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Support for those with nasty, cruel, toxic, abusive MILs & moms

2015.02.27 22:42 apotero Support for those with nasty, cruel, toxic, abusive MILs & moms

A place to post about your MIL or Mother who is just the *worst*. Come for support, come for advice, or just to vent and get it all out. That's what we're here for. Discussion often contains adult themes and language.
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2019.03.03 23:56 mydadiszeus Remove Trump Now

By The People is a non-violent, people-driven movement to hold our government accountable and impeach Donald Trump.
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2009.12.11 05:48 Hamsterdam Canning

A place to discuss safe, scientifically verified canning recipes and practices, along with other forms of home food preservation. We encourage an inclusive and respectful environment. Everyone is welcome! Please see our rules and contact our moderation team via modmail with any suggestions or concerns.
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2024.05.13 22:32 Careful_Warthog3780 I'm struggling with adapting to life with Epilepsy.

Hi Everyone, I'm a new member and haven't really used reddit very much before. I apologize in advance if I tagged this incorrectly. I also recognize that this post is probably all over the place and very long. So thank you to everyone who actually takes the time to read. I really appreciate it.
So I'm 22F and was diagnosed with Epilepsy last year November. So my diagnosis is still relatively new. I've been really struggling with everything lately. So, before my diagnosis I was already diagnosed with ADHD ( I've know since I was 6) and a servere anxiety disorder ( diagnosed in 2018 ).
Before finding out I was epileptic, I was a very very active person ( you could basically say I was a gym rat ). I was at gym twice a day most days, went hiking, jogging and horse riding ( I used to ride competitively). I was very muscular, lean and had a relatively good mental state ( aside from my anxiety ). The reason why I was diagnosed is because I started passing out and having seizures during my university classes ( now, it happened outside of university classes as well obviously but we assumed that it was a result of my anxiety disorder ). After a long battle and countless incorrect diagnoses ( I'm not sure if the spelling is right there but oh well ), we finally got the answer. I'm epileptic.
Originally, we were overjoyed as we thought that we finally reached the end but I've just been fighting one battle after the other. The first medication I was prescribed made me so sick, I was nauseous, had dreadful headaches and was continuously shakey. It also made me pick up so much weight. As someone who worked really hard on their body and fitness, that has really taken a huge toll on me. I've since been changed onto Keppra which I'm much happier on and less shakey but I'm still struggling a lot with adjusting to my new lifestyle.
Since my diagnosis, I've really been struggling. I have anxiety all the time that I'm going to have a seizure while driving ( it happened once when I was on my way home early evening one day - it was already dark so everyone had their lights on ). I can't exercise like I used to be able to and I'm always ridiculously tired and sore/stiff and I haven't been able to loose the weight I picked up. I know I probably shouldn't but I can't help but look back and judge myself based on my ability in the past. I haven't even been able to ride my horses because my parents are terrified that something will happen while I'm riding and I'll get seriously injured ( which from a parents perspective is completely valid ). And also, I've been having extremely vivid and horrifying nightmares.
All my newfound limitations are honestly driving me crazy. I honestly just feel lost and useless at the moment. I had to take a break from university due to me being so unstable in the beginning and despite being on medications that seem to be working better, I'll go through a wonderful month or so where I really feel like I'm getting the hang of this and learning how to deal with it only for me to have a week or month of pure hell. I'm currently going through a truly terrible week. My parents told me I have to move back home because they believe I'm not managing my epilepsy properly ( their words, but I believe they think I'm not taking my medication - but I do. I'm very disciplined when it comes to that. ) They took away my car keys because they don't want me driving and they told me that they think it's in my best interest to stop horse riding and going to gym for my safety ( but still love telling me that it's disappointing that I've "let myself and my body go." And " you used to be so motivated, determined and focused on your studies and career". I feel like my independence and future prosecutor and goals disappeared the day I was diagnosed.
I'm sorry for my long rant but I'm honestly struggling with all this. I know it's going to take some time to get used to but I feel like I have to give up everything that defines me. Does anyone have some advice or suggestions? Does it get better? I'm really trying to stay positive and be patient with my body but I feel like I'm approaching the end of my rope.
Thanks for reading and please let me know if I didn't tag properly or didn't follow a rule. I did try my very best.
submitted by Careful_Warthog3780 to Epilepsy [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:30 shione-shirakami Predicting Yandere Simulator great twist : Ayano and Megami

Most of you are probably already aware of this theory. It has been around for years. The great twist of Yandere Simulator will be the reveal that Megami and Ayano are sisters.
This had been a widly accepted theory since the release of Megami's first design, back when she still had black hair. Her design at the time was extremely similar to Kill la Kill character, Satsuki Kiryun. For those who are unaware, Satsuki is the main antagonist of the anime, and the president of the student council the protagonist attends. The plot twist of the anime is that she is the protagonist's sister.
Considering Alex knows about Kill la Kill, as proven by several easter eggs, it's likely he decided to use the same plot twist for Yandere Simulator. Megami's design was changed to not give it away immediatly, but of course, Alex couldn't keep his damn mouth shut, so there are many, MANY details that confirm this theory. I said details ? I should have said pages.
However, I feel like a lot of people are glossing over many details about this theory, and have many misconceptions about it. Notably, about how Megami and Ayano are related. So I decided to give my own theory, including all the... uh... subtle evidences we get in the game.
Crazy Grandpa master plan
No need to beat around the Saikou family's bush (or should I say tree, wink wink), you probably know about the Saikou Grandpa eugenics tendencies. His goal is to create the perfect human being, and he plans on using that by acheving the perfect combination of genetics.
So you might not know about this, but there are two major theories about the development of an individual. It's nature against nurture. Is an individual as he is because he was born this way, or because he grew to be this way. Is a person a blank slate at birth, or is their individuality already present from birth. This plays into determinism, I won't go into more details for a Yandere Simulator dumb theory, but you can look it up if you're interested.
So, to go back to Crazy Grandpa, he was probably on the side of nature at first. He only reproduced after he found the perfect wife, as he didn't want his gene pool to be "tainted", going as far as to DNA her on random shit. How did he DNA test her in the 60s is anyone's guess but let's move on.
The result were two children, Ichiko and Ichirou. Ichiko was raised rather normally, and ended up leaving the Saikou family as she didn't want to become the CEO. Crazy Grandpa saw it as the failure of his belief in nature, and decided to switch to nurture with Ichiro.
So Ichirou was raised with high expectations, to the point he acted like a robot, but Crazy Grandpa was very proud about what he had become.
Saishou carefully designed a very specific upbringing for Ichirou in order to encourage the development of specific personality traits and interests, and discourage the development of any attribute that he considered to be 'unnecessary'.
The boy spoke formally at all times, never expressed emotion, and rarely changed his facial expression. The Saikou family's attendants often wondered if the boy was still capable of independent thought, or if he was simply an empty shell that had been trained to carry out his father's will." Beside that, nothing else is known about his personality.
Familiar, isn't it ? We also learn that this is Saisho's conception of an "ideal person".
It is mentionned Grandpa was the one to chose Ichirou's wife, with the same criteria as he chose his own wife. Again, a perfect wife, because he didn't want his son to waste all the work he had put to this point to have a perfect bloodline. To this point, grandpa got the living proof that nurture works, but he still can't let go of his belief nature plays a part in it.
If only there was a way to run an experiment that could give an answer to this question...
The theory
The sisters theory is that Megami and Ayano are sisters, but there are usually divergences on how they are related. Keep in mind that I will be using the old timeline from 1980s mode as a template. It's already inaccurate as Yandere Simulator isn't set in 2022 anymore, but in 2026. But I don't care, the events probably play the same way.
Megami and Ayano are revealed in this timeline to have been born in the same year. You'll notice that the timeline mentions the birth of "Ryoba's daughter", and the birth of "Ichirou's daughter". Keep in mind that Jokichi isn't mentioned as Ayano's father.
And that's where we come to the main misconception in this theory.
Who are Megami's parents ?
Ichirou is obviously Megami's father. However, many have theorized that Ryoba is Megami's biological mother. This theory goes both way, either Megami and Ayano are twins separated from birth, or Saikou kept an egg from Ryoba and inseminated the Wife. This would make her Ayano's maternal half-sister.
I don't suscribe to this theory. Well, first of all, considering the timeline, Crazy Grandpa was the one behind the deal we'll mention later with Ryoba. I don't think he would have wasted his time finding a wife with perfect genes for his son if he had planned for her to only be an incubator.
Also, another reason, Megami's little antenae. It's a part of her design that she gets from her mother. The Wife is also mentioned to have given birth to two children, Megami and Kencho, which wasn't a necessary precision. Alex would have probably found a way to circumvent this if she hasn't really have birth to Megami.
So no, sorry, Megami probably isn't a yandere.
So... if Ayano and Megami aren't related throught Ryoba... how are they sisters ?
Through Ichirou. Simply enough.
Yeah, as great of a dad Jokichi is, he is probably not Ayano's biological father. Ayano is a copy paste of Ryoba, so he doesn't share anything in common with Ayano design-wise, that could indicate he is indeed her father. We don't even know that much about him as an adult. The Characters page doesn't mention him being Ayano's father, he is only described as the student he was back in the 80s.
However, Ichirou is described as extremely similar personality wise to Ayano. While Ayano is probably emotionless due to the Aishi curse, she is way more stoic than Ryoba in her own mode. But that's still a weak evidence, this is way I will back this up with the timeline.
We know that Ryoba has given birth to a daughter very late compared to her own mother and grandmother. These reasons are said to be plot related and big spoilers. Again, Ayano's father isn't mentioned as a parent, only Ryoba.
I recently went through my text document that lists all character ages and birthdates and changed a few things. Aishi women now give birth at 18. Ryoba, however, gave birth at 31, for plot-related reasons that will be revealed in the true ending (or perhaps in the basement tapes).
So, this is my own theory on what happened.
Just shut up and tell us what happened already
In the timeline, it is mentioned Ryoba's mother kept her Senpai in her basement. In 1984, when Ryoba was still a child, Saikou Corp renovated all the houses in Buraza Town for free, including Ryoba's house. Why was this even mentioned ? Because it was the first meeting between the Saikou and Aishi families.
Crazy Grandpa found out about the weird shit happening in the Aishi's basement. He learns about the Aishi curse. He decides to keep an eye on the Aishi's daughter at Akademi. Everything Ryoba did to get her Senpai convinces him the Aishi gene is the perfect gene to create an emotionless heir.
Kocho is extremely reluctant to let Ryoba return to the school, stand on a stage, and hand her a diploma but was told by Saisho Saikou to let it go.
He orders his men to abduct Jokichi as an hostage, so she would agree to have a meeting. That's when they made a deal, that Ryoba would be the mother of the future Saikou heir. But not only is Ichiro not old enough, he wants to find the perfect wife for him. She can marry her Senpai and have well paying jobs in the meantime.
Ten years after that, Ryoba has a meeting with Saikou and his son. And according to Kencho, she is apparently a regular.
She walked straight through the waiting room and directly into Mr. Saikou's office, without even speaking a single word to the secretary.
How long had that woman been coming here? How often? What business did she have here?
Kencho asks the secretary details, and we are told :
The secretary was silent for a few moments, and then gave me some generic platitude about how "the details of Mr. Saikou's appointments must be kept strictly confidential."
So either Saisho fired the previous secretary, or this meeting must be extremely confidential. Because that secretary was a huge gossip when it came to Ichiro and Saisho's falling off.
We get the confirmation it is a big deal as all the employees act the same at the mention of Ryoba.
When they saw how distraught I was, they were eager to help, but...
...When I asked them about that woman who just walked by, they... their attitudes changed in a heartbeat.
They slowly turned away from me and returned to their work in silence.
They ignored me, as if I wasn't even there! I haven't been treated like that since I was a schoolboy!
It was as if that woman was a taboo subject that no-one was allowed to speak of...or that...
He asks about her several times but Crazy Grandpa shuts him down. Kencho mentions Ichiro was there for all the meetings, but he has only heard him speak a handful of times. However, we also know that Ryoba and Ichiro have spoken with each other.
2004, Ichiro is in his mid-twenties. He gets married to the Wife. That's when his two daughters are born : Megami is born to the Wife, as the official heir to Saikou. Ayano is born to Ryoba, away from the Saikou family, as the bearer of the Aishi curse.
How exactly what Ayano born ? It is unlikely Ryoba would have cheated on Jokichi, which is why many have theorized on an insemination. Considering Saikou is a tech company, it's not out of reach.
He had two children, in accordance with his father's wishes; 'One as a backup in case the first child fails you.'
Yes, this might refer to Kencho. But this might also refer to Ayano. After all, Saisho did have twin daughters, before having a spare...
One was raised to be emotionless. One was born emotionless. It was the old debate, nurture against nature. Which one would produce the perfect heir to the eyes of the Saikou ?
Crazy grandpa retires in 2019, right before Megami and Ayano enter Akademi, and Ichiro becomes CEO.
Ichiro wants to select the perfect heir. And for that, he decides he will select the one who will come out on top, between Megami and Ayano. He seals a deal with Kencho about Ayano.
There is...one tape...that I'm already prepared to part ways with... The tape I made after Mr. Saikou's recent, ah...demands. It's far, far too risky for a recording like that to exist... That one...must be destroyed...immediately.
We know this deal is about Ayano. When Kencho kills Ayano as he feels threatened, he says "Mr. Saikou, the deal is off".
Ryoba and Jokichi both work for Saikou. We know from the headmaster that Ryoba and Ichiro have frequent meetings. She is able to walk in his office regularly. Why ? To discuss their daughter.
When Ryoba announces they are going to America, and Jokichi worries about their job, she says she gave a call to their boss and "he was very understanding". I used to interpret this as their boss being scared of Ryoba. But if their boss is Ichirou, there might be a reason he was so understanding. If Jokichi and Ryoba were to get away from Buraza Town, they wouldn't get in the way of his plans.
After Ayano disposes of Osana, we get a cutscene where he is on the phone with Ichiro. He seems very pleased with the unfolding events, and tells Kencho these deaths are "necessary casualties" for the "progress of science". Normal CEO activity, nothing wrong here.
But Megami also learns about this, as she is aware of the presence of a dangerous individual. Either Ichiro told her, or she might have discovered it by herself. Ichiro keeps her away from school for several weeks. She attends school through Zoom.
In very early builds of the game, you could find a laptop in the school. You would get to see Megami as a shadowy figure, back when she still had black hair. And here's her monologue :
I know who you are. I know WHAT you are. My father won't allow me to attend school while you are... "active". He has a reason for tolerating your presence at this school. I don't. You are a vulgar creature that is only allowed to exist because you serve a purpose. If it was my decision, then every last one of you would be exterminated.
And here's the end of Megami's description.
Megami clearly has some very important information that would cause her to go to such extreme lengths...but what does she know? Does Saikou Corp have anything to do with it? And, more importantly, does Senpai have anything to do with it?
So yeah, that's it for me folks, I'm putting the tin foil hat away and going back to my regular activities. If you have any counterpoint or anything to add, please tell it in the comments.
submitted by shione-shirakami to Osana [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:29 graesen CFPB complaint = denied Navient misconduct application (refinanced loans before app existed, expected response)

