This is my incomplete SVTFOE the movie script. Until my friend thomasmfd convince me to scrap it here’s my incomplete SVTFOE the movie script.
Star Vs. The Forces of Evil the forces of evil the movie The film with a song called Empire of the Sun Walking on a dream while the camera pans down on a mural with the credits rolling by and hits the floor showing a Blue man with a blue sword wearing a Space helmet and a orange Tee shirt with black spots all over his shirt. Who is protecting the Empress of the Sun Hestia look who has Red hair and Red eyes and wears a White Kimono with red spots. Just then a group of people wearing brown robes and white masks are led by a bald creepy dude with a Scar on his right eye. He approaches the throne and begins to speak.
The creepy dude My majesty My name is Bob and my group are a bunch of nomads who travel from World to world gathering intel and giving them to each kingdom and we heard rumors about Cataclysm prison weakening. And we would like to have your Sword Empress of the sun. So we can use it to defeat Cataclysm.
Bob walks up the steps before Cutie's sword hangs by his neck stopping him.
Bob What’s the meaning of this guard!?
Cutiesaurs: The name is Cutiesaurs or Cutie for short. Bob Okay Cutie. Why did you stop me!?
Cutiesaurs Because I don’t trust you. Besides, Shady people are always up to no good.
Bob It’s for your own protection so let me through. Besides it is rumored that The Sun Sword is the only sword left.
Cutiesaurs I don’t Care the Gods hid those swords for protection from thieves like you, including the Fable Mew sword. Besides, it appears you want to use the empress sword to find the other swords.
Bob Well you two figure out my plan already so I guess I have no option but to take it from force.
Just then Bob uses his magic spell to pull out his sword and he and his minions begin to attack. Cutie and Molly try to fight back but it is too much for them and get captured and Bob’s minions capture Hestia as Bob grabs the sword and glances at it.
Bob This Sword is a decoy. (Bob then shatters it with his magic) Minions drag Cutie to the Castle dungeon while carry Hestia to that special place)
Cutie struggles against the minions' control while they drag him to the dungeon. Cut to five years later and we see Cutie shirtless hung up in the dungeon walls shirtless wearing only his pants and a piece of cloth covering his head except his eyes. Then Bob and his cultist.
Bob Well Cutie it’s been five years and still you won’t tell us where the Real Empress sword is!
Cutiesaur
Like I said for the last five years I don’t know.
Bob Well Cutie. I don’t need you anymore. Not since I detected the Sword of Mew and we’ve set up a trap for the holder of the sword. So Now I will give you this radio to keep you comfortable. I’ve got a queen to catch.
Bob Leaves the dungeon and enters a room which is in some blackish glow surrounded with red hue. At the floor is a star shape enclosed by a circle on the floor. There Bob stands at the edge and raises his hands which then begin to be turning a metallic silver. He begins to wave his hands and a Star shape pattern begins to have a pinkish water swirling around it then when it clears out we see Star Butterfly at the center of the Star pattern.
Bob Hello Princess My name is Bob and you have something that we need. (Bob then materializes some mask’s then drops them on the ground where mud surrounds the mask’s then the mud raises the Mask which then forms into humanoid shape).
Star Butterfly I’m sorry but this Wand isn’t yours to keep.
Star Shoots a Rainbow energy beam at Bob but he blocks it with nothing but his bare Metallic hands.
Bob I’m impressed that the sword has a few tricks up his sleeves. But I’ve had a few tricks up my sleeves myself.
Bob then shoots a sliver beam at Star and pulls out a golden butterfly from her chest and places it into a jar.
Bob I’ve taken your powers. If you want them back, give me your wand. What do you say Star?
Star Butterfly I say Narwhal blast. A large Narwhal appears and slides down destroying many of Bob's minions and then pinning Bob to a wall. She then runs away from the room.
Bob After her she must not escape with that sword.
Star flees Bob’s goons and hides in the dungeon where she begins to hear the song Always look on the bright side of light she follows the sound to a cell where she see’s Cutie hanging from the wall.
Cutiesaurs Hi there little girl, what brings you to this dank little dungeon?
Star Butterfly I’m hiding from a man and his goons who want my wand.
Cutiesaurs Oh Bob yea he wants that wand since it’s the Sword of Mew.
Star Butterfly The Sword of Mew?
Cutiesaurs Let me get out of these chains and find my helmet and shirt and find a safe place before I can explain everything
Cutiesaurus tries to break his chains but with no success.
Star Butterfly Need help?
Cutiesaurs Yeah sure just blast those chain’s
Star uses her wand to blast the chain off of Cutie
Cutiesaurs Thank you… Um I haven’t gotten your name.
Star Butterfly It’s Star Star Butterfly.
Cutiesaurs Why thank you Star. I’m Cutiesaur’s but people call me Cutie for short and I’m the royal guard of the Empress or was before Bob and his golem army took me and put me in this dungeon. Now where is my shirt? Cutie searches everywhere for his shirt until Star shows him his shirt and grabs it and puts it back on.
Cutiesaurs Thanks Star. Now I need my Helmet.
Star Butterfly Why?
Cutiesaurs Because it protects people. Because I was born with a face that is so handsome that it melts people's faces. You wouldn’t want to see people's faces melting. It's nasty.
Star Butterfly Eww. But anyway I think I saw it over there at the bench.
Star points to a bench where we see Cutie Helmet. He then grabs it and puts it on.
Cutiesaus Thanks Star Now we need a plan.
Star Butterfly Um would that involve these guys.
Star points to a group of humanoid creatures wearing black cloaks with hoodies and pale white masks.
Cutiesaurs Looks like the plan is to fight. (He pulls out his blue sword) It’s a good thing this sword is bound to me and no one else.
Star Butterfly I would like to help but that Wizard Bob just stole all my powers.
Cutiesaurs Except for the Sword of Mew
Star Butterfly I keep hearing that my Wand is a sword. How is this possible?
Cutiesaurs You must focus, be one with the wand and think of a burning blade.
Star focuses on it and her wand turns into a burning blade with rainbow fire. She then uses it to defeat Bob's minions.
Star Butterfly Wow this is incredible I didn’t know my wand could do that! How did you know!?
Cutiesaurs It’s a long story but we need a hiding spot and I know one. Follow me.
Cutie drags Star to a long forgotten cellar.
Star Butterfly Wow you sure know your way around the castle.
Cutiesaurs I like to walk around the castle patrolling it in my spare time and also reading books. Which is why I know that wand is a sword that is a key to one of the locks. Of a prison
Star Butterfly What Locks?
Cutiesaurs Let me explain. Long ago before you before me before the kingdom of Mewni before time. Three gods and three goddesses appear. They created the rift then they created time then they created the universe then gave life to them. They taught each creature in the multiverse how to care and love and respect one another. However for order there must be chaos and chaos took the form of Cataclysm. He corrupted everything the gods and goddess did, undoing their work. So they fought back; the battle lasted a thousand year with the records of the events being lost though a few survived. After Cataclysm was weakened the Gods and Goddess locked him up in a prison out of space and out of time. With their own swords. They then gave the six swords to six universe’s. The Sword of Retro, The Sword of the sea, the Sword of sweets, The Sword of reality, The Sword of the sun, finally the Sword of Mewni. They form the kingdoms around the swords. But sadly over time the kingdoms lost knowledge of their past and swords. Except for two. The Kingdom of the Sun saved knowledge of the past and the kingdom of Mewni kept their sword safe. Which is why that wand you have is important; it's the last known sword that prevents the unleashing of Cataclysm.
Star Butterfly Wow I didn’t know my wand was a sword. But it still doesn’t explain how Bob managed to steal my butterfly forum. With some strange magic power.
Cutiesaurs It’s called forum splitting.
Star Butterfly What?
Cutiesaurs Forum splitting it’s a spelical spell that splits someone with transformations and turns their transformation as a spirit. We used it to cure someone from their Werewolf forum.
Star Butterfly Oh. Because my butterfly forum is important to me.
Cutiesaurs I’m sure it is Star.
Cutiesaurus begins to leave Star behind.
Star Butterfly Where are you going Cutie?
Cutiesaurs To find my Empress.
Star Butterfly Don’t you mean queen.
Cutiesaurs They both mean the same thing.
Star Butterfly Okay you’ll do that while I find some help.
Star pulls up her scissors but when she tries to use them they begin to crack and then turn to dust.
Cutiesaurs By the way, scissors are useless in the kingdom of the sun.
Star Butterfly (talking to herself) Great, I can’t get to Mewni or Earth now. Those scissors are my only escape. But maybe Cutie knows another way.
Star races to Cutie
Star Butterfly Hey Cutie I was thinking we can team up to take down Bob.
Cutiesaurs I prefer to work by myself. But thanks for the advice.
Star Butterfly (with her puppy dog eyes) Please!
Cutiesaurs (staring blankly) Your puppy dog eyes have no effect on me. Now would you excuse me? I got a queen to save.
A Cutie walks away Star Butterfly gets a idea
Star Butterfly You said Bob is looking for the six magical swords.
Cutiesaurs And What are you getting at?
Star Butterfly Well we can do what I forget.
Cutiesaurs A barter?
Star Butterfly Yea a barter.
Cutiesaurs By getting the four other swords by doing a trade for the empress then we use our might together to defeat Bob and kill two birds with one stone! I’m such a genius.
Star Butterfly Yes you are so how are you planning on getting to the realms?
Cutiesaurs I have a ship. In an old hanger.
Star Butterfly But how do we get there?
Cutiesaurs Well I know the secret paths around this old castle.
Cutie pulls an old touch handle but discovers it’s the wrong one and then pulls the right one. Which reveals a path which Cutie enters and Star follows behind. It leads to a rusty hanger with a giant shiny red space ship with jet engine thrusters and a jet pilot cockpit.
Cutiesaurs Behold the Gummi ship the most advanced ship in the kingdom, well the only one since all are now scrap. It took me 13 yea… (Notice Star biting the ship) Star what are you doing!?
Star Butterfly You said it’s a Gummi ship and I thought it was made out of gummi’s.
Cutiesaurs I called it the Gummi ship because it looks like it’s made out of gummi. Not made of Gummi.
Star Butterfly Oh. But how would this old thing get us where we are going?
Cutiesaurs Well it takes us to the rift.
Star Butterfly The Rift!? What’s that?
Cutiesaurs It’s like a highway. Star Butterfly What’s that?
Cutiesaurs (I might be too smart for her) It’s where a group of car’s go very fast like a road.
Star Butterfly Oh like a shortcut?
Cutiesaurs (sarcastly) Yes, much like a shortcut. (sarcasm ends) Anyway The rift used to be how one person got from one realm to the other. It was the world that was between realms. However with the invention of technologies and how certain realms like our Kingdom of the sun here isolated themselves. The Rift was no longer used and ships were turned to scrap. Well before I came along and fixed this baby up. Let’s go inside and take a tour and start this baby up.
Cutie and Star enter’s the Gummi ship
Cutiesaurs This ship has everything we need for our trip. It has bed’s and a guest bed for passengers. (in case it was an overnight trip.) A dining room, A kitchen for cooking food, A fireplace. A bookshelf with books throughout the realms is my favorite and finally the cockpit with an autopilot so the captain can do other things and it has a comfy seat with cup holders. It has everything to make you feel right at home. Any questions?
Star Butterfly Yea where is the kitchen sink?
Cutiesaurus then bang his head on the controls
Cutiesaurs I knew I forgot something. I guess I add this on stuff to add to the ship along with weapons. So let’s start this ship up.
Star Butterfly By pressing the big red button. (Star looks for the big red button) where’s the big red button?
Cutiesaurs Yea I did not add one since I don’t want people to be tempted by pushing a big red button. And besides, I don't want to discard myself when I start up the ship. And besides that’s not how you start the ship. (Pulls out the keys) This is how you start the ship
Cutie inserts the keys while the hangar doors open and the ship hovers for a bit before bursting into speed and opening a hole to the rift. But not before Bob and his minions race to the hanger seeing them fly away. The camera fades while Bob quietly makes a grin on his face. The screen then pans to the Gummi ship flying across the rift. Inside Star and Cutie figured out what to do next.
Star Butterfly So um Cutie do you know where the swords are?
Cutiesaurs Well legends say that one of the Swords will reveal the next sword. And since your sword is the only known one I think we’ll start there.
Cutie leads Star to the Bottom of the ship
Cutiesarus This is the map room. Well the only one that functions since this is the only ship that can travel across the rift. Since I have that ship I will navigate our course to where the next sword is.
Star Butterfly How are you gonna to do that? Since you have the knowledge and I have magic.
Cutiesaurs Correct Star but I have an idea. If you cast magic on your wand then it should act like a beacon. That only the swords will hear pinpointing its location. Thus selecting the location and flying to grab it. Any questions?
Star Butterfly Yes, one. I didn’t know Bacon could do that.
Cutiesaurs (Talking to himself) Sometimes I wonder if my kind is too advanced for people who look like they didn’t pass the middle ages.
Cutiesaurs No it’s not. After this read my books. Just use your magic
Star Butterfly I’m gonna create puppies that shoot laser beams.
Cutiesaurs I was thinking of dynamite with a laser beam but your idea sounds fair enough. (Though I must give someone a box of puppies when we land. Because one puppy is enough for me to handle for me right now.

Gen 4 and Gen 6 are interesting picks for the basis of Legends games. And while we don't truly know what will happen in PLZA, I think selecting Kalos reveals some of the game pitch and the direction this is going.
Diamond and Pearl
In Diamond and Pearl, there was an event that never happened to battle and catch Arceus. With the key item Azure Flute, you would've been able to travel to Spear Pillar. However, Masuda later said the Azure Flute event was too complicated for players and the whole thing was dropped after the game's release.
D&P also had a number of other game issues including their small number of Fire-types.
Legends Arceus in some ways was revisionism for Sinnoh. GF aimed to redo the Azure Flute experience and add in more Fire-types including Cyndaquil and H-Growlithe. While many things changed, the game manages to deliver closer on the original promise for Sinnoh.
X and Y
If you take that mindset for PLA, it extends very easily to include PLZA. There have been a lot of posts over time over how X&Y feel unfinished, including the locked power plant, the ghost girl, the lack of a Zygarde storyline, and more.
Every so often you hear about some cancelled ideas for Kalos. I've heard they skipped Pokemon Z for Sun/Moon. I've heard X&Y were originally going to have a bunch of aliens in disguise roaming the region as invaders. I imagine there's a lot of ideas they scrapped.
Which is why they're going PLZA next. GF wants to deliver on a Kalos game of the scale they wanted. They could revise plenty of game points that were dropped before, and finish storylines they never did before. I think it's interesting that the Tapus and Ultra Beasts notably did not return to SV in any DLC. If they wanted to redo the alien plotline, they have a lot of ways to do that now.
I think we're still trying to figure out what a "Legends" game is, but I think a lot of it is about fan service.
Nostalgia
D&P came out in 2006. If you were a six-year old playing that as your first game, you would've been playing Legends: Arceus when you were 22. It was timed very well to those lukewarm players to recapture their nostalgia with a game that captures their interests specifically with the Azure Flute and Arceus. A Legends game, with an older main character and grittier storyline, does manage to feel slightly more mature in a way that should draw in a different player base.
As Pokemon gets close to its 30-year anniversary, they will need to keep finding ways to appeal to a wider player base. That means approachable games for new players but also deeper dives with nostalgia to keep others engaged in the franchise.
Legends: Kyurem?
I don't think there will be a Legends: Kyurem anytime soon. I know there are a small number of fans who really enjoyed the games and their sequels. They are games without major flaws. And that's why they're unlikely to get the Legends treatment. Using the same thesis above, I don't think there's anything major in these games that needs to be revisited. The only thing that never happened was the Lock Capsule event, which was so obscure you might not even know it existed.
Sure, there's the "original dragon", but I don't believe GF ever intended to add that to the game and then scrapped it last-minute.
Legends: Celebi
So with that in mind, I do think Legends: Celebi probably makes the most sense. Johto is one of the regions that underwent the biggest change in its entirety. Reading through beta content for G/S takes you through all kinds of interesting theories and what-ifs. Its locations changed a lot through development. I don't think the GS Ball event was ever distributed outside of Japan. The GS Ball was also dropped from the anime.
Other missing parts of the canon include the many scrapped Pokemon that were removed from the game including new evolutions, pre-evolutions, and entirely new designs. If GF ever wanted to revisit Johto, I would hope they go back into this list and pull out one or two of their favorites to make official.
Pokemon Go as a test bed?
Celebi plays a big role in Pokemon Colisseum, an obscure GameCube game in which it purifies the heart of a shadow Pokemon you 'snag'. So could Shadow Pokemon return in a Legends: Celebi game?
I think that Mega Evolutions coming to Pokemon Go in late 2020 showed these designs and mechanics had a lot of fan favor. I had really thought mega evolutions would be gone from the games entirely until they teased its return in PLZA. I wouldn't be surprised if their popularity in Go is what led them to reintroduce the mechanic.
Along the same lines, would shadow and purified Pokemon from Go ever be considered popular enough to make an official mechanic in a future game? G/S/C were about Team Rocket's return and using machines to draw out a Pokemon's strength (and rage). Sounds a bit like shadow Pokemon. They might do more revisionism and say they were always shadow.
This is all my personal speculation of course. But as we start to learn more about this specific series of games, I think it will definitely continue in the vein of bringing back older players by giving them answers to questions that were unresolved because the original answers were scrapped.

Hello and welcome to a very special installment of The Great Spice Off! What is The Great Spice Off?
I love the scent of Old Spice, so much so that it's the only aftershave I use as I don't really feel a need to splash anything else on. But, as we all know, Old Spice no longer makes shaving soap. They do still make a cream but that's hardly a great soap and it doesn't actually smell like Old Spice. As such my plan is to test out all the Old Spice options that are out there on as many bases as possible both to try out a variety of bases from different soapmakers and to report back to you on who really nails the scent.
I'll be shaving three times with each soap, using a variety of brushes and razors, and blades. Yes, I know that means it won't be exactly scientific but this is going to take a while and I want to use all my other shit too. Soaps will be rated on a few factors and given points from 1-5 for each.

• Oldness: How much does the soap smell like OG Old Spice. This is the more analytical scent analysis and I'm comparing to an OG Old Spice aftershave I have and the Shulton aftershave from India.
• Spiciness: This is the je ne sais quois of Old Spice. Does the soap make me feel the nostalgia, warmth, and whatever it is about the scent that works. Is there something special about it that makes it stand out? Does it invoke a memory or make a new one? The most subjective of this list.
• Lather: You know, can I make a shave soap out of it.
• Shave: How's it work on the ol' face while shaving.
• Post: How's the scent profile after the event. How does my face feel.

Crowne & Crane The Spice

And so we enter (for now) into a strange little corner of Old Spice dupery that I honestly wouldn't have even entered if I had read the description of The Spice before ordering it long ago. Also, if Crowne & Crane hadn't named the soap something pretty inaccurate. Also, also, if I hadn't accidentally picked up a second dupe of the scent recently. Yes, The Spice is not an Old Spice dupe but an Old Spice Limited Edition (LE) dupe.
Record Scratch. Double Take. Wuuuuuuuh!???
So you're asking yourself what the heck is an Old Spice LE. Well, despite what most think, Old Spice has had many scents over the years and almost none of them are riffs or new twists on their original Old Spice scent. Old Spice, the company/brand, made a plethora of scents throughout the history of producing Old Spice that, while all fell in the kind of old fashioned scenting category, had nothing to do with what we think of as Old Spice. Old Spice LE was one of these scents. From the dating I can find online, it was released sometime in the early 90s and stuck around for a chunk of that decade and possibly into the 2000s. It's also possible it was a scent released every couple of years as I can see a few different bottle versions. I don't actually know that much about it, have never smelled the original myself, and the Internet is not actually full of Old Spice product history let alone a defunct aftershave from the early 90s.
Whatever the history, what appears to be consistent is that it came in a clear bottle and was called Limited Edition. It also featured a base of amber, cedar, and woods with supporting notes of cardamom, lavender, moss, and jasmine, and citrus top notes. As you can see, aside from the citrus, it doesn't have all the much in common with Old Spice but that hasn't stopped a fragrance seller from selling a dupe of the discontinued scent for those who may still be looking for it. And so, there are soapers out there who pick this scent up for whatever reason instead of actual Old Spice. Actually, there are only two and Crowne & Crane are the only ones I can find doing it intentionally (more on that in a future review). They're also naming it The Spice, which is a little misleading considering the only spice scent in it is cardamon and given the lavender, citrus, and moss present its clearly intended to be somewhat of a fougère. The Spice, I think we can all agree, is not the name anyone would give a fougère.
So why then am I even reviewing it? That is like asking why do people climb Everest? Why do athletes push their body to the extremes? Why does the woodchuck chuck wood? If these questions could be answered then perhaps I could answer why I am reviewing this. But they can't be.
Crowne & Crane was founded in 2016 by Karl and Liz, whose last names I can't find so we'll call them Karl Crowne and Liz Crane. Karl was an enthusiast it looks like before going into the ol' soapmaking business and, being founded pre-2020, is officially an ol' timer in the artisan soap industry. Despite that longevity they aren't really all that popular around these parts with u/PhilosphicalZombie and u/loudmusicboy literally being the only two folks who appear to use them regularly if at all. I'd say that's maybe because they're not just a shave soap company but Stirling isn't either so that logic kind of flies out the window. Then again, we're a bunch of grown men and women telling other people how we removed hair from our bodies on a daily basis. Logic means nothing here.
Crowne & Crane have two bases, vegan and tallow. Most of their soaps are in tallow only and that's what The Spice comes in so that's what we're working with here. Of note is a commitment to organic, humanely-raised cows for the beef tallow, which is always a plus in my book (and sustainably sourced palm oil). The soap itself is kind of dry and chalky, not in a bad way and it wasn't hard or falling apart. It's a soft, dry soap, which are not contradictory things. The base is made up of Potassium Tallowate, Sodium Tallowate, Potassium Stearate, Sodium Stearate, Aloe Vera Juice, Potassium Cocoate, Sodium Cocoate, Phthalate-Free Fragrance, Potassium Shea Butterate, Sodium Shea Butterate, Kokum Butter, Sodium Lactate, Glycerin, Lanolin, Tussah Silk. Nothing to much to comment on here except I can't stop saying the word tussah over and over in my head. It's a weird word and now it doesn't feel real I've said it so much. Tu... ssah. Tooo suuuhhh...
The labeling is a nice vintage boat symbol, which, again, is a bit misleading given the LE branding was very much a modern (for the 90s) Old Spice look, not the classic schooner branding of the OG Old Spice. If you weren't paying attention (*cough* me *cough*) you might just order this thinking you got an Old Spice dupe and open the lid to find you most assuredly did not. Well, open the lid is a bad description as I bought their 3 oz puck option instead of the 5 oz jar and it came wrapped in paper. 3 oz, by the way, is a great mid-price option that gives you more than a tiny sample but not a full plastic tub. I'd be perfectly happy to have other shaving companies offer this... please... please... there's so much soap under my sink. So... much... soap.
(Sidenote: if you are looking to get their soaps, do it quick as they're going on hiatus during a move in two days!)
Oldness: 0
As a scent not designed to smell like Old Spice this one knocks it out of the park. In fact, it does such a great job not smelling like Old Spice I'd put it up there with some of the greatest scents that don't smell like Old Spice ever made. Have a scent that doesnt's smell like Old Spice that you love? This one smells as much not like Old Spice as that one does! If you're looking for something that doesn't smell like Old Spice but has the word Spice featured in its name and the words "Old" and "Spice" in the description next to each other than this is the soap for you.
Spiciness: 3
This is actually a pretty solid scent even if its called The Spice but isn't really a spicy scent at all. It's definitely a vintage scent, though, and reminds me a bit of Seaforth! Spiced but not as good. Because of that I'm going to say that it still captures a bit of that classic feel that Old Spice gives you even if its a scent from the 90s, a decade that has yet to fall into the "classic" zone and thus still feels like everything from it was cringe (including teenage me).
Lather: 5
What an absolutely brilliant lather The Spice kicks up. From the moment water hits it turning it into a thick prot-lather to the gloriously shiny conclusion, it's just a pleasure to lather. The soap is super thirsty, which can often lead to some dialing issues but I never had those aside from having to add a lot of water to both my larger scoop shave and my medium scoop. You don't need a lot of soap to get this going big and it's really easy to get there and looks great the entire time. If you were going to make an ad about shave soap -- as we all dream to do -- and needed a pretty lather to build up this would be a great choice.
Shave: 3
The Spice offers an incredible cushion of soap that can tackle even the most aggressive razor, making it feel barely there on your skin. However, it is, at best, mid-tier on its slickness with limited residual slickness too. As I reduced the amount of soap I used on each shave I figured I'd eventually hit a lather that was both full of cushion and slickness, but even on my final shave with the least amount of lather I wasn't too impressed with the glide provided. There's slickness there, it's not like dragging some sort of pillowy sandpaper over your face or anything but despite the copious amounts of water I added it never truly peaked.
Post: 2
The Spice's Old Spice LE scent isn't exactly complimentary with either my Indian Old Spice for the vintage one. It's not an afront to the nostrils or anything (sometimes I picture what nostrils being afronted would look like and it weird me out) but it ain't great. It probably plays a bit better with the more floraly vintage spice if I was forced to choose one by some deranged wet shaving person forcing people to shave with stuff. The soap also left my skin feeling a little sticky for some reason, like there was a layer of it still on there. That dissipated quickly but it was an odd sensation.
Final Verdict: 13
Crowne & Crane might be one of my favorite soaps to lather as it's easy to do, looks fantastic, lathers big, and just drinks up the water. It's just kind of fun working it into a lather and for someone who appreciates the process of wetshaving that's a big deal. The shave doesn't quiet live up to the lather, though, despite some really great cushion. Where it really disappoints is the post shave where it not only still doesn't smell like Old Spice (even if it was never trying to) but also left my face feeling a little icky. No one likes an icky face, just ask .
Previous Great Spice Offs:

