Paper with castle print

Written Speculative Fiction in all its forms.

2010.08.01 16:49 1point618 Written Speculative Fiction in all its forms.

**A place to discuss published speculative fiction**—novels, short stories, comics, and more. Not sure if a book counts? Then post it! Science Fiction, Fantasy, Alt. History, Postmodern Lit., and more are all welcome here. **The key is that it be speculative, not that it fit some arbitrary genre guidelines**. Any sort of link or text post is welcome as long as it is about printed / text / static SF material.
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2008.09.11 19:01 papercraft

We make things out of paper.
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2009.03.03 20:39 Neuroscience: Your brain on reddit

/neuro, involving neuroscience: Discussion and news pertaining to neurobiology, cognitive studies, clinical neuroscience, the laboratory, and anything else related. We're a bit laid back here, you're free to post anything about neuroscience as long as it doesn't break the rules. For more academic discussions of journal articles, /neuroscience is a great place.
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2024.05.14 01:11 lilithhollow Victorian-era inspired Hogwarts Legacy writing drabble. (Ominis POV)

I love reading classic literature, specifically works from the 19th century, so I wanted to write a fan work for this game with that feeling:
“You are quite ridiculous!” came the vivacious and teasing voice of one student passing by the open window. This declaration was answered by the distinct and familiar laughter of another, carried on the autumn wind and drenched in the odor of decaying foliage and the promise of rain.
From his seat in the west wing of the library, parchment and tomes stacked beside him, Ominis Gaunt followed the sound until it vanished completely beyond the courtyard, sensations of uneasy feeling coloring his neck and ears. After a pause, he regained his senses. He shook his head, as if banishing the regretful thought that had then stolen into his mind.
“Why does he keep volunteering himself on her behalf?” He whispered, thinking of the owner of that feminine voice – a new fifth-year student at Hogwarts - an anomaly on its own merit - who had, in half the time succeeding her arrival, attained the magnetic affections of his oldest friend, Sebastian Sallow. “Of course - it’s because she’s new and decidedly beautiful.” Ominis told himself, merely speculating on the state of her physiognomy by the lilting cadence of her voice and the faint wisps of form his wand could communicate to him at a distance. Being blind since birth, he, out of necessity, had developed a magical ‘seeing eye' with the ebony tool he now pressed between his right forefinger and the book in his lap.
He hadn’t dared approach her directly when she’d first entered the Slytherin common room a month prior, for a frenzy of students had erupted around her the moment she’d set foot in it. From there, rumors spread like bees pollinating a garden after a long and depressing winter:
“The new girl had a ministry escort!”
“She was attacked by a dragon!”
“No, she rode the dragon!”
“Supposedly she was a squib before…”
“That can’t be - I heard she's a transfer student and can speak seven languages!”
“That’s a cover - her real secret was that she was privately tutored and has rare and explosively dangerous magic!”
These accounts became increasingly absurd because no one truly knew anything for certain, thus making everything possible. The girl herself was peculiarly private but charmingly polite - a combination that instantly made any would-be-pryer retreat into stuttering awkwardness. They did at the very least glean her name, which quickly became the subject of their fantastical speculations: Mélisande Clarusia Warwick.
From within his pocket, Ominis retrieved the note Sebastian’s owl had delivered him that day:
“Ominis,
Apologies for the abrupt change of plans, but our anticipated study session this afternoon must be postponed. Professor Weasley has graciously requested I accompany ‘MC’ to Hogsmeade for the replenishment of her class supplies, a task I’m sure you know I could hardly decline, given my inclination towards gentlemanly conduct. Incidentally, I cannot help but suspect Mel’s humble dismissal of her exceptional dueling prowess belies a deliberate modesty; there is undoubtedly more to her than meets the eye.
Regardless, I’ll make it up to you! If I’m not in the common room by nightfall, you know where to find me.
Sebastian.”
It did not escape Ominis’s notice that Sebastian, after weathering defeat by her in a duel during their first Defense Against the Dark Arts class together, had taken personal interest in MC and even dubbed her as such - among other names - needling her about the verbose nature of her formal title. Further, it was uncharacteristic of Sebastian to cancel a study session, seeing as he typically made any excuse to visit the library on behalf of research for his ill sister, Anne… nevermind the fact that Ominis could not recall any instance in recent memory where Sebastian had canceled on him, specifically.
After a moment’s hesitation, he refined the creases on the letter and tucked it back into the pocket of his waistcoat. He swallowed, brows furrowing and found that he no longer cared about the dancing plague of 1518 or the other contents of the book he’d since abandoned on his lap.
Sebastian did not come to dinner that evening. In customary fashion, Ominis found himself solitary - twiddling his fork on his plate - his company forsaken even by his housemates, who tended to cast upon him looks of cautious regard. They granted him a wide berth - huddling together three or four invisible student’s places apart from him. Through the soles of his shoes he felt the vibrations of doors slamming across the hall as students filtered out and the bench beneath him shifted when those occupying it left. The idle chatter of two teachers drifted across the cavernous room. Ominis sighed, folding a leaf of wax paper over a blueberry muffin.
“She was missing too…” he noted passively and wondered if he ought to have purloined a second muffin from the banquet table.
He held his wand aloft as he rose, a crimson bead of light fluttering like a heartbeat on its tip. The sensation of structures - rows of oak tables and benches - extended across the space before him. As he walked, he approximated the mass of these objects: how near they existed to his kneecaps, how firmly they were anchored to the floor - all actions thoughtlessly natural to him.
The passageway led from the Great Hall into the Viaduct Courtyard and a faint chill heralded that twilight had fallen upon the surrounding landscape. The tumult of student life had withdrawn for the night, taking with them a clamor of distracting noises and smells. Ominis meditated on the silence, finding solace in measuring the rhythm of his footfalls as he paced across the leaf-littered earth.
He imagined Sebastian with his freckled nose buried in a book in the Undercroft and smiled.
“It’s not the first time he’s worked through dinner,” he reminded himself. “Anne is lucky to have such a brother.” A pang of sadness worked dully at his chest following the mention of Anne’s name. Nothing had been quite like it was since before she’d fallen ill. “Even Sebastian’s laughter seems contrived these days.”
Suddenly a thunderous crack echoed across the hillside to his right, akin to a bolt of lightning striking a tree. Ominis jolted so forcefully that he nearly dropped the muffin in his left hand.
“W-what was that?” He gasped, his head swimming with adrenaline. The atmosphere reeked of burnt timber. Swiftly, he sought the protection of the cloister, his wand hand sweeping the clearing.
The path beneath his feet dropped into a series of stairs ending where the Black Lake licked the limestone and wooden boats rocked innocently in the building below. To the muggle, prepared to dismiss the absence of petrichor, this artificial thunderstroke might have signified a distant storm but Ominis knew well the vast and formidable traits of magic.
Someone was dashing up the stairs to his left - their feet tapping like raindrops on the hard surface. Ominis pressed himself plumb against the column and held his breath.
Her scent preceded her - like honeysuckle, mild and sweet. Following closely, the sound of her breath, quick and shallow, as though from a brisk sprint. The swish of her robes marked her entrance, swift and fleeting. In a moment, she vanished through the nearest castle door, oblivious to the presence of an onlooker.
Ominis found himself immobilized by his perplexity. He had, he was sure, sensed some great surge of energy, unlike any he had previously encountered, as she glided past him. An enigmatic metallic tang lingered on her garments, its quality imprinted on his senses. As he reviewed the day’s - no - the month’s occurrences and considered Sebastian’s recent preoccupation, a daring notion began to take root in his mind:
The new girl was forging a novel strain of magic.
submitted by lilithhollow to hogwartslegacyJKR [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 00:53 bobrewer_ LONGING LETTERS

