My question is would you recommend getting a new door or let the shop do the best they can with the original? Door won’t close properly. And speaker sounds like it’s rattling. The tie rod on the driver side is broken and I don’t know what other problems come with it. Also now the engine won’t start and only enough for me to put it in neutral. What furthers problems should I be looking at? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

I have a real life adult corporate job and need to be start acting like it instead of Gayloring on the clock, but I cannot stop thinking about this topic.

Foundations Of "The Man You Script" Theory:

My theory is that the manuscript is actually referring to “the man you script.” To me, this means the storylines that Taylor writes in her songs are (at least sometimes) driven exclusively by fans’ theories and delulu fantasies. It’s the man (men) they script that she writes about. One thing about Taylor is, she gives the people what they want.
I think sometimes the songs about the man the fans script are pure parody songs, and other times they are meant to lead Swifties to believe it’s about some random man Taylor has been linked with, when it’s obvious to Gaylors that it is gay.
There are so many examples of this in her discography, and IMO even more instances have occurred in recent years:

• London Boy: We (the public) knew almost nothing about Joe. In parallel to that, this is the most generic song Taylor could have ever written. It touches on the 2 Joe hints we get: he lives in London and he has a normal life and friends, (“pub/rugby with his school friends”). The rest of the song is lyrical vomit about the most touristy London attractions she could think of. It is the definition of camp and I am obsessed with how brilliant she is for trolling this hard.
• ATW 10 MV: The original All Too Well was relatively vague, but Taylor all but confirmed it was “about” Jake G when she released the 10 minute version. With mentions of him being older, dating younger girls, and famously missing her birthday. We knew about the missed birthday because of the moment I knew. More on ATW later.
• Is It Over Now?: Taylor mentions the literal only two known incidents with her and Harry Styles in this song: the snowmobile accident and the “blue dress on a boat” fiasco. One would think there would be other things they did together that were worth mentioning if the relationship was real, but she chose to call out two media-covered stories. Curious.
• So High School: I feel like Gen Z twitter wrote down bullet points of what they assumed Travlor’s relationship was like and sent it to Taylor before she wrote this. This song is chock full of “public knowledge” about the couple and as a bonus, dripping with sarcasm (lol). She went the extra mile in this one by adding in things that the public doesn’t necessarily know, but that they could infer stereotypical Travvy would love: American Pie and GTA. Oh, and knowing how to "ball" and opening her car door. ("Isn't that sweet?")
• The Alchemy: I don’t have the energy to list all of the stupid football references in this song. But the “Marry, kiss or kill me?” line and corresponding interview that went viral is so on the nose that it’s impossible she’s serious about this track.
• thanK you aIMee: On the fence on who this is even about, but I know it’s not Kim Kardashian. Taylor doesn’t have the energy to write a song about Kim, but she’s fine with Kim getting the credit for being the muse. (Queen behavior IMO)

You could argue that more songs on TTPD fit this category, for sure. Maybe Midnights, too. (If you can think of any others please leave them in the comments!)

How Does This Tie In With “The Man You Script?”

So much of TTPD, in my Gaylor opinion, is designed to set the foundation for Taylor to take part in revisionist history, start to call out her fans/weed out her homophobic fans, and be more “real” in general. TTPD is a departure (!! department) from anything we’ve ever heard from Taylor in a lot of ways. To me, it is the least Taylor Swift™ album we’ve ever heard from her. (Folklore and evermore are exceptions to this, but up until TTPD, the Swifties thought they were fictional.)
As the Manuscript goes:

Now and then she rereads the man you script Of the entire torrid affair They compared their licenses He said, "I'm not a donor but I'd give you my heart if you needed it" She rolled her eyes and said "You're a professional" He said, "No, just a good samaritan" He said that if the sex was half as good as the conversation was Soon they'd be pushin' strollers But soon it was over

Starting with “They compared their licenses," it reads like a movie script. It is also kinda jolting: they’re joking about their drivers’ licenses with this rom-com esque dialogue, and then all of a sudden it’s onto sex and strollers. And then it just ends. Does this not sound like the absurd and parasocial Swiftie narrative? A storybook beginning, 0-100 in 2 seconds (brand new, full throttle) and talk of babies. Then it goes down in flames. It’s an entertaining story (“are you not entertained?”), and sometimes Taylor looks back on it, on how all this began. I think it’s entirely possible Jake G was the first beard of Taylor’s, personally. And looking backwards is the only way to move forward. I think the first verse is about her first beard.

And the years passed Like scenes of a show The Professor said to write what you know Lookin' backwards Might be the only way to move forward Then the actors Were hitting their marks And the slow dance Was alight with the sparks And the tears fell In synchronicity with the score And at last She knew what the agony had been for

This verse references all the beards that followed. Taylor here validates my theory that her relationships are scripted. The professor (possibly her team?) says to write what YOU (the fan) knows. (The man YOU script; write what YOU know) They tell Taylor to write about the things the public thinks they know about you to protect her private life. Or at least disguise the muse as someone who fits in those parameters.
And, the fans loved it. It made her a gigantic, massive success. A superstar. It strengthened the parasocial relationships that contribute to her success. She was able to keep her private life private and put out stories that the fans crafted themselves (with some help from Tree).
But it isn’t her truth:

The only thing that's left is the man you script One last souvenir from my trip to your shores Now and then I reread the man you script But the story isn't mine anymore

She used to take fan theories and assumptions and own them as her story and truth. The story is not hers anymore, and she is giving it back to the fans because it was their narrative all along.
I think she is saying she isn’t going to do this anymore after TTPD; No more songs like the ones I mentioned to feed the narrative. (On TTPD, I think she trolled the concept) Exile is expiring.

