was studying the organisms that might be found down there, and how they might have differed from the ones found in other deep ocean trenches (some variation being expected given the isolated environment they were developing in.)
I had to admit, it would be exciting to see what new life might have developed in a place such as this, especially if it ran even deeper than our predictions… and that excitement was enough to make me chase the fear of the risks out of my mind, even if it was only briefly. While Sheila went to make sure we were ready to embark, I caught myself wandering out toward the rear of the ship where my submarine, The Tempura, waited for me. Did this submarine deserve a better name than The Tempura? Probably. But, this was my project, so I got to name it and since Burger was already taken, Tempura was the next best name I had. I liked to think that the subs namesake might approve… if she hadn’t died fifteen years ago. Shrimp don’t live very long.
As the ship began to depart, I caught myself reminiscing on how I’d ended up here… it really was all because of those damn shrimp, wasn’t it? Well… maybe not all because of the shrimp. But they were certainly part of it. Back when I was a lot younger, I never really gave much of a shit about anything at all. I guess I did have a thing for the ocean… the great, romantic vastness of it. The sense of adventure that it beckoned with. The endless mysteries that lay within its dark depths. I used to read about it all the time when I was a kid and I especially loved the classic adventures: Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and Melville’s Moby Dick… but that love was just confined to my books. I didn’t really have any interest in actually going out and seeing the ocean. Hell, the idea of going to a beach and standing in the sun with my toes in the sand seemed miserable to me. I was happier (although calling myself happy might’ve been a little disingenuous) alone in my room, enjoying the company of books as opposed to people.
Then came the shrimp.
One of my online friends kept them as a hobby. He used to post pictures of his tanks all the time, and I always thought they looked kinda cool. He said that if I was interested in them, I should try keeping some for myself, and during a particularly bad bout of depression, I figured that maybe it might be worth a shot. So, I bought a cheap tank and some cheap decorations, bought myself some shrimp… and promptly watched them die over the next few weeks. That… that bothered me. I don’t know why but… it really bothered me. I’m still not entirely sure how to describe what it was that I was feeling. Guilt? Defeat? Shame? Here I was, trying to set up a habitat for these creatures just to have something to do to keep the suicidal ideation at bay, and I’d failed almost right out of the gate.
Was I just that bad? Was I just that much of a failure? Was this just going to go to shit just like everything else in my life did, because I was just such an abysmal piece of shit who barely deserved the life she had? Had I just not tried hard enough? Was I too apathetic? What had happened? What went wrong?
It bothered me.
It bothered me enough that I made up my mind to just dump the remaining shrimp down the toilet and toss everything. Forget about it. Move on. End of story. But… that wasn’t fair, was it? The shrimp didn’t all deserve to die just because I couldn’t be bothered, did they? Sure, they were just shrimp, but they were alive too, just like me. They deserved to be alive.
I owed it to them to try and keep them alive, didn’t I?
So… I didn’t dump the shrimp.
Instead, I started doing some reading. Started looking into what I was doing wrong and how to do it all better. I actually got really into it and a few months later, I had a nice planted tank. Looking back, it was amateur shit… but it made me happy. I’d even picked out names for my two favorite shrimp. Burger and Tempura. They’d been the last survivors of my original batch, and they were the ones I ended up caring about the most. Caring for Burger and Tempura gave me a purpose. It became an obsession… and that little obsession drove me to finally start turning my life around.
Like I said, shrimp don’t live for very long. Burger and Tempura were long dead by the time I graduated with a degree in Marine Biology. But they were the ones who inspired me to finally get my life in order. Hell, the shrimp were half the reason that I met Sheila. She was something of an aquarium fanatic too… we’d met on a forum, and gotten to talking. I found out that she just so happened to be studying Marine Biology at another school, and we bonded pretty quickly after that. After graduation, I moved to California to be with her and after that, the rest is history. She was my rock. She was the one who always pushed me to be the best possible version of myself… and I loved her more than I ever knew I could love someone.