Red brick castles stacked the suburban streets. Divided by side yards and dogs barking. The sun laid crisp over the spliced horizon, spilling yolk over the withering lawns.
Henry waited in his lawn chair beside the mailbox. As his body had taken recent liberties, he'd remained fit from his army training. His throat rumbled as he checked his silver watch. Finally, the postman flushed the corner, and stumbled to Henry's curb, to his bag, then to his letter.
"...you're late, Lenny," Henry pulled his readers.
Lenny, the paperboy, regained his choppy breath. Coke-bottle glasses stored his tortoise eyes. They surveyed the concrete corridor they called Gerben Street, "I'm sorry, Mr. Bronson, I really am. I never meant to keep you waiting... I'm sorry, Henry."
Henry didn't answer the boy, tore the envelope with ape's elegance. Pranced the script of his lover's ink. The letter had traveled from Paris, France, skidded the black waves of the Atlantic Ocean, hitched buses, bikes, and buggies, all to kiss the smooth of Henry's palms.
The words were from his lover, Amélie, he'd met at war in an escapade to Bordeaux. It was here he'd kissed her cherry cheeks, and they'd made love only a year before.
Amélie talked of finer things, life and love and silver tastes. She yearned for Henry, and hadn't taken a lover since. Sleeping all alone, cold as the sleepy ocean in between them.
Love,
Amélie
Those four letters, strung together. Followed by that name, that haunted, horrible, beautiful name. The music of Henry's life, a distant harp in a sway of windy trees.
Henry spent all night beneath a dancing candle. Scribbling, nixing, finding the perfect words. Rifling through Shakespeare, and Plath, and Wilde. It was at the page's end, Henry wrote, what he knew he'd write in the weeks and weeks before:
"Oh, Amélie, won't you visit me? Here in the States? I know you don't like the food. I don't either, but with each other, me with you, and you with me, we'll ever, never notice."
He entered the post office that morning, and his reply was off to France. The weeks and weeks had passed again, crawling to November's end. Henry waited by that same mailbox, and waited, and waited, but nothing arrived in the days after.
He entered the post office that cold evening, and met the clerk, who's eyes tired with crescent glints. Henry demanded his mail be delivered to him, scolding the patient clerk, providing his address thereafter.
The clerk, a powdered, faded beauty of a woman, "we had a change in paperboys. We're putting a new employee on that route by Gerben Street."
"Oh no, that's a shame," Henry dampened. He enjoyed the paperboy, Lenny, and his weekly company. He'd felt shame for their final, frustrated exchange. The clerk retreated to a backroom, and returned with a letter from France.
Henry couldn't help himself. He ripped and ripped the note naked. Read the first and fourth and tens of lines.
"There isn't a night I don't think of you. I wander stars wondering if you do too. Your touch, your breath, your arms. I receive the memory fondly in a summer's dream, and I don't forget a word you've said along the way. I love you, Henry Bronson. And this ocean, though far and wide, won't stop the heart from sailing. Because our children will know silver dreams too, and what parents we'd be to not make them true. You are the love of my life. The music of my night.
I'll arrive in Savannah on the evening of Christmas Eve.
Love,
Amélie"
The words strummed his chest. Henry rose his eyes to the world anew, because Amélie, his beloved Amélie——was coming to visit at last.
Henry was paralyzed in weeks to come. His lawn, unattended, his sink, stacked with dishes. He stared his only photo of Amélie, smiling at her blushed eyes for hours and hours and hours. In this love he'd been born again, a new meaning in every little thing.
It was finally time——Christmas Eve. Snow peppered the sheets of the crystal tarmac. Henry entered the airport, propelled by the stride of anxious confidence. He coursed the halls, until he'd arrived at the final gate:
PARIS, FRANCE [ARRIVING IN 4 MINUTES]
Minutes became years, years decades. He walked to the bar and asked for a glass of water. Flushed his throat with fretting sips, and noticed the custodian who mopped spilled coffee. A familiar face, though, Henry couldn't pin him. He approached, and to his surprise, it was the old paperboy, Lenny.
They shared a laugh and began to catch up. Henry's eyes flirting with the gate:
[ARRIVING IN 2 MINUTES]
Lenny rambled, "they canned me without warning, right before the holidays. I've struggled to make due, but——I guess it's all worked out okay," he paused, "funny enough——I was en route to deliver on your street before I got the call. Gerben Street, right?"
[ARRIVING IN 1 MINUTE]
Henry's heart thumped like a derby horse. He glanced the snow that flaked the window.
"Yeah, Gerben."
"Gerben, yeah, I thought I remembered," Lenny nodded, "you know, Mr. Bronson, I think I left your letter in my backpack, actually. Would you like me to check?"
"Sure."
Lenny was off, and as he left, Frenchmen, women, and decadent Americans flooded the gate's entrance. Pulling luggage, sighing stretches, lending hugs. Henry watched carefully for his cherry, silver dream. To each face, he paid his attention. Lenny nudged Henry, handed over the envelope.
"Thanks," Henry took the note, "Merry Christmas... I'll see you around, I hope."
"Sure," Lenny shuddered in embarrassment. His somber step parted from Henry, he replied with a mumbled, "Merry Christmas."
In the later minutes, Henry didn't see Amélie, or even a confused resemblance. He waited till the plane was empty, till the Spain-bound passengers began to board. He even checked the desk, where a pretty-faced lady exclaimed, "no Amélie here, I'm sorry." With great disappointment, Henry exited the airport, never leaving the sight of his fluttered feet.
Even for Henry, a man of hope and perseverance, it was too hard not to cry. He hailed a taxi, directed the driver with snotty tremble, and soon enough, he was home in his red brick house, at home where the houses stacked the streets, and the streets tickled with frost.
In that dark room, where Henry wrote Amélie, was where the music died. Where the wind had swallowed the galloped harp. Henry cried, cursed himself a fool. A fool, a fool, a fool. He'd hoped as a child, now damned a hopeless recluse. His sorrow turned to confusion, confusion to frustration, frustration to rage anew.
He leapt from his chair, struck a match, lit a wick, plucked a pen, placed his paper, and before the ink would paint the page, before he'd damn Amélie to Hell, her and her cherry cheeks, he remembered the letter the paperboy had given him.
Henry removed the crumpled letter from his coat, peeled the stick of the envelope. Slipped the letter from its sleeve, pulled his readers, and began to prance the ink in reading.
Amélie, again, talked of finer things. Gifts, and gods, and golden fountains.
She couldn't wait any longer, to meet her beloved Henry.
She couldn't sleep another night, with this space between.
The black waves, the buses, bikes and buggies. All the things from her to he.
It should not wait. No, it could not wait any longer.
Henry dabbed his eyes clear and clean, as he read the final words:
"Henry, oh, Henry, I never meant to keep you waiting. You never quite knew what you meant to me."
Henry lowered his eyes to the page's end, to the bottom of the longing letter:
Love,
Yours Truly,
Lenny
submitted by bobrewer_ to scarystories [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 23:21 Comfortable-Ad3588 Types of fiction beings or “fickies”

context: I’m working on a worldbuilding project in which humanity shares the world with strange creatures called “fiction beings” here are a few types
Toons (scientific name, cartoonus charaterus): they resemble western style cartoons from various times but almost all have the ability to bend reality to create many gags and jokes as well as being mostly invincible to everything but certain types of paint thinners. Addendum, there have been some toons that focus more towards action than comedy but they have been placed under this category due to their western origin.
Animen. Resemble eastern style animation and Japanese animation in particular, they are similar to toons but more often use their reality warping abilities for action and “coolness” but there are exceptions.
Cgilings. (though most prefer the term “people of data” or “data people”. They are by far the closest to humans in terms of appearance and some are actually the result of human and fiction being interbreeding but most are simply born from a “inkwell” like all other fiction based life. While most forms of fiction based life can move through tv’s and other forms of media data people can move faster and even control the technology that they enter.
Gameians: are born from video games and use their reality manipulation to morph reality to make it act like their game’s physics and mechanics. They can very quite a bit in appearance but all can be at least temporarily killed by normal human means.
Flatties: these guys are born from comics and have many of the same abilities as other fiction based life such as the ability to bend reality to Match the rules of their from of media but as their name implies they are as flat as a sheet of paper but with the help of a m.a.m (media adaption machine) they can become a more “fleshed out” creature but one unique ability of their kind is that they can unfold themselves to create “dopples” of themselves that can act as stunt doubles should they need them to.
Legends: the oldest and some would argue most powerful of fiction based life are legends. The various gods, monsters, angels, demons, heroes and villains that make up all forms of mythology and fairy tales that we know today.
literians: (as suggested by hoopaboi Thanks for that) these guys are born from books and are generally extremely human like even more so than data people but they will often have parts of them that resemble printed pages on various parts of their bodies. They can be trapped or bound into which ever book they came from but they can also uses their books as a way to travel to and from the world described in its pages.
Memes: memes are the newest and most primitive form of fiction based life. They branch off from other “fickies” and live on their own existence but with no real story behind them they are unpredictable and dangerous and should be reported immediately!
This has been your guide to the incredible creatures that were born of the “inkwells”! Thank you for reading.
submitted by Comfortable-Ad3588 to worldbuilding [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 23:17 kendockety Can I make The Times honour my current subscription/contract?

I've had a subscription with The Times for a number of years to get the app and also physical papers at the weekend which I pay £19.50 for and have done for the last 5 or so years even though I've had letters from The Times saying they will be raising prices each year nothing more ever happens and my subscription on their website shows as digital and print with the £19.50 price.
Since I moved house 3 years ago, every time my new newspaper vouchers were due they never arrived and I've always had to chase them to send them manually / by recorded mail. As of the last batch of vouchers they've now come back to me and said that in order for me to get my vouchers I will need to cancel my subscription and resubscribe however, I'm not overly willing to do this as this will mean my price will increase from £19.50 to near £40. Can I still get them to honour my current subscription somehow still? As I get the impression they are not able to cancel or correct my subscription without my permission and even if I don't ask for the vouchers £19.50 is still cheaper than what their digital only subscription is now so I assume I could just carry on.
I appreciate I am being cheeky in not wanting to pay the asking price but I was just hoping to get one small win with all my other costs seeming to just keep going up!
submitted by kendockety to UKPersonalFinance [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 23:10 PresentEasy3728 DELL cheated me, sent me a used Canon printer instead of a new one!