As the world faded away into nothing but a dark void, Tom felt the only mildly familiar sensation of magic flowing like a gentle stream. It wasn’t much of a draw, but it was certainly noticeable.
“Right, best make this quick then,” he tried thinking to himself, feeling the flow peak as he did.
“Who is this? Make what quick?” an ethereal sounding female voice replied. It did sound a bit like how he remembered Joelina sounding. Though she did not exactly sound calm.
“Uhm… Hello? Anyone there?”
“Yes hello. Who is this? What must be done quick? Answer me at once!”
“It’s Tom… Is that you, Joelina?”
“Yes of course it is! Stupid dragons taking ages, I have questions for you! So many questiiioooonssss...”
“Yeah I figured that… Fire away I suppose.” Tom replied a little uncertainly as to just what he might be in for.
“Firstly! Did you read the letters?”
“I did yeah…”
“Disregard them, I have learned much since they were written! So much more yes, cursed blessed knowledge…”
“So you do know we have gone to space then?”
“What? No, I re-experienced the memory you had of the movie about the moon mission. It was evident on the second watching that it was trickery of the eye! Spaceflight is but a myth!”
“Riiight.”
“Then how have your kind visited space? And what of the gods above!? it was evident that the woman with the crystals was but a fraud!” Joelina explained with all the calm and restraint of a shoppingmall Karen
“Well the rockets to the moon, that did happen.” Tom attempted, doing his best to remain calm and diplomatic. “The movie you saw was probably a recreation… Tell me, did things go wrong on that trip but they made it home anyway?”
“Yes, do you know of what I speak? Ahr what am I proclaiming! of course you do it is your own memories, how could I forget.”
“Yea…, you watched a movie about Apollo 13 I think. Good movie, and that all happened too. Like for real happened”
“I see…” Joelina replied, sounding rather unstable. “And what of the gods?”
“We ain’t got any. Well not in space at least.”
“Impossible!”
“No, quite possible. Many still believe in gods though, but let’s not get into that too much. It’s a right old mess.”
“No, you must tell me what happened to the gods? Have they left you?”
“Well some think so, but no. I just think it all works a bit different for us. They might be a little more hands off.”
“But the churches… and these religious warriors you did battle with,” the inquisitor all but muttered to herself, sounding like she was struggling to put pieces together. “Do Jesus and Islam fight for power then? no no, they would have long since lost the battles to the ancient gods of war the teachers spoke of… though why they were always naked eludes me yeeees…”
“No, again we don’t really have gods just floating around... Could we please talk about something else? Or is that all you wanted to know?” Tom tried, hoping he really didn’t have to dive deeper into that particular subject.
“No no don’t you dare cut me off! I have seen what you talked of, nuclear fire and missiles, ships of the oceans and planes soaring in the skies. But is it not all fake? Surely it must be! It must be? It must be…”
“I don’t know what you saw… but we have ships sailing around. If you’ve ever seen flying ships like you have here then that’s fake I can assure you of that. We do have airships, but they look more like really big long balloons.”
“But we could make such vessels, or someone could from times past. If you can visit the moon then surely you can make a ship for the skies!”
“No no, we ain’t got grav oil. Or dragon essence as I guess it’s called. That means no anti gravity, and that means weight is a very very big problem for anything you wanna make fly. Planes and helicopters are how we fly. Remember how I flew to Afghanistan on a big ass plane? Or when I learned to parachute later?”
“What is parachute? is it the ham from your times doing, vacationing? what has dried meat products got to do with flying machines of battle!”
“Wooo easy now easy. I guess you didn’t get that far yet. Uhm. It’s a cloth kite you dangle from and then glide to the ground. Very good fun.”
“A cloth kite used to fly?... such strange inventions. Wait was there not a movie of with something of that nature? yeeee… there was a song. I liked that song… something something brains upon his chute. Yeesss…”
“Yeah… You’ll know it when you see it. I have one actually.” Tom clarified trying not to get too weirded out.
“You must demonstrate on a suitable occasion.”
“Yeah… I do have a question too though,” Tom replied, letting silence reign for a short time. “...Your last letter was in Danish.”
“Oh, uhm yes. I- I was having some difficulty separating what was real and what was not… I still am. Do not tell Glazz, she musten know the truth yet. She seeks to limit my excursions.”
“You’ve ended up like I did, have you?”
“No no no, the effects do indeed recede as expected, everything is in good order… But I had to know more. So so much moooore.”
“Maybe you should cool it a bit. You never know when a brain snaps. Or how,” Tom tried, confident his advice would be ignored.
“There is not time!”
“And why is that? How is it going in our beloved Inquisition?”
“Mind your tongue, human! Things are progressing, but so are our enemies. Infiltrators have been caught, traitors within our ranks are making their moves. The reemergence of Rashan, attacks on mines, keeps and a daring heist attempt at a Royal Guard fortress! The game is afoot, we cannot delay.”
“You can’t overreach yourself either. Weren’t you supposed to be winning over the rest of the inquisition right about now? Can’t do that as a gibbering mess.”
There was silence for a while more after that. “Glazz sent you a letter? What did it say?! You may not keep secrets from me- wait not… I should confiscate her arm… she cannot write with her left. Yes far better plan, avoid upsetting him. And fill her pen with invisible ink. Yes very good.”
“No, it’s just obvious to any idiot. But what about winter, won’t things slow down?”
“They should, yet as autumn progresses it has only been picking up. I hope they too are running out of time… But time for what? I must know what they are planning. They might be behind schedule. But what SCHEDULE! sorry…”
“Well you’re not gonna find the answer to that in my memories, now are you?”
“You were sent by someone. You are here for a purpose. I must know this purpose. It will help me understand. The puzzle is large and much of the box kept from me.”
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m here to help you guys get in gear. That’s a decades to centuries long sorta problem, not a couple of years. Sounds like this war will be in the couple of years category.”
“Then why now? Why did you arrive now?!”
“Shitty luck? Sounds like 10 years ago would have been a lot better… Oh on that note, did you hear? We found something down below.”
“No, Paulin would have told me.”Joelina dismissed, he could almost feel her turning her snout up and away from him.
“Well we opened the vault like 3 days ago,” Tom replied, quite surprised Paulin hadn’t said anything. “Wait yeah she can send you messages, no? She sent the message about what we wanted to buy too, didn’t she?... How did she do that by the way? Why didn’t you just have her ask me questions?”
“That is not for you to know, and this is not for her.”
“Really? More secrets still? Come on, tell me or I’ll let you think flying whales exist.”
“I know those are not real. If they were, you would have harvested them long ago! likely for some deranged snack… or facial decoration.”
“True, but you get the idea,” Tom persisted, feeling like this was something worth pushing for. Why would Paulin not have let her precious Joelina know?
“Very well. This does not leave your mind… In the name of, what was it called… camaraderie. Paulin is in possession of joined paper. Messages may be written down and read by anyone with similarly joined paper. Unsecured. Originally believed to be fore love letters… dastardly studs and wenches using perfectly good magic for such trivialness… simply tie the message to a rock and throw it though the window. Most peasants cannot even afford glass” Joelina trailed off, seemingly zoning out once more.
“You have magical paper that can relay written information… and you don’t fucking use it!?” Tom explaimed, not quite believing what he was hearing.
“No, we do not know how to make freshly bonded paper… only more linked to all other paper in existence…” Joelina agreed. He could almost feel her looking at the floor in shame. “But it is not as if you are infallible, why did you not bring one of these radios?”
“I uhm…”
“Why didn’t you?!”
“I forgot,” Tom admitted, thinking back to his packing days. Of all the things that could have proven useful, that one might have been his biggest blunder.
“For the love of all that is holy! You are our saviour?!” Joelina scolded, understandably so, but still.
“Hey I never claimed to be smart!”
“I have lived your dreams. That is a lie! You very much claim to be smart!”
“Fuck off, I know you are just a scared little insecure girl.”
“She died 30 years ago!”
“Well I haven’t gotten to that bit yet!”
“What in the devils do you mean?” Joelina questioned calming right down in a fraction of a second.
“I’ve only had like three proper dreams about you… wait no, not like that,” Tom blurted out as it clicked just how wrong that sounded. Joelina didn’t seem to care in the slightest though.
“Three? That is it!?” going right back to outrage.
“Yeah… Wait, how many have you had?” Tom questioned. He rather wanted to know just how much she might know about him in addition to the memories she had already picked through when inside his head.
“Several a day!” the inquisitor exclaimed in reply.
“Okay, I can see how that would drive someone a bit mad.”
“I am not going mad!”
“Did Glazz say the same thing?” Tom questioned, quite certain he was striking a nerve.
There was no reply for quite some time, Tom feeling the headache growing as things grew tranquil once more. He could feel his breath. It was rapid, and his heart was pounding. He probably shouldn’t do this for much longer. Thus he endeavored to break the silence.
“You probably should listen to her you know.”
“No! These matters are above her station!”
“Hasn’t she been in the Inquisition longer than you?”
“She has yes. But she is no inquisitor. She is a body guard.”
“Seems like she is a wee bit more than that,” Tom pushed on. He didn’t yet know how those two came to stick together, but it was clear they had been working together for decades by now. All the way since she was assigned to Harvik
“Mind your own matters, human.”
“Very well, don’t think I can keep this up anyway.”
“We have barely been chatting! Where do the dogs come from?!”
“Selective breeding for thousands of years. But I’m gonna go. Take a break, do what Glazz says… even if Jacky hates her.”
Yet more silence followed that, though it was brief and Joelina was the first to speak again.
“Fine! In the interest of cooperation I shall let you rest. Wear the earring at all times, I shall be contacting you again soon.”
“I think I’m gonna be the judge of that. I’ll put it on when I feel like it.”
“You will do as I say!”
“You need a nap and a bit to calm down. I’ll give you three days. Around noon. See yah… How do I get this thing off?”
“I’m not telling you,” Joelina grumped like a little girl. She really didn’t seem quite like herself at all today. She had been the spitting image of restraint and arrogance before. The arrogance was still there, but the restraint had certainly gone.
“Come on, do I just try to cut off the magic or is that a bad idea?”
“If you answer a question I might answer.”
“Right then… Gimme gimme gimme aaaa-”
“JUST CUT IT! Farewell!” she called out loud enough Tom’s head pulsed and then there was blissful silence once more.
“Hehe. That did the trick, right concentrate on that funny feeling aaan-”
__________________________________________________________________________________
After dinner had been rounded up, Dakota had given a brief address as to some of the news received. There wasn’t much that hadn’t already made the rounds at the tables during the dinner itself. The war had been expanding, recruitment had started in full in the cities, and if not for the rather special situation at Bizmati they could have expected their banners to get called by spring.
Rumors had it that the kingdom was preparing itself for counterstrikes the following spring, which meant training through the winter for many volunteers.
“And a lot of not so volunteers,” Fengi muttered as Dakota carried on with the address.
“You can say that twice. At least the street rats might get something to eat and a place to sleep,” Tirox the trader escort added.
“I suppose that is true. Not a bad deal in winter time… I might even have taken it.”
“But we must instead keep our minds on our home,” Dakota carried on, talking to the whole hall. “There can be no mistake, we will be a target. We will be ready. They are getting bolder by the day it seems. It is not impossible they may attempt to take our keep before the winter comes. Or perhaps they will be waiting for spring. It is equally clear their forces are spread thin. We will weather such assaults, I have no doubt. But we must keep training. We must keep vigil. We cannot afford to be surprised or outmatched. I know you will all do your best. And tonight, we have no less than 4 dragons here. So breathe easy, have your snacks and your drinks. If the weather holds soon we will be finished with the warehouse and then we may make final preparations for winter. It is sure to be an interesting one for once.”
The hall replied with a half-discordant cheer, not overly enthusiastic unlike what Dakota had likely envisioned. The talk of them possibly getting attacked even before the snow came wasn’t really that encouraging. But Dakota tended to speak her mind, and she was probably right. Bizmati keep would be a damn tough nut to crack. And to Dakota’s credit she did seem to recognize she hadn’t really managed to rile them up.
“Didn’t you hear me?” she tried again in a slightly more humorous tone. “Eat, drink, and have fun! And put those tables together, don’t want you brooding in your corners.”
That did get a bit more of a reaction, as well as some good humored chuckles. People started getting up and set about moving the tables closer together.
It was a little rude to split up their guests in the same way as they normally did. Saph carried one of the benches over to the new spot, glancing around for any sign of Maiko, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
Feeling a little miffed, she sat down with the others as Ray came back with one of the small kegs of cider looking very excited. “We should have a taste, right?”
“Oh yes please!” Pho called out, Essy giving her a slight slap on the wrist.
“This one is only for those who paid for it. You will have to do with whatever you bought. Or the ale I’m sure they intend to serve.”
“Aww man. Not even a sip?”
“Okay, maybe a sip,” Essy relented. “Oh, I should get Koko his gift.”
“You got him a gift?” Saph questioned with mirth in her voice.
“Of course, that is what people do for each other… you did get Maiko something, right?”
Saph felt her expression slip a little as she prepared to disappoint their chief people person. “No, not really…”
“All that money and you didn’t get him shit? That’s cold girl,” Pho laughed, clearly finding it hilarious.
“Oh shut up, not as if I got something for Unkai either,” Fengi added, springing to Sapphire’s defence, though it seemed like the delivery had Fengi second guessing herself as well.
Esmeralda did look a little saddened by the news, but she was far too nice to say anything. Tirox however had no such filter.
“Oh don’t worry about it, just gotta go with a different sort of gift.” The diminutive guard laughed heartily at his joke. Udanti found it quite funny as well, and Pho certainly loved it. Bo just shook her head a little and went back to a small puzzle of some sort she had been working on, on and off, for most of the dinner by now.
“So uhm… One mug each?” Ray questioned, having been left hanging at the keg.
“Oh yes sorry, just the one, this stuff is expensive,” Saph replied, holding out her mug, Ray pushing it back down.
“One moment.” And she produced a wooden mallet and one of the metal taps. It looked like one of Raulf’s, so it was probably old as faded dragonscales.
Ray gingerly placed it against the cork and raised the mallet as the table fell silent in anticipation.
With a whack the tap went in clean with hardly a drop spilled, and Ray breathed a visible sigh of relief. “Right there we go.”
There was a quick round of cheers from the table, and Ray started pouring servings.
“Oh got yours open, have you?” the voice of Balethon came as the guard came walking up to the table, mug in hand and lizard on shoulder. “You all know we are gonna have to work out who got the better stuff, right?”
“Oh does it always have to be a competition with you, Balethon?” Saph questioned. She had just wanted to enjoy the cider.
“Look who is talking… And yeah of course we do! Just think of the bragging rights.”
Ray didn’t look too thrilled, nor did any of the girls who had actually paid for the keg. The rest of the table seemed to think it was a brilliant idea, even as Balethon’s voice carried and heads started to turn as people started to mingle between the now closely together tables.
“I’ll be the independent adjudicator!” Tirox declared, not receiving much attention as the full mugs started to get passed around. “Oh come on. I’ll be fair!”
“Shut it pipsqueak, you’ll end up taking 10 rounds of tastings before you make up your mind,” Udanti scolded, though in good humor.
“I might…” the guy relented, looking to Balethon. “Ey, by the way. Did you teach the brainlet any tricks?”
“Sure, Skitters can do a few things.”
“Aside from chasing the food?”
“You know what I think he might yeah,” Balethon replied sarcastically, gently tapping the static lizard twice on the head. The lizard didn’t do much save skitter about on his shoulder to face Balethon’s head, one eye pointing in whichever direction.
‘That thing just looks so dumb,’ Saph thought to herself as Ray handed her a mug. “Oh thank you.”
“Okay, Skitters. Up,” Balethon went, raising a claw into the air as if he wanted the lizard to jump. Or perhaps stand up. “Up… come on.”
There was no reaction from the lizard aside from it jerking to the left a bit, possibly having spotted a fly or something.
“Weeeell obedience might need some work,” Udanti chuckled. “Have you tried with some food in your hand?”
“Sure, then he just tries to eat the hand. Come on, Skitters. Up!” Balethon tried again, doing the gesture once more. And this time the little lizard jumped into the air. The little legs stretched out, taking its pitiful excuse for wings with it, and it half-fell half-glided to the floor where it hit with all the grace of a 6 year old on his first lesson. The slightly fat lizard bounced once, then rolled over twice before coming to a stop, looking around confused.
“Aaayyy! That’s a good boi,” Balethon went, going to pick it up again before someone stepped on it or it ran off under the tables. “And now you get a treat.” True to his word Skitters was fed a small piece of something or other which it seemed quite happy to snap up.
Fengi leaned in to whisper to Saph. “Was that the trick or did it just get sick of staying there?”
“I have no idea,” Saph replied, holding up her mug. “Cheers though.”
“Cheers,” Fengi replied as they clinked mugs.
“Oh hang on now, wait for me,” Essy protested as Ray finished pouring her mug and started on her own, looking to the girls as she questioned “Oh, also what about Jacky? Should we wait for her?”
“Who knows how long that will take?” Fengi replied, holding her mug impatiently.
“I’m sure she won’t mind. She is with Tom. We’ll let him have a mug as well,” Essy added with a reassuring nod, looking up to the high table. “Oh but we are missing Lin!”
“Oh right yeah she paid too… I can’t remember, did Edita chip in?”
“I don’t think so,” Sapphire replied, shaking her head as Essy got up to go fetch Linkosta. Balethon decided to take her place, a big grin on his face.
“So what else is going on over here?”
“Oh not much, hellooo little guy,” Pho went, trying to give skitters a scritching. In exchange he tried to eat her finger. “Oh… I mean I guess it doesn’t hurt.”
“Oh yeah, he can’t hurt a fly… well he can, but nothing more.”
“Shame he won’t get any bigger either,” Udanti added, nodding sagely. “Would have made a good rat hunter.”
“Nah… toe hunter though. Also where is the ale at?”
“Oh Raulf and Wiperna are getting ale and some of the bubble beer.”
“What is bubble beer?” Udanti questioned, tilting her head.
“Oh you’ll love it,” Saph interjected, waiting patiently as she saw Essy and Linkosta returning to the table out of the corner of her eye. “It’s an ale but it’s all fizzy.”
“Riiight… I’ve heard of fizzy beers before.”
“Oh yes, but this one is so much more fizzy.”
“It’s light and almost springlike.”
“Light ale? You mean for kids?”
“No no no. Just trust us it’s good.”
“Right right, I trust you,” the archer replied, looking to Essy and Linkosta, who seemed to be looking for a place to sit. “Should we not just put two end to end rather than this scrunching up business?”