1. 1940s Old Spice Shaving Soap in Vintage Mug (9)
2. 1973-91 Old Spice Shaving Soap (7)
3. Old Spice Shaving Cream (Original) (12)
4. Master Soap Creations Vintage Spice (19)
5. Black Ship Grooming Classic (17)
6. OSP Old Gold (19)
7. Chiseled Face Groomatorium Trade Winds (17)
8. Wholly Kaw Twice as Spice (17)
9. Barrister and Mann Barrister's Reserve Spice (21)
10. Mama Bear Aged Spice (10)
11. MERShaving Old Timer Spice (20)
12. Soap Commander Endurance (20)
13. Signature Soaps Novus Spice (17)
14. Hoffman's Shave and Soap Company Burn the Ships (19)
15. Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements Cold Spice (15)
16. Hendrix Classics & Co Commodore (20)
17. Ginger's Garden Old Spice Type (15)
18. Lisa's Natural Herbal Creations Mariner (10)
19. Stone Field Shaving Company Ltd. No. 37 (18)
20. Cooper & French Old Goat (19)
21. The Holy Black Artisan Line Shaving Soap (21)
22. Stirling Soap Co. Stirling Spice (20)
23. Van Yulay Spicy Man (10)
24. Pinnacle Grooming The Good Ship OS (15)
25. Mystic Water Soap Windjammer (14)
26. The Village Soap Smith Old Spice (Type) (14)
27. Cloud Shave "Unscented" (13)
28. Wet the Face Spices From the Sea (17)
29. Artifact Soapworks Old Spice (Type) (15)
30. DentonMajik Ole Fife (21)
31. Phoenix Artisan Accouterments Oud Spice (17)
32. Lativ Natural Skin Revival Shaving Soap Old Spice (8)

Special Editions

• Summer Break Soaps Remote Learning
• Spearhead Shaving Company Seaforth! Spiced
• Eleven Shaving Unscented/Hendrix Classics & Co Commander

I'm also looking for the below soaps if you've got any you're willing to sell/trade/donate:

• Wild West Shaving Co. Snake Oil
• Wickam Spice Trade
• Occult Grooming Essentials Modern Spice
• Fougare Salem

I already have these soaps that I have not reviewed yet:

• Bundubeard Reijger
• Bundubeard Drommedaris
• Bundubeard De Goede hoop
• Areffa Soap The Sea Son

PART 1

“Don’t touch!” Abe commanded, slapping Max’s hand away. They were both bent over at the waist, admiring.
“Sorry, it’s just… so… what is it?”
“I call it the Alchemic Thaumaturgator.”
“Of course you do. Is that because you couldn’t think of anything simpler, or you just liked the way it rolls off the tongue?” Max smirked.
“Mmm, it’s a work in progress.” He flung a sideways glare at him.
“Sure. So what is one of these?”
“It’s complicated and delicate and to be honest it’s a bit of a mystery, even to me.”
“Right.” There was a moment of silence as they continued scrutinising.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Abe murmured, almost to himself.
“I mean, yeah, of course….”
“Don’t look at me like that, I can’t tell you what I don’t know!” Abe stood up and let out a disgruntled huff.
“Hmm. Well, it’s confusing enough to give you nausea just looking at it so I’m sure they’d love it as an offering for the Nobel Prize, especially with a name like ‘Alcomic Thordy-whatsit.’”
“Well, maybe, if it gets that far. I nearly broke it last week, which is why I’m telling you,” Abe stood up straighter, one hand on his hip and the other pointed firmly at Max, “to strictly to keep your curious hands to yourself, ok? I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t necessary.”
“Ok ok, I won’t touch it. But really, it looks like it should be in a museum somewhere. Or a Cabinet of Curiosities...”
“Little good would it do in either of those places.” Abe turned to Max and clasped both his hands in his own. “Listen, you are my closest friend and this thing is very important to me. I wouldn’t leave it with you if I didn’t think you were perfectly capable of safeguarding it, so please don’t worry, I know it’s in good hands.”
“If you really think I’m up to it?”
“I do.”
“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment!” Max threw his arms in the air in a sarcastic show of tah-dah! “Go forth, oh Knight of Overly-Complex Science, go do what you have to do and I’ll keep an eye on this beast for you. Shove it on the table and I’ll look after it and Will Not Touch It.”
Abe looked put out, but comically so. “Is that really what you think I sound like?” He laughed. “I’ll put it over here, then. Get in touch if you need me, any time. You have my contacts?”
“I do…” Max fumbled around his pockets. “They’re… here. Got them right here.”
“Good. In which case I’ll leave you to your own devices. See you soon, and thank you.”
“See you soon.”
“Take care. Oh, one more thing. If you talk to it, it talks back.” Abe shut the door behind himself.

***

“So, you’re an Alchronic Thormome… grater? Doesn’t sound right… So tell me, what is one of them?” Max stared at the thing, perplexed.
It reminded him of what the love-child would be between a glass roller coaster and a steampunk jellyfish, though it bore absolutely no resemblance at all to a jellyfish, and fascinated him far more than that nature documentary he had been watching last week ever could. Jellyfish bobbing around and being brainless and boring, and when they weren’t they were stinging people to death and getting eaten by turtles. Even the name is boring. Jelly. Fish. Like those squidgy, dry-goo kids toys that you’re supposed to throw at the window but gets hair stuck to it when it falls on the carpet. Yuck.
Which was weird, considering this monstrosity he had been tasked with looking after was definitely the most interesting and intricate and pretty thing he had probably ever clapped eyes on. It had a heaviness to it, a purpose. And it felt like it was watching him.
Better steer clear for a while. It looks weird, he had been told things that absolutely made it sound weird and to be honest, it frightened him a little.
He wasn’t usually one to be afraid. Hell, he’d always been the brawn of his sturdy group of friends, right since he was a kid. He had worked his way up the proverbial ladder and had been widely recognised as the guy you don’t screw with at his school, though he wasn’t particularly proud of how he got there, (there had been a lot of fights behind the bike sheds and nicked sandwiches under the threat of blackmail at lunch). But he had forgotten all that and settled himself into being the relatively good-looking, popular, flirtatious guy who did a moderately average job in the eyes of his colleagues and had a moderate measure of success with the ladies.
Made no sense then that this contraption he had been lumbered with for a stint had shaken him by its sheer solidness on his front room table. It seemed to be unmovable in its presence, though it was light as a feather when it had been brought in and that fact in itself threw him because how can something that looked so substantial weigh that little? His bloody breakfast weighed more!
“What the hell are you?” Max wondered out loud.
He sat and stared at the thing for the longest time, watching to see if it would move. Only the sparkly inner swirled. Nothing more. It gave him the feeling of lying on the bottom of the ocean, staring at the sun beams though the surface until it started to fade. His eyes stared to fade. His mind went blank. He was being sucked down a long, dark tunnel of still water by his chest, he was sinking and swimming and becoming the empty space around him, it seemed he could feel the particles in the air as they vibrated and resounded in his ears, felt himself being blinded…
Max blinked and snapped back into the room, found himself standing in front of the machine. The studded brass bands holding the tubes together rotated slowly, silently.
Yeah, there’s something not right about that thing. Something unnatural.
Slowly backing out of the room and trying very hard not to show the Alcolic Thormatador… Thermanter… the thing that it was making him uncomfortable, he sidled through the doorway and into the hall. Yeah, that thing is just plain wrong.
In the corridor he paused, tried to laugh at himself.
This thing is just metal and glass and sparkly water, he thought. It doesn’t have the brainpower to understand that I feel some kind of way about it and even if it did, what is it going to do? It’s an invention, a machine and nothing more and machines are made by people, made by my friend, so what the hell is there to be afraid of?
He reached the kitchen, surprised at his own existential awareness that seemed to come quite fluidly, which was most unlike him. Maybe he was getting soft in the head. He heard that happened at a certain time of life but that phenomenon would be a bit premature. He wasn’t much past his third decade, thank you very much!
Max filled a mug from the water boiler and threw in a teabag and a few sugars. He squeezed the bag against the side of the mug until the dregs started dropping, plapped it in the sink and poured in milk. He stirred his tea well, just as always, but now the clinking of the mug took on an added layer of comfort when he knew what was in the front room. He wasn’t in a dark tunnel where he couldn’t do anything but watch, he was in his own kitchen that he had had rebuilt last year. He picked out the worktops and cupboards, he chose the shiny silver appliances, he bought the gourmet herbs and put them on the window sill, slightly over-watered and flooding their drip trays until they almost overflowed. He was in his own kitchen, familiar down to the millimetre, and solid. Nothing could touch him here.
No, he thought, it’s just an invention. A thing.
He put the spoon down with certainty on the worktop and squared his shoulders: he marched down the hall towards the front room with his tea in his left hand and the right balled up into a fist. He paused for a second outside the door. No sound.
This is my house, I won’t be intimidated in my own damned house.
He rounded the corner, planted his feet wide and glared hard at the thing.
“Look, I don’t know what you are,” he said to the machine, “but you don’t look dangerous. And seeing as we’re going to be spending some time together, I’m just going to ignore you and you can ignore me, ok? No making me feel like I’m being watched, no making me feel like I’m swimming around somewhere in space, no more weird stuff and I won’t put you in the loft. We’ll coexist in blissful harmony, like water and jellyfish.”
The Alchemic Thaumaturgator just sat there, glistening.
“Ok. Good. Fine.”
He grabbed the fern and the shamefully stunted lucky bamboo (that damned plant his cat was always rubbing his face on) that were perched next to the door and shoved them onto the table in front of the machine, mostly obscuring it from view. Better.
Max backed up and sat on the couch under the window, across the room from the table and that freakish unicorn turd of a contraption. He wrenched his eyes away for just long enough to put on the television and throw one final look over at the thing on his table, searching for it amongst the foliage. It hadn’t moved. It just sat there. He gestured at it rudely with a slightly shaking hand.
The soothing sound of the narrator drew him back into his TV and another nature documentary, this time about the great apes of the rainforests of Western Africa. This was much more interesting. He swivelled sideways in his chair to face the screen directly, sipping away at his tea.
“See,” he said towards the table, “this is exactly what…”
He glanced back and promptly fell out of his chair. His tea went flying as his mug thudded to the floor in an all too under-dramatic fashion compared to what his adrenaline was doing.
The thing was lighting up! It was glowing! Only a little bit but it was actually putting out light!
“Jeez!” Max shouted at it from the floor. “What is that? How is that happening? What is it doing? Stop it! Stop it!”
He scrambled around, on his hands and knees and still on the floor, trying to shut off the sounds of viciously shaken branches and primates howling at each other. The screen mercifully emitted a heavy click and fell into blackness as the remote fell to the floor. In the resounding silence of the room it was just Max, his adrenaline-fuelled breathing and the glass machine.
He stared at it. It absolutely was staring at him, even from between the leaves, there was no doubt, the liquid in the middle was pooling and somehow gathering at the front of the tubes facing the room. The glowing light had already started to fade and the liquid lost concentration and dispersed again, slowly swirling around in all its glittery glory, just as it had before.
Max was still splayed out on the floor, his breathing struggling to return to normal. He stood up and flattened himself shakily against the wall.
“What just happened?” he muttered under his breath. “What the hell was that…”
The thing looked at him, ‘nothing to see here,’ it said, feigning innocence.
“Whatever you are, just stay the hell away from me!” Max shouted at the machine as skirted around the walls until he got to the doorway. The door was ajar but, because his eyes were fixed in horror at the fragments of the machine that were exposed from within the plants, he bumped backwards into the door, nudging it closed and clicking it shut. Fumbling for the handle he tried to wrench it open, only to find the handle in his hand, horrifyingly detached.
He was stuck in there with it.
Panic flooded his body. A sharp twist in his gut and sweat poured from every millimetre of his skin and a faint whine emitted from his mouth.
Deep breaths, he told himself. Deep breaths, you can figure this out. It can’t hurt you, so just sit down and figure it out.
He sat himself back on the sofa, pushing it further back and rucking up the rug into waves in front of him with his feet. Never had he been so afraid of an inanimate object before. Spiders, yes. The open ocean, yes. Heights, yes. But this?
He sat staring at it, filtering his brain through his usual coping processes. He couldn’t beat it, like he had done in school. He couldn’t charm it, like he had done at the office…
“It’s an elaborate Newton’s Cradle, for Christ’s sake! A fancy-man’s Rubik’s cube!” he told himself. “Some science experiment that a five year old could have done. Yeah, I bet he just put some glow stick stuff in the water and mixed it up and told me it’s real to scare me. It doesn’t even look that bad.” He stood up and took a hesitant half step towards it on quavering knees and reluctant feet, fighting the ‘flight’. “See? Can’t hurt me.”
Max blinked. The thing hadn’t even moved. What was so scary about it anyway? The glowing? It was probably the reflection off the TV. He moved the plants from in front of it with outstretched arms and stepped back as far as he could go.
“I’m going to call you Ruth,” he said, getting bold and pointing at it, “because Alcoholic Thermo… whatever is just ridiculous. Ok? And Ruth was my grandma’s name, and I liked her, she was safe as houses.” Sure, his grandma had died of an embolism nearly ten years ago, but he wasn’t going to admit that to this thing that he didn’t even know what an embolism was. Ruth was a safe name and the familiarity was comforting.
He felt the liquid moving towards the front of the glass again, shimmering and pulling him in. He felt his fear spike, then dissolve. It couldn’t hurt him. He was safe. He was in control.
“I think it was mean of him to call you something so ridiculous. But I suppose if he’s going to go for the Nobel Prize they like that kind of thing, don’t they?” He half laughed, took another step towards it. “Those competitions are always stupid though, nobody ever comes up with anything really new, it’s not like they’ve invented hovercraft cars or machines that can take you on holidays to the afterlife, is it?” He had nearly reached the table now. The tubes were glowing a little still and he could see something moving in there. His curiosity peaked over the top of his fear and had a good look at the prospect of getting closer. Curiosity decided to get closer.
Max leaned down, hands on knees, and stared into the ever-moving swirls that flowed through the glass tubing. Arms extended to their full defensive stance, he gently nudged the plants out of the way and took a good look at Ruth. He remembered his friend saying something about studs and elements.
“Hey, there they are! I didn’t see these before! So those… those are elements? Are they elements?” He asked the glass, dumbfoundedly pointing at the stuff he had assumed was glitter but now wasn’t half as sure. He had never seen elements before…
Ripples glowed in the liquid: it had heard him. They moved closer and were warming now, somehow.
“No way!” Max exclaimed, his mouth hanging open. So this is what Abe had meant! “It’s not possible! It’s not real! Is it real? Are you real?” He asked. “Of course you’re real, you’re sitting on my table! Ha! What a stupid question Max. So, if I ask you a question, are you gonna answer me, huh?”
The glass glittered at him, but nothing else.
“Ok, are you alive?”
Nothing.
“Hmph. Maybe it was a trick of the light.”
No answer.
Max flopped into the sofa, his brows furrowed at Ruth.
He found himself talking to himself, trying to dispel the weird energy that his friend’s invention had brought with it.
“This thing is strange. He said if I talk to it then it responds, but I asked it a question and it doesn’t do anything, but when I was watching that monkey progr…”
He stopped short.
“Yeah! Let’s shove that chimp documentary back on, shall we?”
Click, the screen shot into life of every colour of the rainforest, the howls echoing around the room. But Max didn’t watch the TV, he had his eyes firmly fixed on Ruth, remote still in hand in front of her, waiting expectantly.
Nothing. Dammit. Just the glittery same as glittery before.
Max tried not to let the tidal wave of disappointment wash him away. Maybe it wasn’t the show. Maybe it was a prank, a trick of the light after all.
Max bent to put the remote on the arm of the sofa. The light from the TV shone onto the table and Ruth crescendoed into life and started throwing out beams of light that looked like the solar flares he had seen on that awful show about space and rocks and stuff he wasn’t in the least bit interested in but had watched anyway.
But he had figured out the key: he was standing in between Ruth and the screen and his shadow had been overcasting the table! Ruth needed a full view to do… that thing… whatever it was that she was doing with the light.
Ping, pong, ping, pong, his eyes went between Ruth and the monkeys sailing through the trees by their ridiculously long arms, right up until the credits started rolling and she faded to a faint glow again. She still glittered but it wasn’t the same. She definitely needed encouragement. Inspiration, if you will.
Max flicked across through each channel, watching Ruth closely for any changes (of which there were none,) tock, tock, tock went the remote until he found a different channel, one that was obviously designed for people with limited imagination, because wow, even he can outpace the monotonous nasal narrator and he didn’t consider himself a particularly clever man! He wasn’t stupid either, but on the last one when they started to explain what a bacteria is he had lost his rag and shouted at the screen a bit.
“Everyone knows what a bloody bacteria is!” he had yelled. “Tell me something I don’t know, yeesh! Whoever said these documentaries were supposed to be informative obviously hadn’t got two brain cells to run together.” But the cinematography was nice. Lots of nature-looking things to watch, the natural world an’ all.
This time it was about walruses. All flopping around on the sea shore, getting sunburned and jabbing at each other with their overgrown chompers. He had seen this one before, it wasn’t as patronising as the others. Predictably narrated, yes, but not patronising.
He turned up the volume and spun round to look at Ruth.
She was throwing out flares again, hundreds of short wisps!
And just to test the theory, he tocked across onto the menu screen and selected a random game show that he had never heard of. True to form, Ruth dimmed back to her uninspired state of simple glitteritude.
“AHA! I knew it! You’re a sucker for the nature channel too! Aha! Ahahaha!”
Max threw up his arms in celebration, the remote going flying, cheering into the emptiness of the room. Empty, except for him and this thing which apparently had a liking for chimps and sunburnt sea mammals.
Damn, this thing is incredible, he thought. Why the hell, how the hell does it…?
He sat, flabbergasted, mouth agape.
Suddenly he jumped up, scrabbling around behind the sofa trying to find the remote again, where is it where is it where is it…
He flicked the volume up and down and Ruth still put out light. She shone and shone, the beauty!
He started singing to her, “shine on, you crazy diamond!”
She seemed to like that, too.

