14-minute read.

average monthly nominal salaries and YoY change in Q1 2024

Yerevan +8% to ֏324K/$836
Syunik +7% to ֏295K/$760
Shirak +7% to ֏142K/$366
Yerevan had the highest wages. Syunik had the highest wages among provinces, while Shirak had the lowest.
REPORT: While the average nominal monthly salary does not always show the level of economic prosperity in a region, its rise has made a tangible difference in Syunik.
SUREN PARSYAN (economist): Syunik has higher wages and strong employment. It is the most prosperous province with the lowest unemployment rate in Armenia: 24% in Armenia, 15% in Yerevan, and 2% in Syunik.
REPORT: Over the last 5 years, the average monthly nominal salaries have risen by 40% while the inflation was 21%.
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Armenian army launches command staff exercises

They will exercise the practical implementation of deployment and combat plans, evaluate the commanders' skills, improve the synchronized work between various groups, develop the officers' moral characteristics and practical skills during preparation and combat operations, etc.
They will use automated control systems and modern technologies during the exercises.
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Armenia and India will form a new working group for defense cooperation

Defense ministries of AM and IN held a meeting on Tuesday. They discussed the 2024-2025 cooperation plan and the creation of a new working group to coordinate the cooperation.
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from PM Pashinyan's speech at Copenhagen Democracy Summit:

PASHINYAN: Democracy has indeed become a reality in Armenia. Before the 2018 Velvet Revolution, massive electoral frauds were the usual companion of elections in Armenia. There was no trust among the citizens that there was a real chance for them to elect the government.
Now the situation is totally different; citizens know that they are powerful enough to decide. The two general elections that were held in Armenia after the Velvet Revolution have been acknowledged as democratic, free, and competitive both by the Armenian society and the international community.
Armenia made huge progress in strengthening the democratic institutions, an achievement reflected in reputable democracy indexes:
(a) Now we are the 43rd in the Reporters Without Borders’ Freedom of Speech index, compared to 79th place in 2017.
(b) Categorized as having partially free internet in 2017 by Freedom House, now we enjoy the status of a country with free internet.
(c) In Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, Armenia is now 62nd instead of 107th in 2017.
(d) In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index we are 84th compared to 111th in 2017.
In order to assess this progress, it's essential to note that alongside democratic reforms, Armenia has been contending with external security challenges: the 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan's invasion of Armenia in 2021 and 2022 and the occupation of over 200 km² amid inaction by [Russia's] CSTO, the forced displacement of over 100,000 Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, have cast doubts among Armenian citizens weather democracy is the right choice. So, democracy needs to prove its efficiency while dealing with security, economic and humanitarian challenges.
We are pleased with the deployment of EU monitoring mission alongside the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, and we welcome EU’s decision to expand its capacity. On the other hand, we hope for the inclusion of Armenia into the European Peace Facility and in this regard, we rely on the support of all EU member states [Hungary].
A new set of commitments aimed at strengthening Armenia’s economic resilience, state institutions, and addressing the humanitarian needs of refugees has been taken on by the European Union and United States during the high-level meeting on April 5 in Brussels. The rapid and effective implementation of those commitments is of utmost importance.
Despite all the challenges, we believe that the real and most aspiring companion for democracy is lasting and sustainable peace. My government took the share of its responsibility for this. Recently we reached an agreement with Azerbaijan to launch the delimitation of our interstate borders on the basis of the Almaty Declaration of 1991. That means that during the delimitation we should simply reproduce the Soviet-era administrative borders. This is the implementation of the agreement reached in Prague in 2022. Now it is time to incorporate and reflect those agreements in the peace treaty and have it signed.
Another key point for our regional stability is the «Crossroads of Peace», project, initiated by my government. This project implies that Armenia and Azerbaijan restore and open transport and other communications in accordance with the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the countries through which they pass, and comply with the principles of equality and reciprocity. These elements of the concept were agreed upon during the July 2023 meeting with Ilham Aliyev and Charles Michel. //

... Politico reporter's Q&A with Pashinyan

REPORTER: [Ex-NATO leader] Anders Fogh Rasmussen called your neighbor an autocracy. You are in a very difficult geopolitical and geographical position. How do you solve the security problem in that environment?
PASHINYAN: I would not like to comment on the internal situation of our neighboring countries. Democracy fully corresponds to the mentality of our people. It is a strategy for our government, it is our political belief, it is also our political identity. The members of our political team have spent most of their lives fighting for democracy, the rule of law, and freedom of speech. Now we have the opportunity to realize all these values in our country.
The security situation was complicated because of the regional and global situation; the world order is collapsing at the moment. My assessment is, and I have had occasion to say this publicly, that the 2020 war was a prelude to further developments. And now the main issue is security.
What is our strategic point of view, how are we going to guarantee the security of our country? Recently, I gave a speech in our parliament, where I said that the most important tool for ensuring security is a foreign policy based on legitimacy. This is the reason why we so often speak about the 1991 Almaty Declaration.
It is very important that during the 2022 Prague meeting, two very important agreements were reached. Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty on the basis of the Almaty Declaration and will use it as the basis for the border demarcation. This is the reason why I said that we are not drawing a new border, we just need to reproduce the existing one on the ground. This process is happening right now, and I hope that we will continue it steadfastly.
REPORTER: The border conflict that has occurred in recent years has had a negative impact on relations with Russia and Russia's role for Armenia. What would you say about this?
PASHINYAN: Armenia is a member of CSTO. We are officially a CSTO member, but I have announced that we have frozen our participation.
REPORTER: So are you still a member or...?
PASHINYAN: It is a matter for further discussion, but it is very important to record the current situation. A crisis arose in our relations after Azerbaijani troops invaded Armenia, and according to CSTO procedures, the Organization and its member states had to support Armenia in this situation. But even after the formal application, the CSTO refused to take any concrete steps, and in fact, that is the main reason for freezing our participation in the CSTO at all levels.
REPORTER: Do you expect the West to occupy the current vacuum and ensure your security?
PASHINYAN: We are diversifying our foreign relations in all spheres. Now we are developing defense cooperation with India, France, and other countries. We have a certain cooperation with the European Union because as I mentioned, we are happy about the deployment of the EU Civilian Observation Mission on the border. It is a civilian mission but in a way, it is a new factor for the security of our region. This is the first time that the European Union participates in the security agenda of Armenia.
REPORTER: Would you like to become an EU member?
PASHINYAN: We are waiting for the EU's decision to include Armenia in the European Peace Facility. We also hope to start visa liberalization negotiations, and last year I announced in the European Parliament that Armenia is ready to be as close to the European Union as the European Union deems it possible. This is our position.
REPORTER: Can you elaborate on what initiatives Armenia is taking in the fight against corruption?
PASHINYAN: We have made huge progress but have not eradicated corruption from Armenia. We must continue to be persistent in the agenda of democratic reforms. This is the reason why cooperation with the European Union is of utmost importance for us because today the European Union is our main partner in the implementation of our democratic reform agenda. We hope that the European Union, as well as the USA, will increase their support to Armenia in the implementation of democratic reforms, because, as I said, democracy is a strategy for us.
By the way, in 2019 we started a Strategic Dialogue with the USA, and today we see the strengthening of our cooperation with the European Union. We recently had a tripartite meeting with the participation of the USA, EU, and Armenia. It was an unprecedented format, where we adopted a huge agenda of institutional and economic reforms. It is also very important that we receive more tangible support from the EU and the US to address the humanitarian needs of the Nagorno Karabakh refugees because it is a very sensitive and emotional issue for us.
REPORTER: In which year would you like Armenia to become a member of the EU?
PASHINYAN: This year [as soon as possible]. //
Pashinyan met Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The latter emphasized the importance of the “Crossroads of Peace” project in the context of unblocking the regional infrastructure.
Pashinyan discussed various topics with the PM of Denmark. The latter accepted his invitation to visit Armenia.
full video, source, video, other, other, source, video,

former regime continues to hold protests and briefly shut down roads in Yerevan with demands for PM Pashinyan's resignation

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Dozens of participants were detained and released the same day for blocking roads. The detentions decreased from 170 on Monday to ~63 on Tuesday. They want Pashinyan to resign or to be impeached. The protest organizers visited universities to gather student supporters, some of whom joined them with a dance. The organizers also stopped by at a bakery where they were given free food.
A felony investigation was launched after a police vehicle, "with the sirens on", struck a reporter on the street. In another instance, an investigation was launched against a protester who brought a long sword. One other case was launched over alleged threats made on Facebook by a Galstanyan fan who wants scores of people to be beaten in dalans and exiled from Armenia, "մենակ էտ դեպքում էս սրբազան հողը կմաքրվի էս տեսակ շան ծնունդներից, ուրիշ ձև չկա!!!!"
ԳԼՈՒԽ 2
A ruling faction member of Yerevan City Council complained about "harassment" by opposition figures who are attempting to convince ruling party members to join the protests and the impeachment.
RULING MEMBER: That is not how it works. No one will join you with that conduct. People will join if they see you have a legitimate agenda with trustworthy leaders. Instead, you are "ethnically cleansing" the citizens of Armenia [referring to one opposition speaker telling non-Armenians to leave] և հեռու չէ են օրը երբ դուք գուցե ասեք որ հայ լինելու համար պետք է Հայկ նահապետից տեղեկանք բերել: //
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Yesterday the protest co-organizer Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan said he received a report suggesting that the Deputy Rector of Yerevan State University supposedly urged deans and others to retaliate against students who joined the protests. Galstanyan said he was unsure whether the report was true, but decided to read it out loud anyway. On Tuesday he rallied his supporters to the backyard of the University where he demanded to speak with the Deputy Rector for clarification.
The Deputy Rector went downstairs and greeted Galstanyan, who shook her hand but wouldn't let it go for an uncomfortably long period, prompting her to ask him to let go of her hand. The Deputy Rector declared that whatever Galstanyan read about her was a defamatory lie.
GALSTANYAN: I never believed it myself.
DEPUTY RECTOR: Then you should not have said out loud something you did not believe.
GALSTANYAN: Listen, there is a recorded fact...
DEPUTY RECTOR: Where is that "recorded fact"?
GALSTANYAN: It was on the media. As I said yesterday, I had no verification that it was true, which is why we came here to clarify it. If it's false, then I apologize.
DEPUTY RECTOR: Thank you. //
The Deputy Rector urged the protest organizers not to enter the building or disrupt the classes, and that "anyone who wants to follow you can follow you, anyone who wants to stay in classrooms should stay in classrooms".
The angry Deputy Rector left. Another university official criticized Galstanyan for not checking the information before reading it to his followers. Galstanyan said he stands behind his words, and that he was "just reading what was on the media", but reiterated that he had no intention to insult the Deputy Rector.
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Galstanyan and his supporters visited the monument dedicated to Operation Nemesis. He praised the figures behind Nemesis for "assuming personal responsibility". In front of the crowd, Galstanyan introduced Hambig Sassounian who recently joined his movement. He pointed to the Nemesis monument and said Sassounian is "one of the successors, one of the brightest people." In related news, on Sunday a ruling faction MP complained about receiving death threats with reference to Operation Nemesis.
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DANIEL IOANNESIAN (NGO chief): When this protest dies down, we need to discuss the following: (1) The transparency of political and media funding. There are some regulations in place, but they are incomplete and easily bypassed. For example, I'd like to know who paid for Archbishop Galstanyan's giant stage in Republic Square. In 2018 Pashinyan organized a fundraising for it and disclosed a detailed report. (2) Should the media organizations that do not respect the rules of financial transparency enjoy all the mechanisms for the protection of journalists? (3) Are the customs authorities confident that the church is not facilitating the business activities of certain figures disguised as donations? (4) Is it fair for the church and clergy members not to pay taxes? Should they be able to have a Bently and LX570 without paying taxes? [The "Bentley" is based on a true story.]
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Archbishop's fans spotted Miss Armenia 2003 and a H1 host Lusine Tovmasyan drinking a coffee at a Yerevan café and approached her.
PROTESTER: (unintelligable)
LUSINE: I was here drinking coffee yesterday, and a year before that.
PROTESTER: Why have you not joined the holy struggle?
LUSINE: Լավ եկեք թարգեք, շատ զզվելի ա, էնքան զզվելի ա․ //
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Pro-Kremlin propagandist Alexander Dugin praised the pro-Russian forces' protests in Armenia and criticized the pro-EU protests in Georgia.
Pro-Kremlin Russian politician Semyon Baghdasarov praised Archbishop Bagrat and the ongoing "uprising" in Armenia against the "traitor" [Nikol] who "rigged" the elections with the help of "Turkey, UK, and US". Nikol is a Turkish MI6 agent. video,
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Video of a protest recorded from above: video
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Armenian government has upgraded other diplomatic channels to reduce reliance on ARF's diaspora structures in the US, says pro-West NGO chief

KHURSHUDYAN: The status of the Armenian Ambassador to the U.S. [Lilith Makunts] has been significantly upgraded. I won't go into specifics because it's tied to our neighbors, but she plays an interesting role there. We have great conditions for the U.S. Congress to pressure Azerbaijan. This is outside of ARF's lobbyist groups in the U.S.
REPORTER: ARF Hay Dat's recent conduct has been shameful.
KHURSHUDYAN: And its influence on the Lemkin Institute was obvious. //
Yesterday Kurshudyan accused the Lemkin Institute of caving to ARF's pressure and meddling into Armenia's internal affairs to assist the protests by the pro-Russian former regime.
KHURSHUDYAN: Lemkin Institute accused Pashinyan's April 24 genocide remembrance day statement of containing "victim blaming". Lemkin did not comment on Pashinyan's statement for several weeks, waited 15 days, and as soon as these pro-Russian protests began in Armenia, they gave them a պաս:
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Armenia's four most prominent pro-West opposition parties announce the formation of a unified platform

Republic Party, led by ex-PM Aram Sargsyan.
Hanun Republic Party, led by Arman Babajanyan.
European Party of Armenia, led by Tigran Khzmalyan.
Christian-Democratic Party, led by Levon Shirinyan.
Have the following agenda...
(1) Promotion of Western values in Armenia and Armenia's membership in EU and NATO.
(2) United front against threats and risks of destabilization coming from Russia.
(3) Vetting judges to clean up the courts, and resolution of issues left unaddressed by the Pashinyan administration.
(4) Continuation of border demarcation based on 1991 Almaty.
(5) The use of international law to achieve a fair resolution for Nagorno-Karabakh residents.
The platform is open for like-minded forces to join.
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Armenian army chief denies being a Russian citizen

A statement released by the defense ministry denies media reports that CoGS LtGen Edward Asryan is a dual citizen of Russia. His wife is an ethnic Russian with Armenian citizenship and his kids are dual citizens, but Asryan only has citizenship in Armenia. The whole family has resided in Armenia since 2006, said the statement.
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Georgia passes controversial ‘foreign agents’ bill despite widespread opposition

The law will require organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence” or face crippling fines.
The bill will be sent to the President who is expected to veto it, but her veto is expected to be overruled by the parliamentary majority later.
Georgian PM Kobakhidze had an "honest conversation" with U.S. deputy foreign minister James O'Brien, telling him that the Georgian government is interested in deepening the partnership with the U.S., "which requires mutual efforts and relations based on fairness."
James O'Brien demanded to speak with the manager - Bidza Ivanishvili. The latter refused to meet O'Brien, saying he won't hold any meetings under "blackmail".
The White House said the U.S. will review its relations with Georgia if the bill becomes law.
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how many of the 101,000 Nagorno-Karabakh refugees have left Armenia and haven't returned yet?