“Yeah we should… Right get the craftsman table over here then. We don’t wanna have to smell the guards,” Saph called out, holding up her mug.
“Hey! That was uncalled for,” Balethon protested as Ray passed a mug to Linkosta. The girls all raised their mugs and had a sip, not willing to wait any longer. They all smacked their chops a little, looking down at the golden liquid. It was slightly fizzy too… and it tasted like the brew of the gods themselves. Ray was looking at them all visibly tense with anticipation and perhaps a twinge of fear.
“Ray… You have not disappointed,” Saph declared, nodding her approval, a smile creeping onto her face once more.
“Oh this is the best drink I think I’ve ever had,” Fengi added, taking another gentle sip.
Ray looked visibly relieved, her expression changing to one of ecstasy as she too took a sip herself. “Oh it’s even better than I remember. I’m glad you liked it.”
“Like it?! I love it!” Fengi cheers, Essy giving an appreciative nod to Ray before looking to Lin.
“Sooo?”
“It’s very good… Do you think we could try and cool it down a little? Imagine this cold.”
“It is often served cold, yes,” Ray confirmed, nodding her assent.
“I’ll go get the powder!” Saph called out, getting up. “I have got to try that.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
The strange ethereal world that had seemed so all-consuming started to quickly fade. Holes grew as light and reality started seeping in, sounds and noise starting to build around him. “Oom-Tom… Tom, are you okay?” came the familiar voice of Jacky as his eyes shot open and he blinked a few times as he returned to reality proper.
“Yeah yeah, I’m here… That is trippy, but hey, I think it worked.”
“How many fingers?” Jacky questioned, holding up her hand.
“4. Clear as day.”
“Pheeew. Okay look around, anything strange?”
Tom obeyed, sitting up a bit straighter and glancing about the room. “Nnnnn, nope all good. Just like last time I used one of these.”
“Right, good. Now what did she say?”
“Oh a bunch of stuff… mostly we chatted a bit about how she’s going a touch mad. Even Glazz thinks she’s falling apart at the seams apparently. She was also not happy I wanted a break.”
“Oh don’t tell me you have to do this every day from now on?”
“I said she had 3 days to get ready to try again. Hopefully she’ll have her case worked out by then.”
“Here’s to hoping… also how is your head? Does it hurt?”
“A bit, it’ll go away I’m sure.”
“Right,” Jacky replied, looking at him skeptically. “If it gets worse, tell me. But dinner was served a while ago I think. And I’m hungry.”
“Me too, let’s go.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
Well then, Joelina got her chat. She seems fine... I am sure she will continue to be a steadfast ally, within the walls of the inquisition for many weeks to co- I mean years, definetly years.
As always I hope you enjoyed the chapter, if not you know who to blame. I promise I won't cry to much if you tell me what was wrong... I promise.
Not really any news, other than fuck me I'm a busy boi, luckily I found the time to keep up with the writing yet, hopefully things will quet down soon so I can get back to begin a bit further ahead.
Untill next time, take care
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Beginnings. Illustrious. Vivacious. Monstrous. Scintillating. Star-Studded. Nautical. Creeping. Vainglorious. Luminous. Villainous. Venerable. Exuberant. Esteemed. Legendary…. Epic. Wonderful, Briliant, Victorious, Foundational, Iconic!!! Champions. Sixteen of them. One prize. One Ultimate Champion. Who will beat all other winners and become the ultimate winner themselves? As we get ready to close the curtain one last time on Bunny’s Big Brother, let’s find out who is the Shining Star of our champion cast in Bunny’s Pokémon Big Brother CHAMPION ROYALE!
Season Finale: CHAMPION ROYALE!!!
Meet the Cast:
Season 1 – Lance the Escavalier
Season 2 – Carlos the Pangoro
Season 3 – Nickels the Nickit
Season 4 – Xio the Meowscarada
Season 5 – Selene the Lampent
Season 6 – Candy the Wigglytuff
Season 7 – Splaatz the Stunfisk
Season 8 – Dirk the Kricketune
Season 9 – Echo the Arctibax
Season 10 – Mobee the Bewear
Season 11 – Professor Bane the Crobat
Season 12 – Lisette the Solrock
Season 13 – Maeva the Chimeco
Season 14 – Dayley-Jane the Dewgong
Season 15 – DJ Volt Switch the Emolga
Season 16 – Benedict the Chespin
Intro: We are reporting live at the site of Bunny’s Pokémon Big Brother Finale House! The crowd is thick and loud as fans from all over are excited to watch the sixteen champions enter the house LIVE! We stand in Poketopia, home of the Battle Revolution! The Shining Neon Colloseum, in a penthouse suite in the grand city is where the final bout will begin! Here come the Legendary Sixteen right now!!!! Lance the original winner is so stunning in his armor! Carlos has evolved and looks much tougher. Nickels is strutting in conifdent as ever next to Xio, who looks completely unphased by all of the winners around her! Selene fits right in with the bright lights. Looks like Candy is evolved as well and—OH—she tripped over Splaatz. That’s embarrassing and you can tell she isn’t happy even if she’s putting on a smile. Dirk and Echo are next, both eyeing up the competition already. Echo being evolved now already ups his threat level. Mobee gets an uproarious cheer from the crowd! And WOW the Professor gracefully glides over the crowd! He really did escape capture back in Mazda’s Season. Lisette seems to be meditating and Maeva is pumping herself up. She looks a bit snooty now that we know how she really is but we are eager to see how she plays. Dayley-Jane gets another huge cheer from the crowd. She really is a lovable gal ain’t she? DJ clicks a track on the DJ booth to keep one last song playing but then hops out to join the entourage. She’s still keeping up her day job too, so inspiring! Finally, Benedict walks up. Unlike the others, he looks somber. Wonder what his deal is? Oh well, let’s watch them all compete in the bright stadium for the first HOH!
First HOH: In this bright lights HOH, the houseguests all race to complete a task, with the first to complete it knocking someone out of the running. In the first heat, Maeva clears first and knocks out Bane because he came in second and is a huge comp threat. In the next round, Echo wins and takes out Maeva, who just won. Splaatz wins round three by accident and takes out Day, who was big on his original season. Candy wins next and takes out Nickels. Xio takes out DJ, followed by Benedict winning and immediately knocking Xio out. Candy wins again and takes out Dirk. Echo then wins again to take out Candy before she gets too much momentum. Carlos wins and takes out Lance, Mobee then wins and takes out Carlos, Benedict then wins and takes out Mobee! Splaatz wins again and takes out Selene as she is hiding in the background. Lisette wins the next round to take out Benedict. In the final three, Echo wins again and takes out Lisette, as she did a good job hiding til then. In Splaatz versus Echo, the fish surprisingly keeps up with the dragon and at the last second, takes over?!?!?! Splaatz is the first HOH!
Week 1: Splaatz is very confused how he won that last round but Echo comes up and congratulates him. The two get along well and Splaatz works up the courage to ask to be in an alliance, which the dragon happily agrees. Bane goes to Candy to tell her that the villains need to stick together, she agrees and they grab Maeva. She is initially reluctant, not trusting Bane, but she agrees eventually. Mobee goes to monitor the living room like before and DJ flies up to him. They end up chatting and realize they enjoy each other. At the nomination ceremony, Splaatz has decided to put up DJ and Dirk, saying how he doesn’t want to make too much waves and this seems to be the way to do it best. Dirk is unamused and DJ is frightened. Echo gets suspicious of Bane and shares his thoughts with Nickels, they pull in Carlos to form an anti-villain alliance. Benedict eavesdrops and plans his next move. He goes up to Nickels and makes up how Dirk must be playing the villain this time, because he is acting weird. Nickels considers his approach but ultimately decides to trust him as an alliance member. At the veto, Carlos, Echo, and Mobee all play but it comes down to Carlos and Splaatz. Splaatz ends up winning again but while actually trying and is exuberant! DJ pleads with him but he ultimately keeps his noms the same.
After the veto ceremony, Benedict tells DJ to do as he says and trust him, as Gigi did. She agrees and starts buttering up to the villains. She gets Candy to be even nicer to the house and apologize to Splaatz. She also helps Bane create a new game. Meanwhile, Benedict starts prodding Dirk and Day, causing them to be at odds with each other. Dirk eventually snaps and lashes out at Day, shocking everyone. Maeva can tell something fishy is happening but rolls with it since it is week one. At the eviction ceremony in the glittering colosseum, the two nominees tell why they should stay. Dirk is more bitter while DJ stays heartfelt, convincing everyone but a suspicious Maeva. In the end, by a vote of 12 to 1… Dirk, you have been evicted.
Week 2: The next HOH is a high flying roulette-themed obstacle course, based off of the Neon Colosseum’s roulette rules. DJ and Mobee work together to get to the end but Nickels keeps up with them. In the final stretch, Mobee sees Nickels catching up and throws DJ, giving her just enough of an edge to win the HOH! Nickels and Maeva both approach DJ to tell her their suspicions on Benedict’s behavior. At first, they fight, but realizing they have the same goal causes them to cut it out long enough to tell her. DJ is reluctant but Maeva reminds her how he betrayed Gigi and she is firm. Benedict and Carlos become the nominees. Day, Echo, and Maeva play in the veto and Echo actually manages to come out on top over Day. Echo talks with Nickels about saving Carlos but she is hesitant, telling him that Carlos makes a good pawn next to benedict because everyone likes Carlos. He ends up not using it. During the week, Benedict begins making breakfast early, irritating his roommate Carlos and causing him to be grumpier. Xio confronts Benedict for this, telling him he is purposefully making Carlos mad and it’s brutal. He tells her he doesn’t understand the problem if Carlos doesn’t like breakfast. She sneers but doesn’t have a comeback. The next day, Benedict holds a house meeting. He apologizes if he’s been rubbing people the wrong way but he is just trying to fit in since he is newer. Lisette says that everyone should give him a chance, which the villains, Selene, and Mobee agree with. Echo, Carlos, Nickels, and Maeva are all hesitant. At the eviction ceremony, Carlos is grumpy and bitter and doesn’t do much to defend himself. Benedict, again apologizes. In a 9 to 3 vote… Carlos is evicted.
Week 3: Several house membets are completely shocked by Carlos going home, including HOH DJ and his two allies, Nickels and Echo. Also surprised is Xio. The next HOH is an endurance comp called the floor is lava based off of the Lava Colosseum! Mobee, Splaatz, and Xio are the last three remaining. Knowing she was on the outs of the last vote, Xio fights hard to survive, fighting her pain. Splaatz eventually drops and Mobee remains with Xio. Eventually, Mobee drops and Xio wins! Xio already knows her noms. She puts up Benedict next to Selene, as she was one of the people vouching for him last round. Benedict chooses to stay back and not make too much of a scene this round, lest he blow up his cover. Meanwhile, DJ and Mobee plan how to move forward. Maeva is listening in to this convo and realizes how close they are. At the veto, a mental comp, Selene ends up winning by a landslide, saving herself. Maeva rushes to Xio about the DJ and Mobee situation, and points out how Mobee is a comp threat as well. Xio decides Mobee is a good replacement, as he is likeable and a good pawn next to Benedict. Mobee holds a house meeting and cries during it, thinking he was doing so much better at being friendly this time. Maeva calls him out for his crocodile tears and argues that he is putting on an act. Lisette calls out Maeva for being so harsh and chastises her for being such a villain. Maeva asks her if she is planning on voting for him to stay and she is silent, but says that shouldn’t matter. Maeva retorts and says it’s not jury so jury management doesn’t exist yet. At the eviction, Mobee is shaking next to a smug Benedict. Benedict’s speech touches on how Mobee doesn’t seem ready for the big leagues. The bear gets up angrily and almost picks up Benedict, shocking everyone. He stops himself and realizes what he did. The vote comes in and by a vote of 8 to 3, Mobee, you have been evicted.
Week 4: The next HOH begins as they houseguests must ascend a glimmering rock wall, themed after the Crystal colosseum. Day and Maeva take an early lead but are caught up by falling rocks. Lisette closes the gap and eventually surpasses Maeva. Day and Lisette race for the end and… Lisette win! Lisette in her HOH room ponders about who to put up and ally with. She turns to Xio, Day, and Selene as her allies. The Witch’s Coven, as they call themselves, wants to shift the focus, as Benedict is doing too well at not going home. Instead, Lisette targets Maeva, who is playing sneaky, as well as Benedict’s ally, Echo. Bane laughs at Maeva being on the block and she is enraged with him. He says “it doesn’t matter since it’s not jury yet.” Having her own words turned on her, Maeva storms out and swears she will get revenge on him and Candy. At the POV, the witches’ coven is playing with three members and Xio ends up winning! She chooses to keep the nominations the same. Splaatz goes to Lance to tell him how much it means to be there with one of his heros, but Lance mishears him and calls him out for calling him a rude name. The two get in a petty argument where Lance’s bad hearing keeps making things worse. Meanwhile, Maeva tries to get the vote off of her by spreading anti-Benedict propaganda around the house. Day has a change of heart about this and wants to vote out Echo, even while her alliance is targeting Maeva. Benedict, aware his name is still out there, pleads to DJ not to vote out his ally. At the eviction, Maeva thinks she has done enough work but the vote comes out and is a 5 to 5. The Coven is shocked, one of their own must have flipped. But Lisette gets to break the tie, and is all too happy to evict her target, Maeva.
Week 5: The next HOH is themed after the Sunset colosseum, and sees the houseguests racing to stack piles of rubble. Echo, DJ, and Xio make the highest stack but DJ’s crumbles before the time limit. Both wanting to take control, Echo and Xio try really hard to build the highest. The timer buzzes aaaand Echo is the winner! Benedict instinctively high fives Echo and celebrates with him. Later, Nickels is peeved that Echo is so publicly working with Benedict. Echo tells her she had the opportunity to have a good ally but she chose to burn that bridge and that’s her fault. Offended, she tells him to make that alliance with Benedict work out but she won’t be part of it. Echo is saddened, but doesn’t want to put Nickels up. Instead, he shifts the target to former villains, with Bane being the target and Selene going up next to him. Xio cheers that Selene could be going home, making the Lamp angry at her, since they were supposed to be working together. Benedict goes on to win the veto and vows to Echo not to use it. However, at the veto ceremony, he uses it to save Selene, shocking everyone as he winks at Xio. Echo then solidifies this by putting Xio up. Selene goes to her to tell her she is sorry for their misunderstanding but they work together. Candy turns to Lisette and tells her she is tired of working with Bane and if she helps her get the Professor out this week, she will work with her. Lisette agrees, knowing everyone wants Bane out anyways. At the eviction, Xio seemingly patches things up with everyone. The vote comes in, by a unanimous vote… Bane, you are evicted.
Double Eviction: Surprise! The Jury starts tonight and the next HOH is beginning right now with one more person leaving! A quiz colosseum is held in the Sunset colloseum, with one miss causing someone to be out of the running. It comes down to DJ, Nickels, and Lisette. But Lisette gets the last question right and the other two miss, with Lisette winning her second HOH. Lisette puts up Nickels and Day. Nickels because she is playing a lowkey game but making waves in the Benedict situation. Day because she wavered on her vote for Benedict. She doesn’t put down Benedict as he is good for drama and polarizing the house, which is good for her game. Nickels wins the veto and takes herself off. Lisette decides to put up Splaatz, because she is worried he will fumble his way to the end. Most people seem to share this idea except for Echo, who wants to wotk with Splaatz. The vote comes in. By a vote of 7 to 1… Splaatz, you have been evicted and will be moving into the jury house.
Week 6: The Next HOH begins as a race through the mysterious mansion in the courtyard colosseum. No one can tell where anyone is but Candy comes out first and wins! As HOH, Candy calls in Benedict. She tells him he has been playing a sloppy and obvious villain game and he is gonna get evicted too soon if he doesn’t simmer down and get some real allies. He is shocked and admits he just wants to win. She says they all do and the least they can do is help each other. She says she will help him if he keeps causing more chaos and also gets DJ on their side. He agrees and talks to DJ. The squirrel is hesitant but decides it would be a great way of getting revenge on Benedict if she gets the chance. Candy puts up Lance as the pawn next to her target, Xio, who has been against Benedict’s chaos this whole game. DJ goes on to win the veto and chooses to not give Candy any suspicion by not using it. Meanwhile, the witches coven fractures, with Day not agreeing with Lisette and Xio feeling not supported on the block by Selene. DJ infiltrates this meeting after storms out, telling them about Xio being the real target but she has a plan to keep her without drawing suspicion if they can get Day to play nice. Xio borrows an item from Lisette and breaks it. Lisette then goes to “rant” to Day, who is being nice with her, thinking they both will vote Xio. Echo, meanwhile, confirms his alliance with Benedict, and feels like he is finally gaining more traction. But the house takes this the wrong way. At the eviction, the vote comes in, and by a vote of 4 to 3… Lance, you have been evicted.
Week 7: The next HOH begins, a waterfall diving competition, based off of the Waterfall Colosseum. Whoever makes the biggest splash wins! With her natural watery prowess, Day dives in and wins the HOH! Day is approached in the HOH by Candy and Benedict, who ask her to work with them. DJ sees whats happening and goes back to Lisette and Selene. The two talk and realize that they can’t beat Benedict’s control of the house by just going against him, but they have to work with him. So the three of DJ, Lisette, and Selene enter the HOH “accidentally” and propose the six will control the house. They say they want Echo to go on the block, as he is getting too good at the comps. Benedict is hesitant but Candy nudges him, as secretly this will be great for her game. He agrees and tells Day he won’t be mad if this happens. Echo goes up next to Nickels. The two former allies face off in the veto, both bitterly making jabs at the other for turning on them. It comes down to just the two nominees and… Echo edges her out, winning the veto. Echo saves himself and puts the power in Day’s hands to put up a replacement. Her choice is the person not in her alliance who has made affronts to her, Xio. Lisette has the whole house do tarot readings to ease the tension which goes down well. Lisette gets the Sun, a symbol of positivity and creativity. Benedict draws the Moon, symbolizing Illusion and inner conflict. He shudders when the white moon of the card turns red in his hands. Echo draws the Fool, a card of new beginnings but also endings. Selene draws death, the card of change in the game. Nickels draws the Hermit, a card of isolation and reflection. Candy draws the Lovers, with the card representing connections and pairs, symbolizing her manipulation of Benedict. Day draws Strength, a card of inner strength and Willpower. Xio draws the Tower, representing sudden downfall and incredible sudden changes. She shudders and uses the moment to apologize to everyone, saying she wants to be a beacon of hope but got lost. The house receives this well. Benedict considers flipping to Xio because of her show of faith being bad but Candy reminds him that Xio is on the bottom of the pecking order on that side, likely meaning they don’t even have to take her out. He relents and the eviction goes through. The vote comes in and by a vote of 5 to 1, Nickels you have been evicted.
