Binweevil mulch cards

Hi there! I am attempting to expand an existing flower bed that came with our house when we bought it. The previous owners used that black weed barrier fabric/plastic and it’s poking up out of the soil and flapping in the wind and needs to go. Weeds are coming right through it anyhow and it’s not solving any problems, only adding to it.
The flower beds are outlined with a rock wall. The problem is that the rock wall just circles the flower bed. The soil does not come to the top of the rocks like an actual flower bed should. They were basically put directly into the ground and the rocks were placed around the bed more like a fence than a container.
I’ve had some mold issues and I think the low quality fabric barrier has a lot to do with it. Ideally, what I want to do is remove all the weed barrier fabric, lay down cardboard as a cleaner and more organic weed management option, and add clean, nutrient rich top soil to the beds to bring their depth up to the top of the rock wall so it is a true flower bed. I may use mulch to top it off after.
My question is what is the best way to go about this? Given how low in the bed the flowers are planted, I’m assuming I will have to dig them up and replant them in the clean top soil once the bed is filled properly, correct? Once they are planted I would like to lay the card board around them, then add the mulch to dress it up.
Is this the correct order of operations for a project like this? Am I missing anything or does anyone have any other suggestions? I’m pretty much dead set on NOT using the fabric weed barrier ever again as it has been such a nuisance and totally ineffective. I genuinely hate it.