I'm hoping the attorneys here might help, but I'm expecting to be out of luck. I've shared my story in a comment late last week, but I think sharing as new might be easier for documentation.
In 2022, my Navient private loans were at (over? - I can't remember specifically) 10%. It was getting tough to afford and any sort of relief was looking less and less likely, lots of comments (not necessarily here, but other financial/student loan groups) were suggesting to refinance. I tried to hold off as late as I could hoping this would develop into something, but 10% was my limit. Anyway... I ended up refinancing with another loan servicer in 2022. Based on this happening alone, I expected Navient to do absolutely nothing for me.
However... after seeing this application come about in this sub-reddit, I was getting pretty upset. Navient really screwed me as well as the school I attended. I attended The International Academy of Design & Technology, which changed names to Stafford-Brown College years after I graduated. The school pushed me towards private loans, telling me I had exhausted my limit for federal loans. I believe this was a lie because when reviewing my information in the last couple of years since filling out my BD application and seeing a large portion of money I could borrow - this was before my federal loans were forgiven. The other thing that pissed me off was that we specifically asked not to take a Parent PLUS loan out because my single mother couldn't afford it. Guess what, they snuck the paperwork in for the Parent Plus loan in a large packet and did the whole "sign here, here, here, and here" thing and said it was to secure the loans. Didn't even mention the Parent loan was mixed in there. So I paid that myself... And unfortunately, I didn't think to file a separate BD application for this until AFTER the deadline to be full class, so this is a post class application. Also because I paid it off years ago, it wasn't a thought. And the first application I filed (this was post class (not under DeVos) was immediately denied because it was paid off, so I filed a 2nd one and noted that I was hoping to be considered full class for refund considering I filed a one for my other loans already and cited my case number. Last I checked (long time ago) it was still pending.
I attended IADT from 2003-2007. My private loans were initially Sallie Mae, then moved to Navient. Under both servicers, I struggled to pay and they only options they gave me were deferment or interest only payments. I had since exhausted my ability to defer and even when interest reached 10% in 2022, they only offered deferment (well, not really because they told me I exhausted that) or interest only payments. Which is also why I refinanced elsewhere. Long story short, since 2007 when I was required to begin making payments, I have paid 2-3 times what I borrowed on my loans and still owed half as of 2022.
CFPB
Since learning about the misconduct application and a recommendation to file a CFPB complaint to be able to apply, I tried it. I basically asked to be able to apply like anyone else and if the application proves that I was a victim, I asked for Navient to buy my loans back from my new servicer and treat my case like any other. I didn't expect they would do this, but worth trying, right? About a week later, they responded basically saying that because my loans are paid in full and they are no longer my servicer, I am not eligible for the application. I mean, it makes sense on the surface. But it does NOT excuse them taking such advantage of me nor does it discount the fact I was a victim of fraud. I have 60 days to provide feedback to my CFPB response, but the case is closed. Feedback is only used to help improve the process, not affect my complaint outcome in any way.
Side note - Since 2007, probably a few years later, I had reached out to 1-2 lawyers about suing, but no one wanted to touch it nor did I know who or how to really approach any of this legally. One was already suing IADT in Florida (I'm in Illinois) and I only reached out to that one or even knew about it because it showed up on a news article. Initially, when I reached out, the lawyer said they would include me and expand the case outside of Florida. A while later, they rescinded and said they couldn't help me. I'm not even sure if the case in FL went anywhere.
I also discovered during my BD application process when looking for evidence that in 2019, like 49 states sued CEC (the parent company of IADT) and settled by stopping all of the loans for their schools. I was not informed or included in this settlement and I don't know why. Here's 1 article discussing it - https://www.npr.org/2019/01/03/682057881/nearly-180-000-students-wont-have-to-repay-loans-from-for-profit-higher-ed-compa I had reached out to my state's AG twice to inquire about this and why I wasn't included. The 1st time, they basically said "What case?" and acted like they had no idea what I was talking about and ignored me afterwards. The 2nd time I got no response. So... I'm not sure what this settlement even entailed. I also checked all of the boxes for the Navient settlement before SvC except that I was not in default. Had I been in default, I would have found relief in that settlement. So... yeah, striking out here.
submitted by graesen to BorrowerDefense [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:28 Lord_Long_Rod Hunting Sasquatch for Communists, Featuring Ms. Anna Conda

During the course of my career as an alpha Sasquatch hunting, Dogman destroying, pussy crushing, luxury watch loving dude, I have run into this particular woman a few times. She is one part uber sensuality, and the other part deadly. Yes, I am speaking about the lovely, Anna Conda. I bring her up because I had another run-in with her last year.

Anna and I first joined forces, so to speak, when she acted as a go-between in my business deal with the Chinese to sell them bigfoot parts. See, I would hunt and kill the critters, cut them up, deliver the parts to Anna, who in turn gave me a suitcase containing unmarked American hundred-dollar bills, then she would transport the bigfoot parts to the Chinese. I was never really sure of what the sneaky-ass Chinese were doing with the body parts. All I knew for sure is that they are extracting certain materials from them, then synthesizing them with some other shit, creating some sort of drug. Whether it then becomes a bio-weapon or a dick stimulant, I do not know. Neither do I care. As long as they kept the hundies coming, I was good.

Now, while Anna is of Russian descent, she is a freelancer. She will work for any sick, skeevy motherfucker out there. She does not care. She has no conscience, at least not in the traditional sense as we understand it in western civilization. Today she is working for the Chinese, and tomorrow she may be working for Hamas. She is a slippery motherfucker.

So here is how it went down. At 11:32 p.m. on a Friday in September of last year I get a call on my cell phone. When the call came in I was balls deep into this hot little lass I picked up at the bus station a little earlier in the evening from an old swarthy chap named “Colorado Joe”. He wanted to sell me the girl. I was assured she was over 20 years old. I told him I needed to take her out for a test ride, which he agreed to.

So, there I was, balls deep in “Bing Bang Yun”, and my phone rings. Of course, I silence all incoming calls not in my contacts list. Thus, I knew that I must know the caller. In mid stroke I reached over to the nightstand to retrieve my cell and looked at it. It was a call from “Sergio”. I thought, “Oh shit…. I am going to have to cut the Oriental bang circus short.” When Sergio calls, I have to respond…immediately. He has the best blow on the east coast!!

“Hey, Serge! What’s up?”, I asked. All he said was, “Hooters. 2:00 a.m.”, then hung up. This was obviously the rendezvous for the transaction. Now, understand that Serge was not talking about the chicken wing restaurant. Hooters was code, in case the feds were listening in on the line. “Hooters” meant the titty bar out on Highway 69 called “The Plump Rump”. We had a communications code we used.

It was a long haul to the titty bar, so I needed to get moving. I had no time to return the girl to Colorado Joe, so I took her with me. I had her blow me on the way to the meeting with Sergio, telling her that her performance would make the difference on whether I save her from Joe or not. Of course, after she was done I tossed her out of my speeding truck and down, over the bridge, and into the Wendigo River below. I did not need any complications in my life right now.

I arrived at The Plump Rump at 2:00 a.m. on the dot. I saw the manager, Lou Skunt, sitting at the bar when I walked inside. I nodded. He walked over and said to me, “Use my office for the meeting The parties are already in there waiting for you.” I nodded and then headed to Lou’s office. Then it hit me: Lou said the “PARTIES” are already here. That is, parties, meaning more than one person. It was not just Sergio. It was 2 or more people! Lou was probably in for a cut of whatever was about to go down.

Something was bad fucked up!! I know for a fact that Sergio never brings anyone with him on a deal, at least not with me. He is too distrustful of people to do that, and too fucking mean to need protection. Something was wrong. I was just as likely to get whacked when I enter Lou’s office as anything else. I needed a moment to think things through.

I took a spot in front of one of the performance poles to watch a young, swarthy Mexican lass perform. My mind quickly strayed from the problem at hand to this brown chick’s ass and tits. She was not a great looking chick, but her body was smoking!! I quickly became aroused. I thought to myself, “Goddamn Asian bitches!! They are just like Chinese food – after 2 hours you are ready for some more!!”

When the little Mexican chick went on break I motioned her over to my table. “Hola Senior!!”, she said. I pulled out a clear plastic baggie of blow and dropped it on the table. Her eyes grew wide and slobber starting falling from her mouth. Blow is like catnip for strippers. Thus, she fell under my spell immediately.

The next thing I know, this brown girl was on my lap, dry humping me like a feral bitch dog in heat. I had to bang her. I NEEDED to see my wang penetrating her. Just then, someone taps my shoulder hard. I look up to see Lou standing over me. He bent down and said, “Did you forget about my office, asshole?!?!?!” I replied, “Damn, Lou!! You read my mind!!!” I arose, with the little Mexican bolted onto my mid-section, and hastily retreated to Lou’s office. I figured Lou would prefer me to stain this chick in private rather than out in the open.

The door to the office opened easily. The lights were on inside. In a lustful haze, I set the little Mexican chick on her back across Lou’s desk and started pumping the shit out of her, completely unaware of the others in the room with us. In a moment I heard someone call my name. I twist my neck around to see Sergio sitting on Lou’s jizz crusted couch. I think to myself, “Oh shit! I forgot about that shit!”

I figured I would just move forward with the deal as it was proposed to me. “Hey Serge! What ya got for me, dude?”, I asked. He replied, “I have a very special deal for you. I need, uh … yeah, ……Hey, Rod, you want to stop for a moment so we can talk?” I picked up the little tamale and laid her down onto Sergio’s lap as I continued to plow her. She stayed on my cock the whole time. I told Sergio, “No, man. I’m good! Lay it on me!” Slowly, Sergio lowered his face into his palm.