Week 8: The Next HOH begins in the Sunny Park colosseum, with contestants having to hunt for pellets and use them to knock out targets. DJ and Echo prove the most adept but in a last second victory, Echo wins. Benedict goes to Echo in the HOH but Echo has realized too late that Benedict is working with everybody, even causing him to turn on Nickels. Benedict doesn’t try to hide his smug smirk as he agrees and walks out, daring him to put him on the block. He feels this must be hiding something and starts asking around the house for their opinions. Xio reveals the existence of the Witches Coven, and how they have been together for weeks, including saving her last week. Knowing of this alliance, Echo saves Xio and puts up Selene and Day. At the veto, Selene wins. Selene approaches Echo, telling him she knows of someone playing both sides, revealing DJ trying to play double agent. After she pulls herself off the block, DJ goes up as the replacement. Candy works on ingratiating herself with the outsiders in Xio and Echo, trying to forge paths ahead. But is unsuccessful at breaking Echo. Echo is accosted by DJ for putting her up over Benedict. He asks her to say why she was double crossing and she says its because she was trying to sabotage Benedict. If anything, Day, Selene, and Lisette should be the real double agents. Echo goes to rage to Selene for how she tricked him but she swears it was the truth completely, and he chose to believe it in a negative light, not her. Day joins the fight and lashes out at Xio and Selene for being the reason she is on the block. Lisette stays out of it, knowing the time to jump ship is coming up. At the eviction, Dj and DayJay give their pleas, but the votes are tallied. By a unanimous vote… Dayley-Jane, you have been evicted.
Double Eviction!!: Second double eviction because you know we gotta! The HOH starts with a lightning round of dodgeball on wooden poles. Selene is knocked out first. Then DJ gets knocked out by Candy. Lisette falls off on her own. Xio goes after Benedict but is taken out by Candy. Then Candy expertly dodges and takes out Benedict, winning the HOH. She nominates the two people who are on the bottom of the pecking order, Echo and Xio. The veto plays out with Benedict winning. Echo pleads for Benedict to help him out, as they were friends. Benedict doesn’t even look him in the eye as he chooses to not play the veto. Echo pleads to the voters to let him keep playing and he will take out Benedict, but Lisette and Selene have basically already jumped ship and moved on. The vote comes in, and by a vote of 4 to 0… Echo, you have been evicted.
Week 9: With Six houseguests remaining, they are taken to the Gateway colosseum to have mock Pokemon battles. In the first round, Xio beats Lisette and Selene beats DJ, with Benedict drawing a spot in the top 3. In a first to win two times in a row scenario, Selene beats both and comes out victorious. Selene and Lisette decide that they have to cut ties and work with the more devious players to have a better shot at the end. Selene puts up DJ and Xio, with DJ being the target. Benedict is alone in his room when he hallucinates more blood on his paws. He shouts and Xio comes in to see whats up. She helps him calm down and he realizes he is down a bad path. She helps him calm down and he thanks her, even with him harassing her all game she still helped him. Candy witnesses the two help each other out and is beyond irritated, she goes to Selene, who is still iffy on Xio, to warn her. At the veto, Candy wins it. She takes off DJ and Selene spitefully puts up Benedict, who trembles going to the block. Lisette confronts Selene for making such a rushed decision, as the goal was to keep Benedict and his threat around longer. At the eviction, Benedict argues that he has realizes how the game has changed him and he wants to prove how he changed. Lisette doesn’t believe him but DJ seems to be enamored. The vote comes in, and by a vote of 2 to 1… Xio you have been evicted.
Week 10: Five stars remain and there are five points in the Stars of the Main Street colosseum, where the houseguests go to do a full BPBB quiz! Lisette misses one question and gets behind as the other get ahead. It comes down to a tie-breaker between Dj and Benedict and the winner is… DJ! Benedict goes to apologize to DJ for real and she forgives him, happy to see his true self back again. She feels played by Selene and Candy so they go on the block. Lisette is still suspicious of Benedict and starts watching him for suspicious activity, noticing him look at his paws a lot. She decides to talk to him with the ruse of working together. At the veto, DJ wins again and claims her game, choosing not to use the veto. Realizing the danger they are in, Selene and Candy go to their respective closest allies, Benedict and Lisette. The two touch base with Benedict telling Lisette he is fine voting Candy with her, as he doesn’t want to force DJ to have to break a tie. At the eviction, the votes are read and by a vote of 2 to 0… Selene, you have been evicted. Benedict looks over at Lisette with a shocked look, realizing she caught on to him.
Week 10: As the final HOH starts, the houseguest are in the Stargazer colosseum for an epic triathlon of quizzes, endurance, and races. In the first part, Benedict pulls ahead, with Lisette on his tail. He falls behind in part two, giving Lisette and Candy a chance to catch him. The three are neck and neck in part three but Lisette comes out on top! Benedict goes to Lisette on her HOH to grovel but she stops him, saying she misheard the vote last week and though the vote was for Selene anyways so its good he didn’t make poor DJ break the tie. He feels reassured and goes back out. Lisette puts up DJ and Candy as the nominees. Lisette reassures DJ about how Benedict likes her and she wouldn’t go home. Benedict touches base with Lisette, claiming that he knows DJ has too much social traction and needs to go next because of this. On his way out, Candy enters the room and chats with Lisette. She says that the noms should stay the same so DJ can be evicted for sure this week. Lisette doesn’t trust her and tells her to her face she is no better than Benedict, but is powerless without him. The two stare each other down. At the veto, Lisette wins it, and Benedict sighs a sigh of relief. But Lisette shocks everyone by saving Candy and puts up Benedict. Lisette calls him out for faking his turnaround to play with everyone’s emotions. He breaks down, claiming his intense want, no, NEED to win the game. He can’t get it out of his head and it burdens him with the thoughts of betrayal, including the allies he betrayed this season, with Nickels, Echo, and even Xio who showed him so much kindness leaving because of him. DJ is in tears and even Candy can’t watch. Afterwards, Benedict goes to his only real ally, Candy. He begs her for advice on how to get out of this, as she helped him so much. She looks him in the eye as she tells him that he did this to himself. At the eviction, Candy gets the sole vote to evict and casts it to evict, Benedict.
The Reunion: Folks we are live again right outside the Neon Colosseum for the Finale of Bunny’s Pokémon Big Brother Champion Royale! Our Sixteen winners have been whittled down to three and it is not what we expected at all! In a house where everyone wants to be the biggest truck on the highway, we have three mid-sized sedans who have slipped through the gaps and swept their way to the end. DJ VOLT SWITCH, Elesa’s iconic Emolga who created the jams we are listening to even right now! She plays up her social game very well with honesty and loyalty, but is no slouch in the competitions. Though she has been left out of some secrets in the game, she was well=liked in the house and leveraged her position between alliances to get information! Sweet Candy the Wigglytuff who played Sickly Sweet last but downright Sick this time. She got in close with all of the villains but managed to be the cherry flavored licorice that was easier to manage. She avoided detection aligning with big villain Benedict and hiding behind the scenes of his chaos, even almost controlling his moves at points. The Sunstone herself, LISETTE the Solrock, who foresaw victory once, but is this a double reading? Lisette bided her time throughout the game, getting whatever information she could and waiting to play it until the time was right. She was at the center of multiple alliances but always stayed just far enough away from the drama that no one was even targeting her. The Sun? No Lisette is after The World!
Joining us on stage now are the 9 jurors! Starting with Splaatz—Ope watch your step, you gotta be careful or else you’ll trip. Here comes Lance the OG! Though he is old he is still our knight in shining armor. Nickels struts up so casually ooh lala. Here comes Echo, kind of sheepishly, don’t be shy buddy! Day gracefully swims up on stage, still to audience cheering. Wait, the cheering is getting louder? Oh it’s Xio! She is surprisingly well-received. Selene keeps the applause growing. She seems to be goading the audience on with her behavior, not wanting to stay out of the spotlight hmm. And then—oh wow I can’t hear anything with the thunder of the crowd for… Benedict? Interesting outcome here that our little villain has become a real crowd pleaser. Even as he walks to his seat with his head held low.
The jurors speak with our lovely reporter. Lance speaks about how great it was to come back and how this game is way changed from when he won season 1. Xio and Nickels agree, but they still worked hard to adapt to the changes. Selene scoffs a bit, another early winner, she notes that herself and Candy were very well integrated, they just needed to change their approach. Xio says it was much harder playing from the bottom rather than the top and it was a fight, but she had a ton of fun doing so. Day mentions she felt the same way. A house full of winners is not to be underestimated for a second, as they all could be planning many different things behind each other’s backs. Splaatz is—oh he’s asleep… moving on. Nickels asks Echo about how he changed his game this time, and why he turned on her. He apologizes, saying he was blinded by seeing opportunities with Benedict because he didn’t fight with him, only told him what he wanted to hear. And he realized too late that that was a ruse. She accepts his apologies and all eyes turn to Benedict. He looks up, seemingly just noticing eyes are on him. He looks down at his paws. “All I’ve seen since last season is blood on my paws. The need to win never left me. I had to do it at all cost. I lost myself in that game and resorted to every trick in the book to make the winners trust me. And it worked… but I fell deeper and deeper down the hole. And now, I don’t feel like I deserved to win at all.” Xio jumps up and makes him look up. “You deserved your win as much as we all deserved ours. It’s a game, it doesn’t have to define you. You define you, so get up and prove it.” Benedict is in disbelief that Xio is still defending him. “You hear that crowd? They were entertained, we entertained them! Your devioushness entertained them! You gave them a show by tricking a bunch of winners, so own up to it and be the entertainer we know you are.” He gives off a small, barely noticeable,but definitely real this time, smile. Xio turns to the crowd “ARE YOU GUYS READY FOR OUR FINAL THREE???” The crowd erupts in excitement!! “THEN GET READY BECAUSE HERE THEY ARE!!”
Final HOH Part 1: The HOH opens on top of the rotating Roulette wheel in the Neon Colosseum, with the audience now filled and the three houseguests circling in the middle, holding on for dear life. At the same time, they are throwing dodgeballs at each other. Candy is targeting Lisette out of spite, putting on a performance for the audience about how Lisette is a traitor to their alliance. DJ is caught in the crossfire but expertly dodges. She manages to catch a ball that Candy threw and chucks it back, knocking her out. Lisette smiles at DJ but DJ knows she still has to win. She tells Lisette she is sorry but she is done working with people and has to take her game into her own hands, not relying on others to fail but herself to succeed. Lisette agrees, but she wants to be the one to succeed. Lisette lobs a ball at Dj and knocks her out, winning Part 1.
Final HOH Part 2: Part begins with Candy and DJ on the Rotating Roulette platform again, racing around to land the colored balls in order of the competitions and the winners of each one. DJ takes an early lead, having been very aware of the game the whole beginning. Candy struggles at first but when she catches up to leaving the villains alliance and joining Benedict, she takes off, knowing how well she played Benedict as her own puppet that she controlled votes for that she easily crushes the midgame part. Her lead takes her ahead on time going into the endgame. DJ misses a key vote and has to go back, but Candy remembers who saved Benedict countless times, and gets it right, winning part 2.
Final HOH Part 3: The crowd is in uproars as Candy and Lisette reach the stage for final quiz, again on our roulette platform (we paid a lot of money for that). Each juror question goes by, with Lisette and Candy answering in tandem, Both get question after question correct, eventually reaching the last question about Benedict. The crowd is shocked as they both answer together again and… get it wrong. Well, that’s anticlimactic. Benedict sighs, no one knew his true self. But the tie-breaker is revealed, how many rotations has the rotating platform made? With both answering two numbers away from each other, Candy goes just over, eliminating her, and crowning Lisette the final HOH. Lisette has both DJ and Candy in front of her. She doesn’t say much but looks at them. She says that DJ played an impeccable social game and is incredibly loved by the fans and the house. Candy, meanwhile, played a strategic game and almost fooled her a couple times. She turns to Candy “I made a gamble with bringing a social threat to the end before with Amni, but not this time. Candy, let’s give em a show.” And casts her vote to evict DJ.
The Jury Questioning: DJ isn’t shocked, she did a lot this time around and knew she made herself a bigger threat. She exits the house and gets cheers from the audience! She hops to the DJ booth and begins playing the final epic track for the showdown between Candy and Lisette. Both have been in this position before in the final 2 and both have won, but now, only one can become a two-time winner and be crowned the ultimate Champion! Lisette opens with her speech first. She pitches her game strong, how she gravitated towards groups in the early game without committing too strongly, so she didn’t go down with the ship. She still managed to control so many votes in the house by having reach with her Witches Coven and eventually jumping ship and siding with Benedict, as she knew he was under Candy’s thumb and she could infiltrate that alliance to get to the end and destroy it. The jury is impressed by her showing and all eyes turn to Candy. Candy starts saying how she knew her game was already known going into the house and she had to play different. Her main strategy was to fall into the background and connect with the players playing sloppier than her so she could be the puppetmaster and sneak to the end. And for her, that was found in Benedict, who she found it very easy to manipulate. She is the villain they all knew she was but she wasn’t targeted because of her great strategy. She saved Benedict’s game and carried him to the end so that she could have a guaranteed extra life in the endgame with him. Murmurs arise from the jury, Benedict looks incredibly hurt. Xio asks Candy what her biggest move was outside of controlling Benedict. Candy says that she made sure that the villains she worked with got cut before she could get too powerful, even working with Lisette to get out Bane and Maeva. DJ gets up from the booth and asks Lisette why she went to the end with Candy instead of her if she thought Candy was going to be tougher. Lisette clarifies that she thought Candy would be good at explaining her game, but she knows not to rely on other’s failing but on herself to succeed, and DJ has a great story and was well-loved and if she wanted to win, she had to cut DJ and masterfully explain her game to the jury. Benedict finally speaks up to ask Candy if he meant anything to her at all throughout the game. She hesitates, caught off guard, before replying in all honesty that, she wanted to mentor him to be a better player. He says he did well enough for making it to the end twice and didn’t need her to do all that. In their final speeches, Candy says that she used other people as her pawns and navigated a really good game to make it to the end hidden amongst the other players. Lisette says that she played a perfect game, not even touching the block and noting that she has not received a vote against her in either of her games, this one being perfect. She finishes by saying how she played more up front and aggressive to counter the sneakier players of the season and did not back down from the threats that all the winners possessed. The jury is impressed and goes to cast their votes.
Jury Voting: Splaatz says he had a fun time playing again and wants to vote for someone who played really good, even showing him more how to play. Lance says that while some people are old school, some people are REALLY old school, but can still play with the best of the best and be even better. Nickels says she is honored to be in the winners season but one winner played like how she thinks a winner should. Day says she worked with both finalists, but she always felt the house pulling towards one player, as the sun has a lot of gravity and control over the tides. Echo says point blank that he felt the manipulation from both sides, but one felt malicious, and another felt like game, and he knows which he respects more. Xio says that some lines shouldn’t be crossed. Selene says that she was honored to be so thoroughly outplayed, turning from the Queen to the Pawn who was merely a stepping stone in someone elses game, it was thrilling. Benedict silently casts his vote. DJ cues the final tune before hopping down with her vote, saying that it should be obvious. The votes come in… by a vote of 9 to 0… the winner is…
Winner: Lisette!
Runner-Up: Candy!
Confetti cannons and flamethrowers start lighting up the sky with neon streams shining bright all over the sky! Though it is the dead of night, it is as bright as the sun, and Lisette is feeling absolutely radiant. Candy sits in shock, in disbelief. Lisette throws her the Lovers card again. “You misread it the first time so maybe you can learn before you try to tell the fortune teller what her fortune is.” Candy throws the card on the ground in anger and pouts. The jurors go and cheer for Lisette, the ultimate champion and two time winner, STILL having never received a single vote to evict in two entire seasons. The fan favorite vote comes in and… IT’S A TIE???
Fan Favorites: Benedict and Xio!!!
Benedict goes up to Candy, still fuming, and looks her in the eyes. “You know what, you really did teach me something. You taught me that some people never change, but I don’t have to be one of them.” Xio comes up and takes Benedict back to the celebration, sticking her tongue out at Candy as she leaves. The party goes through the night. The sun eventually rises, as Lisette has risen to the top of the competition, as this era of Bunny’s Pokemon Big Brother has come to an end.
My Thoughts: I enjoyed this season a lot. It kept me on the edge as the winners played their games again, some way better than others. Gameplay-wise, I think I preferred last season but I think it’s more so because of the subtle moves made in the dark as no one wanted to be too big of a target. The villains ended up flopping early, which kind of was to be expected, given that everyone else is a relaly smart player to have won. Candy surprised me this time, sneaking in to take over Benedict, being a key player in his storyline, even a bigger villain than he tried to be. It really helped me tie up the storyline really well and I like how it happened. She also played a stellar game again, controlling things from the chaos in the shadows. The other side of the house was not slouching though. Lisette, Selene, Xio, and Day all played smart games, not committing too much to each other but still working well enough to not crumble. Lisette as a winner for this season is great! She put in work to keep her position, as it was in danger of falling apart so much. She leveraged every ally she had and every competition she had to get forward every week. And it worked as she got to the end without hitting the block AGAIN and played a PERFECT game, not receiving a single vote to evict and getting every vote to win. She did that in a winner season too, ultimate winner for sure!
So whats next? Well... that's the end. I knew since the beginning that Season 17 would be the end but it coming up still feels so weird. I am about to start a busy summer and don't have as much time for all of my hobbies but I still feel sad finishing this series. I think I am going to make a series epilogue soon so stay tuned for that but... otherwise that's it. I thank you all again so much for sticking with me the whole time, it's been a wonderful journey!