A glance back at the shore, fading into the distance tore me out of my reminiscing, and I shifted my focus to the present, going over The Tempura to perform some quick checks. My colleagues and I would be checking and rechecking the submarine over the next two days as we made our way toward the dive spot. Considering the danger that descending that deep posed, I didn’t want to take a single unnecessary risk.
I had too much to live for, after all.
***
The day of the dive, I couldn’t notice how excited the rest of the crew seemed… well… Sheila’s usual crew seemed excited. I guess to them, this was just another research expedition, no different than the ones Sheila usually took this ship out on. Lately her research had been focused on the analysis and study of whale calls. Her recent voyages had involved following their pods, recording their calls and playing them back to see how the whales reacted. It was fascinating stuff, but my research was admittedly a lot different than that.
My obsession had drawn me to the denizens of the deep sea. I’d used The Burger for expeditions before, although none of them had been on quite the same scale as this one. Up until today, the most ambitious thing I’d done was send down unmanned submersibles with cameras. Those submersibles had typically returned. We had lost a few early on due to technical glitches, but the past few years had been blissfully uneventful. Logically, this dive would probably be uneventful as well. But it was still hard to get the jitters out of my head.
My team and I did the final checks necessary to make sure that The Tempura was good to go, before setting up the crane to begin lifting it up. In less than an hour, I’d be inside of that thing, descending to the darkest depths of the ocean.
It didn’t feel real.
I felt Sheila’s hand on my shoulder, and looked over at her.
“Moment of truth, huh?” She asked. She probably meant it to sound encouraging, but it just sounded ominous.
“Moment of truth…” I replied.
“You’re gonna be okay, honey. I know you will.”
She reached out to gently squeeze my hand and gave me a reassuring smile that I meekly returned.
“Yeah, it’s gonna be okay,” I agreed, although there was an element of a lie in it. Statistically, yes. It probably WOULD be okay. But there was that lingering anxiety in the back of my mind that just wouldn’t go away. I looked quietly out at the submarine before me and couldn’t shake the thought that it sort of looked like a giant coffin. Unconsciously, I found myself squeezing Sheila’s hand tighter than normal. She just held me close and pressed a kiss to the top of my head, before gently rubbing my back.
“You’ll be okay,” She promised.
“Dr. Jenner, we’re ready for you.” I heard one of my colleagues say.
Moment of truth.
I took one last look at Sheila, and gave her a quick kiss on the lips for luck. She smiled at me, and I smiled back anxiously at her before heading over toward the submarine.
The crew helped me enter the cockpit and get myself situated inside. The cockpit of the Tempura was fairly cramped and not particularly comfortable. Space and comfort aren’t really luxuries you can afford in a submarine like this. The instruments I needed took up a lot of space, leaving little room for me in there… and I am not a very big person.
Once I was inside, they sealed the hatch. Then the diagnostics checks began.
“Grayson, can you hear us in there?” I heard Sheila say through the radio.
“Loud and clear,” I replied.
“Great. We’ll keep in constant radio contact, just to monitor the signal. In the meanwhile, how’s everything looking in there?”
“Green across the board so far,” I said, although I hadn’t finished running all my final checks yet. Ultimately, nothing was out of place.
This submarine was as good to go as it was going to get.
“I’m all good in here,” I said once I was done. “You can drop me when you’re ready.”
“You got it, honey. Let’s get you in the water, run one final round of tests and start lowering you down.”
A short while later, I felt the submarine begin to move as the crane lifted it off the deck and lowered it into the water. The Tempura honestly resembled its namesake in a way, being long and cigar shaped, only vertically oriented instead of horizontally oriented. We’d admittedly taken more than a few design cues from James Cameron’s Deepsea Challenger. Why fix what isn’t broken, after all?
