Hi, all.
When newcomers join the hunt for casques, we tend to assume that the generally accepted pairings are correct, and trust and rely on them, instead of starting from the beginning of the problem that is The Secret and developing our own theories of possible pairings and solutions. Those newcomers that do develop their own theories are summarily mocked and downvoted to oblivion if their theories don't align with the generally accepted ones.
In my opinion, the search has been stifled as a result, likely irreparably.
As I hope I've shown for Image 1, there is reason to believe that it refers to Los Angeles and not San Francisco, which if true means that all of us have wasted so much time and effort looking for a casque in the completely wrong part of California. (I live in Oakland and trust me when I say that I really wanted a casque to have been buried in SF.) I looked through Q4T posts and the community seems to have had their heart set on SF for Image 1 dating back to at least 2003. There's a single reference there to Los Angeles for Image 1.
I therefore propose as the first step in righting the ship that this subreddit replace the city post flairs for the unsolved casques with city-neutral names, perhaps "Image 1," "Image 2", etc. or those provided for user flairs (e.g., Moon Goddess, Castlehat).
Vote "Yes" if this subreddit should replace the city references from post flairs with city-neutral names.
Otherwise, vote "No."
This subreddit is unfortunately controlled by a small minority, to the detriment of the search, so I encourage all of you lurkers to please vote so you can be heard.
Cheers.
View Poll

Welcome to the raspberry_pi Helpdesk and Frequently Asked Questions!

Link to last week's thread
Having a hard time searching for answers to your Raspberry Pi questions? Let the raspberry_pi community members search for answers for you!^† Looking for help getting started with a project? Have a question that you need answered? Was it not answered last week? Did not get a satisfying answer? A question that you've only done basic research for? Maybe something you think everyone but you knows? Ask your question in the comments on this page, operators are standing by!
This helpdesk and idea thread is here so that the front page won't be filled with these same questions day in and day out:

1. Q: What's a Raspberry Pi? What can I do with it? How powerful is it? A: Check out this great overview
2. Q: Does anyone have any ideas for what I can do with my Pi? A: Sure, look right here!^‡
3. Q: My Pi is behaving strangely/crashing/freezing, giving low voltage warnings, ethernet/wifi stops working, USB devices don't behave correctly, what do I do? A: 99.999% of the time it's either a bad SD card or power problems. Use a USB power meter or measure the 5V on the GPIO pins with a multimeter while the Pi is busy (such as playing h265/x265 video) and/or get a new SD card 1 2 3. If the voltage is less than 5V your power supply and/or cabling is not adequate. When your Pi is doing lots of work it will draw more power. Even if your power supply claims to provide sufficient amperage, it may be mislabeled or the cable you're using to connect the power supply to the Pi may have too much resistance. You can use a USB load tester to test your power supply and cable. Some power supplies require negotiation to provide more than 500mA, which the Pi does not do. If you're plugging in USB devices try using a powered USB hub with its own power supply and plug your devices into the hub and plug the hub into the Pi.
4. Q: I'm having a hard time finding a place to purchase a Raspberry Pi for an affordable price. Where's the secret place to buy one without paying more than MSRP? A: https://rpilocator.com/
5. Q: I just did a fresh install with the latest Raspberry Pi OS and I keep getting errors when trying to ssh in, what could be wrong? A: There are only 4 things that could be the problem:
   1. The ssh daemon isn't running
   2. You're trying to ssh to the wrong host
   3. You're specifying the wrong username
   4. You're typing in the wrong password
6. Q: I'm trying to install packages with pip but I keep getting error: externally-managed-environment A: This is not a problem unique to the Raspberry Pi. The best practice is to use a Python venv, however if you're sure you know what you're doing there are two alternatives documented in this stack overflow answer:
   • --break-system-packages
   • sudo rm a specific file as detailed in the stack overflow answer
7. Q: The only way to troubleshoot my problem is using a multimeter but I don't have one. What can I do? A: Get a basic multimeter, they are not expensive.
8. Q: My Pi won't boot, how do I fix it? A: Step by step guide for boot problems
9. Q: I want to watch Netflix/Hulu/Amazon/Vudu/Disney+ on a Pi but the tutorial I followed didn't work, does someone have a working tutorial? A: Use a Fire Stick/AppleTV/Roku. Pi tutorials used tricks that no longer work or are fake click bait.
10. Q: What model of Raspberry Pi do I need so I can watch YouTube in a browser? A: No model of Raspberry Pi is capable of watching YouTube smoothly through a web browser, you need to use VLC.
11. Q: I want to know how to do a thing, not have a blog/tutorial/video/teachebook explain how to do a thing. Can someone explain to me how to do that thing? A: Uh... What?
12. Q: Is it possible to use a single Raspberry Pi to do multiple things? Can a Raspberry Pi run Pi-hole and something else at the same time? A: YES. Pi-hole uses almost no resources. You can run Pi-hole at the same time on a Pi running Minecraft which is one of the biggest resource hogs. The Pi is capable of multitasking and can run more than one program and service at the same time. (Also known as "workload consolidation" by Intel people.) You're not going to damage your Pi by running too many things at once, so try running all your programs before worrying about needing more processing power or multiple Pis.
13. Q: Why is transferring things to from disks/SSDs/LAN/internet so slow? A: If you have a Pi 4 or 5 with SSD, please check this post on the Pi forums. Otherwise it's a networking problem and/or disk & filesystem problem, please go to HomeNetworking or LinuxQuestions.
14. Q: I only have one outlet and I need to plug in several devices, what do I do? A: They make things called power strips aka multi-tap extensions.
15. Q: The red and green LEDs are on/off/blinking or the screen is just black or blank or saying no signal, what do I do? A: Start here
16. Q: I'm trying to run x86 software on my Raspberry Pi but it doesn't work, how do I fix it? A: Get an x86 computer. A Raspberry Pi is ARM based, not x86.
17. Q: How can I run a script at boot/cron or why isn't the script I'm trying to run at boot/cron working? A: Try one of these numerous solutions
18. Q: Can I use this screen that came from ____ ? A: No
19. Q: I run my Pi headless and there's a problem with my Pi and the best way to diagnose it or fix it is to plug in a monitor & keyboard, what do I do? A: Plug in a monitor & keyboard.
20. Q: My Pi seems to be causing interference preventing the WiFi/Bluetooth from working A. Using USB 3 cables that are not properly shielded can cause interference and the Pi 4 can also cause interference when HDMI is used at high resolutions.
21. Q: I'm trying to use the built-in composite video output that is available on the Pi 2/3/4 headphone jack, do I need a special cable? A. Make sure your cable is wired correctly and you are using the correct RCA plug. Composite video cables for mp3 players will not work, the common ground goes to the wrong pin. Camcorder cables will often work, but red and yellow will be swapped on the Raspberry Pi.
22. Q: I'm running my Pi with no monitor connected, how can I use VNC? A: First, do you really need a remote GUI? Try using ssh instead. If you're sure you want to access the GUI remotely then ssh in, type vncserver -depth 24 -geometry 1920x1080 and see what port it prints such as :1, :2, etc. Now connect your client to that.
23. Q: I want to do something that has been well documented and there are numerous tutorials showing how to do it on Linux. How can I do it on a Raspberry Pi? A: A Raspberry Pi is a full computer running Linux and doesn't use special stripped down embedded microcontroller versions of standard Linux software. Follow one of the tutorials for doing it on Linux. Also see question #1.
24. Q: I want to do something that has been well documented and there are numerous tutorials showing how to do it with an Arduino. How can I do it on a Raspberry Pi Pico? A: Follow one of the tutorials for doing it on Arduino, a Pico can be used with the Arduino IDE.
25. Q: I'm trying to do something with Bluetooth and it's not working, how do I fix it? A: It's well established that Bluetooth and Linux don't get along, this problem is not unique to the Raspberry Pi.

Before posting your question think about if it's really about the Raspberry Pi or not. If you were using a Raspberry Pi to display recipes, do you really think raspberry_pi is the place to ask for cooking help? There may be better places to ask your question, such as:

• /AskElectronics
• /AskProgramming
• /HomeNetworking
• /LearnPython
• /LinuxQuestions
• /RetroPie
• The Official Raspberry Pi Forums

Asking in a forum more specific to your question will likely get better answers!
† See the /raspberry_pi rules. While /raspberry_pi should not be considered your personal search engine, some exceptions will be made in this help thread. ‡ If the link doesn't work it's because you're using a broken buggy mobile client. Please contact the developer of your mobile client and let them know they should fix their bug. In the meantime use a web browser in desktop mode instead.