Hello all! I’m a big Charlotte Dobre fan, and a long time lurker in the community. It took some time for me to work up the courage to post this story, but I feel as thought I am finally ready to share.
So a bit of background. I had this friend group of a few women throughout my high school and college years and into my adult life. They were all like sisters to me and we got along well. Most of these friends I made in high school, such as Kate and Mary, two of the friends this story involves, but one, whose shall call Lauren, which this story now revolves around, I had had since kindergarten. We were the quintessential childhood friends. I was even her maid of honor in her wedding; we were that close. However, this story does not involve her wedding which was by and large lovely. This story takes place a few years after the fact.
Now, I know I am a people pleaser. Because of my nature, I look for the best in people almost to a fault. As such, I was bullied more than once growing up and while I stood up for myself when it was blatant, sometimes I wasn’t able to do so when it was the more insidious, backstabbing sort of bullying. I have also been bad with social cues my whole life (ADHD can do that) so I was often blindsided by backstabbing since I never even knew I had angered the person in question. Because of this, I used to encourage people to be brutally honest with me, and perhaps therein lies some fault of my own. In any case though, looking back, I realize now that while things hadn’t always been bad, at some point, my friends, specifically Lauren had stopped treating right. They were always sarcastic people and even proud of this fact, but sarcasm and being downright mean have a veeeeeery thin line between them. I cannot recount everything they said or did, but I can recount some. They yelled at me for silly jokes (I made a TAZ joke during a DND session Lauren was running and she about ripped my throat out), they would often ignore or give me silent treatments, and I was gaslit in the regular by Mary, especially.
I often left our hangouts feeling not so great about myself and eventually tried to bring up my hurt feelings a couple times. It did not go well, resulting in fights and threats to the friendship that would only calm when I apologized.
I should also take time to state that this group, specifically Lauren and an extended group of her friends that I was becoming acquainted with, would often find someone who did something “problematic” and would unceremoniously ostracize and cut them off, dubbing them as “toxic.” However, when this started I was so deep in, I didn’t question it, assuming I didn’t know the full situation. I, in passing, would worry it might happen to me eventually, but pushed away that fear, believing I was a good person and so were they, so that wouldnt come to pass. How wrong I was.
Anyways, to the day in question. I went into our shared Discord group, just to browse and chat since I had some extra time on my hands. Now, I want to preface this with the fact I am not a religious person, but I am spiritual, and I identify as a Christian in large part. I noticed that day, they put up a meme in the group chat insulting Christianity directly. I did not find it funny, but I kept my cool and messaged Kate, who originally posted it, that I was a Christian, and while she did not mean anything by it, I was sure, I wanted her to please take it down. Instead of apologizing, acquiescing, or anything like that, she mercilessly ripped into me, back up by all the others, except Lauren, who was offline the time. I immediately felt bad for rocking the boat, but luckily, my dear sister Mags was there and helped me stand my ground, checking my messages before I sent them, so as to make sure they were coherent and not too emotional (she did this with my blessing, just so everyone is aware).
After a while of Mary gaslighting me and Kate just being straight up mean, Kate comes out with “I can’t worry about what offends you. That’s not my problem.” I in turn tell her she is echoing the sentiments of the alt right, which in turn makes her demand an apology for calling her a N**i or she’ll block me. I never used that word, but I hold my ground and say “I can’t worry about what offends you. That’s not my problem.” Then summarily block her.
By now, I’m in tears, like uncontrollably sobbing. My sister comforts me and eventually I calm, though I am still horribly depressed. The drama has not yet abated though, for soon I realize that Lauren has deleted me from the DND group chat I shared with her, Kate and a few others. I message her right away and she states that I was mean to Kate and she thought it best that I was kicked out of the group. I ask her if this is her way of cutting ties with me and she says unless I apologize, then yes. I refuse to apologize and though I am horribly sad, we bid each other goodbye and I believed amicably part ways.
Cut to a couple days later. I noticed that on Facebook, mutual friends of Lauren’s and mine are unfreezing and even blocking me. I have no problem dea what is happening, but put two and two together and realize that Lauren must be talking s**t. I message a mutual friend and she confirms, saying she doesn’t want to associate with someone who could do that to Lauren. I have no idea what “that” is or how Lauren was even hurt by me since she had wanted to part ways, we did so supposedly amiably, and she hadn’t even been PRESENT during the initial argument. I am horrified and here’s where I might be the ahole. I went into panic mode and message every mutual friend of outlet, telling them not to believe her in an attempt to salvage these “friendships.” Instead of support, an onslaught of hatred and vile messages invaded my inbox, telling me just terrible things. I won’t recount them here, but I was bawling by the end and had to leave work early that day since I was in such a terrible mental state. Needless to say, I unfriended all and block most of our mutual friends-turned-flying monkeys.
That was largely the end of it. A few more messages passed between Lauren and me, consisting of me both apologizing for the knee jerk message, but also damning her. She called me abusive and said I was an awful friend. I eventually blocked her number.
It’s been a couple years but I am still hurting from this incident. I am on the mend, thanks to therapy, my remaining friends and loving family. I work everyday to leave it behind me, but I still have to wonder.. Am I the ahole?