As of...
Dec: 6.6K
Jan: 6.9K
Mar: 8.0K
Apr: 9.1K
May: 9.9K
The former Ombudsman of Nagorno-Karabakh said many of them have family members and friends in Russia who invite them to move.
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temperatures are rising rapidly in Armenia

REPORTER: The rainy May is not going to be enough to alleviate the negative consequences of the rapidly rising temperatures in Armenia. With a ~3 Celsius anomaly, Armenia had the second-highest increase in temperature over the last 6 months among a group of monitored countries.
WEATHER CENTER: High temperatures increase the evaporation of water and reduce the amount of snow in the winter. In December and January, we recorded rain instead of snow in certain mountainous regions, which is bad for water resources.
REPORTER: A conference was recently held in Yerevan within the framework of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
UN official: Around 40% of global soils are degraded. Millions of people will be forced to migrate from their communities by 2050 as a result of climate problems. Emergency action is needed to reduce the rate of rising temperatures. //
Armenia joined the Convention three decades ago and has assumed the responsibility to restore degraded soil by 2030. The government is promoting drip irrigation systems for farming and wants to plant more trees.
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is the decline of Lake Sevan levels finally slowing down?

see the YoY chart

Yerevan Municipality to receive a €25 million loan from European Investment Bank to raise energy efficiency

It's part of the implementation of Eastern Partnership programs. The Armenian government and the EU are co-financing it.
The goal is to raise energy efficiency and carry out seismic retrofitting in 6 medical clinics and 32 kindergartens run by the municipality. The length of the program is 4 years.
video, video,

Gagik Tsarukyan is inside you

there is a bit of Tsarukyan inside all of you
see it to believe it

Gagik Tsarukyan says the new Jesus statue is ready and will be installed by the end of 2025

It will be a tourist attraction site. There will be a ropeway. Also, Tsarukyan needs you to know that he is a man of God and an avid believer.
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Armenia and Slovakia discussed AM-EU visa liberalization

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Lithuania will help retrain Armenian law enforcement agents to combat cybercrime, analyze crimes, etc.

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Armenia's Economy Minister Papoyan met the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt

In a Washington meeting participated by the Armenian Ministry delegation and Armenia's Ambassador, they spoke about the Crossroads of Peace logistics project proposed by Armenia, several topics relating to Armenia's energy and economic security, and the Armenian government's ongoing efforts to classify Armenia as a "market economy".
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Armenia and Iran discussed the construction of a second bridge over the River Araks

The first bridge began operating in 1996. It came to replace the floating bridges on the river.
Iran says the AM-IR traffic through the Meghri checkpoint significantly increased last year. Coupled with the fact that Armenia is building a modern North-South highway, they believe it's necessary to have a second AM-IR bridge to handle the rising traffic.
The parties are currently discussing the formation of a working group consisting of experts to discuss the topic.
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a new study on mice indicates that more exercise might be better than more sleep for clearing brain of toxins

They injected a dye into a brain and tracked the speed of its movement during sleep and exercise.
The findings show that the clearance of the dye was reduced by 30% in sleeping mice compared with mice that were kept awake. This has not been confirmed on humans yet.
Previous research has suggested that sleep is important for preventing dementia as it is during this time that toxic proteins are cleared from the brain.
source, source,

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST. 'This modlist is for people enjoying difficult challenge, exploration, combat, managing settlements and a bit of building. No more bullet sponges, loot/enemy respawns and rambo playstyle!'

Tested on PS5 since release, very stable
New game on survival difficulty required All 6 DLCs needed No unbalanced cheat mods added Very difficult but satisfying and immersive Adding other mods might break stuff, ask in comments Not tested on PS4 or PS4 Pro performance-wise

In the beginning you are no one. You leave the vault weak, tired, with barely any gear. Avoid most encounters and quests at the start. Try to survive, build a safe spot and carefully explore. Be aware of your surroundings, use what you find. \ Save often in beds and make 'autosave drug' at the earliest possibility for your convinience (nearest chemistry workbench is at Abernathy Farm). Save items are always on top of MISC category in Pip-Boy. \ Discovering new places gives plenty of exp in the beginning, but quests are your main exp income. \ Explore safer areas like Sanctuary, Concord and smaller settlements first (avoiding powerful enemies). There might be a lot of combat in the background. Don't engage much, especially avoid supermutants, robots, turrets, bears - they are deadly even for high level, well developed characters. Raiders also hit hard, depending on their weapon and rank. \ Weapon caliber makes huge damage difference. 10mm is pretty weak, but if you find rare .50cal rounds or some good explosives, you should eliminate tougher targets much more easily. \ Investing in stats right after level 15 is a good idea. STR for carry weight, PER for accuracy, END for health, CHA for better prices, INT for more exp, AGI for sneak and speed, LCK for dmg and loot. Be sure of your choices. Watch out for 'revealing all map markers' and 'slow time when aiming' perks. Be sure you want and like them, there is no going back. \ Deathclaw in the early minuteman quest is tough - try to use explosives to break his legs and some high caliber weapons to finish him off by shooting his face. Or maybe you'll get lucky and raiders will kill him. Or just simply avoid him until you get proper gear. \ Don't waste ammo on zombies, use melee. Bullets are valuable. However zombies can grab and instantly kill you if your HP is very low, so watch out on early levels! \ Aim for the head for much higher damage. Concentrating damage on arms or legs to rip them off is a good strategy too. Raider without arms wont do much to you. Besides running around and alerting enemies nearby, that is. \ Damage types are important. Ballistic damage is not efficient against turrets, melee against radroaches and so on. You need to figure out whats best for current situation. \ Develop and protect your settlements, put walls to protect generators and other important structures. Gear up settlers. Scraping and cleaning settlements is a good source of components. \ Try to fully explore the map, kill enemies and do all quests. Most loot and enemies wont ever respawn so this is your chance to find new secrets in Commonwealth. \ Good luck!

CHANGES

Combat, Enemies

• Enemies will flank, charge, take cover, run in fear, use and pick up ammo & weapons, swap to backup gun and so on.
• Headshots or weakspot hits do much higher damage than torso shots.
• Gun caliber greatly affects damage, explosives are powerful and damage type matters.
• Foes have special moves like biting and holding leg, wrestling moves, kicks. Dependent on enemy type and briefly stuns you. ### Sound, Graphic
• Sounds are less flat because of added reverb and other tweaks.
• Very dark nights with wide, helpful flashlight.
• Atmospheric lightning: beautiful light from lantern and fire sources, dusk, dawn, moon, plus bullets illuminate environment when flying around.
• No dreadful, annoying, unimmersive: combat music, hearthbeat, sounds of generators, turrets, exp gain sound, most perk triggers and perk chart. ### Crafting, Modifying
• Making/disasembling ammo and also creating various shipments. Upgrading clothes, rings, glasses in different ways.
• Legendary swapping, crafting legendary effects using technical documents. Some effects have been adjusted.
• Added crafting of new, lower damage explosives, but they have unique effects for ease of use. ### Perks, SPECIAL
• STR affects carry weight, PER accuracy, END is health, max AP, CHA for better prices, INT for more exp, AGI for sneak, walk and reload speed, LCK for small dmg boost, loot, critical hits outside VATS and while using it.
• Leveling up does not give you health. You rely on stats, bonuses, gear.
• Perks tree mostly changed, level 15 needed to start increasing Special base stats, level of around 100 to increase stat to 10. To get all perks you would need 300 levels, so new modified 'idiot savant' will help a lot.
• Collecting magazines, bobbleheads, companion perks is now more helpful and recommended.
• Some skills are changed, reordered, much more interesting and useful.
• More perks are needed for crafting, especially science perk is required for most technology related stuff.
• Lockpicking everything is available instantly from level one, but perks and AGI make it reasonably easier. Bobby pins are more rare.
• Hacking is simplified to not do the repeating minigame. Now holotapes to reprogram and override terminals might be of use. ### Settlements, Building
• Expensive build costs of robot workbenches, turrets, big generators, so buying component shipments is justified.
• You can hire guards for caps or risk settlers lives on the usual guard posts.
• Can't harvest planted fruit and veg, you get your fair share in workbench instead.
• Collecting resources by settlers changed. Bigger variety of settlers and they are now mortal.
• More objects to build and decorate your bases. ### Locations, Loot
• Items like meds and ammo are harder to find and exist in appropriate containers.
• New map markers and few minuteman towers as a small addition to explore.
• Quick travel available, but only to settlements.
• Only rare enemies like bosses drop legendaries. And many more...

Before you download:

• Safe to remove/swap mods are listed below the modlist, just in case you don't like or want some of them. Rest needs to be kept for balance or glitch removal, but only in the CORRECT ORDER!
• Remove all mods you currently have before downloading this mod list.
• Read what to do after downloading mods.

MOD LIST WITH CORECT ORDER:

1. Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch [UFO4P] [PS4] - Thousands of small bug fixes for FO4.
2. Radium Rifle Suppressed Sound Fix - As the mod name suggests. Must be on top of mod list, its a master file.
3. [PS4] Pip-Boy Paint Jobs - Colors Of The Wasteland Pack (Club Freedom) - Adds simple Pip-Boy skins. Remember you can click touchpad while using pip-boy to zoom. Again a master file.
4. Kane's Items Sorting (PS4) - Junk is sorted and some other things too.
5. [PS] Useful Technical Documents - Legendaries - You can swap legendaries for free, create new ones using technical documents.
6. Named NPC Protection [PS4] - Protects named quest npc's, merchants, important characters from random encounters with enemies.
7. Tribals of Commonwealth - Adds tribal groups, often found in wilderness.
8. Ghouls Of Commonwealth - Adds over 1100 feral ghouls for zombie apocalypse and chaos.
9. DLC Creatures In The Commonwealth [PS4] - Adds 200 creature spawns to the commonwealth for constant war, danger and chaos.
10. Longhorns Of The Commonwealth - Adds longhorns to more empty areas on the map.
11. Gulpers Of The Commonwealth - Adds gulpers to more empty areas on the map.
12. Wolves Of The Commonwealth - Adds wolf spawn points to the map.
13. More Behemoths In Commonwealth - Adds 5 more behemots to the Commonwealth.
14. Behind Enemy Lines - Adds plenty of enemies to the glowing sea region.
15. Roving War Parties, Raiding Packs And Hordes Of MY - Adds wandering groups that attack some key locations.
16. More Radstags - Adds plenty of radstags, especially north and into forests.
17. Better Radstags - More agressive radstags.
18. Not a Princess - Humans can grab you/others and slam on the ground, make karate moves, dogs can hold your legs/arms, bloodbugs suck your blood.
19. Disable Minutemen's Annoying Quests [PS4] - Disables 7 types of repetitive and not important radiant quests.
20. [PS4] Grounded Updated By Sarinia - Adds tons of ground foundations, floors, walls, mounds of dirt to Structures-Concrete menu.
21. Miscellaneous Settlement Items Unlocked [PS4] By Callias - Adds 49 objects for building in settlements.
22. Cinder Block Walls And Sandbags Unlocked [PS4] By Callias - Adds 16 objects like cinder blocks and sandbags.
23. Constructible Faction Guards - Adds ability to hire guards for caps in build menu, but only after allying with a faction.
24. [PS4] OCDecorator - Adds inventory items as a decorational building objects.
25. [PS4] OCDecorator DLC - Support for addons for the above mod.
26. Tweaks - Survival Fast Travel Settlements All DLC - You can fast travel to settlements on survival difficulty.
27. 1st Person Animation Tweaks [PS4] - In first person mode you lower your gun automatically.
28. [PS4] Swinging Animated Meat Bags - adds animations to supermutant meat bags.
29. Power Line Physics [PS4] - Swinging power lines in settlements.
30. No Sneak Indicators - Completely removes all sneak indicators.
31. [PS4] Dogs Not Brahmin - Provisioners and traders use dogs instead of brahmin.
32. Vertibirds Unghosted - Tweaks invincible vertibirds for danger and realism.
33. [PS4] Simple Settlers (Mortal Edition) - Provides bigger settlers pool (five times more) and names them.
34. Quieter Settlements PS4 - Vanilla - Generators, turrets and hammering are much quieter.
35. Fallout 76-Style Region Music - Changes music in regions for less boring/repetitive background tracks.
36. Reverb And Ambiance Overhaul - ALL DLC [PS4] - Tweaks sounds for better ambient and reverb and adds sliders to options.
37. Better Dialogue - Camera focuses on NPC, changes made to some irritating generic dialogues and tweaked dialogue interuption.
38. Esk QuietPerks [PS4] - Muted five annoying perks like idiot savant.
39. No Experience SFX - Silences sounds when gaining experience from various sources.
40. [PS4] Dead Beat - Removes heart beat sound at low HP.
41. Combat Music Remover - Mutes combat music, so there is silence and suspension when enemy detects you.
42. Commonwealth Visual Overhaul & DLC [PS4] - Changes colours, atmosphere and makes nights darker.
43. UCW - Unified Commonwealth Weather - Adjusted weather for regions and integrated DLC weather to Commonwealth.
44. [PS4] No More Fake Puddles - Removes ugly puddles that stay 24/7.
45. No More Twigs - Removes stupid twigs sticking out of the ground.
46. [PS4] Enhanced Flickering Firelight - Better light effects for fire sources including oil lamps.
47. [PS4] Dark Mode - Abandoned Settlements - Empty settlements don't have light sources.
48. Vanilla Moon (4x) - Much bigger moon. Anything bigger looks low quality.
49. Sunlight Alignment Tweak - Better Dawn And Dusk [PS4] - Changes sun and moon movement for better lighting and atmosphere during dusk, dawn and night.
50. Crafting Blur Removal (PS4) - Removes blur while looting containers, from crafting screen, power armor.
51. Ironsight Blur Removal (PS4) - Removes blur while aiming.
52. More Map Markers (PS4) - Adds some new markers on map.
53. CleanVATS - Green Tint Remover PS4 - Removes fullscreen green tint effect while aiming in VATS mode.
54. VATS Third Person Only - As the name says, just changes in cameras used in VATS.
55. [PS4] Payneful VATS - Better VATS cinematics, shows important hits and finishers a bit slower.
56. Component Tagging Helper - Allows to easily tag basic components on cooking bench and you can quickly view how many you have in total.
57. Grenade and Mine Pack - Adds some new weaker, but modified explosives.
58. Saving Survival Mode - Allows crafting misc items on chemistry workbench for anytime saving (3 standard autosave slots and 1 save shared/overwritten on all survival characters).
59. Animations Be Gone - Removes plenty annoying hammering spots in sanctuary.
60. Minuteman Watchtowers - Adds 8 minuteman watchtowers containing loot and/or guards.
61. Power Goggles (All DLC) - Power Armor Mods For Goggles, Visors, And Glasses - As the name says. Two mods for glasses for high level characters.
62. Clothes For Every Stats Wz - Most clothes can be worn under armor and you can upgrade them after unlocking ballistic weave.
63. Bear Trap and Caltrops Fix [PS4] - Small changes in how traps work and balance them.
64. See-Through-Scopes [PS4] - Adds new combat scopes in place of 2.5x and 4x magnification.
65. See-Through-Scopes - Nuka World [PS4] - As above but for 2 Nuka World guns.
66. See-Through-Scopes - Far Harbor [PS4] - As above but for 2 Far Harbor weapons.
67. Targeting Sensors On Recon Scopes(Colour Coded NPCs Version)[PS4] - Modified recon scopes that highlight enemies, friends and dead bodies in specific colours.
68. Immersive Gameplay Combat Mostly PS4 - Core of this modlist. Hundreds of changes.
69. Immersive Gameplay Seasonpass Patch (Playstation) - DLC compatibility for IG.
70. Immersive-Gameplay. Low Tech, No Powerarmor Justification Patch. (PS4) - Makes fusion cores worn. Balances the game around power armor.
71. Immersive Gameplay Rough Start (PS4) - Overwrites starting level to 1.
72. Medium Settlement Raids PS4 - Makes enemy raids less ridicolous and balanced.
73. Zombie Walkers (PS4) - Most feral ghouls act like slow rotten zombies.
74. Curse Of Darkness - Normal Edition - - Zombies are faster and more dangerous after midnight.
75. Esk No More Teleporting Creatures [PS4] - Molerats and radscorpions don't teleport.
76. Realistic Insects Health [PS4] - Makes insects easier to kill and balanced.
77. Full Load - Loot Logic And Reduction Complete - Restricted harvest, lower and/or different production output for settlements, empty bottles renamed, Scrounger perk less ammo, less meat, less loot.
78. Full Load - Rough Start Less Handouts - Removed some workbenches in starting locations. Different loot in Vault111.
79. Immersive Gameplay Dismemberment - A Patch Or Standalone Feature. - Higher damage to headshots, easier to dismember limbs.
80. Tackle! Immersive Gameplay Knockdown Version - Lets you stagger enemies by sprinting into them after aquiring a perk.
81. Wasteland Baubles Ring Overhaul! PS4 - You can find unique rings at traders, in suitcases, cabinets. Allows scraping and modifying rings for special legendary effects.
82. [PS4] STS - All-In-One - Allows scraping almost all settlement objects.
83. (PS4) Improved Lighting Ballistics - Improves lighting for projectiles such as bullets, lasers, gauss, plasma, missiles, flares and explosions.
84. Explorer Restored - Cut Perk Mod PS4 - Adds rank two of VANS perk - explorer. Uncovers map.
85. Idiot Savant & Better Criticals Redone (PS4) - Idiot savant is better the more INT you have, muted perk chart, better criticals perk for crits outside VATS.
86. Realistic Death Physics - No Animation - ALL DLC [PS4] - Decreases the amount of force of both melee and ranged attacks, so bodies wont fly away.
87. Increased Settler Limit - Awareness - Wire Length - Corpse Collisions [PS4] - More aware settlers with limit of 50 per settlement and longer wires. Mind the limit.
88. Settlement Attack Spawns Outside The Settlement PS4 - Moves attack spawns outside the settlements.
89. Power Conduits Radius Increase And No Build Limit - All DLC [PS4] - Infinite build limit and two times longer range electricity conduits.
90. [PS4] Creation Club Skins (Weapon & PipBoy) Generic Compatibility Patch - Makes weapon paints from Creation Club show up in crafting menu if you have any.
91. No Affinity Cooldown - Removes cooldown between companions liking/hating your actions.
92. [PS4]More XP Per Level (Base:600, Bump 120) - Increased experience required to level up.
93. Increased EXP - Increased amount of EXP to make Immersive Gameplay and mod list balanced.
94. No Building Houses XP Gains PS4 - Building settlements don't provide experience.
95. Pip-Boy Flashlight - Pipboy light is now a flashlight.
96. PS4 - Longer Headlamp Light - Makes flashlight much bigger and changes headlamp and power armor light.
97. [PS4] Starting SPECIAL = 7 - Changes starting SPECIAL stats to 1 in each category so you start weak.
98. No Enemy Respawns - Game areas don't respawn loot and enemies after time have passed.
99. Accelerated Fast Travel - Fast travel takes less in-game time, should be also relevant to survival needs.
100. Time Scale Changed From 20 To 10 [PS4] - Day and night lasts twice as long.

Additionally:

• After installing the mod list, restart your PS4/PS5.
• Change game difficulty to survival in options.
• Play on performance, 60fps. Newly added visual mode 60fps is generally laggy and has awfull VATS framerate.
• If you want even more immersive settings, go to Settings, Gameplay and turn off quest markers or even crosshair if you want.
• Go to Options, Sound and reduce ambience level by 5-8 clicks and reverb by 2-3.
• Dont forget to change camera sensitivity (I play on max), next go to Options, Display and change hud color to blue or any other that makes sense (not red), lower transparency by 30% or more, set pip-boy colour to your preference (I use red pip-boy and minty hud to have the best compatibility with highlighting perks and scopes).

You can add/swap some mods if you want: \

101... Immortal Cats - PS4 - Invincible cats. So you don't lose happiness increase when they die. 102... Vrexia's Magical Rings - Add after #58 only if you get poison/perception bug where your PER is shown as (-1). You can offset it by equiping multiple rings from this mod (created at chem bench). Didnt found a better way yet. \ 103... Josephine Preset - Nice looking preset number 13 for female character creation. Change hair and other details if you want. Delete after leaving vault111 and saving (if you need mod list space that is). Add after mod #56. \ 104... Faster Positive Affinity For Companions - Removes cooldown between companions liking/hating your actions and gain five times more positive affinity. Swap with mod #91 if you want more cheaty version. \ 105... Silent Main Menu - To mute main menu sound, find duplicate sound slider named 'Master sound' and move it all the way to the left. Add after mod #41. \ 106... Quieter Settlements PS4 - Contraptions DLC - Quieter production lines. I ran out of space on mod list so this and next one are optional. Add after mod #34. \ 107... Quieter Settlements PS4 - Wasteland Workshop - Quieter fusion generators. Add after mod #34. \ 108... [PS4] Simple Settlers (Immortal Edition) - Instead of #33, so generic settlers don't die during settlement attacks. \ 109... Reduced Rubble Etc. - Safely reduces density of unimportant objects by 50-75%. Add after #44 or swap with #45. 110... Pip-Boy Flashlight (Brighter) - For a smaller, brighter flashlight swap #96 with #95 and replace #95 with this. 111... STS living dead ########

Remove, if you want: \

Stock, ugly Pip-Boy color - #3 \ No tinkering with legendary effects - #5 \ No overpowered wandering groups attacking places - #15 \ Radstags to be less agressive - #17 \ Dont care about building - #20 #21 #22 \ Dont care about decorating settlements - #24 #25 \ Annoying wandering brahmins instead of dogs - #31 \ Cash register sounds when gaining exp - #39 \ Old vanilla dusk and dawn lighting - #50 \ Don't use VATS much - #54 #55 #56 \ Prefer old combat scopes - #64 #65 #66 \ Don't want uncover map and will never unlock it - #83 \ Hate cats and dont care about bonus they provide - #85 \ Don't have any weapon skins from Creation Club - #90 \ Faster leveling - #92 \ Want building EXP for some reason - #94 \ Smaller, horror style flashlight - #96 \ Start with 7 SPECIAL points to distribute - #97 \ Loot and enemies respawn after time - #98 \ Fast travel to take time - #99 \ Days be vanilla lenght - #100

Known issues, bugs, glitches, exploits: \

Some are present in unmodded game. I mention all problems I encountered in 100+ hours. - Ground textures in and around sanctuary flicker black. FIX: Quickly fixes itself possibly after you leave and come back. Its just one time glitch from what I've seen. - Cages (animal etc) cost too much in building menu. NO FIX: Did not found a safe and balanced fix yet, so cages are most likely out of reach. - Green chest containing flare gun and 10k flares after exiting vault 111. FIX: Mod dev forgot to delete it. Ignore it or if it bothers you much, remove mod #82, which I don't recommend doing. - Hubby Basement secret in Sanctuary. NO FIX: Its up to you if you want to use its content. Just easier difficulty option, but not game breaking. - Hacking 4 seems useless or has wrong description. NO FIX: Needs more testing. - Wall turrets sound sometimes glitches and plays on repeat. FIX: Re-enter the area or reload save. - Contact frag mines seems to have too low damage. FIX: Just dont craft them or use them to cripple legs. Rest of new explosives works fine even that it shows low damage values in description. - Perception low, constant (-1) PER in stats because of poison damage/resistance bug. FIX: Add mod #102 and equip perception rings. Dont delete the mod. Cant find safer solution for now. Rings dont take equipment slots. - Action girl perk have only one rank on female character and two on male. NO FIX: Just 25% AP regen loss at high level. Not a big deal. - Bubblegum seems to unintentionally quench thirst a bit and kind vendors give it for free. NO FIX: Its better to use it to slow time. Free candies. - Incorrect cost to build concrete foundations. FIX: Use mod #20 to add tons of foundations in newly added category Structures-Concrete. - OCDecorator replaces creation club menu. FIX: Items from CC are still available in other building categories. Ignore or delete mod #24 + #25 if you dont care about its function. - Few perk descriptions might be slightly incorrect or missing. NO FIX: Nothing important to worry about. - Three street lights, powered water pump, industrial purifier and subway light have incorrect build costs. NO FIX: These have wrong values, but items like clean sofa or tv are more expensive to build on purpose though. - Pip-boy light wont transfer from first to third person camera view. FIX: Turn flashlight off and on. - Water surface sometimes flash black when moving underwater. More visible with water mods. NO FIX: Its not very noticable and you don't dive much in FO4 anyway. - Flashlight in Vault111 has incorrect beam look/color. FIX: It will fix itself after mods load right after you leave Vault111, dont worry. \
v1.0 - Initial version. \

Have fun!