Special thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for creating the NoP universe.
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I'd also like to thank u/xskipy10 for their awesome fanart of the main cast as well as their recent Tohba meme and their fanart of Michael baysitting. You're work is a treasure!
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Thank you as well to u/Accomplished-Golf-59 for his take on Michael, Teylim, and Tohba in his submission for the Banner Art Contest, and u/Spacer_Catgirl4969 for their awesome music video featuring a pixel-art Dohkar in his bar. Be sure to give ALL of these awesome creators your love and support.
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And let's not forget u/Guywhoexists2812 who has been an awesome source of memes as well as sick pixel art, such as THIS and THIS!!!! And even THIS!!!!!! And how could I forget THIS!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much!
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Today, we join Khornel and Michael as they prepare for yet another protest show as they continue the fight against those abusing their power. LETTUCE...conclude...for now...
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First
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Previous
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Songs Mentioned/Used: Gives You Hell by The All American Rejects
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Memory Transcript Subject: Khornel, Krakotl Talent Manager Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137
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Aaaand DONE!
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I turned my head from side to side, inspecting my handiwork. While I still wasn’t QUITE as good at it as Ms. Teylim, touching up my feather dye was becoming easier and easier with practice. I’d even experimented a bit this time, and I was really liking how it turned out.
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If only this crappy mirror wasn’t so smudgy.
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Regardless of the state of the motel’s bathroom mirror, I was satisfied with the way I looked. My blue and newly touched up orange feathers were complimenting each other perfectly. And the slight hint of pink along the border definitely helped the whole spectrum of colors come together.
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Perfect.
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Once I was out of the bathroom, I sat down on the bed I was sharing and went through my bag to make sure I had everything.
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Pad? Check!
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Client contracts? Check!
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Pens? Check!
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Extra pair of glasses in case he forgets…again…
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Check!
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Credits for the fare? Eeeehhh, we can walk.
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Other than that though, I had everything.
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“Hey… Khorry?”
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My crest perked up at the voice. I turned around to see Scolina working at the small table in the kitchen area.
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“Yeah? What’s up?”
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“Sorry… I know you’re about to leave, but could you…help me with this?”
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I gave her a reassuring smile as I came over. Looking at the page she was working on, it seemed she’d gotten stuck on one of the problems for her math courses. Since she hadn’t received any education in the facility, she had a lot to catch up on, especially considering she was only a cycle younger than me.
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“Oh, I see the problem. You were right to divide both sides of the equation here, but the problem is when you tried, you accidentally wrote the fraction upside down. Since you’re dividing the zero by something else, it should be on top.”
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“So when I accidentally put it on the bottom-“
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“You created an irrational loop because-“
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“You can’t divide by zero.”
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Scolina cradled her head in her paws, continuing to stare down at her homework.
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“Thanks, Khorry. Sorry I’m so dumb.”
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“Hey! Don’t you ever say that about yourself! You’re not dumb, ‘Lina. You’re just behind, and that isn’t your fault.”
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“But…but I-“
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“Listen, if I had a credit for every time I made a dumb mistake in just these past few months alone, we wouldn’t need to live here. Making mistakes doesn’t make you dumb, it just means you’re learning.”
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She sniffled a bit before wiping away at her with her arm, the small pink sleeve that covered her scar soaking up any tears that were forming.
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“Thanks, Khorry.”
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I bent down and draped my wings around my sister, giving her a nice warm hug. After everything, while she DID have a very touching reunion with her father, the absence of her mother and the introduction of Trivah, Dailo, and Trilly was a bit too much change to deal with all at once.
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So we all decided that she’d stay with us for now until she’d adjusted a bit. It was odd at first, to be sure, but I liked having her here. Grandfather adored her and I had to admit, having a little sister, at least unofficially, was something I was definitely warming up to.
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“Always happy to help. Now, I’ll be working late tonight so be sure to get both yourself and grandfather to bed at a decent time, alright?”
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“Okay. Bye-bye, Khorry.”
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“Bye-bye, hatchling.”
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I ran my beak through her head fur, preening out a small tangle and freeing a spine that was loose. Once I’d disposed of it, I turned to head out the door, but not before stopping at the other bed, where Grandfather was sat, listening to the radio. His expression instantly brightened as he heard me coming.
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“Off to change the world again, Little ‘Nel?”
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“I’m gonna try.”
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“I know you will.”
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I knelt down and gave him his hug as well. I missed this. After so long without him, every hug was a nostalgic treasure.
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“And I’m not little anymore!”
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“Perhaps not, but you’ll always be MY Little ‘Nel.”
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“I know, Grandfather. I’ll be sure to make you proud out there.”
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“You already do, my child. Now go. And be sure to tell that future Grandson-in-law of mine to run a comb through his head fur from time to time. I can’t even see and I can tell how scruffy he looks.”
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I pulled away as felt my face turn warm, adding a splash of purple to the spectrum of color on my face.
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“It’s not like that! WE’RE not like that! …Not yet, anyways…”
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“Well, then tell him to hurry it up already! I want great grandpups before I die!”
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CAW! CRAW!
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“GRRRRGH!! NOPE! Not having this conversation! Goodbye! Love you!”
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“Love you too! Best of luck today!”
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“Bye-bye, Khorry!”
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I barely heard the taunts of my family behind me as I stomped out the door and slammed it. After taking a moment to settle my feathers back down, I walked down the hall to the next door over.
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Knock knock knock!
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“It’s open!”
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My mood instantly brightened from the kind, muffled, voice inside the room. I opened the door and was immediately greeted by the sight of Ms. Teylim making a meal, along with her adorable hatchling excitedly bouncing in his high chair.
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“Khornel, dear!”
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“NEWWY!!!”
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I walked over at a brisk pace before kneeling down to give them both hugs.
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“Where’s Michael?”
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“He should be-“
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SLAM!!!
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“Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Lost track of time!”
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I couldn’t help but roll my eyes as my scatterbrained best friend and business partner sprinted into the kitchen area and quickly grabbed a slice of strayu from the table.
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“You ALWAYS lose track of time!”
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As much as I wanted to scold him for not being ready by the time I got here AGAIN, we didn’t have the time.
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“Let’s just get moving before we’re late.”
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“Right! Let’s go!”
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However, just as we were about to leave…
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“Ahem. Forgetting something, my joey?”
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Michael looked up for a moment and frantically began checking his pockets before looking back at Ms. Teylim. Her smug look said it all. After a quick facepalm, he immediately jogged back to the kitchen area and knelt down to give her a goodbye hug, as well as a peck on the cheek for good measure. Lucky…
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“Muah! Bye, Ma! Love you!”
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“Be careful!”
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“We will!”
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Once he broke free from the hug, he made one last side trip to Tohba’s high chair, already going to plant a kiss on the top of his head. Again, lucky…
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“MIKEY!”
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“Mmmmmmm-“
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“HEEHYEHAHAHA! TICKWES!!”
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“-mmmMUAH! Bye-bye, Bud! ¡Te amo!”
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“BYE-BYE, MIKEY!!”
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With his goodbye hugs and kisses out of the way he made his way over to me…
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My turn?!
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…Only to run right past me and out the door.
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Awwwe… Phooey…
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Dejected as I was, I chased after him and down the hall.
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“What?! I don’t get a kiss, too?!”
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“Buy me dinner first, Bird Brain!”
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“UGH!! You’re the WORST!!”
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Memory Transcript Subject: Dohkar, Venlil Militia Leader Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137
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“COMMANDER ON DECK!”
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STOMP!
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My four brothers stood in a line in front of the bar, still as statues as I came down the stairs. I still wasn’t sure how to feel about most of them. While I left, they all stayed, and continued fighting for The Guild even when they knew what they were doing was wrong.
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Still, I knew these men. They all trained with me, ate with me, stood by me…grew up with me, and now, they stood here, ready to fight with me. While I could never forgive them for standing by while the people I loved suffered, I am willing to let them prove they’re willing to change.
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“At ease.”
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I marched in front of them, inspecting each to make sure their garb and gear was in order. In some ways, it resembled their old Guild uniforms minus any actual environmental protection. However, instead of chrome, we wore the same white coloration of the APCs that had broken through the Guild Offices walls. Black boots, gloves and bandoliers offset the white of our suits. And finally, five stripes of bright, blazing, blue accented our new badges, reminiscent of not only the blue helmets of the UN troops that fought by our sides, but also the eyes of a particular human musician, one I was looking forward to hearing sing again.
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“Alright men, in order for this rally to go smoothly, we need to be on our guard. My most recent talks with Tevis didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped, but I did manage to get him to leave us be for the most part. While we WILL still have to deal with the Interim Guard being there, they won’t be coming nearly as armed or numerous as usual. They’re simply there to observe, nothing more. Keep your eyes on them, but don’t do anything rash, or let any of the civilians do so either.”
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I turned and marched down the line once more. While I was itching to move onto individual orders, there was the Mazik in the room to address.
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“Now, I know many of us are shaken by news of the archives on Talsk. Believe me, I am too, but that’s all the more reason for us to stay vigilant. The people are afraid, confused, and questioning everything. The Magistrate, on top of their normal nonsense, will be that much more desperate to keep control. It is our job to be the barrier between the people we serve, and those willing to use this crisis to exploit them. There will come a time to rest and collect our thoughts, but now is not that time. The people need us. This town needs us, and until that is no longer the case, we MUST remain strong.”
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“SIR!”
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Once I was at the end of the line again, I turned back around and began giving out individual orders, starting with-
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“Bennic, out of everyone else in the squad, you’re currently the one with the best rapport with the people. I’m having you in charge of evacuation in case something goes wrong. Keep your eyes peeled for escape routes and be ready to begin herding everyone together at a moment’s notice.”
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“Yes, sir.”
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Next in line was Abra, our weapon specialist. Out of everyone, he was our best shot, even better than me. But he ALSO had one of the itchiest flamer fingers among us as well.”
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“Abra, have you already made sure everyone’s gear is working properly?”
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“Yes, sir. Every sidearm, baton, and smoke bomb we have is cleaned, checked, and functional.”
​
“Good, then I just want you to stay vigilant. Find some higher ground and keep an extra close eye on the Interim. The moment one of them tries something funny, I want to know.”
​
“And if they try harming the civilians?”
​
I furrowed my brow at him. I knew what he was getting at.
​
“Aim for NON-lethal, and make sure you have proof that THEY were the aggressors first.”
​
He gave a dejected chuff before responding.
​
“Yes, sir…”
​
What am I going to do with you, little brother?
​
Next was Ento, probably the only other Yotul here in town other than Teylim and Tohba, were they still here.
​
“Ento, were you able to make your last diagnostics check on the sound equipment last paw.”
​
“Yep! Everything on our end was working perfectly last I checked. We’ll still have to wait until they try connecting to know for sure, though.”
​
“Do everything you can to make sure it works. Leave the Interim and civilians to us.”
​
“Yes, sir!”
​
Finally, there was our medic, Canuck. Besides Bennic, this Zurulian was probably the one I was closest with growing up, if only because I’d always get the brunt of Albiel’s punishments when I’d stand up for the others, and it was usually Canuck patching me up.
​
“Canuck, in the case of an emergency, I want you to return to Dr. Forrik’s clinic. Since he’s still caring for his wife, I need you there getting everything ready in case something happens.”
​
“You sure you lot will be alright without me there?”
​
“We’ll be fine. The clinic will need you more than we will.”
​
“Yes, sir.”
​
With one last turn, I inspected my squad one last time.
​
“One last question.”
​
“What is it, Ben?”
​
“What about our…junior recruit?”
​
I sighed and looked back towards the staircase leading upstairs, just in time to catch a pair of suspiciously Nevok-shaped ears dip back from around the corner. I made sure to speak loud enough for him to hear me.
​
“He is to stay here and hold the fort. And he should bear in mind, I don’t just let ANYONE watch over MY bar. This is a large responsibility I’m trusting him with, and I trust he won’t let me down.”
​
The ears reappeared and solemnly nodded before retreating back up the stairs. Once I was sure my point was made, I turned back to my squad.
​
“Alright, if that’s all, we’ve got protestors to escort! Let’s move out!”
​
“SIR!”
​
Memory Transcript Subject: Khornel, Krakotl Talent Manager Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137
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The Soulroot tram station was surprisingly bustling. I half-expected the place to be a ghost town like most places were after Cilani’s interview. But with the news breaking about the Farsul’s archives breaking, it seemed the people of Soulroot were out and about more than ever, either flocking to the many churches and chapels in the area, or simply deciding to pray at the Soulroot itself for answers…any answers.
​
“Damn. I always forget just how big that thing is.”
​
Speak of the devil…
​
We both gazed out the window of the tram car as it passed through the massive central park area of the city. In its exact center, dwarfing even the buildings surrounding the large, wooded park, was the city’s namesake: Kihri, The Soulroot. One of five massive Seraphim Trees spread across Venlil Prime.
​
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
​
“Yeah. I can’t believe it was so close. I would’ve loved to have visited here.”
​
“Maybe we will when we have time.”
​
“I hope so.”
​
Once we passed the park, we turned back around and returned to our pads. He was working on another instrumental while I decided to pull up our current client list. I suddenly remembered something as soon as the list loaded and I saw the newest addition.
​
“Oh! By the way! I got us a new client!”
​
“Oh, sick! Who are they?”
​
“A restaurant in the next district over. It’s called The Lackadaisy. It IS an hour-long tram ride there, but it pays well, AND I got us a few perks as well.”
​
“OoooOOOoo! Like?”
​
“Like us getting to eat AND take out half off on the paws we play there. It might not be dinner, but I’d say half off lunch and take out once a week isn’t half bad.”
​
“You da bird, ‘Nel. When do we start?”
​
“You are scheduled to play during the lunch rush in two paws. We are to enter through the back entrance and meet with co-owners Sylvon and Kenta.”
​
“Sylvon and Kenta. Got it!”
​
Now approaching: Five Meadows
​
“This is our stop.”
​
We knew the tram wouldn’t take us all the way there. The Magistrate’s lockdown had seen to that, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t hang out by the border. In fact, the border that separated Soulroot and Five Meadows had become a popular gathering spot for people from both towns to “voice their displeasure”, which was exactly why we were here. With the lockdown of Five Meadows in effect, the war still ongoing, and the news of archives now made public, the people’s opinion of the local Magistrate was at an all time low. It was time to take advantage of that.
​
Once we exited the tram and saw crowds growing on both sides of the fence separating us from our home, we immediately spotted the makeshift soundstage we’d be using, as well as several figures on the other side garbed in white. They only got clearer once we got closer. Michael was even more excited to see them as I was.
​
“Heya Dohk!”
​
Dohkar, dressed in the new uniform of the Five Meadows Militia, greeted us with a warm smile, being sure to stay a decent distance away for the electric fence.
​
“Mike, Feathers, it’s good to see you two are alright.”
​
“Likewise, nice duds by the way. Totally doesn’t make you look like an oompa loompa or anything.”
​
“Watch it, Ape. I’ll have you know it was Trivah who made these.”
​
“Shit! Is she alright?”
​
“She’s fully recovered and here with her family. You’ll forgive me if I don’t call them over. The last thing I want is Trilly and Dailo trying to get through this fence.”
​
“No worries. Just tell them I said hi.”
​
A yotul garbed in the same uniform ran up to Dohkar and greeted us with a nod.
​
“Everything’s set up, you two. Once you're connected, let me know and we’ll do a sound check.”
​
“Right!”
​
Memory Transcript Subject: Michael Ruiz Andrews, Human Street Musician Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137
​
Breathe…focus…
​
Sometimes…I wonder if it was all worth it…
​
Breathe…focus…
​
In a lot of ways, life was the same as it was back on Earth. Here I was, stuck in a shitty apartment, well…motel room now, I guess. I still had a shitty landlord that hated my guts. I was still struggling to make ends meet, playing music I wasn’t all that crazy about for people I wasn’t all that crazy about. I still didn’t have any real direction to take my life in, or any real plans for the future. So…was it worth it?
​
Breathe…focus…
​
I’d lost almost everything I had. I lost my guitar, the only real thing I had to remind me of Dad, and everything he taught me. I lost pretty much all of my possessions. Hell, the only reason I had new clothes to use at all was thanks to the human embassy here in Soulroot. I lost my home a second time, just days after finally bringing myself to start calling it that. I even almost lost my life. My scar still itches from time to time just thinking about it. So…was it really worth it? Remembering all the pain, suffering, heartache, and loss I’d been through in these past few months, sometimes I really question it.
​
Breathe…focus…
​
But then…then I remember the GOOD times. I remember all the people I’ve met, all the songs and memories we’ve made together.
​
Breathe…focus…
​
I remember meeting Mom, and my baby brother. I remember singing for them for the first time. I remember sitting and eating breakfast with them, talking and laughing the early hours away. I remember watching Tohba and teaching him how to sing, just like Dad taught me. I remember meeting Dohk, his honest words and advice keeping me grounded when the world around me just didn’t make sense. I remember meeting ‘Nel, slowly but surely building a friendship and trust that I wouldn’t give for anything.
​
Hopefully she puts up with me long enough for me to finally be ready.
​
I remember all the strife and challenges I’ve gone through, knowing that I wasn’t alone for any of it. I remember all the things I’ve gained: A life, a family, a mentor, a partner…
​
A home…
​
Breathe…focus…
​
A home worth fighting for.
​
Breathe…focus…
​
A home worth living for.
​
Breathe…focus…
​
A home…worth playing for…
​
So breathe…focus…and play…
​
The speakers come to life with a chill beat, soft snares and shakers keeping the pace as the ambience builds. A triangle marks my entrance as I take over, plucking at Teyrin’s strings. I nod along with the bouncing melody, letting myself get into it. I see a few in the crowd begin swaying along as I begin to let my soul sing.
​
I wake up every evenin’…with a big smile on my face! And it never feels out of place!
​
It’s hard to not grin as I speak, letting the notes express my current mood perfectly. I make sure to give those Interim jerks guarding the border a smug look which they definitely don’t appreciate.
​
And you’re still probably workin’…at a nine-to-five pace! I wonder how bad that tastes!
​
When you see my face, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell!
​
When you walk my way, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives yooou hell!
​
I turn to ‘Nel, standing up on stage singing next to me. There’s no one I’d rather be up here with.
​
Now, where’s your picket fence, Love? And where’s that shiny car? Did it ever get you far?
​
You never seemed so dense, Love! I’ve never seen you fall so hard! Do you know where you are?
​
When I’m up here…and I think about my old life on Earth…
​
And truth be told, I miss you… (Miss you…)
​
And truth be told, I’M LYIN’!!!
​
We turn to the closest Interim chump keeping us from our home.
​
WHEN YOU SEE MY FACE, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!
​
WHEN YOU WALK MY WAY, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!
​
WHEN YOU FIND A MAN THAT’S WORTH A DAMN AND TREATS YOU WELL!
​
THEN HE’S THE FOOL, YOU’RE JUST AS WELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!
​
I hope it gives you hell!
​
Memory Transcript Subject: Jerrick, Nevok Fugitive Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137
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The mood of the song calmed for a moment. I watched the live broadcast just hoping nothing would happen. Everything going on was just so CRAZY. With the raid, the Magistrate taking over, and now the archives, it just made everything I did in the name of The Guild even more pointless.
​
Tomorrow, you’ll be thinkin’ to yourself, “Yeah, where did it all go wrong?” But the list goes on and on!
​
Everything I did for HIM…pointless…
​
And truth be told, I miss you… (Miss you…)
​
And truth be told, I’M LYIN’!!!
​
I hope you rot, Father…
​
WHEN YOU SEE MY FACE, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!
​
WHEN YOU WALK MY WAY, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!
​
WHEN YOU FIND A MAN THAT’S WORTH A DAMN AND TREATS YOU WELL!
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THEN HE’S THE FOOL, YOU’RE JUST AS WELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!
​
Memory Transcript Subject: Michael Ruiz Andrews, Human Street Musician Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137
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A figure stands in my periphery… I know who she is…
​
Now you’ll never see! What you’ve done to me!
​
She’s not my mother…
​
You can take back your memories, they’re no good to me!
​
“You’ll never be rid of me, Blue.” I know…
​
You can hiss all your lies! You can look me in the eyes!
​
With that sad, sad, look that you wear so well!
​
But that just means you get to watch as I live my life without you in it.
​
[Warning!: You Are About To Access Restricted Files: Continue?: Y/N…]
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[The Following Is A News Broadcast Archived By Magistrate Intelligence…]
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[The camera opens on a female, human, reporter with green eyes standing in front of an energetic crowd…]
​
“WHEN YOU SEE MY FACE, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!!! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!!!”
​
“AS YOU CAN SEE BEHIND ME, THE “FREE FIVE MEADOWS” RALLY IS WELL UNDER WAY!”
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“WHEN YOU WALK MY WAY, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!!! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!!!”
​
“AND YOU CAN JUST FEEL THE ENERGY OF THE CROWD HERE!”
​
“WHEN YOU FIND A MAN THAT’S WORTH A DAMN AND TREATS YOU WELL!!!”
​
“ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE FENCE, IT APPEARS THAT THE RUMORED “FIVE MEADOWS MILITIA” ARE ACTUALLY HERE GUARDING THE PROTESTORS!”
​
“THEN HE’S THE FOOL!!! YOU’RE JUST AS WELL!!! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!!!”
​
“HOPEFULLY, WE’LL BE ABLE TO GET AN INTERVIEW! UNTIL THEN, JUST LISTEN TO THIS!!!”
​
Memory Transcript Subject: Michael Ruiz Andrews, Human Street Musician Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137
​
Breathe…focus…and ROAR!!!
​
To my old life on Earth!
​
WHEN YOU SEE MY FACE, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!
“GIVES YOU HELL!!!”
​
To the Federation killing my people!
​
WHEN YOU WALK MY WAY, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!
“GIVES YOU HELL!!!”
​
To the Magistrate holding my hometown hostage!
​
WHEN YOU HEAR THIS SONG AND SING ALONG, THOUGH YOU’LL NEVER TELL!
“YOU’LL NEVER TELL!!!”
​
To every last asshole who thinks I’m a monster for what I am!
​
THEN YOU’RE THE FOOL, I’M JUST AS WELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!
“GIVES YOU HELL!!!”
​
To that monster who took my mom, rotting in whatever cell he’s being held in.
​
WHEN YOU HEAR THIS SONG, I HOPE THAT IT WILL GIVE YOU HELL!
“GIVE YOU HELL!!!”
​
And lastly, to that figure, that voice in my head telling me I don’t deserve a home…
​
YOU CAN SING ALONG! I HOPE THAT IT PUTS YOU THROUGH HELL…
​
The End