Beginnings. Illustrious. Vivacious. Monstrous. Scintillating. Star-Studded. Nautical. Creeping. Vainglorious. Luminous. Villainous. Venerable. Exuberant. Esteemed. Legendary…. Epic. Wonderful, Briliant, Victorious, Foundational, Iconic!!! Champions. Sixteen of them. One prize. One Ultimate Champion. Who will beat all other winners and become the ultimate winner themselves? As we get ready to close the curtain one last time on Bunny’s Big Brother, let’s find out who is the Shining Star of our champion cast in Bunny’s Pokémon Big Brother CHAMPION ROYALE!
Season Finale: CHAMPION ROYALE!!!
Meet the Cast:
Season 1 – Lance the Escavalier
Season 2 – Carlos the Pangoro
Season 3 – Nickels the Nickit
Season 4 – Xio the Meowscarada
Season 5 – Selene the Lampent
Season 6 – Candy the Wigglytuff
Season 7 – Splaatz the Stunfisk
Season 8 – Dirk the Kricketune
Season 9 – Echo the Arctibax
Season 10 – Mobee the Bewear
Season 11 – Professor Bane the Crobat
Season 12 – Lisette the Solrock
Season 13 – Maeva the Chimeco
Season 14 – Dayley-Jane the Dewgong
Season 15 – DJ Volt Switch the Emolga
Season 16 – Benedict the Chespin
Intro: We are reporting live at the site of Bunny’s Pokémon Big Brother Finale House! The crowd is thick and loud as fans from all over are excited to watch the sixteen champions enter the house LIVE! We stand in Poketopia, home of the Battle Revolution! The Shining Neon Colloseum, in a penthouse suite in the grand city is where the final bout will begin! Here come the Legendary Sixteen right now!!!! Lance the original winner is so stunning in his armor! Carlos has evolved and looks much tougher. Nickels is strutting in conifdent as ever next to Xio, who looks completely unphased by all of the winners around her! Selene fits right in with the bright lights. Looks like Candy is evolved as well and—OH—she tripped over Splaatz. That’s embarrassing and you can tell she isn’t happy even if she’s putting on a smile. Dirk and Echo are next, both eyeing up the competition already. Echo being evolved now already ups his threat level. Mobee gets an uproarious cheer from the crowd! And WOW the Professor gracefully glides over the crowd! He really did escape capture back in Mazda’s Season. Lisette seems to be meditating and Maeva is pumping herself up. She looks a bit snooty now that we know how she really is but we are eager to see how she plays. Dayley-Jane gets another huge cheer from the crowd. She really is a lovable gal ain’t she? DJ clicks a track on the DJ booth to keep one last song playing but then hops out to join the entourage. She’s still keeping up her day job too, so inspiring! Finally, Benedict walks up. Unlike the others, he looks somber. Wonder what his deal is? Oh well, let’s watch them all compete in the bright stadium for the first HOH!
First HOH: In this bright lights HOH, the houseguests all race to complete a task, with the first to complete it knocking someone out of the running. In the first heat, Maeva clears first and knocks out Bane because he came in second and is a huge comp threat. In the next round, Echo wins and takes out Maeva, who just won. Splaatz wins round three by accident and takes out Day, who was big on his original season. Candy wins next and takes out Nickels. Xio takes out DJ, followed by Benedict winning and immediately knocking Xio out. Candy wins again and takes out Dirk. Echo then wins again to take out Candy before she gets too much momentum. Carlos wins and takes out Lance, Mobee then wins and takes out Carlos, Benedict then wins and takes out Mobee! Splaatz wins again and takes out Selene as she is hiding in the background. Lisette wins the next round to take out Benedict. In the final three, Echo wins again and takes out Lisette, as she did a good job hiding til then. In Splaatz versus Echo, the fish surprisingly keeps up with the dragon and at the last second, takes over?!?!?! Splaatz is the first HOH!
Week 1: Splaatz is very confused how he won that last round but Echo comes up and congratulates him. The two get along well and Splaatz works up the courage to ask to be in an alliance, which the dragon happily agrees. Bane goes to Candy to tell her that the villains need to stick together, she agrees and they grab Maeva. She is initially reluctant, not trusting Bane, but she agrees eventually. Mobee goes to monitor the living room like before and DJ flies up to him. They end up chatting and realize they enjoy each other. At the nomination ceremony, Splaatz has decided to put up DJ and Dirk, saying how he doesn’t want to make too much waves and this seems to be the way to do it best. Dirk is unamused and DJ is frightened. Echo gets suspicious of Bane and shares his thoughts with Nickels, they pull in Carlos to form an anti-villain alliance. Benedict eavesdrops and plans his next move. He goes up to Nickels and makes up how Dirk must be playing the villain this time, because he is acting weird. Nickels considers his approach but ultimately decides to trust him as an alliance member. At the veto, Carlos, Echo, and Mobee all play but it comes down to Carlos and Splaatz. Splaatz ends up winning again but while actually trying and is exuberant! DJ pleads with him but he ultimately keeps his noms the same.
After the veto ceremony, Benedict tells DJ to do as he says and trust him, as Gigi did. She agrees and starts buttering up to the villains. She gets Candy to be even nicer to the house and apologize to Splaatz. She also helps Bane create a new game. Meanwhile, Benedict starts prodding Dirk and Day, causing them to be at odds with each other. Dirk eventually snaps and lashes out at Day, shocking everyone. Maeva can tell something fishy is happening but rolls with it since it is week one. At the eviction ceremony in the glittering colosseum, the two nominees tell why they should stay. Dirk is more bitter while DJ stays heartfelt, convincing everyone but a suspicious Maeva. In the end, by a vote of 12 to 1… Dirk, you have been evicted.
Week 2: The next HOH is a high flying roulette-themed obstacle course, based off of the Neon Colosseum’s roulette rules. DJ and Mobee work together to get to the end but Nickels keeps up with them. In the final stretch, Mobee sees Nickels catching up and throws DJ, giving her just enough of an edge to win the HOH! Nickels and Maeva both approach DJ to tell her their suspicions on Benedict’s behavior. At first, they fight, but realizing they have the same goal causes them to cut it out long enough to tell her. DJ is reluctant but Maeva reminds her how he betrayed Gigi and she is firm. Benedict and Carlos become the nominees. Day, Echo, and Maeva play in the veto and Echo actually manages to come out on top over Day. Echo talks with Nickels about saving Carlos but she is hesitant, telling him that Carlos makes a good pawn next to benedict because everyone likes Carlos. He ends up not using it. During the week, Benedict begins making breakfast early, irritating his roommate Carlos and causing him to be grumpier. Xio confronts Benedict for this, telling him he is purposefully making Carlos mad and it’s brutal. He tells her he doesn’t understand the problem if Carlos doesn’t like breakfast. She sneers but doesn’t have a comeback. The next day, Benedict holds a house meeting. He apologizes if he’s been rubbing people the wrong way but he is just trying to fit in since he is newer. Lisette says that everyone should give him a chance, which the villains, Selene, and Mobee agree with. Echo, Carlos, Nickels, and Maeva are all hesitant. At the eviction ceremony, Carlos is grumpy and bitter and doesn’t do much to defend himself. Benedict, again apologizes. In a 9 to 3 vote… Carlos is evicted.
Week 3: Several house membets are completely shocked by Carlos going home, including HOH DJ and his two allies, Nickels and Echo. Also surprised is Xio. The next HOH is an endurance comp called the floor is lava based off of the Lava Colosseum! Mobee, Splaatz, and Xio are the last three remaining. Knowing she was on the outs of the last vote, Xio fights hard to survive, fighting her pain. Splaatz eventually drops and Mobee remains with Xio. Eventually, Mobee drops and Xio wins! Xio already knows her noms. She puts up Benedict next to Selene, as she was one of the people vouching for him last round. Benedict chooses to stay back and not make too much of a scene this round, lest he blow up his cover. Meanwhile, DJ and Mobee plan how to move forward. Maeva is listening in to this convo and realizes how close they are. At the veto, a mental comp, Selene ends up winning by a landslide, saving herself. Maeva rushes to Xio about the DJ and Mobee situation, and points out how Mobee is a comp threat as well. Xio decides Mobee is a good replacement, as he is likeable and a good pawn next to Benedict. Mobee holds a house meeting and cries during it, thinking he was doing so much better at being friendly this time. Maeva calls him out for his crocodile tears and argues that he is putting on an act. Lisette calls out Maeva for being so harsh and chastises her for being such a villain. Maeva asks her if she is planning on voting for him to stay and she is silent, but says that shouldn’t matter. Maeva retorts and says it’s not jury so jury management doesn’t exist yet. At the eviction, Mobee is shaking next to a smug Benedict. Benedict’s speech touches on how Mobee doesn’t seem ready for the big leagues. The bear gets up angrily and almost picks up Benedict, shocking everyone. He stops himself and realizes what he did. The vote comes in and by a vote of 8 to 3, Mobee, you have been evicted.
Week 4: The next HOH begins as they houseguests must ascend a glimmering rock wall, themed after the Crystal colosseum. Day and Maeva take an early lead but are caught up by falling rocks. Lisette closes the gap and eventually surpasses Maeva. Day and Lisette race for the end and… Lisette win! Lisette in her HOH room ponders about who to put up and ally with. She turns to Xio, Day, and Selene as her allies. The Witch’s Coven, as they call themselves, wants to shift the focus, as Benedict is doing too well at not going home. Instead, Lisette targets Maeva, who is playing sneaky, as well as Benedict’s ally, Echo. Bane laughs at Maeva being on the block and she is enraged with him. He says “it doesn’t matter since it’s not jury yet.” Having her own words turned on her, Maeva storms out and swears she will get revenge on him and Candy. At the POV, the witches’ coven is playing with three members and Xio ends up winning! She chooses to keep the nominations the same. Splaatz goes to Lance to tell him how much it means to be there with one of his heros, but Lance mishears him and calls him out for calling him a rude name. The two get in a petty argument where Lance’s bad hearing keeps making things worse. Meanwhile, Maeva tries to get the vote off of her by spreading anti-Benedict propaganda around the house. Day has a change of heart about this and wants to vote out Echo, even while her alliance is targeting Maeva. Benedict, aware his name is still out there, pleads to DJ not to vote out his ally. At the eviction, Maeva thinks she has done enough work but the vote comes out and is a 5 to 5. The Coven is shocked, one of their own must have flipped. But Lisette gets to break the tie, and is all too happy to evict her target, Maeva.
Week 5: The next HOH is themed after the Sunset colosseum, and sees the houseguests racing to stack piles of rubble. Echo, DJ, and Xio make the highest stack but DJ’s crumbles before the time limit. Both wanting to take control, Echo and Xio try really hard to build the highest. The timer buzzes aaaand Echo is the winner! Benedict instinctively high fives Echo and celebrates with him. Later, Nickels is peeved that Echo is so publicly working with Benedict. Echo tells her she had the opportunity to have a good ally but she chose to burn that bridge and that’s her fault. Offended, she tells him to make that alliance with Benedict work out but she won’t be part of it. Echo is saddened, but doesn’t want to put Nickels up. Instead, he shifts the target to former villains, with Bane being the target and Selene going up next to him. Xio cheers that Selene could be going home, making the Lamp angry at her, since they were supposed to be working together. Benedict goes on to win the veto and vows to Echo not to use it. However, at the veto ceremony, he uses it to save Selene, shocking everyone as he winks at Xio. Echo then solidifies this by putting Xio up. Selene goes to her to tell her she is sorry for their misunderstanding but they work together. Candy turns to Lisette and tells her she is tired of working with Bane and if she helps her get the Professor out this week, she will work with her. Lisette agrees, knowing everyone wants Bane out anyways. At the eviction, Xio seemingly patches things up with everyone. The vote comes in, by a unanimous vote… Bane, you are evicted.
Double Eviction: Surprise! The Jury starts tonight and the next HOH is beginning right now with one more person leaving! A quiz colosseum is held in the Sunset colloseum, with one miss causing someone to be out of the running. It comes down to DJ, Nickels, and Lisette. But Lisette gets the last question right and the other two miss, with Lisette winning her second HOH. Lisette puts up Nickels and Day. Nickels because she is playing a lowkey game but making waves in the Benedict situation. Day because she wavered on her vote for Benedict. She doesn’t put down Benedict as he is good for drama and polarizing the house, which is good for her game. Nickels wins the veto and takes herself off. Lisette decides to put up Splaatz, because she is worried he will fumble his way to the end. Most people seem to share this idea except for Echo, who wants to wotk with Splaatz. The vote comes in. By a vote of 7 to 1… Splaatz, you have been evicted and will be moving into the jury house.
Week 6: The Next HOH begins as a race through the mysterious mansion in the courtyard colosseum. No one can tell where anyone is but Candy comes out first and wins! As HOH, Candy calls in Benedict. She tells him he has been playing a sloppy and obvious villain game and he is gonna get evicted too soon if he doesn’t simmer down and get some real allies. He is shocked and admits he just wants to win. She says they all do and the least they can do is help each other. She says she will help him if he keeps causing more chaos and also gets DJ on their side. He agrees and talks to DJ. The squirrel is hesitant but decides it would be a great way of getting revenge on Benedict if she gets the chance. Candy puts up Lance as the pawn next to her target, Xio, who has been against Benedict’s chaos this whole game. DJ goes on to win the veto and chooses to not give Candy any suspicion by not using it. Meanwhile, the witches coven fractures, with Day not agreeing with Lisette and Xio feeling not supported on the block by Selene. DJ infiltrates this meeting after storms out, telling them about Xio being the real target but she has a plan to keep her without drawing suspicion if they can get Day to play nice. Xio borrows an item from Lisette and breaks it. Lisette then goes to “rant” to Day, who is being nice with her, thinking they both will vote Xio. Echo, meanwhile, confirms his alliance with Benedict, and feels like he is finally gaining more traction. But the house takes this the wrong way. At the eviction, the vote comes in, and by a vote of 4 to 3… Lance, you have been evicted.
Week 7: The next HOH begins, a waterfall diving competition, based off of the Waterfall Colosseum. Whoever makes the biggest splash wins! With her natural watery prowess, Day dives in and wins the HOH! Day is approached in the HOH by Candy and Benedict, who ask her to work with them. DJ sees whats happening and goes back to Lisette and Selene. The two talk and realize that they can’t beat Benedict’s control of the house by just going against him, but they have to work with him. So the three of DJ, Lisette, and Selene enter the HOH “accidentally” and propose the six will control the house. They say they want Echo to go on the block, as he is getting too good at the comps. Benedict is hesitant but Candy nudges him, as secretly this will be great for her game. He agrees and tells Day he won’t be mad if this happens. Echo goes up next to Nickels. The two former allies face off in the veto, both bitterly making jabs at the other for turning on them. It comes down to just the two nominees and… Echo edges her out, winning the veto. Echo saves himself and puts the power in Day’s hands to put up a replacement. Her choice is the person not in her alliance who has made affronts to her, Xio. Lisette has the whole house do tarot readings to ease the tension which goes down well. Lisette gets the Sun, a symbol of positivity and creativity. Benedict draws the Moon, symbolizing Illusion and inner conflict. He shudders when the white moon of the card turns red in his hands. Echo draws the Fool, a card of new beginnings but also endings. Selene draws death, the card of change in the game. Nickels draws the Hermit, a card of isolation and reflection. Candy draws the Lovers, with the card representing connections and pairs, symbolizing her manipulation of Benedict. Day draws Strength, a card of inner strength and Willpower. Xio draws the Tower, representing sudden downfall and incredible sudden changes. She shudders and uses the moment to apologize to everyone, saying she wants to be a beacon of hope but got lost. The house receives this well. Benedict considers flipping to Xio because of her show of faith being bad but Candy reminds him that Xio is on the bottom of the pecking order on that side, likely meaning they don’t even have to take her out. He relents and the eviction goes through. The vote comes in and by a vote of 5 to 1, Nickels you have been evicted.
Week 8: The Next HOH begins in the Sunny Park colosseum, with contestants having to hunt for pellets and use them to knock out targets. DJ and Echo prove the most adept but in a last second victory, Echo wins. Benedict goes to Echo in the HOH but Echo has realized too late that Benedict is working with everybody, even causing him to turn on Nickels. Benedict doesn’t try to hide his smug smirk as he agrees and walks out, daring him to put him on the block. He feels this must be hiding something and starts asking around the house for their opinions. Xio reveals the existence of the Witches Coven, and how they have been together for weeks, including saving her last week. Knowing of this alliance, Echo saves Xio and puts up Selene and Day. At the veto, Selene wins. Selene approaches Echo, telling him she knows of someone playing both sides, revealing DJ trying to play double agent. After she pulls herself off the block, DJ goes up as the replacement. Candy works on ingratiating herself with the outsiders in Xio and Echo, trying to forge paths ahead. But is unsuccessful at breaking Echo. Echo is accosted by DJ for putting her up over Benedict. He asks her to say why she was double crossing and she says its because she was trying to sabotage Benedict. If anything, Day, Selene, and Lisette should be the real double agents. Echo goes to rage to Selene for how she tricked him but she swears it was the truth completely, and he chose to believe it in a negative light, not her. Day joins the fight and lashes out at Xio and Selene for being the reason she is on the block. Lisette stays out of it, knowing the time to jump ship is coming up. At the eviction, Dj and DayJay give their pleas, but the votes are tallied. By a unanimous vote… Dayley-Jane, you have been evicted.
Double Eviction!!: Second double eviction because you know we gotta! The HOH starts with a lightning round of dodgeball on wooden poles. Selene is knocked out first. Then DJ gets knocked out by Candy. Lisette falls off on her own. Xio goes after Benedict but is taken out by Candy. Then Candy expertly dodges and takes out Benedict, winning the HOH. She nominates the two people who are on the bottom of the pecking order, Echo and Xio. The veto plays out with Benedict winning. Echo pleads for Benedict to help him out, as they were friends. Benedict doesn’t even look him in the eye as he chooses to not play the veto. Echo pleads to the voters to let him keep playing and he will take out Benedict, but Lisette and Selene have basically already jumped ship and moved on. The vote comes in, and by a vote of 4 to 0… Echo, you have been evicted.
Week 9: With Six houseguests remaining, they are taken to the Gateway colosseum to have mock Pokemon battles. In the first round, Xio beats Lisette and Selene beats DJ, with Benedict drawing a spot in the top 3. In a first to win two times in a row scenario, Selene beats both and comes out victorious. Selene and Lisette decide that they have to cut ties and work with the more devious players to have a better shot at the end. Selene puts up DJ and Xio, with DJ being the target. Benedict is alone in his room when he hallucinates more blood on his paws. He shouts and Xio comes in to see whats up. She helps him calm down and he realizes he is down a bad path. She helps him calm down and he thanks her, even with him harassing her all game she still helped him. Candy witnesses the two help each other out and is beyond irritated, she goes to Selene, who is still iffy on Xio, to warn her. At the veto, Candy wins it. She takes off DJ and Selene spitefully puts up Benedict, who trembles going to the block. Lisette confronts Selene for making such a rushed decision, as the goal was to keep Benedict and his threat around longer. At the eviction, Benedict argues that he has realizes how the game has changed him and he wants to prove how he changed. Lisette doesn’t believe him but DJ seems to be enamored. The vote comes in, and by a vote of 2 to 1… Xio you have been evicted.
Week 10: Five stars remain and there are five points in the Stars of the Main Street colosseum, where the houseguests go to do a full BPBB quiz! Lisette misses one question and gets behind as the other get ahead. It comes down to a tie-breaker between Dj and Benedict and the winner is… DJ! Benedict goes to apologize to DJ for real and she forgives him, happy to see his true self back again. She feels played by Selene and Candy so they go on the block. Lisette is still suspicious of Benedict and starts watching him for suspicious activity, noticing him look at his paws a lot. She decides to talk to him with the ruse of working together. At the veto, DJ wins again and claims her game, choosing not to use the veto. Realizing the danger they are in, Selene and Candy go to their respective closest allies, Benedict and Lisette. The two touch base with Benedict telling Lisette he is fine voting Candy with her, as he doesn’t want to force DJ to have to break a tie. At the eviction, the votes are read and by a vote of 2 to 0… Selene, you have been evicted. Benedict looks over at Lisette with a shocked look, realizing she caught on to him.
Week 10: As the final HOH starts, the houseguest are in the Stargazer colosseum for an epic triathlon of quizzes, endurance, and races. In the first part, Benedict pulls ahead, with Lisette on his tail. He falls behind in part two, giving Lisette and Candy a chance to catch him. The three are neck and neck in part three but Lisette comes out on top! Benedict goes to Lisette on her HOH to grovel but she stops him, saying she misheard the vote last week and though the vote was for Selene anyways so its good he didn’t make poor DJ break the tie. He feels reassured and goes back out. Lisette puts up DJ and Candy as the nominees. Lisette reassures DJ about how Benedict likes her and she wouldn’t go home. Benedict touches base with Lisette, claiming that he knows DJ has too much social traction and needs to go next because of this. On his way out, Candy enters the room and chats with Lisette. She says that the noms should stay the same so DJ can be evicted for sure this week. Lisette doesn’t trust her and tells her to her face she is no better than Benedict, but is powerless without him. The two stare each other down. At the veto, Lisette wins it, and Benedict sighs a sigh of relief. But Lisette shocks everyone by saving Candy and puts up Benedict. Lisette calls him out for faking his turnaround to play with everyone’s emotions. He breaks down, claiming his intense want, no, NEED to win the game. He can’t get it out of his head and it burdens him with the thoughts of betrayal, including the allies he betrayed this season, with Nickels, Echo, and even Xio who showed him so much kindness leaving because of him. DJ is in tears and even Candy can’t watch. Afterwards, Benedict goes to his only real ally, Candy. He begs her for advice on how to get out of this, as she helped him so much. She looks him in the eye as she tells him that he did this to himself. At the eviction, Candy gets the sole vote to evict and casts it to evict, Benedict.
The Reunion: Folks we are live again right outside the Neon Colosseum for the Finale of Bunny’s Pokémon Big Brother Champion Royale! Our Sixteen winners have been whittled down to three and it is not what we expected at all! In a house where everyone wants to be the biggest truck on the highway, we have three mid-sized sedans who have slipped through the gaps and swept their way to the end. DJ VOLT SWITCH, Elesa’s iconic Emolga who created the jams we are listening to even right now! She plays up her social game very well with honesty and loyalty, but is no slouch in the competitions. Though she has been left out of some secrets in the game, she was well=liked in the house and leveraged her position between alliances to get information! Sweet Candy the Wigglytuff who played Sickly Sweet last but downright Sick this time. She got in close with all of the villains but managed to be the cherry flavored licorice that was easier to manage. She avoided detection aligning with big villain Benedict and hiding behind the scenes of his chaos, even almost controlling his moves at points. The Sunstone herself, LISETTE the Solrock, who foresaw victory once, but is this a double reading? Lisette bided her time throughout the game, getting whatever information she could and waiting to play it until the time was right. She was at the center of multiple alliances but always stayed just far enough away from the drama that no one was even targeting her. The Sun? No Lisette is after The World!
Joining us on stage now are the 9 jurors! Starting with Splaatz—Ope watch your step, you gotta be careful or else you’ll trip. Here comes Lance the OG! Though he is old he is still our knight in shining armor. Nickels struts up so casually ooh lala. Here comes Echo, kind of sheepishly, don’t be shy buddy! Day gracefully swims up on stage, still to audience cheering. Wait, the cheering is getting louder? Oh it’s Xio! She is surprisingly well-received. Selene keeps the applause growing. She seems to be goading the audience on with her behavior, not wanting to stay out of the spotlight hmm. And then—oh wow I can’t hear anything with the thunder of the crowd for… Benedict? Interesting outcome here that our little villain has become a real crowd pleaser. Even as he walks to his seat with his head held low.
The jurors speak with our lovely reporter. Lance speaks about how great it was to come back and how this game is way changed from when he won season 1. Xio and Nickels agree, but they still worked hard to adapt to the changes. Selene scoffs a bit, another early winner, she notes that herself and Candy were very well integrated, they just needed to change their approach. Xio says it was much harder playing from the bottom rather than the top and it was a fight, but she had a ton of fun doing so. Day mentions she felt the same way. A house full of winners is not to be underestimated for a second, as they all could be planning many different things behind each other’s backs. Splaatz is—oh he’s asleep… moving on. Nickels asks Echo about how he changed his game this time, and why he turned on her. He apologizes, saying he was blinded by seeing opportunities with Benedict because he didn’t fight with him, only told him what he wanted to hear. And he realized too late that that was a ruse. She accepts his apologies and all eyes turn to Benedict. He looks up, seemingly just noticing eyes are on him. He looks down at his paws. “All I’ve seen since last season is blood on my paws. The need to win never left me. I had to do it at all cost. I lost myself in that game and resorted to every trick in the book to make the winners trust me. And it worked… but I fell deeper and deeper down the hole. And now, I don’t feel like I deserved to win at all.” Xio jumps up and makes him look up. “You deserved your win as much as we all deserved ours. It’s a game, it doesn’t have to define you. You define you, so get up and prove it.” Benedict is in disbelief that Xio is still defending him. “You hear that crowd? They were entertained, we entertained them! Your devioushness entertained them! You gave them a show by tricking a bunch of winners, so own up to it and be the entertainer we know you are.” He gives off a small, barely noticeable,but definitely real this time, smile. Xio turns to the crowd “ARE YOU GUYS READY FOR OUR FINAL THREE???” The crowd erupts in excitement!! “THEN GET READY BECAUSE HERE THEY ARE!!”
Final HOH Part 1: The HOH opens on top of the rotating Roulette wheel in the Neon Colosseum, with the audience now filled and the three houseguests circling in the middle, holding on for dear life. At the same time, they are throwing dodgeballs at each other. Candy is targeting Lisette out of spite, putting on a performance for the audience about how Lisette is a traitor to their alliance. DJ is caught in the crossfire but expertly dodges. She manages to catch a ball that Candy threw and chucks it back, knocking her out. Lisette smiles at DJ but DJ knows she still has to win. She tells Lisette she is sorry but she is done working with people and has to take her game into her own hands, not relying on others to fail but herself to succeed. Lisette agrees, but she wants to be the one to succeed. Lisette lobs a ball at Dj and knocks her out, winning Part 1.
Final HOH Part 2: Part begins with Candy and DJ on the Rotating Roulette platform again, racing around to land the colored balls in order of the competitions and the winners of each one. DJ takes an early lead, having been very aware of the game the whole beginning. Candy struggles at first but when she catches up to leaving the villains alliance and joining Benedict, she takes off, knowing how well she played Benedict as her own puppet that she controlled votes for that she easily crushes the midgame part. Her lead takes her ahead on time going into the endgame. DJ misses a key vote and has to go back, but Candy remembers who saved Benedict countless times, and gets it right, winning part 2.
Final HOH Part 3: The crowd is in uproars as Candy and Lisette reach the stage for final quiz, again on our roulette platform (we paid a lot of money for that). Each juror question goes by, with Lisette and Candy answering in tandem, Both get question after question correct, eventually reaching the last question about Benedict. The crowd is shocked as they both answer together again and… get it wrong. Well, that’s anticlimactic. Benedict sighs, no one knew his true self. But the tie-breaker is revealed, how many rotations has the rotating platform made? With both answering two numbers away from each other, Candy goes just over, eliminating her, and crowning Lisette the final HOH. Lisette has both DJ and Candy in front of her. She doesn’t say much but looks at them. She says that DJ played an impeccable social game and is incredibly loved by the fans and the house. Candy, meanwhile, played a strategic game and almost fooled her a couple times. She turns to Candy “I made a gamble with bringing a social threat to the end before with Amni, but not this time. Candy, let’s give em a show.” And casts her vote to evict DJ.
The Jury Questioning: DJ isn’t shocked, she did a lot this time around and knew she made herself a bigger threat. She exits the house and gets cheers from the audience! She hops to the DJ booth and begins playing the final epic track for the showdown between Candy and Lisette. Both have been in this position before in the final 2 and both have won, but now, only one can become a two-time winner and be crowned the ultimate Champion! Lisette opens with her speech first. She pitches her game strong, how she gravitated towards groups in the early game without committing too strongly, so she didn’t go down with the ship. She still managed to control so many votes in the house by having reach with her Witches Coven and eventually jumping ship and siding with Benedict, as she knew he was under Candy’s thumb and she could infiltrate that alliance to get to the end and destroy it. The jury is impressed by her showing and all eyes turn to Candy. Candy starts saying how she knew her game was already known going into the house and she had to play different. Her main strategy was to fall into the background and connect with the players playing sloppier than her so she could be the puppetmaster and sneak to the end. And for her, that was found in Benedict, who she found it very easy to manipulate. She is the villain they all knew she was but she wasn’t targeted because of her great strategy. She saved Benedict’s game and carried him to the end so that she could have a guaranteed extra life in the endgame with him. Murmurs arise from the jury, Benedict looks incredibly hurt. Xio asks Candy what her biggest move was outside of controlling Benedict. Candy says that she made sure that the villains she worked with got cut before she could get too powerful, even working with Lisette to get out Bane and Maeva. DJ gets up from the booth and asks Lisette why she went to the end with Candy instead of her if she thought Candy was going to be tougher. Lisette clarifies that she thought Candy would be good at explaining her game, but she knows not to rely on other’s failing but on herself to succeed, and DJ has a great story and was well-loved and if she wanted to win, she had to cut DJ and masterfully explain her game to the jury. Benedict finally speaks up to ask Candy if he meant anything to her at all throughout the game. She hesitates, caught off guard, before replying in all honesty that, she wanted to mentor him to be a better player. He says he did well enough for making it to the end twice and didn’t need her to do all that. In their final speeches, Candy says that she used other people as her pawns and navigated a really good game to make it to the end hidden amongst the other players. Lisette says that she played a perfect game, not even touching the block and noting that she has not received a vote against her in either of her games, this one being perfect. She finishes by saying how she played more up front and aggressive to counter the sneakier players of the season and did not back down from the threats that all the winners possessed. The jury is impressed and goes to cast their votes.
Jury Voting: Splaatz says he had a fun time playing again and wants to vote for someone who played really good, even showing him more how to play. Lance says that while some people are old school, some people are REALLY old school, but can still play with the best of the best and be even better. Nickels says she is honored to be in the winners season but one winner played like how she thinks a winner should. Day says she worked with both finalists, but she always felt the house pulling towards one player, as the sun has a lot of gravity and control over the tides. Echo says point blank that he felt the manipulation from both sides, but one felt malicious, and another felt like game, and he knows which he respects more. Xio says that some lines shouldn’t be crossed. Selene says that she was honored to be so thoroughly outplayed, turning from the Queen to the Pawn who was merely a stepping stone in someone elses game, it was thrilling. Benedict silently casts his vote. DJ cues the final tune before hopping down with her vote, saying that it should be obvious. The votes come in… by a vote of 9 to 0… the winner is…
Winner: Lisette!
Runner-Up: Candy!
Confetti cannons and flamethrowers start lighting up the sky with neon streams shining bright all over the sky! Though it is the dead of night, it is as bright as the sun, and Lisette is feeling absolutely radiant. Candy sits in shock, in disbelief. Lisette throws her the Lovers card again. “You misread it the first time so maybe you can learn before you try to tell the fortune teller what her fortune is.” Candy throws the card on the ground in anger and pouts. The jurors go and cheer for Lisette, the ultimate champion and two time winner, STILL having never received a single vote to evict in two entire seasons. The fan favorite vote comes in and… IT’S A TIE???
Fan Favorites: Benedict and Xio!!!
Benedict goes up to Candy, still fuming, and looks her in the eyes. “You know what, you really did teach me something. You taught me that some people never change, but I don’t have to be one of them.” Xio comes up and takes Benedict back to the celebration, sticking her tongue out at Candy as she leaves. The party goes through the night. The sun eventually rises, as Lisette has risen to the top of the competition, as this era of Bunny’s Pokemon Big Brother has come to an end.
My Thoughts: I enjoyed this season a lot. It kept me on the edge as the winners played their games again, some way better than others. Gameplay-wise, I think I preferred last season but I think it’s more so because of the subtle moves made in the dark as no one wanted to be too big of a target. The villains ended up flopping early, which kind of was to be expected, given that everyone else is a relaly smart player to have won. Candy surprised me this time, sneaking in to take over Benedict, being a key player in his storyline, even a bigger villain than he tried to be. It really helped me tie up the storyline really well and I like how it happened. She also played a stellar game again, controlling things from the chaos in the shadows. The other side of the house was not slouching though. Lisette, Selene, Xio, and Day all played smart games, not committing too much to each other but still working well enough to not crumble. Lisette as a winner for this season is great! She put in work to keep her position, as it was in danger of falling apart so much. She leveraged every ally she had and every competition she had to get forward every week. And it worked as she got to the end without hitting the block AGAIN and played a PERFECT game, not receiving a single vote to evict and getting every vote to win. She did that in a winner season too, ultimate winner for sure!
So whats next? Well... that's the end. I knew since the beginning that Season 17 would be the end but it coming up still feels so weird. I am about to start a busy summer and don't have as much time for all of my hobbies but I still feel sad finishing this series. I think I am going to make a series epilogue soon so stay tuned for that but... otherwise that's it. I thank you all again so much for sticking with me the whole time, it's been a wonderful journey!