Once I was in the water, a 1000 pound releasable ballast weight would cause the submarine to sink. Releasing that weight was also my ticket back to the surface, and I could either trigger it from inside the cockpit, or, in the event that the release failed for any reason, it would trigger automatically after roughly 12 hours of exposure to salt water.
Ideally, this would be the first of a number of dives I’d be undertaking… and if all went according to plan, the Tempura could be the first of many similar submarines that would allow other researchers to safely and effectively descend to extreme depths. If all went well, this could be a massive leap forward for researchers like me, allowing us to better explore the deepest depths of the Hadal Zone and learn all we could about the ecosystems down there via direct observation.
If all went well.
If.
Through the viewport, I watched as I was lowered into the ocean. A few of the other crew members had donned diving gear to escort me down, and after they did their final checks and I did mine, we were fully ready to go.
“All’s green across the board,” I said into the radio. “You can start my descent.”
“I hear you, honey,” Sheila replied. “We’re letting you go. Have fun down there.”
“Yeah, I’ll try…” I said quietly as finally, my submarine began its descent.
I took a deep breath, and told myself again that everything would go fine. We had checked everything on this submarine. We’d tested it rigorously. I wouldn’t have allowed myself to set foot inside of it if I hadn’t personally assured that it was safe. But anxiety never really goes away, does it? The crew couldn’t accompany me far. After only a few meters, they fell behind me as I sank deeper and deeper into the infinite, empty blue of the ocean. Soon after, the tether was released.
I was officially on my own.
“60 feet,” I heard Sheila say over the radio. “How are you doing in there?”
“Good,” I replied. “Doing… doing good.”
The submarine continued to descend. Through the viewport, I could see a few stray fish, but nothing particularly eye catching. I almost felt alone down there… almost…
“120 feet…” Sheila said.
“Still doing good,” I replied.
The descent continued, as the waters slowly grew darker and darker.
“400 feet…”
Everything around me just kept getting darker and darker. Only a fraction of the light from the sun ever reached these depths… and I’d be lying if I said that darkness didn’t feel a little… oppressive.
“800 feet… still feeling good?”
“Yeah, still feeling good…” I said, although it was a bit of a lie. If anything, I was second guessing all of this, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud.
“1000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…” I murmured. “I hear you loud and clear.”
Deeper… deeper… deeper.
“1500 feet…”
Three miles. I was three miles away from home. Three miles away from Sheila.
“2000 feet…”
Still a ways to go.
“3000 feet…”
By this point, it was fully dark outside of my cockpit. Outside, all I could see was inky darkness. Even the submarine’s lights didn’t really cut through it. And the kicker? Relatively speaking, I wasn’t that deep. Fishing trawlers reached deeper than this. Better to conserve power until I was at the bottom. My descent continued.
“6000 feet… still good?”
“Still good…”
The check ins were becoming less frequent. My descent still continued… deeper… deeper… deeper. By now, I’d entered the Hadal Zone. But there was still so much deeper o go.
“8000 feet…”
This was past the depths that most whales would dive to… and I still had a ways to go.
“10,000 feet.”
This was close to where the ocean floor usually bottomed out… and yet there was still so much further to go. No. I was really only a third of the way there. How long had it been?Not much had happened beyond my descent and a few sightings out of my viewport, but time had been passing. A glance at my watch confirmed it’d been almost an hour since I’d started to sink… and I knew I wasn’t even close to the bottom yet. The submarine continued to descend, sinking ever deeper as I dropped into an infinite darkness that few had ever dared to witness.
“15,000 feet.”
This check in came later than the others. At this point, Sheila and the crew must have figured that no news was good news, and they were right. I just continued to sink peacefully, down into the crushing depths of the ocean.
These were the depths that one might normally find deep sea fish… and yet I was going somewhere even deeper than that.
“20,000 feet…”
So close…
I continued to sink.
“25,000 feet.”
Soon… and finally…
“30,000 feet. You still doing alright, honey?”