Me and Lila always carved dozens of jack o’ lanterns every October, so they’d absolutely saturate our lawn on Halloween night. It was our thing. But looking back on it, now that I’ve lost her, I just feel bad for the pumpkins. I almost relate to them, somehow. The way they were carved up, had everything of substance inside of them torn out, and left as hollow, rotting shells with forced smiles.
Needless to say, I didn’t cope with her death well. I didn’t want to cope with it. I wanted the world to drown in the black sludge of my grief. I loathed the people I saw going about their lives, unaware that the world had already ended the moment Lila died. The Earth shouldn’t keep spinning. Life shouldn’t go on. Not without her.
Even my relatives bringing me along on a trip to Kauai only made it worse. The most gorgeous place on Earth, and it made me sick with hatred. Nothing that beautiful deserved to exist if Lila wasn’t ever going to get to see it. It wasn’t fair.
I thought I’d never enjoy or care about anything again. Then I discovered media preservation.
It started with taking some of Lila’s old VHS tapes to a video repair place to fix some issues with the footage before it’s digitized. The job fascinated me. In a universe based on entropy, where everything inevitably fades away and is forgotten… restoring something lost is like snatching it from the jaws of death, right? Like flipping the bird to the universe and its so-called ‘natural order’. People die, but information doesn’t have to.
Now, it doesn’t matter how small — be it some god-awful plug-and-play licensed game, or a cereal commercial from 80’s — it’s my mission to recover it in as high a quality as I’m able, and make sure it’s freely available online for as long as possible.
A couple weeks ago, I came across a big haul. Four boxes of old VHS tapes offered up on E-Bay for dirt cheap. Most of the tapes were just recordings of Cheers episodes already preserved in higher qualities, but one Maxell E-240 caught my interest.
First of all, I’d never seen one so melted. Sure, sometimes they were left in an attic too long, and the colors and audio start to degrade. But this one looked like it had survived a house fire. It was covered in soot and the smell of smoke, and had the overall shape of a chocolate bar left out in the sun a little too long.
Second was the label, which read in neat sharpie: ᴇᴘɪꜱᴏᴅᴇ 4,679,329 ᴍᴀʀ 8 2035.
The casing was so disfigured, I had to bust it apart just pull out the tapes and respool them in a fresh cassette. I tried to iron out the creases in the tape as best I could, but I had no illusions about it accomplishing much — the mylar surface had been irreparably warped in places by whatever fire had half-melted the thing.
Imagine my despair at the sight of that dreaded ‘ɴᴏ ꜱɪɢɴᴀʟ’. I could clearly see the tape wasn’t blank, yet no amount of adjusting the tracking or trying different TVs or VCRs accomplished anything. Just as I was about to give up, though, the thing just suddenly started playing properly at the exact instant the clock struck 3 AM, as if it had only now decided to work. My all-nighter had paid off.
I didn’t dwell on the fact that this ‘miracle fix’ had been impossible. If I’d had any sense, I’d have torn the horrid thing out of my VCR and buried it beneath holy ground. Instead, fool I was, I sat down and watched.
At first, the thing seemed unwatchable. The audio was so distorted that the show’s theme song emerged as a low, crackling, staticky wail that made my head throb, and the logo was completely indistinguishable through the flickering and interference. I thought it was a lost cause for a moment. But then a figure appeared and cleared away the static, like Moses parting the Red Sea.
It was the sight of the show’s host that hooked me. He was just… perfect. Perfect in every way. I knew it just looking at him. Infinitely handsome and likable and charismatic, and he always said the exact perfect thing. The only issue is, I don’t remember a single thing about him now, in the same way you can’t remember a dream that seemed so clear to you while you were experiencing it. He just appears in my memory as this abstract blur in a sharp suit. Yet at the time, I was awestruck, even before he said a single word.
I can’t even remember a word he said. It was like he was speaking another language, one I felt as opposed to heard. I’ll try and transcribe it as best I can into words, but know that it’s only a pathetic imitation.
“... for another night of laughs, prizes, and fun for the whole family, with your host, #####!” I noticed that the audio and visual distortion seemed to suddenly intensify the instant he said his name, rendering it completely illegible. Idiot I was, I figured that was a coincidence. “Tonight is a night of celebration, folks, because thanks to the support of loyal viewers like you, we have just been approved for, get this: two hundred thousand more seasons!”
The “live studio audience” went wild with applause. I put that in scare quotes because, as far as I could tell, besides the host, the studio seemed completely empty. As if he was standing on a plain white stage that extended outwards into infinite darkness on all sides.
“For those just joining us, the game here is simple…” He explained that this was some sort of a trivia show. Every time a guest got an answer wrong, it brought them a little closer to some sort of unspecified ‘punishment’. And if they got it right? He smirked. “Well, they get to delay the inevitable.”
I wondered what he meant by ‘inevitable’. I didn’t have to wonder long.
The host gestured to a curtain that hadn’t been there moments ago, which raised to reveal a middle-aged man. You know the type — bushy mustache, gray hair, round-rimmed glasses. Kind of guy you’d have doing your plumbing. He couldn’t look any more out of place stood up and restrained in that — what the hell is that?
I recognized that metal coffin-looking thing from a medieval torture museum I went to once. The iron maiden. The lid hung open, countless long, needle-like blades poking inwards, threaten to poke a million new holes in him if it was shut.
His situation was not lost on him. “Where… where am I? What the hell is this!?”
“Oh, lucky guess!” The host ‘joked’. More canned laughter. “I know you always loved watching those trivia shows, Malcolm? Weren’t you always sitting there, grinding your teeth, seething that it wasn’t fair? That you should be the one up on stage, winning big?”
The man paused. Even he seemed mesmerized by the unreal perfection of the host before him. “I… this is a… game show?”
“All you have to do is answer a few questions! Think you can handle that, Malcolm?” He pulled out a cue card without waiting for an answer. “And our first question! What were you doing the night of February 18th, 1998?”
The man seemed baffled. “Just… sat on my couch watching the NFL, I think? I’m not sure how I’m supposed to remember —“
He let out a startled squeal as a horrid buzzer sounded. On cue, the lid slid a third of the way closed, making him flinch. “Oooh, I’m afraid that’s the wrong answer, Frank! But you know what? I’ll give you one more chance. What were you —“
“Following a girl home!” The man cried out. “F-from the bar. There, are you happy?”
“Cor-rect!” The canned audience began cheering! “Such honesty! Now, our second question: just what were you carrying while you followed her?”
He hesitated for a little too long. And then the buzzer sounded again, and the lid slid so near to closing that its blades began poking uncomfortably against his skin. He tried to press himself against the back of the maiden as well as his restraints would allow. “Jesus! Okay! A knife, a knife!”
“Awww, if only you’d said that just a second earlier!” Another big question. “Our third question: why, Malcolm? Why did you do it?”
That set Malcolm off. He started thrashing, clawing, screaming. “Let me out of this thing, you maniac! You can’t do this to me! Do you know who I am? Is this some sort of sick joke? My lawyers will have your head for this, you—“
And then the buzzer. All of a sudden, the lid slammed shut full-force, and the man was utterly silenced save for an unnatural, drawn-out wheeze. “Another wrong answer, Malcolm! I’m afraid I was looking for: ‘because if I can’t have her, no one can’!”
I admit it. I laughed. Out of shock more than anything. How was this allowed on TV? I took it as some sort of dark comedy show, and it was kind of satisfying to see that freaky character get his comeuppance. Still, there was something unnerving to me, seeing the man’s eyes through the openings in the maiden. Wide and red and terrified. They just looked a little… too real.
But the maiden disappeared as quickly as it came, before I could dwell on it too much. “Oh, envy! Definitely one of my favorite sins.” More laughter. “Stay tuned, folks! We’ve still got a night of fun and games in store for you! But first… how’s about a word from our sponsors?”
Cut to a corporate logo which I again couldn't recognize.
“This segment was made possible by Buer Health, which has recently announced a brilliant new initiative to protect our citizens from skin cancer by removing their skin completely.”
The camera cut to a massive industrial building, resembling a solid concrete cube around 50 meters in width and height. Its surface bore arcane symbols etched using carvings of wailing, tormented faces. The host would occasionally be rendered inaudible by a deafening metallic scraping from within, though he didn’t seem to notice. The only protrusion from the building’s cubic shape was a single smokestack, belching a scarlet red smoke into the atmosphere. A queue of gaunt figures waited at the entrance, herded and coerced by their grim overseers, and there were no words to describe the procession of scarlet ghouls limping out the building’s other end.
“Owing to the nonlinearity of time, the brand new Grand Skinpeeling Machine has spontaneously appeared several years before construction deadlines, and indeed, before it was even conceived of by anyone in our timeline. People have rushed all the way from Malebolge just to try this miracle of technology out on opening day, and so far, the reviews have been stellar!”
He shoved his microphone in the face of a shambling thing that could only scarcely be called a human. Tatters of flesh clung to its exposed musculature, blowing in the wind. Its eyes were the only hint of color in that sea of bloody red, and they were wide, white and terrified. The thing screamed and wailed for as long as it could before the last tendons connecting its jaw to its face snapped, and it was left to choke and gurgle.
“An amazing wail! The results speak for themselves, folks. The Grand Skinpeeling Machine is a hit!”
So far, I was still laughing along and having a good time. The sight of the next ‘guest’, however, started making me nervous.
It was an old lady.
She couldn’t be a day younger than sixty, the sort of sweet elderly woman who in a just world would be cooking chocolate chip cookies for her grandchildren in a comfy cottage somewhere. But here she was, tied to a metal chair, eyes wide, shaking like a leaf. Unlike the last contestant, she seemed to know exactly what was happening.
“In exchange for our loving endorsement, they’ve agreed to loan us one of their star employees. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for: the Liqisma!”
Something slunk from the darkness far behind her — or perhaps it’d be more apt to say that the darkness birthed it whole-cloth. It was like a living shadow, and it took my eyes a moment to register what I was even seeing.
How do I even begin describing this creature? I could say it looked almost human, or at least like something that may have been human long ago. Or I could start with its skin, which was all black and shiny as latex and seemingly smooth on first glance, but if you looked closer you’d realize it was covered in a million tiny reptilian scales, almost like a shark. Its head was a bald man’s, utterly devoid of any distinguishing features, like the basic stock template for a human being. It was notable only for a complete lack of pupils and irises, its eyes a pure white.
Its body defied basic biology in so many key ways, I had to stare it at for what felt like an eternity just to wrap my mind around its physiology. It was at least five or six meters long, by my estimate, composed of multiple human torsos stacked one on top of the other like segments of a centipede, each melding with the ones around it at the waist and shoulders. Each torso sported a pair of short, stubby arms that propelled it with terrifying grace. It ended with a pair of human legs, perpetually bent on their knees, beneath a ‘tail’ that looked more like its coccyx was poking free from its body.
The old last could clearly hear it, and kept futilely trying to turn her head around enough to get a peek at what stood behind her. I mouthed uselessly, don’t. You don’t want to know.
“Glad you could join us again, Miss Wethersby! Judging by our ratings last week, you seemed to have been a fan favorite!”
Her voice was so soft, I could barely hear it below the static. “Oh, God. Please, why won’t you people let me go? I’ve told you, I’ve never done anything, never hurt anybody. There must be some sort of—”
He waved a hand over her, and it seemed to forcefully snap her mouth shut. “Please, Miss Wethersby, save your breath for our questions!” Another cue card. “Your first question, my friend: where did you and your husband buy your first home?”
She had to think about it for a long time. Eventually, she cried out, “Alabama! Tuscaloosa, Alabama!”
“Ding ding ding! Why, you’re already doing better than our first contestant! Next question: what breed of dog was your childhood pet?”
She had a pained look on her face as she thought. Eventually, a timer started ticking down. It wasn’t visible, so it wasn’t clear how much time she had left exactly, but the sound it made got more shrill and high-pitched with every second. “Miss Wethersby, need I remind you that we have a time limit on this show?”
A tear ran down her cheek. “I… I keep telling you people, I don’t know. I have dementia, I can’t remember, please—”
That buzzer again. “I’m afraid that was the wrong answer! Liqisma?” The old lady shuddered at the sounds of hundreds of feet drawing a little closer to her. “Now, your first grandchild. What did he look like? What color were his eyes? His hair?”
She was crying harder now, like it hurt her that she couldn’t remember something so dear to her. “I told you I can’t remember! Why are you doing this to me!?”
“If you don’t remember them, why would they remember you?” The host mocked as the buzzer sounded, and the beast drew a little closer. “Really, do you believe they still even think about you? Or do you think they’re glad that the old bag of bones isn’t there sucking up their inheritance?”
This went on for… God, it could have been an hour. I was glued to the screen all the while, frozen with terror, praying for this nightmare to just end, for her to make it out okay somehow. He poured over every little detail of the life she lived and the people she loved, delighting in how little of it she could still recall.
And the thing grew closer, and closer… until she finally felt multiple pairs of hands resting upon her shoulders. The thing was looming over her now, and a long, black tongue a few feet in length emerged from its mouth and ran trails of dark saliva over the back of her head. She looked broken down, eyes raw from crying, and I could tell by the dampness of her dress that she’d wet herself.
“Now, Miss Wethersby, our time here has been fun, but I do believe it is time for our final question. Tell me, what is the name… of your only son?”
She couldn’t even answer anymore. She just stared ahead, like her mind was a million miles away. He cackled as the buzzer sounded one final time, and threw his cue cards aside. “Thank you for playing, Miss Wethersby. Better luck next time.”
I would say the thing unhinged its jaw like a snake, but that’d be an understatement. The way the thing’s face malformed and wrinkled and stretched as it opened its maw, it no longer looked even remotely human. Its jaws must have parted at least thirty centimeters apart, revealing a second, pharyngeal pair of jaws that lashed out and gripped the woman’s skull, pulling her headlong into that darkness.
I could hear bones crunching and snapping as its throat constricted down around her body, peristaltic muscles compacting her into a meat slurry, bit by bit. Yet she just wouldn’t die. Even as her skull and upper body were already crushed and compacted, organs and muscles pressed into mulch, she still kicked her legs, twitched her fingers, let out a gurgling that must have been some attempt at screaming. She was squirming even as the beast snapped its jaw shut around the last of her, condemning her to whatever torments awaited her inside the creature.
And all the while, that horrible laughter. “Don’t worry, folks! She’ll be back next week! And the next. And the next…”
Needless to say, I wasn’t having fun anymore. In fact, I had to turn away and fight the urge to throw up. I stood, about to turn the TV off and —
“Ah, ah, ah! Don’t touch that dial, now!” I froze. There was something chilling about the way he said that, staring right into the screen as if reacting to what I was doing. I hated that grin on his face. “The real show is just beginning.”
And with the barely restrained excitement of a child on Christmas morning, he yanked back another curtain, and I recognized everything.
I recognized that crappy bootleg knockoff Always Sunny in Philadelphia jacket that was so gaudy and terrible it instantly became her favorite thing in her wardrobe. I recognized those subtle hints of slight acne she disguised as fake freckles. I recognized the way her gray eyes would remind me of those overcast mornings at the beach at Hilton Head and pointing out all the cannonball jellyfish washed up on the sands. I recognized that tattoo of the name ʀᴏᴄᴋʏ, how I’d held her all night long as she cried into my shirt after her childhood cat had died.
It was Lila.
I shuddered, gasped, fell from my seat as if I’d been punched in the stomach and the air had been knocked out of me. I couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be real. I was dreaming right now. I must be. I just had to wake up.
But I couldn’t wake up. Nothing I could do dispelled the sight of her curled up in that… that thing. That bronze statue of a bull, horns jutting on either side of a head that roaring silently up at the heavens, all while the love of my life was locked in its hollowed out belly, visible only through a pane of glass. I could hear her cry out in shock at where she’d found herself, and every whimper felt like it drove a knife through my chest.
The host soaked in the moment. It was ecstasy for him, the suffering of it all. He stared dead into the camera like he was looking right at me as she called, “What is this? Where am I?”
“Why, I have good news, my dear Lila! You’re exactly where every American dreams of being: you’re on TV.” He pointed to the camera. “And we have a very special guest in the audience tonight. Your very own beloved Jackson!”
I shuddered, hearing my own name ooze from his fetid lips. His façade of perfection was slipping, and there was something so profoundly ugly beneath it. Her eyes snapped to the camera, confused, despairing. “Jackson? Baby? What — what’s happening? What is this?”
I don’t know, I thought, gripping the sides of the TV so hard my knuckles turned white, but I’m going to get you out of there, baby. I’m going to find whoever did this and I’m going to bury them all so far beneath that studio that they’ll never-
“I’m afraid Jackson hasn’t joined us quite yet, my dear. But if you truly love him, surely you’ll give him a show to remember, won’t you?” He taunted her. “All I want, after all, is to ask you a few questions! In fact, I’ll offer you a special deal: get even a single answer right, and I’ll let you go free! But get one wrong and, well…”
On cue, a fire was lit beneath her. Small, smoldering for now, but she whimpered as she noticed the heat. We both realized in that instant what this was. By now, I was screaming things I can’t repeat here, and slamming my hands against the TV screen as if I could reach through and save her.
She bit her lip and acquiesced. Not like she had any room to argue. The host grinned and readied a cue card. “Your first question: where are you, Lila?”
“I… I don’t know. How am I supposed to know?”
“You do know, Lila. You know exactly where you are.” He smirked at her. “Here’s a free hint: what’s the last thing you remember, before you woke up here?
She thought about it… and choked back a sob, visibly shaking as the realization slowly settled in. “But… but why? I… I…”
The horrible wail of the buzzer cut her off. “Oooh, too bad! I’m afraid you’ve run out of time!”
Seemingly as if on its own, the fire doubled in size. Sparks licked the belly of the bronze bull, and began to ever-so-slowly heat the surface. She pawed around in the tight confines, searching for any reprieve from the scalding heat all around her as the metal grew hot like it’d been left out in the sun on a summer’s day. “Please! Oh, God, let me out of this thing! It hurts! It hurts!”
The host seemed to breathe in her pain as if stealing a moment’s indulgence. “Now that there is no doubt about where you are, my dear, let us proceed to the second question.” He switched to his next card. “Did you believe in God, in the end?”
“O-of course!” She pled her case as if she was being tried in court. “My entire life… every day I gave to the poor, helped the sick, did whatever I could to honor Hi-“
“I’m afraid you misunderstood my question. I asked, did you believe in him at the end? The very moment your pitiful little life was snuffed out?”
“I always believed! I’d never forsake Him!”
“Yes, yes, I know. You lived a good and holy life, didn’t you?” He cackled. “But what of the very end? You and your little husband were so excited to deliver your first little baby boy. But o, tragedy! It all went wrong, didn’t it? Your precious little boy didn’t make it through childbirth… and you followed closely behind.”
“That whole business with the botched pregnancy, it was… what do you call it? Ah, yes. A ‘test of faith’. And I’m afraid you failed. In your final moments, you watched the light fade from your child’s eyes, and you assumed — wisely, in my humble opinion — that no ‘kind’ and ‘loving’ God would allow something like that to happen.” He laughed. “Funny how after a lifetime of dutiful service, all it takes is one little mistake at the end… to bring you here. To us.”
I’d never seen such depths of despair in a person’s eyes. Such emptiness. Like with every word, he’d been scooping out another piece of her until she was hollow. And then that buzzer roared again, more shrill than ever, and I could barely see her little window through the smoke and flames. The belly of the bull was turning orange in places, and I could hear her flesh start to sizzle like meat on a grill. There are no words for the noises she made. No words at all.
“And our last, final question,” he continued. “What were your last words to your poor, beloved Jackson?”
“I love you!” I called out the answer. Bloody fingerprints stained the TV screen from my slamming my hands against it, as I screamed the answer over and over. “I love you, I love you, I love you!” At some point, I forgot that there was ever a question. I was just screaming it at her as if hoping that she could hear it, that it could bring her a modicum of comfort in that place.
The buzzer sounded again. I couldn't bring myself to look. All I could hear was the roaring of the bull, and the steam rising from its bronze nostrils.
The curtain fell. Silence drowned the sound. The host dropped all pretense that he hadn’t been speaking directly to me. “Now, Jackson. You just might be one of my new favorite audience members this show had ever had. I know this must have been hard for you. But if you’ll just stay tuned, I have one more show I know you’re certain to love!”
I didn’t bother to touch the remote. After all, nothing could be worse than what I’d just seen, right?
Wrong. Horror wracked me as the curtain rose, and I saw the man chained to a chair. I pulled away like a caveman witnessing fire, cringing and stuttering, face wet with sweat. It was the sort of fear that worked its way into your bones like a bad chill, that left you shaking, teeth chattering.
It was me.
An older me, sure. But not by much. Ten years, maybe. A gaunt and hollow version of me, one twisted by ten years of depression and hard drugs. But it was unmistakable.
His eyes widened as he recognized the host. “Oh — oh God, God please no! It can’t be — oh Christ, let me out of this chair, you —“
“Come, now! We wouldn’t want to use the lord’s name in vain, would we? I mean, that would be a sin!” The host laid a hand on the other me’s shoulder. “It may have been a few years since you watched our program, but I’m sure you remember the rules, don’t you, old friend?”
The other me was wordless, on the verge of hyperventilating, just as I was. The host was giddy with delight. “Now! Our first and only question is one I’m sure our viewer will be very interested in: what sins, exactly, do you think landed you here?”
The other me tried to speak, but the words caught in his throat. I could see it in his eyes. The years of self-destruction, the bitter hopelessness, the whirlpool of nihilism and vice and decay. The suffocating depths of a man. The darkness. How could he put it into words?
The sound of the buzzer was like a pig’s squeal. “Mmm, I’m afraid that our viewer is going to have to figure that out for himself! In the meantime, your punishment? Well, we wouldn’t want to spoil anything…”
The curtains slowly began to fall just as a couple other of those black, grotesque monstrosities emerged from the darkness. The curtain covered them all before I could get a good look at their obscene, twisted, asymmetrical figures. All I could hear was the crunching, the sound of skin tearing like paper, the screaming that went on for longer and louder than a human throat or vocal chords could endure.
The image and audio were beginning to distort, glitch, burn away. The tapes were physically melting as they played. My VCR was starting to overheat, sparks pouring from its front panel. The host voice jumped around in tone, his voice fading into the static blur as the tapes bubbled and boiled and distorted. “But, my friends, I’m afraid that concludes tonight’s episode of our show! So, with a final farewell to our dear, beloved viewer, Jackson…”
Just before the image melted away, the camera seemed to jump forward until his face filled the screen, his eyes piercing into mine as he cackled in that singsong voice.
“See you sooooon~”