Im not a magic player but I HAD to get the Fallout set, the secret lair drop messed me all up dropping the CHANCE of a Mana Vault so my set is incomplete, so im looking for a good place or user who I can source a nice proxy of this card from, apologies abead of time if im wording any of this wrong :)

Here's the links for those interested:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130402004410/http://www.hackforums.net/showthread.php?tid=2550375
https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/minecraft-java-edition/discussion/160186-exclusive-secret-file-in-assets-minecraft-net

Hi, I am trying to migrate my wordpress multisite to Kubernetes, and I am having problems importing the files.
On my current server, I use apache and all domains in the vhost config points to the path /vawww/html/web.
However in kubernetes I can't get wordpress to use that path, it always uses /vawww/html, so it doesn't read my files on this folder.
I'm sure this should be easy to fix, but I can't find a way.
I attach my configuration for nginx ingress and wordpress app, because I am not clear if I have to configure it in both sites or only in one.

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1 kind: Ingress metadata: name: wordpress annotations: kubernetes.io/ingress.class: "nginx" cert-manager.io/cluster-issuer: "wp-prod-issuer" spec: rules: - host: www.mysite.com http: paths: - path: "/" pathType: Prefix backend: service: name: wordpress port: number: 80 - path: - host: myothersite.com http: paths: - path: "/" pathType: Prefix backend: service: name: wordpress port: number: 80 tls: - hosts: - www.mysite.com - myothersite.com secretName: wordpress-tls apiVersion: v1 kind: Service metadata: name: wordpress spec: ports: - port: 80 selector: app: wordpress tier: web type: LoadBalancer --- apiVersion: apps/v1 kind: Deployment metadata: name: wordpress spec: selector: matchLabels: app: wordpress tier: web strategy: rollingUpdate: maxSurge: 25% maxUnavailable: 25% type: RollingUpdate template: metadata: labels: app: wordpress tier: web spec: containers: - image: wordpress:php8.1 name: wordpress workingDir: /vawww/html/web env: - name: WORDPRESS_DB_HOST value: mysql-wp:3306 - name: WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD valueFrom: secretKeyRef: name: mysql-user-password-8gh42ctd9d key: passworduser - name: WORDPRESS_DB_USER valueFrom: secretKeyRef: name: mysql-user-ft772h9b89 key: username - name: WORDPRESS_DB_NAME valueFrom: secretKeyRef: name: mysql-database-86m8k7bm58 key: database lifecycle: postStart: exec: # command: ["/bin/bash", -c, "chown -R www-data:www-data /vawww/html; chmod -R 774 /vawww/html"] command: - /bin/sh - -c - a2enmod actions allowmethods auth_digest authn_anon authn_socache authz_dbd authz_dbm authz_groupfile cache cache_disk data dbd echo ext_filter headers include info mime_magic mime slotmem_plain slotmem_shm socache_dbm socache_memcache socache_shmcb substitute suexec unique_id userdir vhost_alias dav dav_fs dav_lock lua mpm_prefork proxy lbmethod_bybusyness lbmethod_byrequests lbmethod_bytraffic lbmethod_heartbeat proxy_ajp proxy_balancer proxy_connect proxy_express proxy_fcgi proxy_fdpass proxy_ftp proxy_http proxy_scgi proxy_wstunnel ssl cgi ports: - containerPort: 80 name: wordpress volumeMounts: - name: persistent-storage mountPath: /vawww/html subPath: web - name: config-volume-1 mountPath: /etc/apache2/apache2.conf subPath: apache2.conf volumes: - name: persistent-storage persistentVolumeClaim: claimName: wordpress - name: config-volume-1 configMap: name: apache2conf 

Thank you very much in advance.