“Yeah… yeah, I’m doing good,” I assured her. I was so close…
By this point, my real work had begun. I’d engaged the lights and begun documenting what little I could see using the on board cameras. Granted, there wasn’t much life at these depths and what little there was, was scarcely documented. Most of what was down here consisted of invertebrates and microscopic life that seemed to float past my viewport.
The light seemed to draw a few creatures in search of food. Small, hardy things that resembled shrimp.
“How’s it looking, Grayson?”
“Dark,” I said, half joking. “We’ve got some life… shrimp. They’re translucent. Can’t get a great look at them… but we’ll see what the cameras pick up.”
“They’ve recognized you as a friend,” Sheila said. I could almost see the smile on her lips as she said it.
“Yeah…” I replied, “Tempura sent them a message, told them I’d be down. How am I looking on depth?”
“35,000 feet… you seeing a bottom yet?”
“No… not that I would until I was there.”
“Damn… how deep does this go?”
“It can’t go that deep…” I murmured, although I really wasn’t so sure about that.
The submarine continued to sink…
36,000 feet…
37,000 feet…
38,000 feet… and then finally, just past the 39,000 foot mark, I finally saw solid ground below me.
Looking through my viewport, I could see a familiar dark brown diatomaceous sludge, covering the seafloor. Microscopic life, likely similar to what had been observed in other deep sea trenches, such as the Challenger Deep.
I needed to gather a sample.
As my submarine reached the bottom, I extended the mechanical arms, pressed flat against the surface of the Tempura, and opened the collection port near the bottom of the ship. Slowly, I sifted some of the sludge into the port. My disturbance of the seafloor kicked up a cloud of the microbial colony, and I could’ve sworn I saw something wiggling through the debris. A pale, white thing, perhaps some sort of sea cucumber? I hastily angled my submarines camera to try and catch a glimpse of it, before returning to my collection. Even in this forlorn place, there was still so much to see! And here I was… completely forgetting my fear as the excitement took hold of me! Few people had ever been down to these unfathomable depths… and yet here I was.
It didn’t feel real but it was! I had reached the deepest part of the ocean!
“How’s it going down there?” I heard Sheila ask. Her voice was a little garbled. The connection down here was faltering.
“It’s beautiful…” I said. “I can’t wait for you to see it!”
“I’ll bet…”
“I’m going to do a sweep of the area, see what samples I can gather,” I said. “What’s my time right now?”
“Three hours. You’ve got nine before your connection to the weight deteriorates and you start to ascend.”
“I’ll make the most of it,” I said. The plan was only to stay down there for six hours, and I didn’t want to push that limit. Life support would only last me for so long, and one little error was all it would take for the ungodly pressure down here to crush me.
I began to move the submarine. Mobility was limited. This thing wasn’t built to travel far. But I still had some limited movement. I recorded all that I could, filming the shrimp that investigated my light, and the things that slithered and crawled through the muck, likely feeding on the carpet of single celled organisms that populated these depths.
The first two hours were… well… I hesitate to call them uneventful, they were actually very fascinating, but little of note happened beyond my recording of a few specimens.
Midway through the third hour though, as I was reaching one of the rock walls of the abyss, I noticed something just above the edge of my viewport swimming away from the light. I could’ve sworn I saw slender, pale tentacles of some sort. Was that a squid? Were there squid down this deep? I wasn’t aware of any species of known squid who could reach these depths… but in this unknown place, what use was the known?
I moved my light and my camera to try and catch another glimpse of it, but whatever it was, it seemed to be gone. Maybe I’d see another one. I still had plenty of time.
“You made a noise. What’d you see?” Sheila asked.
“Something big… I think,” I said.
“Down there? Like a fish?”
“Squid. You wouldn’t find any vertebrates down this deep… the pressure would crush their bones.”