DELL cheated me, sent me a used Canon printer instead of a new one!
Dell sent me a used Canon printer even though I purchased a new one. The metal piece in the image was in the bottom of the well where the black ink cartridge goes. Then the ribbon in the image fed out with my paper when I did my first test print. Then on my second test print the printer jammed and screamed horribly and when I opened it the piece of jagged foam was in the bottom where the paper jammed. Now they've wasted hours of my time harassing me while I'm trying to make them do right. AVOID DELL!!
https://preview.redd.it/w384n1cze90d1.jpg?width=3060&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=30c923bc963b99d98598e21c13d333ce597a024c
submitted by PresentEasy3728 to Dell [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:58 BurguerCangreburguer Problems with Z offset ajustment

I have an Ender 3v2 with a Creality touch autolevel, and I am having some problems when I adjust the Z offset.
I am following these steps: I set the offset to 0, home all axes, then I start moving down to adjust the offset using the paper method. For example, the offset needed is -1.30. However, when I start printing, the Z-axis moves downwards more than the offset, interfering with the bed.
What could be happening? It is driving me mad.
submitted by BurguerCangreburguer to ender3v2 [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:58 BurguerCangreburguer Problems with Z offset ajustment

I have an Ender 3v2 with a Creality touch autolevel, and I am having some problems when I adjust the Z offset.
I am following these steps: I set the offset to 0, home all axes, then I start moving down to adjust the offset using the paper method. For example, the offset needed is -1.30. However, when I start printing, the Z-axis moves downwards more than the offset, interfering with the bed.
What could be happening? It is driving me mad.
submitted by BurguerCangreburguer to ender3v2 [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:52 GunInMouthBlues2 28mm Law Enforcment Paper Minis

28mm Law Enforcment Paper Minis
Hi Guys,
for all of the DM's out there - here's a free collection of asorted 28mm paper minis . They're free to download (you just have to click "No thanks, just take me to the downloads") and they come in handy when your PCs bump into some street cops or Private Sec Ops. Here are some photos of example printed out and cut minis (photos taken with a potato, sorry)
Scifi Streecops & Security by GunInMouthBlues (itch.io) <- link
https://preview.redd.it/76bcwli8b90d1.png?width=507&format=png&auto=webp&s=4803b37242aa44ecfa757dcb2736188bb8f1e9cb
https://preview.redd.it/zhagmki8b90d1.png?width=503&format=png&auto=webp&s=c6f2868b7acae14f293f995d56dad5f5b4b2e6a2
https://preview.redd.it/urbncni8b90d1.png?width=504&format=png&auto=webp&s=4e737dea51a033010600359cfbb93579f6cf9249
https://preview.redd.it/g387lli8b90d1.png?width=510&format=png&auto=webp&s=a36fef460b506abc26ce891d49d6cb383efb3bf8
submitted by GunInMouthBlues2 to cyberpunkred [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:34 jazzmandjango Test Stripe Circles?

Back when I first learned to do dark room enlarging, my high school photography teacher had these transparent exposure guides—they had a test circle with pie slices marked with aperture values printed on it so that you could lay the transparency on top of a sheet of paper, expose at a given starting exposure (let’s say 15s at f2.8), and the resulting circle would give you a perfectly accurate test strip with clear exposure values printed onto the test. I reached out to the same teacher and he said they were called test strip circles but I can’t for the life of me find them online. Anyone else familiar with these and know where to order them?
submitted by jazzmandjango to Darkroom [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:14 Blankboo97 The Lost Women of NXIVM Part 7

PRODUCER: Do you have the suicide note?
HEIDI CLIFFORD (As “Anonymous Classmate”): (Reading purported “suicide note” aloud): This is a copy of the suicide note.
“I attended a course called Executive Success Programs, aka Nexium (sic), based out of Anchorage, Alaska and Albany, New York. I was brainwashed and my emotional center of the brain was killed and turned off. I still have feeling in my external skin, but my internal organs are rotting. I’m sorry, life. I didn’t know I was already dead.”
“No need to search my body.”
Was this potential suicide letter in Kris’s car coerced?
Was it her willingly writing it?
You don’t know.
As we have discussed in previous posts, nothing about the Kristin Snyder missing person case makes any sense whatsoever, and the purported “suicide note” found in her vehicle is certainly no exception.
Before we start analyzing the “suicide note,” here are a few factors to keep in mind:
• We know through information from multiple sources that Kristin was a prolific journal writer and letter writer, so we have a plethora of writing samples to compare with this alleged “suicide note.”
• We refer to “the writer” in our discussion of the “suicide note” below. The reason for this phrasing is because the actual writer of this note is unknown. Did Kristin herself write it, either as a explanation for killing herself, or for the purpose of faking her own death? Did someone else write it to make her disappearance appear to be a suicide? Was part of the text written by Kristin and added to by another party? Was the entire note faked? Was the note written by Kristin, but under duress/coercion as Heidi pondered?
• See notes under each section below regarding clear discrepancies between Kristin’s baseline writing style based on the hundreds of writing samples we have obtained from multiple sources through varying times throughout her life.
Now, without further ado, let’s take an in-depth look at this “suicide note” – line by line.
“I attended a course called Executive Success Programs (aka Nexium) based out of Anchorage, AK + Albany, NY.”
• Who is the note intended for? There is no salutation. We have tons of samples of Kristin’s letters and there is always a salutation – AND a date. If this is really her “suicide note,” why wouldn’t she address it to her partner Heidi, friends, coworkers, and/or family – as she always had addressed people in her letters? Similarly, wouldn’t she document the date of the most significant letter of her life, as she did routinely with her letters? In fact, she often even included the specific time (for instance, 7:15 p.m.) that the letter or journal entry was written.
• In addition to a salutation and date on other writing samples, Kris also typically indented her paragraphs and she also usually wrote on each line of the paper in her letters and journal entries, unlike this “suicide note,” which does neither.
• Related to the numerous writing samples we have acquired though multiple sources, Kris also primarily wrote in cursive in both her letters and in her journal. This “suicide note” is an odd hybrid of cursive and print.
• Why would anyone start a suicide note with “I attended a course…”? Clearly, the writer of this note is directing the reader to correlate ESP with the disappearance, but it seems like a very odd place for anyone to start a suicide note. Also, Kris attended two courses, not “a course”; a fact that Kris would have clearly known.
• “aka Nexium” is another oddity. Kris did not take any NXIVM classes, not even one, despite the extensive recent propaganda linking her to NXIVM. Why? Because NXIVM did not even exist at the time of Kristin’s disappearance; it was still in the planning stages. The writer had obviously heard about these plans as evidenced by the phonetic spelling. Again, it is obvious the writer of the note is clearly directing the reader’s attention to ESP/NXIVM – but if Kris were distraught enough to write a suicide note (and as functionally incapacitated as reported by her partner), why/how would she focus on minutiae like this?
• Speaking of minutiae, it gets even more obvious in the next words: “based out of Anchorage, AK + Albany, NY.” First of all, WHO CARES where ESP was based? That is in no way pertinent to the reasoning, and apparently is another clear attempt by the writer to direct the reader toward ESP/NXIVM. Secondly, this information is actually wrong. ESP wasn’t “based out of Anchorage, AK” – they held classes in Anchorage in a rented hotel space. The home base was in NY. Furthermore, Kris knew very well that this information was wrong, having recently visited their NY headquarters herself weeks before her disappearance!
•The words “based out of” (city, state) are odd as well. None of Kristin’s other writing samples did this. Nowhere does she mention elsewhere that anything is “based out of” anywhere in any of her copious writing samples we have obtained.
• Furthermore, why would the note say “Anchorage, AK” anyway? Presumably, Alaska law enforcement would be able to deduce that Anchorage is in Alaska without this unnecessary clarification.
“I was brainwashed + my emotional center of the brain was killed/turned off. I still have feeling in my external skin but my internal organs are rotting.”
• If Kris was brainwashed, she wouldn’t know (at least at the time) that she had been brainwashed. Again, this seems to be yet another clear attempt by the writer to direct the reader to look at ESP.
• Furthermore, if Kris finally did realize that she had been brainwashed, why would she then kill herself?
• The writer switches “my” and “the” in a sentence – something Kris never did, even once, in the hundreds of pages of writing we have obtained. The sentence should read “the emotional center of my brain,” not “my emotional center of the brain.”
• Another oddity is in the redundancy of “external skin.” Again, this sort of mistake does not appear to be Kris’s style, based on other writing samples. She had a Master of Science (M.S.) in Biology and she worked as an environmental consultant to the National Guard. She was a precise, clear, scientific, and articulate writer.
• This passage clearly implies that Kris was suffering from Cotard’s syndrome; per WebMD: “People with Cotard’s syndrome (also called walking corpse syndrome or Cotard’s delusion) believe that parts of their body are missing, or that they are dying, dead, or don’t exist.” We have talked to multiple people who Kris had visited in her January 2003 trip immediately prior to her February 2003 disappearance, and nobody reported any observations of any mental health issues, suicidal ideation, depression, psychosis, nor delusions of any sort. All of the people who discussed Kris’s reported mental health decline stated that they had not personally witnessed any symptoms, but rather, they were told of a rapid decline following Kris’s disappearance.
• If Kris thought she was already dead, why would she kill herself?
“Please contact my parents Bob + Jonnie Snyder at (number redacted) in Dillon, SC if you find me or this note.”
• Why would she specify to contact her parents, who lived out-of-state? Why not her partner? Why, in fact, is Heidi, the love of her life and civil union partner not mentioned AT ALL in the entire note?
• The inclusion of Kris’s parents as the sole contacts listed in the note contradicts a specific story told at the time of the disappearance alleging that Kris had uncovered memories of abuse during the class and that these purported memories were the reason/a factor in her alleged suicide. But: if that story was true, why would she include her father in the note? It should be noted that there is no evidence whatsoever that Kris was abused. As with the alleged rapid mental health decline, people who reported that story were not told of the purported abuse by Kris themselves, but rather, they were told of the purported abuse allegations after her disappearance. In fact, we even have been given a copy of a text message exchange in which the person who spread this abuse claims refers to it as “the lie.” This is yet another example of the myriad of inconsistencies and contradictions that plague Kris’s case.
• Why mention “Dillon, SC”? There is already a phone number given, so the city/state is irrelevant, and also, it is not her typical style. Again, it seems like someone with a quirky tic to mention a city and state wrote this.
• “if you find me or this note” is similarly nonsensical. If someone found her but NOT the note, they wouldn’t see the note, would they? Again, this oddity of wording is inconsistent with Kris’s typically precise style.
“I am sorry, life, I didn’t know I was already dead. May we persist into the future. KRISTN (sic) SNYDER”
• Again, if she thought she was already dead, why would she need to kill herself?
• Why is she addressing “life”?
• “May we persist into the future” is interesting. “Persist into the future” is a phrase used in ecology, which could potentially mean a couple things: a). Kristin wrote this herself; b). Kristin wrote this phrase elsewhere and someone traced/copied it onto the “suicide note”; or c). the writer had seen a document that referred to this phrase and used it.
• WHO LEAVES A LETTER OUT OF THEIR OWN NAME???? The second “I” is missing in “KRISTN.” Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, Kris predominantly wrote in cursive and she typically signed her name in cursive as well. Why, in the most important document of her life, would she BLOCK PRINT her name, and even more bizarre, why would she leave a letter out of her own name? The writer appears to drop letters and cram letters together, but there is no evidence from other writings that Kris did these things.
“No need to search for my body”
• Why was this written on the BACK of the page on the “suicide note”? And why was the note left inside of a notebook to begin with?
• Kris was a member of the Anchorage Nordic Ski Patrol, and therefore, she was involved in search and rescue. Therefore, she would already know that THEY WOULD SEARCH FOR HER ANYWAY. Also, more importantly, why would she intentionally hide her own body and therefore put her colleagues/friends on the search and rescue team through the extensive trouble and potential dangers of conducting the search for her?
• Why write “my body” on the back of the page but write “me” on the front of the page of the note? That is yet another incongruity.
• Why the emphasis on not looking for a body? The writer clearly has a very specific reason to mention this; there is a reason the writer does not want the body found. It is very rare for a person to want to hide his/her own body, and even more rare to be able to successfully do so.
submitted by Blankboo97 to Verity_of_Kris_Snyder [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:12 Aevum1 A few questions about portable ZINK printers