Special thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for creating the NoP universe.
​
I'd also like to thank u/xskipy10 for their awesome fanart of the main cast as well as their recent Tohba meme and their fanart of Michael baysitting. You're work is a treasure!
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Thank you as well to u/Accomplished-Golf-59 for his take on Michael, Teylim, and Tohba in his submission for the Banner Art Contest, and u/Spacer_Catgirl4969 for their awesome music video featuring a pixel-art Dohkar in his bar. Be sure to give ALL of these awesome creators your love and support.
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And let's not forget u/Guywhoexists2812 who has been an awesome source of memes as well as sick pixel art, such as THIS and THIS!!!! And even THIS!!!!!! And how could I forget THIS!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much!
​
Today, we join Dohkar and Davids as they continue the hunt for Albiel, and we have the final confrontation between father and son. And Bennic finally decides what side he's on. LETTUCE...continue...
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First
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Previous
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Songs Mentioned/Used: Fire by Barns Courtney
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Memory Transcript Subject: Patient T-143, Yotul Refugee Sponsor Date:[Standardized Human Time] January 16, 2137
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That was Michael! It HAD to be!
​
There was no mistaking it. That was my joey’s voice. And it tore a swath through this building. I couldn’t hear the guards outside my cell anymore. Either they ran off, or the sheer sound alone was enough to knock them unconscious. Either way, it gave me hope. And as I began hearing gunfire in the distance, slowly getting closer, my heart surged.
​
This was it. This was my chance. Whoever these attackers were, there was no way Michael, Khornel, and Tohba coming over the loudspeakers at the same time as the attack was a coincidence. This was a raid! They were here to clear the place out and save the patients here! They were here to save me…
​
I hopped up and grabbed onto the barred window of my holding cell. I wasn’t even close to strong enough to get this door open, but perhaps one of the raiders were.
​
“HEEEEEYYYYY!!! HEEEEEELLLPPP!!! OVER HEEERRRREEE!!!!”
​
I listened as my voice echoed down the halls and corridors, waiting for a response. When none came, I waited for the sound to completely dissipate, and tried again.
​
“HELLOOOOOOOO!!!!! PLEASE!!! ANYONE!!!!! HEEEEEELLLPPP!!!!”
​
Once again, I listened to my voice bounce from wall to wall, echoing through the building, waiting for any kind of response…
​
^{“TEYLIM?!” TEYLIM, IS THAT YOU?!”}
​
My heart soared as tears of relief built in my eyes. It was faint from just how far away it was, I knew that voice anywhere!
​
Dohkar…
​
“YES!!!! DOHKAR, IT’S ME!!! I’M HERE!!!”
​
I began hearing footsteps echoing through the halls, getting closer to my cell. He was so close. Dohkar found me. He’d get me out, and then we could leave this place and find my joeys. It was almost over.
​
The footsteps were so close now. I could barely contain my excitement as I let go of the bars and landed back on the ground. I waited with baited breath as the steps arrived just outside. But…something was wrong… Those footsteps sounded a lot…heavier than a Venlil’s should…
​
The door opened, and the first thing I noticed…was the tall, menacing figure’s singular, sharpened, horn…
​
“Y-you’re not Dohkar…”
​
Memory Transcript Subject: Dohkar, Venlil Bartender Date:[Standardized Human Time] January 16, 2137
​
“Yeesh, the kid’s got some pipes, I’ll give him that.”
​
Davids and I were the only ones remaining from Squad 1. Chavez and our medic were the only others, and they were on their way back to the APC. We were on our own now, but seeing the complete and utter devastation of the Guild’s forces didn’t make that much of an issue. Occasionally we’d find one that was still conscious, but they were completely deaf from not getting their headset off quick enough.
​
“Yeah. Let’s keep moving. We still have a job to finish. Is there still interference keeping us from contacting Squad 2?”
​
Davids held a finger to his earpiece.
​
“Squad 2, this is 1-1 Sargent Davids, over.”
​
I listened in on my own ear piece. We were getting nothing but static.
​
Come on, Tevis.
​
“Squad 2, respond! This is 1-1 Sargent Davids. We are two men down and require assistance, over.”
​
For a moment, there was still nothing but static, until a haggered, pained, voice crackled through.
​
“This is Tevis. I read you Squad 1…”
​
“What the hell happened?! We lost contact with you as soon as we began the attack!”
​
“We were hit right away. Lost half my squad in the initial confrontation.”
​
“What’s your status?”
​
“Alive, but I’m the only one left. I found my original team…or…what’s left of them… But I’ve got the data we needed. Objective Complete.”
​
The grim tone in his voice said it all. They must’ve found something they REALLY weren’t supposed to.
​
“I’m aborting the mission. Even if we do manage to capture Albiel, there’s no way we’d be able to clear the facility with just the three of us. Meet back at the staging area where I’ll get back in contact with Magistrate Intellegence and request reinforcements.”
​
“We can’t just leave! Not when we’re so close!”
​
“We’re retreating. That’s an order, Dohkar.”
​
My free paw clenched itself into a fist. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Everywhere around us, the defenses were crumbling. Anyone who could possibly have gotten in our way was either dead, unconscious, or deaf. We had this! There was no reason NOT to continue.
​
Davids gave me a sympathetic look. He was a soldier, and he knew orders were orders. Still, I made a promise! I promised those pups, those pups who managed to wipe out an entire Guild Office’s worth of exterminators from half a town away, that I’d return and bring back Clem and-
​
^{“HEEEEEYYYYY!!! HEEEEEELLLPPP!!! OVER HEEERRRREEE!!!!”}
​
“Teylim?”
​
Protect the herd!
​
My ears perked up, and my senses were brought up to full alert.
​
“Dohkar, what did you say?”
​
“I…I thought I heard-“
​
^{“HELLOOOOOOOO!!!!! PLEASE!!! ANYONE!!!!! HEEEEEELLLPPP!!!!”}
​
“TEYLIM!”
​
PROTECT THE HERD!!!
​
My ears were on swivels, desperately trying to pinpoint the direction the voice was coming from. Once I’d narrowed it down, I took a few steps and cupped my paws around my snout as I shouted back.
​
“TEYLIM?!” TEYLIM, IS THAT YOU?!”
​
“Dohkar, what are you doin-“
​
“Quiet!”
​
I focused on my hearing as much as I could. Odds are, I’d probably get a decent chewing out for talking back to a superior officer, but if I found Teylim, it would be worth it. I listened as hard as I could.
​
^{“YES!!!! DOHKAR, IT’S ME!!! I’M HERE!!!”}
​
Protect the herd!!!
​
My mind immediately raced, trying to remember what was in that direction. My mind slowly formed a layout of the building until-
​
THE TEMPORARY HOLDING CELLS!!
​
“Davids! Hostage located! It’s Teylim!”
​
“You’re sure?!”
​
“Positive! She’s that way!”
​
“Dohkar! Davids! What are you-?”
​
“We’ve got a location on one of the hostages. We’re going after her!”
​
“Negative! I gave you direct orders to-“
​
Before I could respond, Davids did it for me.
​
“All due respect sir, the UN doesn’t follow YOUR orders.”
​
“Why you filthy pre-“
​
The signal cut off and Davids shouldered his rifle.
​
“Come on. We’ve still got hostages to save.”
​
I gave a thankful nod and we sprinted towards the holding cells. Tevis could run all he wanted, but WE still have a job to do.
​
Hang tight, Teylim…
​
Passing several other squads of downed exterminators on the way, we eventually made it to the holding cells. These were where we’d temporarily hold suspects until they were ready to be screened. I immediately spotted a pair of officers outside one of the cells, it’s door was wide open.
​
“Teylim?”
​
I jogged over to the open cell.
​
“Teylim?!”
​
Nothing. It was completely empty. The only thing that showed that anyone had been here…was a streak of green on the floor…
​
[Warning!: Anger Response Spiking Rapidly: Attempting To Compensate…]
​
I knelt down and ran a finger across the streak. It was fresh. She was here…and someone had hurt her…enough to draw blood. The only other clue I found were a few white hairs speckled with blue blood. Fissan fur…
​
Albiel…
​
I didn’t need to look anymore. I knew exactly who did this, and exactly where he would go.
​
“It’s your call, Sarge…”
​
“We finish the mission…and save the hostages.”
​
I led the way. The Chief’s office wasn’t far. A right turn here. A left turn there. And then a long hallway with the office at the very end.
​
Once the door to his office was inside, Davids and I both picked up the pace. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he was waiting for us. I knew my father. This was a test. He knew I’d go after Teylim. He wanted me to chase him.
​
“This is probably a trap!”
​
“Definitely!”
​
Once we made it to the door, we stacked up, both taking a side. Davids raised his hand and began silently counting down.
​
Five…
​
Four…
​
Three-
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BANG!!!
​
The door flew open and an arm holding a sidearm shot out fired at Davids. Before I could even see what became of him, that same arm ripped me inside the room before I could react.
​
SLAM!!!
​
Before I could catch my bearings, I was yanked into the air and flung across the room, slamming over the desktop and landing roughly on the floor behind it.
​
Getting ragdolled like that brought back all sorts of unpleasant memories, but I did my best to shake myself loose from them. Disarmed, I went for the human pistol holstered to my hip and stood to aim at my attacker.
​
“Oh, I wouldn’t if I were you.”
​
“Dohkar!”
​
Albiel…
​
My grip on my weapon tightened and I could feel my teeth chipping as they ground against each other in rage.
​
There he was, the symbol of everything wrong with The Guild. The Chief. My father. Albiel. In one paw, he held Teylim, beaten, green dripping from the side of her mouth, and a patient shock collar around her neck. In the other paw, he held the remote for it.
​
“Let. Her. Go.”
​
“You never fail to disappoint me, Dohkar. You AND those failures of a squad you called your brothers.”
​
Bennic?
​
Did he hurt them too?
​
“Every time I think the bar couldn’t be any lower, you still somehow manage.”
​
His fur was matted and disheveled, and there was an outright manic look in his eyes. The only thing about him that was still prim and orderly was that damned horn, still and shiny and sharp as ever. Bennic was right. He really had lost it.
​
“ALL of this could’ve been yours one paw, Dohkar! Everything I’ve done! EVERYTHING I’ve built! I did so in the name of finding someone worthy enough to pass it all on to. I found you, along with the rest of your incompetent squad in a damned GUTTER! I gave you a home, a purpose, and THIS is how you all repay me?! Failure! Betrayal! Disappointment! And for WHAT?! ‘People’ like THIS?!”
​
His grip around Teylim’s neck tightened. I felt myself breaking apart as she shrieked in his grip.
​
“Dohkar, plea-“
​
“SILENCE, SAVAGE!!”
​
I tried aiming my weapon once he was distracted, but he quickly noticed and held up the remote. With a chuff, he regained a facsimile of his usual self, the mask he kept on to hide the madness I always knew was there.
​
“Even after you left, you continue to disappoint me at every turn: Cavorting about with primitives and predators far below your station, opening up that filthy excuse of a watering hole, so you could spend even MORE time with the mindless gutter trash that INFESTS this town?! Even when my expectations for you could not have been any lower, ALL you had to do…was STAY. AWAY Just look good for the ‘people’, continue on being the former ‘legend’ that everyone moron in this town believed you to be, and keep your noseless shout OUT of our business. But you couldn’t even do THAT, could you?! How I saw ANY potential in you in the first place continues to elude me.”
​
I didn’t respond, continuing to let him talk himself to death. Any moment now, David’s would break through that door, and I’d have my chance. I continued to just stare, only taking the occasional glance towards Teylim.
​
“Buuuut no matter. I’ll just have to start again. I’ll find a new backwater town, with just as neglectful management. I’ll find other downtrodden youths more than willing to stay loyal if it means a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. I’ll build it all up again. And you…well…maybe you’ll surprise me and survive long enough to see it.”
​
“No. It stops here. I won’t let you take advantage of anyone else.”
​
“Oh? What are you going to do? Shoot me with your primitive space ape gun? We BOTH know you won’t risk hitting HER.”
​
He lifted Teylim closer to him, using her as a shield. My paws began to shake.
​
“Now here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to stand by and watch as I take my leave. And if you try to stop me, I’ll not only reunite this wretch with her mate, but I’ll be sure to find their tainted SPAWN as well, and take extra time in coming up with a creative end for him. Who knows? He might make for a decent recruit after all.”
​
“Dohkar!”
​
“Teylim…”
​
My mind went from plan to plan, idea to idea, finding no solution that wouldn’t end with Teylim getting killed. Even if I adjusted my aim, he’d just activate the collar before I could pull the trigger. I was also out of time for stalling.
​
“Dohkar! I need…you…to promise me…”
​
My eyes focused back on Teylim. Trails of tears flowed down her cheeks as her teeth clenched. At that moment, I knew exactly what she’d say. This was it. These were Lohrek’s last moments, before Albiel killed him… He made me make a promise, too.
​
No. Not again.
​
“Promise me… Whatever happens…watch over my joeys… Michael… Tohba… Protect them…”
​
No. No. No. Not again. Please not again.
​
“I…I…”
​
“PLEASE, DOHKAR! They’re all I have… Please… Promise me…that you’ll protect them…”
​
Every last part of me shook and shivered. I couldn’t find words to express the horror I was feeling, watching the death of my best friend play in front of me again, almost verbatim. So instead, I said what I wish I could’ve said to Loh.
​
“Like they were my very own pups.”
​
She forced a pained smile as Albiel’s grip loosened for just a moment.
​
“Well isn’t that precious? A mother’s love truly does run eternal. …Perhaps THAT was the missing piece. How might YOU all have turned out if you’d had a mother as well. Food for thought-“
​
“GYYYYAAAARRRGH!!!!!”
​
Albiel’s speech was interrupted as the Yotul he was holding shrieked out, twisting her head to the side and clamping her jaws onto his arm, causing blue to spurt out from around her teeth.
​
“GAAAAAHHH!!! VICIOUS BEAST!!!”
​
I watched in shock as with one massive swing of his arm, he shook Teylim off and sent her slamming into the wall with a sickening slap.
​
“TEYLIM!!!!!”
​
PROTECT THE HERD!!!
​
I raised my weapon. While I could’ve ended him right then and there, my only concern was the remote in his paw that he was pointing in her direction.
​
BANG!!!
​
Another splatter of blue, another shriek of pain from Albiel, and the remote was sent, sparking and nonfunctional, to the ground.
​
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him make a break for it through the door, but my focus was entirely on Teylim. I slid down to the ground beside her and cradled her in my arms.
​
“Teylim! TEYLIM!!”
​
She was unresponsive. One of her legs had definitely been broken from the hit and while I could feel a pulse, it was weak
​
I turned on my ear piece and hoped it still worked.
​
“Medic!!! I need a medic in the Chief’s office! One soldier and one hostage critically injured!!! Medic!!!”
​
While I waited for a response, I went back to trying to rouse Teylim.
​
“Teylim! Wake up! Please!”
​
Still…nothing… She was getting weaker. I could feel it.
​
“Please, Teylim… You can’t leave us yet. We still need you. Your pups NEED you, you hear me? BOTH of them! Michael… Tohba… They need their mother. And…”
​
For the first time in a long time…I felt the old sting of tears build up in my eyes. They flowed down my face is thin streaks as I held one of the only friends I had left in my arms, pressing my head against hers.
​
“I need you, too… So please… Wake up…”
​
There was a moment of nothing but silence, before she took in a faint, raspy, gasp of air.
​
I reeled back in shock as her limbs finally moved, clinging onto me. Her chest convulsed as she coughed and sputtered, before finally, her eyes winced open, meeting mine.
​
“Doh..kar…?”
​
I couldn’t speak. My mind refused to create the right words for the relief I felt as I pulled her in, holding her close.
​
“Wow… Hehe… Never thought…I’d see the day YOU cried… HeheOH stars, it hurts to laugh…”
​
I pulled back and wiped at my face.
​
“I’m getting you out of here.”
​
Finally, right on queue, I heard multiple people enter the room. I turned and saw a pair of UN medics come in with a stretcher.
​
“We heard your request for a medic!”
​
“Here! Help her!”
​
“On it!”
​
As we got to work getting Teylim on the stretcher, I noticed there were only two.
​
“What about Davids?”
​
One of the medics gave me a sympathetic look before shaking his head.
​
Damnit…
​
Suddenly, I realized something. These medics… They weren’t ones that we’d left at the staging area…
​
“Wait. Aren’t you two supposed to still be at the bar?”
​
“We were needed to help care for the rescued patients. The staging area’s already being turned into a field hospital for all of them.”
​
I was…confused… We didn’t get to clearing out the facility yet. And as far as I knew, Tevis had already retreated back outside.
​
“What? But we didn’t-“
​
“That would be my handiwork, Dohkar.”
​
A voice crackled through the radio. It wasn’t Tevis, Mike, or anyone else I’d have expected to hear. It was…
​
“Ben?”
Memory Transcript Subject: Officer Bennic, Senior Extermination Officer Date:[Standardized Human Time] January 16, 2137
​
Madness…
​
Pointless, directionless madness…
​
I slowly made my way down the hall to just one of the many treatment rooms in the facility, my squad mates at my side, doing my best to not let what I saw in Chief’s office get to me.
​
Though, now that I thought about it, it made perfect sense. How willing he was to stand by in his code little room in the back of the building while the rest of us fought and died.
​
The perfect shields and distractions…
​
Don’t think… Just do… Follow orders…
​
We believed in The Guild. We believed in HIM. That’s how we were raised, after all. It’s how we all were. Albiel always DID prefer to recruit young. All the easier to mold into what he wanted.
​
Obedient little soldiers…just like me…
​
Don’t think… Just do… Follow orders…
​
I walked through the door. I remembered when we were shown these rooms the first time. “A necessary evil”, it was called. We didn’t like it, especially Dohkar. He was always stronger than us. Sometimes I wonder…
​
Don’t think… Just do… Follow orders…
​
There are two chairs in the room. The door to the rest of the facility, particularly the holding cells, had a line out the door of prisoners and patients. All waiting for the inevitable.
​
Don’t think… Just do… Follow orders…
​
The door was guarded. Two of the younger officers who’d been assigned this post for a while now. One remained focused, while the other constantly kept glancing at the rears of any female patient he could see. Even now, after we found out what he would do in his spare time, he never received punishment.
​
Don’t think… Just do… Follow orders…
​
I looked to the two patients already strapped to their chairs. In the left one, an elderly Venlil, a soldier if I remember right. He served this planet, and served it proudly, and paid the price with his eyesight. Is THIS what all those years of service has earned him?
​
Don’t think… Just do… Follow orders…
​
In the right, a Gojid female. She was only a pup when she was first brought here. She was adorned with two large burn scars. One that covered her entire forearm from a flamer burning her. The other wrapped around her neck, a permanent reminder of the collar that had been placed around it. What does a child do to deserve a life like this, I wonder.
​
Don’t think… Just do… Follow orders…
​
“Mr. Clem…?”
​
“It will be alright, child. I promise.”
​
“I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna get hurt again!”
​
The elder faces in my direction, his glassy eyes filled with nothing but hatred. I have a clue about who he is, but just to be sure…
​
“You’re Clem? You’re the one that helped Dohkar when he left The Guild, right?”
​
“Why are you doing this?’ What did we do?! You can’t just punish us without giving us a reason!”
​
If only he knew…
​
“This…isn’t a punishment… The Guild is under attack. Under direct orders by Extermination Chief Albiel, I am to oversee the scuttling of the facility, including the evacuation of staff, deletion of data…and termination of prisoners…”
​
The glassy eyes of the blind old man, glared white-hot daggers into my very being.
​
“You monsters! Dohkar really was right about you lot! You’re not protectors! You’re just murderers!”
​
He’s right…
​
Don’t think… Just do… Follow orders…
​
Those are my orders. While my fellow officers fight and die just to buy time, while my Chief, my father hides away in his office, making deals and planning HIS escape, I cover up what we should never have been doing in the first place.
​
Don’t think… Just do… Follow orders…
​
One of the doctors begins charging the machine. It whirs to life, sending the Gojid into hysterics. She knows what these chairs do, as do I…
​
Don’t think…
​
It’ll kill them…
​
Just do…
​
Just like it killed so many others before…
​
Follow orders…
​
…
​
Unfortunately…I don’t feel like following orders.
​
Without even NEEDING to think. I pull a sidearm from my holster, followed by my squad: Abra, Canuck, and Ento. My brothers. Among all the other officers in our branch, We were all recruited together, with Dohkar as our leader. When he left, we all stayed, but I did my best to fill his place.
​
So when I draw my weapon, the others do as well.
​
BANG!! BABANG!!! BANG!! BANG!!!
​
The doctor falls. The two guards fall. And the generator fueling the chairs sparks and dies. We unstrap the two from the chair and do our best to calm the patients.
​
“Wha-? What are you-?”
​
“For the first time in my life, doing my job. Now then, would an old soldier be willing to help me get these people organized and out of here?”
​
With more than a little hesitation, especially from the young Gojid girl, the two walked over to the other patients and began talking them down.
​
So, with me leading the way, letting the soldier and his cellmate ride in my back, we began to lead the line of patients toward the emergency exit, opening every cell along the way.
​
Don’t think… Just do…
​
It wasn’t easy. Many didn’t trust me, others were simply too out of it or just plain damaged to come out on their own, but with the coaxing of more of true or own, we’d add them to our long caravan.
​
There was only one we didn’t find…
​
Jerrik…
​
Memory Transcript Subject: Dohkar, Venlil Bartender Date:[Standardized Human Time] January 16, 2137
​
“Ben?”
​
“You’re clear, Dohkar. The patients are already at the staging area getting triaged and sorted by Canuck. The other UN soldiers here have already called for the medics and volunteers to come and help.”
​
I felt my heart warm as I heard Ben’s speaking. This wasn’t the old, beaten, Surulian still subservient to Albiel. This was my brother, my brother who is not truly seen for a long, long time. And he wasn’t alone.
​
“Canuck? Does that mean that Ento and Abra are there, too?”
​
“Copy that, commander!”
​
“Yeah…we’re here…I guess…”
​
Guys…
​
My brothers. My whole damn squad from training. My brothers who were taken with me. They were all there, helping how they could.
​
“How does it feel being on the right side again?”
​
“Like we’ve still got a LOT of work to do. And so do YOU. Go, Dohkar. We’ll handle things out here… Take. Him. Down…for all of us…”
​
…For all of us…
​
Protect the herd!
​
The signal cut out. I gave one last look to my friend on the stretcher. I didn’t need to look at the two medics.
​
“Tell me you have her.”
​
“We have her.”
​
Teylim gave me a weak smile and a nod.
​
“Go. Finish this.”
​
I turned, and ran. I ran as fast as my legs could carry me. And then, a familiar tune came to my mind. A promise I’d made the last time I left this wretched building.
​
A promise to burn everything my father built.
​
LORD, GIMME THAT FIRE!!!!
​
I ran.
​
LORD, GIMME THAT FIRE!!!!
​
I chased.
​
LORD, GIMME THAT FIRE!!!!
​
I raced to finally put his madness to an end.
​
BURN!!!! BURN!!!! BURN!!!!
​
Memory Transcript Subject: Patient J-902, Nevok Predator Disease Patient Date:[Standardized Human Time] January 16, 2137
​
I hid. I saw the others get let out and huddled together in a line. I knew the room they were being led to, so I hid.
​
I heard the roar of the predator through the speaker in my cell. I heard the screams of the guards. I heard the shots being fired.
​
My door opens. Many of the other ones opened, too. I peek around the doorway to make sure it’s safe. And it is.
​
**Nowhere is safe.**It’s so much brighter now. Now that I’m finally out of the cell. I can think clearly again. And with clarity, came pretty much everything I wished had stayed forgotten.
​
I failed. I couldn’t go through with it. And as punishment, I was locked away.
​
Father…
​
I fell to my knees and cried. Cried like a damn pup, just like I did when I begged him not to lock me in here.
​
Father…
​
I did EVERYTHING else right! I followed the training. I followed the beliefs. I did everything he told me to do! But still, he…
​
Father…
​
[Warning!: Anger Response Rising Steadily…]
​
I looked up. Above the cells, above the walkways, above all of this damned facility, was one window. HIS office…
​
Father…
​
“This way everyone! Stay together!”
​
I snap my attention towards a large group approaching my direction. I COULD go with them. I COULD go back outside…but…there’s something I have to do first.
​
As I make my way to the electroshock chamber, I spot the dead guards and doctor. I spot one of their weapons on the ground, and pick it up.
​
Just like my training, just as HE instructed me. The predator has been smoked out, fleeing from his hole out into the open. All that was left…
​
Was for someone to take the shot…
​
Next