“Jeez…”
I didn’t reply to that, still searching for the thing I’d seen. I shone my light up along the walls of the chasm and angled my camera up as far as it would go. I could see a few volcanic vents, spewing dark clouds into the darkness, and more diatoms. But not much else. Strange invertebrates crawled along the walls. Small creatures, no bigger than an inch long. Related to isopods, perhaps? If I could collect one as a sample, I would have… although taking any of those back to the surface would surely kill them. They were built to live under the impossible pressure of these depths. Taking them to the surface would rip them apart.
I went back to my research, and it wasn’t long until I saw something in the darkness, just on the edge of where my flashlight reached. Trailing white tendrils, snaking their way through the darkness. My eyes narrowed as I moved the submarine forward, trying to catch whatever it was in the light. I saw the shape move, its body turning… I saw its tendrils unfurling. Whatever this was, it was big. It was almost as big as The Tempura… although it was also slender. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought I was looking at some sort of floating debris, but this far down? No. And debris wouldn’t move like that.
This had to be a deepsea squid… or perhaps some other type of cephalopod? Something that preyed upon the various invertebrates down here, perhaps? It seemed to float, just out of sight for a bit, as I tried to get closer. I angled up my light to get a better look at it. The light seemed to shine through it, like some sort of ghost… but I did manage to get a look at it.
Although that look…
That single look made me freeze up.
This things slender tendrils certainly resembled a cephalopod of some sort, but the rest of it… the rest of it looked like something else entirely. Its body was thin, emaciated and translucent, yet despite that it still had characteristics that almost seemed… human. It wasn’t human! Not by any stretch of imagination, but the resemblance was there. It almost reminded me of an exhibit I’d seen in a museum once, depicting a preserved, fully removed human nervous system. I could see a similar shape in its translucent body. Its head seemed almost human as well… albeit with no eyes, and a lamprey like mouth I could only describe as fleshy yet crablike.
Still, despite having no eyes I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was looking at me. And that was when I felt something hit the submarine.
I felt a sudden jolt of panic in my chest. For a moment, I thought that the pressure had started to crush me, but no… no, everything was still fine. Something had just hit me. But what? It didn’t take long before I got my answer.
Another pale creature floated past my viewport, swirling gracefully in the cold dark waters. I watched it for a moment with wide eyes, before noticing its ‘head’ turning slightly toward me. Then, almost instantly, it launched itself at the submarine, darting toward me with blinding speed.
I heard a distinct THUD as its body collided with me, and I could see its pale tendrils pressing against the viewport, twisting and writhing violently. It was trying to attack me. The first creature that I’d seen lunged as well, pounding on my submarine with another THUD. And moments later, I could hear more impacts against the hull. There were more of them… and they did not like having me down there.
“What’s going on?” Sheila asked.
“Somebody doesn’t like me…” I said. “One of the animals down here… some kind of squid, it’s just started attacking the hull.”
“How bad is the damage?”
“Not sure… could be nothing, could be-”
I felt the submarine shake as I tried to move it. The thrusters that pushed me forward weren't responding. Had something gotten caught in it? One of the creatures perhaps?
“Grayson?!” Sheila asked.
“Lost propulsion…” I said. “Fuck… I can’t move.”
“Then drop the weight and come up!”
“No, it’s fine, there’s no other damage, I can still use the port and starboard thrusters to-”
“Grayson!”
I paused. There was genuine panic in her voice… enough to make me realize that even if these things stood little chance of actually breaching the hull, taking the risk would be a fatal mistake.
“I’m on my way up…” I finally said, before reaching out to disengage the ballast weights.
Immediately, I felt myself beginning to rise, although the tentacles clinging to my viewport didn’t disappear.
“We’ve got you…” Sheila said. “Rising up to 38,000 feet.”
The submarine continued to rise, but the creatures clinging to me went nowhere. In fact… I was sure I could see more of them. More pale shapes coming up through the darkness, and these ones filled me with dread. I thought I had been looking at some sort of eerie undiscovered life. But seeing what was coming up toward me now… I knew that I was looking at so much more. The creatures swimming up toward me through the darkness carried weapons… makeshift stone spears and daggers. Primitive tools… but tools all the same.