Then it happened. The voice cam from behind me, in the dark corner of Lou’s office. It was velvety yet hard as steel. “Rod. Went need to talk”, it said. Even though I did not stop pumping the little brown chick, a chill went down my spine when I heard those words. It was the thick timbre of the voice, I think, that alerted me.

I turned to look across the room. There, sitting in a red leather captains chair against the wall was the source of the sultry voice: Anna Conda.

I picked up the little taco yet again and turned her around so I could face Anna as I continued pumping her. At this point the Mexican girl was merely a masturbation toy I was using. I increased my pump so I could dump my load and get this over with. Then BAMM!!!, it was over. I removed the lass from my huge rod, after which her body crumpled to the floor. I did not know if she was dead or injured, or what had happened to her. But I did not care either, so I did not dwell on it.

I tried to compose myself the best I could, then walked over to stand before Anna so I could get to the bottom of all this business. “Well, well, well. Anna Conda. We meet again. Tell me, what brings you here, to my little neck of the woods?”

Anna replied, “Rod, put your dick away.” I looked down and, indeed, I had forgotten to stow my cock. Out of pure curtesy, I packed it away. Then I returned my attention to Anna. “Alright, Anna, what’s going on here?”

Anna launched into a startling tale about what brought her to me. As she spoke I became lost in her wanton beauty. She got up from her chair and walked about the room as she relayed her story, presumably to make it more dramatic and demonstrative. I got a full-on view of her body, and it was fantastic!!

She stands 5’10’’ and weighs 105 lbs. She is lithe. She was showing it off too, wearing a black, silk dress that landed just about her ankles. The top was low-cut, betraying just a bit of cleavage from her C-cup wineglass titties. She was not wearing a bra. Anna never wears a bra. Her nips were perfectly outlined through the silk. In fact, I think her nips were hard. It was probably something she did on purpose in an attempt to influence me. It was working.

Anna’s ass was perfect. It was not at all fat, but round enough not to be skinny. It was a fit figure skater’s ass. As she walked, I could see a tiny bit of jiggle emanating from her ass flesh, and then reverberated in the silky black dress she wore. My cock began growing hard again.

Her face was beautiful. Think Scarlett Johanson and Phoebe Cates rolled into one. But any sweetness this may evoke is quickly dispelled by Anna’s throaty voice with its thick Russian accent. I have known Anna for 20 years. Yet, she still does not look a day over 25. Jesus Christ!!! If ever there was a chick to die for ….. If I was one to delve into the belief of the paranormal, then I may conclude that Anna made a deal with the devil. But, I am not such a person.
And literally, Anna Conda is a chick to die for. She is deadly as fuck. She will kill you in a split second without a thought just because she does not like the shirt you are wearing. She can do it too. She is always armed and she knows how to use her weapons. Moreover, she is a total psychopath. This makes her doubly dangerous.

Anna and I have always gotten along for the most part. Like Anna, the dollar is my primary motivating factor. Such a mindset allows for understanding and predictability among people, which are elements that are sorely missing in many business dealings today that go on in the color of darkness.

Suddenly, Anna snapped me out of my thoughts. “Here’s your gun, Rod. Now let’s get started”, said Anna. She and Sergio were halfway through the door exiting Lou’s office when I said, “Hey, wait a damned minute!!! What are you talking about?!?”

They both stopped, and Anna walked back in and looked me in the eyes, saying “The plan, Rod. Let’s get on with the plan.” A little embarrassed, I sheepishly asked, “What plan?” Anna folded her arms and looked cross at me. After a moment to allow me to simmer in my shame, she asked, “You were not paying attention, were you, Rod?” I shook my head and looked down.

I heard a hammer cock. I jerked my head back up to find myself staring down the barrel of a pistol pointed at my head that Anna was holding. I protested, “Look, it is not my fucking fault!! Put that fucking gun down!!!” I continued, “You were distracting me with …. Well.. you know, how you are dressed, and that hot, sultry voice…. You know?”

“So, instead of paying attention to the plan, you chose to eye-rape me. Is that what I am to understand your position is, Rod?”, she asked. Knowing that my life was on the line, I said, “Anna, look, you know I am horny to a fault. Then you come in here, swinging them tits around, wearing that silk dress showing off the crack of your ass…. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU EXPECT TO HAPPENED?”

Anna lowered her gun. She knew that my explanation of being a total cocksman was truth. “Let’s go”, Anna curtly said. I obeyed.

Anna explained the plan to me again on the drive from The Plump Rump. She made me wear a blindfold so that I would not get horny during her explanation. Here is how it went:

Anna Conda was now working for the Russians. It seems that Putin caught wind of the Sasquatch project that the Chinese were working on. He also knew that the American government have been fucking with sasquatch for decades. Thus, he was very concerned about the existence of a bigfoot gap. He ordered the acquisition of a Sasquatch specimen immediately.

Moreover, said specimen must be prime. It needed to be the biggest, baddest sasquatch of them all – a true alpha – so as to speed things along. Putin did not want some weird shit-creature, is-it-a-sasquatch-or-is-it-a-dogman, kind of monstrosity. He wanted purebred, badass sasquatchery, and preferably from the American Pacific northwest.

Anna got in on it because she sold the intel to Putin about China’s Sasquatch operation. She then told Putin she could produce sasquatch corpses for him. She told him she had a contact (i.e., me). Thus, with Putin’s blessing and promises of riches to come, Anna set out to America to find me.

Now, here is where things got a bit squirrely. See, I agreed to procure some more dead sasquatch. I have no problem with killing sasquatch because, in my opinion, they are an abomination on this Earth. I kind of feel like I am doing God’s work by wiping out as many of them as I can. And given all the not-so-Godly stuff I have done, I feel like killing Sasquatch kind of offsets that to some degree.

But Anna, she was stuck on Putin’s instruction that she must supply him with apex Sasquatch. So she did not want to take my advice of heading to the Pacific Northwest or Alaska. Instead, Anna claimed to have pinpointed the whereabouts of a particularly gruesome sasquatch beast that she KNEW would win her a fortune from Putin if she brought it to him.

“So, where is this beast?”, I asked. Anna replied “Martha’s Vineyard”. I paused. Then I asked her to repeat herself. It turns out that I was not mistaken about what Anna had said. I continued, “Uh, Anna, there are no sasquatch on Martha’s Vineyard, just a lot of wealth New Englander schmucks.”

Anna looked at me and told me I was wrong. Then she decided to attempt to taunt me. “Oh, Rod, mighty slayer of Bigfoot! Yet, you fail to take notice of where the biggest, most foul and rotten beast of them all makes its home. Jesus, Rod!! What kind of bigfoot hunter are you, anyway?” Anna then spit at my feet and wondered aloud whether she even needs me for this job.

I decided that I needed to straighten out the hierarchy here in order for this here deal to move forward. I said, “Well, Anna, feel free to truck on over to Old Whitey Beach and battle that beast. But, if there is a big old mangy sasquatch lurking around over there, then it is probably a fucking Nazi-Squatch. You know, those fuckers out there hate the Jews.”

The work “Nazi” visibly shook Anna. Her great grandfather died defending Leningrad. Her entire family there died of either starvation or cannibalism during Hitler’s siege during Operation Barbarossa. Anna despised Nazis. But she feared them too. After landing that punch, I decided to push my luck.

“Now, I am still willing to help you catch this here Nazi-Squatch, but you have to do something for me”, I said. Now Anna’s eyes were on me, and they were narrowing. I continued, “I want you to get bare assed naked and pleasure yourself while I stand over you and jack it.” Anna stared at me silently for a long moment. Then she replied.

“After the job is done, and you can get none of your … fluids… on me”, she said. I shook my head and countered, “Now, and I will ‘try’ to not get my spunk on you.”

However, Anna then turned the tables on me. In fact, she picked up the table and bashed my head in with it. She looked me in my eyes, then matter-of-factly said, “You get the beast, and your prize shall be a night with me, anything goes, darling.” Well, since this caused all of the blood to immediately drain from my brain, I had a lapse in judgment. “DEAL!!”, I said. Then we shook on it.

“OK, tell me more about this supposed monster sasquatch on Martha’s Vineyard”, I said. I still was not ready to believe there was a monster out there. “I show you photo”, said Anna. She took out her phone, scrolled to find the photo, then handed the phone to me. “There. Sasquatch”, she said.

I stared at the photo and remained silent. After a long moment, I turned the phone so that Anna could see the photo and asked, “Uh, Anna, is THIS what you intended to show me?” She replied. “Yes! There…Sasquatch! The biggest, grossest monster around.”

Now, I could not argue with Anna that the image on her phone is a big, gross monster. Hell, it could actually be a sasquatch, and THE UBER sasquatch. It is most certainly the grossest thing on Martha’s Vinyard. But I somehow do not think this is what Putin is expecting.

I turned to Anna and said, “Anna, this is a photo of Michelle Obama. I know it looks vile, and has a huge, hulking body with large appendages where a woman should not have them. But, sweatheart, that ain’t no sasquatch. That’s a big, hairy Chicago street negro.”

Anna did not believe me at first. She was hard in her conviction that Obama was a sasquatch. “I have seen the Sasquatch beast you deliver to me for China. This … Michelle Obama …. It is big, and hairy, and ugly like the sasquatch beast, but worse.”

When the truth finally set it, I could see that it had kind of broken down poor Anna, if only just a bit. I put my arm around Anna and told her, “Look, Michelle O fooled you. Hell, she and her Hamas Hubby fooled millions of Americans, twice! At least you saw Michelle for what she is, to wit: a big, gross sasquatch, and NOT some kind a retarded leftist messiah.”

After that, things took a rather dark turn. “What if we still take her to Putin? We can make deal; sell her to Putin!!” At this point I held up my hands and said, “I’m out”, then turned and walked away. Anna followed, trying to get me to stay. At this point, I could tell that Anna was coming undone a little.

See, she had to produce for Putin. There is no telling what kind of secret deal she actually had with him. She had to deliver a big old mangy Obama …. Er, uh, I mean … Sasquatch, to Putin.

“Ok, Rod, we do your plan. We go out west to kill bigfoot. Huge, monster bigfoot. she said. I turned and looked Anna in her eyes and said the following: First, we bang for 48 hours straight, right now, so I can get my fill of you. Second, you pay me $10,000.00 cash upfront. Third, upon delivery of the dead bigfoot, you pay me $1 million immediately.”

Anna agreed to everything, but noted that at the present time it was her “time of the month”. I grimaced, as I will absolutely not go there (and she knows that). “Fine, next week we bang”, I said. She pointed out that I would be in the woods next week hunting sasquatch. “Fine, once I come out of the woods, then we bang – 48 hours straight”, I said. “Of course, darling!”, she agreed.

Well, it took several days to set up the hunt, but it finally happened. I was in Washington state at high elevation based on intel I has acquired that indicated that there was a monstrous 15’ tall sasquatch on the mountain range that had been murdering and eating hunters and hikers. After 3 months in these mountains without a trace of the creature I began to lose hope, thinking that I probably got some bad intel, or bad coordinates.

I got my satellite phone out to call for an extraction. Winter was setting in fast, and if I did not get off this mountain soon, then I would freeze and/or starve to death. Unfortunately, my contact did not answer. I tried for 2 days. No answer. I had been fucked. I wondered what had happened back in civilization that caused me to be abandoned like this. I resolved that I would get off that mountain and get to the bottom of this shit. There would be hell to pay for this betrayal!!’

I was able to get in touch with contacts from back home. I got old Billy Ray from Ellijay and Rattler on the phone and got them to come out here to Washington State to extract me. Rattler use to fly helicopters in the Army. He has an old Huey sitting in his front yard, to the chagrin of his HOA. He fired that sucker up, and him and old Billy Ray flew out here to my coordinates and extracted me.

After landing at a convenience store to buy some beer for the flight home, we headed east. Through the skies a way, Billy Ray said, “Well, Rod, I guess you is bout ready to git back home to Georgia, eh?” In fact, I was ready to go home. But I had to take care of some business first. I told them both to take me to New York City. They were both perplexed. All I said to them was “I have an old friend there I have to see before I can go home.”

I have intel on where Anna Conda stays when she is in the United States. She stays at certain hotels depending on what month she is here, and whether her check-in date is an odd or even number. This is for undercover work. I came across the code for her stays while doing the sasquatch work for China. She an I were caught in a snowstorm one night in Buffalo, NY, and had to share a room at the Holiday Inn near the airport. We had like 10 big Igloo ice chests with iced down sasquatch body parts with us in the room.

Anna was like, “No hanky panky, Rod. I am tired and I want to go to bed. Tomorrow we finish business.”