hellos. it is me again. i am back with update about last post (if don’t know what i mean, feels free to check profile) will warn again, english is not best so if hard to understand, i apologize! but i have been practice more 😄
i finally am fully move in with bf. other night he let decorate a room to be girly because i always had dedicated room for art. i did not feels safe having one as soon as roommate allowed dog in house, but there is no dog to ruin me here. i feels so happy, safe, loved because he love me and respect me and there is no dog here to growl and act aggressive at me here. he always tell me how important i am to him, how much he love me and how he will make sure i stay happy with him.
a little over week ago (my birthday) roommate calls and ask for my part of rent money. i send her text about me move out and landlord should told her but she either ignore or didn’t receive message. she did not ask how am i, no happy birthday, no ask about where i have been. like they not notice i have been gone. now she reach out on my birthday of any day to ask for money for place i do not live anymore? i tell her i live with bf now and am sorry but no money for rent can come from me, especially now because i am looking for new better pay job. she sends sad message making me feel bad because she knows am really easy to make feel bad about stuffs that is not my fault. she says she is pay to get stuff for dog and wants to be a good gf and dog mom (what is that? i do not understand how can be mom to a dog?) and want to use money for that but needs money for rent too. i was confuse because should rent not be bigger importance? she can spoil dog later i think but no, she wants take money from me. cut it short my final answer is no and she does not respond message.
a few days later i happen to be getting out of car after buying hair products when they stop by taking stroll. i still wonder if they were going out of way to see me or if just happened to be walking around area. dog is barking and pulling on very weak and dirty leash. it does not look like the leash strong enough to hold dog of size, much less clearly aggressive pitbull. it not break around me but whole time i was scare leash would snap and dog would attack me. bf was not home he was at work so it was me, roommate, her gf, and dog. gf says they were taking walk and ask how i am doing. i tell her honestly, very happy. i did not mean to sound bragging in any way but not resist telling her how life has treat me now that i can feel safe in own home again. not scared to walk to another room for fear of be attacked. she act happy for me but she also looks so angry at me. i don’t know why? it is not like i told them to get rid of dog. do i wish they did? yes. not just because it is dog but because it is clearly aggressive. i realize now thanks to you all that moment dog was brought into home, they stop caring about me, their friend, for a dog that made miserable. even if i ask i doubt they would have rehome dog. i did what best for me, and i guess them, and move in with man who love me and would not hurt me like that.
as we are talking dog looks like ready to take bite out of me, pulling on leash. i wondered if both were angry enough to let dog loose to intimidate me just by way they were acting. i could not believe how quick we went from friends to me being scare of them and dog. while they did not say anything threaten exactly (we were catching up talk about life, i did because i did not want be childish), the body behavior and emotions were clear. they hate me for move out, but only notice because they need rent money? i tell them many time before i left that dog is making life hell but never listened. then i told was moving out before i officially did. when they brought dog with it felt like a threat, just having such dangerous thing around. like a warning and disrespect. “look, we only care about dog. here it is on very weak leash that can snap any time. we know how you feel about dogs and how scare you are, but not care about you anymore! by the way, can borrow some money for rent even though is not your responsibility anymore? here is sad story to make you feel guilt so say yes.”
i told bf what happen when he got home later that night, and he called them and said some very angry thing. i think he should have calm down (for his sake), but he basically told them never come my way again, especially with dog. that if they want talk, talk like adults and don’t include the thing that was a reason i move out. he said is dangerous dog and to not come crying to me when it gets put down because it kill someone or cause life change injuries. he can get very angry but he later tell me he just gets upset that NOW they decide to come sees me. NOW they want talk. we blocked both of them and i don’t really want be friends with them again because they toss me aside for dog like it was nothing. we went hell and back and it went down drain because of dog. not just any dog but badly train dog who might attack someone one day. i tell my family and they thinks am overreacting but i don’t think they ever understand until this happen to them. i mostly made post to tell you all am currently live dog free. am happy living here. it always smell clean, i can walk freely no fear. bf give me much love and attention. we have video game night or go out to eat or just be outside. i also got job for doordash today and am getting second job somewhere soon hopefully too because have interview tomorrow! it can get better, for anyone struggle living with dog. can be mentally drained but you are not alone. 🤗 thanks much for people that commented on last post. am thankful when people don’t make me feel crazy for saying dogs scare me and impact mental health in bad way. i don’t hate dogs for existence, just wish people could know that not everybody has to like them.

After being a member of the subreddit for years and seeing hundreds if not thousands of posts it has become clear to me that some of you struggle with helping yourself. By which I mean you struggle understanding what you need to ask for help properly. I have drawn up some good advice on how to ask for help. I hope this is helpful for some people.
So you have a problem with Plex. You're not tech literate. Or have little experience with troubleshooting software and networking. Maybe you also have no experience handling IT support tickets or writing them. Possibly you are tech literate but the problem you have is a real mystery. You've come to the right place. Before you post your question let's take a look at a few things.
1. Have you reasonably searched for a solution to your problem?
Search for your problem on Google, DuckDuckGo, YouTube, or the built-in Reddit search for this subreddit. There is a very high probability that someone has already run into the same problem. As much as everyone's ecosystems are all unique to their use case, they are not really unique in general. A vast majority of users are runninig bare metal on Windows or Linux, or in a Docker container. There isn't that much deviation. For sure there are those of us out there running elaborate Proxmox + Kubernetes clusters and doing things like VIFO GPU passthrough. We are the exception. Odds are, someone has already asked your question.
You may want to consider how you are searching your problem. Have you been searching an exact error message? Typing something like "Plex is slow" into Google is extremely non-specific and not helpful. Leverage error messages, or specific scenarios when searching. Consider the conditions or operating systems you are using, and so on. Try to be specific when possible.
Try using keyword parameters in search engines. For example, you can add site:reddit.com to your Google search. Or -docker to exclude results not relevant to you. Maybe add something specifically in quotations " " to force that string of text to be present on results. There are tons of ways to leverage a search feature.
2. Have you asked an AI?
Whether you like it or not, AI is not going anywhere. ChatGPT in particular is solid for troubleshooting problems. GPT3.5 is free, but not amazing. GPT4 however is $20 a month and will be worth every penny you spend on it. Ask some friends, maybe someone you know has a subscription if you are not interested in paying for a one-time problem. In general, I highly recommend having an active subscription to ChatGPT4. I use it every single day when working on tech related problems. This is not school, you are not being graded on your ArPlex ecosystem. Use advanced tools to help make things easier on yourself. I promise you, general networking questions, Docker questions, virtualization questions, port fowarding, etc. are all things AI can handle with ease. It's exceedingly rare you are having a problem it can't help with unless you are dealing with heavy layers of abstraction in your set up.
3. Have you asked for help in other places before Reddit, or in conjunction with Reddit?
There are so many various resources out there where you may get a faster response from Reddit. And to a certain extent, better troubleshooting. IRC/Forums channels for private trackers (that you are downloading Linux ISOs from right... right...), Discords for other subreddits like homelab or datahoarders are great places to start. These guys are deep in the home lab game, you'd be a fool to think they are not running Plex. There are hundreds of online tech nerds hanging out in these channels who probably know the answer to your question.
It's also more responsive. If you ask a question, someone who wants to help may ask further questions. Or ask you to try various tasks and commands to see if it helps. There is a back and forth between you and the person helping you. On Reddit you have a much slower back-and-forth and if you ask too many questions in a thread it's liable to be hidden by Reddit or may never get enough eyes on it in the New feed.
4. Did you make a proper tech support ticket post?
So you've looked high and low. You can't find a thing on any search engines, no one in IRC or Discord has an answer for you, and you're up against a wall. It's time for writing a Reddit post to ask for help. Fair enough. But did you actually write a post that helps yourself as well as the people trying to help you?
Believe it not, posting "I am having a problem. None of my posters will load. Help!" is not a sufficient way to ask for help. Here are some things you will want to include in your post when asking for help.

• What version of Plex you are running
• Any specific error messages you see
• Any errors or warnings found in the Plex logs
• Screenshots of the problem
• Relevant network set up information
• Things you have already tried to fix the problem
• Variables or things that may have changed recently in your set up
• Other relevant software in the ecosystem that may touch Plex

We cannot help you if we don't have the appropriate amount of context. If I had to really hammer a few of those in, "things you have already tried" and "specific error messages from logs" are the big ones. It saves time ruling things out. It helps people who are better at looking up problems than yourself find the relevant information. Even the best of IT guys don't have this memorized. Here's an industry secret for you: the IT guy doesn't know why it's broken either. They are just better at Googling things than you from many years of slaving away in the StackOverflow mines. You need to give the IT help as much information as possible. In fact, overshare when possible. It's way easier to ignore non-relevant information than it is to drag that information out of you.
This all seems like obvious advice. People who are stressed when something is broken generally are not thinking very logically. Bookmark this post. When you have a problem, refer to it. Skim it over. Ask yourself if you have satisfied all of this. I guarantee that you will see better results troubleshooting your problem if you follow this advice.

TW: SA
For some context, I 22 (F) have a sister 21 (F). Ever since we were 15 and 16, she has had these crippling migraines. She has been to over 18 different specialist all around the country trying to figure out what is wrong with her, and they have found absolutely nothing wrong with her. Over the years she uses her migraines as an excuse to get out of anything she doesn't want to do, for example church, school, family events. But her migraines miraculously disappear as soon as something she does want to do comes up. Personally, I suffer with migraines as well our difference is mine was diagnosed from the TMJ that I now have from dislocating my jaw when I was 12. She loves to use her migraines as a way to either get out of something she doesn't want to do or uses it to garner sympathy from friends' family and strangers.
In 2019 she used her migraines as an excuse to not go to school at all and used them to get a doctor's note stating that even though she cannot attend school she should still graduate. 2020 rolls around and we can no longer go to school because of Covid and miraculously she has no migraines and goes out day and night to hang out with friends. Then when she goes off to college all of a sudden, these migraines come back coupled with severe dehydration to the point where she has to be hospitalized on multiple occasions, except these migraines only occur Friday Saturday and Sunday mornings after her sorority throws a party.
Summer of 2021, she gets the opportunity to participate in a college work program in Florida for the whole 3 months of summer. She goes and after only 3 weeks of being there her migraines get so bad that she has to come home. It is important to note that she comes home the day before Father's Day. Father's Day comes and we all go to church and out to lunch and have a great time. That night however my parents come to my room to ask me if I have spoken with my sister this evening and I tell them no. They proceed to tell me that my sister has runaway to Virginia (we live in Oklahoma) to live with her Boyfriend 26 (M) and that she has sent them a video to explain why.
This video states that she is leaving and never coming back because she has been assaulted on multiple occasions by multiple men in her life and that it is too traumatic to even be in the state so Shes leaving. She then follows with telling my parents that they are horrible people who have never loved or cared about her and that they are the reason this is all happening. She also sent similar videos to her friends as well. This video absolutely crushed my parents, it was the first time I ever saw my dad cry.
We grew up in a strange family, my parents couldn't have children of their own so they adopted us. But our biological families are all still very much in our lives. Our parents are the most amazing and caring people in the world and would give life and limb to anyone in need. So, to hear her saying these things about my parents not only hurt them but it also hurt me to see her putting them through all that.
She was only gone for a month because eventually my father flew out to her to get her and bring her home. Now I am someone who has to know everything, I cant leave a topic untouched, I always have to investigate and get every side of the story. But in that month, I ended up uncovering a few things about the stories she told in those videos she sent to my parents and her friends. In that time, I uncovered that the stories of abuse that she was speaking about were of previous boyfriends that she had had. Every single boyfriend had a story of abuse, and these stories had credible witnesses attached to each and every story. While combing through all of this information I come to the educated conclusion that they are false and told only in a specific way to frame her as the victim using a way that no one would dare call her a liar because who would blame the victim?
When she came back it was really hard on everyone because we had all been heavily affected by this experience that she has put us all through, but she just acted like it never happened and continued to act like she deserved everything. But anytime anyone would mention anything about what happened she would absolutely freak out scream and curse and throw a massive tantrum and storm off and slam her door. In this time, I have personally decided that I will just act like she doesn't exist, I won't speak to her or acknowledge her.
Fast forward to now January 2024, she has convinced my parents that the best thing for her is moving to Florida to go to school because in her words "it is the one place I don't get migraines". I pointed out to my parents that the last time she lived in Florida she only lasted 3 weeks before claiming migraine. Apparently, she only lasted a month at the school before dropping all of her classes and just living it up in her apartment that my parents pay for. And she only informed my parents over spring break that she dropped out because her migraines were too bad. She is now home and living with my parents again and continues to spread her stories of assault and abuse as well as her stories of migraines to literally anyone that will listen.
I'd like to add that throughout all of these years she never fails to make sure I am the one that somehow suffers through it all. Throughout her Migraines I was the one that had to take care of her, I was the one that got in trouble when she screwed up, I was the one that had to pay for all of her mistakes. After years and years of watching her lies not only hurt me and my family but also slowly chip away at what used to be a happy and close nit family I don't think I can live with it any longer. My mother continues to stand by her side and call me a liar anytime I call my sister out on her lies, and my relationship with my mom has suffered for it. My father knows my sister is lying but fears speaking up because it might anger my mom. This whole experience has divided our family.
Another thing of note is that I value honesty over everything else, I will call anyone and everyone out on their bull. This last weekend we were at a graduation party and sitting there and listening to her speak and talking about all of this to literal strangers and because we were in public I had to physically literally bite my tongue to keep myself from speaking which resulted in me actually biting off a piece of my tongue. I honestly have come to the end of my rope of patience and I don't want her in my life anymore. So am I the asshole?