EDIT: thank you everyone for your helpful comments!! much appreciated.
hi everyone! not sure where to post this besides gardening, so putting it here too.
i'm new to this sub and pretty new to gardening in general. looking for a bit of advice. the problems are of my own making and i'm not sure how to solve 'em.
OVERLY DETAILED BACKGROUND: i have two small balconies in my apartment, one in the front, one in the back. last summer i decided to try and do some container gardening. i'm a student in a big city and materials are quite expensive, so i ended up investing quite a lot into potting soil + raw materials to mix my own (the latter was somewhat successful but honestly not very economical in the end). because i was super anxious about balcony weight and also, again, trying to be as thrifty as possible, i used those "reusable cloth" bags you get from the grocery store (i'm in an area where single-use plastic bags are now banned) in place of fancy grow bags. after planting my starters i used a wood mulch to cover the soil. i used some rocks and a bit of cardboard at the the base of some bags to bulk them up.
ANYWAY i was a total newbie and made a ton of mistakes for every one success. SPECIFICALLY, i think i fumbled the landing. the first frost comes early where i am and i got overwhelmed, busy, etc, and as such didn't really pack anything up properly. all my grow bags are where they were in the fall. i left the plants (mostly annuals) in the bags, and some have rotted, while others dried out completely. this isn't bad necessarily; i left them out deliberately because i know insects can use the husks to overwinter...but i'm at a loss.
now that the insane academic year is over i feel capable of putting energy into the garden, but i feel so lost every time i look out the windows and see everything in disarray, and dread having to buy new soil. it was labour-intensive to acquire last year (i don't have a car and can't drive, so had to strap it to my bike. over many trips. and pray.) and cost a pretty penny, which isn't in the cards for me right now. the last frost was a few weeks ago and i haven't started anything. i have a few native perennials that seem to be sprouting again and that's exciting. i have some seeds from last year and from my school's seed library that i want to start ASAP too. yet i've heard conflicting reports on what to do. my usual gardening mentor packs up her container garden soil for the winter, which i obviously haven't. others told me that the soil will have been pretty much useless as it's been depleted. i know quite a bit about soil from an academic perspective (i've taken a class or two) but i just can't seem to apply any of it! the soil i bought was specifically for container gardening. the soil i mixed myself was pretty much a hack job but i used a lot of coconut coir to try and control moisture. it seemed to work fine.
now what? i'm not in a position to buy more soil. i'm really passionate about composting but the city collects ours and i don't have a home set up. i'm also not really in the position to start vermicomposting in my apartment. i have a liquid fertilizer (this one: "HydraGreen Plant Food." idk how to put links in reddit posts). i haven't used it on anything outside and i'm not sure if it would suffice to help make my soil healthy again. ideally i would have a real plot outside and could use the knowledge i do have (i love gardening youtube) to really love the soil long-term, with compost, vermicomposting, crop switching, etc.
right now i only have the consequences of my inaction. i should probably take out the old annuals, i know, but do i plant a cover crop? does that make sense considering my silly grow bags and all the mulch still there? i have three big perennials: lavender, yarrow, and butterfly weed. i also have a few much shallower planters i used for beans and radishes. i also have a lot of tiny pots of basil as well as four large coffee cans i punched drainage holes in and used for basil. i have the (rotted/dried) remains of two cabbages, three kales, one caulifower, one broccoli, and two bell pepper plants, each in separate bags. (i know this was a really dumb selection for container gardening....forgive me, lol). nothing really seems mouldy except one head of cabbage i was really stupid to leave and then never harvested. the bags themselves do not make direct contact with the wood of the balcony and the bags are intact (i cut drainage holes). i also have one big terracotta pot i planted sunflowers in with lettuce as cover. i know the bean soil is probably fine because it's nitrogen-fixing. the radish soil i also probably okay (?) as slugs got to it so there was very little actual growth. but what of the basil? it's dried out completely. and should i try and repot the perennials? i made a specific mix for the lavender, and the butterfly weed and yarrow seem to have some sprouts, so i've hesitated. i know the kale and cabbage are probably biannual... should i just leave them as-is?
ALSO, CRITICALLY: i tried to also grow cucumbers and tomatoes (definitely not going to repeat as i learned i do not get enough sun for them) but killed them accidentally as i think i sprayed too much of a homemade saline solution i was using to treat some mildew. is the cucumber and tomato soil ruined because of that? i tried to wash the leaves as best i could as soon as i saw signs of drying/wilt but i'm afraid i may have washed the salt into the soil. would test the pH but i'm not even sure if the salinity would really alter the pH because i don't think the concentration was THAT high... do i risk just planting again and seeing what happens? but also, the soil's already pretty depleted, right? should i just toss it all? :(
wow, this feels like a novel. any and all advice and ideas are welcomed. i can also go into even more detail if needed, haha. thank you so much in advance! :)
TL;DR: i left my container balcony gardens untouched after harvest. what do i do with the soil? i want to start it up again for the spring and summer but not sure how to prep it. i'm not really in the position to buy fresh container potting soil. i've struggled in the past to find accessible compost as well. also, some containers might have non-negligible salt content.
main questions:
-some containers have a possible salt content...can i save the soil? any way to test?
-do i use liquid fertilizer to replenish my perennials? (does it depend on the perennial?)
-do i leave the rotted cabbage and kale and hope they flower?
-what do i do with the rest of the containers with annuals and soil?
THANK YOU!

hi everyone! i'm new to this sub and pretty new to gardening in general. looking for a bit of advice. the problems are of my own making and i'm not sure how to solve 'em.
OVERLY DETAILED BACKGROUND: i have two small balconies in my apartment, one in the front, one in the back. last summer i decided to try and do some container gardening. i'm a student in a big city and materials are quite expensive, so i ended up investing quite a lot into potting soil + raw materials to mix my own (the latter was somewhat successful but honestly not very economical in the end). because i was super anxious about balcony weight and also, again, trying to be as thrifty as possible, i used those "reusable cloth" bags you get from the grocery store (i'm in an area where single-use plastic bags are now banned) in place of fancy grow bags. after planting my starters i used a wood mulch to cover the soil. i used some rocks and a bit of cardboard at the the base of some bags to bulk them up.
ANYWAY i was a total newbie and made a ton of mistakes for every one success. SPECIFICALLY, i think i fumbled the landing. the first frost comes early where i am and i got overwhelmed, busy, etc, and as such didn't really pack anything up properly. all my grow bags are where they were in the fall. i left the plants (mostly annuals) in the bags, and some have rotted, while others dried out completely. this isn't bad necessarily; i left them out deliberately because i know insects can use the husks to overwinter...but i'm at a loss.
now that the insane academic year is over i feel capable of putting energy into the garden, but i feel so lost every time i look out the windows and see everything in disarray, and dread having to buy new soil. it was labour-intensive to acquire last year (i don't have a car and can't drive, so had to strap it to my bike. over many trips. and pray.) and cost a pretty penny, which isn't in the cards for me right now. the last frost was a few weeks ago and i haven't started anything. i have a few native perennials that seem to be sprouting again and that's exciting. i have some seeds from last year and from my school's seed library that i want to start ASAP too. yet i've heard conflicting reports on what to do. my usual gardening mentor packs up her container garden soil for the winter, which i obviously haven't. others told me that the soil will have been pretty much useless as it's been depleted. i know quite a bit about soil from an academic perspective (i've taken a class or two) but i just can't seem to apply any of it! the soil i bought was specifically for container gardening. the soil i mixed myself was pretty much a hack job but i used a lot of coconut coir to try and control moisture. it seemed to work fine.
now what? i'm not in a position to buy more soil. i'm really passionate about composting but the city collects ours and i don't have a home set up. i'm also not really in the position to start vermicomposting in my apartment. i have a liquid fertilizer (this one: "HydraGreen Plant Food." idk how to put links in reddit posts). i haven't used it on anything outside and i'm not sure if it would suffice to help make my soil healthy again. ideally i would have a real plot outside and could use the knowledge i do have (i love gardening youtube) to really love the soil long-term, with compost, vermicomposting, crop switching, etc.
right now i only have the consequences of my inaction. i should probably take out the old annuals, i know, but do i plant a cover crop? does that make sense considering my silly grow bags and all the mulch still there? i have three big perennials: lavender, yarrow, and butterfly weed. i also have a few much shallower planters i used for beans and radishes. i also have a lot of tiny pots of basil as well as four large coffee cans i punched drainage holes in and used for basil. i have the (rotted/dried) remains of two cabbages, three kales, one caulifower, one broccoli, and two bell pepper plants, each in separate bags. (i know this was a really dumb selection for container gardening....forgive me). nothing really seems mouldy except one head of cabbage i was really stupid to leave and then never harvested. the bags themselves do not make direct contact with the wood of the balcony and the bags are intact (i cut drainage holes). i also have one big terracotta pot i planted sunflowers in with lettuce as cover. i know the bean soil is probably fine because it's nitrogen-fixing. the radish soil i also probably okay (?) as slugs got to it so there was very little actual growth. but what of the basil? it's dried out completely. and should i try and repot the perennials? i made a specific mix for the lavender, and the butterfly weed and yarrow seem to have some sprouts, so i've hesitated. i know the kale and cabbage are probably biannual... should i just leave them as-is?
ALSO, CRITICALLY: i tried to also grow cucumbers and tomatoes (definitely not going to repeat) but killed them accidentally as i think i sprayed too much of a homemade saline solution i was using to treat some mildew. is the cucumber and tomato soil ruined because of that? i tried to wash the leaves as best i could as soon as i saw signs of drying/wilt but i'm afraid i may have washed the salt into the soil. would test the pH but i'm not even sure if the salinity would really alter the pH because i don't think the concentration was THAT high... do i risk just planting again and seeing what happens? but also, the soil's already pretty depleted, right? should i just toss it all? :(
wow, this feels like a novel. any and all advice and ideas are welcomed. i can also go into even more detail if needed, haha. thank you so much in advance! :)
TL;DR: i left my container balcony gardens untouched after harvest. what do i do with the soil? i want to start it up again for the spring and summer but not sure how to prep it. i'm not really in the position to buy fresh container potting soil. i've struggled in the past to find accessible compost as well. also, some containers might have non-negligible salt content.
main questions:
-some containers have a possible salt content...can i save the soil? any way to test?
-do i use liquid fertilizer to replenish my perennials? (does it depend on the perennial?)
-do i leave the rotted cabbage and kale and hope they flower?
-what do i do with the rest of the containers with annuals and soil?

hello! i made a guide that should serve as a strong introduction to the fundamental principles underlying Balatro. I focus a lot on jokers, and might do a tarot/planet focused guide in the near future, but I think jokers are the easiest way to start strategizing around the game. It's quite long, so if you prefer listening over reading, I have the guide in video form here as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN6BcGCRAVk
-
Balatro has a lot of mechanics: jokers, planet cards, tarot cards, etc. But for most of this video, I'm going to focus strictly on jokers. In my experience, it's possible to win every run using jokers alone [on White Stake], and in some ways it's actually easier, because you don't spend a bunch of money on stuff you don't need. So let's start by talking about the types of jokers. I generally categorize jokers into five types: chips, plus mult, times mult, economic, and utility. The categories are pretty self-explanatory: chips give ya chips, mult gives ya mult, economic gives ya money, you know. Times mult cards are a little different because they multiply the mult [??] that came before them, which of course means you should put them on the right side of your inventory, and utility jokers have various effects that improve your run in some hard-to-quantify way. Pretty much every joker can be effective if used correctly, except for Space Joker because jesus christ, but to make your life easier, I'll just give you an Exodia combo that'll get you through 99% of your games [the hand-independent strategy].
First you need plus chips. Usually you want just one +chips card, but you can take more if the rest of your build is *really* strong. Special standouts in this category are Banner, Blue Joker, and Square Joker, and on the Uncommon/Rare side, Bull, Stuntman, and Wee Joker. There are others, but those are my favorite.
Second, you need a big plus mult source. You ideally want just one of these as well, and really what you're looking for is scaling cards: these include Green Joker, Supernova, Ceremonial Dagger, Flash Card, and a whole bunch more. The reason why you want scaling is because scaling lets you compress a whole bunch of mult onto a single joker. Joker slots are the bottleneck of this game, and you want to use as many of them as possible on times mult cards.
Times mult cards are like your endgame finishing moves --- they suck at low mult, but once your scaling joker is at like 50+, they stack with each other to push you to ludicrous values. Ideally you want to use your three remaining slots on times mult cards, but if you just get one or two, you can probably still win.
So to recap, your ideal setup is: 1 chip joker, 1 scaling mult joker, and 3 times mult jokers. Now, is this the only way to win in Balatro? Absolutely not. I know you can use planet and tarot cards for chips and mult, and I know that if you do, you can use 5 times mult jokers instead of 3. I know you can put Red Seal on Glass cards and Steel cards for insane scaling, and I know you can use Idol and delete every card in your deck and get a million bazillion points, I know all that stuff. But my goal here is not to cover every possible combo in Balatro: my goal is to give you a formula that's easy to remember, easy to execute, and will maximize your winrate at every stake. This is a build that will teach you the fundamentals of Balatro, and you need to master the fundamentals before you do the advanced stuff. So stick with the basics for now, and figure out the cool combos when you're comfortable.
ECONOMY
So what I've just told you is the ideal endgame state, but if you try to build it directly, you'll quickly get mulched. So the question is, how do we get to that perfect endgame? In order to do so, we have to talk about economy.
As you may have noticed, Balatro has an interest mechanic, where for every $5 in your bank, you earn $1 per round, up to a cap of $5 by default. This means that if you have a bank of $25, you'll score 5 extra dollars per round, and that's a lot of money over time. Your big picture economic goal is to get to $25 as quickly as possible, then spend all your money above that on jokers and rerolls. Why rerolls, you ask? Because the more jokers you see, the more likely it is you'll get a good one.
But Autumn, I hear you ask. What about the planet cards? What about the tarot cards? What if I'd rather open packs than reroll? No. Don't do it. And here's why. Let's say, hypothetically, you have $24 to spend on anything you want. If you spent all that money on planet cards, you would get 24/3 = 8 planet cards total, and if each is worth 2 mult, you can get 16 mult overall. However, if you instead reroll three times and get a Ramen, you get a 2x mult instead. Assuming you have, say, Gros Michel and Smiley Face, that's +19 mult. Cool!
But Autumn, you ask again. Doesn't that mean the value of a reroll is conditional on your build? Wouldn't I rather have the guaranteed value from packs? No. And stop talking. Let's say you have another $24, and you spend it again on planet cards. If the world still makes sense, you'll get another +16 mult. However, if you instead rerolled another 3 times and picked up a Seeing Double, that Seeing Double is now worth +38 mult. Why? Because Seeing Double will multiply the mult from Gros Michel, Smiley Face, AND Ramen. In the business, we call that exponential growth. And that exponential growth is so powerful that it overshadows the linear value you get from planet cards. That's why I spend a crazy amount of money on rerolls every run --- I'm digging for a handful of power cards that'll skyrocket my build.
So in brief, save up money, get to $25 ASAP, and live off of the interest. Buy economic jokers if the rest of your build can clear the next few fights; they pay for themselves really quickly. And when in doubt, err on the side of buying more jokers: you can always sell them to recoup some money, and better to lose a few dollars than lose the entire run.
contd: https://reddit.com/balatro/comments/1cjxgu4/my_complete_guide_to_balatro/l2ixkt4/