Frankly, I did not blame her for withholding her magnificent muff from me. I was tired as hell. But, I could not settle for nothing. So, when Anna was in the bathroom taking a shower, I started going through her suit case. I wanted to find some of her panties to jack off into. Instead, I found a little black notebook. Inside it contained her lodging codes, and some other interesting things. I photographed the contents with my phone and then put it back.

When Anna got out of the shower she was already dressed in her night clothes. She saw me lying on my back, nude on the bed, and jacking it. “Rod!! GROSS!!!! Go to the restroom to do that shit!!!”, she commanded. I just did it to get a rise out of her. LOL!!

So, if Anna is still inside the U.S., then using the codes I stole from her I can locate precisely where she will be that night. I studied it for a few moments then had my answer. Tonight she would be staying at the Dogman Inn on Hwy 95 South, Room 355. I told Rattler to get me there stat!

We had to stop several times for fuel and beer. Those Hueys go just a bit over a hundred MPH, you know. But eventually, we got there. I gave the boys some money and told them to go to the Waffle House for some coffee to sober up. Then they would fly me home.

I should mention that I also had Rattler’s fully auto Russian AK-74 with spare mags. During the long flight with 2 drunks from Washington State to New York City, I had worked myself up into a towering rage over how Anna fucked me on this Putin deal. She had clearly thrown me aside. But for what, exactly? I figured I would storm the hotel room, get some answers, then shower the room with gun fire.

I busted through the door of Room 355 at exactly 3:35 a.m. There she was. My entry roused her from slumber. I was pointing my rifle at her, center mass. She was shocked at the appearance of a gunman in her room at this time of night. However, she was not as shocked as one would think (this was not the first time something like this has happened to her).

I raised my face from the receiver just enough so she could see it was me. “Rod!!!”, she exclaimed. “What happened to you?!?!? I thought you had died up in those mountains when we never hear from you!” I replied, “Shove it up that cute little ass of yours, Anna. You fucked me. And not in the good way. What the fuck was all that shit about needing a sasquatch for Putin?!?”

Anna played dumb. But it struck me that I had been deliberately put out of the loop for 3 months. Why? Who wanted me away for that long, and why? What went on in my absence?!? I was just dying to know!!! I set my rifle down and pulled out my fixed blade knife, ready to get down to some real nasty work on Anna so I could get some truth. The pure evil of what I was about to do to her caused a wide death grin to grow on my face. Anna saw it. She knew what it meant. She swallowed hard and her eyes betrayed the shear terror she felt inside. I was engorged with blood lust. She knew she had fucked up one time too many this time!!

Suddenly came the sound of the toilet in the bathroom flushing. I was momentarily shocked. I did not expect anyone else to be there with Anna. Anna saw it in my face. I glanced at her and saw that the terror in her face was replaced with pleasure, a slight smile creeping over her face.

I was going to have to face off against this person in the bathroom, who would be out in a split moment. When I do that, I will have to turn 180 degrees from Anna, thereby making me vulnerable to her. I had only once choice: Shoot Anna first.

Just as this came to me, but just before I could act on it, the bathroom door opened. I had to deal with that person before Anna now. I spun around to see that it was a completely nude, and fat, white man. He was a real oafish blob. He looked surprised to see me. He also looked sort of familiar.

I next heard the crack of something hitting my skull hard. I remember the immediate hateful pain that shot through my body and the sound of blood rushing through my ears. I remember the dizziness, then falling to the floor. Clearly, as I fixed on the man from the bathroom, Anna had cracked me over the head with a blunt object.

I came to the next morning, Billy Ray and Rattler had manage to track me down based upon coordinates I left in the chopper that said “IN CASE OF EMERGENCY”. Billy Ray filled up the hotel room ice bucket with cold water and doused my head with it to bring me conscious. I was disoriented at first. But after a bit, what happened in this room the night before came back to me.

Honestly, I am surprised that Anna did not just kill me. I presume that she thinks she can leverage her drop-dead hotness to get me to do more shit for her in the future. She is absolutely right about that too. Rattler then said, “Hey, Rod, that snake bitch left a letter fer ya.”

He handed me the letter. This is what it said:
____________________________________________

“Dear Rod:

Sorry about the boo boo on your head. Hope it heals soon. Also sorry about leaving you in the mountains. I was not running a scam on you Rod. Rather, an opportunity arose for me to acquire a sasquatch body from another person. You may know him since you are a sasquatch hunter. His name is Matt Moneymaker. Anyway, until next time…..

Yours truly,
Anna Conda”
_____________________________________________
I could not fucking believe it. That was fatfuck Moneymaker in the hotel room earlier. Anna fucked Matt Fatfuck Moneymaker for a Sasquatch! That fat son of bitch!!

Billy Ray asked, “You ready to go Rod?” I stood up and said, “Yeah, let’s go.” Then Rattler said, “Hey, ya wanna stop and git some beer fer the ride home?” I replied “Hell yeah.”

I felt like I wanted to die. Thank God for beer and buddies. I don’t blame Anna. She is a fucking snake, and I knew that before this started. Also, I cannot really blame fatfuck Moneymaker for wanting to get some of that hot poon pie Anna serves up. I guess I have to blame fate for fucking me over this time. I even started thinking that next time I will just avoid Anna. But I know I won’t, thus making me subject to this sort of shit again. I had Rattler set us down in Charlottesville so I could buy some hard liquor.
submitted by Lord_Long_Rod to Sasquatch_Jihad [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:24 Sin-God Master Of All: A Really Neat Perk (& Also Other Generic Gamer Musings)

Today I'm discussing Master of All, which is a perk from Generic Gamer. If you've never seen this perk or heard of this jump... this perk is probably the best singular perk in the jump (though ALL of them are really good), but it's not the INTENDED reason to come here. I personally think an early jump could stand to benefit from fusing GGJ with a more mundane jump (which is what my latest story-jumper is doing though not by choice) and grabbing this perk, it's appeal is kind of amazing. Now let's see the ACTUAL perk!
Master of All: Specialists focus on depth at the expense of breadth; generalists focus on breadth at the expense of depth. But what if you could focus on a single ability and have it benefit all of them? When you train one skill, ability, or power, that training and development applies not just to it, but to all of the skills, abilities, and powers you possess.
This is, understandably, a capstone perk. It is immensely powerful, and is the best TRAINING perk I've ever seen. There are BETTER perks out there for mastering stuff, heck I'll even include the other capstone in this jump just so you can see a better perk for MASTERING something.
Hyperspecialization: There’s focusing in a few specific areas, and then there’s this. Select a single skill, ability, power, Perk, whatever, so long as it’s possible to improve. At base, two things happen. A: the chosen ability progresses as if you’re training with it all the time, even when you’re doing nothing; if you were to actively train with it, the rate of growth would be effectively doubled. B: the rate of growth and development for the chosen ability is multiplied by a hundred.
Now, keep in mind that that’s just at base — both of these boosts increase gradually but exponentially the longer you focus on a single ability. Give it a few days, and the rate of growth will be multiplied by two hundred; a month, and by a thousand. You can change what ability you’re focusing on at any time at the cost of resetting the accrued exponential boosts.
Hyperspecialization IS a better perk if you want to master singular skills (or if you need a boost in power or skill in some SPECIFIC area but don't have the time to actually sit down and hone that area), but if you want to TRAIN something, if you value working for your goals, and if you want to be a jack of all trades Master of All is the better perk. And of course you could always grab BOTH perks, you could even do so without a SINGLE drawback AND you could still get other perks WITHOUT stacking drawbacks due to the discount mechanics of this jump. But I strongly prefer Master of All, personally.
Master of All is a very creative way to reward engagement in a setting which is something I'm always a fan of. A smart jumper who is not constrained by something like the notion of a fickle benefactor who ACTUALLY punishes boring jumpers might get something like Hyperspecialization and want to turtle up, but with Master of All you need to do SOMETHING for it to benefit you. Now WHAT you do doesn't matter, so long as you do SOMETHING that serves as training.
A very fun build could be for someone to snag both Skills, which is a function of the gamer system in Generic Gamer and then grab MoA and go to something like Generic School Years and diligently study. That studying will definitely count for MoA, since studying will definitely become or involve a skill as defined by Skills. This means that while you're studying you're becoming better at gymnastics, or cooking, or painting, or... using The Force, or mana management, or whatever other skills you've gained at this point in your journey.
One small facet of Master of All that is very interesting is how it stacks with uncappers and the very neat knowledge that there is a free uncapper in Generic Gamer (it's a facet of the gamer system!). This means that Master of All will eventually give you stuff like functionally limitless stamina and potentially unlimited strength, once you get the right upgradeable stuff at least. A fun thing I like about this perk is how it affects stuff like workouts. Workouts not only make you more physically fit with this, they also strengthen your perks, strengthen facets of your physique, and can even improve your luck (assuming there is a perk for your luck, which there IS in this jump in two senses: there's The Devil's Own Luck, AND there's a gamer function called Attributes, which CAN give you a luck stat if you want, I recommend it partially to mix with this perk). The idea that going for a joydrive can strengthen your telekinesis, or actively make you smarter is very funny but also very true with this perk and the right mix of gamer things.
This perk on it's own is somewhat limited, but a smart strategist who wants their jumper to be able to stand alone has a lot of options they can use. Two of my favorites here are Jack of All Trades and Experience Booster. JoAT is a fun perk that makes it much easier for you to hone new perksyou acquire along your chain, and Experience Booster is just a POWERHOUSE of a perk that boosts how much experience you get from anything that gives you experience, whether you only get it from defeating enemies or you get it from doing minor stuff, and if you mix it with Master of All you get a powerful combination since it makes it so that your workouts buff your brain by twenty times as much as they would otherwise. The best way to cheese it has got to be to go all in on game-ifying your life and taking the skills function of the gamer system, which allows you to make a ton of stuff into a skill, which thus plugs it into the Master of All functionality. Here, look at the description of Skills so you can see what I mean.
Skills (-100/-200/-300 GP)
For 100 GP, any ability or skill you possess becomes a ‘Skill’, with a skill level, increasing in power and efficiency as it levels up, done by gaining enough experience, which is gathered by using the skill; Level 1 is maximum inefficiency, while Level 99 is the maximum efficiency you could normally get — you can go even beyond that, though, with no hard cap to how high a skill’s level can be. The higher a skill’s level, the more experience required to get it to the next level. Generally, the more powerful and useful a skill, the slower it is to level up.
Any powers, skills, or abilities you already possess are automatically converted into System Skills. You may gain new skills by performing relevant actions; for example, throwing a knife might earn you the skill ‘Knife Throwing’. Skills will not deteriorate with time or disuse.
For an additional 100 GP, once a skill has reached Level 99, it may ‘prestige’, granting you an at least vaguely similar but much more powerful skill at Level 1 without taking away this one or, occasionally, traits if you’ve purchased the option. Prestige skills may themselves prestige. Prestige skills are especially difficult to level up.
For an additional 100 GP, you may ‘combine’ certain skills into a new one — without actually losing the ingredient skills.
This is hands down the best way to cheese this. This is also just a VERY good function in general, but guaranteeing that your skills can improve AND uncapping how good the stuff you do and the stuff you make can be is INCREDIBLE. This also allows you to become holistically better at everything just by cooking, or reading, and thus rewards you for having hobbies. This perk is very nice because it frees you from the constraints of training and having to incorporate stuff that makes you a stronger jumper but is more time-consuming and is not what a native would do.
I'm gonna take a beat to talk about Hyperspecialization again because one thing that's worth mentioning is that it's a passive trainer perk. It's MORE than that, sure, and in fact if you get it you're getting something worth every bit of CP you pay for it, but at it's core it's an enormously powerful passive trainer. There are other passive trainers. There didn't USE to be, at least not a LOT of them, but they exist now (these types of perks exist in several Edrogrimshell jumps, usually they are named "Dabbler" but not all of them have that name) so this perk has lost of some what made it unique. A perk doesn't have to be unique to be valuable, but it helps. Master of All, on the other hand is part of a, as far as I've seen, rarer type of perk: a training synergizer (something which blends types of training and studying together), and it's also a COMPLETE training synergizer which I've never seen before or anywhere else (normally the training synergizers I've seen link SPECIFIC skills, such as a perk from Generic Wizard which syncs how strong you are with your skill as a wizard, or a perk from Generic Culinary Warrior that links your cooking and combat skills). What this means is that if you miss out on Hyperspecialization you can go to other jumps and snag an equivalent perk there. In fact, you can actually grab something that is a MINOR improvement over Hyperspecilization, because all of the passive trainers I've seen let you passively train more than one thing at a time. It IS true that Hyperspecilization beats out these other, baby perks in how quickly it trains what you assign, but that minor aspect of its winning out is somewhat lessened in importance when you remember that placing something new in the lone slot hyperspecialization gives you resets how fast it trains the thing in question. Master of All is both less easy to compare to other existing perks and doesn't have any internal conditions that weaken active usage of it like Hyperspecialization does.
Now that's not to put you off of Hyperspecialization, if I were in a real chain I'd want to grab BOTH Hyperspecialization and Master of All (and not just because MoA completely removes the weakness of Hyperspecialization, but that's certainly a part of it haha), these are INCREDIBLY powerful perks, but one is... one is more universally useful than the other. Master of All is just an absolute S-tier perk. I cannot imagine any build where MoA is applicable where it wouldn't be an absolute GOD-TIER of a purchase. The only possible combination I could think of that might invalidate MoA would be the Sage x Spirit Touched combination from the ATLA Redux jump, and that'd be most of your base CP in a jump that has MULTIPLE sections worth of stuff to try and grab.
To put this in perspective, with a perk like this and the right combination of gamer things you can go into a setting like Chronicle and hone your telekinesis by working on your photography skills. You can become a better chef by doing your math homework and rereading whatever chapter of MacBeth you're on in English. Once you've gained the right skills you can become better at soccer and other sports while you design a website. Become a better wizard by practicing juggling. This is an incredible QoL perk that frees you from a lot of the time-crunchiness that comes with only having a decade in a setting as opposed to a lifetime. Honestly that's kind of the biggest strength of the particular nature of the Generic Gamer Jump, it does a LOT to free up your time and really let you optimize your time in a setting.