It's mother's Day back in Canada and I'm thinking about mom today. I'm so sick though that I'll do a call tomorrow when I'm doing better. I tend to do poorly on phone calls when I'm not well. I woke up very ill this morning and my body did not want to cooperate at all. Who knew that biking a lot on a body trying to kick an illness might prolong said illness.
The rain indeed came and did not stop. It was pouring cats and dogs in the morning and the prospect of going outside in the rain while sick made me feel miserable. With my poor condition and the possibility of a thunderstorm during the day, we were in no condition to be going very far. We tried to extend our stay but the hotel was fully booked, our next best bet was to head up the road into the mountains and find a place there.
On my booking app, one hotel was listed at half it's usual price for some reason. We've stayed at a lot of livemax hotels and found them to at least be okay, so we figured it was safe to take the cheap option this time, which was $49. It was one of their onsen properties as well, and it looked like there was a train nearby if we wanted to get food and a bath in the next town over, which looked to be nicer. It was either that or pay another $100 for what would amount to a shelter from the rain, and in my addled state where sickness feels like a waste of time, a cheap hotel is a good way to convince me to stay put and rest. It was 20km away and the rain wasn't going to get any lighter, so we packed up, donned our rain gear, and set out for some breakfast.
A grocery store was near our hotel (which again was just a series of trailers in the parking lot of a casino), and we figured we could get something for breakfast there as nothing else was open on the way. Inside we found a store that was a bit of a time capsule. The music, the ambiance, even the too-cold air conditioning felt decades old. The aisles felt too large and there were large empty areas signalling that the store did not have enough business for it's size. The place was meticulously kept though, even if it was only one lonely cashier in the cavernous building. We found some hot coffee and had a few pastries while we talked about the economy of Japan and how the feeling here could relate to back home. Can anything be done with the general feeling of decline everywhere? Why were things so much better in Japan decades ago? Questions for economists, but not ones they necessarily have good answers for. I feel like many questions for economists are better suited for fortune tellers.
There were a couple of games in the grocery store which caught our eye, including a trio of games for kids (given the console was two feet off the ground), that were essentially slots. You pumped in coins to adjust your bet, then pressed a button to play a chance game, and if you won you got more coins. I have no idea how anyone thinks this kind of game is appropriate or ethical to have around children. No wonder this country has such a gambling problem.
The ride from Nikko to our hotel was calm and wet. The hill upwards was gentle enough that I didn't feel too exhausted, but I did feel like I was going to fall asleep on my bike if the coughing fits didn't take me down first. I really felt wretched today, the week and a half of being sick because I never took the downtime to get better is really catching up with me today. Make time for your body or your body will take it's time, I guess. The road followed a river in a steep gorge, the mountains rising up on either side. Everything was blanketed in thick trees, the slopes now too steep for most developments.
Nonetheless, little onsen towns were nestled into the cracks of the mountains here and there, but the decline of the area was impossible not to notice. While the odd resort was still shiny, it's clear the volume of travelers to the area has dwindled from lofty amounts many many years ago. This area felt harder hit than most we've been to, with half the buildings we saw being either abandoned or in a sorry state. Whole hotels empty, apartment blocks with the windows smashed in, shuttered storefronts. It's sad for the people who have called this area home for generations.
We got to our hotel without much of a plan, as I was too addled to think that far. We agreed that food was going to need to happen, and the onsen I wanted to see was in the town downhill from us. We decided the train was our best bet for parking our bikes while we waited to check in. The train station was nice, but looking at the departures board, the train only ran a handful of times per day, and we wouldn't get back till late in the evening. It also would cost us $30 each just to ride two stops there and back. Not going to work. Instead we went to one of the two places open during lunch.
The restaurant was cute with half a dozen tables and a dated but spotless interior. The ladies we saw clearly were a multigenerational family running the place, with a woman old enough that she couldn't stand up straight anymore still zooming around with tea and orders. Soaked, cold, and with nowhere to go, we brought our books and settled in to stay for awhile. The restaurant never got more than half full and we ordered several meals worth of food, drinks, and desserts, so we figured they wouldn't mind if we sat and quietly read our books. I got a yakiniku set meal and bryce got the karaage set, both were great but Bryce's karaage was especially good. We also got a cola float to share which was delightfully old fashioned but very tasty.
When it was finally time to check in at our hotel, my body was starting to act up. I think the cold and wet and tiredness was getting to me as some of my neurological issues flared up. Not a big deal, but had me a bit twitchy and in desperate need of a hot bath and rest. The hotel lobby was quite nice, but the rest of the place was as we expected; enormous, and falling apart, but working. Various walls and ceilings had water damage that was never going to be fixed, many many doors said "private" or "staff only" that looked to be old banquet halls. A lounge laid dark, never to have a singer again. We found a roof access, the roof patched many times by hand. An arcade with games that were at least 20 or 30 years old were still in working order, maintained as well as any other thing here. The private onsen was damaged beyond use, but the main public ones were functioning.
My onsen was in the basement, and the entrance area again had a huge lounge area that would never be used, and a bunch of other darkened areas that were curious but creeped me out. The bath was in a large room with tall windows and a big stone bath, a large rock wall being the main attraction. I spent some time soaking here till I watched some ladies walk out a different door. Monkeys were bumping on the windows, so I followed them where that went. It lead to three outdoor baths, one just a tub. The big bath overlooked the river and was quite lovely, clearly what was keeping this place afloat, so to speak. Again, really good value for $50 for the two of us.
After my bath, I got up and nearly passed out from the lack of blood pressure and immediately started feeling ill. I went back to the room, grabbed some water and got horizontal. The room is a rather spacious Japanese style room with tatami mats, but with soft beds. The AC works and we have a view of the river from the 6th floor. This place is great. Bryce had a great time soaking in his onsen, which also had outdoor baths and a sauna too. After he returned to the room we went down to the arcade to amuse ourselves before dinner.
As I mentioned the arcade contained some real antiques, pinball-ish games with carved wood channels, racing games with hand drawn art, slots that had real spinning wheels instead of just screens. Everything was also brutally difficult, also in keeping with the time period. Bryce got the high score on the alligator whack a mole game and also beat me 3 out of 3 on the drum game. Can't win em all.
We walked to the only other place in town for dinner, going into a creepy tunnel that went under the hotel. We eventually decided that the tunnel went straight to the kitchens and probably was used for deliveries at some point but now was full of junk and discarded kitchen equipment that was probably too difficult to get rid of. Every old or abandoned building we've seen is full to the brim with empty paint cans, old computers and dilapidated equipment. This stuff must cost a fortune to get rid of.
The restaurant we went to was another cute Japanese restaurant, this one with an older woman serving and a young man in the kitchen cooking. I got the house special udon and Bryce got karaage again. Maybe Bryce needs to branch out a bit. The udon meal was heavenly and wonderful on my sick body, lots of seafood, a hearty broth and chewy noodles. Easily the best udon I've ever had. We ordered extra karaage and a few drinks while we talked strategy for the next week of riding. Also, like the last place, we felt we could stay because they didn't have much business and we wanted to order more because of it. We stayed quite a while but nobody else came.
We decided to cut out a section of the north tour and head directly through the mountains to our port. We're feeling stressed about the end of the trip and want more leeway in case things go wrong and also more time in Hokkaido as we've heard good things. We'll miss out on Fukushima and Sendai and Morioka, but get to experience the internal mountain valleys of northern Japan. This feels like a decent move, as we've seen a lot of the coastal lowlands already and some highland adventures sounds good. Plus it gains us half a week in hokkaido which will allow us three or four days to prepare for our departure, which means lots of time to find gifts and other cool things to bring home.
Back in the hotel room, we're looking for a nice rest and an early start tomorrow. We have two options, a blistering 5 day tour with four 100km days, or a 7 day tour with 6 75km days. We're shooting for the latter. We'll attempt the big ride just after Sapporo. For now, I want to get healthy and enjoy the ride. Sleep tonight and tomorrow is a new day, hopefully I'll be healthy by then.

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

Hey all, I collected pokemon cards heavily as a kid up until the gym heroes and gym challenge sets when I started to lose interest and although I had a few of the neo cards, that was about as far as it went.
Cut to recently when I saw a few videos about the 151 set that was released last year. It has me very interested, but I am just wondering how feasible it would be to try and get a full set now, including all promos, variants, reverse holos and whatever else. What would be a rough ballpark figure that I could expect to outlay to get this set, and would I be better off buying the cards individually, buying a full or partial set outright or trying to source sealed products and getting the pulls randomly? Also, are there any Japanese exclusives for this set, and if so, how sought aftevaluable are they?
I do have an interest in the celebrations set, but I assume that because of its age, the price for a set would be pretty high.
Thanks

Hey all, I collected pokemon cards heavily as a kid up until the gym heroes and gym challenge sets when I started to lose interest and although I had a few of the neo cards, that was about as far as it went.
Cut to recently when I saw a few videos about the 151 set that was released last year. It has me very interested, but I am just wondering how feasible it would be to try and get a full set now, including all promos, variants, reverse holos and whatever else. What would be a rough ballpark figure that I could expect to outlay to get this set, and would I be better off buying the cards individually, buying a full or partial set outright or trying to source sealed products and getting the pulls randomly? Also, are there any Japanese exclusives for this set, and if so, how sought aftevaluable are they?
I do have an interest in the celebrations set, but I assume that because of its age, the price for a set would be pretty high.
Thanks

Hey all, I collected pokemon cards heavily as a kid up until the gym heroes and gym challenge sets when I started to lose interest and although I had a few of the neo cards, that was about as far as it went.
Cut to recently when I saw a few videos about the 151 set that was released last year. It has me very interested, but I am just wondering how feasible it would be to try and get a full set now, including all promos, variants, reverse holos and whatever else. What would be a rough ballpark figure that I could expect to outlay to get this set, and would I be better off buying the cards individually, buying a full or partial set outright or trying to source sealed products and getting the pulls randomly? Also, are there any Japanese exclusives for this set, and if so, how sought aftevaluable are they?
I do have an interest in the celebrations set, but I assume that because of its age, the price for a set would be pretty high.
Thanks

I’ve had a lot of adventures in my life.
I’ve traveled, made friends, seen sights, competed in sports, and participated in events.
Sometimes, following any of these endeavors, a small object would find itself in my possession. A knickknack, a totem, a doodad.
Maybe it was a collection of Mardi Gras beads from my trip to New Orleans. Or a t-shirt tossed by a cheerleader at a sporting event. A toy from a claw machine. A mixtape from a friend. A thank-you note. A cheap piece of junk from a tourist’s gift shop.
Whatever they were didn’t matter — what matters is that they were often a representation of whatever moment in time they came from.
I never threw these things away. I set them on my desk or on my shelves. When those spaces filled up, I bought two small storage containers. They’re filled to the brim and I’m currently filling a third.
Why keep the color-coordinated bandana a stranger gave me in the park during Pokemon Go’s heyday? Why hold onto the Save the Date from my high school friend who ended up getting divorced not two years later? What significance or use could I possibly have for those goofy White Elephant gifts my kickball team gave at the yearly Christmas party?
No purpose, no reason and there is none, respectively.
And yet I don’t want to let them go. You see, they are reminders of times and experiences — Keepsakes. Mementos. Souvenirs. In some ways, they’re a physical collection and documentation of my life.
It reminds me a little bit of this weird quirk I have when I play video games.
--
I likely dumped more than 500 hours across all my Skyrim save files. There was no other game, there needn’t be any other game and there still hasn’t been any other game since.
In my adulthood, I returned to one of its many definitive editions for one last victory lap. With my experience, memory and fully-formed adult brain, I approached the game methodologically, in an optimal order, carefully. I built my ideal character and crafted only what was needed — down to the last iron ingot. I explored, I experienced — I did every major and minor quest, making it my perfect playthrough.
One thing I love about Skyrim is the loot. Yes, there’s 20 million iron daggers and boring, inventory-cluttering useless items… but then there’s the special ones.
There’s the unique weapons at the end of each Daedric quest. The trinkets from the Thieves Guild. Spellbooks, statuettes and storybooks. The eerily-delivered note for the assassin’s questline. The robes of the king, the rings and necklaces of Jarls.
You know them — the items with one-of-a-kind names and designs that are specific to each of their quests.
You see, these items carry a story with them. How you stole for them or killed for them. Traveled, battled, talked, stealthed, lied, solved your way into their possession. They’re the game’s biggest treat.
That’s why, at the culmination of my final ever Skyrim playthrough, I bought a house in Whiterun and filled it with these objects.
Weapons and armors on the walls and on the racks, items and books placed carefully on shelves - but not just any weapons, armors, objects and books. Only the special ones. It was a house that told the story of all of my adventures.
I sat down in a chair next to Aela the Huntress in my castle, my throne room. I saved my game one final time.
--
For all of gaming’s swashbuckling adventures, magnificent worlds and large stretches of land to traverse, they don’t always give us too much to remember them by, do they?
I appreciate Skyrim so much for understanding the nature of the epic they were creating. The ability to fill your house with display cases, armor mannequins and weapon racks demonstrates the developer’s awareness of their playerbase and the scale of the adventures they were sending them on.
These are adventures to cherish, to tell tales of, to be remembered.
Will anyone else give me what Skyrim did?
…
The answer’s yes, actually.
It’s a fascinating yes, too — because not every keepsake system is cut from the same cloth. Games offer unique takes on the mechanic that energize it, give it new life and perspective and add layers of meaning to it in fresh ways.
And I’ve got plenty of examples.
--
In The Outer Worlds, special items you collected while out adventuring would be placed in specific locations throughout your ship, The Unreliable, upon return. These included things like:
• Posters• Signs• Various ISO items• Tossballs & Tossball cards• Golden bird statuettes• Many, many more
Sometimes these were stored by the game in your captain’s quarters, but other times, they’d appear in your squad’s quarters instead.
No matter where they got stored, these items were more than just junk. They were signature weapons of terrible villains whom you defeated, they were outlandish garb from flamboyant characters who painstakingly passed away to protect your life, they were motifs of resource-gouging corporations whom you shutdown for the good of cities and planets.
They were special, they were keepsakes. Their addition made The Unreliable feel alive and lived in, part of your own, unique journey, filled with the stories and tales of your adventure and — importantly and specifically to The Outer Worlds — your choices.
—
The second and third installments of the Mass Effect series contained model ships you could buy from vendors that would then go on display on desks or on racks in your spaceship, The Normandy.
These are a little different because you buy them, rather than slice somebody’s head off for them, but they still count.
What makes them still count here is twofold:
• Some model ships only become available after completing certain missions that actually involve the ship you’re buying a model of, so they still serve as a reminder and memento of specific accomplishments in this way
• If you transferred your save data through the games, models you collected in ME2 would appear automatically on The Normandy in ME3. Being able to carry souvenirs into a sequel is exceptional, and a feat I’ve not found any other game to match.
Mass Effect: Andromeda saw a return of this feature, too. You ended up re-gathering old ships of yore in this installment, however. Andromeda also featured a more traditional collectible-style search; these model ships were looted from various locations in the world.
The original trilogy used the model ships as landmarks for its major moments, to be remembered across the series, while Andromeda paid homage to the previous games and encouraged its players to explore its world more thoroughly.
—
In Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, building up your burgeoning young settlement of Ravensthorpe is a central gameplay mechanic — as you acquire more resources to build with, the size of the village grows both in length, width and inhabitants.
The game includes optional side quests that change those who wander your evolving home and hub in medieval England. They include:
• Capturing a stray cat• Saving a fox from a burning home• Befriending a fallen hunter’s wolf pet
In each instance, the living being will join your settlement — the cat will stay underneath Eivor’s seat in your longship, the fox will wander Ravensthorpe and the wolf will welcome you in your personal quarters, howling at your arrival.
You can interact and pet them whenever you like, playing a short animation displaying the affection between the two.
These three “collectibles” don’t feel like trinkets, but living, breathing additions to your home that give it joy and life, as well as keep you young.
—
Speaking of Norse culture, central to Biomutant is a form of Yggdrasil — the WorldTree.
Central to Biomutant’s story is saving the old, decaying and currently-being-eaten-by-giant-monsters WorldTree. And there are two impressive quests in the game that reflect back to the player their efforts in saving it.
One quest saves the tree from festering toxins below its roots — and the tree’s colors change from green to fluorescent white as a result.
Another quest by the name of Aurora has you activate monoliths around the map that direct energy to the WorldTree. The quest climaxes by having the tree give off a swirling, sparkling aura that hangs perpetually while you travel the world and complete more objectives.
It even matches your affinity — if you’re taking the side of love and justice, the aura is white, while if you play for the destruction of the planet, the aura will hang black.
What’s special about these to me is that they don’t do anything. They don’t get you any closer to saving the world or the tree, but they definitely did something important –
The WorldTree’s central location in the map and absolutely massive scale allow for it to be seen at all times from just about anywhere in Biomutant’s world. This means, after I had completed these two quests, the fruits of my labor were on gloriously beautiful display at all times.
Biomutant’s mementos aren’t keepsakes you can’t take with you when you leave the planet — they’re visual celebrations of your hard work, an ever-present reminder of your endeavors and care for a dying world.
—
More briefly, Cyberpunk 2077 allowed you to fill V’s apartment with keepsakes as well, featuring dream catchers, posters, paintings, action figures and more.
In Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance Ace Azzameen’s personal quarters would fill up with medals and displays as you progressed through the game.
In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, some of the most legendary Zelda equipment ever was available to the player, including the Sword of Six Sages, the Fierce Deity Sword, and the Biggorons Sword — all of which can be hung in display cases in Link’s home.
Meanwhile, Uncharted 4 greets players near its opening sequence with an attic filled with memorabilia and keepsakes that Nathan Drake himself has kept after all these years. It’s not us — the players — ourselves collecting and hoarding, but it was lovely to see Drake thinking along the same lines as us souvenir psychopaths.
—
I’ll end with gaming’s classic — Mario. The red-hatted Italian also did the keepsake thing in one of his most beloved installments.
Super Mario: Odyssey allowed you to decorate The Odyssey with stickers and trinkets from your escapades by spending purple coins you could collect while out adventuring on one of the game’s many worlds.
A vanilla Odyssey player’s ship might look the same as it did at the game’s start, but a completionist might have a slew of trinkets and décor, like:
• Peach’s Model Castle• Dinosaur models and trophies• Shiverian Nesting Dolls• A plush frog• Flowers and a watering can from Steam Gardens• Statues of Pauline, Jaxi, Jizo• A lamp and rock fragment of the moon
Hell, the game director himself sounds like he’s read this very article:

“But what about decorating the ship? There’s a shop that appears in many kingdoms where you can buy souvenirs and stickers using the purple coins you’ve gathered.
Collecting memories is one of the best parts of traveling, don’t you think?” –Kenta Motokura

The ability to make The Odyssey your own evolved the traditional fetch-quest nature of collectible gathering and drove the player to go that little bit of extra distance in exploring and engaging with the various kingdoms and mastering the game’s platforming.
--
Video game narratives and their accompanying worlds are monstrously large nowadays. As enjoyers of the medium, us gamers spend a lot of time in them.
Like, a lot.
In recognition of this, game developers have given gamers a number of distinct tools to document their triumphs and sagas — each with their own unique flavor of congratulations and commemoration.
For our enormous investment with huge worlds and long, winding quests, something tangible we can keep hold of provides value, meaning, memories. They make our journey — one which we have committed so much to — special, transcendent, our own.
They give us things no other entertainment medium can give.
So fuck photo mode. A picture isn’t worth a thousand words — my keepsakes are.
(A special thanks to the members of patientgamers for their contributions to this post that helped inform this essay with games I have and have not played.)