What would you like to accomplish?

Basically a portable printer for social events, would prefer 2x3 ZINK printers

Are there any models you are currently looking at?

Basically any 2x3 ZINK portable battery powered printer, been looking at Canon, Kodak, Xioami. Liene,

More Details:

Questions Answers
Budget: around 150€
Country: Spain
Color or black and white: Color
Laser or ink printer: ZINK
New or used: New
Multi-function: NO
Duplex Printing: No
Home or business: Home and OTG
Printing content: Photos
Printing frequency: 50-100 per month
Pages per minute : Not relevant
Page size: ANSWER HERE (Letter, Tabloid, A3, 4x6, etc?)
Device printing from: 2x3 ZINK
Connection type: Bluetooth/USB

Any other details:

First of all, i dont even know if this is the rigth subreddit, if its not i apologize.
Ok, first for those who dont know ZINK means Zero INK printing, it means that you have a small thermal printer with a special paper that has color layers and the printer prints 1 color layer at a time making a (close to) photograph quality picture.
This comes from a wave of devices from Fuji, Canon, HP, polaroid and such which is a simple low quality digital camera with one of those thermal printers, at first they were all propietary formats, and many brands still sell them, but it seems like the market is gravitating to this ZINK format previously described.
Now apart from those cameras which basically have the quality of a low-mid range cellphone camera theres also the printers on their own, i thought it would be easier to just use my cellphone camera which is probobly better then the default cameras,
here come my doubts, i´ve been looking at printers and the portable ones range from 60 euros for the Xiaomi one to around 150 for a canon one, and í´ve been trying to look for reviews but they all seem like paid promotions from publications or low end wannabe influencers and i cant really find a good review comparing printers and paper manufacturers.
i managed to find this review which basically points that Kodak and Canon Zink paper seems to be the best with HP coming a close 3rd on account that its 20% cheaper and has acceptable quality, the thing is that paper ranges from 0.35€ to 0.55€ per print (acceptable, its a novelty item)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aFvFUsBjpI
As for the printers, i´ve noticed that the most important details is battery, compatability and size,
The HP is slightly better but its bigger, while the Xiaomi is nice and slim but it can only do 20 prints on a change while Canon and Liene can do 30 while the Kodak can do 35. not to mention The Xiaomi is quite old and still uses micro USB while others already have USB C. as for the HP, there are STD´s i rather get more then a HP printer.
So, anyone has expiriance with these printers and can give me some advice or at least point me in the right direction ?
submitted by Aevum1 to printers [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 21:58 Pitiful_Sandwich8335 [PC][2000s]Puzzle game w/ knowledge crystal

Hi!
I am looking for a game of my childhood.
It was a logic puzzle game, you were left on an island, where nothing much was - empty old house, wooden shed (with a fish on its wall and some furniture), hamaka between two palms and entrance to a mine.
It was in first person and all guided by mause, using arrows in the corner of the screen. There were a lot of puzzles, one of the first was to shoot down a flying paper plane with a coconut using the hamaka as a sling. This was tedious, but possible. Then for example in the mine you needed to collect stuff to make a lamp first to continue in the dark.
The best thing is, there was a crystal in the menu you could use as a help with all the information about different stuff (e.g. how much does a carat weigh, tectonic plates etc.) possibly aimed at geology.
In the end I remember I was able to get to a second island, where there was some kind of castle with a man (old and grumpy) and a lady (very fat one). You had to steal a flask from the lady's makeup desk and use it somehow to free a small dragon caught in a cage in the castle.
The game text was all in Czech, too.
I am not sure if I can remember anything more, but I will be happy for any suggestions as l am desperate to at least remember the name of the game.
Thank you all!
submitted by Pitiful_Sandwich8335 to tipofmyjoystick [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 21:50 Dawn-Somewhere The Big Book of Lanister, Season 4