Okay this is not specifically Taylor AND Travis, but I feel this sub would get where I am coming from.
Now I am not one to ever compare one individual's mental health conditions that may be with another person. Everyone has their own struggles and challenges they go through, even if the severity differs. However, in this situation, I would like to put my two cents in on a subject many of us already have started to discuss: Taylor's usage of mental illness, mental institutions, and just overall angst she has been harbouring since TTPD's announcement to present times. As others have pointed out before me, it has never been confirmed if Taylor has any medical condition or has any mental disorder. She did confirm back in 2019 though I believe, she has never gone to therapy as she sees her mom as the only therapist she ever could need (if it has changed since then, please let me know). To be honest, yes, it's not our place to know if she doesn't want to share, about anything involving herself, especially like mental health, as it's a personal subject for many, whether famous or not. Also I truly think therapy while super helpful for some, may not be the right for others in contrast. It genuinely depends on each individual on what they need and what works best for them. Alas, whatever we want to call Taylor is doing for the TTPD era with the usage and imagery of mental illness, personally I'm not only over it but disgusted by it.
For starters, we are led to think all this imagery and wordplay and overall presentation of mental illness and mental institutions and lobonomies etc are solely due to her broken heart over a former love (popular suggestion says it's for Matty Healy but some think it's still Joe and some think it's for other people completely or even other situations). We're left with solely her songs and her choices in words both in songs and in real life, to theorize what they could be alluding to. I have seen many Gaylors suggest these are influenced by the LGBTQIA+ was and have been treated in mainstream society. How, homosexuality was even listed an actual illness not so long ago unfortunately.
But for the sake of calling a spade a spade and being simplistic, I am just going to follow the popular belief that this era is just her choice of showing her reaction and feelings towards some ex-lover and feeling scorned by them, most likely it's Matty. Or least the grand majority of the songs seem to lean in his not so favour. That being said (and as someone who has been there with Taylor since Debut), she could have honestly chose a better direction. Mental illness isn't a joke to make people laugh at parties. It isn't a trend or the latest accessory to buy at the mall. It's not something you can just shake off and pretend it's done by the next album. It's real and it's really affects your every day life. Just as mental institutions are no joke. They're not fun playgrounds to meet potential besties at. It's literally a place that originally people were sent to against their will. Even in present times, some people are still sent to them against their will. Yes, some go now voluntarily, but it isn't always the case. I understand being heartbroken and something like ghosting can make one feel emotionally vulnerable and hurt on a multitude of levels. I just wouldn't justify making chronic word usage of "asylums", "madhouses", phrases like "they sent me away" or referencing coming straight from the hospital if she just meant it "symbolically". I get she could have easily meant Hollywood and stardom especially like she has experienced, is a crazy experience to endure, but in that case, it seems like her previous analogies of a circus works better without offending potential parties or people with actual experiences with mental institutions and/or mental illness. It reminds me of how several people say something like "I always wash my hands, I'm OCD" or "War time flashbacks, I got PTSD from *names a very underwhelming situation that disturb a person slightly*", It's careless and callous wording all around. The fact we have even seen some of Taylor's so-called fans start to make their own medical bracelets to play up this theme is disturbing in my opinion. Again mental illness isn't some necklace to show off like a diamond studded piece.
I'm not saying Taylor couldn't have felt maddened in a way by her experiences that inspired TTPD thus how she chose to display this era and such. In my own personal experience without going too much into it, I had my own ghosting experience a few years back that wasn't fun in any way, and it was with someone, who reassured me for months on end that they were going to stay and we'd always be in each other's lives so obviously my trust and faith were both shaken when I noticed one night, I got blocked from all their social media and they didn't answer any call or text I left. However, I didn't go around not only acting like a tortured Victorian woman, who was imprisoned against her own will in a sanitarium but marketing myself as one and even trying to trademark a term I clearly didn't create. Granted say Taylor hypothetically went through a whole bunch of worst case scenarios: loved ones dying, friends leaving her when she needed them the most, people she care for getting sick, potential bankruptcy, etc then fuck, I get her reason behind using all this theme and the imagery as well. But I am going to take the benefit of the doubt and say she really chose a serious topic and things associated with it, just because something went awry again with her and some person she dated unfortunately. And what makes it even more vulgar in my opinion is it's not even like her first break up. It's much more than her first rodeo at this game yet she chose to display all of her feelings for it this time in perhaps, one of the worst ways. She is being insensitive to the ones who actually have been in mental institutions, whether by choice or not, and/or are suffering from mental illness. Again maybe she has something too, maybe not but regardless, she seems tone-deaf to the bigger picture here, similar to her using soldier terminology despite never been at war or even in service.
Many musicians have used this imagery before as we've established but it doesn't make it any more right. Several artists in comparison have been public with their mental health situations and don't even choose to use this type of imagery for themselves. They'll mention it time from time, but it's definitely not treated like a personality trait from them. It's just an aspect of them but not the whole picture. The fact she's even referring to herself as "The Chairman of The Tortured Poets Department" sounds like the combination of one of the most pretentious and woe is me crock I have ever heard. We don't see Morrissey calling himself, "The Pope of Mope" (yes, the fans do but he doesn't) and I doubt we'd see Robert Smith call himself, "The King of Sad". Yet Taylor who has had what seemed like a well off childhood and many good things happen to her and never seemed to brand herself as anything less than cheery adjectives for more over a decade, it just sounds so off-putting now she's trying to play the tragic role like it's natural or genuine.
I find it important to note, one particular musician named Emilie Autumn, has been inspired by the Victorian era for her whole career and real life "tortured" writers , along with incorporating the whole asylum analogy long before Taylor, but in sheer contrast, it was documented she actually went to a psych ward in a book she published in 2009. In the book itself, she discusses what it was in both a fictional way and factual way of what she went through as well showcasing how women were treated there in present times compared with the 1800s hasn't changed that much. She wanted to write the book to empower women though and to rise above the turmoil and be stronger because of it. She was no victim here (nor trying to just use it "alt points"). She has since (and even before the book) been very open about her experiences with mental illness (she's openly bipolar and the abuse she's endured over the years, as well her songs show she's not afraid to tackle the harder subjects) and what's it really like to be in a psych ward. I feel Emilie Autumn accomplished making mental illness a subject we can understand and even relate to, without it feeling gimmicky or a cash grab until she comes up with another aesthetic. Again I'm not saying Taylor's life story has been nothing but peaches and cream though, I recognize it hasn't been. And again she isn't expected to tell us her entire medical history and every blemish she ever had, but I don't support nor think her going around at her concerts with her dancers dressed as nurses and doctors and her using mental institutions as settings when she has been so mum on the subject of mental health, whether hers or in general, is a good look especially if she's just doing it to songs about how a guy stopped pursuing her and they weren't even together for that long. It comes off disrespectful and even condescending to the ones, who really have mental conditions and we can't just shake it off with a dance number. I'm sorry she got hurt (whether she still is or was is debated), but it doesn't give her a free pass to use something as heavy as this as just an aesthetic and equally turning a blind eye when some of her fans think it's just a lighthearted thing too. I will never get over how so many are now using asylums so loosely, like "OMG this album makes me crazy, send me to an asylum next". That's fucked up to say the least. Ultimately, I just hope this phase changes fast, and hopefully, Taylor can heal from whatever she is or isn't singing about, and more people step in when an idea is just isn't a good one.

Okay. I'll try to keep this short. I'm 29F , my ex is 34M. Me and my ex are and have been madly in love with each other since 2019. We ended our relationship due to pride, ego and communication issues and I got in a relationship with someone else and he met a woman as well. He says their situation was more like a fling nothing serious and he was just trying to get his mind off of me, as was i....but he end up getting her pregnant. We both expressed how we want to be with each other and are not happy in our situations. He can't be himself with her, they have nothing in common and he's unhappy. Same for me. I ended my situation but his isnt so simple due to her being pregnant.....now this is where it gets tricky. When he found out she was pregnant (during our breakup and not speaking) he offered to move her into his house to be sure she will have a roof over her head and can have a stress free pregnancy. I assume this will obviously make them closer and possibly results in us never being together. She also has two other kids that he had to take in as well....he says he's trying to find the best way to navigate this situation and be honest with her but he's afraid of stressing her out during the process. But he has let me know 100% shes not who he sees a future with. Am I a fool to sit back and wait or trust what hes saying? Hoping we'll be together? I've never heard of a situation like this but I know that love conquers all (which is what he told me) and we arent bad ppl and we both don't want to end up unhappy with other people. We don't think we will ever find a soulmate again. I told him today that I cannot stomach being a "side piece" and would wait til he's ready to break the news I guess. She's due in September. I'm worried he might not have the strength to leave her on her own with a baby so I feel I could possibly be believing in something thats impossible to happen...has anyone else dealt with a situation like this and has it worked out in the long run?

Okay. I'll try to keep this short. I'm 29F , my ex is 34M. Me and my ex are and have been madly in love with each other since 2019. We ended our relationship due to pride, ego and communication issues and I got in a relationship with someone else and he met a woman as well. He says their situation was more like a fling nothing serious and he was just trying to get his mind off of me, as was i....but he end up getting her pregnant. We both expressed how we want to be with each other and are not happy in our situations. He can't be himself with her, they have nothing in common and he's unhappy. Same for me. I ended my situation but his isnt so simple due to her being pregnant.....now this is where it gets tricky. When he found out she was pregnant (during our breakup and not speaking) he offered to move her into his house to be sure she will have a roof over her head and can have a stress free pregnancy. I assume this will obviously make them closer and possibly results in us never being together. She also has two other kids that he had to take in as well....he says he's trying to find the best way to navigate this situation and be honest with her but he's afraid of stressing her out during the process. But he has let me know 100% shes not who he sees a future with. Am I a fool to sit back and wait or trust what hes saying? Hoping we'll be together? I've never heard of a situation like this but I know that love conquers all (which is what he told me) and we arent bad ppl and we both don't want to end up unhappy with other people. We don't think we will ever find a soulmate again. I told him today that I cannot stomach being a "side piece" and would wait til he's ready to break the news I guess. She's due in September. I'm worried he might not have the strength to leave her on her own with a baby so I feel I could possibly be believing in something thats impossible to happen...has anyone else dealt with a situation like this and has it worked out in the long run?

So I need some advice for my older brother ( he is 24 and I am 21).
He makes me angry because he has no ambition in life, I can understand that people don't all have big dreams and just want a comfortable life but even for that he does no effort. It's not right if at his age he never really had a job, even a student job and just live free in our parents house where they paid for everything. He spends all his days and nights on videos games and I have nothing against this passion but come on go find a job and bring some money at home instead of doing nothing. I got angry with my parents on this subject because they offers him a iphone 14 for no special occasion, I told them that if he wants a new phone he can just go work and pay for it himself.
For this past four years after finishing high school he did not accomplish nothing. Yes because finished hight school at 20 since he repeat 2 years (one in primary school and one in high school). After highschool he said he wanted to take care of people and so began nurse school but drop out. After that he did nothing and now he's doing a caregiver formation and have like 2 years before his certificate and does nothing more.
I just want him to be independant and doing something in his life. Humanly he is such a good man, I educated him this way, yes because even if he is older he is not mature on some points and so I take often the place of the big sister. He is really kind and everything but he makes me angry being a jobless man in the family and doing nothing of his days.
I personally think that our parents didn't educated us like this. My parents are such hard-working people who migrated from Asia for Europe for a better life and give us everything we needed. I took this hard-working attitude from them and have so much ambition like them, but not him. I'm not here to brag but I am in my fourth year of medicine school and want to be someone so useful in the future too (and also win a lot of money for other projects). He too said that he wanted to work in the health field but does not give himself the means to succeed like I do. I study so hard every day until very late to accomplish my goals and make our parents proud.
I don't know what to do to help him. I want for the minimum to help him being financially independant because independancy begin here and help him become a real adult become for the moment he still is a child.
Do you have some advices to me and him ?

Round 8 deadline: Wednesday 15th May, 9pm GMT

Hi everyoneeee! Once again, the results for the last round were predictable, with one episode ending up with significantly more votes than the others. So, let's find out which one is leaving on this round.
...
Home. It was 1 vote away from leaving us in round 7, and now it's time for it to go. It gathered 5 votes, while all other episodes which were voted for only got 2 or 1.
Which episode will go next? It's up to youuuuu.
Vote for the episode that you like *the least. The episode that gathers the most votes will be eliminated with the **26th place in this game. Make sure you have watched all episodes before voting and don't vote more than once. (I don't think you can anyway)*

VOTE IN ROUND 8 HERE

Round 7 results
Episodes Alive: (SPOILERS!!!)
S1E1 - Who Do You Think You Are?:

• Alison and Mike inherit Button House
• Ghosts haunt them
• Captain annoyed at Fanny screaming

S1E2 - Gorilla War:

• Mike starts renovating house
• Ghosts annoy Alison
• Alison accepts ghosts as real

S1E3 - Happy Death Day:

• Pat's death day, family visit
• Kitty asks where babies come from
• Captain & Julian try to get rid of builders

S1E5 - Moonah Ston:

• Beg-Chetwyns visit for dinner party
• Captain & Mary help kill/prepare pheasant
• Ghosts do Moonah Ston ritual & watch Friends

S1E6 - Getting Out:

• Alison & Mike consider selling to hotel chain
• Ghosts think of plans to make money
• Captain leaves ghosts

S2E3 - Redding Weddy:

• Captain flashback
• A&M clear garden
• Fanny fancies Mike
• Pat keeps ghosts occupied (moon landing video, volleyball)

S2E4 - The Thomas Thorne Affair:

• Thomas death flashbacks
• Mike worries about meeting Alison's ex

S2E5 - Bump in the Night:

• Alison goes out
• Burglars break into house
• Ghosts try to warn Mike

S2E6 - Perfect Day:

• Claire & Sam wedding
• Pat recognises Keith from his death
• Claire nervous about wedding

S2E7 - The Ghost of Christmas:

• Mike's family visit for Xmas, parents help too much
• Julian feels guilty about avoiding family at Xmas
• Alison gets presents for ghosts

S3E1 - The Bone Plot:

• TV crew making documentary about Humphrey (death flashback)
• Julian thinks Barclay is having heart attack
• Pat tries to make Fanny & Captain laugh
• Thomas prepares Alison for interview

S3E2 - A Lot to Take In:

• Alison meets Lucy
• Julian remembers first day as ghost
• Mike starts new job
• Kitty & Pat dance

S3E3 - The Woodworm Men:

• A&M camp outside during fumigation
• Kitty watches Grease

S3E4 - I Love Lucy:

• Captain spies on Lucy
• Julian changes Mike's emails
• Fanny has affair with Humphrey's body

S3E5 - Something to Share?:

• Kitty shares story about ball
• Mike tries to find way to see ghosts

S3E6 - Part of the Family:

• Mike films promotional video
• Ghosts find out Lucy is lying
• Ghosts do drama/improvisation club

S4E2 - Speak as ye Choose:

• Annie teaching Mary to say what she wants flashback
• Kitty shows Captain how to live in moment
• Thomas goes cold turkey on Alison addiction
• Mike's old friends stay at gatehouse

S4E3 - The Hardest Word:

• A&M try to have relaxing day
• Ghosts make apology song

S4E4 - Gone Gone:

• Pat cheers Kitty up over Mary moving on
• Mike organises children's birthday party last minute
• Alison helps ghosts deal with their feelings about Mary

S4E6 - Not Again:

• Robin's death flashback
• Mike buys giant bear
• Kitty starts talking by saying opposite of what she means

S4E7 - It's Behind You:

• Ghosts put on panto
• Alison shows Pat old VHS recordings
• A&M get stuck in traffic on way to parents

S5E1 - Fools:

• Alison does April Fool's pranks on ghosts
• Insurance company person investigates insurance claim for fire

S5E3 - Pineapple Day:

• Ghosts figure out how Kitty died
• Mike discusses selling land with Barclay
• Thomas, Julian & Humphrey want blue plaque
• Kitty watches 'Is It Cake?'