Hello! First time posting.
Long story short, after a long while of not actively playing MtG I have a chance to scrap together a group of low-budget players. It will be a mixture of people throwing together things from their collections and those buying cards.
We do not have an established format, but for this deck I would like to keep things Modern-legal (to maybe play it outside of the group if a chance arises). The budget limit is 20 Euro for the non-land cards (prices per CardMarket, average price of the cheapest printing). Lands are on the trust system of "just don't go too crazy".
I am a big Golgari/Sultai fan, and wanted to throw together something engaging and hopefully not overly oppressive. The list below is my first attempt, and it gravitates toward the plan of recurring threats until Savra, Woe Strider, and Worm Harvest can clear the path to victory. Which admittedly sounds a little bit combo-y (in the casual sense). I do not include lands for the time being.
[CREATURES]
3 [[Golgari Thug]]
3 [[Grim Flayer]]
4 [[Narcomoeba]]
2 [[Prized Amalgam]]
2 [[Savra, Queen of the Golgari]]
3 [[Silversmote Ghoul]]
3 [[Stitchwing Skaab]]
2 [[Woe Strider]]
[INSTANTS]
4 [[Otherworldly Gaze]]
[SORCERIES]
3 [[Creeping Chill]]
2 [[Diregraf Rebirth]]
1 [[Life from the Loam]]
3 [[Mulch]]
2 [[Worm Harvest]]
My current worries are:

1. The blue splash might just be unnecessary and drag the deck down some
   
2. The plan might sound like something very much not fitting the "casual" label
   
3. The deck being potentially too much of "do the thing" and not engaging the enemy.
   

I would welcome any thoughts and suggestions!

“For those that have been holding 10th Anniversary cards, feel free to trade them in for Max tokens. They will not be able to be used in the 2 for 1 or any other trade in the future. Happy mulching.”

I had a red card dash today that hurt my completion rate. I was sent to Lowe’s for 10 bags of mulch and 2 bags of pea gravel. How does DoorDash that knows what my vehicle is allow me to accept an order for almost 1000 pounds when they know I have a small SUV? For reference the mulch weighs 88lbs a bag and was wet so that adds weight and the gravel was 50lbs a bag. They needed to make sure the person they sent had a truck when they want you to pick up a half of ton of material.

Finale
The Brooks Brother’s Hardware store stood alone on its main street block. Chipped layers of white-washed paint contrasted the darkness inside the tall narrow windows. Faded posters advertising Case knives and hand tools hung in the ground level windows, but the only thing in the second story windows, was a thick layer of cobwebs. Tonight, however the faint flicker of candle light betrayed the fact someone was upstairs.
The autumn breeze carried my breath away in white puffs as I lingered across the street, gripping my Maglite in shivering hands. I missed my coat, purposefully forgotten inside a few hours earlier. I took a deep breath of cold air and stepped into the street.

I started working for Mr. Brooks after getting passed over for an internship with the Henderson Falls Gazette. I was interested in investigative journalism and thought the internship would be a great segue into that career, and might even lead to a job covering the police beat after I graduated. At any rate, it would look great on a resume. Unfortunately, the editor’s son got the position, and I found myself turning in an application to Henderson Falls’ oldest business.
I think part of the reason Mr. Brooks hired me was so he could have a captive audience. As a senior member of the county’s historical society and a frequent contributor to the local paper, his mind was a repository for obscure and trivial facts about local history, especially as it pertained to his family. He never missed an opportunity to bring up Captain Brooks, one of the earliest members of his family to settle in Henderson County, Civil War hero, and founder of the Brooks Brothers’ Hardware Store.
Mr. Brooks kept a family history scrapbook with a section detailing the life, military service, and entrepreneurial pursuits of this earliest known relative. Clippings from the historical society’s newsletter mingled with pages copied from Civil War history books and hand-written notes from Mr. Brooks himself. They painted a clear, albeit concise picture of the man’s life.
According to the Old Man, Captain Brooks settled near Henderson Falls with his family at the age of 12, just in time for the 1850 census. The 1860 census, listed him as head of a household with 2 children. In 1861, records of troops mustered from Henderson County show he enlisted in the 34^th Ohio Infantry in either in April or May. Somehow, though probably through breveting, he obtained the rank of Captain by the end of the war. Shortly after, he returned to his family and started the Brooks Brothers Lumber company, later expanding into building materials and general hardware. By the time the 1880s arrived, Brooks Brothers’ Hardware Store was the largest building in town, boasting 2 storys, a scale for the grist mill, and even a spur off the B. & O. Railroad.
“And you know what else Tommy,” Mr. Brooks would say. “The Captain might’a gone to the house of representatives too if it weren’t for all that trouble with them damn Leylands.”
I nodded politely the first few times I heard about Captain Brooks. The stories were interesting, but you can only be so invested in the history of someone else’s relative. As Summer came to an end and I began my Junior year at Henderson Falls High, the Old Man moved on from talking about Captain Brooks, and started telling me about the history of Brooks Brothers’ Hardware itself. According to Mr. Brooks, post-Civil War Ohio saw a veritable boom in industry, construction, and manufacturing; and his family’s hardware store was there just in time to take advantage of it. He claimed Brooks Brothers sold many of the furnishings to the courthouse when it was refurbished in 1867, served as the county’s largest retail store, even stocked some of the first cans of paint from some up-and coming paint store out of Cleveland. You could tell from the gleam in his eye and the excitement in his words, he still looked at Brooks Brothers as a major business concern in Henderson Falls. I humored him. In spite of the once great store’s run-down appearance, shrinking nightly bank deposits, and dwindling customer base, Mr. Brooks’ enthusiasm was infectious.
That long summer stocking shelves, cleaning and making minor repairs familiarized me with all the quirks of the place. I knew the third bank of lights took longer to turn on because the ballasts were going bad. I could walk over the sagging hardwood floors without looking down. I even knew about the long crack creeping up the masonry, hidden behind a banner advertising a defunct brand of lead paint. The only part of the store I hadn’t ventured into was the second floor.
One slow, rainy day in June while looking for something to do, I decided to sort through the pile of merchandise covering the stairs behind the counter. The clutter on the bottom steps was all overstock: 16 penny nails, drywall screws, spools of fence wire, things it made sense to keep in the store instead of the warehouse. But the higher up the stairs I looked the older and more out of place the items seemed. Old tangles of hemp rope, wooden pulley blocks, asbestos floor tiles, even a box of old cut nails, rendered the path upstairs all but impassable. I climbed the first few steps, curious to see what else was in the heap of inventory when Mr. Brooks shouted at me.
“You! Get down from there, boy!” His voice shook with anger. I had no idea what caused my mild-mannered boss to go ballistic like that. In the few seconds it took for me to clamber around the junk back downstairs, Mr. Brooks’ expression softened back into that of a friendly old man.
“I didn’t mean to snap at you like that Tommy, but it ain’t safe up there.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Brooks. I just noticed all this inventory laying around and thought it’d look better if these things were cleared away.”
He raised a wrinkled hand, dismissing my concern. “I know you were just trying to help, but you need to stay down here. I haven’t been up there since the 50s.”
“Why not? The upstairs seems like a great place for storing inventory.”
The old man scratched his stubble. “If it was safe up there, you bet I’d keep some of our stock up there. I don’t trust that floor though. You’ve seen the ceiling over there next to the paint mixer?” He gestured to the front of the store, where a thin sheet of veneer plywood covered a swath of tiles on the high ceiling.
“I was up there one day, rough housing with my kid brother, Mike, you’ve never met him. Well anyway, we both ended up wraslin’ over a weak spot on the floor. The roof must’a had a leak and dry-rotted it. Long story short, my dad had to pull me and Mikey both out of the hole by our Buster Browns. Believe me, there’s no reason for you to go up there.”

My keys jangled as I turned the lock. I looked over my shoulder one last time, scanning the street for any witnesses before entering the inky darkness of the store. I tried to calm myself. I had done nothing wrong at this point. If anyone noticed me coming into the store at this hour, my cover story was plausible enough.
“I just stopped by to get my coat. I must have forgot it when I was locking up.”
It somehow seemed less believable as I advanced over the warped wooden floorboards. Each footfall creaked. My pulse quickened as I walked along once familiar aisles. Claw hammers, spirit levels, auger bits, were all reduced by darkness to indiscernible, globby shadows. I wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but the old building made me nervous at night. As the days grew shorter, my pace walking to the front door after switching off the breakers for the store lights became faster and faster. I imagined the long aisles harboring some invisible presence, just behind me until I made it to the safety of the streetlights outside.
Finally, I reached the clerk’s desk in the back corner. My coat hung from the back of the tall chair, right where I left it. I slipped it on, glad for the warmth. The streetlamps outside provided just enough light for me to make out the shape of the stairs leading to the second story. As I gazed up the stairwell, trying to see the yellow glow I’d noticed from the street, I felt thin cold fingers gripped the back of my neck. I spun around ready to yell out of fear when I saw a single finger pressed against her lips.
“Are you trying to get us busted?” Jess hissed through clenched teeth.
“Maybe you shouldn’t sneak up on me like that.”
“What took you so long?” Jess rolled her head to one side as she leaned against the clerk’s desk. Her gum popped, punctuating her sentence.
“There wasn’t any parking outside the movie theater. I had to park down past the coffee shop and walk the rest of the way.”
“Riiight, then you had stare at the building for five minutes.” Jess scrunched up the bridge of her nose, teasing me.

Jess was Mr. Brooks’ granddaughter. I was busy stocking shelves one day in late July when she came into the store and wandered down the center aisle. Jess played varsity tennis and was one of Henderson Falls High’s cheerleaders. I had a huge crush on her at the time, but she was always surrounded by her group of jocks and preps, and I never had the guts to approach her. I heard Mr. Brooks climb off his stool in the back of the store and walk to meet her. They exchanged some words, too quiet for me to hear.
“Hey, Tommy. Come over here. I got someone for you to meet.”
I made my way to where they stood standing. Mr. Brooks wasted no time. “Tom, this is my granddaughter, Jess.”
We exchanged awkward smiles. In a school as small as Henderson Falls High, you know everyone, even if you don’t have classes together.
Mr. Brooks went on. “She just got back from vacation down in Florida and we decided she ought’a take part in the family business. She’ll start next week. I need you to show her the ropes for me.”