Recently, I gave some advice about playing the Lannisters, and someone asked for further advice because they struggle to play Lannisters. It’s hard to do something like that in a concise package, but luckily, I like to write. I do it recreationally, and will write about subjects I'm interested in, delete the works afterward because the writing helps me put my thoughts on paper. I happen to have some such essays analyzing the Lannister army!
Mileage varies, and how you feel about some units or strategies in this game is going to depend a lot on how you feel towards reckless gambling. This is most true of the Lannisters, who revolve so much around unreliable mechanics that I earnestly think at this point that it’s part of their doctrine. It seems to me, that the idea behind the Lannisters, is that they’re broken. They’re full of abilities that don’t work, or that only work when you get lucky, or that only work if your opponent does something stupid. It’s up to you, as the person building the list, to figure out how to take those mechanics and make them function in spite of themselves. The way I see it, you can play the Lannisters as Cersei, by throwing dice at ridiculous odds that only rarely turn up in your favor, or you can play as Tywin, by making safe, calculated choices that will achieve the specific results you want.
Potential Fixes: Always run Tyrion, Giant of Lannister
The first problem we run into with all Lannisters is that their main card deck is bad. People will jump in and tell you that some other deck is worse. I’m not saying the Lannisters are necessarily the worst deck, but I am telling you that you could play five unique Lannister cards in a single round, and not see any results. They can all fail via random dice rolls. In my opinion, in a tactics game where a single turn makes a huge difference, in a card game where a single card changes the flow of the game, that is pretty bad. That’s not a situation you want to find yourself in if you like winning games, or even if you just like having fun.
So five cards. That’s half of your deck. That means that at the start of the game, the odds are pretty good you’re going to draw one or two cards that might not provide any benefit at all. The only thing you can do about this is get rid of them. Don’t wait for the perfect timing to play Hear Me Roar. If you keep it in your hand until you opponent is down by two ranks and you can sink in a unit with Vicious so as to maximize your odds, that card might be blocking up your hand for three to six rounds, and then your opponent might still roll boxcars. Play it, discard it, just get rid of it. You do not want those cards wasting space in your hand.
Four cards always need to go right away: A Lannister Pays His Debts, Hear Me Roar, Bribery, and Subjugation of Power. These cards all have the chance of either doing nothing, or are so weak they may as well be nothing. If they stay in your hand, they’re inflicting an opportunity cost – that is, there’s another card waiting behind Hear Me Roar to be drawn. If you keep these cards in your hand, you are preventing yourself from getting the better card, so always get rid of these cards, either by playing them, or by discarding at the end of the round. You may find some nice spots to play them – and that’s great! Bribery, in particular, can be noted as a lifesaver if Wealth has already been covered and you need to slow down a hard-hitter. However, that’s part of the trap: these cards can be good in the right circumstances, but it’s difficult to create the circumstances in which they are useful, so if those circumstances don’t exist now, you should get rid of the cards and look for better ones.
You may notice I said there were five cards that can do nothing. The fifth one is Counterplot, and its design is… elective, to seek a kindly neutral word. It’s a counter-card, which means it is useful, but they designed it so that it has a chance to fail on a dice roll of 1 or 2. You can mitigate that by holding Wealth and Crown, but that’s a tactical askance, and your opponent could play a powerful card on the first turn, so in reality you don’t have very much control over the success of this card. To be blunt, that makes Counterplot a very weak card.
People get up in arms if you say it, but it is. It’s a weak card. First, it’s reactionary, which means it only works if your opponent does something to trigger it – playing a card – which means your opponent has more control of it than you do. Second, the card can only be as valuable as the card it blocks, which means if you use it to block something lame, then Counterplot was also lame. That means you might feel compelled to hold the card until you see a very powerful card, such as Assault Orders, but if you do that, Counterplot creates an opportunity cost that isn’t caused by Assault Orders. Assault Orders is a very powerful card which so good, most players will use it in the round that they draw it, whereas you’d be holding Counterplot, blocking your own hand, for as many rounds as it takes for your opponent to draw Assault Orders. Finally, because it has a failure chance, you might wait for Assault Orders, fail your Counterplot roll, and then be hit by the enemy card anyway, which meant Counterplot weakened you by wasting space in your hand, and then didn’t do anything. That is a bad card.
So you need to play Counterplot earlier than later. You may want to use it on Assault Orders, but you have no control over that, and you can’t know when your opponent is going to draw it. You don’t want your hand to be blocked by Counterplot for multiple rounds, waiting for the ideal opportunity, and you definitely don’t want to do that and then roll a 1. Just play Counterplot on any card that would reasonably benefit your opponent. If they play Assault Orders right afterward, then c’est la vi; you cannot know what cards they’ll have, nor when they’ll play them, nor if Counterplot will even work. Just don’t hold on to Counterplot long enough that the card begins to hurt you.
The fix for this? Always play Tyrion, Giant of Lannister. It’s an attachment that lets you discard two cards and then search your deck for any specific card you’d like. In a deck like the Lannisters, where half your cards have a chance to do nothing at all (and those odds of achieving nothing are close to 50% on the Panic-related cards), you will frequently find yourself with two cards in your hand that might not do anything. Tyrion lets you discard those, and then draw a useful card that does do something. For the Lannisters, that is huge. Without Tyrion, you find yourself suffering through multiple rounds with dead hands, where none of the cards do anything, and your opponent will be pounding you with their own deck. With him, it’s not up to luck, you know your hand will contain at least one good card each round, for as long as Tyrion is still on the field.
Having mentioned Tyrion, Giant of Lannister, it’s worth noting he only costs one point. During a casual conversation between players, one of them asked, “Why is Tyrion only one point? Counterstrategy is really good, and Battle Plan changes how they play their deck.” The response from the Lannister players was, in a nutshell, “My infantry sucks, bro.”
A lot of Lannister infantry sucks. They’re very frequently broken to start with because they’re given unreliable abilities, and to get them working, you have to attach something specific to them. Tyrion, Giant of Lannister would be amazing in a unit of Silenced Men, but he does nothing to fix the boondoggle that is the Honor Guard, so it’s hard to get Tyrion to the front lines and have the unit be functional at the same time. As a result, as good as Counterstrategy may be, you often find it stuck in something holding objectives at the back of the field.
That is the core essence of building Lannister army lists. Once you understand that your objective is to fix a broken and screwed up army, everything comes together better. You have to expect you won’t get what’s printed on the unit’s card, unless you take an attachment or specific commander who makes the unit work, and that’s what we’ll focus on in this section.
Gregor, the Mountain that Rides
Potential Fixes: NA
Starting with the cheapest units, Gregor is often taken because he’s only four points, and he can pack a surprising wallop if you’re lucky with the dice. With only three attacks, sometimes he flubs them all, sometimes he punches above average. He dies easily, he will die, but he will give your opponent plenty of reasons to want to kill him. Unfortunately, he’s not viable against Free Folk nor Night’s Watch, because siege units can instantly kill him on round one from across the board, so if you play competitively, make sure he’s not in both of your lists.
Poor Fellows
Potential Fixes: No
Poor fellows are just cheap bodies. They stand on an objective and try to stay out of the fight, and that’s it. They can’t really fight, their armor is paper thin, but because they can heal themselves, they will bounce back from minor harassment and won’t be chipped to death. The best way to run them is naked, or not at all.
Stone Crows
Potential Fixes: No
These guys are an alternative to Poor Fellows that might weather direct attacks a little better, but that will die more quickly to Panic. You can put Tyrion, Giant of Lannister in them for “free”, but it’s like a JC Penny discount where the sale never ends, because it’s not really a sale and the cost of Tyrion is obviously built into this unit. Putting anything besides Tyrion in them would be a pointless disaster.
Lannister Guardsmen
Potential Fixes: Mandon Moore
When new players look at Guardsmen, usually the first thing they note is “Lannister Supremacy” and think about how much damage that might do. Don’t focus on that – it’s an unreliably ability. Instead, look at their 4” movement and their six attacks with a 4+ to hit. This unit is excruciatingly passive. They can’t proactively threaten anything, they can’t easily get to a good position (which means it’d be hard to get them on a center objective), and finally, their ability only kicks off if the opponent was foolish enough to attack them with something that couldn’t wipe the Guardsmen out.
There’s not really anything practical you can do to fix this unit, because they’re really not reaching a five-point value in the first place, and they’re too slow. I’ve seen less experienced players recommend putting Assault Veterans in them to make the Panic Test from Lannister Supremacy more effective, but that doesn’t solve the issue of the Guardsmen being passive - of them being more under your opponent’s control than your own.
However, for kind of a fun fix, you can put Mandon Moore in them, and at that point they have Sundering, they’re hitting on a 3+, have 3+ armor, and archers won’t want to pick on them. It’s not competitive because Mandon compels you to run Joffrey, and Joffrey is a point too expensive, and the unit will still be slow, and they don’t have a great attack profile, but it is kind of fun to have some bargain bin Honor Guard on the field.
Lannister Halberdiers
Potential Fixes: None needed
This is one of the few Lannister units that comes pre-assembled with working abilities and everything. You don’t have to fix them! For that reason, if you’re not shy on points, this is one of the units many players will put Tyrion in.
I think one of the most notable facets of the Halberdiers is that they illustrate how much a good offense creates a good defense. Other players don’t ever seem to respect Guardsmen because the Guardsmen aren’t going to initiate anything on their own, but most players try to avoid running their light cavalry directly into a unit of Halberdiers. They’d take wounds on the way in, and if the Halberdiers haven’t activated, they’ll be wounded again when the Halberdiers attack. If you put Kevan or Bronn in these guys, then that’s even more opportunities to punish any would-be charge.
Basically, if you want a defensive unit, Halberdiers are your best friends. Lannisters have many “defensive” options to choose from, but this is one of the only choices that is actually good at defense rather than being simply passive.
Gold Cloaks
Potential Fixes: No
Kind of like Guardsmen but easier to kill, this is another passive unit with reactive abilities that mostly only benefit itself, if it benefits anything. The main draw for them is their “Laws of the Realm” Order, which reduces the number of ranks the enemy can use to attack. If this ability were long range, they’d be reasonable – of course, it’s not.
Gold Cloaks are pretty fragile, and their abilities are short range; “Oppressive Peacekeeping” incidentally requires controlling Crown, which makes it a tactical dud. Regardless, having a bunch of short range abilities necessitates that this unit be as close to the front lines as possible, where it absolutely cannot survive. A 4+ save, with only 7+ morale, makes these guys a pretty good target for a free victory point. Unfortunately, there’s not really anything too practical that can be done about this, because adding to the cost of this unit is generally only going to make it worse.
On the note of free victory points, I sometimes see players saying things like, “If the enemy attacks my useless units, then I win, because they have wasted their turn.”
This is pretty poor tactical thinking. You should assume that if your opponent kills your Gold Cloaks, it’ll be for a good reason. You can also assume they’ll be very easy to kill, because they are.
Mountain’s Men
Potential Fixes: Roose commander, Assault Veterans, Addam commander, Redcloak assistance, Daario commander, Bronn
Mountain’s Men might be one of the more famously non-working units the Lannisters can field, but unlike Guardsmen or Gold Cloaks, they’re at least not passive dead weight. The main problem with them is that their good abilities – Critical Blow and hitting on 3+ - are conditional.
They also have Vicious and Prey on Fear, and I can see how somebody thought this was a strong combination in theory. In practice, Vicious is the weakest keyword in the game, affecting the outcome of an attack only about 20% of the time. Even with Vicious, the odds of an opponent failing their Panic Test is roughly 50% or less, and I’ve had plenty of games with these guys where their attacks never gained them any wounds back. To make matters worse, once they lose one rank, they only have five attack dice. On turns when they have less ranks than the enemy and the enemy passes their Panic Test, Mountain’s Men are closer to being worth four points than they are to six. All those words on the card don’t count for much when they don’t do anything!
Luckily, there are some things you can do that make Mountain’s Men fun to play with, though not competitive. First, you can lean into the Panic stuff, which is only pragmatic here because Vicious and Prey on Fear are the abilities you know the unit will always have. An Assault Vet can help with this, but isn’t ideal because it increases the price of the Mountain’s Men when they’re already struggling to be worth their value. Instead, you can run Roose as a commander and place him in them. Unfortunately, the Panic approach still relies a lot on luck, and even with the extra -1 on all Panic Tests, you can’t guarantee you’ll get healing when you need it, as the -3 penalty will only impact about a third of any Panic Test.
If you run Red Cloaks alongside the Mountain’s Men, you can increase the odds of getting a benefit from Prey on Fear. Doing this with Roose attached means inflicting an extra wound of damage and increasing the odds of success, but you’ll need to lead very aggressively with the Mountain’s Men to make sure they’re the ones primarily engaged, rather than the Red Cloaks. Red Cloaks are also suboptimal in a lot of ways – but we’ll get to them in a second.
Your alternative here is to try to increase the general fighting effectiveness and survivability of the unit. Since Bronn increases the defense and morale of a unit while you hold Wealth, he can increase the Mountain’s Men to a 3+ save with 5+ morale. Though that is nice, it is also the case that most 7-point units already have 5+ morale by default, along with a better overall profile than the Mountain’s Men have, so once again, adding cost to the unit is only making it worse at the same rate it makes them better. For that reason, you can try adding Daario to the unit, and can use Daario’s “Sellsword Negotiations” card to keep them up to ranks. Additionally, Daario lets them attack with all seven attacks when you hold Wealth. Finally, you can try putting Addam Marbrand in the unit, which will make the Mountain’s Men a little tougher to kill off while also letting them use cards like Valiant Example to get them immediately back up to higher ranks.
None of these fixes are good. The problem with most of them is that they add cost to the unit, require a suboptimal commander, or suffer from adding more conditional complexity to the unit. However, some of these fixes are at least fun and patch some of the problems the unit has… a little.
Crossbowmen
Potential Fixes: Sparrow commander, Bronn
Lannister Crossbows are a perfectly fine ranged unit. They do exactly what you’d expect: shoot enemies. Their only real flaw is that they have 7+ morale, which seems quite fair given they have 4+ armor – which is a lot for a ranged unit. Many players like to run Bronn in these guys, which raises them to a 3+ save with 6+ morale when you claim Wealth. In fact, this combo and the ease of finding targets for your Crossbows make them the most optimal place to put Bronn.