S5E4 - En Français:

• Ghosts try playing game shows
• French woman visits with translator to see land
• Flashback of Robin learning French from Sophie

S5E5 - Carpe Diem:

• A&M have spontaneous night out
• Robin thinks someone will move on before midnight
• Fanny & Julian make most of possible last day
• Captain's death flashback

S5E6 - Last Resort:

• A&M decide whether to keep or sell house
• Obi shows up having been dumped by Brenda
• Kitty struggles to keep secret of baby's sex
• Pat & Robin fight over weather lady

Eliminated Episodes:
34th place: S5E7 - A Christmas Gift
33rd place: S5E2 - He Came!
32nd place: S2E1 - The Grey Lady
31st place: S2E2 - About Last Night
30th place: S4E5 - Poached Guests
29th place: S4E1 - Happy Holiday
28th place: S1E4 - Free Pass
27th place: S5E2 - Home

Knuckles the Echidna

"I am the last guardian of Angel Island. I will protect the Master Emerald. And I will do it alone if I have to."

To make a very long, complicated, and confusing story short, Knuckles the Echidna is the Guardian of the mythical Master Emerald and protector of the floating Angel Island (interchangeably called the Floating Island). He comes from a long line of Guardians, each serving as Guardian before him. Before his birth, his father, Locke, saw a dream he thought of as prophetic, and prepared his unborn baby with the power to handle his future responsibility...by blasting his egg with Chaos radiation, granting Knuckles his spiked fists and an aptitude for Chaos Energy manipulation.
Knuckles would go through many hardships throughout his life: His father's death, discovering his home then watching its destruction, and his endless fight against Dr. Eggman and the forces of the Dark Legion. Knuckles would even die and be brought back to life. However hard the going gets, though, Knuckles always manages to recover and hit harder. He's not just rougher than the rest of them; he's the best of them.

Section Key: I. Strength II. Speed/Agility III. Durability IV. Chaos Power V. Other VI. Hyper Knuckles VII. Chaos Knuckles Source Key: Knuckles' Chaotix - Chaotix Knuckles the Echidna - KtE# Sonic and Knuckles - S&K Sonic's Friendly Nemesis, Knuckles Miniseries - Nem# Sonic Quest - Quest# Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) - StC# Sonic the Hedgehog Free Comic Book Day - FCD# Sonic the Hedgehog Triple Trouble - Triple Sonic Super Special - Spe# Sonic Universe - SU# Sonic vs. Knuckles - SvK Super Sonic vs. Hyper Knuckles - SSvHK 

Feats are posted in chronological order.

For additional context on some feats, see a map of Angel Island here.

To see his feats during his time as the Enerjak, see here (Respect Thread by theusjshjdhdne)

I. Strength

Striking

• Breaks a fake Chaos Emerald.
• Breaks down a brick wall in one punch.
• Knocks out Fang with one punch.
• Destroys Metal Sonic in one blow when they’re both at a giant size.
• Brawls with Enerjak.
• Punches a hole in a giant machine.
• Brawls with Sonic until they’re both exhausted.
• Rams through a large metal robot.
• Breaks through an indeterminate amount of stone.
• Punches Sonic so hard Sally worries that Knuckles could have knocked Sonic’s head off.
• Shatters a few Egg Grapes.
• Punches Finivetus hard enough for him to bounce.
• Punches a sturdy trap wall hard enough to climb up it.
• Clashes fists against Finitevus hard enough to cause a shockwave.
• Punches the ground enough to crack it and create smoke.

Lifting/Grabbing

• While Perfect Chaos is flooding a city and Knuckles is in this water, he lifts a heavy generator that powers the entire city.
• Restrains an out-of-control Bunnie alongside Mighty and Vector.
• Catches a giant drill and prevents its rotation.
• Holds up rubble alongside Amy to prevent a cave-in.
• Snaps off an arm of the Egg Beater with Vector’s help.
• Grabs Finivetus by his cape and slams him into a wall hard enough to crack it.

Throwing

• Throws a dingo from one room to another to hit another dingo.
• Tosses Sonic above cloud level.
• Throws Thrash through a stone wall.

Other

• Anchors himself with his spikes during a tornado.
• Easily cuts a tree with ease.
• Powers through Thrash’s screams.

II. Speed/Agility

Combat/Evasion

• Evades falling boulders.
• Dodges a lot of traps completely unscathed including machine guns.
• Spins in a cyclone fast enough to throw a biker gang into the distance.
• Dodges a laser.
• Dodges a robot’s mace.
• Keeps up with Sonic going all-out pretty handily, at one point holding him down.
• Dodges multiple close-proximity lasers.
• Dodges Espio’s kunai in very close range.

Movement

• Speeds from near the outside of Angel Island to a distant mountain.
• Swims from the deepest point of the ocean floor to the surface before he loses oxygen, only not succeeding due to outside interference.
• Outruns a blast that quickly engulfs the Floating Island, only being hit when he reaches the end of the island. Out of everyone on the island, Knuckles is the only one able to outrun the blast and even reacts fast enough to throw a Dark Legion member into the blast before he starts actually running.
• Hops over a fence.
• Hops from one floating vehicle to another.

Gliding

• Can glide above the trees even in turbulent winds.
• For some reason his gliding works by using his dreadlocks???
• Okay, that isn't gliding, that's just flying, Knuckles.
• Can glide (fly) high enough to be significantly above Angel Island.

Other

• Swapped emeralds without Sonic and Eggman noticing.
• Able to keep balance on an Extreme Gear while grappling with Storm.

III. Durability

Blunt

• Struck by Sonic going at full speed.
• Bonked by Sonic hitting him with an entire tree.
• Hurt but able to handle being surprise attacked by Espio, Vector, and Mighty in succession.
• Tanks blows from Enerjak whose raw strength is stated to dwarf Knuckles’.
• Shot down by a giant laser.
• Takes a few blows from an alternate (Irish) version of himself.
• Hit by Sonic hard enough to create a hole in Castle Acorn.
• Launched into a wall by Thrash’s scream.
• Blasted repeatedly by Thrash’s screams, visibly no worse for wear.

Energy/Fire/Electricity

• Blasted by Enerjak.
• Gets the inside of his mouth burnt by Archimedes.
• Zapped by Enerjak.
• Hurt but generally fine after being splashed by lava.
• Tanks the edge of a blast that engulfed a large chunk of the Floating Island, still has enough energy to drag himself out of the ocean onto a piece of debris though he falls unconscious for twelve hours.
• Takes some hits from dingo goons armed with electric weapons.

Other

• Harmed but unfazed by getting drained by the energy siphon used on the Master Emerald that allows the Floating Island to stay, well, afloat.
• Seemingly unaffected by the pressure caused from being inside the very bottom of an ocean aside, more so worried about having no oxygen.
• Only worried about the cold while 30,000 meters above the already cloud level floating island.
• Is the first to regain consciousness after a crash.
• Crushed by a mechanical lobster.
• Gets caught in an avalanche, recovers quickly.

IV. Chaos Power

For a period during his conflicts with the Dark Legion, his latent Chaos power increased with time until an explosion would turn his skin green and properly transform him into Chaos Knuckles, losing his powers when he later died and revived. He didn't rekindle his powers until a conflict with Dr. Finivetus reawakened his latent abilities.
Knuckles usually doesn't use these abilities, but can break them out again when necessary.

Offensive

• Dismantles a machine on his neck then blasts Hunter into unconsciousness.
• Clashes with Finivetus hard enough to create a huge sphere of energy on Angel Island.

Non-Offensive

• Passively regenerates from a splash of lava.
• Creates a portal from Mobius’ surface to Angel Island.
• Flies with his eyes closed and “sees” his surroundings with help from the Guiding Star Gem.
• Either doesn’t register on an infrared sensor or genuinely has no body heat.
• Throws a few Chaos Spears.

Energy Generation

• Called a living Chaos Emerald as he projects a message to a fellow Guardian in an entirely different Zone; later corroborated by an examination performed by the Dark Legion.
• Generates enough natural power to overload a power system that winds up blowing up a complex and is implied to radiate enough energy after 15 minutes to be akin to nuclear fallout.

V. Other

• Can tell where Espio is even when he’s invisible.
• Carries a laser gun that destroys a door he cannot with brawn.
• Has the worst family tree.
• Called in by Sally to fight Sonic all-out on his level while Sonic is mind-controlled, Knuckles appearing right after Sonic wipes the floor with both the Freedom Fighters and Chaotix.
• Holds the Guiding Star, an artifact that creates a magical transport back to Angel Island from any place.
• Holds a Warp Ring which allows him to teleport to any location he sets his mind to.
• Resists Finivetus’ hypnotization.

VI. Hyper Knuckles

Also referred to as Super Knuckles, this form occurs when Knuckles absorbs sufficient Chaos Energy from the Chaos Emeralds, the Master Emerald, or a similarly potent source. With the power, he has the ability to take on powerful foes like Super Sonic and Master Mogul.

Strength

• Described as “a thousand times stronger” than usual.
• Tears apart reality fighting Super Sonic, destroying the Zone they fight in.
• Alongside Super Sonic, punches Master Mogul through buildings.
• Breaks the top of a mountain then throws Hunter across Angel Island.

Speed

• Keeps up with Super Sonic.
• Described as moving at “incalculable speeds”.

Durability

• Takes hits from Super Sonic.
• Tanks the Zone-busting clash between himself and Super Sonic but reverts back to normal.
• Completely ignores Chaos energy that was hurting him at base form.

Chaos Power

• Unleashes a surge of power that ends the war between the echidnas and dingoes.

VII. Chaos Knuckles

Due to Knuckles' father microwaving the baby imbuing Knuckles' egg with Chaos radiation, Knuckles' own Chaos energy grew until achieving the god-like Chaos Knuckles form, becoming closer to a living Chaos Emerald than an echidna. During his time as Chaos Knuckles, he was one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse if not the strongest outright, or at least stronger than (Turbo Tails and Dimitri as the Enerjak). However, his grasp of his powers was questionable at best and uncontrollable at worst, which would eventually lead to his demise.

Strength

• Bops Tails on the head.
• Beats Turbo Tails unconscious in a short fight.

Speed

• Unleashes a blast of energy before Tails can react, though he wasn’t in control of his actions.
• Keeps up with Turbo Tails.

Durability

• Stands undamaged in an epicenter of an explosion that knocked out multiple people including a Roboticized Mobian.
• Endures being siphoned of his energy until Charmy and Saffron free him.
• Surprise attacked by Turbo Tails.
• Tanks blows from Turbo Tails.
• Makes the scenario of Angel Island crashing and/or blowing up from Chaos energy nonlethal by taking the brunt of it himself; also a Chaos Power feat.
• Undamaged from a shot to the head that would have killed base Knuckles.

Chaos Power

Offensive

• Paralyzes a Roboticized Mobian.
• A shout throws around everybody surrounding him and teleports them to various places across the world.
• Unleashes a “tidal wave” of energy.
• An energy blast goes straight through Angel Island with the debris knocking out Tails.
• An optic laser harms Turbo Tails.
• Shoots down a meteor that would have destroyed the city of Echidnaopolis.

Non-Offensive

• Warps through time and space on accident; later does so on purpose.
• Teleports through time and space to Dimitri’s ship which moves at Mach 5.
• Detects the death of two echidna who crashed into the ship he is on.
• Read someone’s mind, though at the time he wasn’t sure how to do so consciously.
• Sends a telepathic message and projection of himself to his father across the Floating Island.
• Stops his heart to play dead.
• Heals somebody from critical condition.