Generic Gamer As A Time Optimizer

So depending on the setting, a decade is either a LOT of time or it's BARELY any time. In Avatar the Last Airbender, a decade can be a HUGE amount of time (the entire plot of the first show is about one calendar year according to one of the show's execs), but in Harry Potter a decade is only a bit more time than the plot takes, and truthfully is barely a blink of an eye. So perks that allow you to have a special relationship with time are always good.
One of the critical facets of Generic Gamer is how it allows you to optimize time. There's definitely some underlying logic here, since game characters have INCREDIBLE growth rates, and I love that about this jump. Generic Gamer, for the cost of 50 GP lets you lose the need to sleep, the need to eat, and the need to drink. That is an INCREDIBLE boost to the amount of functional time you have in a jump, if you started your chain off as a base human and entered this jump as a non-boosted human or as an only minorly-boosted human. Getting rid of three of the most essential bodily needs for the cost of 50 points in a thing where you start off with 1350 points makes it a steal (You get different points for perks and for gamer system customization in this jump).
A big part of how essential this is, is how much time it saves you by eliminating sleep but in all honesty removing your need to drink or eat is also critical. I don't know how many jumps could safely be taken as first jumps that completely eliminate the need for sleep, food, AND water, but this one can and that's pretty OP given the costs. Also, bv eliminating the need for stuff like food and water you make entire other jumps wholly more viable. Minecraft, for example, becomes WILDLY safer if you don't have to work about starvation, since hunger is directly linked to your ability to recover from wounds but in Generic Gamer you can completely subvert this system by spending 100 GP: purchase Gamer Body (eliminating the need for food) and also purchase the HP System (which gives you fiat-backed regen, so long as you don't take a hit for a beat, giving you a passive heal much like some FPS games).
Gamer's Body & HP System guarantee you survive any setting that isn't actively trying to kill you, and also frees you up to more safely do what you want like explore or just have a good time. If you don't have to pay for food or housing for sleep, you either don't need money or you need a LOT less of it. Stuff like this is also DRAMATICALLY powerful for vampires and other creatures that are normally driven by, or at least associated with, constant hunger. Also this just makes zombie jumps hilariously easy for you to solo since the number of risks you have to take (while solo) are SO MUCH lower. Funnily enough the right set of perks here even lower the risks you have to take when you work WITH other people, as Inventory lets you both raid places by yourself (since you can store an infinite amount of stuff on you by yourself) AND lowers how much supplies you need for your friends (since time doesn't pass for stuff in your inventory, preventing it from going bad!).
This jump is also filled with training boosters, with Jack of All Trades, Experience Booster, Hyperspecialization, and Master of All all qualifying as training boosters broadly, they all just qualify as different TYPES of training boosters. This is very interesting, since one of the big things a lot of adventure jumpers will need sooner or later are training boosts of their own. The best training boost here is Experience Booster which buffs training by 100 times, a STUNNING boost to one's training, and this stacks hilariously with every other training booster here.
I have a lot of thoughts on this jump and I think I'll keep writing them down from time to time. It's just so good.
submitted by Sin-God to JumpChain [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:23 AdFun9451 Advice for insomnia medication needed please... I cannot fall asleep, I feel like my mind has switched to the other side and can't get it back to normal mode

Dear fellow redditers, Hope you've been keeping up well. Me, not so much. I think I'm having insomnia. It's been over 3 weeks that I have a lot of difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep and unwinding my brain at night. This is after a period of heavy stress related to uni exams. Now, I just cannot switch my mind off, and it's causing this endless cycle of fatigue during the day, irritability and in general just having trouble enjoying my daily activities because I feel so panicked that I won't be able to rest at night. I wanted to tell you also that I'm on trintellix 10 mg at the moment, for depression. The treatment so far has improved my mood and given me hope for the future, I just feel a lot more energized but cumulating long days of work until late and revision, I feel like my mind switched all of a sudden, and I am now on the other side, unable to stop at night, just laying in bed watching the ceiling and not falling asleep, and it scares me. I have had insomnia in the past, and I remember that melatonin pills worked, however I just need support at this stage, and so if any of you have experienced an episode like this in the past, and mind sharing how they got out of it, I would be so grateful. I just want to be able to sleep again, feel like I've had rest during the night, because at this stage I feel very worn out and constantly worried, like my mind is "on alert". I have also tried herbal supplements, indulging in lavender oil but it just does not make me fall asleep. I'm still wide awake despite taking lavender pills. Have any of you dealt with insomnia? What treatment would you recommend if I need something to knock me off at first? Should I get prescribed melatonin from my doctor? I'm sorry in advance for the rambling, I just really need to feel like I'm not the only one going through this. All the best for your day, and thank you for reading this post,
submitted by AdFun9451 to insomnia [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:23 Lovethe80z Sex in casual dating status?

Looking for responses from men over 45+ please:
Should women be sexually active with men they are casually dating (vs exclusive dating)? Will doing this be a detriment to eventually moving things to dating exclusively?
Scenario: Two close friends (coworkers) have a strong connection & become attracted to each other & discuss the possibility of pursuing a sexual non-committed relationship with each other and ultimately decide not to cross this line as one of the parties (man) is already living in a common-law relationship for 9 years. They continue to just remain close friends & then drift apart a little over a couple of months as one party (man) is transferred to another office. One day he contacts his friend and tells her he & his partner broke up 3 weeks ago (he found out she was cheating for the last 3 months & she abruptly left him). He invites the close friend to stay over at his place over the next weekend as now he's free & available & he was interested in pursuing a his feelings with his female co-worker before. The coworkers were very close friends for 2 years before this day. Within a week they decide to start "casually dating" ( vs "exclusive dating" or becoming FWB). Both parties admitted to loving each other & telling each other this way back & admit it again now They both decide "casual dating" is the best option right now as he needs to heal & come to terms with being left, etc. & she also needs to heal from a complicated relationship that just ended prior to him contacting her. He says he wants to move things slow as he figures out how to process & also doesn't want to get hurt or hurt her. He says he has deep feelings for her...that he loves her...& needs to be OK with himself before promising anything or engaging in another committed relationship. He says he believes the casual dating will eventually lead to being in a relationship & this is what he wants. Just not right now.
Questions:
Is it "smart" to casually date while engaging in sexual intimacy while in this casual dating status?
Will this be detrimental?
Is it better to be cautious and date without engaging in sexual intimacy?
Is it possible or realistic to think they could date casually without sexual intimacy while sleeping over in the same bed & cuddling?
What's the best way for the women to proceed here?
BTW...he really cares about her & values their friendship first & foremost & doesn't want to hurt her. He is the more reserved one in terms of engaging in any sexual intimacy. He says he would be more than happy just to have her there & cuddle...with nothing else.
What advice would you give the women on how to proceed with this man? She really does love him.
Thanks.
submitted by Lovethe80z to AskMenAdvice [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:23 TA_2day Wife snooped....

Hi all,
Looking for some insight into a situation which seems to be pretty common in the sub. I acknolwdge that both of us are at fault here, and am just looking for some direction.
My (30M) wife (29F) was snooping through my phone and found my reddit account, looked at the history and found that i had looked at porn.
She was upset and told me she only looked back a couple of days and decided to stop. I did something really stupid, and when she told me she found it, I deleted my search history as a knee jerk reaction (grew up religious, strict parents, felt like I had to hide my sexuality for risk of getting in trouble).
We have very different sex drives and out of respect for her lower drive, I masterbate so she doesnt feel pressured to have sex with me, which she has previously expressed that she feels.
We have 2 young children, which certainly plays a role in her currently lower drive, though we have never been more than 1x per week couple in our entire 10 year relationship.
The advice I am seeking is how to move forward?
I tried explaining that it is just used for visual stimulation and has nothing to do with wanting to be with other people. She also occasionally reads literotica to get in the mood, and i tried drawing similarities, but it didnt seem to help the situation.
I also explained that the snooping through my phone is a bit concerning (I dont do it to her) and asked what she was looking for.
She said that I dont really talk about work and she was trying to see whats going on at the office (which I have been asked not to, because I can be negative about the work situation) Honestly, i have nothing to hide, but again am unsure where to go from here. When she snoops, I feel like shes looking for something to be upset about.
Its clear that her feelings are hurt and when I asked what the ideal solution is, she said that I would have respect for her and that she had 2 kids and that may affect her drive. To me, my sex drive is indepentent of how I feel about her.
submitted by TA_2day to Marriage [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:22 SSGOldschool Rant: Why is it so hard to give awards in the Army

I've got a hard charger in my unit. He's a specialist who is the "go to guy" for setting up your ASU's and Pinks and Greens. His uniform is always on point and he knows the regulations inside and out.
I found out recently why. This guy over the last three years has volunteered his time, money (buying uniform components), and effort in supporting community activities. He's done funeral services, he's done flag details, he's done honor guard, he's done Memorial Day and Veteran's Day, all with the knowledge and permission of his CoC.
I reach out to the organizations that he's done this for, get dates, times, quantity (18 times over the last three years), and write it all up in an MFR that I attach in IPPS-A to an Service ARCOM (fully expecting it to get downgraded to an AAM).
Only to have it get kicked back, saying "Your MFR is insufficient, please get a LOR from each of the POC's at the organizations he volunteered with".
Do so.
A few weeks later it gets kicked back with "Provide quantifiable and measurable metrics that clearly shown an 'enhancement of the [unit]'s and Army public image' and how their efforts helped 'foster community relations'".
I've got another one (AAM for blood donations) that was kicked back due to wrong routing chain. Apparently the US Army Medical Activity Commander has to be the approving authority but no one can tell me how to route the request to them via IPPS-A.
Look, stop shopping for reasons to deny an award. If you don't have a reason to deny it, then don't.
And if you do have a reason, deny it, document it, and don't try to force the submitter to give up.
submitted by SSGOldschool to army [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:20 securimancer Day in a Life of a Principal Security Engineer