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...a shadow lies over all the land of Aman, and reaches far out over the sea. Why will you not tell me more?
Welcome one and all again to the 2024 Read-Along and Discussion of The Silmarillion here on tolkienfans. For Week 19 (May 5-May 11), we will be exploring The Quenta Silmarillion (The History of the Silmarils) chapter 15, "Of the Noldor in Beleriand"
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Previously, the elf Turgon had been led by Ulmo to the secret vale of Tumladen, hidden within the Encircling Mountains. This was a vast plain of grass with a great hill in the middle, where he decided to build a city that was reminiscent of Tirion. Turgon returned to his realm of Nevrast with the knowledge of this hidden place, and began planning to construct a refuge that would be hidden from the knowledge of Morgoth.
After the Dagor Aglareb, Turgon led his people away from Nevrast back to Tumladen. There they began the construction of a great city upon the hill in the center of the plain. After fifty two years of secret toil and building they at last completed the city of Gondolin. This city was known only to Turgon and those of the Noldor who had followed him there. Before Turgon left Nevrast for the last time, Ulmo appeared to him again. He warned Turgon that though he would shield Turgon's final journey to Gondolin from prying eyes, he could not free Turgon from the Doom of Mandos that plagued the exiles. Gondolin would stand the longest of all the realms of the Noldor, but in the end it too must eventually fall. When that time would come, Ulmo would send Turgon a messenger to warn him of the impending doom. Ulmo bade Turgon to create unique armor and weapons for that messenger, who would come to Nevrast himself one day and take up the equipment. These would be a sign that the messenger was sent by Ulmo. Having done this, Turgon and his followers left Nevrast forever and went to Gondolin in secret.
Turgon prospered in Gondolin, which became a thriving city. Gondolin's location was kept secret from Morgoth throughout the wars against the Dark Power. Gondolin produced many works, like Glingal and Belthil, forged at the image of the Two Trees of Valinor. As for Nevrast, it decayed as the years went on, and no one inhabited the city again.
While Gondolin was being built, Finrod Felagund created his realm of Nargothrond, which would become a great city. His sister, Galadriel, would reside in the realm of Doriath. There Melian and she would often speak of Valinor, but Galadriel would never speak of what happened after the Darkening of Valinor began. But Melian was perceptive and wise, and she soon guessed that Galadriel was hiding something from her. Eventually, Galadriel admitted part of the truth, that the Noldor had not come as messengers of the Valar. However, she did not mention the First Kinslaying.
Melian told Thingol what Galadriel had said, and cautioned him to beware of the Sons of Fëanor. Soon, rumors of the Kinslaying did indeed reach the ears of Thingol. The truth being known to him at last, Thingol confronted Finrod and his brothers who happened to be in Doriath at the time. Finrod protested that it was Fëanor and his followers who had been the ones mainly responsible for the evils the Noldor had done, not Finrod and his party. But he allowed Angrod to tell the whole story of what had happened in the flight from Aman. Thingol's wrath towards Finrod and Fingolfin was softened by what he heard, but he did not forgive the sons of Fëanor. In vengeance, he forbade the usage of Quenya, the language of the Noldor, within the borders of Doriath. In later years, this would lead to the rise of Sindarin over Quenya, which would become an almost dead language outside of books and the private use of the exiles.
When Nargothrond was finished, a feast was held to celebrate its completion, and Galadriel came back from Doriath to celebrate. She asked Finrod why he was not married. Foresight seemed to come upon Finrod, and he said that one day he would swear an oath - Ring of Barahir - that one day he would have to fulfill no matter the consequences, and as a result no child would inherit his works. [1]
Of the Noldor in Beleriand at The Lord of the Rings Wiki: This chapter introduces the lays of the kingdoms of Gondolin and Nargothrond, as well as giving information on Doriath. The full tale of the Noldor's deads reaching Thingol is in this chapter, and of him banning the language of the Noldor from his realm.
Chapter discussion at Entmoot TolkienTrail.
Chapter discussion at The Barrow-Downs.
Question for the week:

1. Galadriel confirms to Melian that they left Valinor without the Valar's permission and cannot return but makes no menton of the Kinslaying, the Oath, or the burning of the ships at Losgar. Why?
2. What of the "cold thoughts" of Finrod?
3. What of Melian's statement to Thingol concerning the sons of Fëanor that their "swords and their counsels shall have two edges"?

For drafts and history of this chapter see The War of the Jewels, "The Grey Annals", pp. 119-120, §91-113; "The Later Quenta Silmarillion", Chapter 12, "Of Turgon and the Building of Gondolin", pp. 198-201.
For further history and analysis of this chapter, see Arda Reconstructed (by Douglas Charles Kane), pp. 151-154.
Be sure to have your copy of The Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad on hand as you go through this chapter.
Some Tolkien-related hangouts on YouTube (relevant to this week):

• Nerd of the Rings This episode: Maps of Middle-earth: The First Age The Silmarillion Explained
• Nerd of the Rings This episode: The Origins of Melkor Tolkien Explained
• Nerd of the Rings This episode: The History of Morgoth [COMPILATION] Tolkien Explained
• Nerd of the Rings This episode: Turgon, King Of Gondolin Tolkien ExplainedTolkien Untangled This episode: The Return of the Noldor Of the Lords of Beleriand : Silmarillion Explained - Part 2 of 10
• Ælfwine's Road This episode: Silmarillion Summary: Ch. 15 - Of the Noldor In Beleriand [18/31]
• Voice of Geekdom This episode: Chapter 15.1: The Interrogation of Galadriel Silmarillion Explained
• Voice of Geekdom This episode: Chapter 15.2: Thingol's judgement against the Noldor Silmarillion Explained
• The Tolkien Road Podcast This episode: Silmarillion 2022 Ch 15 » Of the Noldor in Beleriand » Gondolin, Galadriel, and Finrod's Doom
• The Tolkien Road Podcast This episode: 0046 - The Silmarillion - Chapter 15 - Of the Noldor in Beleriand
• The One Ring This episode: This Map is HELL - Of Beleriand - The Silmarillion – 16

The Silmarillion Reader's Guide at Tea With Tolkien.
The Silmarillion Reader's Guide by askmiddlearth on Tumblr.
Quettaparma Quenyallo (QQ) - The most extensive list of Quenya words available on the internet, by Helge Fauskanger, 1999-2013.
Tolkien Collector's Guide - Guide to Tolkien's Letters
A (Hopefully) Light Guide to the Silmarillion — Or What I Wish I’d Known Before Reading It by u/Ok_Bullfrog_8491/
The Definitive Family Tree of the Tolkien Legendarium by u/PotterGandalf117
Wikipedia - The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Announcement and Index: (Take 2) 2024 The Silmarillion and The Fall of Gondolin Read-Along

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Best way to keep one’s word is not to give it. Napoleon Bonaparte Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience. Ralph Waldo Emerson. All the great achievements require time. Maya Angelou. A lot of People are afraid of height, Not me , I am afraid of widths. Steven Wright. If you do not think about future, you cannot have one. John Galsworthy. Source :https://www.brainyquote.com/quote_of_the_day_5
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30 years of Experience Worldwide Presence in 190 countries 3 Million+ Happy Customers 8000+ Partner Network Editor's choice award by Forbes, Chip, Techradar, business.com, computerbild, etc. Stellar Data Recovery and Restore https://www.stellarinfo.com/email-tools/ost-converter.php
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So usually in works of urban fantasy the masquerade is where magical beings and fantasy creatures live among us, but are hidden from the world at large supposedly for their own protection. However, I have always been confused as to why some of these creatures have to live in hiding, because if some of these supernatural beings possess strong magical powers that they can use to protect themselves from muggles, why do they have to hide themselves from a society that is weaker than they are? And after reading this article from TV Tropes I have also wondered how many of these magical creatures could hide from the general public, and what are the best ways to enforce the masquerade?
Now imo, the only rational reasons why the masquerade should exist are the following:

• Fears of Muggles: In his scenario magicals hide because of muggle prejudice and persecution. A common argument against this it that the power gap in the middle ages was bigger than it is today, but I believed this could be remedied if the muggles of the past were able to learn techniques and skills that can help them counteract magicals. This can range from learning other forms of magic (Ex: alchemical magic, device magic (the creation of magical weapons like runes, potions, and modified human weaponry), formulaic magic (Ex: like glyphs from Owl House), and/or force magic where humans tap into a magical cosmic force or background field and use it to control or weave together magical forces), learning how to beat magicals in physical combat, or a combination of learning both. Naturally, these group of muggles would evolve into an order of masquerade enforcers that can either act as a group of modern-day witch hunters or as an organization that keeps the peace between magicals and muggles. This only applies to a scenario where Muggles and Magicals have a Type 2 or Type 3 relationship. (Note See TV Tropes article for more).
• The World is not yet ready/the world is always doom: In this scenario, magic and fantasy creatures are kept secret from the public because they are unsure how people would react to magic or magical creatures, how threats from the magical world could wipe out the human one, and if they are capable of using magic without causing serious havoc, even unintentionally. Of course, to make this work the author needs to address whether the risks outweigh the positive benefits and vice versa, whether it's possible to reach a point; where it's easier to teach the public about magic than to hide it and hope no one stumbles upon it; and whether the heroes are willing to do what needs to be done to keep magic out of Muggles' hands short of killing people. This can apply to scenarios where Muggles and Magicals have a Type 1, Type 2, or Type 3 relationship.

And in order to maintain the masquerade the supernatural population must be manageable enough that the muggles are not likely to notice. The TV tropes article mentioned a few possible solutions to address this:

1. Very small number of magicals: A cabal of twenty wizards will have much fewer problems hiding from mundane world, and smaller chance of being accidentally discovered.
2. Complete separation of normal and supernatural world: Magicals have their own companies, shops, towns, and services and they are incredibly hard to reach. As such, they don't leave paper trail for "official" authorities to follow, and there are very few people who supply things only muggle world can provide. Still runs the risk of someone accidentally wandering in.
3. Actually different universes: A step beyond the above, supernaturals live in a world adjacent to our own, but ultimately separate, so that a muggle can in no way stumble into a witch's shop or a wizard battle. An example would be the Fae living in some Hidden Elf Village, or the Diagon Alley, with people at Leaky Cauldron serving as gatekeepers.

And here are some methods that Masquerade enformers can use to maintain the masquerade which have been suggested to me by u/TheArkangelWinter, u/Nephisimian, and u/Thanatofobia:

• Memory modification of people who have seen the masquerade. Followed up by a enforcer cleaning crew to erase on any physical evidence.
• If the masquerade is seen by a larger number of people cast doubt on such things. Make the actions of the supernatural look like stunts performed by other parties like Derren Brown, Bansky, and others people that are known to try and capture the public's attention in weird ways.
• The enforcers also need people on the inside of the Muggle world to make sure that the people who are trying to break the masquerade look like conspiracy nuts, prevent future investigations into the masquerade, and create a good paper trail to hide the existence of the supernatural and give the magicals identities.

With all this in mind, are there any works of urban fantasy where the masquerade is believable?
So far the best ones that I know are Mercy Thompson, Alpha and Omega, October Daye, Weaveworld, Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, Declare, Grimm, Rivers of London, Skulduggery Pleasant, and the Eccentric Family.

I'm trying to setup SSL proxy for an internal server, but can't for the life of me get the Let's Encrypt integration to work with NPM.
I have GoDaddy for my DNS provider. I created the API key and put the key/secret in NPM and it fails. I Tried moving one of my domain's to using Cloudflare as the DNS provider and then tried that one with the API Token, again fails.
Is there something I'm missing? Or does the DNS Challenge feature just not work?
I'm running NPM in Docker on Rocky Linux 9.4.
UPDATE: Looks like GoDaddy is trash and doesn't want to play nice. For the error I had with Cloudflare I increased the timeout from 10 seconds ((default) to 20 seconds and it WORKED!!! Moving all my DNS to Cloudflare ASAP!

10th of May 2024 Earnings Call

Hello. I transcribe and post news about Crimson Desert (and DokeV). Most people know me from Discord as PSA (Kiri).
I have seen rumors going around that there will be a Steam demo (or for other systems or platforms).
I believe that is a misunderstanding. I am certain that the demos will be available to play on the floor at Gamescom, at Pearl Abyss' booth, or potentially partner booths.
While there is nothing in the earnings calls that directly states that they will not release the demos for you the user to be able to play from the comforts of your own home; I believe you will come to the same conclusion as me when you read the transcript.
I have highlighted in bold the most relevant parts, but included most of the earnings call in full for the sake of clarity.
Opening statements:

[17:04} For Crimson Desert with development in its last stages we plan to start full fledged marketing. First, we will participate in Gamescom, the biggest global game event and plan to hold demos for users. If we had focused on partner focused marketing until last year; this year are planning diverse kinds of marketing which can enable users to experience the game and heighten expectations about the game. [...] we are also confident that we have the ability to grow new titles. Including Crimson Desert from mid to long term.
[18:06] In addition, with the completion of the development of Crimson Desert, the development speed of latter titles, including DokeV is accelerating. We will do our best to communicate the development progress consecutively.

Q&A
Question 1:

[20:17] My first question actually refers to your new titles. Do you have any plans to release in game footage for Crimson Desert additionally. And can you give us some colour on [the] timeline if possible? And can you also let us know if you are planning to release more in-game footage for DokeV as well?

Answer:

[21:44] Regarding Crimson Desert, we are actually working hard so that it can be completely optimized, and for us to actually perfect the game. So we are smoothly going ahead with the final stages. And we 'are' receiving feedback from customers, and we also are targetting Gamescom for our marketing. So we are quite active in this area.
So we know that it might not be enough for us to just show you some footage from the game. So that is why we are planning to have some demos, so that our users can actually participate and experience the game.
And starting with Gamescom we plan to participate in diverse global game events, like g-star so that expand our Crimon Desert marketing activities until we launch, and to strengthen those activities, and if needed, we will of course release some of the footage from the game.
And regarding the timeline. I know that many of you are curious, so in the process of our marketing, we will consecutively give you more information about [a] more detailed timeline including our pre sign-ups or pre-registration.

Note: The "Pre sign-ups" and "pre-registration" referred to here is likely pre-orders.
You may interpret this as if the game will have an closed/open beta period like is common in an MMO, but as Crimson Desert is a Singleplayer game, this is unlikely.
​

For your reference, at this gamescom we plan to concentrate on letting the users know about our game and to heighten their expectations. So we plan to focus on that. So regarding the pre-registration and our launch schedule. Well we are planning to do so with an opportune event that can actually lead to many pre-sales.
So according to the different stages of marketing, we plan to give you more information consecutively so that expectations can become more heightened and so that it can lead to many pre-sales. So we are making those preparations.

​

[25:00] And for DokeV as you probably know, through our Black Space engine, we are heightening our efficiency and productivity.
However! I want to tell you that because we are currently in the latter stages of finishing off the development of Crimson Desert [...] we are able to put in the extra manpower into the development of DokeV. However regarding the footage you asked for DokeV, we are thinking of actually showing you the footage if possible. So we are actually internally discussing those possibilities. But as I mentioned, because we are focusing on Crimson Desert, Now in order for us to showcase it to the public, we will probably find an opportunity after it is released.
[Korean]
And we are well aware that there are heightened expectations in the market about DokeV. So we will do our best to give you more information about DokeV as well.

I think it is fairly safe to assume that they are referring to demos at gamescom, and you should not have too high hopes about a demo on steam.
If you want to read my post about DokeV you can find it over here. https://new.reddit.com/DokeV/comments/zi38m9/dokev_info_dump_including_release_date_with/
The following question concerns [Xbox + PC] or [Playstation + PC] exclusivity.
Question 2:

[30:30] I am curious about what is your marketing budget for Crimson Desert, I know it is a AAA game, so I believe we will see the amount of marketing will probably be sizeable. So can you give us some numbers. And do you have any plans to have any exclusive contract or publishing contract with Sony or Xbox, because to my knowledge I think Shift up recently had that kind of arrangement with Sony which actually lessened their marketing burden, and heightened their global recognition.