Reality Warping

• Unconsciously warps reality on a fundamental scale, changing reality to different versions of itself: First to one resembling the OVA, then a reality without the Dark Legion, then a reality resembling SatAM, then to a reality where Sally is dead, finally to reality as it once was. Notably, both Sonic and Sally had full awareness of the changes during the changes, and everyone else had full awareness only after the fact.
• [Limit] Can’t stop events that would be inevitable through multiple methods such as Echidnaopolis’ destruction or the failure of Dimitri’s plan in the past.
• Manipulates time on an island-wide level to restore Angel Island to its original state before its inhabitants were teleported to another Zone.
• Creates flowers.
• [Limit] Blows himself up and dies saving Dimitri and destroying Mogul’s Chaos Siphon, ascending to a higher plane of existence in the Chaos Force (temporarily).
• Ejects himself from the Chaos Force and revives himself, but loses access to his powers.
• In one version of the future, warps the entirety of Mobius to his whim.

Characters Used for Scaling (all pre-Super Genesis Wave):

• Dimitri the Echidna.
• Dr. Finitevus.
• Egg Beater, Respect Thread by Proletlariet.
• Enerjak (as Dimitri), Respect Thread by theusjshjdhdne.
• Espio the Chameleon.
• Metal Sonic.
• Mighty the Armadillo, Respect Thread by theusjshjdhdne.
• Sonic the Hedgehog, Respect Thread by 76SUP and Joshless.
• Thrash the Tasmanian Devil.
• Vector the Crocodile.
• Tails the Fox.

So my finances and I have decided to take an untraditional route and go to Iceland for our honeymoon. Planning it has fell on me. We are both pretty much doers when it comes to vacation and I don’t believe we would enjoy 10 days on a beach compared to something like this (our initial idea was RVing around USA- still on the bucket list).
So we would like to see the northern lights, I don’t think we will have much issue with that. I would like to see as many (or at least the big ones) waterfalls as possible. We are open to hikes but with the shorter days idk how much time we would have for it. I’d also like to hit up a few of the good hot springs / lagoons. I’d like to do the silfra snorkeling, myvatn baths, and maybe the glacier walk tour.
We are renting an AWD suv vehicle and plan on staying in a different place every night maybe 2 nights in some.
So here’s roughly what I have so far.
10/15 - 6am - we arrive pick up the car go straight to blue lagoon. I know it sucks but my fiancée is dead set on doing it and since we are right there we can get it out of the way. It would be nice to relax for a few after wedding things.
Head back to Reykjavik- see the city stay the night
10/16 - we both were thinking another night in Reykjavik. I don’t think it’s a terrible idea. I wanted to get to sky lagoon at some point also so this may be the time for that. See the city. If anyone has any recommendations on tours or things to see places to eat I’ll take them.
10/17 - leave for golden circle. May go straight to snorkeling at silfra from Reykjavik. With whatever daylight we have left try to see a few more things.
***Stay in bubble hotel in olvisholt possibly. Does anyone have any experience with this? This was on her bucket list. It’s a little pricey, is it worth it?
10/18 - try to see a few more things in the golden circle or the area. And then head to vik
10/19 - fosshotel itinerary TBD open to recommendations
10/20 would probably do the glacier walk this day. *** open to recommendations about tours/ companies. Katla looks kinda boring. I’m looking more into the vatnajokull / ice cave ones
Stay the night in hofn
10/21 - this is where my anxiety kicks in and I have no idea what to do. I don’t know what is over here how long it will take to cross or what the weather is. Is it worth splitting the East into two days?
Going to spend the night at hotel 1001 nott or that general area.
10/22 myvatn spend night in area
10/23 akureyri I know they have a beer spa and forest lagoon. Even possible whale watching in husavik although I don’t know how weather will be. Stay in area.
10/24 - I have no idea about this day. I know I want my next stop to be snaefellsnses but don’t know if that drive might be too much. Maybe stay at a place along the way? Is there much to see between akureyri and snaefellsnes worth spending a day for. Would be open to recommendations
10/25 snaefellsnes what’s even over here. I have to look through my saved posts but I would like to see it.
10/26 return to Reykjavik. Wind down. Maybe another tour or something. Stay the night
10/27. We dont leave until later in the day so we will have some more time Reykjavik. Yay
So if you have any recommendations. If you have made a similar trip and have your itinerary saved please please feel free to send it my way. Anything I should see / shouldn’t see. Any advice on my starred items is most helpful right now. Thank you guys. Idk what I would do without this sub lol.

Hey im AJ 27 from Dubai and I'm 5'10, i I love horses and riding horses but my ultimate passion is diving and take cool videos of underwater creatures, I'm into fitness and I absolutely adore cooking, I can describe myself saying I'm a very calm guy who loves to chat and discover new things, and what's more better way to discover with friends or a close person to have a connection with and share my day with and get those butterflies from seeing their texts. so if your interested please HMU and let's see where it goes from them

Hi there! Once again, just trying to see if there is anyone out there for me, or if I've missed my chance. I'm a single dad to 3 boys ( 13, and twins that are 11), that until recently hasn't had much time or luck for dating. I'm not a fan of the dating apps, so I'm here trying my luck. I keep to myself most of the time, I have a little house out in the country, it's very peaceful and would love to find someone to share it with.
I enjoy going to baseball games, hockey games, traveling on weekends to go find the best taco’s in the state. Maybe a random adventure to go vintage shopping at flea markets… who knows it could get crazy… Recently I’ve fallen involve with cooking on weekends with the slow cooker, so finding someone to try new recipes with would be an added bonus
I loooove music, so finding someone that would like to camp out at music festivals for a weekend with my friends and I would be amazing. I do enjoy being outdoors, during the summer I can be found lying in the hammock outside for hours. I'm not really into social media , or politics, but feel free to bounce random conspiracy theories at me while we cuddle by the fire. Also, not really a drinker but I’m very 420 friendly.
I'm just looking for the old deep best friend type love. The type where we love doing things together, but also don't need to be tied at the hip. So, to save you from reading more random ramblings, if any of this sounds good, I will be here... Also, I should put that I am looking for an actual in person relationship. If you're not within a reasonable distance to PA, it won't work. I'm looking for more than a penpal or endless messages, I need something in person and real please :-)

I have a chronic illness and I’ve been with my employer for several years. Over time the severity of my illness increased. When requesting time off for Christmas last year, I was informed that I was “maxed out” my “unlimited” PTO without any type of warning in advance. All that time off last year was mainly towards my illness and I was never even informed that we had a max. This, I was not able to take any vacation time for the holidays. This led to a meeting with HR where they mentioned that my sick and vacation time were both lumped under unlimited PTO. Everyone else that hasn’t made the 5th year mark at the company gets specific hours towards sick time and vacation.
At the time, the woman from HR had recommended that I file for FMLA to be able to safely take the time off I needed without it counting against against my vacation. I was approved with an ADA accommodation and I was allowed a few days a month for intermittent FMLA sick time. A couple of months ago, the person in HR working on my case left, and someone else had taken over who did things a bit differently. They were now actually logging it under PTO, but previously it was only logged as “FMLA”. I never spoke to them about it because everything seemed to be fine, they never informed me of anything that the person beforehand made a mistake or anything.
Fast forward to today, I had requested a total of a week and a half of actual vacation time split up in the next few months. I got a call from my manager I informing me that she spoke to HR and stated I used nearly all my PTO again and that the full time I had requested off couldn’t be used. I have only taken 2 vacation days so far this year, everything was used for FMLA. She said while she only sees that I hadn’t used actual vacation time on her end, it still gets lumped in and I had told her I was told something completely different when I first started FMLA late 2023. She said that my FMLA was used towards my PTO and that it should have been unpaid, but previously it wasn’t and I was still getting paid for that time. Now they are saying that if I do take anymore FMLA time it will be unpaid and I have no vacation time left at all for 2024.
I don’t know what to do since the person that handled my case left and we talked through video call about everything. I don’t have anything in writing confirming what she said about FMLA being paid without it getting by counted towards my PTO. Are they allowed to use my FMLA sick time towards my actual vacation, and are they legally supposed to inform the employees who are on “unlimited” that there is a specific limit? Am I able to push back on them because of this? I really don’t think I can go another holiday season without seeing my family again.