Day in a Life of a Principal Security Engineer
a securimancer working to keep Reddit safe and secure
Greetings fine humans. I’m here today writing a “Day in a Life” blog post because someone asked me to. I cannot imagine this is interesting, but Redditors tend to surprise me so let’s do this.
Morning Routine
Like many of us, mornings are when I take care of all the dependent lifeforms under my command. Get in an hour or so of video games (Unicorn Overlord currently) for my mental health. Feed the coterie of beasts (including the children), make coffee for the wife and me, prep the kids for school. Catch up on Colbert (my news needs comedy otherwise darkness consumes), check out what’s been happening on Medium and Reddit, and read a few of my favorite cybersecurity / engineering mail lists. Crack open the ol’ calendar and see what my ratio of “get shit done” to “help other people get shit done” is in store for my day. All roughly before 8am. And the beauty of working for a Bay Area company (if we can call it that, we’re so remote friendly) is that I normally have a precious few hours before people in SF wake up to get things done.
Daily Tasks
Each morning has a brief reflection of what I need to get done that day. I’m a big fan of the Eisenhower Method to figure out what I actually need to prioritize in my day. It’s exceedingly rare that I get a majority of my day focused on work that I’ve initiated, so prioritizing activities from code review and pull request feedback to architectural systems design reviews to pair programming requests from the team to random break/fix fires that pop up, all of that gets organized so I feel like I’m (at least trying) to do the most impactful work for the day. Reddit has a few systems to help drive queues of work: Jira for planned work and “big rock” items that we’re trying to accomplish for that quarter, Harold (an in-house developed shame mechanism) for code review and deployment, and Launch Control (Reddit’s flavor of Google’s LaunchCal) for architecture design reviews. Plenty of potential dopamine hits as “things to get done.”
Meetings
It’s exceedingly rare that I have meetings that could have been an email (and if I do, they’re almost always vendor meetings). A lot of what my meetings tend to focus on are around conflict resolutions across teams as we try to achieve different goals or drive consensus to resolve problems that come up on various programs teams are trying to deliver. Working on Security, you can often get perceived as the “Department of No”, but in every meeting I work hard to make sure that isn’t the case. It starts with getting a shared context of what is the problem at hand, understanding the outcomes that we need to drive toward and inputs into the problem (timelines, humans, trade offs), and deciding how we move forward. Meetings are a terrible way to convey decisions as they are only as good as the individuals that remember them, so lots of these meetings are centered around decision docs or technical design reviews. Capturing your rationale for a decision not only helps make sure you understand the problem (if you can’t write about it, it’s hard to think about it), but also helps capture the whys and rationale behind those decisions for future you and other product and engineering staff.
There’s also meetings that I live for, those that are building up humans. We have biweekly SPACE (Security, Privacy, and Compliance Engineering) brown bags where we talk about new things we’ve shipped or some training topic that upskills all of us. We have biweekly threat modeling meetings where we pick a topic/scenario and go through a threat modeling exercise live, which helps build the muscle memory of how to do technical diagramming, and helps build a shared context of how the system works, what our risk appetite is, and how various team members think about the problem providing multiple viewpoints to the discussion (honestly the most valuable component). As a Principal Engineer, I’m keenly aware of my humanity and the fact that I do not scale in my efforts alone: training and building up future PEs is how I scale myself (at least until cloning becomes more readily available).
Ubiquity
One of my super powers is being everything everywhere all at once, or so I’ve been told by my fellow Snoos. I’ve been told that I have an uncanny knack to be in so many Slack channels and part of so many threads of discussion that it’s “inhuman”. Being a damn fine security engineer is hard because not only do you have to have the understanding and context of the thing you’re trying to secure, but also know how to actually secure the thing. This is nigh impossible if you don’t know what’s going on in your business (and we’re still “small enough” size-wise that this is still possible for one human), so I’ve got Slack keyword alerts, channel organization, and a giant 49” ultrawide monitor that has a dedicated Slack tiled window to keep me plugged in and accessible. I also have developed over many years my response to pings from Slack: “Can I solve this problem, if not who can? Is this something I should solve or can I delegate? Can this be answered async with good quality, or is a larger block of dedicated time required to solve? Is this thread too long and needs a different approach?” This workflow is second nature to me and helps me move around the org. I’ve also been here almost 5 years and, as I’m in Security and have to know everything about everything to secure anything (which I don’t, but I am a master of Googling, learning, and listening), I’ve been exposed to pretty much everything in our engineering sphere. With that knowledge comes great power of helping connect teams together that wouldn’t have connected otherwise.
Do Security Stuffs
Occasionally I actually get to do “security” things. These past two quarters it’s been launching Reddit’s “unified access control” solution leveraging Cloudflare Zero Trust, moving us off old crusty Nginx OAuth proxies onto a modern system that has such groundbreaking things like caching and logs , among other things. But really, it’s the planning, designing, and execution of a complex technical migration with only a handful of engineers. I oversee security across the entire business so that requires opining on web app security, k8s / AWS / GCP security, IAM concepts, observability, mobile app dev, CI/CD security, and all the design patterns that are included in this smörgåsbord of technology. Keeping all this in my head is why I can’t remember names and faces and my wife has to tell me multiple times where I’m supposed to be and when. But the thing that keeps me going is always the “building”, seeing things get stood up at Reddit that I know are sound and secure. It’s not denying people’s requests or crapping all over a developer for picking a design they didn’t know had a serious security design flaw. We’re not a bank (either in terms of money we get to throw at security, or tolerance for security friction), we get to make risk tradeoff decisions based on Reddit’s risk tolerance (which is high except where it comes to privacy or financial exchanges) and listen to our business as we try to find ways to improve ads serving and improve our users’ experience. So I view myself like any other software engineer, I just happen to know a lot about security. And I guess not just security, I know a lot about our safety systems, our networking environment, and our Kubernetes architecture. It just comes with the Security space, that inquisitive mind of “how does this thing work?” and wanting to be competent when you talk about it and try to secure it.
Not everything is 0s and 1s, however. A lot of security is process, paperwork, and persistence. Designing workflow approval processes for how an IAM flow should look like. Reviewing IT corporate policies for accuracy and applicability. Crafting responses to potential advertisers’ IT teams on “how secure is Reddit, really”. Writing documentation for how an engineering system works and how other engineers should interact with it. Updating runbooks with steps on how others should respond to an incident or page. Building Grafana dashboards to quantify and visualize how a tooling rollout is working. Providing consulting on product features like authentication / authorization business logic across services. Interviewing, not only for my own team but also within other engineering and cross-functional areas of the business.
End of Day Routine
Eventually, I run out of time in the day as I’m beckoned away from my dark, cave-like, Diet Coke strewn office by the promise of dinner. Wrapping up document review, (hopefully) crossing things off my to-do list, and closing out Slack threads for the day, I try to pack everything up and not carry it with me after work. It’s challenging being an almost completely remote company with a heavy presence in the West Coast, as pings and notifications come in as dinner and kids’ bedtime happens. But I know not everything can be finished in a day, some things will slip, and there will always be more work tomorrow. Which is juxtaposed occasionally with bouts of imposter syndrome, even for someone as senior and tenured as I am. Happens to all of us.
After-hours work is restricted to on-call duty and pet projects. You don’t want to know how many on-call queues I’m secondary escalation on. Or how many Single Point of Securimancers services that I still own (looking at you, Reddit onion service). And pet projects are typically things that I’ve got desires to do: prototyping security solutions we want to look into, messing with my k8s homelab, doing routine upgrades. Nothing clears the mind like watching semver numbers go up (until you find the undocumented change that breaks everything).
Future Outlook
And finally, what's on the horizon for our little SPACE team? We’re still a small team coming out of IPO, and our greatest super power is networking and influencing our engineering peers. We got our ISO 27001 and SOC2 Type 2 last year and continue to ever increase scope and complexity of public accreditation. We’re close partners with our Infrastructure and IT teams to modernize our tech and continue to evolve our capabilities in host and network security, data loss prevention, and security observability. We’ve got two wonderful interns from YearUp that started and are going to be with us this summer, and we continue to focus on improving our team composition (more women and diversity, more junior folks and less singleton seniors). All of this work takes effort by this PE.
So there you have it, a “day in a life” of a u/securimancer. If you made it this far, congratulations on your achievement. Got any questions or want to share your own experiences? Drop 'em in the comments below!
submitted by securimancer to RedditEng [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:19 AdAppropriate7838 2nd year ELEC experience/overview

Wasn't able to find one post that summarized 2nd year ELEC before I did it so I thought I'd make one. This is my personal opinion and an average student's perspective (sometimes even below average lol). 2nd year is a lot of mixed opinions about everything.
You want to have MATH 101, PHYS 158, APSC 160 and MATH 152 completed before starting 2nd year. Standardly you'll be taking 39 credits in the winter session. Although it's very common to take fewer (in fact I'd recommend it) credits.
Term 1 looks like: ELEC 201(4), CPEN 211(5), MATH 253(3), MATH 256(3), CPSC 259(4). Term 2 looks like: ELEC 202(4), ELEC 211&MATH264 (3), ELEC 221(4), ELEC 281(3), ELEC 291(6). You could take MATH 253 in the summer before 2nd year, take ELEC 281 before 2nd year after you've been placed in ELEC or also take it the summer after 2nd year. Utilize your summers to complete as many complimentary studies, free, impact requirement electives as you can. There is an option to take ELEC 291 in the summer after 2nd year as well but I wouldn't recommend that as it's a very time consuming design course and I've heard it's run differently in the summer and isn't as worthwhile in terms of what you learn.
ELEC 201: One of the harder courses in term 1, isn't very time consuming but isn't easy either. First time you'll be giving WebWork exams so the average is low but you'll be fine. Do the homework and attend class. I took it with Alireza Nojeh who was a good prof. Lectures were very organized and he writes and explains everything as he goes which is nice. Isn't scaled or scaled very slightly. Practice the WebWorks and lecture notes and also follow Linares's YouTube channel regardless whether he teaches it or not. Difficulty: 3.75/5.
CPEN 211: Hardest course in term 1 imo. Very time consuming, especially the labs, which would sometimes take entire weekends and eat time out of other courses and aren't even worth 2% each. So find a good lab partner. There's a lot to cover so be up to date. Although the lectures aren't very helpful. I'd suggest keeping up with the slides and making notes and GOING TO ANY TUTORIAL AND LECTURE where he/the TAs solve problems. Took it with Tor who teaches it almost every year. Too much content to be covered in lectures but he is helpful in office hours/after lectures. Do as many problems as you can find and try and understand every concept. Difficulty 4.5/5.
MATH 253: One of the easier courses in 2nd year. In a non-ideal situation can be done in a short time as well. Easier compared to MATH 100 and 101. In math practice is very useful so try and do as many problems be it before the exams or throughout the term. The course is taught online so is easily procrastinated but Professor Leonard and Alexandra Niedden on YouTube are very good resources. Took it with Mark MacLean who is a GOATED math prof. Clear communication from him about what's expected and needs to be done. Difficulty: 2.5/5
MATH 256: Easiest course in 2nd year imo (partially because of the prof). Cannot be done in a short time but is easily followed throughout the term. As usual practice is key. Took it with Neil Balmforth who is also GOATED. He makes the course much easier, the other section didn't have as nice of a time. His midterms and finals were basically identical to the sample midterms and finals. Difficulty: 2/5
CPSC 259: It's a much more theoretical than APSC 160. The only nice parts were the labs because they were coding and not theory. The quizzes and final were mostly theory and on PraireLearn so limited attempts (usually 2) which made the tests very very hard. Took it with Geoffery Tien who usually teaches it. He's a nice guy but okayish at teaching. Very monotonous. I read the textbook and did it's problems which really helped. Difficulty: 3.5/5.
ELEC 202: A hard course but Linares makes you spend so much time on it, it doesn't feel as difficult as the other courses by the end. Another course graded by WebWork so marks aren't easily obtained. Make sure you understand all the WebWorks, TopHat and questions from the slides. Linares imo is one of the best teachers I've had and is very knowledgeable about EE. But his personality takes a lot away from him as a professor. This course will solidify a lot of basics for you, some that you might have overlooked in 201 but they way he runs the course does make it unnecessarily time consuming and challenging. I'd say do take the course with him regardless of the horror stories, you'll be glad you did later on but be ready for having a weird time in this course. And yeah follow his YouTube channel like your life depends on it. Difficulty: 4/5
ELEC211 & MATH264: These 2 are run together as a one 3 credit course ELEC 211(2) and MATH 264(1). I pretty much had to do this course on your own. It isn't very time consuming but the term that it's in and the way it's taught will make it feel challenging. Took it with Carol Jaeger who taught the 211 part and Professor Demirbas who taught the 264 part. I don't mean to be rude but both were basically useless. I don't know if Professor Jaeger tried to teach because I stopped going after a few weeks that's how bad it was. It felt like she was just there because she has to be. For Professor Demirbas the way he teaches was very weird. Read a few nice things about him but didn't have the same experience. He speaks and teaches too fast for anyone to be able to learn anything but that might be because they're making him teach most of a 3 credit course (MATH 317-Calculus IV) as a one credit course in about 6-7 lectures all this along with a theory driven electromagnetics course. I'd recommend watch the last 4-5 lecutures of Professor Leonard's Calc III YouTube playlist right in the beginning of the course. That'll cover the MATH portion. Then follow the math lectures to practice and use that math you learnt to understand the ELEC portion. Wasn't able to find a goof YouTube resource for the ELEC part but just watch a bunch of different videos for each topic I guess. WebWorks are good practice. Difficulty: 4/5 (should've been 3 but the way they run it).
ELEC 221: A hard course depending on your proclivity for mathematics. It's a whole lot of new concepts so it's reasonable it'll be difficult. If the concepts of Fourier Series, Laplace Transforms (also in ELEC 202) and Differential Equations that you learnt in MATH 256 are really clear, that'll help. Took it with Joseph Yan who is a very kind and helpful person, but he just refuses to teach for some reason. He'll ask you to watch 1 or 2 20-30 minute videos before the week and the lectures will basically be a slideshow of previously annotated slides from a few of years ago and him just repeating "any questions?" without really explaining anything. His pre-week videos were helpful but they were only there for the first part of the course. I'd say watch his videos that are there. The examples in his slides are good for theoretical understanding and WebWorks are good practice for exams. Difficulty: 4.25/5
ELEC 281: It's a technical communication course, supposedly like WRDS 150B. Dropped it, taking it in the summer will update this here once I've taken it.
ELEC 291: Probably my favorite course from 2nd year. You actually get a sense of what it might be like being an engineer because this is a project course and you do hands on work. You get to work in teams which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. The only downside is it'll eat up A LOT, sometimes ALL of your time. First of all there are 6 labs that are due weekly which can take anywhere from 1-6 hours, depends on the amount of debugging you need to do. There's 2 projects which are much bigger than the labs. You have to spend a lot of time (can't put hours because I couldn't keep track even if I tried to) on the projects. There's no studying but a whole lot of doing. Professor Fraga is very helpful in the lab. Right course, wrong timing. Difficulty: 5/5 (60% because of the time it takes and 40% because of the actual work).
Hope this helps! Again these are just my opinions and everyone has a different experience. Let me know if anyone has any questions or if you feel I wrote something that isn't a valid description.