After work, I was more than a bit excited to tell my friend Kyle about my new coworker.
“Duuude! You’re working with Jessica Brooks? The cheerleader?”
“Yeah man, I’m pretty stoked.”
“That’s legit, son! If her friends come into the store, you gotta tell me.”
“Why?”
“Well… she’s friends with Robin Gardner. She could probably put in a good word for me, and if I just happen to stop by at the same time…”
“Kyle, why the hell would a bunch of cheerleaders want to hang out in a run-down hardware store?”
“Hey man, a guy can dream.”
It didn’t take long to realize working with Jess was not as Kyle put it “legit”. A typical shift with her started with Mr. Brooks leaving the store around 3:30, giving us a sly look over his shoulder and saying something like, “Now don’t you kids have too much fun.” Once he was out of sight, Jess would plop down in the desk chair behind the Case knife display. The week she started I tried showing her how to stock shelves, fill out hand receipts for customers, just basic stuff you’d expect from a hardware clerk. The most engagement I got from her was a nod or a few unconvincing words like “Wow, thanks for showing me” or “I’ll make sure to remember that.” Despite the simplicity of the job, she rarely helped restock shelves or clean up around the place. Instead, she spent most of her shift behind the desk, scrolling on her phone, doing homework, or passing customers off to me under the guise of ignorance. The closest thing to work she did was re-pricing items. Most of the store’s stock actually came from large box stores and was repriced for the local market. I discovered this when I noticed the remnants of a Home Depot sticker Jess either gave up on or forgot to remove entirely from a box of machine screws.
For the first few days she worked with me, I tried making conversation, but we didn’t seem to have a lot in common. If it didn’t have to do with school gossip, sports, or the music she listened to, she didn’t seem interested in talking about it. Strangely, when she lost interest in social media and had nothing else to do, I caught her flipping through the Brooks Family History Scrapbook and an old leatherbound book I’d never seen before. It seemed to start out of boredom, just another way to pass the time, but she seemed to become progressively more interested in her grandfather’s scrapbook and the leather book. She never struck me as a history person, but I wrote it off as more of an interest in her own family than anything. Despite the various diversions she had, Jess still found time to bother me.
Sometimes she would interrupt me from whatever book I was reading. By now, any excitement about working with her was gone. I would have rather worked alone instead of doing everything while she sat around. I stopped trying to make small talk with her and focused on doing my job.
“I don’t see how you can sit there, reading like that, Tom Boy”, she said smirking. I hated when she called me that.
“Why not?” I asked, not lifting my eyes from the pages.
“It just seems like such a boring way to spend your time.” She reclined in her chair, popping bubblegum between her teeth.
Another time, maybe while we were eating lunch behind the counter, she sighed loudly.
“It’s so unfair I have to work tomorrow. Stacey and Molly are going shopping without me.”
I knew she wanted me to cover her shift. Old Man Brooks had me scheduled from open to noon. I planned on meeting my friends on a camping trip, maybe do some hiking, kayaking, or just hang out by the lake. I said nothing.
She rolled her eyes. “What are you doing with your day off,” she asked.
“It’s not a day off,” I said. “I have to come in from open to noon. After that, I’ll probably meet up with Kyle and John at the lake.”
“That’s just the way you people are,” she smirked.
“What do you mean ‘you people’?”
“You know,” Jess blushed. “Country people living out of town. All you care about is being in the woods, hunting, and fishing, that stuff .”
I’d never been hunting in my life and thought fishing was boring. I decided to spare her the irony. She never showed up that afternoon and I had to close the store. I still went to the lake, but by then it was nearly dark and there wasn’t much to do but sit by the fire after a long day’s work.
The Saturday before fall break Mr. Brooks scheduled both of us to work on what turned out to be the busiest weekend we had in months. From the time we opened until late afternoon, a steady stream of customers came in for various items. When the chronically late Jess finally showed up, she wasn’t much help. Instead of helping customers herself, she referred them to me if there was something they couldn’t find or if they needed advice. I heard her say things like:
“I don’t know anything about plumbing Mr. Stevens, but Tom is basically a plumbing expert.”
“I totally forget how the paint mixer works Mrs. Anders, but Tom would be happy to mix those colors for you.”
“That truckload of mulch you ordered is right out back Mr. Lawson. Why don’t you pull around and Tom Boy can help you load everything before the rain picks up. I’m sure you can both get everything onto your trailer before the downpour really starts.”
I cringed. I hated it when she called me Tom Boy.
Sweat and rain soaked my clothes when I finally got back in the store. Jessica sat, scrolling through her phone with one hand, talking to yet another customer. Seeing me, her face lit up.
“Oh, here he comes! Tom, Mrs. Sandborn is looking for…”
“How about you do something for once and help her,” I snapped. “I’m going to lunch.”
The elderly woman’s mouth hung open, shocked by my rudeness. I grabbed my coat and walked out the front door. On the drive to the McDonalds, I cursed the bad weather and Jess’s laziness. In the short drive across town, my anger welled up inside me. I was pissed off I didn’t get the Gazette internship. I was pissed off Jess got paid to sit on her ass while I did all the work around the store. I was pissed off the line in the drive though was moving so slow.
When I finally got my food, I sped off from the drive through window, cursing under my breath, anticipating a screwed-up order and half-empty carton of fries. I parked a block away from the hardware store, not wanting Jess or Mrs. Sandborn to see me. I was still angry at Jess and realized what vocalizing my frustrations might lead to. I didn’t want to lose my job for yelling at the boss’s granddaughter. I also felt guilty about the way I treated poor Mrs. Sandborn. She was just a poor old woman looking for… something, just to get yelled at. She didn’t deserve that. She also looked familiar and I was sure my grandfather knew her just like he knew everyone else over 50 in Henderson Falls. It was only a matter of time until she ran into Grandpa, or worse, Mr. Brooks and complained about the rude young man working at the hardware store.
I finished my meal and sat in my car for the rest of my lunch break. My rage abated, leaving me anxious about returning to work. I decided to go into the store bearing an olive branch. I’d apologize to my Jess, maybe offer to cover her shift some weekend and hopefully get through the rest of the day without incident.
I noticed the lack of customers as soon as I stepped into the store. The murmur of questions from customers was replaced by the sound of the overhead heater. I found Jess, hunched over in her usual spot behind the Case knife display. It took a moment to realize Jess wasn’t scroll on her phone or doing homework. She was crying.
“Jess?”
She looked up at me through teary eyes. For the first time, I felt genuinely bad for how I snapped at her.
“I just wanted to say sorry for… earlier.” I stood awkwardly, waiting for her response.
“Why do you hate me Tom?”
“I don’t hate you. I… You’re just a lazy co-worker I have to deal with.” I regretted the words as I said them. I felt my anger coming back and tried to keep a cool head.
She sniffled and wiped her eyes with an oversized sweater sleeve. “You never want to talk to me,” she sniffed. “You ignore me all day. You never even say ‘Hi’ to me when I clock in.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Look Jess I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It’s been a long day. I don’t want to-“
“Don’t want to what? Lose your Job?” She gazed up at me through puffy red eyes. “Of course not!”
“We’re both going to lose our jobs, Tom.” Jess buried her head in her arms and burst into fresh sobs. I frowned, confused by the turn the conversation took.
“Why would your grandfather fire you?”
“Because the store is going out of business.” She raised her head up. “Every night, the deposits are getting smaller and smaller. I found these stuffed into grandpa’s ledger.”
She rummaged through the stack of mail beside her and pulled out a stack of envelopes.
“Last Notice, Late Fee, Past Due, Overdrawn.” She slid them from her hand to the desk like she was dealing cards. The sender’s names coupled with the red stamped messages worried me. Henderson County Tax Office, Nibco Plumbing Supply, Third Street Bank, Henderson County Rural Electric, a few miscellaneous suppliers for merchandise not purchased and resold from other stores.
For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why Jess cared so much about the rundown hardware store. She didn’t seem interested in the actual management of the place.I doubted she had hopes of one day running it herself. I remembered her perusing Old Man Brooks’ scrapbook. Maybe it was a matter of familial pride. I dragged my stool closer to Jess and tried to comfort her.
“I know this looks bad, but what’s the worst that can happen? I’ll find a new job somewhere else, and so will you. Mr. Brooks is old enough to retire anyway, don’t you think he’d like to get out of this place and-”
“That’s the thing, Tom. He can’t retire. He puts everything into keeping this place open. Any profit he turns goes right back into paying for more products and paying the bills.” Jess tapped the old-fashioned ledger on her desk. “You know how much money the store has in it’s checking account? It’s less than $100.”
“Just because the store is broke doesn’t mean the Old Man is.”
“Look at your paychecks, Tom Boy”, she said, without her usual mockery. “They don’t say ‘Brooks Bros. Hardware’. They say Simon J. Brooks, because he shares an account with the store.”
I furrowed my brow as I thought. Surely there was a way out of this mess.
“Maybe he can sell the place and walk away with a nice profit. An investor could renovate this building, just like the other ones downtown.”
“Do you really think anyone would want to buy this place?” Jess raised a challenging eyebrow.
I shrugged. I knew there were some people buying up the old historic properties and ‘gentrifying’ them. Somehow our dusty hardware store didn’t seem a likely place for coffee, vinyl LPs or whatever else the hipsters downtown liked.
“And even if he could find a buyer, it’d break his heart selling this place. It would absolutely devastate him.”
There was no denying that. Maybe the old man was a bit detached from reality and given to romanticizing the importance of the family business, but I think that made this sudden revelation of the place’s impending demise that much more tragic. I dropped my head as I racked my brain for some words to comfort Jess. Suddenly I felt a warm hand close over my wrist.
“I’ve been reading through some of grandpa’s notes. There might be a way out of this mess, but grandpa would never go through with it.”
I raised my head to see Jess looking at me with pleading eyes. “Will you help me Tom?”

My watch read 11:48.
“Do you have everything we need?”
Jess slapped her backpack. “It’s all in here. We just need to get set up before midnight.” She pulled a pink wad of gum from her mouth and smashed it under the desk before rising.
“Let’s go,” she said, wrapping her cold fingers around my hand and dragging me to the foot of the stairs. I felt like a kid reaching into a cookie jar, wondering if they were about to get caught. The wooden stair treads represented the point of no return. If Mr. Brooks or anyone else saw us reason, I’d be caught doing what he explicitly told me to never do.
I clicked my flashlight on, shielding most of the light with my hand. Faint marks left behind by Jess’s Chuck Taylors showed the path through decades of accumulated junk and old merchandise, all but blocking the stairway. I watched Jessica’s long legs retrace steps she had apparently taken earlier. I followed her with my logging boots, trying not to disturb anything. The higher we climbed and the less cluttered the stairs, the more noticeable our footprints became in contrast to the decades of dust. Without all the junk to distract the eye, Mr. Brooks would surely notice this evidence of disturbance.
The door at the landing creaked on rusty hinges. Loose panes of glass rattled as it bumped the lath and plaster wall behind it. The room was exactly as Mr. Brooks described it: an overflow for outdated hardware. Scythes hung from rafters, motheaten burlap bags covered tables, and tendrils of leather straps from horse and carriage days spilled into the narrow walkway. There was even the odd sickle hanging from a nail on the pillars, swaying as our footsteps caused the old floor to creak and at times, noticeably bow under our weight.
Jess picked up her stubby plumber’s candle from floor, leaving behind a small ring of coagulating white wax. We ventured deeper into the musty room. Any doubt surrounding Mr. Brooks’ story of nearly falling through a weak spot in the floor vanished as my flashlight played over the section of splintered wood and exposed floor joists near the front of the store. I realized we might be in real danger of falling through ourselves. Jess led me deeper into the maze of cast-off wares. At one point while, scanning the room I accidentally slammed my knee into the exposed springs of an old mattress sitting on a wrought iron bedframe. I cringed at the rusty squeaks. Jess giggled at my muffled curses. Our narrow walkway gave way to a large clearing. The expanse was mostly unused space. I might have paid more attention to the wall of wooden shelves or the partitioned off room near the front corner of the building but my attention was captured by a hulking rectangular form sitting behind a stained rug.
Gold pinstripes outlining the safe door glittered as we approached. A large, five spoke wheel was mounted beneath the dial. Decades of use had worn through the nickel plating, exposing the brass beneath. The safe’s most striking feature was a portrait of a man’s face painted above a scroll of gilded letters reading: “C. W. Brooks & Bros. HDWE Co. Est. 1868.” Like tintype photographs of the era, his expression was stern, no trace of a grin, and if there was any mirth in his eyes, the artist failed to capture it. I felt a strange uncanniness as I looked at the bearded man’s face, ultimately chalking it up to a family resemblance to my employer. I wondered if the old man had ever seen the portrait of Captain Brooks.
“We don’t have much time,” Jess said. She kicked the red and gold rug away from the safe, revealing a circular, black stain on the floor.
I followed Jess’s lead and knelt on the opposite side of the stain, watching her produce a sheet of onionskin paper and a thin board from her backpack. I sat across from her and clicked off my flashlight before setting it aside. She set her candle to the side illuminating the typewritten paper before unfolding the board in the center of the stain. It featured a row of numbers from zero to ten, the alphabet in capital letters, and the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in opposite corners. The caption at the top read ‘Ouija’.
“This is what you dragged me up here for? All this over a damn Ouija Board?”
“Look, If you go into this with the wrong mindset, you will have a bad time.”
I looked over the thing, half-expecting to find the Hasbro logo on one of the corners, but looking closer, it seemed genuinely old. It wasn’t modern cardboard; it looked more like the antique boxes I found in the warehouse. It had a dull appearance and some of the letters were partially worn away, either due to age or frequent use. I looked at the paper and read the lines closest to me.