With machine age, machines have now been buffed and expanded on with more choices for how to ascend. They at least me seemed like it leaves the natural future expansion on hive minds and in particular bio ascension.
Currently, hive minds have cyber and bio ascension. Bio ascension feeling a bit lack luster in comparison to all of our other options now. I feel it makes sense to give them the same treatment machine age just gave to machines.
Here are my thoughts on what fits the most thematically and with existing content: 3 specialization paths (same as machine) - cloning / gene modding ascension: basically modularity with clone soldier origin tie in - gestalt ascension: turn into hive mind or if already hive mind get some hive mind themed buffs (in my mind it'd be like becoming more halo flood) - terravore ascension: learn to use bio species for more things under purge type like turning people into ships. In my mind themed like yuuzhan vong
Curious what everyone else thinks

Hey everybody, I’ve got a pair of dark gray slip on vans that i use to just do stuff around the house but they’re kind of boring. Is there a technique and a way to add a tie-dye flare to them? I don’t usually do my own tie-dying so that’s why I’m asking any advice would help.
Edit:
I also don’t want to bleach the entire shoe white if there’s a way to do it to where I still have my gray shoe and the tie dye swirls are a lighter grayish color that’s what I want.

There has been a lot of discourse surrounding the name and mascot vote for the team, and I wanted to lay out what I believe makes a good team name, as well as which of the popular choices best fit.
For this purpose, I’ll use the most common names I see thrown around as potential favorites from what was included in the official vote:

• Outlaws
• Mammoth
• Yeti
• Swarm
• Mountaineers
• Black Diamonds

1 The name should have ties to the location of the team

I understand that there are a number of teams that don’t have any connection to where they are based out of, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a somewhat dumb argument to make. For the vast majority of teams, the name has some reason. It can be something historical like the Jazz being passed on from New Orleans and is now part of Utah’s history even though we don’t have a raging jazz scene. It can be tied in with the local wildlife or geographical surroundings of the area like the Coyotes were in Arizona. I could go on with more examples, but the point is:
We are choosing a new name to represent Utah’s NHL team, and that name should represent Utah.
From this requirement, we can narrow down the list to the following possible names:

• Outlaws - History of outlaws in Utah from Butch Cassidy to the Sundance Kid
• Mammoth - Mammoth remains have been found here
• Swarm - Known as the “Beehive State”
• Mountaineers - Mountains. Not really needing much of an explanation
• Black Diamonds - Known for skiing and snowboarding

2 The name should be unique to the major professional sports

I understand that some (looking at you Colorado) are up in arms about their precious Lacrosse teams that are already using the names Mammoth and Outlaws. Unfortunately, It’s going to be near impossible to find a name that is good, and hasn’t been used somewhere before. As long as we’re keeping it unique within the major leagues, it doesn’t really matter if some lacrosse, ultimate frisbee, or your cousin's little league team shares a name. The Utah NHL team would immediately become the most popular team with those names. The vast majority of people you’d ask would have never heard of any of those teams before. Not a knock on the sport itself, but sharing a name with a lacrosse team is an absolute non issue. It’s just not popular enough to make a difference. If anything, maybe it helps draw some attention to the existing team.
They left out names that people really like (Raptors) because it’s already in use for a large professional team. You have to draw the line somewhere, because it’s going to be too hard to have a 100% original name that checks all the boxes.
None of the names remaining are already in use among the 4 major leagues, so we can just move on.

3 The name should be cool and provide a unique branding opportunity

This one is more self explanatory. It can come down to opinion, but since it’s my post, I’ll give mine. I think all of these are unique, but Mountaineers feels like the branding would be easy to fall short. It has potential, but there’s also a chance to get something really boring and generic. The others feel more fool proof, so we’ll remove Mountaineers here.

• Outlaws
• Mammoth
• Swarm
• Black Diamonds

4 The name should flow of the tongue nicely

This one is an awkward one to qualify one name over the other. None of the remaining names have a real alliteration, Yeti being the closest as the start of Utah and Yeti have a similar sound. Utah Outlaws has a near rhyme with the -ah and -law.
While those fit the best, I don’t feel that any are serious offenders of coming out of the mouth awkwardly. For the sake of narrowing the list down, I’ll remove Black Diamonds since it’s just a little bit of a mouthful.
This leaves the list here, with Outlaws having a slight edge in this category:

• Outlaws
• Mammoth
• Swarm

From here, it’s just a matter of choosing your favorite of the remaining names.
The last point really could be finding the name that feels the most "classic". New team names usually stand out from the rest of the league that has old names, established in history. Look at the Oilers compared to the Kraken. It doesn't quite feel right.
To me, Swarm sounds a little XFL/WNBAish. I wouldn’t hate it, but I think it’s the worst of the remaining names.
Mammoth is cool and fits the “cold” theme that they are apparently in love with based off the other names, but the name that I feel check all of the boxes the best is clearly Outlaws.
Classic sounding name with historical ties to Utah, feels like it should already be a team in one of the 4 major leagues but is somehow still available to be claimed and uniquely used, is easy and cool branding, and rhymes with Utah to make it come off the tongue easily. It can also be shortened to “Laws” which is equally cool.
Please vote accordingly.
Tl;dr There are some decent options, but Outlaws checks all the boxes.