submitted by AdAppropriate7838 to ubcengineering [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:17 Lost_One_268 How a simple conversation left me confused for a couple of months

I want to begin by saying that this will be a long text in which I will detail how a relatively mundane event left its mark on me.
23M here.
I want to start by saying that I have always been a solitary person. As a child, I was fascinated by activities such as reading, studying, analyzing, introspection. I never had many friends, I never spent much time outdoors with friends. Furthermore, I was never particularly drawn to physical activities and competition in general; I always minded my own business and tried to be as transparent and impersonal as possible in my relationships with others. I always tried not to offend anyone, to get along with everyone, but I always struggled with the impact of my behavior on others.
Anyway, to the point. The idea is that I have never suffered from loneliness. I have always been content with my drama-free life. That was until a certain day.
This summer will mark three years since I started working at this job after finishing college. I got along well for the most part with my coworkers; I have about two closer friends among them whom I talk to more often. I encountered some job-related difficulties that saddened me for a while, but being a disciplined person, I successfully overcame them.
One day last December, I was waiting for the bus to go home after a day of work. At that moment, a coworker greeted me and asked me how I was. I must mention that I had known this coworker for a year and a half, and the only interaction with her during all this time was to greet each other when we met at work.
It seemed strange and somewhat unreal to me that she approached me while we were waiting at the bus stop... Over time, we happened to wait together at the bus stop, but we never talked to each other. After the greeting and conversation on the bus that day, the state I'm in started and continues to this day. We only talked about trivial work-related matters, but that conversation followed by that greeting made me feel a kind of pain I had never felt before. When I got off the bus that day, my heart was heavy. I spent the following days in pain and frustration... it's as if all my years of solitude turned against me. It was the first time I was afraid of loneliness, and I started to wonder if I would die alone. I mean, until that moment, throughout my life, I wasn't interested in dating and relationships, but in recent months, these two things have started to concern me quite a bit. Meanwhile, every time we crossed paths at the bus stop, we would talk about all sorts of work-related trivialities... insignificant things but which had a fundamental impact on me. Every time I felt uneasy in her presence... Our encounters had a collegial and friendly atmosphere, but I didn't feel comfortable. I always had a lump in my throat. Also, after each conversation on the bus, I felt a strong sense of melancholy for the rest of the day.
I learned that she is a warm, dedicated, perseverant, and ambitious person. She is in a relationship. And I'm really happy for her. She's a wonderful person in every way. I can't say that I'm in love, but rather just frustrated and confused.
That first approach followed by those conversations with her opened the doors to a new and completely unfamiliar world to me. This world holds a peculiar fascination, but exploring it seems to open wounds I didn't know I had...
Currently, I am in balance, but I don't think I'll be able to return to the mindset I had before. I'm somewhat happy that I had the opportunity to see my situation through different eyes and to broaden my horizons, but looking back, I can't find a rationale for what happened to me in the last few months.
Has anyone else been through a similar situation?
submitted by Lost_One_268 to TrueOffMyChest [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:17 Rossowdult DOR success story

TL;DR: After 3 miscarriages and a diagnosis of DOR, I had two healthy pregnancies without IVF or other ART.
We started TTC when I was 35.5, my partner 37. We got pregnant quickly, and quickly had 3 miscarriages, all around 8 or 9 weeks. We never had them tested, but my OB suspected genetic abnormalities.
My partner's test results were normal for a man his age. After the 2nd miscarriage, I had bloodwork and an SHG, a procedure where my OB filled my uterus with saline and looked at it on an ultrasound to see whether I had any visible issues that could explain what was wrong. This procedure was timed to a specific day in my menstrual cycle, so that while we were at it, she could look at my ovaries on the ultrasound as well, to make a prediction about how many eggs she could expect to retrieve if we decided to try IVF.
The SHG turned out normal. My uterus was perfectly fine. My ovaries, however, looked like those of a woman nearing menopause. My antral follicle count (AFC) was only 4. If we did IVF now, the doctor said, that’s how many eggs she expected to harvest -- just 4. Not nearly enough for a promising cycle. The results from the blood test also corresponded to the levels of a menopausal woman. Here are the numbers, for those of you who already know what these mean:
Day 3 AMH: 0.311
Estradiol: 23.8
FSH: 13.8
I might have looked 30 on the outside, but I’d just turned 36, and on the inside I was closer to 50. Our doctor did not recommend that we move forward with IVF. We asked her what we could do instead. She suggested I try supplementing with DHEA, and gave us the recommended dosage (25 mg 3 times/day, for a total of 75 mg daily). She also recommended CoQ10, though she didn’t have a suggested dosage for that, and noted that my vitamin D levels were low. I started supplementing with each of those three things.
I noticed the effects of the DHEA very quickly. It’s an androgen, and can cause women to start sprouting extra body hair. My libido sprang up to teenager levels, and I got acne again.
I decided to take only 200 mg/day of the CoQ10 because it was expensive. That and the vitamin D seemed to give me more energy, maybe, but I couldn’t say for sure.
It took us longer to get pregnant the 3rd time. The miscarriage was the same.
Our OB explained again why she didn't recommend IVF for women with DOR, and told us about a patient of hers who’d had 9 miscarriages before having a successful pregnancy. We were lucky we were able to get pregnant so easily, she said. We were lucky that we didn’t have any other issues compounding the DOR.
If we wanted to explore other options, she told us, our best chance was to use an egg donor. Other than that, all we could do was keep trying. During my fertile window, and given our age, she recommended intercourse every 48 hours.
I doubled down on my research. I read everything I could find online, and read a lot of posts on message boards like the one I’m writing now. Here’s what I decided to do:
  1. Lots of exercise, or at least “lots” by my desk-worker standards (brisk walks every day, gentle training with 10-to-20-pound weights a few times a week, and frequent bike rides)
  2. Lots of time being happy and relaxed and out in the sun
  3. Supplements:
    1. DHEA, 75 mg/day divided in 3 doses
    2. CoQ10, 800 mg/day (ubiquinone, the cheaper kind)
    3. Vitamin D3, 2,000 IU/day
    4. Acetyl L-carnitine, or Alcar, 250 mg/day (the typical dose is 500 mg, but I found this amount gave me nightmares; at 250 mg I felt more energetic, like I could do twice as much exercising as I normally did)
    5. Alpha lipoic acid, 300 mg/day (this makes your urine stink, but it’s inexpensive and safe, and in addition to helping with fertility, I also found studies about its benefit to diabetics and its effect on the pancreas)
    6. Black cohosh on cycle days 1 through 12 (it’s an herb, so I have no idea how much I was actually getting)
    7. Vitex (ditto)
    8. Prenatal vitamins
    9. Fish oil (why not)
    10. More soy foods and freshly ground flax seeds in my diet, for extra estrogen
A note about CoQ10: There are two kinds on the market, a cheaper one (ubiquinone) and an expensive one (ubiquinol), which is supposed to be better absorbed. Both are similar in structure to vitamin E, but are not classified as vitamins because your body can make them on its own. I went with a low-ish dosage of the expensive one the first time around, but after the third miscarriage, I switched to a higher dose of the cheaper one, 800 mg. I definitely noticed an increase in energy while I was taking it.
Here is a study on CoQ10 in follicular fluid and its association with better outcomes: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00404-011-2169-2
Here’s another (“Conclusion: Our observation leads to the hypothesis that the oral supplementation of CoQ10 may improve follicular fluid oxidative metabolism and oocyte quality, specially in over 35-year-old women”): https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3921/7/10/141
The positive news about CoQ10 keeps coming. I’ll stop with these: https://rbej.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12958-018-0343-0, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.12368
From what I learned while researching this stuff, both CoQ10 and acetyl l-carnitine are antioxidants that are thought to be active in the mitochondria. The mitochondria is sometimes called the “battery” of the cell, supplying its energy as it does its job. After an egg leaves the nourishing environment of the ovary for its journey down the fallopian tube, its only source of energy is its own mitochondria. That’s what keeps it fresh and alive. So an antioxidant that might help the mitochondria have more energy might be crucial for keeping egg cells, and the DNA inside them, better organized for longer -- long enough to conceive. This theory would apply to sperm cells as well, and is thought to be why taking these supplements gives people more energy. Young people have a lot of CoQ10 in their bodies, but after age 25 or so, our natural production goes down.
Here’s a study about egg quality and acetyl l-carnitine (ALCAR): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378432012002436
There isn’t as much research, especially in humans, on ACLAR as there is on CoQ10, but what’s been done so far looks promising. Here’s a study in mice: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378432012002436
As for alpha lipoic acid (ALA), my understanding is that this is thought to be beneficial for diabetics because of its effects on the pancreas. The pancreas and the ovaries are similar in the way they age (again, according to things I read while I was researching like crazy). While I’m not overweight, I’ve always had high blood sugar, and have type 2 diabetes on both sides of my family. So I added this to my regimen too.
Research: ALA supplementation is thought to be safe during pregnancy: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09513590.2018.1462320
A small study has shown ALA to be helpful in patients with PCOS undergoing IVF: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Luisa_Caponecchia/publication/303088959_Effect_of_myo-inositol_and_alpha-lipoic_acid_on_oocyte_quality_in_polycystic_ovary_syndrome_non-obese_women_undergoing_in_vitro_fertilization_a_pilot_study/links/584fb41c08ae4bc8993b3211/Effect-of-myo-inositol-and-alpha-lipoic-acid-on-oocyte-quality-in-polycystic-ovary-syndrome-non-obese-women-undergoing-in-vitro-fertilization-a-pilot-study.pdf
Anyway, if you're still reading, pregnancy number 4 was a success. I quit every supplement except for prenatal vitamins. My doctor at the IVF clinic put me on progesterone until I got through week 10, in case a progesterone deficiency was the cause of my previous miscarriages. She’d never tested for this, so the progesterone was just a precaution. I’d always been plenty nauseated with each of my pregnancies, and the supplemental progesterone only made it worse. All I could eat were dry crackers. After reading a few things about the potential effects of progesterone on an embryo, I don’t think I’d do it again, not unless my doctor had a test result suggesting that it was what I really needed.
My doctor also recommended I start taking baby aspirin, 81 mgs/day, to be continued throughout the pregnancy, in case I had an issue with blood clotting that was causing the miscarriages. She’d never tested me for it, and given my AFC and AMH and FSH levels, it seemed like we already knew what my problem was, but she said it couldn’t hurt, so I went on it and stayed on it until 36 weeks.
Two years later, while I was supplementing with just prenatal vitamins and CoQ10, and without really trying, we got pregnant again. Baby #1 is now five years old, and #2 is three.
submitted by Rossowdult to DOR [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:17 kuroshilav I don't know if I have ADHD and it feels awful.