Answer:

[32:12] So for Crimson Desert it has been developed as a AAA game, so regarding our marketing budget, it has already been included in our business plans so far. So it is at a certain level, so I don't think you need to be concerned about the level of our marketing budget. And we already have many fanbases, (???) a lot of the fanbase at this point so our marketing I believe will be very efficient.
And we have already accumulated wast amount of experience with Black Desert with diverse partners and overseas partners as well. So we have had a lot of these cooperations and collaborations (???) diverse activities, and we are currently in discussion with many of them. So as soon as the marketing begins, I am sure we can reap the benefits through these relationships that have very efficient marketing.
Regarding the exclusive partners you have asked about. Yes, actually we are thinking of diverse ways of collaboration in depth through many methods. And we are actually discussing many opportunities in detail, but related to the exclusive partnerships, there are many considerations to be had. So that is why we don't have any confirmed cases yet.
And of course, we will take into consideration our company's benefits or profits as our first priority. So we will make the best choice that can lead to great results in the market.

It is common to keep such deals secret until unveiled to the public, so it is unlikely we will learn about which console manufacturer they will partner with through an earnings call. However, it does sound like they may end up partnering in none, based on the reply.
Additional information. They mention their headcount at:

[09:28] For your reference, Q1 ends [with a] total number of employees stands at 1351. Developer headcount is 786.

​
In addition to these news. There is one noteworthy piece regarding Blockchain gaming. Anyone with a functioning frontal lobe, and probably even those without will be happy to hear that this blockchain stuff will likely not be touching Black Desert, Crimson Desert or DokeV, and is relegated to a new project.

[06:13] We took part in GDC 2024 and officially disclosed Project Awakening, our blockchain based project, and are preparing to enter into new markets.

​
My closing thoughts as someone who has been transcribing the earnings calls for over a year now, I can safely say that they sound no closer to the release of DokeV now than they did a year ago. And Crimson Desert has been in its "marketing phase" since summer 2023...
Earnings call can be found at https://irsvc.teletogether.com/pearlabyss/pearlabyss.php?c=pearlabyss&y=1940

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Backlash%2c+parental+alienation+syndrome+and+co-construction.-a0179570828
Work on the issue of sexual abuse in children and adolescents lays bare the power relations between genders, generations and social classes. The issue of gender is seen in statistics from UN agencies that report that "one in four girls and one in nine boys will be sexually abused before they reach the age of 18."(1) Generational power relations are clear because the perpetrators are adults, and the power relations of class are evident in the backlash generated by powerful sectors that have attempted to prop up the myth that child abuse is only a problem among the poor and working classes.
Webster's Dictionary defines "backlash" as "a strong adverse reaction to a political or social movement." More plainly, backlash is a negative reaction to a positive and constructive step forward. Professor of law John Myers identifies the positive step as the progress made in the past two decades with regard to child abuse and the backlash as the escalation of criticism against professionals involved in child protection.(2)
David Finkelhor was responsible for pioneering work on the sexual abuse of children in the United States. In his 1979 book, Sexually Victimized Children, Finkelhor recognizes the important contributions of the women's movement and professionals involved in child protection lobbying in drawing attention to the realities of sexual violence against minors: "If the sexual abuse of children has risen to prominence as a social problem rather quickly, it is because it has been championed by an alliance of two constituencies by now rather experienced in the promotion of social problems."(3)
In the United States, a backlash began in the 1980s under the Reagan Administration's return to stale and reactionary values following the struggles of the women's movement and the children's rights movement the 1960s and 70s.
What was once secret was now openly debated, and controversy wracked the most idealized institutions, including church, family and school. Socially consecrated myths of long-standing were crumbling: "The home is the seat of love, support and safety for children"; "Good families don't talk about sexuality"; "Churches reflect the highest moral standard with regard to sexuality"; "Children are safe in school."
By drawing attention to the realities of child sexual abuse, a solid blow was dealt to the "powers that be"; hypocrisy was uncovered; and unquestioned assumptions were challenged. This frontal attack was met with denial by means of a range of strategies developed by the fundamentalisms of faith and the market.
One of these backlash strategists was prominent forensics expert Richard Gardner, who coined the term "parental alienation syndrome" in 1985 to describe a supposed psychological disorder that he had observed in lengthy and bitter custody battles. His original paper on the subject uses the following description:

"The term I prefer to use is parental alienation syndrome. I have introduced this term to refer to a disturbance in which children are obsessed with deprecation and criticism of a parent—denigration that is unjustified and/or exaggerated. The notion that such children are merely 'brainwashed' is narrow."(4)

However, supposedly citing his original work several years later, Gardner re-describes this phenomena somewhat differently.

"[t]he parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is a childhood disorder that arises almost exclusively in the context of child-custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child's campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent's indoctrinations and the child's own contributions to the vilification of the target parent. When true parental abuse and/or neglect is present, the child's animosity may be justified, and so the parental alienation syndrome explanation for the child's hostility is not applicable."(5)

The two different definitions demonstrate the changes in this argument over time with the goal of developing a different strategy for discrediting the hard research work and harder-won social gains of the women's movement and the professionals lobbying for child protection.
Maria Jose Blanco Barea has studied the many works that Gardner published up to his death by suicide in 2003, and she suggests that "perhaps the psychological causes that led to his suicide should be taken into consideration." With regard to Gardner's professional career, Blanco Barea recounts that "Gardner dedicated the first part of his professional life to working as a forensics expert in cases of sexual abuse brought by children against their parents, students against professors, members of the faithful against representatives of organized religions and within military families. Gardner often stressed that he was a former captain [in the U.S. Army Medical Corps] and as a psychologist treated members of the armed forces who had served in Korea. He specialized in techniques to 'deprogram' U.S. soldiers who had been prisoners of war. His methodologies and expert testimony were used to question the credibility of sexual abuse victims, to prove that the accused were innocent and that the accusers were guilty of perjury. Gardner testified in cases of sexual abuse in the context of hearings to determine custody, visitation and guardianship, and he himself explains that he developed his research over the course of his career. In other words, he directly applied the scientific method of trial and error in real-life court cases that were settled while he was still carrying out his research. When he decided to publish his theories in 1985, Garner failed to provide the scientific community with the necessary data to scientifically analyze his conclusions."(6)
Richard Gardner's books were published by Creative Therapeutics, which he himself owned. Some of his articles were published in Issues in Child Abuse Accusations, a publication of the Institute for Psychological Therapies, which is directed by Dr. Ralph Underwager who is well known for an interview in the Dutch journal Paidika […](7)
In the 1970s and 80s and prior to his publication of the parental alienation syndrome, Gardner developed the "Sex-Abuse Legitimacy Scale" (SAL Scale), which he used in his own courtroom testimony. Nonetheless, Gardner's ideological stance clearly shows that he did not view child sexual abuse as a problem, except when it is denounced.

"It is of interest that of all the ancient peoples it may very well be that the Jews were the only ones who were punitive toward [adults who had sex with children]. Early Christian proscriptions against [adult-child sex] appear to have been derived from the earlier teachings of the Jews, and our present overreaction to [adult-child sex] represents an exaggeration of Judeo-Christian principles and is a significant factor operative in Western society's atypicality with regard to such activities."(8)
"The child might be helped to appreciate the wisdom of Shakespeare's Hamlet, who said, 'Nothing's either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.'"(9)
"And her [the mother's] increased sexuality may lessen the need for her husband to return to their daughter for sexual gratification."(10)
"… except for a certain amount of sexual frustration that was not gratified, the four-year-old had not been significantly traumatized by these encounters."(11)

Elsewhere Gardner had the following to say about child sexual abuse: "The sexually abused child is generally considered to be the victim, though the child may initiate sexual encounters by 'seducing' the adult."(12) Gardner even proposes that [child sexual abuse] serves procreative purposes; he maintains that although the child cannot become pregnant, a child who is drawn into sexual encounters at an early age is likely to become highly sexualized and thus will crave sexual experiences during the prepubertal years. Such a "charged up child" is more likely to transmit his or her genes through his or her progeny at an early age. Gardner states: "The younger the survival machine at the time sexual urges appear, the longer will be the span of procreative capacity, and the greater the likelihood the individual will create more survival machines in the next generation."(13) He also recommended that the incestuous father "has to be helped to appreciate that, even today, it [adult-child sex] is a widespread and accepted practice among literally billions of people. He has to appreciate that in our Western society especially we take a very punitive and moralistic attitude toward such inclinations.… He has also had back [sic] luck with regard to the place and time he was born with regard to social attitudes toward [adult-child esx]."(14)
The two definitions of parental alienation syndrome are interesting because the first reveals that the intention of the original strategy was to minimize the devastating effects that child abuse has in the victims. However, the 2002 definition added: "When true parental abuse and/or neglect is present, the child's animosity may be justified, and so the parental alienation syndrome explanation for the child's hostility is not applicable."(15) But curiously, the indicators of parental alienation syndrome also coincide with the indicators of sexual abuse that have been established by international studies on this problem.
At the time of the revised definition, the international study of child abuse and the movement to prevent the victimization of children was much further advanced. Some examples are the five European seminars "Secrets that Destroy" held in 1998 by the Save the Children Alliance; the 1999 "Vision and Reality" reports that address women's and children's rights; and a series of later publications by experts in the matter.
Although the SAL scale has been widely disregarded as a tool for diagnosing sexual abuse, Gardner's real thoughts are evident in the above citations from his works. Both the SAL scale and parental alienation syndrome represent a scandalous violation of the human rights of women, adolescents and children.
In numerous publications, Gardner uses supposedly scientific but paradoxical arguments to rationalize his denial of violence against women, defined in the Belem do Para Convention as "a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between women and men."(16) Making use of children, he creates a new and sophisticated form of violence against women that involves complicity of the justice system.
Gardner proposed a series of symptoms that reveal three types of parental alienation syndrome (severe, moderate and mild) and specific treatment for each type. The treatment that he proposes for parental alienation syndrome involves both legal and health-care professionals, who Gardner says should have the power to administer the appropriate treatment based on the coercion, threat, change in living arrangements and, as a last resort, the internment and "deprogramming" of the child. As Blanco Barea observes, "Parental alienation syndrome makes a fraud of the law. It makes use of the declarations against discriminations against women and of the rights of the child to protect the parent and escape the application of the Conference of Vienna that protects against torture and degrading treatment, especially in the case of women and girls, and to escape the application of the Convention on the Rights of the Child."(17)
As law professor John Myers explains, "Gardner is an outspoken critic of certain aspects of the child protection system. Apparently, Gardner believes America is in the throes of mass hysteria over child sexual abuse. He writes that 'sex-abuse hysteria is omnipresent' (True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse, 1992, p. xxv). In his 1991 book titled Sex Abuse Hysteria: Salem Witch Trials Revisited, Gardner is harshly critical of an unspecified portion of the mental health professionals, investigators, and prosecutors trying to protect children. For example, Gardner accuses some prosecutors of gratifying their own sexual urges and sadistic tendencies through involvement in sexual abuse cases. […] It seems clear that Richard Gardner cannot claim to be balanced or objective when it comes to allegations of child sexual abuse."(18)
Although Gardner and his theories can be questioned for their misogynist and perverse ideology, in Argentina former family court judge Eduardo Cardenas published "El abuso de las denuncias de abuso" (The Abuse of Claims of Abuse) in La Ley, on September 15, 2000. Cardenas's article supported Gardner's theories and sparked backlash in our country, which has provoked widespread reaction among well-known professionals.
Perhaps the best summary of what occurred in Argentina after 2000 is found in the book Maltrato infantil: Riesgos del compromiso profesional (Child Abuse: The Risks of Professional Commitment), a collection of essays by known specialists on the issue, edited by Silvio Lamberti. As the introduction to this book describes:

"As long as the problem was associated with the lower classes, more and more cases were reported. When it began to be suspected that family violence affected all social classes and the middle and upper classes were scrutinized, a reactionary movement used the guise of good intentions to put limits on professionals that supposedly 'abused the reports of child sexual abuse.'
"This was the reaction of:

1. Fathers who were engaged in custody battles or other legal disputes regarding visitation rights.
2. Lawyers who preached equanimity and warned against the feminist bias that they claimed had affected the reports.
3. Experts who tried to pass off the backlash literature from the U.S. as scientific evidence to support their own conclusions.

"This brutal attack tends to carry into an ideological realm a debate that crosses legal and psychosocial discourses, ethics and society as a whole and tries to undo the advances already gained, discouraging those who have worked to achieve these gains. In short, they intend to:

1. Discredit reports of child abuse.
2. Turn anyone who denounces abuse into a suspect.
3. Blur the boundaries between victim and victimizer.
4. Confuse the matter by citing the rare cases of violence against boys or adult men committed by women.
5. Discredit the specialized treatment services even though the law recognizes the value of their diagnosis.
6. Ignore constitutional norms from the Convention on Rights of the Child.

"Thus, the meaning of abusive conduct is inverted, with abuse being attributed to the person who reports the abuse and requests the fulfillment of the law.
"This reactionary backlash supports the persistence of family violence and condemns all girls and/or victims of the perpetuation of incest and abuse while attempting to stymie the legal system and the work of other professionals who until now have born the heavy burden of this process."(19)

This scientific alert went out over three years ago; nonetheless, today there are increasing obstacles to working on this issue. The notion of false reports of abuse is now firmly rooted in the courts. Sexual abuse trials are tremendous ordeals that seriously damage the children and the adults who report the crime and place a heavy burden on the professionals who take the children's part and who often face accusations of malpractice, libel or slander.
The discrediting of psychological experts is of serious concern. What started with Gardner has continued with followers who have discredited indicators, treatments, techniques and prevention campaigns. Brandishing the concept of co-construction on the part of the family members of the victims or the professionals, the testimony of the children is discredited, accused of being childhood fantasy and tale-telling.
The efforts of Gardner and his followers have been echoed by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, an institution that claims to represent the social sexual moral but which has promoted a policy of smoke-screening sexual abuse.
The Red Latinoamericana de Catolicas por el Derecho a Decidir (Latin American Network of Catholics for the Right to Decide) has undertaken a study on the secret system of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.(20) The ecclesiastical hierarchy always has been aware of these crimes and has implemented a policy of covering up the abuses committed by priests. This policy is summarized in the following ten points adapted from the studies carried out by the Spanish journalist Pepe Rodriguez(21) and corroborated in the studies of the Catolicas por el Derecho a Decidir:

1. Discreet investigation of the incident. The prelates of the diocese often have ecclesiastical informants, people who desire to rise in the esteem of the hierarchy through their reports. They keep the bishops abreast of the transgressions of the priests under their authority. These reports are given orally.
2. Initiation of actions to dissuade the aggressor and/or the victim(s). Once the prelate recognizes the situation of sexual abuse in which the image of the Church could be tarnished, the aggressor is rebuked. Then the bishops dedicate themselves to convincing the victims and their families, assuring them that the aggressor will be punished and that he has repented. They persuade the families to not report the crime so that no one in the Church or the family will suffer the consequences.
3. Covering up the incident and the identity of the aggressor so the case never becomes public. In this effort, acts are undertaken to confuse the matter, including transferral of the priest to another parish, bribery of the victim and their family members or the use of threats and suspension of benefits (for example, expulsion from school).
4. Measures to reinforce the cover up. When the case escapes the closed doors of the Church, the hierarch opens an internal investigation against the aggressor to defend against eventual accusations of passivity in case there is external pressure from the media or society or a civil suit. Generally, the investigation is paralyzed indefinitely. At this stage, the priest usually is transferred to another parish, another diocese or another country, depending on the situation.
5. Denial of the incident when the case becomes public, under the argument that the priest is a man of virtue heeding God's call, a holy figure who could never commit a crime of this nature. When denial is no longer possible, the matter is treated as an exception to this rule.
6. Public defense of the aggressor, stressing his good service to the Church and his personal merits. If he did do anything wrong, he is profoundly repentant and was not conscious of his acts. An appeal is made to the Christian sentiments of pardoning a repentant sinner.
7. Public discrediting of the victim(s). Rodriguez uses the metaphor of ants defending an anthill to describe the corporativist attitude of the clergy when one of its members is accused. The guilt is reversed; the victim(s) and/or their family members are blamed.
8. Paranoiac accusations of the denunciation being linked to campaigns orchestrated by "enemies of the Church." When the number of accusations is so high that discrediting the victims is not enough, the hierarchy complains that there are national or international powers or cults conspiring against the Church.
9. Possibility of negotiation with the victim. This negotiation frequently occurs before the case is made public when the intention of the Church is to buy the victim's silence to preserve the image of the institution. When there is a public scandal, the hierarchy tries to minimize the damage by trying to negotiate the withdrawal of the accusations against the aggressor.
10. Protection of the priest/aggressor. When the accused is found to be guilty, the hierarchy stands by him and in some cases even pays him homage or praises him, doing everything possible to erase the incident from the public memory.(22)

As the Church silences and covers up the abuses committed within its institutions, it resembles Gardner and his followers in that it denies the realities of domestic violence and the sexual abuse of children and adolescents and hampers investigation of these matters. Alliances with key judicial figures lead to perverse and scandalous rulings, such as the Melo Pacheco case in Mar del Plata, the Storni case Santa Fe or the stalling in the Grassi trial, to name the most notorious cases. Many others remain anonymous, which demonstrates the existence of a model that favors the impunity of the abusers, the suffering of the victims and the punishment of those who are working within the framework of human rights.
A sturdy thread connects those who deny, discredit, silence, minimize, distort and negotiate the rights of children: the perversity that has subordinated their ethics to systems of belief that are authoritarian, patriarchal and/or favor the domination of adults.
This ideological combination stacks the deck against victims who, for the most part, are children, adolescents and women. Women are the most discredited. In the cases in which priests are accused of sexual abuse, most people take their side, doubt the word of the victim(s) and even blame them or imply that the priests were victims of a conspiracy. Girl victims are not considered credible because they are presented as easily influenced, prone to fantasy or liars. If they are adolescents, their morals are questioned: it is argued that they already had had sexual relations before the abuse or are guilty of seducing their abuser.
In the case of domestic abuse, especially in cases of father-child incest, the mother is accused of maliciously attempting to distance the child from the father, inventing the abuse out of revenge or because she is hysterical or any other argument that serves to safeguard the figure of the father of the family or the Father of the parish. In both cases, the common sensibilities of the population are exploited: tolerance of male sexual behavior fed by the dominate sexual morality, which makes the argument of false reports even more credible than the martyrdom and accusations of the victims.
To compare the consequences that a child may suffer with the separation of his or her parents, even in a messy divorce, with the short- and long-term consequences of father-child abuse is a perverse strategy that denies the serious and profound attack on the victim's subjective integrity, which Jorge Barudy calls "attempted moral murder."
Parental alienation syndrome, the "malicious mother" and co-construction are non-scientific theories, and when used in the context of a trial, they violate the victim's constitutional rights as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, CEDAW and other agreements incorporated into our constitution in 1994.
We must remember that Richard Gardner's theories were developed in the United States through a method of trial and error that was applied directly in the courtroom in bitter divorce cases, which were ruled upon as Gardner was undertaking his research. In addition, the U.S. is one of the few countries that has neither ratified nor incorporated into its constitution the Convention on the Rights of the Child or CEDAW.
As Blanco Barea explains, in legal contexts based on human rights, those professionals who can carry out the therapy or treatment recommended by Gardner or his followers (such as "aversion therapy" plus the vicarious treatment of deprogramming and, as a precaution, the guarantee of visitation rights or the reversal of custody and/or total separation of the "alienating" parent and the "alienated" child) "are committing crimes of torture, obstruction of justice and legal fraud, and if they are related to the minors in question, they are also guilty of domestic violence."(23)
Child abuse, especially sexual abuse, is an alarming, universal problem. Increased attention and effective protection skills and prevention measures are necessary at family, local, national and international levels.
After a long tradition of silence, sexual abuse of children is being denounced more frequently and is becoming a topic for public and political discussion.
To alert governments and civil society organizations to the need to play a more active role in the promotion of and respect for the rights of the child (as put forth in article 19 and 34* of the Convention on the Rights of the Child) and to contribute to the prevention of child abuse, the Women's World Summit Foundation, WWSF, launched the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse in 2000. The Day is commemorated every November 19 together with the anniversary of the International Day for the Rights of the Child (November 20). The objective of the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse is to rally around the issue of child abuse and the urgent need for effective prevention programs.
To consolidate the global call for action, in 2001 WWSF launched an international NGO coalition that marks the World Day with appropriate events and activities to focus on and increase prevention education.
* For more information, visit the website of the Women's World Summit Foundation, https://www.woman.ch/children/1introduction.php.
* Art. 19 - States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.
* Art. 34 - States Parties undertake to protect the child from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. For these purposes, States Parties shall in particular take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent:
(a) the inducement or coercion of a child to engage in any unlawful sexual activity;
(b) the exploitative use of children in prostitution or other unlawful sexual practices;
(c) the exploitative use of children in pornographic performances and materials.
The author is a psychologist, a founder of the Casa de la Mujer in Rosario, Argentina, and a longtime defender of the rights of women and children.
Notes
(1.) Selected facts and figures from various UN documents, part of the 2006 Open Letter from the Women's World Summit Foundation on the World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse, 19 November. Available online at http://www.woman.ch/children/1-openletter.php.
(2.) Alicia Ganduglia (2003) "El backlash: un nuevo factor de riesgo," in Maltrato Infantil. Riesgos del compromiso profesional, Silvio Lamberti, ed., Buenos Aires: Editorial Universidad, p. 75.
(3.) David Finkelhor (1979) Sexually Victimized Children. New York: The Free Press, p. 2.
(4.) Richard A. Gardner (1985) "Recent Trends in Divorce and Custody Litigation." Academy Forum 29:2, Summer, pp. 3-7.
(5.) Richard A. Gardner (2002) "Does DSM-IV Have Equivalents for the Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) Diagnosis?" American Journal of Family Therapy, 31(1):1-21. See also Richard A. Gardner (2003) "The Parental Alienation Syndrome: Past, Present, and Future," in The Parental Alienation Syndrome: An Interdisciplinary Challenge for Professionals Involved in Divorce. W. von BochGallhau, U. Kodjoe, W Andritsky and P. Koeppel, eds. Berlin, Germany: VWB-Verlag fur Wissenshaft and Bildung, pp. 89-125.
(6.) Maria Jose Blanco Barea (2006) "El sindrome inquisitorial estadounidense de alineacion parental," p. 11. This document may be downloaded from http://www.revistaiuris.com/MISC/8618/borrador%20el%20sindrome%20inquisitorial%20del%20sap.doc.
(7.) The interview with Dr. Ralph Underwager was originally published in Paidika, Issue 9, 1993, and has been reproduced online at http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/NudistHallofShame/Underwager2.html.
(8.) Richard A. Gardner (1992) True and False Accusations of Child Sex Abuse. Cresskill, New Jersey: Creative Therapeutics, pp. 46-7.
(9.) Ibid. p. 549.
(10.) Ibid. p. 585.
(11.) Ibid. p. 612.
(12.) Richard A. Gardner (1986) Child Custody Litigation: A Guide for Parents and Mental Health Professionals. Cresskill, New Jersey: Creative Therapeutics, p. 93
(13.) Richard A. Gardner (1992) pp. 24-25.
(14.) Ibid. p. 593.
(15.) See note 5.
(16.) From the Preamble to the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women, also known as the Convention of Belem do Para, adopted by the OAS General Assembly June 9, 1994; entry into force March 5, 1995.
(17.) Maria Jose Blanco Barea (2006) p. 219.
(18.) John E. B. Myers (n.d.) "What is 'Parental Alienation Syndrome' and Why Is It So Often Used Against Mothers?" an excerpt from a forthcoming book titled A Mother's Nightmare: A Practical Legal Guide for Parents and Professionals. Available online at http://www.gate.net/~liz/fathers/pas.htm.
(19.) Maltrato Infantil. Riesgos del compromiso professional. Silvio Lamberti, ed., Buenos Aires: Editorial Universidad, 2003. The contributing authors were Maria Ines Bringioti, Cristina Caprarulo, Julio Cesar Castro, Alicia Ganduglia, Norberto Garrote, Isabel Gens, Eva Giberti, Carmen Gonzales, Irene Intebi, Victoria Irazuzta, Silvio Lamberti, Patricia Paggi, Mirta Pirozzo, Carlos Rozanski, Diana Sanz, Juan Pablo Maria Viar, Maria Cristina Vila and Juan Carlos Volnovich.
(20.) Regina Soares Jurkewicz (2005) Develando la politica del silencio: Abuso sexual de mujeres por sacerdotes en Brasil. Brazil: Red Latinoamericana de Catolicas por el Derecho a Decidir.
(21.) Pepe Rodriguez (2002) Pederastia en la Iglesia Catolica: Delitos sexuales del clero contra menores: Un drama silenciado y encubierto por los obispos. Barcelona: Ediciones B.
(22.) Regina Soares Jurkewicz (2005) pp. 20-22.
(23.) Maria Jose Blanco Barea (2006) p. 219.

Original Nginx: https://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/wiki:advanced:x2gohtmlclient
So I spent this weekend porting the Nginx configuration sample from the X2GoHTMLClient documentation to Caddy and it looks to be fully functional. However, I'm not sure if it's a Caddy, Firefox, or X2Go issue but there were some keys on my standard US keyboard that would not register key press events when used with Firefox.
The "-" next to 0 gave no input and "=" next to backspace was mapped to the "/" key. This issue wasn't present in Chrome and if it matters my setup was Xubuntu 24.04 installed to the Ayaneo AM01.
Caddy and FCGIWrap were installed as systemd services so additional changes to folder permissions and the systemd configuration files were needed for this to work. The folders/files had chmod caddy:caddy done to them, the systemd configurations had the usegroup updated to caddy, and the fcgiwrap.socket configuration had WorkingDirectory set to /varun/caddy/.
Another change I made for myself was add some javascript to the Index.html file to resize the canvas to 90% of window.innerHeight and window.innerWidth. The Index.html distributed with the demo client is hardcoded at 1280x920.
``` caddy.sample.cc { tls /etc/ssl/caddy/domain.cert.pem /etc/ssl/caddy/private.key.pem root * /vawww/html

header /assets/* { Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000" Content-Security-Policy "default-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline' data: blob: ws: wss:; script-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'" Feature-Policy "vibrate 'none' ; microphone 'none' ; camera 'none' ; gyroscope 'none' ; magnetometer 'none' ; geolocation 'none' ; midi 'self' ; notifications 'self' ; push 'self' ; sync-xhr 'self'" Referrer-Policy "same-origin" X-Content-Type-Options "nosniff" X-Frame-Options "SAMEORIGIN" } @cgi path *.cgi handle @cgi { reverse_proxy unix//varun/caddy/fcgiwrap.socket { transport fastcgi { split .cgi } } } # capture port instructed by x2gorpc.cgi @x2gows_matcher { path_regexp portmatch \/x2gows\/(.*)$ } handle @x2gows_matcher { # requires specifying subdomain as using localhost can give SSL error reverse_proxy caddy.sample.cc:{re.portmatch.1} { transport http { tls } } } handle { file_server } 

}
```
Disclaimer: I had no experience with setting up web servers before doing this.