Sparrow also provides a +1 to morale, which means that Crossbows are a fine place for him to sit if you prefer not to place him somewhere else. Sparrow’s “Incite” ability is basically nothing, so it’s not missing out on much to ignore it, and his cards can be applied to any unit on the field.
Red Cloaks
Potential Fixes: Mandon Moore, Gregor commander
Red Cloaks are like a multi-role unit that forgot it was supposed to have more than one role. They can inflict a Panic Test on anything in long range by taking an action, and this occurs every time they take an action, which is a neat mechanic, but it’s also the only thing they do by default. It sounds powerful, but it’s important to remember that attacking a unit will inflict a Panic Test, so if you shoot a unit with a crossbow, they’ll first take damage from the crossbow, and then take a Panic Test. When you factor in the revelation that Red Cloak Panic Tests only succeed a little over half the time, and that only when the Red Cloak unit is at full ranks, you realize they’re just not that good.
People occasionally think to put Preston Greenfield in these guys, but the answer to the problem isn’t to use more activations to spam more Panic Tests. What you need, is to give the unit a second role – that is, melee combat ability, and you can do that by putting Gregor or Mandon Moore in them. Once the unit can actually fight, you can throw it into combat, force a Panic Test before their attack, do a decent amount of damage, then force a Panic Test after the attack.
Although this does patch one major issue with Red Cloaks, they still have a few things going on preventing them from holding up. For one, their attack profile isn’t great: when they lose a rank, they fall to five attacks and their Panic ability weakens. They also only have a 4+ to hit by default, which makes Mandon the more appealing fix since he’ll get them to a 3+, though that does make them cost more. Additionally, the entire unit winds up being wrapped up in needing Crown to function at all, which forces you to play Joffrey ahead of anything they do, and that’s a massive liability.
The Crown liability is one problem you just can’t get around. Needing to play an NCU ahead of the unit to make it worth more than four points in value makes them clunky in a way that a lot of other units don’t have to deal with.
City Watch
Potential Fixes: No
What we’re looking at with the City Watch is a unit that has pretty much the same profile as the Lannister Halberdiers, but they can only get Sundering for one turn and they don’t have Set for Charge. If you want what the City Watch is doing at this price, then you’re better off taking Halberdiers and adding an attachment to them. These guys are easily no more than a five-point value, and even then they’d be outclassed by a lot of other five-point units. For example, a cheaper replacement for these guys is to take some Stormcrow Mercenaries and choose an attachment that grants Sundering.
House Clegane Brigands
Potential Fixes: None needed
Light cavalry. It works! They are a bit fragile, but given their solid maneuverability, this is best dealt with by player skill rather than by slapping any attachments on them. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with throwing attachments on them, as all the options work perfectly well on these guys. There are only three, after all, but they’re all solid attachments. Their Panic-related ability is going to be as flaky as those things always are, so when you decide to charge a unit, do it based on the performance you expect from their basic attack, not on what you hope might happen if the enemy fails the Panic Test.
Pyromancers
Potential Fixes: Bronn, Sandor, Addam commander, Kevan commander
Here’s a unit I would have no idea how to balance! Every attack ignores armor, and they have both melee and short ranged options to do this, with seven attacks at a 3+ to hit and a profile of 7, 7, 4. Positively every unit in the game has something to fear here, and yet, with only a 6+ save, the Pyromancers have something to fear from every other unit on the field. Dangerous to any one unit, and in danger from four or more units at a time. That means the odds are usually against them, since the opponent has quite a lot of incentive to kill these guys off, and anything on the board generally has the wherewithal to do that.
Using Bronn increases the unit’s armor while giving them a valuable extra attack, with the extra attack being the most notable thing you can do since a “DPS race” is pretty much one of the only options this unit has. Kevan is also valuable for the same reason, and his Wealth of the Rock card can be thrown out for a little extra defense. If you can combine Bronn and Kevan’s card, then for at least two attacks, the Pyromancers can have 4+ defense! That is, of course, a highly situational play that you can’t depend on. Placing Kevan in them and using Crown for a free charge is liable to produce better mileage, as it leaves open a bit more room to safely maneuver.
Addam also does alright in the Pyromancers thanks to a smidge of added tankiness, some healing from his cards, and the potential to play Lash Out when the unit takes a really bad hit (which is all the more wounds the enemy can’t stop). Normally, Addam’s biggest problem is that the enemy will try to ignore whatever he’s in to avoid triggering his nonsense, but they can’t ignore Pyromancers.
Sandor has some potential in these guys, but doesn’t do enough. He might heal two or three wounds after the Pyromancers attack, but as soon as the opponent shoots everything they’ve got at the unit, it’ll be dead before Sandor can heal them again. Plus, Sandor doesn’t work when they make a ranged attack, and his “vulnerable” effect is a bit wasted when the unit he assaults doesn’t get armor saves anyway. Ramsay Snow breaks on the exact same failure point of too much damage, not enough healing, only he costs more, so I don’t rate Ramsay even as a casual fix. The Panic stuff is not reliable and isn’t worth considering.
Still, no matter what you do, this unit is going to draw a ton of attention, and short of straight up killing whatever’s turned on it, it’s not going to survive what comes to destroy it. “Horrific Visage” is a wet paper bag that’s going to miss about half the time or more, and a 50% shot at a Panic Test is a minor risk to getting the Pyromancers off the field.
While not common, it is worth noting that the Pyromancer attacks “do not permit armor saves”, but they are not instant wounds. That means abilities such as Hardened or Resilient can still block or reduce damage dealt by Pyromancers.
Warrior’s Sons
Potential Fixes: Sparrow commander, Daario commander, Addam commander, Champion of the Faith, Sandor, Gate Warden, Mandon Moore, Bronn, Gregor commander
This is one of the units that I like for certain competitive lists, and that I think make the Lannisters stand out in terms of their faction picks. The trick with them is, they are unreliable, like a lot of Lannister infantry, but it’s on the basis of whether or not they have enough of their “Faith” resource. There are commanders and attachments that help them get more Faith, and as long as you’re using the correct stuff, Warrior’s Sons are pretty good.
The obvious commander here is Sparrow, because every single one of his cards is a morale test, and when you pass them, you can add one more Faith Token to the Warrior’s Sons that took the test. This is great! Because it allows you to use the Warrior’s Sons defense while relying on attachments to give them more kick and survivability. Wrath of the Warrior lets them attack with Sundering and +1 to hit while racking up a Faith Token for later use. Mercy of the Mother brings them back and keeps them going. Protection of the Father buffs their defense by re-rolling armor. If you use Tyrion, you can mill-draw these cards each round and make sure your Warrior’s Sons do what you need them to do.
As long as you have those tokens, you can run Sandor or a Gate Warden to maintain their survivability, or you can run Bronn to occasionally increase their armor and take a free attack. So far so good, but what if you don’t want to run Sparrow? Well, things get a little trickier now.
Addam is a common pick because he makes the unit even harder to kill, but he doesn’t have any good morale-at-will cards. He does have Charismatic Leadership, but it’s reactionary and your opponent would have to make the mistake of targeting the Warrior’s Sons with something to trip it off. Frankly, Addam in the Warrior’s Sons means they’re liable to be ignored. If they don’t generate Faith Tokens, their attacks are a bit mediocre for their cost, so you have a problem there.
Daario has a surprising amount of potential. You can mill-draw Sellsword Bravado to produce Faith Tokens while making the enemy weaker at the same time. Afterward, you can use Faith to get some good attacks, or, if you can claim Wealth, Daario gives the unit’s attacks Sundering. Therefore, any time you hold Wealth, this a pretty strong fighting unit. But wait, there’s more! Sellsword Negotiations can restore the health of the Warrior’s Sons while also having you count as holding Wealth, which is a lovely combo for a front-line unit like this, and I think it makes Daario, Stormcrow Captain the leading candidate to be in a unit of Warrior’s Sons. It is also worth considering that when you play Reckless Strikes, Faith will let you re-roll your attacks, so there’s some potential there, but I don’t recommend it, because the card can also auto-wound the Warrior’s Sons, which undermines their function as a scary, offensive wall.
If you still want to use these guys but don’t want to use Sparrow or Daario as your commander, you can put Mandon Moore in them, and at the drawback of needing to field Joffrey as well, they become a powerful fighter and defender both. They’ll run into trouble on the occasions that they fail their Panic Tests and lose their Faith Tokens, so to mitigate that, it’s usually good to avoid spending Faith while they’re at full ranks. You can wait until they’re on the second or last rank, at which point the Faith tokens have higher value, and spend them then.
Champions of the Faith do generate more Faith Tokens while handing out Vulnerable Tokens, or, if you like gambling, Panicked Tokens. Naturally, there’s also always Gregor, who doesn’t highlight the best parts of the Warrior’s Sons that well, but it does do all the bonkers, this-and-the-kitchen-sink cheese that commanders like Gregor do.
This unit is still okay without any attachments, but mainly just for standing on an objective, which is not the best use of seven points. If you’re going to invest that much, it should be to violently and noisily take something from somebody. The other reason I personally prefer Daario for this is because it won’t cost anything extra to place him in the unit.
Casterly Rock Honor Guard
Potential Fixes: Gregor commander, Daario commander, Meryn Trant, Mandon Moore
It’s so depressing to see so much text on a card, knowing you won’t use any of it. Honor Guard trade Condition Tokens for one-off effects that aren’t better than the Condition Tokens. They expend weakness to get Sundering, which is something most units of their cost might already have. They expend Vulnerable to recover wounds, conditionally based on whether or not the enemy lost a rank. They expend Panicked to remove a unit’s abilities for the turn, and though this one is useful if you’d for some reason put a Panicked Token on the board (probably explicitly for this unit’s ability), it’s not an ability that’s universally valuable because not everything has a defensive ability, and it’s hard to guess if your opponent has a card you want to block.
When you use the ability, the token goes away, so you not only have an issue with needing to set up the effect, but it’s ephemeral. Using NCUs to get the tokens is a problem because that necessitates playing the NCU first, likely broadcasting your intent, and giving your opponent an opportunity to respond. There are attachments that generate tokens, but they only do it once per round, and it’s an opportunity cost to generate a token just to quickly take it away.
In my opinion, the only good attachment that makes this unit work is Gregor as a commander. The unit has decent armor, a decent attack profile, and good morale, so once you give them two automatic wounds, immunity to Weakness, Sundering, and all of Gregor’s cards, they are an imminent threat to everyone. That’s not to say they’re actually good. It’s just that Gregor’s so jacked up that he rescues it.
Meryn Trant can be used as a fix for the Honor Guard because he consistently generates Weakness and Panicked tokens before each attack. You could skip the token thing entirely and go for Mandon Moore, though I think Meryn is better since it gets the ability nullification along with attack re-rolls. However, neither of these choices are great because they increase the cost of the unit, force-include Joffrey, and introduce the Crown confound, where you have to play an NCU before you can play the Honor Guard.
Daario can also pick this unit up with Sellsword Bravado, which will generate Weakness and Panicked before an attack, and while you control Wealth, the unit will have Sundering. However, I think Daario works a bit better in the Warrior’s Sons, because the Warrior’s Sons tend to be tougher on defense and sustain for longer when you’re using Sellsword Negotiations to keep them alive. Warrior’s Sons also have more flexibility with how you expend their Faith tokens, and when they use Sellsword Bravado, they can benefit from their Faith abilities without consuming the Weakness and Panicked tokens. Honor Guard destroy your tokens from the card, Warrior’s Sons construct on the morale test and leave the tokens intact.
Knights of Casterly Rock
Potential Fixes: None Needed
Essentially the premiere unit of the Lannisters, the Knights of Casterly Rock are fast, well-armored, and brutal. There’s not much more to say about them! “Lannister Supremacy” makes them a bit risky to shoot at with archers, and when they attack a unit that isn’t as good at fighting, it can give some nasty shocks, but really it’s the basics that make the Knights as good as they are. Generally it’s not a great idea to run attachments on them because they’re already an eight point unit, and the best thing a player can do for them is provide support.
Notable Neutrals
Though I won’t go into detail on all the Neutral options, there are a few things that deserve to be pointed out.
Bolton Cutthroats are doing basically what the Mountain’s Men are but without the stupid caveats, so if you put Sandor in them to give them Fueled By Slaughter, they cost the same, get 3+ to hit default, have a better attack profile, and heal when they attack instead of when an enemy fails a Panic Test. Not a great unit, but it’s more stable and achieves a similar goal without needing you to also run Red Cloaks, Joffrey, and whatever else.
Stormcrow Mercenaries do well with a few different attachments from the Lannisters. Tyrion most notably, who should really be in these guys if you need a nice, affordable place to put him. The Stone Crows have no advantages over the Stormcrows. It’s not even close, the Stormcrows are better.
Lysense Sellswords can bounce back from a lot of damage if you put Sandor in them. Once they’ve got two pillage tokens on them, every attack is going to restore between three to six wounds. Not bad for six points!
Stormcrow Dervishes with Sandor can also be very resilient. Because they can attack on Wealth, they can make up to three attacks per round (or more if you have Assault Orders), and each attack will heal the unit. Since they can retreat, if you still have your activation, you can take an attack from the Tactics Board, retreat, then charge as your activation, which inflicts Vulnerable from Sandor. That’s just one option – this unit is also no slouch when led by Kevan, who can charge when claiming Crown, retreat, then charge again as his activation. In my opinion, this is the best seven point unit the Lannisters can get if your commander isn’t supporting Warrior’s Sons because the Dervishes have the same armor as most of your options, but unlike your units, these guys are reliable and have consistent abilities.
In Summary of Units
To make this really simple, if you want a competitive list, you should probably be using Halberds, Knights, and Crossbows. You can use Warrior’s Sons if you’re set up for it. Brigands are also alright as light cavalry, but you should be very careful with them since they’re so fragile. Beyond those options, Neutrals are probably a better bet, because Neutrals have abilities that are more stable and will require less set-up.
You might have also noticed a few comments like, “When you play this card, this unit really benefits from it.”
Stuff like that is why Tyrion, Giant of Lannister should be in almost every list you make. Some units are going to be bad no matter what commanders or attachments you put in them, but they do get better and are more fun to play if you combo them with specific cards. That doesn’t work if those cards are at the bottom of your deck and you’re stuck drawing dysfunctional duds like Hear Me Roar.
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2024.05.13 21:35 PrinceOfBeds 24M - Looking for an Online Summer Friend! :)