1. DO NOT use in a graveyard.
2. Wait until the planchet stops on good-bye to put board away.
3. If the board starts counting down from-

“Or it might not work at all,” Jess interrupted, tilting her head to one side. “And we’ll have wasted all this time for nothing.”
“Alright, fine. Where’d you get this thing anyway?”
“Kathy Connors. She gave me these instructions, board and planchet for the ritual,” she continued, holding up a wooden pointer and setting it down on the board. I frowned. It hadn’t occurred to me before agreeing to do this, honestly, I wasn’t sure what I had agreed to at all. The only thing Jess told me was the key to saving our jobs and her grandfather’s business was upstairs and that she needed help. I can’t explain it, but I felt sudden apprehension looking at the board, sitting on the blackened circle in the candle light. It rekindled a distant memory, maybe one of those humid summer mornings in the itchy pews of Henderson Falls’ First Baptist Church and a vague recollection of my pastor going on about divination not only being a sin, but the very act putting your soul at risk of demonic possession. It was unsettling to say the least.
There was also the time Kyle told me spirit boards were ‘complete bullshit’ after we saw one being used in a horror movie.
“There’s a reason they always say to never play alone,” he said as the B-Movie we pirated flickered on the projector in his basement. “If you did, there’d be nobody to move that wooden thing.”
All that said, I felt reluctance at the thought of taking part in what basically amounted to a séance. I pushed these thoughts from my mind. If Jess really wanted to go to all this trouble just to sit cross-legged on the floor and wait for a message from beyond the ethers that wasn’t coming, that was on her.
With everything in order, Jess closed her eyes and took a deep breath before looking up at me.
“Are you ready?”
“I guess? What are we doing exactly?”
“Using a Ouija board.”
“I got that part, but why?”
She groaned as she looked at her Apple watch. “Look, we have five minutes, so I’ll make this quick. Has grandpa told you about the feud between Captain Brooks and the banker G. W. Leyland?”
“Maybe once or twice.”
Jess just stared at me, expecting more. By this time, I doubted there was anything about Captain Brooks the Old Man hadn’t told me about.
“He said something about Leyland and the Captain having a feud, or something?”
Jess nodded. “He probably didn’t mention Leyland’s attempt to take over Brooks Brothers?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“I read Captain Brooks’ Journal.” Jess gestured to the leather book poking out of her backpack, the same one I’d seen her reading many times before.
“During the Panic of 1873, the store fell on hard times and needed loans to stay open. Leyland was a money lender and the two agreed to a loan in exchange for a promissory note, payable once Captain Brooks’ railroad investments recovered. It’s complicated, but after several months, Layland attempted to claim Brooks Brothers for the loan being in default. The Captain claimed Leyland forged a promissory note with different terms and even caught Leyland trying to force his way into the offices up here. There was also money missing after this visit from Leyland. The whole thing went to court and the Judge ruled in favor of a compromise between the two versions of the promissory note, since he himself couldn’t verify which one was real. Brooks Brothers was ordered to repay half the loan immediately and the remaining half upon the later note’s expiration. The store struggled after paying the first half of the loan. Rumors circulated about the Brooks family losing the store when Leyland called on the rest of the loan, and that’s when something strange happened: He never came. He went missing, days before the rest of the loan was due. People were initially suspicious of Captain Brooks, but he had an air-tight alibi. Other businesses in town came forward after his disappearance, claiming Leyland was guilty of unfair and misleading business practices, hidden balloon payments on loans, forced early repayment, interfering with businesses he’d loaned money to and trying to assume control of them. People started to think Leyland had made too many enemies in town and fled. After this, Captain Brooks’ journal entries seem to get… paranoid. He mentioned his fear of Leyland’s return. He changed the combination to the safe and wouldn’t tell anyone, not even his family what it was. He carried a revolver with him and insisted on locking the store himself each night. This went on a few months before he was found dead on this very spot.”
Jess pointed to the black stain. My skin crawled under my coat.
“What happened?”
“No one knew for sure. The coroner said it was heart failure. After witnessing his paranoia, the family probably believed it.”
“And you want to try asking his spirit for the combination to open this safe?”
“You’re really not as dumb as you look, Tommy Boy.”
“Why go to all this trouble? If there was anything in that safe, someone would have hired a locksmith a long time ago.”
“It’s a Chubbs Safe, whey were world famous their security. They used to say they were impossible to crack. I called around, but none of the locksmiths around here will touch it because it’s an antique. I found a man online who works on old safes, but he was expensive.”
“How expensive?”
“More than we make in a month.”
“Did you call and talk to the guy? Maybe he’s cheaper than you think. Or mayb-”
Jess looked at her watch. “Look, we don’t have much time, just give me your hand.”
I sighed and placed my hand on top of the planchet.
“One last thing.” Jess looked me in the eye. Her perpetual smirk vanished and her laughing eyes grew calm and focused.
“You have to promise, once we start, we keep going until the end? You got me?”
I nodded.
“And it doesn’t end until the planchet says ‘Goodbye’.”
“Alright.”
“Promise me.”
“Alright, I promise.”
“Good.” Jess rested her soft hand on top of mine. A cold handcuff bit my wrist as it ratcheted shut. I looked at the other end of the handcuff dangling from Jess’s wrist. Before I could speak she raised her free hand, dismissively.
“Just some cheap insurance,” she said.
“Insurance against what?”
Jess’s watch alarm chimed. Midnight. She straightened up and whispered, “Let me do the talking.” She slid the planchet to the center of the board.
“Is there a benevolent spirit who wishes to speak with the living?”
Jess scanned the darkness beyond our candle’s flickering light. A long silence passed before she spoke again.
“I am one of Captain Brooks’ granddaughters; is there a benevolent spirit who wishes to speak with the living?”
Wind whistled outside. The building’s roof creaked under the strain. The planchet remained a dead piece of wood in our hands. I looked around the room and saw nothing. Jess looked over my shoulder once more. Biting her lip, Jess spoke up.
“I am a descendant of Captain Brooks; is there a spirit who wishes to speak with the living?”
My heart thudded inside my chest. It wasn’t the wind picking up outside, or the sudden chill in the air, or Jess trembling across from me. It was the planchet moving. Not under the guidance of Jess’s hand, or mine, but some invisible force. It slid slowly to the word “Yes”, before returning to the center of the board.
Jess went pale, but smiled uneasily. “Who are we speaking with?”
The pointer skated across the board, spelling out a message.
“Captain Brooks.”
Jess’s face lit up with triumph. “We came to ask you-”
But the planchet kept moving “You shouldn’t be here Jess. He got me, now he’s coming for you. Leave now.”
The pointer moved towards ‘Goodbye’. It was nearly there when it shot back to the center of the board. Heavy footfalls echoed through the room.
Jess shook her head in stunned silence.
I scanned the room but saw nothing. “Who’s there?”
The board spelled out “Leyland.”
“We’re here on behalf of Mr. Brooks.” Jess shuddered as she spoke.
“Another Brooks in financial trouble. How predicable.”
Jess wiped tears from her eyes before speaking. “Mr. Leyland, I know you and the captain had- difficulties. But we need help opening the safe.”
A cold breeze burst through the room, carrying a madman’s laugh. Our weak light source trembled, sputtering and threatening to go out until the gust exhausted itself and the flame steadied.
“I help no one. Especially a Brooks.”
“Mr. Leyland, please it’s a matter of saving my grandfather’s business.”
The wind rose up again. A raspy voice vocalized the board’s words slowly as the planchet spelled them out.
“This is my business.”
Jess sat speechless. Before she could speak the cursor and the voice went on.
“When I came to call on Captain Brooks’s loan, he murdered me on this very spot.”
A chill ran down my spine. I looked at the stain beneath us, suspecting for the first time it wasn’t from a water leak or spilled ink. Images of a banker dying, a safe slamming shut, and the smell of black powder smoke flashed through my mind.
“What does any of this have to do with me?” Jess cried.
“You’re family owed me a debt in life. I’m here to collect after death.”
“He can’t hurt us? Can he,” I asked. Trying not to panic.
Wicked laughter echoed through the room.
Jess looked faint when her eyes fell on Kathy Connors’ sheet of paper.
“What’s wrong,” the voice taunted. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to play in a graveyard?”
A faint metallic whir alerted us to the safe towering above us. The dial raced from one digit of it’s combination to another before stopping with a click. The five spoke wheel twisted, stopping with a metallic ‘thunk’ as the locking bars retracted. The massive door swung open on lazy hinges. Jess saw it before I did and screamed.
Inside was the dried-up husk of a man, still in a gilded age suit. Yellow wrinkled lips curled away from ivory white teeth as it stared at us with sunken, hollow eye sockets.
“Don’t you think there was a reason the captain never gave anyone the combination to this safe?” Jess sobbed, her pale face reddened from crying. “You don’t have to do this. I never borrowed anything from you.”
“Captain Brooks’ debt will be repaid.”
Disembodied laughter echoed through the room. The open safe swayed with each reverberation. The planchet jerked to nine and started counting down. Eight. Seven.
“It can’t get to zero, Tom! Help me!” Each time the planchet moved, we forced it back to the previous number. The resistance was startlingly strong as we shoved it back to nine. I don’t know what scared me more, not knowing what would happen if it reached zero or the fact its movements were getting harder to fight. Even with both of our hands on the thing, shoving with all our might we were losing ground. Six, five, four. The safe rocked noticeably. The floor creaked under its weight.
Jess looked to the sheet of paper, searching frantically for some way out of this. The pointer stopped on four. I braced myself and pulled with all my might. It needled closer to three but I wasn’t about to let it get there. I wasn’t just fighting the planchet, I was fighting panic, a tired grip, sweaty hands. The safe shook violently next to us. I cried out in pain as the planchet ripped free from my fingers.
Three. Two. One.
Before it could get to zero, Jess flipped the board upside down.
“Tom, look out!”
The handcuff bit into my wrist as Jess lunged from our circle of light, dragging me with her. The candle got knocked over, plunging us into darkness. A deafening crash rattled the bones of the building as the safe fell face first to the floor where Jess and I were sitting just moments before. Before we could share this moment of relief, a blackened figure rose from behind ruins of the safe.