Signs that these were more than just undiscovered animals.
Much. Much more.
The word: ‘Mermaids’ crossed through my mind, but these were something far different than the ones I’d heard of in folklore. These looked like they’d swam out of the depths of hell itself. Boneless pale tendrils reached for me… and they were getting closer. The pale shapes reached my submarine as I rose higher. I kept praying to whatever God may be listening that the dropping pressure would force them off. The air in a submarine is pressurized, so during normal operation, there should have been no danger of decompression sickness for me.
For them… well… normally I’d feel a little guilty about subjecting an undiscovered species of deep sea mermaids to the horrors of the Bends. But given my circumstances, I didn’t have a lot of other options.
They didn’t let go, though.
They should have. But they didn’t.
What were these things?
I saw a splayed hand press against my viewport. Or… it somewhat resembled a hand. It had suckers on it, like a tentacle and the ‘fingers’ curled open like tentacles. The creature crawled over my viewport, clinging to The Tempura as it rose, and I could see the folds of its crablike mouth opening and pressing against the glass. I could see some sort of bile rising up through its translucent throat, before it secreted it all over my viewport. Was it trying to digest me? Was that how these things fed? How strong were its stomach acids? Were they strong enough to-
The window cracked.
My heart skipped a beat.
“No… no, no no…”
“Grayson, what’s wrong?!”
“They cracked the window… S-Sheila they… oh God… oh fuck, they just…”
“THEY DID WHAT?”
“It’s secreting some sort of enzyme… it’s on the window, it’s… FUCK… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die… I’m gonna die…”
“You’re not gonna die, baby! Just… just keep ascending, okay? You’re at 30,000 feet… just keep going…”
I nodded, and kept on rising, although the question of whether or not the rest of the creatures were trying to digest the other parts of my submarine floated through my mind. How much damage could The Tempura take before it imploded? How much longer did I have? The submarine still continued to rise… 25,000 feet… almost halfway home… almost… almost.
The creature outside of my viewport slithered along the glass, searching for a better area to try and digest. Past him, I noticed a few of his companions dropping off. Maybe the change in pressure finally was getting to them?
From the corner of my eye, I suddenly noticed a flashing light. A warning. The hydraulics on one of the Tempura’s arms were shot… what else was damaged?
I checked my oxygen levels. 32%.
I should’ve had at least 14 hours of air. I’d only been down there for about 6 hours… I shouldn’t have been this low.
31%.
No… no, no, no, no… they’d damaged the air tanks!
30%.
29%
“20,000 feet!” Sheila said. “You still with me, baby?”
“Y-yeah…” I said. I didn’t mention my air situation. I didn’t need to worry her further.
The submarine continued its ascent.
15,000 feet.
24%. I was running out of time.
The creatures still clung to the Tempura. How had the pressure change not killed them yet? My oxygen was dropping faster than before. I was hemorrhaging air. Another crack formed across my viewport. I let out a little, involuntary gasp before trying to force myself to stop hyperventilating.
“Grayson, what was that?”
“I-it’s fine…” I stammered, “It’s fine!”
“Grayson what the hell is going on down there?!”
“They’re still on the submarine… they’re still…” I paused, looking at my oxygen levels. “19%...”
“19% of what? Grayson what’s going on!”
I paused.
18%.
“Air… I’m… I’m losing air…”
“That’s fine, you’re going to make it!” She said, although I heard her voice cracking a little. “You’re gonna make it!”
I didn’t answer.
12,000 feet.
11,000 feet…
My oxygen level continued to drop.
15%.
14%.
12%.
9,000 feet.
The creatures still clung to me, as the submarine continued to rise. The one on my viewport was still there, slowly crawling along the glass again. I stared into its eyeless face and swore I was looking at the face of my killer.