Hey there!
I'm a graduate student currently living in Texas and working on my master's degree in a pretty niche area of psychology. I just finished finals for the semester (I've written like 30 pages worth of papers in the last week) and now I don't know what to do with my life lol, so I'd love to make friends with someone online to just chat with, share music/movie recommendations, trade recipes, and maybe play some video games if you're into that (PC).
On my free time I love cooking, going to the gym, reading, and finding cool things to 3D print. I also love travelling but I can't really afford to do that nowadays, so I'd love to live vicariously and learn about any places you've visited lately!
Anyway, if you feel like we have anything in common feel free to DM me, I love that stage of getting to know people -- so long as you put in your half of the effort in conversation lol. If you need an ice breaker, tell me your favorite song and I'll give my thoughts!
Can't wait to meet you! :)
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2024.05.13 21:34 PrinceOfBeds 24M - Looking for an Online Summer Friend! :)

Hey there!
I'm a graduate student currently living in Texas and working on my master's degree in a pretty niche area of psychology. I just finished finals for the semester (I've written like 30 pages worth of papers in the last week) and now I don't know what to do with my life lol, so I'd love to make friends with someone online to just chat with, share music/movie recommendations, trade recipes, and maybe play some video games if you're into that (PC).
On my free time I love cooking, going to the gym, reading, and finding cool things to 3D print. I also love travelling but I can't really afford to do that nowadays, so I'd love to live vicariously and learn about any places you've visited lately!
Anyway, if you feel like we have anything in common feel free to DM me, I love that stage of getting to know people -- so long as you put in your half of the effort in conversation lol. If you need an ice breaker, tell me your favorite song and I'll give my thoughts!
Can't wait to meet you! :)
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2024.05.13 21:32 PrinceOfBeds 24 [M4R] #Online - Looking for a Summer Friend! :)