I've looked at this game for a little bit and it looks like alot of fun. I would like to build and thematic original trilogy list but noticed that the game doesn't seem super popular around me. In addition last I checked, certain ships that I would want dont seem to exist like the tie bomber. Is it really worth getting into? And if so, how would I approach building a empire list?

Abstract

High-throughput sequencing of ancient DNA from Fatyanovo and Abashevo cultures (7 and 3 men, respectively) has led to new hypotheses about their origin and contacts. According to published archaeological evidence, i. e., due to striking similarities between the grave goods discovered in the Middle Volga Abashevo burial complexes and those found in the bellshaped beaker culture, it is believed that the Fatyanovo people may have descended from the Corded Ware Culture. The present study demonstrates, for the first time, the remarkable similarity between the Fatyanovo people, as represented by the Volosovo-Danilovsky and Nikultsino burial grounds in the Yaroslavl region, and three distinct cultural groups: a) the Corded Culture People, primarily from Bohemia and Germany, b) the Bell-Beaker cultures, found in the same region as well as in France and the Netherlands, and c) the bearers of the Unetice culture. Furthermore, the Abashevite from the Pepkino mound (burial id 18) is genetically similar to several Fatyanovo individuals from the Volosovo-Danilovsky and Nikultsino burial grounds. Finally, the new set of AMS-radiocarbon dates has helped to narrow down the chronological gap between the Fatyanovo and Abashevo people’s expansion towards the Upper and Middle Volga regions, thereby indicating a direct contact between these two groups. Therefore, we can hypothesize that the highly mobile and dispersed lifestyle intrinsic to cattle-breeders may have led to the reclamation of vast territories in the east while still maintaining close ties with their ancestral lands. In conclusion, our findings demonstrate that the Fatyanovo and Abashevo people likely originate from the same genetic background and are integral parts of the Corded Culture world, rather than “lost children” as previously assumed.

Article is in Russian, but the abstract and figure captions included English versions

Week 20 will run from May 13th to May 19th. This week's theme is peaches. Peaches are a stonefruit originally domesticated and cultivated in eastern China. They grow on trees and the fruit consists of a large pit surrounded by a yellow or whitish flesh that has a distinct and delicate aroma and sweet taste. Peach cultivation spread throughout the world, with peaches appearing in India in 1700 BCE and in Greece in 300 BC and spreading throughout Eurasia before being brought to the Americas by the Spanish in the 16th century. Today, peaches are enjoyed throughout the world and are often highly prized and culturally significant.
Your challenge this week is to make a cocktail that includes peaches in some form. You may use peach nectar, peach liqueur, or any other form you wish. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• https://www.acouplecooks.com/peach-cocktails/
• https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/g2864/peach-cocktails/
• https://www.abcfws.com/8-peach-cocktail-recipes-for-peach-lovers

The automated alarm tripped a traffic congestion warning on the monitoring panel, the cyan glow displaying fiercely against the normal amber “all good” status indicators.
The dutiful employee that he was, Mrelnik examined the warning and collected the automatically-generated ticket into his service queue, thinking it would be a quick and easy investigation that tied back to a traceable boost in traffic from one of the thousands of worlds tied to the matter-transmission network.
Mrelnik was mistaken. After multiple work-shifts there was no clear source for the increase in traffic through the network; no source and no destination. There was, however, a significant increase in the flow of mass being ported through the slips. Mrelnik, having exhausted the level of his expertise, escalated the ticket to the Tier II Slip support team.
Jaxon saw the unusual ticket in the escalation queue and, immediately, presumed that the originator, a “Mrelnik” must be an idiot who doesn’t know how to do a mass-source trace through the network so Jaxon began the process. The mass trace, as indicated in the ticket that Jaxon did not bother to read, returned errors; no source could be located and no destination was found. The extra mass had no record of entering the Slip system and no record of leaving it: it just WAS. After a considerable number of work-units invested in trying to unravel the mystery, Jaxon, too, admitted defeat and escalated the ticket to the Tier III Slip support group.
Jessaxine found the mystery mass ticket to be fascinating. It is clear that Jaxon holds those in Tier I support in contempt and did not bother to read all of the notes that Mrelnik included about all of the tests done. Jessaxine, however, does respect the lower tiers of support as they handle all of the routine tickets and keep the entire system running. Their work allows her to handle only the most fascinating of problems; fascinating problems like mystery mass clogging the entire Slip system.
After a significant number of cycles of diagnostic tracing Jessaxine discovered that the mass was not being introduced at any of the registered SlipGate locations but it was randomly traversing through all of them, seeking a valid exit point correlation before vanishing again. Verifying that the mass was randomly entering the network, and being relayed around, allowed for triangulation of the origin point and exit point through a long-running analytical diagnostic that ruled out millions of permutations of possibilities.
—-
It took a half year for Jessaxine to further the mystery of the mystery mass, isolating a boring yellow star at the outer fringes of civilization. Extensive research into the archives revealed that a SlipGate had been deployed there, thousands of rotations ago, on the backside of the tidally-locked natural satellite of the most promising planet in the system. It had been placed as a means for future research teams to have access to the world to do anthropological studies on the rapidly-advancing sentients that had evolved on the world. It was placed, and forgotten. It was never updated and, while it could connect into the network it could not register with the current coordinates system so, anything it transmitted, went on a full-system relay, searching for the matching destination coordinate, before being returned to the loopback address, depositing whatever was transmitted back where it started. The entire journey would span several hours from the perspective of the Slip operators, but the subjective time spent by the contents transmitted would be significantly shorter.
Jessaxine compiled her report, filing it with an urgency flag as the only means to resolve the mystery mass would be to travel to the long-forgotten Slip and run the required firmware and software updates to it, allowing it to connect to the remainder of the network correctly.
The sentients of that world had, clearly, advanced enough to reach into their local neighborhood and had discovered the Slip and were trying to use it. Their efforts would have to go uncorrected until such a time that the update vessel could reach them.
—----
Universal Grand Tours was the most successful tourist attraction in the history of humanity despite being the most expensive. People bankrupted themselves to reach the lunar colony that had grown around the tourism business so that they could take one ride through the cosmic SlipNSlide. People booked their individual rides YEARS in advance, each eagerly waiting for their opportunity to witness the splendors of the universe sliding by them at a speed bordering on incompatibility with the human mind.
As the time approached, each rider would sit through the liability video and sign their danger waiver, freeing the SlipNSlide operators from any wrongdoing should they not return or come back altered in any way. No one bothered to read the papers, everyone signed them. No one had vanished or come back altered in any way, other than having a newfound awe for the universe.
Each rider ascended the stairs and got settled into their group raft, as the water started to pour down the slide, lubricating it for the raft’s departure. The ride operator would yell “Go” and give the raft a solid shove off the platform, allowing it to gently slide, with slight acceleration, down the steep slide and into the silvery surface of the Slip. Momentary swirls of rainbows, spanning colors humans had no words for, whipped and spun around the raft for an infinitesimal eternity before a strange world of bustling aliens in a travel port of some sort milled about blasted across the conduit all around them, to be replaced with another moment of colors and another location being presented. Hours of riding the wave of water past thousands of glimpses of the life across the galaxy streaked by the rafters as they continued their “downward” trajectory before erupting back through the gate and sliding into the recovery pool in the lunar facility.
For nearly a century the lunar cosmic SlipNSlide operated, sending out billions of people throughout the heavens, giving humans untold numbers of existential crises about their place in reality but, also, inspiring untold innovations toward achieving the ability to traverse the stars on their own. For nearly a century the Cosmic SlipNSlide was the pinnacle of humanity’s aspirations, every seeking to have their one day of wonder before mortality caught up with them.
Then the update ship arrived and the SlipGate failed to open, causing an entire raft of people to simply bounce off an impermeable membrane of fluidic silvery material, to rebound into the recovery pool.
—----
The Cosmic SlipNSlide was replaced; ending it’s life as THE tourist destination and beginning the life of its original intention, allowing humans to join the intragalactic community at large.

I'm a bridesmaid in a wedding where the bridal party is doing a range of light neutrals to rusty-burnt oranges, and I need to find a rust orange dress for the beginning of august! The only problem is, I can't find anything that I like or that fits the vibe of the rest of the dresses (picture more flowy, casual sundresses rather than traditional bridesmaids dresses).
I found this dress and I think it's so cute, the only problem is it's the wrong color. I've never dyed a garmet before, but I'm wondering if anyone with more experience thinks I'd be able to with this one? It's 100% cotton, which I've read is easier to dye.
Open to any advice, dye recommendations, and/or opinions!
The dress: https://www.nordstrom.com/s/free-people-sundrenched-floral-tiered-maxi-sundress/7614099?origin=keywordsearch-personalizedsort&breadcrumb=Home%2FAll%20Results&color=650
https://preview.redd.it/g91va1s0n80d1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&s=e713fc6e70762f866734b0b8a5b0f6710621523a

This is not a "I hope it's not Vecna" post. If it is, awesome 🙌. I just have a genuine curiosity as to why many on this sub are without any doubts that it will be him, because I wonder if I am missing anything. So far, aside from the Beholder in the teaser being vaguely undead-looking and Vecna being a powerful Necromancer, I'm not seeing anything that screams "It's him!" so I was wondering if there was something I missed, or if it is a different trailer I didn't see?
Now, if I'm being perfectly honest, my initial thought was that it will be the Archlich/Demilich/LichKing Acererak the Devourer. I thought we'd all be on the same train until I saw so many people say it's Vecna. My reasons are as follows:

1. For thosw unaware, while Vecna might be a bit more currently popular thanks to Stranger Things, Acererak was one of the original BBEGs of DND, and was personally created by Gary Gygax. He actually predates Vecna as a character (although the Hand and Eye already existed). He is present in several, if not all the editions (can't remember if he's in 2 or not, but def 1, 3, 4, and 5), and shares many similarities with Vecna, being an extremely powerful mage and Necromancer who became a Lich King and later a Demilich. He's also one of the most powerful vestiges in e4, known as the Devourer.
   
2. He's much more in line with what DBD Killers are about. Vecna is wholly evil of course, searching for secrets and power at whatever cost, always bringing death in his plans to take over, but it's usually very impersonal. He doesn't really kill for the sake of killing, it's always to get more subjects for necromancy or experiments, or as collateral damage, or in defense. Acererak on the other hand is sadistic and petty. He loves killing and chaos and death, and has an affinity for traps and mindgames, which leads me into my next point:
   
3. Acererak is the main villain in the most famous dungeon in DnD, the Tomb of Horrors. It is iconic, one of the oldest dungeons created, and infamously deadly with traps and puzzles out the wazoo. It is also one of the most popular adventures, appearing in several other campaigns like Return to the Tomb of Horrors. If that wasn't enough, Acererak also is the focus of Tomb of Annihilation, a 5th edition adventure, which is also very popular. My point is, this will be a full chapter, meaning a map, and what better way to introduce a Dungeons and Dragons chapter but with an actual dungeon? Also, in Tomb of Horror, you never actually kill Acererak, you can only temporarily defeat him. The focus is surviving all the traps and stuff. He always reappears. A group of people who must survive an unbeatable enemy to escape a horror map? Sounds familiar....
   