beat the game like a month ago and it ended up being my fav game ever. heres my quick ranking of all the bosses
29 - Yharnam Pthumerian Queen
I never fought this boss so idk how good it is
28 - Witch of Hemwick
fairly boring fight, it was cool to find at first but thats kind of the same thing for any soulsborne boss. its really easy to not aggro the mad ones so most of the time your just strolling around the boss room looking for some invisible guy while nothing is happening at all. also in my second playthrough of the game the witch did that bs move where she traps u in one place while the other mad ones start slashing u while u cant do nun which made me die for the first time against her (obv that made me hate her more). also for how boring the moveset is, the boss is way too long. Again just really boring fight.
rating : 3/10
27 - Merciless Watchers
they just put 3 aggressive guys with different weapons in one room that barely work in tandem at all. obv just some random chalice boss they threw in there
rating : 3/10
26 - Celestial Emissary
legit just witch of hemwick but a bit more intimidating😭. I didnt even know u were supposed to fight one of the celestial minions and just kept hitting everywhere around me until I damaged something lmao
rating : 4/10
25 - Beast Possessed Soul
fought this dude on a whim right before the end of the game cuz I just wanted to check out the chalice dungeons a bit. prolly wouldve been cooler if I fought him more earlier
rating : 5/10
24 - Watchdog of The old lords
another chalice dungeons boss that i just fought on a whim when I was checking out the chalice dungeons
rating : 5/10
23 - Living Failures
Like witch of hemwick this boss lasts way too long for how boring its moveset is but unlike witch of hemwick it doesnt have some bs move where it traps you, or some weird second fake-out phase or anything like that. the one move with the astroids was pretty cool ig and the visuals for the boss room was awesome especially when in contrast with the research hall so I'll give it that, but again its just another boring witch of hemwick type boss.
rating : 6/10
22 - Rom, The Vacuous Spider
Like Living Failures this boss is largely carried by its atmosphere and its placement in the game. aside from that its another boring witch of hemwick boss again, but nice visuals and boss room.
rating : 6/10
21 - Micolash
I like the design of the guy, he looks pretty cool with the cage over his head but thats kinda it. like everyone else has said ur kinda just playing tag with the guy until the final boss room where you start getting 2 shotted and having to start the whole thing over. honestly to make this boss better they shouldve just made it so that he stops to fight you whenever you catch him instead of having him still running away. other than that i dont really care bout him. I wore his cage thing in NG+ so thats cool ig
rating : 6/10
20 - Keeper of The Old Lords
another random chalice dungeon boss that I did on a whim
rating : 6/10
19 - Amygdala
really cool design and awesome introduction. the fight itself is pretty meh but I thought it was cool
rating : 6/10
18 - Undead Giant
real big glass cannon. like almsot all bloodborne bosses this guy had a cool design. I thought his slash moveset was pretty cool and with how little health he had, paired up with how much damage he did he really taught me to be patience (died a lot to him cuz he dies in like 10 hits but kept killing me in like 2 hits and I was greedy asf)
rating : 7/10
17 - Pthumerian Descendant
I hardly remember this guy, he was one of those chalice dungeon bosses that I fought on a whim very quickly at the end of the game. though I do remember him being a lot cooler than the other chalice dungeon bosses I fought so ight
rating : 7/10
16 - Darkbeast Paarl
really cool boss, awesome design. thats it
rating : 7/10
15 - One Reborn
ik this is a controversial placement for this boss but I have a huge personal liking to it. A lot of people hate this boss for its gimmicky shit but the reason why i like this boss is so much is purely for its insane design, intro scene, and chaotic fight. at the start of Bloodborne I was worried that the game was just gonna be the same gothic city-type atmosphere for the rest of my playthrough and that i was gonna get tired of it quickly but this boss really proved me wrong. honestly this boss and the whole blood moon cutscene after rom was what really hooked me into the game (but ofc Im not gonna give the one reborn that big of a rating cuz it still has gimmicky stuff)
rating : 7/10
14 - Vicar Amelia
awesome intro scene. works really well to intimidate u at the start of the game. classic beast fight ig
rating : 7/10
13 - Cleric Beast
really nice intro boss to the game. its really cool walking through a creepy city only filled with mad old men just to be greeted by a giant deer monster at the end of a bridge out of nowhere. nice at teaching you how to dodge and its also just fun to fight in general.
rating : 8/10
12 - Blood-Starved Beast
This fight was really fun and intense for me. really liked how fast-paced it was. I didnt like the whole poison thing it does to u in its second phase but other than that its just a really fun fast-paced fight that I enjoyed for both of my playthroughs
rating : 8/10
11 - Shadows Of Yharnam
fairly underrated boss tbh. I think this boss works really well with how you plan to beat it. The order you kill each of them can heavily effect how your fight with them ends up and really makes for some fun strategy making. the fight has a very dynamic and nice boss room that you can take huge advantage of during the boss and the varied moveset was also fun to learn. dont like how fast/aggresive both sword fighters are but other than that it was a great boss.
rating : 8/10
10 - Mergo's Wet Nurse
Awesome design and awesome introduction. The little baby lullaby that plays in the background for the whole fight really sets the eerie tone for the fight and that one move where she starts spawning clones and turns invisible was really stressful. cool slash moveset and cool fight.
rating : 8/10
9 - Moon Presence
The intro scene with the hunter looking at the moon as the moon presence rises in front of it is the best shot in the entire game. ik the fight itself is just another classic beast fight but I think I loved the moon presence more for its design, lore, and climax to the game. I dont like that move where it instantly puts u at 1 HP no matter what cuz thats kinda unfair but other than that cool fight. ig Im just really biased towards final bosses but idk it was just awesome
rating : 8/10
8 - Ebrietas
absolutely insane design. like this fight is just absolute chaos. this boss to me is just the pinnacle of bloodbornes whole cosmic horror tone in the whole game. the moveset is nice and her aggressiveness is cool but other than that I just love this boss for how absolutely crazy it is.
rating : 9/10
7 - Laurence The First Vicar
intro scene is cold asf and has awesome lore. the cleric beast design is awesome and the moveset is really varied. the second phase is almost impossible and the fire/lava spewing out of him for the whole fight makes for a really chaotic fight. really cool to stumble upon too. only thing stopping this from being a 10/10 is the crazy aoe
rating : 9/10
6 - Martyr Logarius
this fight is so cool. the projectile based first phase is slow but surprisingly hard to get a hit in with lots of constant side dodging and the second phase is very swift and satisfying to dodge in with how fast yet easy to figure out he is. awesome boss to end Cainhurst with and the only thing holding this boss from a 10/10 is the long runback
rating : 9/10
5 - Father Gascoigne
Great intro to bloodbornes quick paced combat and parrying. The lore behind this boss and the way they implement it into its gameplay easily makes this one of the games best bosses. the whole side quest with his daughter and the way u can actually use the music box on him is a great way to connect story and gameplay without it feeling interruptive and the fact you can actually find the girls mother's corpse in his boss room is an amazing touch. Love how aggressive the boss is yet how much rhythm it has to it making the fight difficult even after finding out the attack patterns (kinda forcing u to learn the parry).
rating : 10/10
4 - Lady Maria
It was hard to pick whether or not I liked this boss more than father g but I decided to go with this boss due to her great and quick moveset that feels even more satisfying to dodge (though I actually like father g's lore better than marias which i think is a hot take). Her 3 phases are very similar yet different enough to have to learn again making for a great way to see how much you've gradually learned from fighting her. Also even though I preferred father g's lore to her I still love how they implemented her lore into the fight with her desperately using blood arts (somethin she didnt like using) just to stop u from getting to the fishing hamlet. Just another great fun hunter fight and honestly the most "beautiful" fight in the game
rating : 10/10
3 - Gehrman, The First Hunter
Gehrman might be my fav character in bloodborne (besides myself). the boss room is my favorite in the entire game with the really graceful white flowers, the burning house, and the glaring moon in the background as you and gehrman have the craziest anime type fight ever. his varied moveset and the way he changes his weapons constantly throughout the fight with the added part that he keeps parrying you makes this the most intense hunter fight in the entire game for me. Not only that but the whole lore behind him and the reason why the two of you are even fighting in the first place really makes this one of my favorite bosses ever. Honestly I wish I could put this higher but the other 2 bosses were just slightly better to me. This boss definitely has potential to be the best in bloodborne tho
rating : 10/10
2 - Orphan Of Kos
Everything about this boss is just so tragic and scary. The intro scene is disgusting and greatly threatening when seeing how hard the area before it is paired up with all the fish praying to it like its their god or something (kinda is). The constant yelling and screaming, his horrifying design, and pure aggressiveness makes this by far the most nerve-racking boss in all of soulsborne Ive fought so far. The mother's corpse lying there as you and the orphan brutally fight eachother against the shore with the bright glaring moon contrasting with the gloomy sky and boats in the distance creates such a somber tone (along with the music that plays in his first phase). Not to mention the fact this is BY FAR the hardest fight in the entire game and honestly the only boss in the game to truly challenge my stamina and make me really master parrying (idk how but I parried him in his second phase like 3 times to beat him which might be the most impressive thing Ive ever done). Just overall the most intense fight Ive ever had in a game at all and completely deserving of a 10/10.
rating : 10/10
1 - Ludwig, The Holy Blade
PERFECT FIGHT, PERFECT OST, PERFECT DESIGN, PERFECT LORE, PERFECT ROOM, PERFECT INTRO, PERFECT MOVESET, PERFECT WEAPON, PERFECT DIFFICULTY, PERFECT HYPE, PERFECT EVERYTHING
The design is amazing, its one of the most crazy, and horrifying designs in any soulsborne game really making for a threatening first encounter when you find this boss. Not to mention the intro scene when the little red dude starts hyping up ludwig making him even more threatening to fight with how much that little red guy is scared of him. The relentless screaming and aggressiveness in his first phase really makes it feel like ur hunting down a true beast with how rampant this horse-demon guy is and how utterly monstrous he looks paired up with his moveset that consist of a lot of just stomping u, but right when you get that guy to half health u see one of the hardest cutscenes in any god damn game u have ever played. That same horse-demon-monster dude that kept screaming at u like a wild animal and viciously stomping on u starts speaking perfect english to his giant awesome blue shiny sword that came out of nowhere and all of a sudden ur not fighting a beast no more but a fucking giant hunter (ig this is a better hunter fight than gehrman if were counting it as one). All of a sudden u just start hearing the most insane ost u have ever heard for a soulsborne boss absolutely smashing ur ears as the horse-monster guy starts throwing giant magic flying slashes at ur player while ur still trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. Not only does his character completely change but the entire moveset and the boss as a whole changes as well making it so that you have to form up a completely new strategy making the boss consistently challenging for any build u make because when it comes to Ludwig, preparing for ONE typa fight isnt enough. Not only that but the difficulty is perfectly matched with the overall fights enjoyability. I think a huge problem with the soulsborne fandom is that they seem to think that harder=better when really u have to match the difficulty and enjoyability to really make a good souls fight. If a boss is too hard with a stale moveset than the boss will just get tiring after some time (midir for example even tho ik a lot of people love that boss) and if the boss is too easy with a varied moveset than u may not be able to enjoy the boss enough before beating it (gwyn for example). Ludwig, on the other hand has completely matched its difficulty with enjoyability. I think I beat Ludwig exactly when I had enough of him. if I had beat him earlier than I would've not had a enough time to really experience him but if he was harder than I wouldve gotten tired of him and start to like him less, but I got just enough of his amazing boss fight to really experience everything that guy had to offer. Sorry for rambling a lot I just really wanted to talk about Ludwig and how much I love that guy, easily the best boss in bloodborne and my fav boss in any game (tied with gael from ds3). I just realized i didnt even talk about his lore lmao
rating : 11/10
btw I dont think matching difficulty with enjoyability is the only way to make a good boss I just think thats one thing Ludwig excels at that no one talks about.
also this isnt meant to be some really genius review or anything I just want to share my quick ranking of bloodborne bosses with other bb fans so feel free to disagree

Most people avoid saying literally false things, especially if those could be audited, like making up facts or credentials. The reasons for this are both moral and pragmatic — being caught out looks really bad, and sustaining lies is quite hard, especially over time. Let’s call the habit of not saying things you know to be false ‘shallow honesty’.
Often when people are shallowly honest, they still choose what true things they say in a kind of locally act-consequentialist way, to try to bring about some outcome. Maybe something they want for themselves (e.g. convincing their friends to see a particular movie), or something they truly believe is good (e.g. causing their friend to vote for the candidate they think will be better for the country).
Either way, if you think someone is being merely shallowly honest, you can only shallowly trust them: you might be confident that they aren't literally lying, but you still have to do a bit of reverse engineering to figure out what they actually believe or intend.
This post is about an alternative: deep honesty, and the deep trust that can follow. Deep honesty is the opposite of managing the other party’s reactions for them. Deep honesty means explaining what you actually believe, rather than trying to persuade others of some course of action. Instead, you adopt a sincerely cooperative stance in choosing which information to share, and trust them to come to their own responses.
In this post, we've leaned into the things that seem good to us about deep honesty. Writing while being in touch with that makes it seem easier to convey the core idea. We've tried to outline what we see as disadvantages of deep honesty, but we're still probably a bit partial. We would love to see discussion of the idea, including critical takes (either that our concepts are not useful ones, or that this is less something to be emulated than we imply).
The rest of this post will be:

• Some examples of where deep and shallow honesty diverge
• Why and when you might want deep honesty
• Various disclaimers about what deep honesty is not
• A look at some difficult cases for deep honesty
• What deep honesty might look like in practice

Examples of shallow (versus deep) honesty

• Writing a very optimistic funding application which doesn’t mention your personal concerns about the project
  • As opposed to being upfront about what you think the weaknesses are
• Telling an official at border control that you’re visiting America to ‘see some friends’
  • Rather than explaining that you’re also going to some kind of philanthropically funded conference about AI risk
• Searching for and using whichever messaging makes audiences most concerned about AI risk
  • Instead of whatever best explains your concerns
• Saying that you totally disagree with the ideology of an extremist group
  • And not that they are actually right about some important controversial topics, in a way that doesn’t justify their actions
• Reassuring your manager about all the things that are going well and privately trying to fix all the problems before they grow
  • Instead of telling your manager what’s going wrong and giving them an opportunity to make an informed decision about what to do
• Rejecting someone from a programme with a note explaining that it was very competitive
  • Rather than explaining what you perceived to be their weaknesses and shortcomings for the role
• Telling yourself that you’re doing something for utilitarian reasons
  • Instead of acknowledging that you also have a pretty weird kludge of motivations which definitely includes being recognised and appreciated by your peers
• When a friend asks how you are, smoothly changing the topic because you don’t want them worrying about you
  • Rather than opening up about private difficulties, or even just giving a wry smile and saying “well enough” in such a way as to provide a trailhead for a conversation about those difficulties if they want to pursue it
• Sharing the fact that you have some frugal habits (like driving a Corolla), because you think they will make people think well of you
  • And not also mentioning that you frequently spend large amounts of money on luxuries you consider time-saving

Why deep honesty?

In all the above examples, it’s easy to see how deep honesty could go wrong — your boss thinks you’re a moron, your friends don’t care about your feelings, you have a weird existential crisis about whether you’re even a good person, and instead of going straight to a conference you get dragged off for half an hour of interrogation by government officials^.
But what if it went right? It seems like when deep honesty is well-received, it leads to better outcomes, often in ways you can’t foresee. This isn’t a trite or mystical claim: rather, there will always be information you’re lacking that other people have. When you’re deeply honest, you equip them to make best use of their private information as well as yours. Perhaps your manager knows of a clever workaround to the problems you have. Even when they can’t make special use of the information, deep honesty makes it easy for them to rely on your reports, and so strengthens the relationship.
There are good reasons to refrain from deep honesty: it is a risk, and sometimes a large one. In the case of admissions, usually when you reject someone from a programme, you have a pretty clear sense of why, and actually explaining that to the applicant could be very helpful. But as well as being time-consuming, telling someone why they didn’t meet the bar can provoke quite a negative reaction and sometimes even reprisal. Deep honesty is an act of trust in the recipient.
However, it’s also sometimes quite hard to realize how much you’re missing when you stick to shallow honesty, and is easy to overestimate how successfully you’re crafting your message. Shallow honesty involves some amount of optimization, and so it falls prey to all of optimization's classic failures.
To take the example of public messaging, particularly smart and capable people are especially likely to spot disingenuous sales pitches, and when they do, they have basically no reason to tell you that you seem manipulative to them, and so there’s no feedback loop. From their perspective, there’s a chance you might be provoked to switch to deeper honesty, but you also might just optimize more carefully. So you learn nothing, and you end up missing out on some of the best people without even noticing.
Shallow honesty works well enough in cases where, in some sense, the other person wants it. The border patrol official would be happy to accept that you're here to see friends and wave you through, without working their head around the subject of the conference. But in domains where people are actively trying to resist adversarial optimization, they can catch on pretty fast.
Indeed, people with experience running admissions rounds generally learn how to spot applications that are shallow, because so many people do it. Likewise with funding applications. It is very natural to want to put your best foot forward and pitch people on why you’re so shiny and polished and great, but often it is a mistake. Sometimes the person reading your application wants to understand what you’re actually like, and if you clearly only give them half the picture then they still have to figure out the other half, only now they’re much less certain.

What deep honesty is not

Having made the case for deep honesty, it’s worth laying out some pitfalls, both in the application, and in how you might interpret the concept.

It is not a universal stance

Deep honesty is not a property of a person that you need to adopt wholesale. It’s something you can do more or less of, at different times, in different domains.

It is not independent of the listener

The words which will help a young child to understand what’s going on will be different from the words which will help an expert. Deep honesty is attuned to the situation, and the audience.

It is not telling people everything

Deep honesty doesn’t mean you have to share every detail that might be relevant. Deep honesty is in touch with what the listener cares about, and is in touch with your and their rights to choose where to spend time communicating. If the cashier at the grocery store asks how you’re doing, it’s not deeply honest to give the same answer you’d give to a therapist — it’s just inappropriate.

It does not relieve you of a responsibility to be kind

Deep honesty means you don’t take responsibility for how others respond to your words. Your responsibility is to make your words good — speaking with truth, relevance, and kindness. Their responsibility is to act well given that. But blunt truths can be hurtful. It is often compatible with deep honesty to refrain from sharing things where it seems kinder to do so (although be honest with yourself about whether it would be a deeper kindness to share). And it’s of course important, if sharing something that might be difficult to hear, to think about how it can be delivered in a gentle way.

It is not incompatible with consequentialism

A pure act-consequentialist, choosing the words that they predict will have the best outcomes, might sometimes lie. Many consequentialists would reject that as naïve and demand at least shallow honesty as a side constraint.
However, this may still be too naïve. The winner’s curse is that whoever wins an auction is liable to have overestimated the value of the object. The same dynamic applies when you’re optimizing for what to say. You have noisy estimates of how good each option will be, and it’s likely that the one that looks best to you will be an overestimate — perhaps because it interacts with some kind of blindspot you have. If you’re optimizing under shallow honesty, you’re stuck with this problem. With deep honesty, you can hope that you may reveal useful information to people who don’t share your blindspots (even if you don’t know what that information is). And especially when you’re interacting with very competent people, you may not be so good at telling how they will receive any particular message.
So deep honesty as a heuristic for action for boundedly rational actors looks pretty good on consequentialist grounds. It’s very compatible with taking the low-hanging fruit of consequentialism — thinking through possible bad effects of communication, and taking steps to mitigate those. (Deep honesty also looks generally very good from non-consequentialist perspectives on ethics.)

Challenging cases for deep honesty

It’s not always the wise or moral choice to be deeply honest. Deep honesty is a risk, and it’s a bigger risk in some cases than others.
Even when you’re not being deeply honest about everything, it’s often worth remaining deeply honest at the meta level. Warn people that you’re biased and may argue for one side. Tell them that you’re simplifying things, or steering around a topic you don’t want to get into.

Large inferential gaps

Sometimes you have a very different worldview from your audience.
If you have a good understanding of their perspective (e.g. imagine explaining something to your own small child), you may be able to predict that they might draw inferences you’d consider inaccurate from things you share. It isn’t deeply honest to knowingly let them draw important false inferences, at least without warning them about this issue. But when bandwidth is limited, you may well not be able to bottom out all of the differences in perspective. In this case, deep honesty means improving their understanding of relevant topics in ways they’d endorse with moderately more context (you don’t get to assume they come to endorse your whole worldview). Sometimes this means (transparently) steering around a topic that’s more likely to cause inaccurate inferences; sometimes it means going out of your way to cancel possible implications.
Sometimes you don’t even know what inferences they might draw. Then it’s especially easy for attempts at communication to go wrong, and you might want to be correspondingly cautious about it. Deep honesty may take you into a zone of sharing things you might not otherwise share and are vulnerable. On the other hand, it’s hard to optimize in a shallowly honest way when you don’t understand the audience, so the unforeseen benefits of deep honesty can be especially helpful in these cases.

Audiences you don’t want to cooperate with

Sometimes people will want information so that they can cause harm, and it is reasonable to not help them. Sometimes you will meet people who actively want to twist your words, and it is reasonable to not give them ammunition.

Multiple audiences

It can be harder to be deeply honest when delivering a single message to multiple audiences that have different contexts and background assumptions. What’s most useful to one audience may not be most useful to another.
We can distinguish between active deep honesty, where you are trying to share whatever information the listener would most want (to reach an informed independent view), and passive deep honesty, where you’re at least not aiming to persuade the listener of something. With multiple audiences, you may only get to choose one to be actively deeply honest with in any moment, but you can always be passively deeply honest with all of them.
Sometimes you have some audiences you’d like to be deeply honest with, and others you wouldn’t. Now you have to make a judgment call about how much you value deep trust with the first group, versus how worried you are about the risks of deep honesty with the second.
Here’s a very rough sketch of the concepts we’re using

What being deeply honest might look like

Deep honesty is about empowering your listeners. In principle this could involve conscious optimization for what seems like it might be most useful for them. But as a practical matter, the best guide is often asking yourself, as you say something, “did it feel honest to say that?”. Anecdotally, it seems like this can lead to a qualitatively different mode of expression — where you don’t allow your communication to be steered by ulterior motives — and that some people are pretty good at intuiting when people are or aren’t in this mode. This is a very helpful skill to develop.
Deep honesty is often a bit scary, because you don’t know how others will react to it. This is why engaging in it can require something like faith, that striving after virtue will lead to good things, even if you’re not in a position to be able to say what those are.
Fortunately, although deep honesty has been described here as some kind of intuitive act of faith, it is still just an action you can take with consequences you can observe. So rather than diving in wholesale, you can just try to pay a bit more attention to where you’re already doing it or not doing it, whether it seems like others are doing it, and experiment with doing it a bit more in cases where that seems like it might work out.
Seriously, skipping to 100% deep honesty all the time would be a mistake, and also probably impossible. But it seems like maybe deep honesty is underrated right now.
So ask yourself more often, when thinking about how to communicate, “what is kind, true, and useful?” and “what is the heart of the matter?” rather than “what will have good effects?”. Take a moment to appreciate the people who seem to actually consistently say what they really believe, even if it means revealing that they're wrong or ignorant or have silly reasoning about something, and especially if it's not politically expedient..
Often when people are shallowly honest, they still choose what true things they say in a kind of locally act-consequentialist way, to try to bring about some outcome. Maybe something they want for themselves (e.g. convincing their friends to see a particular movie), or something they truly believe is good (e.g. causing their friend to vote for the candidate they think will be better for the country).
Either way, if you think someone is being merely shallowly honest, you can only shallowly trust them: you might be confident that they aren't literally lying, but you still have to do a bit of reverse engineering to figure out what they actually believe or intend.
This post is about an alternative: deep honesty, and the deep trust that can follow. Deep honesty is the opposite of managing the other party’s reactions for them. Deep honesty means explaining what you actually believe, rather than trying to persuade others of some course of action. Instead, you adopt a sincerely cooperative stance in choosing which information to share, and trust them to come to their own responses.
In this post, we've leaned into the things that seem good to us about deep honesty. Writing while being in touch with that makes it seem easier to convey the core idea. We've tried to outline what we see as disadvantages of deep honesty, but we're still probably a bit partial. We would love to see discussion of the idea, including critical takes (either that our concepts are not useful ones, or that this is less something to be emulated than we imply).
The rest of this post will be:

• Some examples of where deep and shallow honesty diverge
• Why and when you might want deep honesty
• Various disclaimers about what deep honesty is not
• A look at some difficult cases for deep honesty
• What deep honesty might look like in practice

Examples of shallow (versus deep) honesty

• Writing a very optimistic funding application which doesn’t mention your personal concerns about the project
  • As opposed to being upfront about what you think the weaknesses are
• Telling an official at border control that you’re visiting America to ‘see some friends’
  • Rather than explaining that you’re also going to some kind of philanthropically funded conference about AI risk
• Searching for and using whichever messaging makes audiences most concerned about AI risk
  • Instead of whatever best explains your concerns
• Saying that you totally disagree with the ideology of an extremist group
  • And not that they are actually right about some important controversial topics, in a way that doesn’t justify their actions
• Reassuring your manager about all the things that are going well and privately trying to fix all the problems before they grow
  • Instead of telling your manager what’s going wrong and giving them an opportunity to make an informed decision about what to do
• Rejecting someone from a programme with a note explaining that it was very competitive
  • Rather than explaining what you perceived to be their weaknesses and shortcomings for the role
• Telling yourself that you’re doing something for utilitarian reasons
  • Instead of acknowledging that you also have a pretty weird kludge of motivations which definitely includes being recognised and appreciated by your peers
• When a friend asks how you are, smoothly changing the topic because you don’t want them worrying about you
  • Rather than opening up about private difficulties, or even just giving a wry smile and saying “well enough” in such a way as to provide a trailhead for a conversation about those difficulties if they want to pursue it
• Sharing the fact that you have some frugal habits (like driving a Corolla), because you think they will make people think well of you
  • And not also mentioning that you frequently spend large amounts of money on luxuries you consider time-saving

Why deep honesty?

In all the above examples, it’s easy to see how deep honesty could go wrong — your boss thinks you’re a moron, your friends don’t care about your feelings, you have a weird existential crisis about whether you’re even a good person, and instead of going straight to a conference you get dragged off for half an hour of interrogation by government officials.
But what if it went right? It seems like when deep honesty is well-received, it leads to better outcomes, often in ways you can’t foresee. This isn’t a trite or mystical claim: rather, there will always be information you’re lacking that other people have. When you’re deeply honest, you equip them to make best use of their private information as well as yours. Perhaps your manager knows of a clever workaround to the problems you have. Even when they can’t make special use of the information, deep honesty makes it easy for them to rely on your reports, and so strengthens the relationship.
There are good reasons to refrain from deep honesty: it is a risk, and sometimes a large one. In the case of admissions, usually when you reject someone from a programme, you have a pretty clear sense of why, and actually explaining that to the applicant could be very helpful. But as well as being time-consuming, telling someone why they didn’t meet the bar can provoke quite a negative reaction and sometimes even reprisal. Deep honesty is an act of trust in the recipient.
However, it’s also sometimes quite hard to realize how much you’re missing when you stick to shallow honesty, and is easy to overestimate how successfully you’re crafting your message. Shallow honesty involves some amount of optimization, and so it falls prey to all of optimization's classic failures.
To take the example of public messaging, particularly smart and capable people are especially likely to spot disingenuous sales pitches, and when they do, they have basically no reason to tell you that you seem manipulative to them, and so there’s no feedback loop. From their perspective, there’s a chance you might be provoked to switch to deeper honesty, but you also might just optimize more carefully. So you learn nothing, and you end up missing out on some of the best people without even noticing.
Shallow honesty works well enough in cases where, in some sense, the other person wants it. The border patrol official would be happy to accept that you're here to see friends and wave you through, without working their head around the subject of the conference. But in domains where people are actively trying to resist adversarial optimization, they can catch on pretty fast.
Indeed, people with experience running admissions rounds generally learn how to spot applications that are shallow, because so many people do it. Likewise with funding applications. It is very natural to want to put your best foot forward and pitch people on why you’re so shiny and polished and great, but often it is a mistake. Sometimes the person reading your application wants to understand what you’re actually like, and if you clearly only give them half the picture then they still have to figure out the other half, only now they’re much less certain.

What deep honesty is not

Having made the case for deep honesty, it’s worth laying out some pitfalls, both in the application, and in how you might interpret the concept.

It is not a universal stance

Deep honesty is not a property of a person that you need to adopt wholesale. It’s something you can do more or less of, at different times, in different domains.

It is not independent of the listener

The words which will help a young child to understand what’s going on will be different from the words which will help an expert. Deep honesty is attuned to the situation, and the audience.

It is not telling people everything

Deep honesty doesn’t mean you have to share every detail that might be relevant. Deep honesty is in touch with what the listener cares about, and is in touch with your and their rights to choose where to spend time communicating. If the cashier at the grocery store asks how you’re doing, it’s not deeply honest to give the same answer you’d give to a therapist — it’s just inappropriate.