I think more than a year ago I went to a psychiatrist for the first time in my life and got diagnosed with depression, anxiety and ADHD. I only went back to that psychiatrist one more time and then I think I quit everything because I was tired of how nothing worked for me. I didn't receive any medication for ADHD — only depression and anxiety — which confused me for a while, but I'd assume it was because I'm at an age where "it can't be treated anymore". That was the first time I learned a bit about ADHD, and then I went into a rabbit hole a few months ago, feeling like I finally found a name for what I'm dealing with.
And now I'm doubting it again.
I never went back to that psychiatrist again, and instead tried two others one after another with a small break of a few weeks(?) in between, maybe. And that was a few months ago after learning more about ADHD and realizing I relate to a lot. My parents have differing views on psychology, so I only received some help and support from my dad, but I don't feel like the support lasted until the end. The second psychiatrist I saw didn't smile at all the whole time, and only gave me a tissue when I broke down crying, later mentioning how that took longer than it was supposed to take and how someone else was waiting to get in. She said that even if I were to have ADHD, if I didn't get diagnosed as a child and it didn't pose me problems then, right now medicine would only increase my insomnia and make me more cultured than I already am, or something like that.
The last psychiatrist? She didn't even tell me the diagnosis before I asked her for it. The medicine didn't help me at all.
I've given up on trying to get help after all these years. Only God knows how many times I've felt like I really do have ADHD only to doubt myself again afterwards. I've had others say they see things I do that are typical in ADHD and even a diagnosed buddy saying I have it. I feel like a psychiatrist could diagnose me again and I'd still doubt it for the rest of my life unless I'd get a brain scan or something and I'd see it with my own eyes.
Do I struggle with eating? Yes. Am I a picky eater? Yes. Do I play with my hair a lot or chew the inside of my mouth? Even now as I type. Do I forget too many things? Absolutely. Do I usually put videos on a faster speed, crochet or eat while watching videos, easily get distracted most times and get overwhelmed from small things? Oh yeah. Best believe my storytelling is inconsistent and I can blabber a lot. Also best believe I jump from one topic to another, can feel good or ok now but then later suddenly not feel good, or try and do activities but then stop because none are entertaining enough. Have I felt for the longest time that I am an outsider and that I just don't fit in? That for some reason everyone else seems to have it easy except for me? That there just is something wrong with me that anxiety and depression don't explain? Yes. And I'm sure that I could add to the list at least a couple more things, and I'd still doubt myself and whether I have ADHD or not. But I wish someone could tell me what they think, and if it seems like I have it or not. Life has been awful many times, and sometimes it was insufferable, but I keep fighting, whether with someone by my side or alone. Though I'm sure some of you don't believe in God, I do, and He has been the One keeping me alive for years on end. By His grace I want to heal, but I cannot seem to heal when I keep looking for answers that aren't coming from anywhere. Questions just seem to keep piling up, and I don't know what to do anymore.
In a sense, I feel lost. I wonder if anyone else could notice a species of ADHD in what I'm saying.
submitted by kuroshilav to offmychest [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:15 Frequent-Flower2330 AITA for spending all my time w my bf instead of my stepdad on vacation?

It's been a bit since this happened, but it's still got me a bit pressed. At the time, I was 17 FTM, with my boyfriend 19 FTM. For my senior year of highschool, I really wanted to go on a trip, and since my family gave my sister 2000 for her graduation gift, I was given that amount too.
I decided I wanted to go to Japan, where my boyfriend was currently spending a gap year with extended family. I've always wanted to see Japan, and me and my boyfriend had been long distance for almost 2 years, so I let my stepdad, 42 M, know. I used the graduation money for both plane tickets, and had to save up my own money for literally everything else. Since I was underage, my stepdad had to go with me. He refused to plan any of the trip, leaving everything up to me including stuff like passports itenary and hotels etc. He told me not to plan anything for him since it was my trip.
However, when we got there, all my stepdad did was complain. He didn't like that we weren't doing basic tourism things, and that I was doing stuff we could "do in America." Tourism isn't really my thing, and I like to experience the culture in more simple ways. He didn't care how happy I was or how I was spending my time, and often stopped activities I had planned. He also disliked my bf, and said he was too cocky, spoiled, and controlling (for simply giving directions and instructions).
Eventually, my step dad blew up at my bf for giving directions at the zoo, screaming in front of crowds of people and my bfs cousin, 6 M. My bf yelled at him, saying it "wasn't just his trip" before my dad grabbed me and stormed off from our ride home. He called my mother to insult my boyfriend while screaming at me for crying, and claimed I was spending too much time with my bf. After finally making it back, he refused to let me see or text my bf, kicking him out of the hotel his mother paid for.
He then began to purposefully misgender and deadname my bf when he found out. We were allowed one single date together for a few hours, before we could never see each other again. He changed all my plans and made almost everyhting about what he wanted to do. My stepdad claimed that the trip was so much better, and that my bf never should have come.
I was numb for the rest of the trip and had to fake it till I made it back home. He still hates my bf all because of it, and hates that im still dating him and side with him. All of it (along with other things) lead me to leave the house, and he is absolutely furious. Am I really in the wrong for thinking my stepdad was an asshole?
submitted by Frequent-Flower2330 to AmItheAsshole [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 22:15 BunnyBoiEthos [BB] Bunny's Pokémon Big Brother Finale: CHAMPION ROYALE (The Season)

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!
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2024.05.13 22:15 AdFun9451 insomnia, general sleep pill advice needed, taking trintellix for depression

Dear fellow redditers,
Hope you've been keeping up well. Me, not so much. I think I'm having insomnia. It's been over 3 weeks that I have a lot of difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep and unwinding my brain at night. I just cannot switch it off, and it's causing this endless cycle of fatigue during the day, irritability and in general just having trouble enjoying my daily activities.
I wanted to tell you also that I'm on trintellix 10 mg at the moment, for depression. The treatment so far has really improved my mood and given me hope for the future, I just feel a lot more energized but cumulating long days of work until late and revision, I feel like my mind switched all of a sudden, and I am now on the other side, unable to stop at night, just laying in bed watching the ceiling and not falling asleep, and it scares me. I have had insomnia in the past, and I remember that melatonin pills worked, however I just need support at this stage, and so if any of you have experienced an episode like this in the past, and mind sharing how they got out of it, I would be so grateful. I just want to be able to sleep again, feel like I've had rest during the night, because at this stage I feel very worn out and constantly worried, like my mind is "on alert".
Have any of you dealt with insomnia? What treatment would you recommend if I need something to knock me off at first?
I'm sorry in advance for the rambling, I just really need to feel like I'm not the only one going through this.
All the best for your day,
Fellow redditer

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2024.05.13 22:11 Fit-Drink-8738 My partner can’t put his foot down with his dad!

I am current engaged to my fiancée who I love dearly. We have been together for 3 years engaged for 4 days but known each other for 10 years. I would consider him the love of my life but his father is making me suffer mentally.
Since the beginning of our relationship he hasn’t liked me. He has told my partner that his ex was a better fit that he misses her and that she was a good gf. He of course told him that he’s with me and not to speak of her again. This is great however I found out a week ago that he lies and smears who I am to who aunts and uncles who have met me. I am a very straight forward person and really dislike drama. I prefer people just tell me how they feel so that I can address it. He’s convinced though that I am a chameleon and pretending to be some type of way in front of them. I was fine with them and actively tried to repair my relationship with them but it all goes back to the first real time I met him.
I admit I was a hot mess… I spoke about me and my brothers closeness and how we actively horses around together. Talked about achievements and was just trying to illustrate that I was a confident, hardworking individual. Instead he took it as I’m inappropriate a whore and a gold digger. My fiancée asked what he thought and expressed his dislike for some of my behaviour. Immediately i sought to correct it and ensure that he felt that I was moving in a positive direction after precisely apologizing. I have been nothing but kind and respectful since and have ALWAYS kept in mind his feelings and been mindful.
However, flash forward to now and I thought we moving in a positive direction. I was sorely mistaken because his sister came for a visit and I was expressing how I was happy it seemed they were starting to be ok with me. She said I’ve heard the opposite. Then shortly afterward his cousin came by and told us he’s been going onto a smear campaign. That he didn’t understand where he was getting all of his impressions from.
I finally broke… I called him and said that he is telling people I’m this person who I’m not. I was really really nervous and have paid for that mistake. We recently went to my fiancés grandpas funeral and he couldn’t even pronounce my name. Yet he goes around telling people I enchanted my partner with my pussy. That I want his money. I was trying to seduce him by showing him my body building pictures. It hurts… Instead of my partner saying he will tell him off he stated I’ll just ask people to stop telling you things.
Frankly, if he doesn’t do something I think I’m gonna have to leave him regardless of how much I may love him. I want someone who will tell him it’s enough and his actions have consequences. I told him if this doesn’t get sorted I will most likely leave him. He then said may as well give me the ring back and hung up. What do I do?
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2024.05.13 22:11 Purtle [PIL] #1305 5/13/2024

edit: i just realized today the title numbers have been wrong the past 20 or so days...so I'll repost them with correct number of the coming days/week because i dont want to get confused with a bot. I haven't decided if I will delete the old ones or not as they get replaced. I think I will but I may delete in batches or as I go im not sure yet.
Purtle's Internet Lineup for May 13th, 2024 3:52pm
Pics:
Clips:
Videos
Articles/News/Other
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2024.05.13 22:08 FlashGordonRacer GGWash endorses anti-bike lane Ward 7 candidate

I have a lot of friends on the Board, staff, and key volunteers of Greater Greater Washingon, so I want to say this understanding that there are internal processes at that nonprofit that formally create these election endorsements. Nonprofits have internal disagreements, as the 2022 Bowser endorsement showed. All of which is to say...
How does our city's leading urbanist news site and advocacy group endorse an openly anti-bike lane candidate in Eboni-Rose Thompson? "She’s opposed to bike lanes and road pricing, but has a justifiable stance on the latter." The editorial never circles back to explain the former. Rose-Thompson is also non-committal on getting the Streetcar extension to Benning Road Metro, which includes a shared-use path from the Bridges east to the Metro via Benning Rd.
Look, most of the Ward 7 candidates have said anti-bike infrastructure things in the many forums. This is not an urbanist-heavy crop of candidates. And I have posted before on the D.C. subreddit about my support for Wendell Felder. All those grains of salt counted; I can't believe that GGWash endorses supporting those who want to rip out the limited bike infrastructure that gets me safe riding from Ward 5 across to Hillcrest for one of these candidate forums.
This is a serious miss. I can't believe the most pro-multimodal people in our District are getting weak in the knees as Vision Zero fails. We can all cheer CT Ave's FY25 BSA language. What happens when I need to ride east of the river, off of the trails, for an essential trip? When DDOT releases the new designs for the East Capitol multimodal safety project -- which will remove parking to create continuously protected bike lanes -- what would Councilmember Rose-Thompson do? We her office stop all bike lane plans in Ward 7 as CM Trayon White has done in Ward 8?
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2024.05.13 22:06 Past_Okra2701 Chronic pain rehab has been very eye opening and validating to my trauma

Today I had physical therapy as part of my rehab, we kicked a ball around for 10 minutes and while I enjoyed being physically active again, it made me realise how much tension I had in my body. My therapist asked what I needed and how I was feeling and in that moment I realised I had to stop, go home and try to get my adrenaline down and reduce any sensory input to really unwind and relax. She agreed with that assessment and without any judgement I was free to go home and do what was best for me.
I used to use that adrenaline to force myself to continue and not be "weak". My parents used to mock me when I said I was feeling too stressed and needed to relax, they even joked about it when I was in my 20's and 30's before I broke contact with them. It was their running joke that I wanted to relax despite "always" being relaxed and lazy. Well turns out being forced to stay in your room until you cleaned it properly, outside school and chores (sometimes for weeks) and then secretly having to "play" was not being lazy, it was me being in the same state as today being overwhelmed and needing to be allowed to relax in a safe environment. I had to beg to be allowed to visit a friend as if they did me a huge favour during those periods of time.
Not only am I learning to be gentle to myself when I am triggered too much, I am also learning that being neurodivergent (ADHD and autism late diagnosis), I would have needed that treatment from my parents to learn to cope with my brain being different and sometimes simply overwhelmed, but instead I was tortured and then mocked.
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