4. The Beholder in the teaser. I don't think that's a random appearance. Vecna is not known for using Beholders. He has used them in the past of course as minions, but it's not something that is super tied to the character. On the other hand, Acererak has and does. He has had several Beholder minions, and in Tomb of Annihilation, he is paired with an extremely deadly one named Belchorzh the Unseen, who guards the Tomb of the Nine gods, which are several deities Acererak slew. You have to fight him in the campaign, and he can be TOUGH, because Acererak personally empowers him, much more than a standard minion.
   
5. The laugh. This is admittedly very thin but I wanted to include it anyway. As far as I'm aware, there has never been a Canon reference to Vecna laughing. Not to say he doesn't, it's just not seen (anyone can correct me if I'm wrong). Acererak however actually has a brief Wiki entry describing his dry, evil laugh, and at least one of his modules describes him cackling.
   

Anyways, just food for thought. This post will likely age like milk in the desert after tomorrow since it's most likely Vecna, but I just wanted to be able to say "I called it!!" if it ends up being Acererak lmao.

I have been thinking about Genshin and its inspiration from Gnosticism for a while, especially ever since we got Neuvillette and his character stories. In particular, the line in his Vision story, “And when one so gifted completed their duty... the gift the gods would receive in return would be more abundant still,” has really piqued my interest. Particularly, what is it that the Heavenly Principles gain from Vision wielders? I think I may have figured out a potential answer based on Gnostic beliefs and cosmology.
For those who may not know about Gnosticism, it was an ancient Christianity that focused on the belief that the god who created the material world was actually an evil, false god and that the true god existed in a perfect realm beyond the heavens. Different sects of Gnostics would have wildly different beliefs, but certain themes tend to continuously appear in their cosmologies. Our most complete collection of their texts come from the Nag Hammadi Library, and that is where much of the popular stories of Gnostic beliefs come from, and thus the most likely place Mihoyo would pull from for inspiration. So I will try to summarize my understanding of the creation story, because it’s important to my theory.
In the beginning there was the Monad, and the Monad created emanations from itself called Aeons. Aeons were created in pairs representing the masculine and the feminine, and together these pairs would create more emanations of Aeons, which were also born in pairs. The exact number can vary wildly, but eventually we get the furthest out Aeons of Sophia and Christ. Sophia chose to create a new emanation without her partner, and it goes terribly. The being born is a horrific, malformed existence that cleaves a segment of Sophia’s divinity from her, gravely wounding her. The Monad casts this being out of the divine realm. This being is called the Demiurge, and it is angered at being cast out of the divine realm. So it creates the material world in an attempt to prove its own divinity. It creates the archons, the firmament, the cosmos, etc. before it finally decides to create humans whose sole purpose would be to worship the Demiurge and feed its ego. The problem for the Demiurge when it creates Adam, though, is that the Demiurge doesn’t know how to imbue the body with life.
The Aeons see this and take the chance to begin enacting Sophia’s redemption. They convince the Demiurge to breathe the Breath of Life into Adam. When the Demiurge does this, it unwittingly divests the divine power it took from Sophia into Adam. Unable to take the power back, the Demiurge resolves to cloud humanity’s minds so that they never learn their true divine origins. The goal of Gnosticism is to attune to the divine spark within yourself through introspection and self-actualization. Doing so will grant you gnosis, which is the secret divine knowledge that will allow you to escape the material world upon death and return to the divine realm.
So what does this all have to do with Genshin? Potentially a lot. For those who just want the broad strokes, the TL;DR is:

• Nibelung is Genshin’s Monad
• The Heavenly Principles are Genshin’s Demiurge
• Nibelung's Authority powered the Loom of Fate
• The divine spark within humanity is Nibelung’s Authority
• Nibelung shattered his Authority and spread it to the humans during the War of Vengeance, potentially as a final “fuck you” to the Heavenly Principles
• Visions are given to humans that can obtain this Authority, and if they manage to fulfill their wishes, they ascend to Celestia and have Nibelung’s Authority stripped from them
• The Gnoses are small Oratrices that gather their nation’s faith into energy to power the Loom of Fate for Celestia

So let’s start at the top. How can Nibelung be considered Genshin’s equivalent of the Monad? My reason stems from the high likelihood that Nibelung is the Sovereign of the Light element, which we have numerous hints towards its existence throughout the game. The realm that all elemental life forms stem from is called the “Light Realm,” the Colors of the Rainbow namecard description likens the elements to the way colors are refractions from light, and the Travelers are implied to also control the Light element, and that this is why they are element compatible. I also believe that Light as an element is likely just another name for the Imaginary element that exists throughout the rest of the Honkaiverse, which we know Genshin is a part of. If Nibelung is the Light Sovereign, it would explain why the other Seven Sovereigns bow to him as the Dragon King, because it would take all Seven Sovereigns to match Nibelung’s power. The Colors of the Rainbow namecard description also offers us a new way to interpret the relation between Nibelung and the other sovereigns. Colors are refractions of light, and another way you could think of a refraction is as an emanation. Thus, if Nibelung holds the Light Authority, then the other Sovereigns' Authorities emanate from Nibelung’s Authority. This forms a pretty clear parallel with the Monad and its Aeons. Therefore, we can assume Nibelung is Genshin’s Monad equivalent.
If Nibelung is the Monad, then it makes sense for his greatest enemy to represent the Demiurge. But aside from their antagonism towards the Dragons, the Heavenly Principles share other parallels with the Demiurge. For starters, the Heavenly Principles formed the world of Teyvat from the Light Realm, similar to how the Demiurge created the material world. On top of that, the Heavenly Principles created the position of Archon and gifted them their stolen Authority just as the Demiurge created their Archons using their stolen divine power. And to top it all off, just as the Demiurge cleaved its bit of divine power from an emanation of the Monad, the Heavenly Principles had to steal the authorities of the Sovereigns to even be able to begin the reshaping of the world. All in all, I believe the case for the Heavenly Principles being the Demiurge is fairly self-evident by this point in Genshin’s story.
In a recent video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKq6E3o5jsA ), Ashikai theorized that the Loom of Fate is an actual machine created and utilized by the Heavenly Principles to control Teyvat, powered by the remains of Nibelung. I am inclined to agree with this, and I believe that most likely the Loom of Fate is powered by Nibelung’s Light Authority, which we perhaps could also call “absolute authority.” The same “absolute authority” mentioned in Neuvillette’s Vision story that could no longer suppress the loathing of the world.
From Neuvilette’s Vision story, we know that Visions were created as a result of the War of Vengeance, when Nibelung returned to Teyvat with Forbidden Knowledge, hellbent on destroying the Heavenly Principles. In the midst of this war, the “functions” of the Heavenly Principles were ruined, and I believe this is in reference to the Loom of Fate. In Ashikai’s video, she theorizes that the Genesis Pearl from the Battle Pass cutscene is essentially representative of Nibelung’s Authority, and that it disappeared during the invasion of the Second Descender.
While I agree with the idea that the Genesis Pearl is in reference to Nibelung’s Authority, I disagree with the Second Descender being responsible for its disappearance. Neuvillette’s Vision story is very clear that the War of Vengeance was what caused the Heavenly Principles to lose the use of their functions, which I am assuming is in reference to the Loom of Fate. That same story also tells us that this event is what caused the Heavenly Principles to enact the Vision system and the Archons. The exact quote being, “And when one so gifted completed their duty... the gift the gods would receive in return would be more abundant still.” What could the Heavenly Principles gain from humans who achieve their ambitions?
Returning to Gnosticism, humans contain a fragment of divinity within themselves, and the key to attuning yourself to it is self-actualization. What does every Vision wielder have in common? They are all very close to achieving self-actualization! When one reaches that moment of self-actualization in Gnosticism, they gain their gnosis. So what does a Vision wielder gain in a similar moment? What is this gnosis in Genshin, because I do not believe the Gnoses owned by the Archons represent the same gnosis. This is where I’m going to begin some speculation based on what I believe are the likely motivations of Nibelung and the Heavenly Principles.
When Nibelung returned and began the War of Vengeance, I believe he went straight to Celestia to confront the Heavenly Principles. I believe he wanted to regain his Authority and restore himself to his full dragonhood. But, I believe he was unable to fully overcome the Heavenly Principles. Perhaps the War of Vengeance happened after the Second Descender invaded and subsequently aligned themselves with the Heavenly Principles, or perhaps the Abyssal power Nibelung leveraged was eating away at Nibelung faster than he could fight. Either way, I think Nibelung ended up in a position where he recognized he would be unable to get exactly what he wanted, but he was determined to not let the Heavenly Principles have a total victory. So, in a last ditch effort, he took his former Light Authority that was currently powering the Loom of Fate and shattered it, casting it out of Celestia and spreading its fragments among the humans below. Though he didn’t restore his dragonhood, he did get his revenge, and the Heavenly Principles are left to scramble and try to restore their now broken Loom of Fate.
The Heavenly Principles need to reforge the Light Authority to truly get the Loom working again, but how do they do this? The key, I believe, is human ambition. Ambition can lead you towards self-actualization, and as I’ve said, that is the key to obtaining gnosis in Gnosticism. Therefore, if you encourage humans to chase their ambitions, there will be those who will have the willpower to actually stand a chance of achieving them, and thus obtain gnosis. And if the Light Authority is Genshin’s gnosis, then obtaining ambition can grant you a fragment of this authority. So what if the Heavenly Principles create an exchange? A contract, if you will. And the terms are simple: the Heavenly Principles will give a fragment of their elemental authority to any mortal whose ambitions resonate with Nibelung’s Authority. In exchange, should the human achieve their ambition, and thus tangibly obtain a sliver of Nibelung’s Authority, they must surrender that Authority back to the Heavenly Principles.
In the meantime, though, the Loom still needs to be powered. That’s where the Archons and their Gnoses come into play. We know that faith is how the Archons obtain their power, and from the Oratrice, we can see that such faith can generate vast amounts of energy. I think the Gnoses act as pocket Oratrices, collecting the faith the people have in their gods and generating power from it, aspecting said power to the given Archon’s element and delivering it to Celestia, where the 7 elemental energies are used as a substitute for Light/Imaginary energy to power the Loom of Fate. So why make the gods kill each other in the Archon War? To stop competition from arising. In our own world, conflicts between nations arise over land and resources already, add God nukes to the equation and it becomes a recipe for disaster. The Heavenly Principles needed the world to be amenable to humans and their ambitions for the Vision system to work, and I believe that’s the criteria by which they chose the Seven Archons. I don’t believe the Heavenly Principles chose their Archons based on who had the best intentions for humanity. I believe they selected them based on whether their vision would encourage mortal ambition, which in turn would generate more Vision bearers and thus more candidates for obtaining Nibelung’s scattered Authority, making the process as fast and efficient as possible.
I recognize that there are likely plenty of issues with my thinking. Particularly, the entire timeline of all this makes no sense, because Apep's dialogue indicates the War of Vengeance was way back in time, potentially even being the invasion of the Second Descender, but Neuvillette's Vision story makes a clear relation between the War of Vengeance and the creation of Visions. Perhaps Visions have existed since before the Archon War? But then that begs the question of how the Heavenly Principles kept the Loom running in the meantime, if at all... And then there's the Moon Sisters and the Third Descenders! There is still so much information that we don't have, but I really wanted to share these thoughts I had.

How cool would this be?
I took the first jacket that I found with a lot of base white, so the model is not important, only the style
I was looking for a new jacket, and I wanted something colourful, but I can't seem to find any good option. I'd love to see designs like this one, though I can imagine it won't happen : (
I guess I'll have to stick with black and some red or yellow details.