As always, if you know of an event that's not listed here, feel free to share it (with a link) in the comments. Feedback on events you've attended or plan to attend is welcome.
*Free (or no admission/cover)
--Recurring Event
Noteworthy: May 13-19 is American Craft Beer Week. May 16 is National Barbecue Day.
Weekend & Multi-Day Events
May 13-19 Dallas is Lit (Literary Festival) at multiple Oak Cliff venues
May 16-19 DSO: Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini at the Meyerson
May 17-18 Dallas Black Dance Theatre Spring Celebration at Wyly Theatre
May 17-19 Wildflower! Music and Arts Festival at Galatyn Park Urban Center, Richardson
May 17-19 Main Street Fest - A Craft Brew Experience at Historic Downtown Grapevine
May 17-25 Now THAT’s What I Call TV Improv 90s Sitcom at Stomping Ground Comedy
May 18-19 Black Heritage Celebration at the Dallas Arboretum
Through May 27 Scarborough Renaissance Festival, Waxahachie
Through May 18 Fannie: The Music and Life of Fannie Lou Hamer at Bishop Arts Theater Ctr
Through May 25 Echo Theatre: Beyond the Yellow Wallpaper at the Bath House Cultural Center
Through Jun 9 Hamilton at Winspear Opera House
May 17-June 1 Teatro Dallas: Cloud Tectonics at the Latino Cultural Center
*May 11- May 24 Women in Art – A Joyful Journey Exhibition at Art on Main
*Through May 19 The Art of Embroidery from India to the World at NorthPark Center
*Through June 28 Central Library Staff Art Exhibit at Dallas Public Library Central Branch
Monday, May 13
Dallas Mavericks vs. OKC Thunder: Playoffs Round 2 Game 4 at AAC
Dallas Stars vs. Colorado Avalanche Watch Party at Shark Club Sports Bar and Grill
Texas Rangers vs. vs. Cleveland Guardians at Globe Life Field, Arlington
British Film Institute Book Club Presents: Mean Streets at Texas Theatre
“Spider Mondays” The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on 35MM at Texas Theatre
Augustana: Something Beautiful Tour with Valley Boy at Club Dada
*Ryan Glenn at Truck Yard Dallas
*Music Bingo at Guitars and Growlers, Richardson
*Songwriter's Open Mic Hosted by Justin Collins at Dan's Silverleaf, Denton
*Poor David’s Pub Virtual Open Mic on Facebook Live
Tuesday, May 14
Texas Rangers vs. vs. Cleveland Guardians at Globe Life Field, Arlington
*10-Year Destination Master Plan Community Town Hall - West/South Dallas at West Dallas Multipurpose Center
Dallas Winds Concert: In This Circle at the Meyerson Symphony Center
*--Free Rooftop Movie: Easy A at Sundown at Granada
The Variety Show with The Lost Boy Presents at Arts Mission Oak Cliff
Jimmy Gnecco of Ours at Opening Bell Coffee
Qveen Herby at House of Blues
*Book Presentation: An Evening with Andrés Neuman at The Wild Detectives
*Book Signing and Discussion - Jannese Torres: Financially Lit at Interabang Books
*--W.O.W. (Words Over Wine) Poetry Open Mic at Chocolate Secrets
*Just Dance Series - Salsa Lessons at Harwood Park
*Indian Cultural Heritage Foundation Dance performance at Pleasant Grove Branch Library
Wednesday, May 15
Dallas Stars vs. Colorado Avalanche: Round 2 Game 5 At American Airlines Center
Texas Rangers vs. vs. Cleveland Guardians at Globe Life Field, Arlington
Dallas Wings vs. Chicago Sky at College Park Center, Arlington
10-Year Destination Master Plan Community Town Hall - North Dallas at Prism Center
Dallas Architecture Forum Presents: Brian MacKay-Lyons at Dallas Museum of Art
*--Salsa Night/Beginner’s Lessons at Vidorra Dallas
Transformers: 40th Anniversary Event at Texas Theatre
*Nerd Night: Old School Video Games at Celestial Beerworks
*Pat Peterson at The Kitchen Cafe
Swingin' at the Sons at Sons of Hermann Hall
Piano Men: An Elton John & Billy Joel Tribute at Sky Blu Rooftop
Daniel Sloss: Can't at The Majestic
*--Improv Jam at Dallas Comedy Club
Part One Tribe - A $7.77 Show at Deep Ellum Art Co.
3-course Beer Pairing Dinner at Windmills, The Colony
Thursday, May 16
10-Year Destination Master Plan Community Town Hall - East Dallas at Harry Stone Rec Center
Dallas Zoo After Dark Wild Canvas at the Dallas Zoo
*Bombshell Dance Project Performance at Dallas Museum of Art
*Kaleta Doolin in Conversation on Feminist Art History at Dallas Museum of Art
Maifest at the Brewery at Community Beer Co.
Analog Art Show at Flea the Scene
Sip & Paint at Aloft Dallas Downtown
Murder Mystery 3-Course Dinner at Bourbon and Banter
*PNC Patio Sessions - Pretty Boy Aaron at Sammons Park
*Books Signing and Discussion - Noah Gittel, Baseball: The Movie at Interabang Books
The Rhinestone Teardrops Tour at Three Links
Michelle Wolf: It's Great to Be Here at House of Blues
David Slater and Veronica Williams at Sammons Center for the Arts
*Adult Coloring at Mountain Creek Branch Library
HipHop & Healing at Highland Hills Branch Library
Master Gardeners: Taking the Mystery Out of Plant Propagation at Lakewood Branch Library
59th Academy of Country Music Awards at Ford Center at The Star, Frisco
Friday, May 17
Texas Rangers vs. Los Angeles Angels at Globe Life Field
*‘til Midnight at the Nasher Sculpture Center
*--DJ Binosaur at Vector Brewing
Backyard Concert: Meridian Brothers and Elkin Pautt at The Wild Detectives
*Booker T. Washington HSPVA Singer-Songwriters at Opening Bell Coffee
Cinéwilde Presents: The Matrix at Texas Theatre
Larry g(ee) EP Release with Dezi 5 and Cozy Campos at The Kessler
Girls' Night Out Stand-up Comedy Showcase at Dallas Comedy Club
Nimesh Patel: Fast and Loose Tour at the Majestic Theatre
The Reverent Few / Joe Blow / The Brandon Callies Band at The Double Wide
Chap Stick (Cheap Trick Tribute) at Sundown at Granada
*Trey Gonzalez at The Rustic
Dallas Poetry Slam 30th Anniversary Showcase at Oak Cliff Assembly
Aaron Aryanpur Live at the Oak Cliff Cultural Center
Saturday, May 18
Texas Rangers vs. Los Angeles Angels at Globe Life Field
Dallas Wings vs. Chicago Sky at College Park Center, Arlington
Ultimate Frisbee Dallas Legion vs. Houston HAVOC at Jesuit Dallas
*Cycling: Group Ride at Community Beer Co.
Morning Bird Walk at Trinity River Audubon Center
*AAPI Heritage & Dragon Boat Festival at the Bath House Cultural Center
Art Talk: Laure de Margerie at the Nasher Sculpture Center
Discover Downtown Dallas Movie Series: Sweet Home Alabama at Harwood Park
9th Anniversary Brewery Fest at Texas Ale Project
*Pawty on the Patio with Golden Retriever Rescue at On Rotation
*Asian Am., Native Hawaiian, & Pacific Islander Heritage Celebration at AT&T Discovery District
*AAPI Family Weekend at Sammons Park (Dallas Arts District)
Hope Starts Here 5K at Klyde Warren Park
Deep Ellum Wine Walk: Rosé Olé at Discover Deep Ellum
*Conversation and Party: Colombe Schneck and Merrit Tierce at The Wild Detectives
*Art Exhibitions Opening Event at Ro2 Art
*Analog Art Show at Flea the Scene
6th Annual Adult Science Fair at Celestial Beerworks
Andrea Gonzalez Caballero Spanish Guitar Concert at Kalita Humphreys Theater
Pepe Aguilar at American Airlines Center
Sunday, May 19
Texas Rangers vs. Los Angeles Angels at Globe Life Field
Dallas Jackals vs. Seattle Seawolves at Choctaw Stadium, Arlington
State Fair Records: Songwriters Round on The Green at The Kessler
*En Plein Air Painting Demonstration at the Dallas Museum of Art
Dilbeck Architecture Conservancy Homes Tour at University Park
K Pop Music Bingo Brunch at the Sweet Tooth Hotel
Abducted By The 80's at House of Blues
Paint and Sip at Peticolas Brewing
Turtle Creek Chorale: Pages at Northaven United Methodist Church
*Cars for CASA Car Show at Rockwall Courthouse, Rockwall

Cover Art <<Previous Start Next >>
GLOSSARY This links to a post on the free section of my Patreon. Note: "Book 1" is chapters 1-59, "Book 2" is chapters 60-133, "Book 3", is 134-193, "Book 4" is CH 194-(ongoing)
Being a dungeon was becoming very busy, and Kazue was glad she didn't need to sleep. For over half the day she was simply skipping her attention from place to place to keep track of what was going on and give small nudges to her inhabitants when she felt it necessary. A significant portion of her attention was devoted to keeping track of the three young teens, a task she shared with Mordecai as they wanted to walk the line of pushing the trio's limits without significantly endangering them.
Then there was the thread of attention taken up by being in frequent communication with Moriko while she and Kazue's other self traveled. It wasn't so much normal conversation as status and information updates, but it was important to Kazue to make sure her wife was kept in the loop. Mordecai helped here too of course, but with so much going on that Moriko might be interested in and so much for Moriko to share in return, it could still take up a surprising amount of her mental bandwidth.
Though her conflicted feelings about the whole thing might be part of the issue there. She was slightly jealous of her own avatar, which made no sense logically. Once they re-synchronized, then all of her memories would be fully shared rather than the fleeting impressions and vague dream like memories she collected from the connection with her avatar. It was like her left hand being jealous of her right hand. Not that she had any actual hands at the moment.
But, not having her avatar here sort of allowed her to focus on being a dungeon more. Normal dungeons needed avatars to learn how to be better at being 'people'. Having the avatar portion of herself leave made it easier for her to focus on her existence as a dungeon. It did make her wonder if she really should have made her illusion platforms; they sometimes felt like a bit of a crutch. But they also felt so natural to use and puppet, so much so that her emotional reactions were often shown before she consciously decided to do so.
She used them more when the delvers were less active, it was easier to spend the time and focus on manifesting them when there was less to keep track of. But there were still other things to manage during the evening. For one thing, she and Mordecai rotated through checking in with their inhabitants to make sure everyone was taken care of. Leaders were checked in with more often as they should be aware of any issues with their underlings, but the cores had a mental list of all the inhabitants that they went through slowly to try and spot-check.
The idea of being this deliberate was relatively new, born more of her concerns than any experience of Mordecai's. His instinct had been to simply trust that any issues would be brought to him, but dungeon instincts weren't perfect, and Kazue felt it was better for them to have a more direct personal touch in this matter.
And there was the constant matter of enhancing their inhabitants. There was still a constant tax on their mana, but their reserves were slowly filling and they could fill out a few gaps. One of the early ones was to upgrade more bats in the outer zone, creating 'bronze bats' as weaker versions of Belle and Freya.
And then there were the other animals in the zone. Creatures like insects were simply incorporated as part of the background life of the dungeon, but creatures with stronger spirits had become sapient inhabitants even without being enhanced. For now, Kazue and Mordecai were making them stronger, faster, and healthier versions of themselves to provide an adequate challenge for any hunters. The bats could be mistaken for simply a new breed of magical creature, but if a lot of new magical creatures started appearing, it would give away the secret.
They had also had a few laganthros who had become usagisune, like Betty was. Aside from the mana cost and the question of who wanted the upgrade, they were restricting it to the oldest of the various tribes; those who had been adult rabbits when Kazue had first awakened as a dungeon. They would ease up on that restriction slowly, but right now they wanted to be careful about combat interactions with delvers and more humanoid inhabitants and were having them only work roles in the noncombat path.
Betty wasn't an issue at the moment, she had been on 'vacation' for several weeks now, and looking pleased about it. This left Umbrowl as the only active boss on that floor, and the dungeon was supplementing the boss room with combat teams to keep the challenge to the right difficulty.
Kazue was conflicted about Betty's condition. Part of her said it was selfish for a floor boss to get pregnant without warning, but she immediately countered her own thought, asking herself what right she had to interfere with someone else's personal choice like that? And the other female inhabitants were able to make that choice freely.
At least Carmilla had been willing to take a protective tattoo; the fairy witch had no interest in that sort of responsibility.
The whole issue had brought up one of Mordecai's few blind spots: he didn't actually know if the unborn would be included in the dungeon's reset process. Distinct spirits didn't develop until well into gestation, and souls generally didn't form until after birth. He didn't know if they registered as individual inhabitants before that, though he suspected any with spirits formed would be fine.
The reason he didn't know the answer was that it had never occurred to him to worry about it. It wasn't part of what he'd thought about as a dungeon. He had just let his inhabitants live their lives, and by the time he'd become more introspective he had large tribes of kobolds who were very good at regulating themselves while making sure all their duties were performed. Why would it have occurred to him to worry about it?
Kazue found this mildly frustrating, whereas Moriko thought it was a hilarious sort of blind spot for Mordecai to have. But she wasn't the one who now had to manage the possible consequences of that concern, and no one wanted to perform any tests to find out the answer.
Then there was the other issue regarding Betty's pregnancy. That was Gil's child, and they were going to be raising it here. How would he feel about the idea of his own child being an inhabitant? Kazue or Mordecai could make a deliberate decision to not let the child's spirit and soul attach, but then the baby would be less safe.
They could let the child bond and then remove the bond later if Gil or the child asked, but removing the bond between inhabitant and dungeon had almost as much potential for mental upheaval as establishing it with an adult sapient. And Gil probably wouldn't be this way again for a long time according to Mordecai, the child could well be an adult by then. What if Gil was upset but the child wanted to remain? They would support the child of course, but that might cause actual conflict with Gil.
This was one of the few issues where she and Mordecai differed significantly. Mostly in that he didn't see this as being a problem. Gil might not be the most responsible adult ever, but he was an adult with worldly experience. If he didn't want to risk having a child, he knew how to be protected. And he saw no reason to not let the child bond the same way any other infant born of a dungeon inhabitant who was in their dungeon's territory would.
Moriko wasn't sure what to think about the situation, in part because she didn't have as deep an understanding of what the bond between inhabitant and dungeon meant, but she had said something privately to Kazue. To Mordecai, this was a normal aspect of a dungeon's existence. Kazue's bias, like Moriko's, still leaned toward an outsider's point of view. Was there really any issue with Gil's child being an inhabitant? Why should it matter if the father of Betty's child was an outsider or a fellow inhabitant? Her child being an inhabitant would be normal to her.
Kazue hated the idea that she might be prejudiced here, but she couldn't deny the possibility. She wouldn't be surprised if Mordecai had had a similar thought to the one Moriko expressed, but if he thought he might hurt her feelings and sound accusatory by saying it to her, then he would keep the thought to himself. Well, unless he thought that it would make an important difference.
For now, this particular debate had been kept between the three of them, and unless they otherwise decided to change things, there was no need to concern Betty. Not taking any action otherwise meant that her child would be born as an inhabitant. And despite her concerns, Kazue couldn't argue that preventing the bond would be definitively a better choice.
The only other thing that demanded a lot of their attention right now was the integration of the kobolds. Not that there had been any major issues thus far, it was just something that Kazue wanted to make sure went well. Loyalty to the dungeon did not mean that there couldn't be issues with an individual or group feeling that they were the more suitable ones to fill a role or otherwise be better at serving the dungeon's interests.
The age of most of the kobolds seemed to help here, though only because they had self-selected to be part of the dungeon. These were the old folk who had mastered their egos, and were ready to just provide their wisdom and do what they could to help out. The sort of old folk who got ever more self-righteously stubborn were the sort who wouldn't be inclined to become a dungeon's inhabitant.
They really were a great help too. They had a lot of experience and knowledge to share and the restoration of their youthful health had left them feeling invigorated. Kazue expected crafted goods bearing the marks of their craftsmanship to start showing up in trades within the week.
And those weren't the only new things that would be coming out of the dungeon. Mordecai had finished some of his experiments and had refined the results into very worthy prizes, but they were going to be difficult to hand out as fair prizes for a while. This led back to the teen trio, and why they were pushing them so much, including a bonus round they would be offering at the end. Kazue had worked with him to come up with even more ideas, and they'd needed to observe Derek closely to better understand his powers and work out how they could best help him.
She was pretty certain that they were walking a fine line with giving Fuyuko special prizes, but she was working hard for them. She deserved as much as anyone else working this hard, and she was not a contractor yet.
And one of the prizes they intended to make for her was going to be a design test. Just having her claim it would tell them much about how well it worked, and they could apply that knowledge forward to other prizes. This one was going to be very new even for Mordecai, though he had done something a little similar previously, under very different circumstances.
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Also to be found on Royal Road.
My Patreon My Discord Top Web Novels - Romance.io - TVTropes
$3. : 10 Early chapters, lore excerpts $5. : 20 Early chapters, Short Stories $10 : 30+ Early chapters, New stories not published anywhere else (Until after I finish this story at least) . . . . . "A Girl and Her Dungeon", "The Celestine Fox", and AU Core 1: "Coreless"

Yup, you heard it here first.
Rather than the gloomy pronouncements you see in multiple corners of the internet, narcissism is in fact a condition that can be cured.
How can I say that with confidence? Well, I spent 2 1/2 hours today talking with u/Lisa_Charlebois, a therapist who specialises in treating narcissism, and she says every single one of her clients who stuck with her – in 30 years of work as a therapist – grew beyond their narcissism.
But wait? What about Dr Ramen/Sam Vacuum/EveryoneOnTheInternetEveMy Neighbour's Cat??? They all say it can't be cured!!!!
What is this woman's secret superpower?
Well, she is a healed narcissist herself. So none of your fake fronts are gonna fool her. Nope - she sees you as you really are, and she loves you for it!
Have a listen to what healed narcissism sounds like in the first half of our chat:
https://pdrawpodcast.alitu.com
EDIT: I totally understand the fact that most people can't afford therapy or an online course. Here are the free resources that I know about, which have really helped me:
https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3954057W/Humanizing_the_narcissistic_style?edition=key%3A/books/OL2738573M
https://www.antrodichirone.com/index.php/en/2017/01/11/the-dance-between-two-personality-disorders-a-delicate-relationship-balance/
https://depthcounseling.org/blog/ngiam-narcissism-kohut
https://www.counsellingservicemelbourne.com.au
https://evolutioncounseling.com/masochism-explained/
https://evolutioncounseling.com/sadism-and-masochism-are-both-about-control/
https://www.emotionenhancement.com/single-post/enmeshment-trauma-and-how-it-impacts-your-relationships
https://www.mcleanhospital.org/npd-provider-guide
https://www.amandarobinspsychotherapy.com.au/articles/npd-recovery
https://www.relatenow.co.uk/content/mens-mother-complex-rape-heart
https://www.emotionenhancement.com/single-post/The-Avoidant-Attachment-Style

Hi all! This one is a hell of a weird upload time, but I couldn't sleep so... Here goes.
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“I want Death by Carnivore” Benjamin almost broke down as he watched his kid sister through his memories, speaking as he did so. He could feel the Farie next to him even as he saw through his own eyes this time. He described everything in brutal detail, heard the screams, felt the bullets tear into him as he spoke. The vision’s felt distant this time, and Ben recognized Vilora’s gentle touch as she dulled the worst of the sensations for him. He had not asked her to, but he suspected that she had felt the full brunt already from their first experience of his flashback together.