It does not relieve you of a responsibility to be kind

Deep honesty means you don’t take responsibility for how others respond to your words. Your responsibility is to make your words good — speaking with truth, relevance, and kindness. Their responsibility is to act well given that. But blunt truths can be hurtful. It is often compatible with deep honesty to refrain from sharing things where it seems kinder to do so (although be honest with yourself about whether it would be a deeper kindness to share). And it’s of course important, if sharing something that might be difficult to hear, to think about how it can be delivered in a gentle way.

It is not incompatible with consequentialism

A pure act-consequentialist, choosing the words that they predict will have the best outcomes, might sometimes lie. Many consequentialists would reject that as naïve and demand at least shallow honesty as a side constraint.
However, this may still be too naïve. The winner’s curse is that whoever wins an auction is liable to have overestimated the value of the object. The same dynamic applies when you’re optimizing for what to say. You have noisy estimates of how good each option will be, and it’s likely that the one that looks best to you will be an overestimate — perhaps because it interacts with some kind of blindspot you have. If you’re optimizing under shallow honesty, you’re stuck with this problem. With deep honesty, you can hope that you may reveal useful information to people who don’t share your blindspots (even if you don’t know what that information is). And especially when you’re interacting with very competent people, you may not be so good at telling how they will receive any particular message.
So deep honesty as a heuristic for action for boundedly rational actors looks pretty good on consequentialist grounds. It’s very compatible with taking the low-hanging fruit of consequentialism — thinking through possible bad effects of communication, and taking steps to mitigate those. (Deep honesty also looks generally very good from non-consequentialist perspectives on ethics.)

Challenging cases for deep honesty

It’s not always the wise or moral choice to be deeply honest. Deep honesty is a risk, and it’s a bigger risk in some cases than others.
Even when you’re not being deeply honest about everything, it’s often worth remaining deeply honest at the meta level. Warn people that you’re biased and may argue for one side. Tell them that you’re simplifying things, or steering around a topic you don’t want to get into.

Large inferential gaps

Sometimes you have a very different worldview from your audience.
If you have a good understanding of their perspective (e.g. imagine explaining something to your own small child), you may be able to predict that they might draw inferences you’d consider inaccurate from things you share. It isn’t deeply honest to knowingly let them draw important false inferences, at least without warning them about this issue. But when bandwidth is limited, you may well not be able to bottom out all of the differences in perspective. In this case, deep honesty means improving their understanding of relevant topics in ways they’d endorse with moderately more context (you don’t get to assume they come to endorse your whole worldview). Sometimes this means (transparently) steering around a topic that’s more likely to cause inaccurate inferences; sometimes it means going out of your way to cancel possible implications.
Sometimes you don’t even know what inferences they might draw. Then it’s especially easy for attempts at communication to go wrong, and you might want to be correspondingly cautious about it. Deep honesty may take you into a zone of sharing things you might not otherwise share and are vulnerable. On the other hand, it’s hard to optimize in a shallowly honest way when you don’t understand the audience, so the unforeseen benefits of deep honesty can be especially helpful in these cases.

Audiences you don’t want to cooperate with

Sometimes people will want information so that they can cause harm, and it is reasonable to not help them. Sometimes you will meet people who actively want to twist your words, and it is reasonable to not give them ammunition.

Multiple audiences

It can be harder to be deeply honest when delivering a single message to multiple audiences that have different contexts and background assumptions. What’s most useful to one audience may not be most useful to another.
We can distinguish between active deep honesty, where you are trying to share whatever information the listener would most want (to reach an informed independent view), and passive deep honesty, where you’re at least not aiming to persuade the listener of something. With multiple audiences, you may only get to choose one to be actively deeply honest with in any moment but you can always be passively deeply honest with all of them.
Sometimes you have some audiences you’d like to be deeply honest with, and others you wouldn’t. Now you have to make a judgment call about how much you value deep trust with the first group, versus how worried you are about the risks of deep honesty with the second.

It was exactly two weeks ago when my slight concerns evolved into genuine fear. I remember restlessly lying in bed, whimpering and crying, contemplating whom to blame for my senseless suffering. Despite the fact that it was my fourth consecutive night spent completely awake, I refused to fall asleep. Despite the fact that my body was literally breaking apart, I refused to fall asleep. Despite my itching eyes, despite my pulsing headache, despite my burning muscles, I refused to fall asleep.
The world seemed so incredibly cruel. I begged and pleaded, but nobody answered my calls. I felt like one of those spoiled kids in the supermarket, rolling around on the dirty floor. Only for me, there was no exhausted mother who would sooner or later cave in. My mother was destiny or God or whoever else chose to ignore my prayers.
I crashed back into my mattress, slowly descending into this trancelike state of consciousness, not quite awake but light-years away from actually drifting off. Until the sun let out its heinous laugh and reminded me that there was more pain to bear.
The next day was even worse. My vision was hazy. Points of light constantly lit up and disappeared again. The continuous sound of rustling leaves accompanied the noise of blabbering coworkers and concerned friends. Time flew by but remained still. Memories escaped my grasp like salmon in a roaming river. I was starving, dying, unable to reach for the food that sat right in front of my gaping maw.
Just let me sleep.
Day turned into night. And just like before, my soul refused to rest. I was at my wit's end. I felt death looming in the shadows and would have given everything to make the world come to an infinite halt. In a last desperate attempt, I decided to take drastic measures. If my body was unwilling to listen to me, I would force it to.
I took about eighty milligrams of doxepin and passed out shortly after.
The first things I noticed upon waking up were a raging headache and the cold air brushing against my skin. Still feeling drowsy and disoriented, I aimlessly walked through the unknown street I somehow woke up on. The millions of unanswered questions in my head slowly freed me from the pill's remaining chains. I distinctly remembered falling asleep on my couch. Yet, I ended up stumbling around a part of town that was more than ten miles away from my apartment.
During these moments of pure shame and confusion, the picturesque scenery in front of my eyes felt like utter hell. The fact that I apparently had no control over my body's actions struck me to my core. In a time where I believed to have peacefully slumbered off, I instead chose... chose to... chose to do... what exactly?
While waiting for the subway, a thought, as sharp as the blade of a guillotine, hovered over my head.
I could have killed someone today. I wouldn't even know.
When I came back, the sight that revealed itself upon opening the door seemed to confirm all of my darkest premonitions. Multiple vases and bowls lay shattered on the ground. My shelves and drawers were left opened and unorganized, cutlery and plates carelessly thrown onto the floor. Nothing stood where it once was placed. It looked like a tornado stormed through my home while I was gone. But a tiny part of me, carefully hidden away from logic and rationality, knew the real cause of the havoc.
It was me. I did that.
I frantically paced around my apartment, frightened of phenomena I couldn't comprehend. And again, this tiny but persistent whisper sounded:
I could have killed someone today. I wouldn't even know.
The second time I knocked myself out, I only really did it to soothe my paranoia-infested mind. I needed safety and control. I needed to know the extent of my damage. I needed to understand the being that mysteriously managed to hide from my memories.
I set up various video recordings and took my pills. In my last waking moments, I remember the sweat dripping down my hands and this deep sense of unease creeping up my spine. It was already too late.
As the view of my dirty gray carpet greeted me in the morning, a huge wave of relief washed over me. It was as if the sun learned to shine again, instantly covering my past incident in a different light. I didn't hurt people. I didn't kill people. I simply walked out of the house and somehow forgot about it.
I took a deep breath, believing at least one of my worries to have disappeared. When a stinging pain in my knuckles fired through my body and decimated my newfound hope. I let out a small wince of pain. Still feeling the high of my easement, I at first just stared at my bruised-up fingers as if they were mere hallucinations. Rows of sausages, maybe. Sausages, covered in blood.
This has to be a dream.
It was only after five or so motionless seconds had passed that the horror dared to truly sneak up on me. The weight of my realization hit me like a sledgehammer. I rushed towards my phone, my shaking fingers desperately searching for the recorded video, unable to look away from the mess that unfolded in front of me.
The recording started as soon as the tablets rolled down my throat. A worrisome expression remained on my face as I lay on the couch and drifted into sleep. Soon after that, a satisfied snore escaped my speakers. My initial angst transformed into a feeling of slight discomfort while I watched my own peaceful slumber. Almost bored, I half-heartedly followed the next uneventful twenty minutes.
Then, everything started changing all at once. Suddenly, the man... no, the thing in the video shot to its feet, stretching and wandering across the room. Trying to adjust to a life of thirty-three vertebrae and four extremities, the muscles in its suit of meat seemed tense and stuck in place. As it turned my home upside down, every single grunt, shake, and blink appeared unnatural and tiresome. Its gait eerily similar to a marionette's. My clone rummaged through the cupboard without any sort of fluency. If it moved, it moved rapidly. And if it didn't, it stopped for long periods of time, completely frozen and paralyzed. Its arms, tight like the branches of a tree, smashed up my fine china. A horrifying scream that sounded like a mix between the buzzing of bees and the bang of a nuclear explosion filled the narrow halls of my home.
"It looks like a spider trapped in a human body," I thought.
I was scared. Maybe more so than I ever had been before.
At 2:30 am, the individual that was supposedly me decided to slowly stride towards the door. To the quiet observer, it would appear as if I was trying to find my way across an active minefield. I chose to lift my legs high up into the air and put the entirety of my weight on my descending foot, flailing my arms around to keep my balance. The simple act of walking required meticulous concentration. Multiple times I fell flat on my face while attempting to take a step forward. It would have almost been funny if it weren't so tragically horrifying.
After a concerning amount of time, the humanoid printer on my screen reached its destination. When its hands grasped the key rack, it appeared unable to find what it was looking for.
Thank God, I remembered to hide my valuables.
The entity appeared confused, violently shaking the handle and pressing its body against the wooden barrier that separated it from the rest of the world. It needed to get out. No matter the cost. After thirty minutes of unsuccessful grunting and pushing, it decided to ball its hands up into fists and continuously punched at the door. There was no grace or technique in its strikes. Only raw unfiltered anger.
Fear turned into panic, while I quickly skipped through the rest of the video. It was just hour-long footage of myself banging at the gate. Never stopping. No matter the cost. At around 4 am, blood started splattering onto the walls. But I didn't stop. At around 6 am, splinters stuck to my fingers like porcupine quills, every strike further sinking them into my flesh. But I didn't stop. The constant rhythmic thump of my fists became an inevitable part of my life. But I didn't stop.
I could have killed someone. I wouldn't even know.
I couldn't bear to watch anymore. My hands still shaking, I closed the recording and looked up at the ceiling. The sound of joints crashing into timber echoed through my mind like vicious thunderbolts.
I don't know how long I remained in this trance, staring blankly into the air while anxiously trying to find fragments of the night inside my memories, when I finally stood up and went to the bathroom.
I have to see my face.
Upon inspecting my reflection, I felt the unexplainable need to vomit. The man in the mirror looked... strange, uncanny, almost AI-generated. I felt repulsed and sick. But what exactly was the problem? What about my eyes, nose, or ears was hideous enough to cause my legs to give out? I couldn't put it into words. Everything about me was wrong, and yet nothing was.
I immediately threw any and all of my pills away and vowed to never touch them again. I tried to distract myself from the inevitable fact that a deep and raw kind of terror persistently lingered in the air. Instead of facing the monster housed deep inside my pupils, I chose to bear the familiar agony of sleeplessness.
I thought that I could handle it. I thought the pains of insomnia would disappear over time. But they never truly did. These scattered days of slumber were enough to make me forget the horrors of fatigue. The raw reality of its effects hit me like a wrecking ball. I realized how puny pain becomes in mere memory and how humongous it appears when towering over you.
After three or four days, I thought I was gradually withering away. I longed for nothing more than the momentary liberation of sleep. Parts of my feeble soul constantly screamed and hammered at the walls of my abdomen.
All of this pain. All of this suffering. It could end. You just need to take your pills.
You just need to take your pills.
Every continuous day without rest made my problems appear smaller and smaller. Last night, while unbelievably sleep-deprived, they shrunk to the size of brittle snowflakes.
It was nothing but a bruised hand after all.
The third time felt decidedly different. I was slipping through different levels of consciousness, small shards and sequences of my dream appearing in front of my eyes like an infinite slideshow. In one of them, I was a vase, falling from the surface of the moon, gradually accelerating until becoming a glowing meteor of light. Inches before crashing into the surface, I was suddenly pulled back into reality.
Just for a second, the world seemed so painfully close to me. I sensed the blood dripping down my arm, the police sirens blaring in the distance, the sharp sting of urine shooting into my nostrils. And then there was this incoherent blend of colors around me. That's when I realized that I woke up while my head was in the middle of crashing towards the glass window, unable to stop the already created momentum. I would only be alert for the duration of a heartbeat, before my mind had to turn blank again. Knowing that the being inside of me would soon regain control, I tried to absorb everything in my immediate vicinity. The sign of the shop, only a blur in the corner of my eyes, forever burned itself into my memories.
"Ela's bakery."
The next time I regained authority over my body, just for the briefest of seconds, I thought I had landed in heaven. The street was bathed in a beautiful orange hue. The trees surrounding me shook their shiny green leaves around, and the subtle sound of chirping songbirds could be heard in the distance.
Then I dared to look up, and my blissful peace transformed into the soul-shattering realization that death was near. A boulder, about the size of a basketball, was inches away from crashing into my skull. My body moved on its own, leaping to the side and landing on the grassy field next to me. Moments after I jumped, the sharp hissing sound of the wind grazed my ears as the enormous rock crashed onto the ground. Unable to move, a scream escaped the deepest parts of my soul. I had enough. I couldn't continue any longer. Tears of frustration and relief simultaneously streamed down my face. After some time, they fused with the raw sensation of anger.
This thing tried to kill me.
When my eyes felt too tired to cry any longer and my vocal cords were hot and rigid, I stood up and examined my environment. My mind had only a few moments to adjust to the overwhelming nature of reality. As if the world had been anxiously waiting for my return, the waves of stimuli around me were immediately fighting for my attention.
I am outside again. I am alone. I almost died. My head feels like someone stuck a stake through it. There is an unbearable sour smell in the air. I almost died. My hands are streaked in dried-up blood. I almost died. My clothes are covered in dirt and grime. There is a corpse next to me.
There is a corpse next to me.
Anxiously trying to get my breath under control, I inspected the one thing my mind could focus on.
John Smith
01.01.1920 - 01.01.2020
I woke up in a local cemetery. Piles of dirt gathered besides an inconspicuous headstone. A casket, probably never thought to be opened again, lay before me like one half of a cracked eggshell. It presumably belonged to John Smith.
Even for a dead man, he looked incredibly thin and sick. A stature so small that he almost appeared childlike. Arms crossed. Face stuck in a constant frown. Hair and nails unnaturally long and discolored.
Inspecting his wrinkled face sent shivers down my spine. It felt like I was looking at something that merely pretended to be human.
I knew that this was my wrongdoing. This wasn't the anxiety speaking out of me anymore. It was obvious that whatever controlled my body chose to come here and used his bare hands to find this man. And before I could take over the reins, it heaved a boulder above its head and let go.
Not daring to stay there for even a single additional second, I dashed out of the cemetery and rushed back home. I had to find it, my one moment of clarity.
"Ela's bakery."
Faces, colors, worlds were passing by me like shadowy figures and shapes. The masses of people around me probably thought I was insane. Dirty and confused, the kind of man I would have scoffed at not too long ago.
When I recognized the shop's pink doors and gleaming welcome sign, I almost crashed into the teenage cashier standing in front of the fractured window.
"Hey," I shouted. "Please let me look at your security footage." I pointed at the tiny camera watching over the shop's entrance.
Not saying a word, he nervously looked me up and down.
"Uhh...are you...okay? You don't look too well." He answered with a touch of genuine concern.
My attention shifted towards the dark reflection on the window. Yes, I truly didn't look too well. A huge purple bruise stuck out of my forehead. My skin was covered in a million tiny cuts and scrapes. The delicate lines running like spiderwebs across the glass surface fractured my face into a million tiny pieces. The word "damage" was practically written all over me. The marker was permanent.
"Please... I'm begging you. I need to see this video."
As he led me to the computer, I once again waited for the world to show me sides of myself that never reached my consciousness. I couldn't sit still, my heart's thumping too fast for me to count. As my body finally appeared on the grainy footage, I was suddenly reminded of a thought that once sprung into my head when my mother died.
Everything changed, and life will never feel the same again.
The man in the recording had the same robotic walk and way of moving around. His long strides carried him in front of the bakery, where he waved his head in contemplation before violently smashing his face against the glass. A high-pitched explosion reverbated through the night. The faint sound of drunken screams soon followed.
I paused the video and rewound, frantically looking for the one frame that truly mattered.
Gotcha.
Just before a million transparent shards flew by my face, I saw the light fleeing back into my eyes. I recognized my panicked self for the fraction of a second until the explosive sound of the shattering window pulled me back into the ether. For a moment, it was me in that video. For a moment, the monster had to give up its power.
As if reminded of my pain, the wound on my forehead started throbbing again. It became impossible to think. I watched in horror as the man in the footage immediately got up to his feet and left the sight of the camera. The being returned to its old ways, slithering along the pavement, unfazed by the humongous swelling on its scalp.
The endless number of puzzle pieces in my head gradually assembled into a coherent image. I had found my truth.Whenever I passed out, this presence inside of me took over my body. But sooner or later, I would wake up. I would disrupt whatever it wanted to do in that grave. So hoping to remain in control forever, it tried to knock me out as soon as I awakened. It succeeded the first time. But the second time it sensed my return, it was too late, perhaps too preoccupied or simply too slow.
The desk in front of me was covered in a deep and oppressive fog. Nothing felt real because nothing was real. I was a humongous storm of questions, forced to accept the supernatural in its purest form.
"So that was you, huh?" a voice near my ear sounded.
I instantly bolted to my feet. The cashier looked at my trembling body and took a few steps back.
"Hey bro, I get it. Fuck the world. I'm not going to snitch, don't worry."
Knowing my airways have long abandoned me, I didn't say a word. I rushed out of the door and ran back home. His words spun around my head like a swarm of fireflies.
Fuck the world.
Upon reviewing the video on my phone, it confirmed what I basically already knew. As soon as I dozed off, something else awoke.When it failed to open the door, it instead decided to smash the window in my kitchen into pieces and crawled out.
I feel like all hope is lost. It is my fifth consecutive day spent awake. But sooner or later, I will be unable to resist the sweet lullabies of slumber. And what then? What will happen the next time I pass out? Will it try to make me stay unconscious forever? Will I ever wake up when I inevitably fall asleep again?

In case you don't know, "hard canon" are facts of the universe in the story it refers to.
In pokemon, for example, we always use Pokeballs. Games that don't are even noted for not using them (Good relationship with the pokemon, the Rangers, and a Mystery world with no Humans).
In Green Lantern, you need strong willpower to the titular ring. The situation of the MC, their society, etc., is secondary.
So, inspired by the post about "How was galar going through an energy crisis", here are some hard canon rules I'd like to see in the Pokemon Mainline games*:
1) Ethical uses of Pokemon in the line of Work and Everyday use
The main one that inspired me to do this post.
Whats the difference between using pokemon to carry your luggage (3rd gen intro) and making eletric types power up something (2nd gen Electrodes)?
Is there some kinda of "common sense", like oh its ok to ask your charmander to light up your bonefire, but making them work everyday on your BBQ business is bad?
Are there any PokeWork Laws about this, and do they vary region by region?
In the case of lets say, someone old that needs to be carried around, do they need a permit kinda like we have dogs for blind people in our world?
Would make N's ideology better to see this, even if they change region by region.
2) The actual extent of Pokemon's terraforming capabilities
I know many of the dex entries were not and are still not made with full on lore in mind, but why can't I use the powers of my pokemon to fix nature? Why can't I, or the PokeGovernament, catch 10 dittos and make them repopulate the Lapras population (kinda ties into point 1)?
While these may not have been as urgent when pokemon first came out, I'd say that tackling enviroment issues is a very hot topic today, and one that I'd love to see being fixed in a magical world. TPC even seems aware of this, with the whole Corsola/Galarian Corsola relation.
An easier fix would be to say that any extreme changes would be unmade by the native pokemon (such as Aggron protecting their trees, or Macargos raising their temperature if we use Ice and Water types to cool a hot region), which would also make Rangers even more valuable in the setting.
It would also lend itself to some story telling of the legendaries power, maybe having a Crystal Sequel where you need to find Suicune to purify waters that humans fucked up beyond natural recovery
3) Legendary "types"
God knows how undervalued legendaries have become with Pokemon Go, and the methods in every generation to get a dozen of them, shiny hunting or not.
Even if this is a necessity for new players to catch up (and even us older players, if we missed a game or two), it tends to devalue the magic of legendaries when I have 15 articuno in my box.
What I'd want is to know what is a Legendary because their species are rare, like the Ko/Miraidon in SV, or Unique types, like maybe the SwSh dogs.
This could even up for gym leaders and E4 members, either in main game or rematches, to have "rare" species, like say, the legendaries birds, who seem to be just rare, not unique.
Would even make writing the lore around them easier.
*Spinoffs are obviously excluded, to allow for more freedom in storytelling
These are just 3 examples I have on the top of my head, what are some you have?
EDIT: Just in case one does not know, this doesn't mean EVERY mainline game HAS to follow these rules. Its just that if they are broken in-universe, they'd have to be acknowledge by other characters, specially if they come from other regions. Like in our world, when different countries have different societal customs.

Below you will find a weekly reminder of our Rules and partial FAQ. It's definitely a long read, but it's worth your time, especially if you are new to the community, or dropping by as a result of a link you found elsewhere. We periodically revise our rules, this weekly notice will help keep you informed of any changes made.
NOTE: These rules are guidelines. Some moderation discretion is to be expected.

Community Rules

1. Kindness Matters

Advise, don't criticize.

• Post with empathy, thoughtfulness, and constructive commentary rather than judgment. Don't be an asshole.
• Name-calling, slurs (including gender or race based slurs), and insults towards other community members will not be tolerated. Do not attack others for their personally held values, custody situation, marital status, physical distance from stepkids, or economic status; or on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, or ethnicity.
• No name-calling toward children, including the above-mentioned insults or the term "skids", or terms such as "mini-wife" or "mini-husband."
• Comments advocating spanking or any mention of wanting to harm children are not allowed.
• This is a support sub, not a judgement sub, assholes are not tolerated. Comments with terms used in other subs to pass judgement on assholes will be removed.

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This is a support sub.

• Bickering, nitpicking, and thread derailment will not be tolerated and will be subject to removal at moderator discretion.
• Do not repeatedly badger a poster demanding answers, or refuse to acknowledge an answer that's already been given.
• Do not use sensitive issues from past posts (either from this sub or other subs) to attack another user, as we are all discussing vulnerable topics.
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3. Report, Don’t Rant

No backseat modding.

• If you see someone breaking the rules, report the post or comment to the mods rather than engaging them in an argument. Failure to do so may be subject to comment removal at moderator discretion.
• No meta posts complaining about rude comments, DMs, or general sub issues.
• If you think someone is a troll or previously banned user, either use the report function or message the mods to direct their attention to the issue.

4. No Naming & Shaming

No userpings or links.