7,000 feet…
Oxygen had dropped to 9%. It dropped to 8% before I even got to 6,000 feet. I was going to die here…
The viewport cracked again and I squeezed my eyes shut. The submarine rocked. I was sure one of the thrusters had been damaged. My ascent slowed.
“Grayson, what’s going on?”
“I’m sorry Sheila…”
Another crack spread across my viewport.
“I’m… I’m not making it back up…”
“YES YOU ARE!”
“I’m sorry…” The tears started to come as the reality of my death became clearer and clearer… this was it.
“YOU’RE COMING BACK UP, YOU HEAR ME! GODDAMNIT, I’LL BRING YOU BACK UP!”
“I love you…”
That creatures face pressed against the glass. It vomited more of its stomach acid onto the cracked glass, and I wondered if this might finally be what broke it. Part of me hoped it would be… the one good thing about dying this deep was that at least I’d die quickly. My suffering would be over. Then, the creature suddenly pulled back, twisting and writhing violently. I saw other shapes moving past it in the water, other ‘mermaids’ that had been clinging to the submarine.
Something was agitating them.
Something was scaring them off.
Then I heard it, over the radio… whale songs.
“What the hell…?”
“Grayson, are you still there?!”
“I… they’re finally breaking off. Sheila, what did you do?”
“I’m broadcasting some of the orca recordings we’ve been using. Are they still clinging to you?”
“No! They’re backing off! I… whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!”
The submarine kept rising.
5,000 feet.
4,000 feet.
4% oxygen.
I could still do this, right?
The submarine continued to rise.
3%.
3,000 feet.
2,000 feet.
2%.
1,000 feet… so close… I was so close…
I could almost see the surface through my viewport, rushing up toward me. I tried not to breathe. Tried not to move. All I did was hope.
500 feet.
I closed my eyes.
“Grayson we have your signal, we’re coming to pick you up!”
Sheila’s voice sounded so far away as my submarine finally breached the surface of the water… and with the last of my strength, I pulled the emergency release on the hatch, and threw it open, taking in lungful after lungful of fresh salty air.
I didn’t dare so much as touch the water beneath me… but I was topside again, and in the distance, I could see The Burger!
“We see you!” Sheila said, “We’ve got you baby… we’ve got you…”
“I see you too…” I said through the tears. “Thank you… thank you…” I didn’t have any words left in me after that.
As soon as I was back on the ship, I collapsed into Sheila’s arms, breaking down into tears as I clung to her, terrified that at any moment, some sort of unspoken other shoe would drop and I’d lose her all over again.
“Shh… it’s alright baby… I’ve got you… you’re safe… you’re safe…” I felt her fingers running through my air and I knew that what she said was true.
I was home.
I was safe.
***
I left my colleagues to review the data that the Tempura gathered during its short expedition. As far as I know, they haven’t published anything. I have a few ideas as to why, but I’ll keep those to myself. Let’s just say that some people would rather this information not become public.
I have a feeling that the Tempura may not be diving again for some time, if ever. I will confess that I do consider that a bit of a shame. Despite everything… I would consider it a success. It endured far more stressful conditions than I had expected, and from what I heard, required fewer repairs than I’d thought it would. But, even if it was approved for another dive, it wouldn’t be me piloting it. No. I will never be setting foot inside of that machine again, nor will I ever be returning to what my colleagues have been quietly referring to as ‘The Jenner Trench’.
I can’t.
Every night, I wake up crying after dreaming of pale shapes outside of my cracked viewport, clinging to Sheila and sobbing. I can’t put myself in that situation again.
I can’t.
Instead, I think I’m going to spend the next few years on solid ground. There’s a teaching position available at a local university. I think that might be the best place for me right now. Who knows, maybe I can help some other deadbeat discover a passion for marine biology.
After everything, my love for the sea remains unchanged… I’m just a little more wary of it, these days.