The master of ceremonies glanced at the paper in his hand, and a glimpse of confusion showed on his face.
Something was wrong.
“And the third and last team representing Farcrest. Lowell’s Orphanage!”
Elincia clung to my arm, fear and impotence reflected in her expression. We were supposed to be called Rosebud Fencing Academy during the tournament. I clenched my jaw and glanced across the pavilion, giving [Awareness] free rein. Lord Osgiria gave me a mocking look.
I cursed. Among the nobility, everything was appearances. The fact that Farcrest had to resort to a poor orphanage for representation spoke badly about the state of affairs in the territory. The nobles around us exchanged funny looks.
“Keep your heads up. That’s our call,” I said, loud enough for the whole pavilion to hear us. If nobles thought this would weigh upon our shoulders, they were wrong.
Ilya took position by my right as the team captain, and we entered the crescent-shaped arena. The cheering died. Our magnificent uniforms didn’t fool the crowd anymore. I reached the Marquis's side and saluted the VIP box. Only after Prince Adrien started applauding did the rest of the nobles acknowledge our presence.
The commoners in the stands hesitated to cheer for us. This wasn’t a gentle world. They didn’t care about the kid’s feelings. I glanced over my shoulder. Wolf was unfazed, and Zaon moved his lips, repeating, ‘Nervous is good’ repeatedly. Firana, on the other hand, was furious.
“Tough crowd, uh?” I muttered.
“It’s only expected. Orphans don’t get good classes. There is no reason to cheer for us,” Ilya replied with a grin. “Yet.”
Did she look so mature back at the carriage?
The crowd’s attention lingered on us for an instant before the next team entered the arena. To my surprise, a single team represented the royal family: a group of cadets from the Imperial Academy. Five young cadets dressed in plain black, guided by Holst, entered the arena. The crowd came back to life. Considering the opulence of the other teams, the uniforms of the Imperial Academy cadets were disappointing. Even my group was better suited to the occasion.
Holst stood by my left, saluting the stands with a dull gesture.
“Robert Clarke, good to see you still among the living,” he greeted me with a bored tone.
His words, however, sent a shiver down my spine. Did he know assassins had tried to kill me a few days before? Captain Kiln had sworn to keep it a secret. The coincidences piled up. Holst knew about the attack and asked Lyra Jorn’s help with the library when Luzian Abei had a small army of Scholars and Scribes at his disposal. I couldn’t help but think Holst was still in contact with the culprit.
“Preceptor Holst,” I coldly greeted, my brain too busy to formulate a more wordy sentence.
“I didn’t expect to meet my former students,” he added, looking past me at Ilya and the kids. “Certainly not in these circumstances.”
I swallowed my anger. This was a golden opportunity for the orphanage. Watching the skill of the imperial cadets could help me understand why Sir Janus had been the only commoner in Farcrest to assist the Imperial Academy. Even if we lost the tournament, we could improve our chances of getting them accepted into the Imperial Academy, putting them in the same echelon as nobles.
“Do you trust the ability of your current students to win the tournament?” I asked, examining the cadet’s faces. Three humans, a half-elf, and a harpy. They didn’t seem thrilled to be part of the tournament.
Holst laughed.
“These idiots aren’t my students. These five failed their first year. If they don’t win the tournament, they will be kicked out of the Academy,” he replied, shrugging. “For failures like them, I’d say they are the favorites to win the tournament.”
A glance at the Imperial Academy team revealed their strong shoulders and steady feet. Despite the lack of fashion, they looked like trained warriors instead of pampered noble kids. Their faces had lost the roundness of childhood, and their calm demeanor and sharp eyes revealed an intense training regime. I hoped not to bump into them until the later rounds of the tournament.
Our conversation was cut short because the Osgirian teams entered the arena. First, Lord Osgiria, then Lord Nara, and finally, a man dressed as a knight, followed by a group of kids in mismatched uniforms—each one with the colors of their respective houses. Lord Osgiria stood by Holst's side and greeted the VIP box.
If Captain Kiln were right, our team would fight Lord Nara in the first round. I expected the man to be a merchant with a comically large belly. Instead, he looked like a cunning gray fox. I had to remind myself that buying a way into nobility required a skillful negotiator.
“Three teams, Lord Osgiria? You don’t seem too confident in your chances,” Holst casually said.
The Imperial Academy had to be a powerhouse within the kingdom because Lord Osgiria swallowed any snarky remark.
Lord Herran, a tall and muscular redhead dressed in full warrior attire, entered next. I remembered him from the feast—boisterous, talkative, determined. The black mana-repelling axe hung from his belt, causing my stomach to feel sick if I looked for too long. House Herran only had two teams, one led by Lord Herran himself and the other by a man who could be his twin. Only half of the team members were human; the other half were different flavors of beast folk.
More than half of the kids had bright red hair like their lord. I wondered if red hair was a dominant gene in the Herran Dukedom because the kids looked healthy. There was not a trace of the infamous Habsburg chin. They were tall and robust like their lord.
I tried to glance at the axe’s runes, but Lord Herran was too far away.
“That’s lord Herran and his army of copperhead bastards,” Holst pointed out, laughing at his joke.
I doubted that having a dozen children the same age was normal, even more so for a noble, considering how difficult succession could be. Lord Herran must’ve loved to spread his genes.
“It’s okay for him to present his… illegitimate kids in an official event like this?” I asked.
“Do you like gossip, Robert Clarke?” Holst raised an eyebrow.
“I like to be informed,” I replied.
Holst seemed satisfied with my answer.
“Lord Herran is one of the few Combat Prestige Classes in the kingdom. He has the [Conqueror] Class,” Holst replied. “It’s only natural that he can do whatever he wants. Not even the king has enough power over Lord Herran to stop his… reproductive impulses.”
I nodded. The relationship between the royal house and the great three dukedoms was more complex than I initially thought. According to the stories, Combat Prestige Classes were, in essence, one-man armies that could create whole countries around their power. I wondered what kind of monsters the royal army found in the Deep Farlands to be obliged to retreat.
After Lord Herra, Lord Gairon entered the arena. The Gairon House was arguably the second most powerful family after the royal house, and their uniforms reflected their status. The blue was rich and deep, and the gold shone under the winter sun, seemingly casting the few clouds away. The crowd yelled and cheered. It wasn’t surprising. Lord Gairon was a tall, tanned man with hair the color of ripe wheat—the perfect poster boy and leader of the anti-war faction.
“He has to go down if we want the royal faction to have a chance,” Holst said.
It suddenly hit me. Holst and I technically supported the same faction.
“Lord Gairon is also a Prestige Class?” I asked.
“A [Sacred Knight], yes. Rumor says he reached the mythic level sixty,” Holst replied. “Let’s hope their teams are more… farming inclined.”
The crowd became more tame after the three big houses made their entrance. Lord Vedras received less than half of House Gairon’s support, probably because of the tax disputes between Farcrest and the Vedras dukedom. He had brought three teams.
Duke Jorn’s presence almost caused the arena to become completely silent—Holst told me he was also a high-level Prestige Class, a Shadow Stalker.
“That sounds dangerous,” I pointed out.
“Sellen Jorn is one of the most dangerous men in the kingdom. His mere existence was enough for the king to create a whole new duchy,” Holst said. “Take an Assassin and a Shadow Fencer, mix them, double their powers, and then double them again. That’s a Shadow Stalker in a nutshell.”
I tried to imagine it. The Assassin who attacked the orphanage would have had a hard time with any class without a skill like my mana blades. I had been lucky to have a favorable matchup against him; otherwise, I might have been dead. His capacity to disable my movement was scarily effective. A man with the skills of an Assassin and a Shadow Fencer had dangerous implications.
“Prince Adrien wanted Sellen Jorn as his Master of Assassins, but he didn’t want to leave his people in the north,” Holst said. “Walls, doors, bars, locks, nothing can stop a Shadow Stalker. Only the woven barrier of several high-level Fortifiers can stop him. Or so it’s said.”
Gears turned inside my skull. I wondered if Duke Jorn was involved in the disappearance of the evidence of Raudhan’s poisoning. He certainly had the skill to move unnoticed through the Great Hall. Stealing a box with shards of glass would be a walk in the park for him.
The rest of the teams passed in a blur as my mind reviewed the party's events. Sellen Jorn was undoubtedly suspicious. His lack of presence was as unnerving as it was useful for an infiltration mission. Could he be involved in Raudhan’s poisoning? Lord Vedras had denied the existence of any co-conspirators, and we were almost entirely sure that Raudhan hadn’t been poisoned by Ashroot.
Duke Jorn's political positioning was hard to determine. The northern dukedoms were poor, and just like Farcrest, they served as a bulwark against the Monster Surges. Four families controlled most of the kingdom’s economy and politics. House Gairon, House Herran, House Osgiria, and the Royal Family. The northern dukedoms didn’t benefit from the current trade routes and wouldn’t directly benefit from a new trade route into the Kingdom of Tagabiria.
However, they would benefit from a closer relationship with the royal family.
Duke Jorn had no reason to poison Captain Kiln.
Ilya tugged the sleeve of my jacket, bringing me back to the present. The master of ceremonies was finishing a long speech about the legacy of Stephaniss of Farcrest, the previous lord of the city and the Marquis's grandfather. Even the Marquis seemed bored.
“Prince Adrien will draw the matches for the first round!” The master of ceremonies announced.
Prince Adrien came forward, and an assistant brought a glass bowl filled with small wooden rods. He put his hand in the bowl, picked one randomly, and passed it to his companion. The woman dressed in purple read it out loud, her voice magically amplified. Her pleasant contralto voice made me think she was a singer.
“House Nara versus…” she received the second wooden rod. “Lowell’s Orphanage!”
Just like Captain Kiln had warned me.
I didn’t expect us to be the opening fight. The other teams returned to the pavilion, and a group of Scribes carried the System Shrine Shard embedded in its copper nest to the center of the arena. I assumed it was there to ensure all participants met the requirements for the tournament.
“Let’s go, team,” I said.
We formed next to the Shrine Shard and in front of Lord Nara’s team. The master of ceremonies activated the blue orb, and the kids' names, classes, and levels appeared before us. Luckily, Lord Nara and I were exempt from the crystal ability. Being outed as a Runeweaver wasn’t part of my plans.
Belya Nara, Geomancer Lv.3
Arel Nara, Warrior Lv.5
Lino, Soldier Lv.9
Jan, Archer Lv.3
Aiwin, Courier Lv.7
Firana Aias, Wind Fencer Lv.1
Ilya, Hunter Lv.2
Zaon, Classless Lv.1
Wolf, Classless Lv.1
The System prompts might have been big enough for the crowd to read because a murmur rose from the stands. I didn’t need [Awareness] to understand the commotion. Half of my team was classless in a world where Classes were everything. Lord Nara also seemed to notice the discrepancy between our teams.
“I’m feeling generous today, Mister Caretaker. I will gladly accept your surrender and spare you the embarrassment if you apologize for wasting our time,” Lord Nara said with a mellow, totally fake voice. “You can save the kids the shame of losing in front of their countrymen.”
The master of ceremonies looked at me.
“What do you think, Ilya?” I asked.
“The team is ready, Mister Clarke. We fight,” she replied without any hint of doubt.
Despite Lord Nara’s clever expression, he was underestimating us. I couldn’t blame him. He had lived all his life in a world where value was determined by class and level. Developing an eye for people wasn’t as helpful as on Earth, where it could mean the difference between life and death.
“We fight,” I said.
“Don’t say I didn’t extend the courtesy of an honorable withdrawal,” Lord Nara grinned, his fox-like eyes turned into thin lines.
The master of ceremonies nodded.
“The Rules are simple. The team that loses the coin toss has to choose its first fighter, and then the winning team chooses its opponent. Then, the roles change. Every team has two picks and two counter picks, for a total of four fighters,” the master of ceremonies explained, pulling a gold coin from the pocket.
I nodded. There was a level of strategy involved in the pairing phase. I could pair Firana against their weakest member to ensure a vast point difference. Or I could choose Zaon to keep things equalized. If I were Lord Nara, I would leave the Lv.7 Courier outside the selection. As fast as they were, they weren’t a combatant Class, but on the other hand, even non-combatants could develop useful masteries.
Zaon had a good matchup against the Soldier and the Warrior, as their combat skills were on the ‘basic’ side of the spectrum. However, the Archer, the Geomancer, and the Courier could present a problem to him. Wolf also had a bad matchup against the Archer and the Geomancer because he relied on solid and static positioning to use his muscles. Ilya and Firana had good matchups against the enemy team, but the enemy Geomancer worried me the most. She wasn’t just an Advanced Class, but a relative of Lord Nara.
“Here goes the coin,” the master of ceremonies said. He threw it high and caught it mid-flight.
Lord Nara kindly offered me the call.
“Heads,” I replied with a grin.
“Heads,” the master of ceremonies said, revealing the coin.
[Awareness] didn’t disappoint, but I made a mental note to keep it hidden from Ilya. She wouldn’t be on board with blatant cheating, even if we had the disadvantage. As cunning as Ilya was, strategy and cheats were completely different.
Lord Nara huffed. “Lino, you go first.”
The Soldier kid stepped forward. He was tall, probably a year older than my kids, but [Awareness] told me he was nervous. Soldier Class was painfully close to no class at all.
“Zaon, you go first. Is that okay with you?” I said, hoping the combination of Light-Footed and Lv.2 Longsword Mastery would match a Lv.9 Soldier with a couple of skills under his sleeve.
Zaon nodded.
It was my turn to choose and Lord Nara’s turn to counter-pick. “Ilya, you go second,” I said.
Ilya came forward, prompting a laugh from the rival Fighter.
“Do you want to fight the gnome, Arel?” Lord Nara asked.
“Yes, my lord. I’m confident I can get a ten-point lead over a Gnome Hunter,” Arel Nara replied.
A vein popped on Ilya’s forehead.
“Good. I chose my cousin Arel Nara for the second fight,” Lord Nara said.
Then, Lord Nara selected the Archer boy for the third fight, which put me in a tough spot. The Archer and the Geomancer were hard matchups for Wolf, and I lacked a fifth or sixth member to play around it. Nonetheless, the Archers weren’t known for their vast arsenal of skills.
“Wolf, you go against him,” I said.
Wolf nodded.
“Which leaves us with the last pair,” Lord Nara said with a mocking smile.
“Firana, you go last,” I said.
“Belya, my daughter, will be my last pick,” Lord Nara replied.
The dueling pairs were ready.
“So be it. The tournament's first match will be between Lino the Soldier and Zaon the Elf,” the master of ceremonies said, his voice suddenly amplified again as the Scribes took the System Shrine orb away. “Contestants, please go get your equipment. May the System bless you all.”
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Okay. I'll try to keep this short. I'm 29F , my ex is 34M. Me and my ex are and have been madly in love with each other since 2019. We ended our relationship due to pride, ego and communication issues and I got in a relationship with someone else and he met a woman as well. He says their situation was more like a fling nothing serious and he was just trying to get his mind off of me, as was i....but he end up getting her pregnant. We both expressed how we want to be with each other and are not happy in our situations. He can't be himself with her, they have nothing in common and he's unhappy. Same for me. I ended my situation but his isnt so simple due to her being pregnant.....now this is where it gets tricky. When he found out she was pregnant (during our breakup and not speaking) he offered to move her into his house to be sure she will have a roof over her head and can have a stress free pregnancy. I assume this will obviously make them closer and possibly results in us never being together. She also has two other kids that he had to take in as well....he says he's trying to find the best way to navigate this situation and be honest with her but he's afraid of stressing her out during the process. But he has let me know 100% shes not who he sees a future with. Am I a fool to sit back and wait or trust what hes saying? Hoping we'll be together? I've never heard of a situation like this but I know that love conquers all (which is what he told me) and we arent bad ppl and we both don't want to end up unhappy with other people. We don't think we will ever find a soulmate again. I told him today that I cannot stomach being a "side piece" and would wait til he's ready to break the news I guess. She's due in September. I'm worried he might not have the strength to leave her on her own with a baby so I feel I could possibly be believing in something thats impossible to happen...has anyone else dealt with a situation like this and has it worked out in the long run?

It was a video where this couple made a plasma cannon. They did a load of different forms with a long barrel and different types of ammo, one of which being orange if memory serves me right. They used it on some watermelons and coke cans and then the police pulled up on them to see what they were doing but left after (i think). I saw it probably in the time period of 2018-2021.

Okay. I'll try to keep this short. I'm 29F , my ex is 34M. Me and my ex are and have been madly in love with each other since 2019. We ended our relationship due to pride, ego and communication issues and I got in a relationship with someone else and he met a woman as well. He says their situation was more like a fling nothing serious and he was just trying to get his mind off of me, as was i....but he end up getting her pregnant. We both expressed how we want to be with each other and are not happy in our situations. He can't be himself with her, they have nothing in common and he's unhappy. Same for me. I ended my situation but his isnt so simple due to her being pregnant.....now this is where it gets tricky. When he found out she was pregnant (during our breakup and not speaking) he offered to move her into his house to be sure she will have a roof over her head and can have a stress free pregnancy. I assume this will obviously make them closer and possibly results in us never being together. She also has two other kids that he had to take in as well....he says he's trying to find the best way to navigate this situation and be honest with her but he's afraid of stressing her out during the process. But he has let me know 100% shes not who he sees a future with. Am I a fool to sit back and wait or trust what hes saying? Hoping we'll be together? I've never heard of a situation like this but I know that love conquers all (which is what he told me) and we arent bad ppl and we both don't want to end up unhappy with other people. We don't think we will ever find a soulmate again. I told him today that I cannot stomach being a "side piece" and would wait til he's ready to break the news I guess. She's due in September. I'm worried he might not have the strength to leave her on her own with a baby so I feel I could possibly be believing in something thats impossible to happen...has anyone else dealt with a situation like this and has it worked out in the long run?

Okay. I'll try to keep this short. I'm 29F , my ex is 34M. Me and my ex are and have been madly in love with each other since 2019. We ended our relationship due to pride, ego and communication issues and I got in a relationship with someone else and he met a woman as well. He says their situation was more like a fling nothing serious and he was just trying to get his mind off of me, as was i....but he end up getting her pregnant. We both expressed how we want to be with each other and are not happy in our situations. He can't be himself with her, they have nothing in common and he's unhappy. Same for me. I ended my situation but his isnt so simple due to her being pregnant.....now this is where it gets tricky. When he found out she was pregnant (during our breakup and not speaking) he offered to move her into his house to be sure she will have a roof over her head and can have a stress free pregnancy. I assume this will obviously make them closer and possibly results in us never being together. She also has two other kids that he had to take in as well....he says he's trying to find the best way to navigate this situation and be honest with her but he's afraid of stressing her out during the process. But he has let me know 100% shes not who he sees a future with. Am I a fool to sit back and wait or trust what hes saying? Hoping we'll be together? I've never heard of a situation like this but I know that love conquers all (which is what he told me) and we arent bad ppl and we both don't want to end up unhappy with other people. We don't think we will ever find a soulmate again. I told him today that I cannot stomach being a "side piece" and would wait til he's ready to break the news I guess. She's due in September. I'm worried he might not have the strength to leave her on her own with a baby so I feel I could possibly be believing in something thats impossible to happen...has anyone else dealt with a situation like this and has it worked out in the long run?