• Tagging/pinging users or other subreddits in an attempt to bully, harass, or complain will not be tolerated. Do not tag other subs, ever.
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5. No Platitudes

Nobody knew what they were getting into.

• Comments like "You knew what you were getting into", "Love them, love their kids!", "They're a package deal!" and "You have to love them like your own!" will be removed.
• Comments suggesting that OP is not cut out for stepparenting will be removed at moderator discretion.
• Comments like "This is just a part of parenting, deal with it!" will be removed at moderator discretion.

6. No Trolling

We have zero tolerance for trolls.

• This is a support sub. Our subscribers do not have the time, nor inclination, to provide support to internet trolls. Posts that are suspected to be trolling attempts will be immediately removed, and the poster banned.
• Concern trolling, devil's advocating, gish-galloping, sealioning, and general asshattery are subject to immediate removal and banning without warning or notice.
• Any attempt to circumvent the ban by creating a new username will be reported to reddit admins and possibly result in account suspension.

7. No Personally Identifiable Information

Use discretion when posting.

• We highly recommend using a separate account for support subs to help prevent being doxxed. Do not post any information that may allow others to figure out your identity.
• Do not post photos of children, or any other photo that could be used to identify you or another user on the sub.
• Any image that contains a name or other identifying information should have the name or identifying information blurred out. This includes drawings, notes, and screenshots.
• Do not link to social media or any articles/blogs where you or another user on the sub is mentioned by name.

8. No More than 2 Posts per 24 hours

Use the daily threads.

• We are not a huge sub, but we are no longer a small sub. If you have multiple grievances to air, use the daily discussion threads instead of multiple posts.

9. Follow Reddiquette

Remember the human.

• Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life.
• Read it in full here.
• Downvoting is reserved for comments that don’t contribute, and shouldn't be used to indicate disagreement.
• If you believe someone is in violation of the subreddit rules, please either use the report function or message the mods to direct their attention to the issue.
• Suspected brigading will be reported to reddit admins.

10. No Porn, Spam, Blogs, or Research Studies/Surveys Without Mod Approval

Just don't.

• This is a SFW subreddit. Posting pornography will result in immediate post removal and permanent ban.
• Advertising on the subreddit (outside of Reddit's own advertising) is not allowed.
• No personal blog posts are allowed without express moderator permission.
• No advertising without prior mod approval.
• No asking for money/posting fundraisers/etc.
• For links to parenting research studies or surveys, please message the mods for permission before posting.

11. Disputes in Modmail Only

Don't argue with the mods on the sub.

• Any issues specifically related to how a mod is moderating should be addressed to the full moderating team via mod mail. This ensures that all mods are aware of any concerns and prevents disintegration of the topic thread at hand.
• This means to do not message or send chat requests to individual mods. All discussion and complaints about mod actions need to be done in mod mail ONLY. Failure to follow this rule can result in an immediate permanent ban.
• Comments in threads asking about mod decisions are subject to removal without notice.

12. Moderator Actions

We aren't kidding.

• Users are expected to know the rules before posting. If you are warned or banned for violating the rules, ignorance is not an excuse.
• Moderators will remove posts and comments and/or lock threads in accordance with the rules above. Typically this happens when threads have gone off-topic in a way that is not productive for the OP, or comments overall have become contentious or disrespectful.
• If a poster continues to argue or to willfully violate these rules, temporary and permanent ban procedures will be followed. Any attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban. User bans will not be discussed in the sub. Questions posted about user bans are subject to removal and the poster subject to warning/ban procedures. The mod team will not discuss a specific user ban with anyone other than the user involved.
• New accounts are subject to manual approval until they are no longer deemed "new" by the mod team. This helps to weed out trolls and ban evaders.
• We rely on Automoderator to scan for specific words and phrases that are not welcome here and notify the mod team to review the comment or post. This includes slurs of any type and platitudes such as "Love them as your own!"
• The mod team uses a combination of blacklisting and banning when dealing with trolls.
• We employ the use of a bot that automatically bans anyone who comments in subs that have historically harassed our users. If you are picked up by the bot for telling trolls to get fucked, reach out via mod mail and we'll get you sorted out.
• The rules above as well as ban procedures are considered guidelines only; some deviation may be necessary on a case by case basis and/or at the mod team's discretion.

13. Ban Procedure

These actions are at moderator discretion.

• Pornography will result in an automatic permanent ban.
• Extremely egregious content will result in an immediate permanent ban.
• You may receive a 7 or 30 day temporary ban for first and second rule violations, depending upon severity.
• Continued rule violations will result in a permanent ban.
• Willful attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban.
• We recognize the reddit site-wide rules of using alt names to get around bans and will ban those as well as report them to reddit admins.

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FAQ - About the Rules

What does Kindness Matters mean?

• Shortest version? Don't be an asshole. People come here for support and advice, they do not come here to be yelled at or told they are the reason everything is going sideways. There are ways to point out that someone may want to do some reflection on their own actions and reactions without being an asshole about it.
• The purpose of this subreddit is to provide support and a sense of belonging for struggling stepparents. We aren't here to pass judgement, but rather to offer support, empathy, and constructive commentary. That does not include "hard truths" or "tough love." Stepparents get enough of that in every other subreddit, we're not passing it out here. Be respectful.
• Remember, most people aren't going to come to a sub like this when everything is going great and everyone is getting along. People are coming here when they are down, when they are feeling defeated and stretched to the limit. Kicking someone when they are down is shitty behavior and we don't tolerate it.

What about being kind to the kids?

• "Won't somebody think of the children?" Pearl clutching isn't needed here. If you read the Kindness Matters rule closely, you will see that there is a clause in there about name calling children. We don't allow it. We also don't allow people rolling in telling OP that they feel sorry for their stepkids because OP is feeling overwhelmed and overloaded.
• If anyone is advocating slapping, spanking, or any other form of violence, report the comment immediately. We do not advocate violence towards children of any sort. The mod team does not advocate any sort of physical punishment at any time.
• Venting about behaviors is not the same as insulting the kids. However, if you see a post or comment where kids are being name called or dragged to the point of no return, use the report button. We try to catch the posts and remove them before they hit the sub, but we cannot see every comment without your help. Use the report button to bring problematic comments to our attention. Don't engage in a war of words on our subreddit.

Why is this sub such an echo chamber?

• Not allowing contributors to pile on and tell OP that they are a terrible human being who should never be around children does not equate to being an echo chamber. Many contributors here will offer OP suggestions to help them work through their resentments and frustrations, and the most egregious situations are called out. We simply ask that it be called out with respect.
• If you feel that a post is simply too much for you to handle without following the rules, move on to another post.
• If you believe that a post itself is crossing the rules report it. If the mod team has approved the post, it is because the mod team believes that the OP needs help from the community or needs a moment to vent and move on from their vent. That does not give you license to pile on disrespectfully. Unless it is proven that OP is a bot, assume that OP is a human being with real thoughts and feelings and has posted from a place of vulnerability.

Why can't I tell OP that they are an asshole?

• Because this isn't a judgement sub. We aren't AITA, we don't want to be AITA.
• Comments with terms like YTA, NTA, ESH, NAH will be removed.
• Don't start your posts with INFO either. We generally recognize that as a fishing attempt for more information to pass judgement on OP, and again, we are not a judgment sub.

But OP asked if they were an asshole?!

• Their post somehow got past our automoderator. Just use the report button. We will address it with OP.
• If you've asked if you are an asshole, a-hole, a*hole, a**hole, whatever, don't be surprised if your post is removed without warning. This isn't a judgment sub. If you want judgment, you know where to go.

What is a gendered slur?

• While it seems that everyone understands what racist slurs are, people struggle understanding the concept of gendered slurs. Generally speaking, we are talking about derogatory nouns or verbs that are used to negatively describe people or situations based on gendered terms.
• We've gone back and forth on this a few times, and the truth is, we get it, it's your safe space and you want to be able to vent about BM/BD how you want to vent about them, without us telling you how to vent about them. Fair enough. Vent away. What we are going to stick to here how people are referring to other users and to stepchildren.
• Examples that are not allowed:
  • "My SD is such a little bitch."
  • "She dresses/acts like a slut."
  • "My SS acts like a pussy."
  • "My SS is such a beta male."
  • "You are all fucking whores."
  • "Any dude who is raising some sluts kids is a cuck!"
  • "Little Lord Fauntleroy over here thinking he runs the house!"
  • "You're just the bangnanny, get used to it."
• Don't call users here names, don't call stepchildren names.
• Masking the term with asterisks or other neat little tricks might get you around the bot, but if we see it, we're removing it and quite possibly giving you a time out. The intended word is still there and you deliberately tried to skate the rule.
• As there is not enough space to list every term that is offensive and does not belong, nor every situation in which term or phrase may be allowable in context, this rule is enforced based on moderator discretion.

Seriously? You are the language police now?

• We're here to talk about stepparenting. And we would like for that to happen in a respectful way. Attacking each other doesn't help. Belittling stepchildren draws in trolls who don't understand your frustration, all they see is an evil stepmonster talking shit on the internet about a poor, innocent baby. Yes, even if that "poor, innocent baby" just robbed you blind and set fire to the house on their way out the door. That's just how it goes.
• We are aware that this is a relatively new rule and a lot of older posts and comments contain a lot of problematic language, including some from mods themselves. We are growing and evolving, and rules change as the sub grows and evolves.

What does No Drama really mean?

• Pretty much what it says, do not bring drama from other subs into this sub. Do not engage in vote brigades. Do not try to incite other subscribers to riot in a different sub. Don't follow posters into this sub from other subs to continue to harass them. Do not badger someone or derail threads. Do not harass community members because you don't agree with them. There's enough drama in the daily lives of subscribers, more isn't needed.

What is thread derailment?

• When a comment chain has devolved to the point where all you are doing is arguing back and forth with someone about the same thing over and over again, you have derailed the thread. Also known as bickering. It's what children do. We assume if people are in a stepparent role they are adults. We expect you to act like it.
• If you aren't a stepparent, or in a stepparenting role, consider that perhaps this subreddit isn't for you. If you want to participate, do so with respect. Thread derailment, arguing, bickering, and nitpicking are not allowed.

But what if they didn't answer my question?

• No one has to answer your questions. This is a support sub, not an inquisition. Jumping on a bandwagon with "OP is evading the question" in a 20 comment long chain is the epitome of thread derailment. You'll find more information about trolling below and how this might be considered such.

Why am I being silenced? I'm just asking for a back and forth!

• Thread derailment, badgering, and nitpicking are considered harassment. Continued harassment of either community members or mods will get you banned.

Why can't I look at someone's post history and comment about it?

• No mod in the history of this sub has ever once said post histories are forbidden. What we do frown upon is using someone's post history to attack, belittle, or otherwise harass someone.
• Example Post: "My stepkid's mom really hates me. How can I make this better?"
  • Okay: "Based on the timeline and your post history, it looks like this may have started as an affair. Unfortunately there's going to be outstanding issues for a long time due to that. Try focusing on yourself and how you can move forward without worrying about how someone else feels about you."
  • Not Okay: "Holy shit! You were the OW! What the hell do you expect, homewrecker?!"
• Example Post: "I am completely overloaded and feeling very down about myself."
  • Okay: "In your post history you mentioned that your spouse wasn't really helping around the house. Has that changed at all?"
  • Not Okay: "LOL, you already got the answers you need in your post on relationships. You are stupid for sticking with your lazy spouse."

Why can't we crosspost stuff to other subs?

• We can't stop you from doing so. The problem isn't that something has been crossposted, it's when the community that it's been crossposted to feels the need to come over here and harass OP. When we see that happening, we lock the post and start passing out bans. If you did the crossposting, you'll be banned. If you participated in the brigading, you'll be banned.

What if it's my own post?

• Again, we can't stop you from doing so. We prefer that you don't technically crosspost, but rather just copy and paste your post. Why? Because inevitably the above will happen. Redditors from other subs will follow you back to /stepparents and start attacking users here. It just happens.

What is "brigading"?

• Reddit defines vote manipulation and brigading as follows:
• Using multiple accounts, voting services, or any other software to increase or decrease vote scores.
• Asking people to vote up or down certain posts, either on Reddit itself or through social networks, messaging, etc. for personal gain.
• Forming or joining a group that votes together, either on a specific post, a user's posts, posts from a domain, etc.
• We, along with pretty much every other subreddit that has ever had to deal with this nonsense, further define brigading as this: You saw a post on another sub that linked to our sub either via a link in a comment or a crosspost. It was basically saying something along the lines of "OMG, check out these assholes over on /stepparents! They literally hate all their stepkids!" And then you and your friends come over and start hammering on OP and telling OP how much they suck. Congrats, you have just participated in a brigade.

What is this whole Report, Don't Rant thing about?

• If you see a post or comment that breaks the rules, instead of engaging, report it. When you report it, it sends notification to the mod team. We will act on it where appropriate. Engaging with bad faith users may result in your comments being removed. If you repeatedly do so, you may end up being banned.

What if I see an obvious troll?

• Report it.

What if they are being really mean in comments?

• Report it.

What if they are harassing me in private messages?

• Step 1: Report them to admins. You can report harassment to reddit by using this link or send a DM to reddit admins. Include the link to the DM, admins can see your inbox and providing a direct link is helpful for them to weed out bad actors.
• Step 2: Block the person so they cannot directly contact you again.
• Step 3: Send us a mod mail and let the mod team know. Tell us who they are and what they said, send us a screenshot if you can - admins can see your DMs, mods can't. We'll take action where necessary by banning from the sub if they aren't already banned.

What do you mean by No Naming & Shaming?

• Just as we prefer to not be linked to or crossposted from, we do not allow linking to or calling out other subs by name. If you see something you want to share, say it's a hot post that has hit the front page and a stepparent is being absolutely flayed, just refer to it as "that hot post that hit the front page." If you want to complain about other places in general, "other parenting/advice/judgement subs" will suffice. Absolutely under no circumstances should you link to anywhere else.

I can't link to other subs?

• Do not directly link to another sub. (e.g.: "/insertsubnamehere is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")
• Do not name other subs. (e.g.: "I won't link to it directly, but insertsubnamehere is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")
• Do not abbreviate other subs. (e.g.: "I know that ISNH is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")

I can't ping other users?

• Do not summon another user with a username ping/tag. (e.g.: "insertusernamehere was being an asshole.")
• If you are agreeing with someone, it is okay to link to them. (e.g.: "I agree with insertusernamehere, you need to take a couple of steps back and reflect on this.")

What does No Platitudes mean?

• Sanctimonious, overused clichés that grossly oversimplify the stepparenting experience are neither wanted nor allowed here. We have all heard it a thousand times before, we don't need to hear it again. It's not nearly as insightful and wise as some would like to think.

Why don't you people understand it's a package deal?

• Any comment that suggests that OP should have known what they were getting involved with, or that they needed to understand that the kids were part of some package they needed to accept before signing up for marriage is subject to immediate removal.
• This is one of the most insensitive things you can say to a stepparent. Most stepparents were aware of the children, but they were probably not aware of all of the family dynamics.

Why can't you just love them like they are your own?

• Demanding that a stranger you do not know love children that are not biologically theirs as if they were theirs can be incredibly damaging to someone who is already in a vulnerable situation. Any comment that falls along these lines will be removed.

What do you mean by No Trolling? I was just...

• No means no. No trolling. No pretending to be a stepparent and then whipping out the Greatest Hits Bingo Card of The Worst Stepparent in the History of Stepparents. We see you. We've seen you a thousand times.

What does "concern trolling", "gish-galloping", and "sealioning" have to do with stepparenting? This isn't a debate sub, why are you using debate terms?

• That's absolutely right, this isn't a debate sub. And yet, here we are, day after day, having to defend ourselves against this sort of thing. So, enough. No more. Usage of any of these things will get you banned.

What is "Concern Trolling?"

• A concern troll is someone who disingenuously visits sites of an opposing ideology to disrupt conversation by offering unwanted advice on how to solve problems which do not really exist.
  • Example Post: OP expresses concern that she will feel, and possibly act, differently towards her stepchildren after her husband decides that no, he doesn't want anymore children after all.
  • Example Concern Troll pulled from actual mod mail after their comment was removed: "Possible child abuse claims need to be sorted out well before whatever empathy you believe the OP was looking for."

What is a "Devil's Advocate"?

• "I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but have you considered that maybe BM is just really tired and needs a break, too?" BM has dozens of different mom based subs alone on reddit she can complain on, this sub is for stepparents. The stepparent doesn't need to consider that maybe BM is just really tired and needs a break.

"Gish-galloping?" What does that even mean?

• The Gish Gallop is the fallacious debate tactic of drowning your opponent in a flood of individually-weak arguments in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument collection without great effort. The Gish Gallop is a conveyor belt-fed version of the on the spot fallacy, as it's unreasonable for anyone to have a well-composed answer immediately available to every argument present in the Gallop.

And "sealioning?" What's that?

• Sealioning involves jumping into a conversation with endless polite, reasonable questions and demands for answers, usually of entry-level topics far below the actual conversation (e.g. "please prove sexism exists"). This tactic differs little from harassment; instead of discussion, the point is to derail discussion, receive criticism (for their ignorance) so as to look like a victim, or to make someone feel overwhelmed and quit talking.

Who gets to define what is considered asshattery?

• The mod team, of course! If we feel that comments are out of line, are trolling, are leading up to a fight or "just asking questions", we are going to remove them and most likely ban the offender.

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FAQ - Sub Questions

Posting Guidelines for Stepparents

• Body text is required, we suggest you use line breaks between paragraphs as a wall of text is difficult to read. Posts that have only a title are likely to be removed. Instead of using names (even fictitious ones), try to use the sub acronyms. It helps our users to follow along if you use the acronyms and not names.
• Assign a post flair that accurately describes what your post is about and what you are seeking. If you are posting an update from a previous post, include a link to that post.
• Flairs are applied to posts to determine what a person is looking for. When submitting a new post, you should choose a flair that specifies if you are looking for advice, support, etc. The following link flair is available and is color coded with side bar links so that you can search by flair:
  • Advice - For when you are specifically asking for advice or help.
  • Announcement - Mod Use Only, for subreddit announcements.
  • Daily (Formerly TTP) - Mod Use Only, for our daily discussion threads.
  • Discussion - A little advice, a little "How does your family handle this?"
  • JustBMThings - Pretty sure this is self explanatory!
  • Legal - Asking for legal advice? Tag it with this!
  • Miscellany - Just a sort of off topic thing? Use this tag.
  • Resource - Sharing a good resource or asking for one? This is the tag you need!
  • Support - For those days when you want nothing but a good old fashioned cry and some community love.
  • Update - Updating us on something that you posted about previously? Use this one!
  • Vent - We all need to vent sometimes. Respect the tag as a vent. This isn't how OP talks all day every day.
  • Win! - Celebrate those wins with us with this tag!
  • Megathread - Mod Use Only, for large mega threads (typically around major calendar events.)

Posting Guidelines for Bioparents

• Stepparents is a support community for stepparents, by stepparents. As bioparents, you may want to have more insight into how the stepparent in your life feels or thinks. You may have questions on how to ease the transition for your partner. However, please keep in mind that this community was not created for you. It was created for your partner or your ex's partner. If you are seeking support on how to deal with a stepparent, there are other subs more suited for your situation and your post is subject to removal.
• There are some posts from bioparents we will accept:
  • Seeking advice on how to support your partner as they navigate stepparenting
  • Seeking resources to help you better support your partner
  • Seeking resources for your partner
• There are some posts from bioparents we will not accept:
  • Complaints about how the stepparent is too involved in your kids lives
  • Vents about how the stepparent is not involved enough in your kids lives
  • "Cautionary tales" advising stepparents to back off
  • Seeking advice on how to tell the stepparent to back off
  • The Do's and Dont's of Stepparenting
  • How your kid's stepmom is literally The Worst
• Comments from bioparents that are helpful and supportive are welcome and appreciated. Comments from bioparents that are not helpful or supportive are not welcome and subject to removal. There are several other subs that may meet the needs of bioparents better than we can. We recommend /coparenting, /parenting, /parents, /blendedfamilies, and /singleparents as starting points.

Guidelines for Stepkids

• At this time, we do not generally accept posts from stepkids. Comments from stepkids that are helpful and supportive are welcome and appreciated. Comments from stepkids that are not helpful or supportive are not welcome and subject to removal. If you are a stepkid seeking support, we highly recommend /stepkids. It is a very supportive community specifically for stepkids. We also recommend /blendedfamilies as another potential group for support.

What the heck are all these acronyms? I'm confused!

• Check out the Common Acronyms wiki page. We try to keep this updated as new terms are introduced to the sub.

Why aren't my posts or comments showing up?

• New posters and accounts go through a waiting period before their posts will show in the sub and the comments on posts automatically. During the new account approval period the mod team will check posts to be sure you aren't attempting to circumvent a ban with a shiny new account. Please be patient while the timer runs down on your "new" status and the mod team approves your posts and responses.

Why was my comment removed?

• Comments are removed when they do not follow the rules of the sub. These rules are published in several places for your reading pleasure.
• Comments are removed at moderator discretion. In some cases your comment may be removed while another remains up. If you find this to be the case, and you believe the comment to be violating the rules, instead of arguing with mods or demanding they remove the additional comments, just report it.

This comment/post is really offensive! Why is it still up?

• All moderators are volunteers and have busy real lives. Sometimes things get past us. The best thing you can do is report anything you find offensive or inflammatory. It's the quickest and most reliable way of alerting us to an issue.

I've received a hurtful/unwanted PM from someone about my recent post. What should I do?

• If you receive an unwanted/hurtful PM from a name you don't recognize, please report it to Reddit Admins using our handy pre-populated form. Be sure to include the permalink to the message. We've been dealing with a few unhappy folks who like to attack stepparents, and reporting it to the admins is the only way to make it stop.

What are the general moderator guidelines?

• Users are expected to know the rules before posting. If you are warned or banned for violating the rules, ignorance is not an excuse.
• Moderators will remove posts and comments and/or lock threads in accordance with the rules above. Typically this happens when threads have gone off-topic in a way that is not productive for the OP, or comments overall have become contentious or disrespectful.
• If a poster continues to argue or to willfully violate these rules, temporary and permanent ban procedures will be followed. Any attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban. User bans will not be discussed in the sub. Questions posted about user bans are subject to removal and the poster subject to warning/ban procedures. The mod team will not discuss a specific user ban with anyone other than the user involved.
• New accounts are subject to manual approval until they are no longer deemed "new" by the mod team. This helps to weed out trolls and ban evaders.
• We rely on Automoderator to scan for specific words and phrases that are not welcome here and notify the mod team to review the comment or post. This includes slurs of any type and platitudes such as "Love them as your own!"
• The mod team uses a combination of blacklisting and banning when dealing with trolls.
• We employ the use of a bot that automatically bans anyone who comments in subs that have historically harassed our users. If you are picked up by the bot for telling trolls to get fucked, reach out via mod mail and we'll get you sorted out.
• The rules above as well as ban procedures are considered guidelines only; some deviation may be necessary on a case by case basis and/or at the mod team's discretion.

I've been wrongly banned/Why can't I comment here?

• Due to an influx of harassment from users with specific user histories, we have employed a user history ban bot as described above. If you think this has affected you and wish to appeal, please message the mods.

Why was I banned without warning?

• There are numerous reasons that the mod team might opt to move perm banning without warning. Message the moderators if you have specific questions.