Hey there!
I'm a graduate student currently living in Texas and working on my master's degree in a pretty niche area of psychology. I just finished finals for the semester (I've written like 30 pages worth of papers in the last week) and now I don't know what to do with my life lol, so I'd love to make friends with someone online to just chat with, share music/movie recommendations, trade recipes, and maybe play some video games if you're into that (PC).
On my free time I love cooking, going to the gym, reading, and finding cool things to 3D print. I also love travelling but I can't really afford to do that nowadays, so I'd love to live vicariously and learn about any places you've visited lately!
Anyway, if you feel like we have anything in common feel free to DM me, I love that stage of getting to know people -- so long as you put in your half of the effort in conversation lol. If you need an ice breaker, tell me your favorite song and I'll give my thoughts!
Can't wait to meet you! :)
submitted by PrinceOfBeds to r4r [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 21:22 drudgefromhell Grass paper! (with a woodblock print)

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2024.05.13 21:19 __thelittleprince___ Books of Knowledge OR Official Art Books?

Hi, I’m looking to buy some Elden Ring books as a fan / collector’s item.
From my research, it seems the options are:
  1. Books of Knowledge (Vol 1 & 2) by Future Press
  2. Official Art Books (English version) (Vol 1 & 2) by Udon Entertainment
  3. Official Art Books (Japanese version) (Vol 1 & 2) (I’m not sure the publisher)
I’m aware that the Books of Knowledge have game strategies and info, while the Official Art Books don’t. It’s a good to have, because while I’m not looking for a walkthrough, I don’t mind having stuff to read to immerse myself deeper in the world and catch details I might otherwise miss.
But my primary goal is to collect the books to admire the game artwork (landscapes, weapons, armors, bosses, etc.) So I don’t know if getting the Official Art Books makes more sense?
I’ve also read on threads that the book/print quality of the English version Official Art Books isn’t great, with double-spread images affected due to binding and inferior paper quality? But I might be less keen on the Japanese version because I hope to understand what I’m seeing (and I don’t know Jap, to be clear haha). Unless the unanimous recommendation is to go with the Jap version, then I’d gladly heed the advice.
From a collector’s standpoint, which of the 3 options would you guys recommend? Assuming I just want to pick one set instead of buying all of them.
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2024.05.13 20:45 Ryco182 Canon ipf Pro-300 for iron on transfer?

Hello!
I recently purchased a Imageprograf Pro-300 for photography and illustration prints on 100% cotton fine art papers. Very happy with the results I’ve been able to obtain so far
I want to expand my business to doing t-shirts aswell, using my illustrations. Would I be able to use iron on transfer paper on this printer without risking damaging it? And would the results be good on fabric?
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2024.05.13 20:23 5minsof Is my pricing fair / About profit margin and conversion rate

Hi all, I sell giclee prints on my shop in wall art niche. I work with a print center in California to print my arts and overall their pricing is better than any POD company I've found. The listings on my shop are fairly new, the oldest being 2 months old. When the items aren't on sale, a 16x24 wood floating frame canvas is listed for $190 including shipping. A 24x36 one is $220. A 8x12 archival paper print is $40. I have tried running different sales. from 10% from 55%. Also the ads are on for most listings but closed some listings when the product was clicked by 130 people in a day but only 1 purchased. It was just losing me money. I've sold few products with no sale and it was bringing very nice profit. I was getting 2-3 sales a day. Then the sales went down. Even with 40% sale I can barely get new orders. I live outside the US so I'm not really sure what price would be fair for these products. The customers seems to love the quality of the products. I have around 70 listings, I wonder if I should just keep uploading new listings with new designs. Also what would be a good profit margin? Is 30% too high? My conversion rate is around 1-1.5%, is it good for wall art category?
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2024.05.13 20:14 jaydee3839 Kobo Libra Colour with the Dell Active Pen PN579X Stylus

I bought the Kobo Libra Colour with the Notebook Sleepcover. To save on money, I found a new Dell Active Pen PN579X Stylus on ebay for $20.
Just came in the mail today. At first I thought there might be something wrong because it didn't seem to work, but then I looked at the manual and realized the Stylus had "AES" mode and "MPP" mode and was "AES" mode by default. Switched to MPP, and now it's working.
It's not exactly paper-like, but it doesn't feel bad or awkward at all to me. My handwriting is no worse or better than pen/paper. Slight delay, but not enough to bother me or negatively impact penmanship. The handwriting convert to digital text is also better than I expected. I write with a print/cursive mix and it's picked up everything.
The big question I had was whether or not the Dell stylus pen would fit and magnetically attach to the stylus slot in Kobo Notebook SleepCover. It does not on either account. It does not stick magnetically and it's slightly too big. It will sit in the rounded slot ok, but with it nestled there, the cover doesn't close flat -- the edge of the fap sits up about 2 inches above the edge where it should be flush.
Hope this information serves useful and let me know if you have any questions.
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2024.05.13 19:56 DarkSabbatical I found a cursed 4 leaf clover, I am thinking of selling it.

I found a 4 leaf clover last Sunday. Everyone believes it is cursed and want me to get rid of it. I am not sure if it's actually cursed though, or if it actually gives goodluck. The reason Everyone thinks it's cursed is because I found it last Sunday, and the next day (monday) is when the tragedies started. Most of the tragedies have a goodluck, badluck to them. Neutralized luck is what I call it. Neutralized luck is where a bad thing happens to you, but you got lucky it wasn't worse. You can clearly see how it would be worse, but Goodluck stopped it. Most but not all of the tragedies are like this. The first tragedy is my house caught on fire last Monday. The breakerbox exploded and shot out flames. We ended up and having to stay in hotels this last week. The Goodluck is the door to the breaker box flash welded to the gas pipe. Got lucky Everyone isn't dead. Got lucky only the breaker box was damaged. Insurance is probably covering it. From there things just kept happening. My brother in law had heart problems and was in the ER for 3 days. He got lucky to not have a heart attack. Just irregular beat for those days. Next my mom and I worked is worked at the same place. She ended up and getting fired on friday. I'm exhausted because we worked the night shift and they wanted me to work despite the fire because everything's closed during my hours anyway. We will have to see how my work relations go after that. Next my roommates girlfriend might have a tumor in her uterus. His mom has a lump on her breast. And his dad is on his death bed. We will call him roommate number 1. Roommate number 2 his childhood dog died on thursday. We have two dogs and my friend was watching one for us and we had the other. We would let the dog into the backyard of the house during the day. I left her there and went to church. Someone broke into the garage and house and left the doors open. They stole a gun from the house and either took the dog, or she ran away. We don't know. My friend that is watching our other dog just called me crying. The other dog broke his outside leash and ran into the highway and got hit by a car. He was dead immediately.
The bad things keep piling up. But there are good events to counteract some of the bad. Not all have solved yet. The dogs are a hard one. The gun worries me that it will be used in a crime and I will get blamed. I did report it to the police. Everyone believes that the 4 leaf clover is cursed because that's when this started. It's from a type of clover that does not grow 4 leaves. The normal 4 leaf clover from Ireland is a different type. So this one is a mutation. I look at it as rarer and luckier because of the mutation. I look at it like I found a shiny Pokémon. Everyone else says it's bad because it's mutated and the bad genetics create bad luck. I am torn because I don't want to just get rid of it. As a kid I spent hours looking for 4 leaf clovers before I was told these ones won't grow them. So it was a childhood disappointment fulfilled.
So what I was thinking of doing. Is maybe I will post it on ebay as the cursed 4 leaf clover. I will include this story printed out. I will gather as much proof of the tragedies as I can. I know my house was in the paper. Maybe I will get a clipping of it. I have it taped in a vinyl tape but I also took a picture of it when I first picked it. It got scrunched in the tape alittle. But I will add the fresh picked picture. Then I will post it for $500 starting. It would be that big of a number for a cupple reasons. First, is that I don't want to give it up. (Childhood disappointment fulfilled) and if it's actually giving goodluck to counter the bad. second, would be to protect the curious but poor people. Someone who could shell out $500 for a clover is probably rich enough to afford some tragedies. And third, it would help allot in this hard time.
I will post it under the conditions that this post, or other reposts of this story I do, blow up or go viral. If this is viral then it might be worth it because people would be interested in the clover. Could actually sell. Then I know it's worth putting everything together. If this happens, I will leave an update on here with the link to the posting and where to find it.
What do you guys think? Do you think it's cursed? Or do you think it's actually lucky and helped in the bad times?
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