After a few springs of sourcing, buying, prepping/conditioning, planting, watering and babying, i am left only with bare dirt/mulch, and the 1 or 2 plants the rabbits allow me to have. I'm not doing it again.
So at this point, IDGAF if it is pretty, as long as it is

• native
• NOT eaten by rabbits
• low ground cover

I am urban, .2 acres, and fencing just for rabbits is not an option. Nor is pesting, there are more than i can hunt/trap, and i cant fight the entire environment. I need to coexist somehow, and play the cards i've been dealt.
Ideas, thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Even with its roots in the gothic horror of bygone centuries, Innistrad's ruling class (pre-emrakul) is based on clergy instead of aristocracy. All the nobles and aristocrats apart from Leinore (who is canonically not nobility) are vampires and several cards mention their own view as the aristocracy of Innistrad.
To what degree is this acknowledged by the human inhabitants? According to e.g. the in-setting reprint of Mulch there seems to be a concept of commoners vs. nobles, but this distinction doesn't seem to make much sense if all the nobles are bloodsucking monsters.
Is there any mention of people holding actual titles or is this just an inside "joke" for vampires? If it's the former, are nobles generally associated with vampires or is their status not common knowledge?

I've seen a lot of people talking about algorithms lately, and I have a few points I'd like to discuss with you all.
The first thing is you should know what the YouTube algorithm is doing
The YouTube algorithm has one goal: suggest videos that’ll keep a viewer glued to their screen.
1.It’s the gatekeeper to video views Want more video views? The recommendation algorithm holds the key. In fact, YouTube’s computer code seems to override even user controls. Meaning, if you hit the Dislike or Not interested button on a video, the algorithm may still suggest similar content
2.The algorithm is constantly evolving The YouTube algorithm is an ever-moving target. Just when you’ve got it figured out, there’s an update that completely reorders recommendations and search results.
So How does the YouTube algorithm work in 2024?
If you only take one thing away from this article, it should be that YouTube wants you to focus on your audience, not the algorithm. The algorithm isn’t simply recommending based on popularity. It’s more about the likelihood that an individual user will watch the next video, and the next.So you should focus on these points:
1.Performance signals The algorithm isn’t a critic, but it does get clues on what good content is from video metrics. The metrics YouTube uses to assess good content include: - How long do people watch? How long is the average video view and what percent of the video does the average viewer watch? - How often is a video watched? How many times is a video viewed when it’s recommended? - Did people like the video? What’s the engagement rate, number of likes vs. dislikes, and average survey rating of a video?
2.Personal preference signals Since YouTube’s algorithm is geared to show each viewer their ideal mix of content, it partly relies on each user’s behavior to surface videos.
To curate your mix, YouTube considers which videos you’ve watched and liked (or disliked) and which topics or channels you keep coming back to.
Some ways to work with the YouTube algorithm

1. Use SEO keywords To grab the top spot on results pages, do your YouTube key word research. Then place keywords in the filename, title, description, and subtitle script.
   
2. Add subtitles and closed captions to your video
   

Here I have to introduce you to an AI tool Dupdub, because after using it I have greatly improved the efficiency of my video production!

1. Use Google Trends to find popular topics

With a little work on Google Trends, you’ll know that April is the best time to post and promote mulch videos to your audience of lawn care enthusiasts.

1. Make irresistible thumbnails
   
2. Hook viewers with great intros
   

If people immediately click away from your videos, YouTube will take it as a signal that your content isn’t worth sharing. To keep viewers around, make sure you have an introduction that hooks people immediately. That doesn’t necessarily mean making your intro big and flashy. What’s really important is that the first few seconds tell the viewer that the video will live up to the title and thumbnail.

1. Add cards and end screens
2. Add subscription watermarks
3. Create series and playlists
4. Cross-promote your content
5. Creep on your competitors
6. Add timestamps
7. Nix the clickbait
8. Post at the best time
9. Get analytical

If you want to know more or want to talk to us about how to grow, feel free to join us on discord where we have many partners!

Just sharing an experience with a customer phone call and a little humor with the group. 95% of my customers are great, so I think we'll have smooth sailing for the next day or two here. Until the next customer wants to vent. This one aggravated customer made me laugh after he hung up though. Yesterday I had to stop my forklift in the back of the building because I was the only one able to answer a phone at that time for my department. No worries, glad to help, and I'm certainly not about to be unsafe. It took a couple minutes to figure out what this guy wanted as he was cutting in and out, then interrupting me intentionally. At one point he said, "I don't want to come to the store, I WANT THE STORE TO COME TO ME!!" I said that's no problem, just make an order online and we'll get it to him. No worries! Clearly that wasn't good enough. He proceeded to tell me he was expecting to pay over the phone, and get free delivery on 120 bags of $2 mulch. After being interrupted about 15 times I explained that we could not take his credit card over the phone, and there was indeed a $80 delivery charge on palletized items being delivered. Boy he didn't want to hear that, after some more interruptions and pressure he quipped, "You know what, don't even bother. YOU'VE ALREADY LOST THE SALE! GOODBYE!!!" I gave a polite, "OK, thank you. Have a great rest of your day." To be clear, totally level tone, no sarcasm. But man, I don't think he realized he hadn't hung up the phone yet. I'm kinda sad I couldn't hear exactly what he said. But he yelled at someone else, and I hung up. Damn dude, don't get mad you can't get free stuff, break policy, and treat hourly staff like crap. Sorry buddy, you're not my first or last salty Boi. I'll bend over backwards to help you, but if you wanna keep digging, I'm just going to laugh at you later.
I'm grateful these moments don't effect me negatively like they used to. Now it's just amazing to me how people think they're the center of the world. To anyone new to retail, just stay level headed, respectful, and follow policy. I totally understand how it was more than likely just a bad day for this dude and a combination of incorrect assumptions. But he made me laugh with all the "I WANT MY $2 MULCH BROUGHT TO ME FOR FREE!!!" and the "YOU LOST THE OPPORTUNITY TO GIVE ME FREE SHIT!!! YOUR LOSS!!!" Like bro, I throw hundreds or thousands of bags a day. Being unable to sell you $240 of mulch that likely cost us $200 plus the fuel for the driver costing another $20-60 is in no way a loss. He could've been a scammer with a stolen card as well, though on this one I doubt it. I'd honestly feel better being the brick wall a scammer breaks their face on. But hey, some things are out of our control. Today, the dude gave me a classic "retail phone call" story to share. Hope you all are hanging in there. I know I'm looking forward to mulch prices going back up.... SOMEDAY!! 🤣 Cheers, hang in there! 🍻

We just broke 400 unique cards created by over 20 authors! To celebrate, we bring to you this comprehensive Guideline for designing cards in the Eigendark Universe.
In Eigendark, you create new cards by prompting 8 different Gods, each a patron of their own Scientific Branch, or “Science” in short. Each God teaches a specific school of thought. Some overlap between Factions is allowed, but stray too much from their doctrine and you risk your prompt getting warped or even rejected. As a Prompt Wizard of a Science Faction, you want to adhere to the following framework:
1. DOCTRINES
Doctrines - Glitch:

• (Playstyle: Tempo)
• Themes: Mana costs matter, disruption, avoid confrontation, sabotage players, intelligence, group politics
• Focus Zone: Hand, Top-Deck
• Study Subjects: Computer and Data Science, Law, Economics, Politics.
• Aesthetic: Red-green-blue (RGB), City Life, Metaverse, Underground, Microcircuits, Videogame,"Darksynth, Cybergoth","Vaporwave Glitchcore","ASCII Futurism","Abstract Expressionism","Corporate Surrealism"

Doctrines - Gravity:

• (Playstyle: Defense)
• Themes: Portals matter, cost manipulation (space), control game-pace (time), damage prevention, Ticks
• Focus Zone: Prompt
• Study Subjects: Math, Philosophy, Logic, Geometry, Relativity, Astronomy, Astrology.
• Aesthetic: Blue-black-metallic, Cosmos, Origami, Cold, Dark, Celestial,"Geometric","Voidcore Orphism","Retrofuturisc Surrealism","Sci-Fi Cubism","Cosmic Rennaissance"

Doctrines - Quantum:

• (Playstyle: Chaos)
• Themes: Unpredictability, Copy Effects, Spells matter, Exile in/out, Glass Cannon but hard to catch
• Focus Zone: Exile
• Study Subjects: Statistics, Quantum Physics, Photonics, Trading, String-Theory, Demonology.
• Aesthetic: Pink-black-orange, Colorful, Ferrofluidic, Mirrored, Warped, Bright, Demonic,"Baroque Dreamcore","psychedelic Rococo","Laser Surrealism","Fractal Dadaism"

Doctrines - Atomic:

• (Playstyle: Aggro)
• Themes: Equipments matter, Rads, Combat Tricks, Damage, Speed, Destruction, Power at any cost
• Focus Zone: Combat
• Study Subjects: Electrical and mechanical Engineering, Nuclear physics and classical mechanics, Material science.
• Aesthetic: Green-yellow, post-apocalyptic, Deserts, Military, Industry, Crusades,"Dieselpunk Industrial Dystopia","grimdark Expressionism","Imperial Gothic","radiant Pollution"

Doctrines - Planet:

• (Playstyle: Midrange)
• Themes: Resource growth, Pool interaction, Lifegain, Balanced, Status Effects, Places matter
• Focus Zone: Pool
• Study Subjects: Geology, Meteorology, Climate Science, Ecology, Aerospace, Exoplanets.
• Aesthetic: Orange-blue-green, Nature, Fire, Water, Earth, Sky, the Seasons, Sun, Moon,"Lostcore Eco-gothic","Savage Impressionism","Fantasy Fauvism","Romanticism"

Doctrines - Alchemy:

• (Playstyle: Combo)
• Themes: Consumables matter, Mana Manipulation, Subtypes matter, Counter and transformation effects
• Focus Zone: Summon
• Study Subjects: Chemistry, Pharmacology, Archeology, Occultism.
• Aesthetic: Teal-purple-gold, Laboratory, Caves, Temples, Runes, Academic, Occult,"occult Chempunk","Dark Academia Symbolism","Steampunk","dark-science Neoclassicism"

Doctrines - Biology:

• (Playstyle: Value)
• Themes: Wounds matter, Units matter, Graveyard recursion, Swarming, Symbiosis, Mutation, Contagion
• Focus Zone: Trash
• Study Subjects: Life Science, Biotech, Necromancy, Physiology, Medicine.
• Aesthetic: Green-brown-ivory, Wildlife, Sewers, Memento Mori, Woods, Mold,"Art Nouveau Macabre","biomechanical Biopunk","Pagan Pre-Raphaelite","Weird-Fiction Realism","Savage Pagan", "Voodoo Trypophobia"

Doctrines - Psychic:

• (Playstyle: Attrition)
• Themes: Steal stuff, Erasure & Voices (mill effects), Forgetting cards, Deck interaction, Mind games
• Focus Zone: Deck, Trash
• Study Subjects: Psychology, Neuroscience, Religions, Metaphysics, Paranormal.
• Aesthetic: Violet-gray-blue, Dreamlike, Neural, Ephemeral, deep-sea and coastline,"eldritch Victorian","Lovecraftian Horror","Voidcore Dreamcore","Liminalism","Psychedelic"

2. KEYWORS
The Keywords are the text you see in yellow on the cards, or temporary status/player effects. These static conditions alter the behavior of an entity.
Keywords - Glitch:

• Override: Meddle with card effects
• Glitched: Flicker a card in and out of Play
• Virtual: Form of evasion to avoid combat
• Dash: return to Hand end of round
• Corrupt: steal units
• Scheme: make players attack each other
• Tribute: Sacrifice cards to decrease cost
• Authority: player may look at any hidden cards
• Wanted: anybody that attacks this player gets rewarded
• Muted: Card text negated

Keywords - Gravity:

• Capture: Capture unit until I leave Play
• Flash: Can take another action after playing
• Stasis: Prevents damage (chump-blocking)
• Prophecy: pay now to play later
• Time-Dilation: defensive first-strike
• Wormhole: consume Portal as cost
• Relativity: can't be killed, instead will phase in and out of Play
• Graviton: prevents other units from battle
• Weightless: pass turn at will
• Singularity: player will become target of all effects

Keywords - Quantum

• Entangled: If one card leaves Play, all entangled cards do
• Superposition: can't be targeted
• Quantum-immortality: has to be hit twice to be killed
• Mirror: creates copies when played
• Unstable: gets exiled end of round
• Tunneling: when exiled, may enter play
• Rift: will play random cards from your deck
• Chromodynamic: utilizes pale mana
• Chaos: doubles in power for every lucky coin/dice
• Jinxed: Bad fortune for coins/dice
• Lucky: Good fortune for coins/dice

Keywords - Atomic:

• Radiance: quasi double damage, the other half inflicted as Rads over time
• Degenerate: Discard as additional cost to play
• Luminary: Gets stronger with each Rad on defending player
• Discharge: Can be cast when discarded
• Blitz: First strike during Battle
• Shock: Pay with your Lifetotal to play
• Charge: Gets stronger the more Units attack
• Fission: Damage is split to multiple enemies
• Fragile: receives more damage
• Rush: Attacks immediately when played

Keywords - Planet:

• Resilient: receives less damage
• Zeal: Wounds do not reduce power
• Guardian: Toughness equals Power
• Link: Heals you when damage is dealt
• Recycling: Discard to draw anew
• Ambush: Put into Combat from Hand blocking
• Magnetic: Must be blocked
• Grounded: No need to pass for playing Sources
• Frozen: reduced Damage
• Burned: easier to be killed

Keywords - Alchemy:

• Exogene: Generates pale Mana
• Shapeshifter: Has all subtypes
• Tinker: stronger the more Relics you control
• Elixir: Refills all consumables
• Essence: can be played with Charges
• Toxic: Deadly touch
• Manaleech: Steals pale Mana
• Energize: Charges or buffs a Summon
• Poisoned: Player loses Life or is restricted in playing things
• Enlightened: Unlimited hand cards, amplified draws

Keywords - Biology:

• Bloodmagic: Can cast Cards with Wounds instead of Mana
• Contaminated: Reflects 1 dmg when damaged
• Berzerker: Gets stronger with each Wound
• Regeneration: Slowly but surely heals back to full health
• Undead: Playable only from Trash
• Leech: Heals fully when enemy player is hit
• Devour: Gets stronger by sacrificing allies
• Replicator: Can copy itself each round
• Adapt: Adopts all other keywords
• Bait: Player becomes a juicy target for others

Keywords - Psychic:

• Mindbreak: Apply Voices to each enemy hit
• Revenant: Returns back from Grave, but at a cost
• Haunted: Spawns a 1/1 token when killed
• Eidolon: when erased, may enter play
• Lich: Hard to kill, but at a cost
• Madness: Damage also erases enemy Deck
• Fear: cannot be blocked by smols
• Sleepy: this player may miss some turns
• Colorblind: can’t use pale Mana

3. MECHANICS
Mechanics are next to Keywords part of a card's text. Rather than being static, they reflect dynamic, triggered or conditional influences on the game.
Glitch mechanics:

• draw cards
• look at cards
• sabotage enemy hand cards
• virtualize Units
• taxation effects: enemy pays X or else you get Y
• steal or borrow Relics (forever or temporarily)
• donate Relics
• mute cards (negate their rule text)
• compile: may play top-deck card
• invest in a player: pay now, receive a reward later if player still has the most Souls (Life total)
• taxation effect on enemy actions
• name a cost, it can’t be played
• encrypt: meddle with the Top-Deck of opponent
• redirect targets of a Spell
• erase (mill) cards from Deck
• recall Summon back to Hand
• undo: put card on top of Deck
• glitch cards, basically a flicker effect, leaves and immediately enters Play again
• hack players, you may play their top deck card
• discard hand cards

Gravity mechanics:

• shut enemy Portals
• skip turns
• end turns
• exile cards
• bounce cards to Hand
• open Portals
• prevent the next Damage
• freeze Units
• decrease all Damage by X
• negate Spells
• eclipse cards, they temporarily phase out
• send cards into the future, exiled for now but are played later
• draw cards
• increase/decrease cost of cards
• rewind, put already played cards into Exile and play them later
• warp: change the Ticks (Time Counters) on cards in Exile
• switch Ticks between cards

Quantum mechanics:

• virtualize Units
• predict top Deck card and draw 1
• send cards into Exile to draw twice as many
• materialize cards back from Exile into Hand
• decohere: send your cards from Play into Exile
• steal Portals
• entangle Units
• redirect targets of spells
• confuse cards (their actions become random)
• negate spells
• increase all Damage by X
• distribute Damage
• copy spells
• put a random player's Souls (Life Total) to value X
• set base AP/HP or life totals to a different value
• flip coins, roll dice
• lose Souls (life total)

Atomic mechanics:

• give AP (attack points) to a unit
• grant AP to multiple units
• destroy relics or sources
• switch Combat positions
• pay Souls (Life Total) to achieve sth
• lose Souls
• burn Units
• buff Units (+1/+1 Counters, reverse Wounds)
• deal Damage
• distribute Damage
• sift cards (draw 1, discard 1)
• irradiate, put Rads on enemies
• sacrifice Sources

Planet mechanics:

• give HP (health points) to a unit
• grant HP to multiple units
• deal Damage
• add Mana
• destroy Relics
• gain Souls (life total)
• bounce Sources
• purify Units from Status Effects
• burn Units
• regenerate Sources
• ramp Sources
• freeze Units
• attune, you may play additional Sources
• sacrifice Sources
• terraform Sources into playable cards

Alchemy mechanics:

• transmute cards into sth random
• polymorph cards into harmless sheep
• switch powers or counters of cards
• double all counters or stats of any kind
• purify Status Effects
• buff Units (+1/+1 Counters, reverse Wounds)
• draw cards
• burn Units
• charge Consumables with new Counters
• catalyze, reduces cost of next card
• give AP/HP to a unit
• negate Spells
• regenerate Sources
• sacrifice Relics
• marry Units (merge them into one)
• heal Wounds
• excavate Relics from Trash

Biology mechanics:

• grant AP/HP to multiple units
• destroy Units
• evolve Units to a new one from Deck
• heal Wounds
• sift cards (draw 1, discard 1)
• copy Units
• sacrifice Units
• heal up to X Units
• mutate Units (may be empowered or enfeebled)
• kill wounded Units
• mulch Units from Trash as Sources
• restore cards from Trash
• revive Units from Trash and lose Souls (Life Total) equal to their cost
• reanimate Units from any Trash
• summon multiple Units from your Trash
• drain Life from Units to heal your own

Psychic mechanics:

• look at hand cards
• whisper Voices into another player
• mute card effects
• play enemy hand/top-deck cards
• erase cards from decks (mill)
• summon multiple Units from an enemy’s Trash
• sift cards (draw 1, discard 1)
• undo cards from play to on top of Deck
• take control of enemy players
• predict top deck cards and draw 1
• drain Souls (Life total) from another Player
• redirect target of an effect
• forget cards (put into Exile, may re-enter your Deck later)
• confuse cards (their actions become random)
• steal units
• borrow units (temporarily)
• donate units
• hypnotize units (take control until hypnotiseur leaves Play)

When using the Advanced Tab for making cards, it may take some time for it to become approved, as indicated by the white formatting in the Gallery Tab. In order to ensure a smooth approval, ensure that the card stays true to its Science, otherwise it may need to be altered or switch Factions entirely. Please refrain from using any NSFW content or real-world references (people, politicis, copyrighted things, ideologies etc).

So after checking the review from Path to Glory on the Brotherhood of the Bolt which showed off all the cards I'm feeling a bit mixed on these guys. For such a squishy warband it's a bit strange how it wanted you to need to get up in there and attack people or snag objectives. The stats on your warband feel very lacking and them being nearly all range 1 feels spooky for such a squishy warband.
All surge objectives is interesting I will say, but I feel like your guys are nearly 1 hit away from being mulched by just about anyone. Anyone else got any ideas for them or can think of ways to make them work? (Maybe nemesis will be a saving grace for them!)
​
Edit: I'm dumb

I (18m) have am the middle child (13f and 22m) to my single mother (56f), some context is my brother left home at 17 for a job opportunity, and therefore I have been doing the grunt work around our 30 achre farm as my mum is not is shape, this means any lifting, mowing lawn / weed eating, cutting gorse / bush, building fences, and shifting / spreading gravel piles or mulch. I do not mind the labour but my mum would get very angry at me if I did not do as she asked when she asked, I like to play games on my computer but even if I'm in the middle of a match carrying my team if she told me we are doing something that ment now (I dont think she values my time), and even after I am out working she would get upset if I made a mistake and then for the rest of the day would not stop yelling at me.
If I ever stood up to her she would play the victim card of having to do 20 times more than I and then threaten to stop doing things for me such as paying for my bus tickets (to and from school) or picking me up after work (I did not have my driver's license due to her not willing to teach me how to drive), or to even kick me out. I am a very respectful son and do not wish any bad mouthing on her but I wanted out, so I waited till I made it to college, and now I have moved out and live 3 hours away, mum has setup for all us to meet (brother lives overseas), which I have attendedand two weekends in a row (this current one and last). She now wants me to come back a 3rd week in a row to instead hang out but to do some work for her (unpaid hard farm labour 7 - 8 hours a day), I have plans with two separate friend groups on those days and have informed her that I have plans already setup since 3 weeks ago and she replied with "Not everything is about you, and you will need to change those plans", I feel as if I do not owe her anything as I am the only sibling of 3 that has done work for her for the past 5 years, and now that my older brother is leaving she wants me to do more. If I felt I owed her work I would not have a problem but I feel this is too far. If I decline her and do not come back I feel that she will no longer support me in my life (she gives me free meat as we have homekill due to the farm, which I also killed, butchered and buried the animals every year).
So all I'm wondering is, have I paid my debt to her (costs in food and living in her house for 18 years) back? AITA?

I feel like the game has come to a crawl and I've read a lot online but I can't seem to get to that next point. So any help and advice would be appreciated.
My progression right now is at:
Tower floor 240 (restricted by amount of MLC coins I can get)
Pyramid floor 5 (restricted by amount of beer I can get from Quests from the bartender)
I have leaves unlocked up to Ancient leaf. Got all the gem leaves upgraded to #e7 or #e8
BLC auto crunch around #.e8, offline 7.25e8. I have 3/5 Offline Crunches and 3/50 Offline BLC from BLC upgrades, BLC++ 32 from BLC shop.. Moar BLC 8 from MLC shop.
MLC 6.86e6 manual crunch. Offline 7.84e4 (1/5 Offline MLC from gem shop, 1/5 Offline MLC from MLC shop, 2/50 Offline MLC, Master of MLC 7)
​
I keep reading to level up my trade Education in BLC. But at level four it already requires 6.64e12 BLC coins. I'm just not getting that much BLC coins, either through active (auto blc) or offline. I swallow Orbs of BLC as fast as I find them and still don't get enough.
I have everything pretty much maxed from leaves, seeds max at 117 due to not getting enough mulch, again, limited by trading limits. GEM leaves all maxed to around #.e7 or #.e8. Got all flasks upgraded. Silver and Gold Token shop all up to #e12.
I can craft up to Lava leaf but rarely. Useable stats even more rare.
Equipments are all in the 300+
I have 14 unique leaves.
All the pets available to purchase up to this point.
Have over half of the curses unlocked. Haven't touched essences yet, still gathering materials but it's so slow.
Have Borbventure but not sure wth to do there.
I have a lot of cards, transcended a few times with max 10 cards.
​
I don't know what info you need to help guide me to the next level but please let me know. I've been stuck at this point for almost a week now.
PS. I'm just going to spoiler tag everything just incase.

I'm a divorced, single mom of four young kids and currently in nursing school--stressed to the max and I need as much advice as I can get. I met a guy shortly after a divorce, and dated the new guy for a year. He moved into my house but didn't pay any bills--but he did pay a lump sum of money on my credit card (around $4k). We verbally agreed that him paying off my credit card was his "rent" for a few months. He had helped some people flip houses and learned a few things about framing/drywall and I have an unfinished basement, so he started doing some work. We agreed he wouldn't pay any bills because of his labor and materials he was putting into the basement. He proposed to me last July, and I said yes. We decided to refinance my house so his name could be on it. Three months after refinancing, with his name on the deed, he decided to break up with me. It was not amicable and we were not on speaking terms. Six months later (as of today) I got a petition from his attorney stating my house to be a 'force of sale/foreclosure' unless I pay him back an ungodly amount of money (he made a list of every single thing he purchased for the house while we were dating, including flower bulbs and bags of dirt/mulch for the garden, and stupid little things around the house). He says I owe him the $4k he put towards my credit card, despite us having a verbal agreement that was his rent. He's even charging me $10k for the "labor" he put into the basement despite not having any sort of qualifications to do construction. In fact, he ruined a lot of the basement in which I've had to pay around $8k out of pocket from contractors to FIX what he did to it. Long story short, this petition is trying to force my hand to pay him money or he'll force me to sell the house/foreclose. He hasn't paid a single mortgage bill, nor has he paid any utility. I'm terrified I'm going to lose my house, the only home my kids know, and I don't know what to do.