“Ben! Don’t go! NONONONONO” Ben could still see his kid sisters blood-stained fingers, and face. Then the “trip”. Hurtling through the universe or rather, into the universe. He felt Vilora tense violently when His memories of meeting the being made of fire began. “I am the one you call, Sol.” She kissed him before pushing him and the memories ended.

Benjamin opened his eyes, failing to contain tears. He missed Tracy. He was terrified of whether she was ok or not. He wished he could have talked to his father one last time. Emotions broiled through him as he took a deep breath, realizing that he was still holding onto Vilora’s hands tightly. He released them, noting the complicated look on her face. “Now, you know everything.” His voice was barely above a whisper, “I don’t know what I am because, I was not born into this world. Where I come from; Farie, Orc, Trolls… They don’t exist. They have never existed outside of the fantasy of Literature. Viola, Valtria, Qort… All of you only serve passing resemblance to what our fiction stories created, and there are many more peoples that I have never imagined in my wildest dreams. “

Vilora nodded slowly, “But, your sister… her golden hair. She is…”

Benjamin cut her off, “Human. She is Human, like me. Humanity is the only sentient being on my… orb” He noted Vilora’s eyes as he used her terminology, “Humans come in a wide variety of shapes, sized and colors. Humans who have lived for generations in the deserts of Africa can have skin as dark as the coal a forgemaster uses to fuel his flames. People who live in the cold, bleak climates without much sun… They end up with skin much like mine. My mother Is Irish by blood, she gave me my eyes and my hair, and she gave my sister her short stature and petite form. My father is Norwegian by blood. He gave me my height, and my facial features, but he gave my sister her golden locks. My best friend was a Filipino named Crisanto, and he has dark hair, dark eyes, and brown skin. All of us, are still human, all of us bleed as I do.”

A pregnant silence fell over the group until Jukha finally spoke, “I believe you, Pink Skin.”

“You’ve been touched… Cosmos, who was she that brought you here.” Vilora asked finally.

“She told me that she has many names, She claims that My planet.. um… Orb.. has many variations, and that she is there for all of them. I’m guessing that This is earth, what we call my orb, but in some sort of alternative time, or dimension; but that is all but a guess.” Ben said, “She only ever named herself Sol. It is the name we gave to our sun, but she spoke of the Cosmos.”

Vilora nodded, “If she is our sun… Then…” she froze as Jukha put a hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t know..” Benjamin said, “She told me she was sending me to a time of peace, but that I was needed to save this world… But I don’t know what I am doing. I don’t know what the threat is. I don’t even know where I am. I’m lost, hardly able to fight, and haunted by the day of my own death…” Ben lowered his head, “I have no…” he couldn’t finish the words..

“You are touched by Cosmos,” Vilora responded, “No one has seen a god in over 1500 years. My sisters will need to hear of this, they may able to help. The Vin are not nearly as extinct as the brute believed them to be.”

“If they can, I would be grateful. I need to get back to the Forge. I swore to Qort that I would return.” Benjamin began to rise, only to be stopped by both slave girls.

Jukha nodded, “We will go in the morning, I require supplies to fix my home.” Benjamin nodded, leaning back against Viola, thankful for the support. He raised an eyebrow as she placed an object in his hand, “I’m sorry.. I was too late. I found it right as the Orc stabbed you.”

“Yes, about that” Jukha grumbled, “Would you care to tell me what sort of Majik you know if you can blow a hole through the middle of a soldier caste, and destroying your hand in the process. Or rather, how you managed to kill a Hellirine with fire. They are dam near immune to heat. ”

Benjamin chuckled, “If you could help me outside, Ill show you. Grab that strange pole from over there.” He gingerly stood, being supported by his slave girls ‘I really need to get them free’ he thought as they helped him to the bench outside pointed facing the court yard. “I probably shouldn’t shoot that right now, so lets see if the powder is dry enough. Jukha, hold the wooden end to your shoulder. Pull back the hammer looking bit back and make sure the curved metal is covering the cup at the bottom. Jukha did so, and carefully looked over at Benjamin, “Now, point that end at the tree over there, and pull the little metal bit underneath.
*chuff…BOOOM!* fire belched from the end of the metal tube, and Jukha was pushed hard enough to take a step back. The powder was slow, possibly still a touch damp, but it ignited, hurtling four round pieces of lead at the tree, two of them hit, blowing bits of splinters out the back of the wood. “That is an early version of what my people use for war. It’s called, a musket.” Jukha looked wide eyed at the crude weapon. Benjamin had modelled his hastily thought up design after the British Short Land pattern Musket, commonly known as the Brown Bess. The stock was a bit thicker than it should be, and the barrel was crudely formed, but it worked after a fashion. Benjamin had chosen to use an equally old ammunition design known as ‘Buck and Ball’ turning the musket into a 4 ball shotgun consisting of one .68in round lead ball with 3 .32in lead balls accompanying it. “I didn’t have time to make something more advanced, and I was never taught to fight with sword or lance. Viola here” He glanced over to the girl still clutching the curved stinky object, “Is holding a smaller version of that musket. It’s called a pistol.” Viola’s eyes flew wide as she held the weapon away from her in fear. “Its ok, I’ll teach you how, come here.” He stood her in front of him, leaning forward to support her. “Put both hands on the curved part, stretch your arms out” he ran his hands along her thin arms, giving his aid to her form. “… That’s close enough, we can work on the details later, now pull the hammer back and close the “frizzen” the curved bit. Now, pull the small lever underneath. It’s called a trigger. *bang!* the smaller report of the weaker charge still bucked the pistol in Viola’s hands, and she missed the tree entirely. The recoil drove her back into Ben’s shoulder. “Very good. I’ll take that now. Thank you.” She handed the smoking weapon to him, eyes wide in wonder. “In simplest terms, I am using Alchemy to create pressure to throw a round rock. I didn’t kill the… Hellirine with heat, I used heat to throw four rocks seven times faster than any bow. The impact did the rest.” Benjamin had to suppress a laugh at the slow dumfounded expression that Jukha gave the musket in his hand before turning back to Benjamin with a serious face.

“You’ve been here less than a year. You can’t have mastered majik to this point already, how are you not dead.” Jukha scowled.

“The night you brought me to town.” Benjamin answered, “Sol visited me in my room. I sorta…” he paused scratching the back of his neck, “blew up in her face. I was yelling at her, cursing her for sending me here with nothing in my possession to be able to do what she asked of me. She told me that she could not aid me in the way I wanted because of some old rules from the beginning of time, or whatever, Then I got this wild idea in my head. What if I could perfectly recall everything, I had ever laid eyes on. Every class, every concept, every formula and compound matrix. Before I knew it, she told me “I believe I can grant this” without me asking it out loud. She forced me to sleep like you did” He pointed at Vilora. “I didn’t know what she meant until I began working at Qort’s..” Ben slowly drew his Bowie knife from its sheath, tapping it lightly on the barrel of the musket. It rang like a chime.

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Qort grumbled as he closed down his shop. It had been three weeks since the Albino had left, and he was beginning to doubt the man’s survival. Benjamin was a paradox of an Orc, but he had given the Forgemaster the gift of steel. He had already sold a sword and two daggers for double what he would normally ask for. He secretly wondered how long it would take before the Academy came knocking on his door demanding his secrets. For now, he was content to sell what he could, and build a nest egg for himself. He rounded the corner to the building he had allowed Benjamin to live in, and stopped cold as he recognized Jukha’s cart. “Qort!” The Orc called out from the doorway, “My friend! How are you!” The Orc smiled.

“Aye’m Doin’ fair. D’yee bring’ta pink skin Back T’Mee?” Qort asked speculatively, and a heavily bandaged Figure, topped with Red hair and propped up by a pair of familiar girls slowly waddled out of the doorway, “I’m here Qort, but I’ll need a few weeks before I can return to work.”

Qort pushed past the Orc, walking quickly up to Benjamin, “What did you do to yourself, boy.” He looked Benjamin over as he leaned on Viola and Valtrya.

“I’ll be ok, boss. I Just got a little beat up saving the overgrown Olive.” Benjamin put on a smirk, recognizing Qorts ‘serious’ voice.

“What is an Olive, and why do I wanna punch you now.” Jukha joked back. “He saved my life, Qort; but he took a lance to the chest for it. It’s a miracle he survived.”

“I see. Well, considering how well business is going; I can make do until you recover. Savin a friend of mine is to be respected.” Qort said before finally dropping back into his accent with a smile, “N’don’t Yee be getting Soft wi’the girlies. Aye’ll be workin’ta snot outta’yee, when’yee return!” With that, the Durr Forgemaster waved his goodbyes, picked up the stack of coal he needed for tomorrow, and headed back home.

“That was close,” Vilora murmured after he rounded the corner. She had concealed herself behind the inward opening door, “His people suffered the worst in the hands of the Fay. I don’t think he would let me explain.”

“Hmm,” Jukha nodded, “Best to leave tonight then. Qort’s no idiot, and Benjamin needs to rest.” He turned, squeezing Ben on the shoulder, “Rest up. I owe you. I’ll swing buy with some game in a few days to keep everyone fed while you recover.”

Ben nodded, waving bye to the two as they slipped out into the night. Benjamin spent the next 4 weeks forcibly being cared for by the two Aereesin girls. They refused to let him sleep alone for the first two weeks of their return, and he lacked the will to complain. He didn’t let them off lightly, however. And as soon as he could sit for a long period of time, he began teaching them basic math, science, and writing. Luckily his “Orcish” automatic conversion from English transferred to reading and writing. They worked hard at their studies. Valtrya was excelling in basic math but struggling in phonics as she still refused to speak. Viola seemed to jump on the idea of letters and sounds but had more trouble with her numbers. Both of them, to Benjamin’s surprise, liked the sciences, but LOVED the Forge. Maybe it was the heat on their still thin bodies, or maybe it was because it was the first place that they experienced kindness. Benjamin did not know, but he added basics of running the billows and heating the furnace to their studies. By the time he was fit to return, they could get the forge roaring almost as effortlessly as they could swiftly.

Their bodies were also changing rapidly. Viola was obviously the older of the two, and she was quickly becoming painfully gorgeous to look at. Valtrya was following in her sisters footsteps, quickly bringing Benjamin to question just how young these girls may or may not be. It was a small relief when the two finally decided he could keep himself warm at night and began sleeping in their own room that used to be the old apprentice quarters. The building was built much like Qort’s current forge, just smaller. The Forgeroom was in the middle with the main entrance to the building on one end, and the two separate living quarters on the other. The walls proved thin, when Benjamin was awakened from one of his nightmares by the soft shaking of Viola. She could hardly be persuaded to leave his side, knowing in full what he was dreaming about, she instead sat with him for over an hour until he finally began to doze off.

Their return to work saw Qort elated. The Forgemaster watched as the girls prepared the Forge, and Ben started gathering tools and material. The Forgemaster had essentially two apprentices and a partner Forgemaster in his shop, and the next few months flew by. Summer came, and the Forge began drawing high end clients from across the realm. All races, and all creeds requested commissions from Qorts establishment, and soon Benjamin made the observation that they could make even more if they used both forges. So, it was done. Viola and Valtrya floated between the forges, assisting in keeping everything running smoothly; and Benjamin began working in the smaller forge. He began to feel better as the summer heated up, and His dreams slowly faded in their frequency and intensity. The second forge also allowed Benjamin to begin his journey further into Majik. His first attempts were rudimentary at best, but he searched his memory for the techniques and concepts that he would need. He tested his less… mechanical ideas in the forest during his visits to Jukha. Vilora picked up where Qorts understanding of Majik failed, and the things that were possible both intrigued and terrified Ben. He almost blew himself up three more times, but they were under the watchful eye of Vilora, who was able to heal him more easily each time as she learned the Human body. The last “accident” took her no more than a half hour to repair his seared off hair and mangled hands.

The first leaves were just beginning to turn colors when Benjamin began introducing Viola and Valtrya to advanced math and engineering concepts. Neither one showed any promise in Majik, despite being present for the majority of Benjamins learning of the supernatural art, but they worked hard to soak in all he taught them. Both of them now preferred the leather working clothes of the forge, and they were beginning to craft kitchen cutlery and small knives for the more generic commissions. Benjamin watched as the village slowly accepted them. In the villager’s eyes, they were valuable, if pampered slaves, but their “masters” treatment of them was seen as acceptable because of the results that it was producing. The girls were contributing, being made to work hard, and Benjamin’s occasional explanation of the rigors of the Forge sufficed as reasonable for their food and clothing requirements. Viola was widely acknowledged as Benjamin’s proxy when buying food or procuring material from venders, but they did not need to know that Benjamin often sent her out to “practice being free” with no actual mission in mind. The villagers never asked, so Ben and the girls never needed to lie about it.

Valtrya was a harder problem. Her mute status would make her a harder sell for immigrating into a more lenient kingdom, and Benjamins attempt to get her to speak were proving a failure. Viola simply said that it was not her story to tell, and that Valtrya wished for him to not see her with pity. Ben still wracked his brain to figure out a way to get through to the girl.

One morning, Benjamin woke up early. He was happy, it was a strange feeling for him. It was the weekend, and he stepped out into the forge to find Viola sitting at the table. She was spooning a mouthful of gruel to her lips, and he waved her down as she tried to get up to serve him. He smiled as she sat down without argument this time. ‘Maybe she’s finally getting it.’ He thought as he filled his own bowl and sat down across from her, “How’d you sleep.” he asked between mouthfuls.

She sighed heavily, “well enough.” She responded, “What shall we do today?” and Benjamin smiled at her with mischief in his eyes, “lady’s choice. What shall we do today?”
“I…” Viola stuttered pausing for a long moment, “I.. I want to go out… to get fitted for a new dress, then to eat, The three of us.” Benjamin raised an eyebrow and Viola quickly backpedaled, “I mean, we don’t have to. I don’t know what I was...” but Ben held up a hand.

“Out it is.” He said gently, “Go wake Val, Lets get some food in us before we leave.”

“Val?” Viola asked and Benjamin smiled broadly, “My people shorten the names of friends. Your sister’s name can be shortened to Val, and Yours to Vi. Is that ok?”

“I… I like it.” Viola said after a moment, “I’ll go get her, she’s been wanting a nice dress for a long time.”

Viola got up and semi rushed toward the room she shared with her sister, and Benjamin filled a third bowl and set it at an empty place on the table, Today was going to be a good day.
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If you made it this far, You're already awesome. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the episode.
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hello po, baka lang mag nakakaalam pag po ba sa smtix bumili ng uaap tix for game two, valid/applicable pa rin po ba siya for both games (men's and women's) tulad nung sa ipea?