The famous baseballer, Jackie Robinson, he once said: “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” I could not agree more. That is why I try to make as much impact on my faces’ lives as possible. After all, they have done so much for me. It is the least I can do. Unlike them, I need not fear what people think of me. So I can be brave where they are weak. For I will just be someone else tomorrow.

Born in Russia to the Grand Duke Nikolai Kravinoff, Dmitri Nikolaievich Smerdyakov was treated like trash by his noble father and his working class mother. Young Dmitri was approached one day by Gustav Fiers, who was impressed by the boy's impressions and paid for a trip to Karl Fiers academy. There, Dmitri would learn to master the arts of disguise, vocal impression and infiltration, becoming the Chameleon upon his graduation.
He'd move to America and use his talents to pull off high-scale burglary, working for any group that could afford his fee, including the Communist party, Hydra or the Green Goblin. His elicit activity brought him into conflict with the Hulk, Iron Man and most often Spider-Man, all of whom had to act with great caution when the Chameleon was in town. After all, which one of them could tell if that unassuming civilian or their own ally was preparing to stab them in the back?
Dmitri has some mental hangups over his time with the Kravinoffs. He’s managed to repress the memories and considered himself good friends with his half-brother Kraven. In reality, he was more like a whipping boy and slave to the Hunter, and when he has to wrestle with those feelings, he can mentally revert to that scared little boy with no strong sense of identity or independence. But when he’s able to move past these feelings, the Chameleon has proved himself as a powerful, manipulative force, finding his place as temporary Crime Master of New York and member of the Sinister Six.
Scaling

• Spider-Man
• Kraven the Hunter
• Captain America
• Daredevil
• Deadpool

Notes
During one of Dmitri’s mental breaks, he began to believe that he was his deceased half-brother, Kraven the Hunter. So exact was the Chameleon’s performance that he moved and fought with the hunter’s skill and agility. This was an extreme fringe case and there are no other examples of a disguise altering Chameleon's capabilities like this. Physical and skill-related feats from this period will be marked with [KH].
Hover over a feat to see which issue it's from.

Physicals

General

• He’s taken some of Kraven’s potions, which extends his natural lifespan and protects from disease
• Kraven later notes that he only allowed the Chameleon to drink some of his potions, enhancing his strength, although not nearly as much as the Hunter himself

Strength
Unarmed Striking

• Downs a cop with a punch to the back of the head
• Boxes Alexei Kravinoff’s ears, flooring the bigger man
• Tackles and restrains Bruce Banner
• While posing as Tigra, he breaks Mysterio’s helmet with a kick
• Knocks Finesse out with two punches to the back of the head
• [KH] Kicks Alexei in the chin mid-leap
• Hurts Spidey with a kick to the face
• Hospitalized the Shocker

Striking with Weapons

• Floors a man with a suitcase
• Clubs Captain America with a fire extinguisher, flooring him for several seconds
• [KH] Smashes through a ceiling and dives at Alexei
• [KH] Impales a man with a spear, then rams him into a wall hard enough to crack it
• Beats a man unconscious with a pistol

Grip

• Crushes one of Spidey’s tracers in his grip
• Crushes a picture frame
• Crushes a glass in his grip

Other

• While carrying Betty Ross over his shoulder with one hand, the Chameleon uses the other to smack Major Glenn Talbot
• [KH] Holds a wolf away from him
• Carries and fires this absurdly large gun

Durability
Scaling with Spider-Man

• Gets up after a glancing blow from Spider-Man
• Takes a backhand from Spider-Man
• Stays barely conscious after Spider-Man punches him into what looks like a concrete wall hard enough to break it
• Takes two punches from an angry Spider-Man
• While emulating Spider-Man and clinging to a wall with suction cups, he takes a punch from the real Spider-Man but stays clinging and makes an escape
• Spider-Man throws Chameleon head-first into a wall, then smacks him three times, breaking his mask. Despite this, the Chameleon stays conscious and manages to run off.
• Gets kicked in the head by Spider-Man (dressed as Deadpool) but quickly recovers and puts Spidey in a headlock
• Takes a sucker punch from Spider-Man in the Spider-Armor MK III
• [Limit] One casual punch from the Superior Spider-Man knocks Dmitri out

Scaling to Others

• Gets tackled by the Hulk, who was shrunk down to a few inches at the time
• Takes three heavy blows from Daredevil before falling into unconsciousness
• Takes a backhand punch from Kraven
• He gets up after Captain America throws his shield into his back
• Stays conscious after Deadpool punches him out a window
• Takes a punch from Spidey and an elbow from Deadpool
• Gets punched by Whirlwind
• Gets beat on by Teresa Parker

Blunt Force

• Spider-Man punches Vulture, sending the villain flying into Chameleon
• Gets thrown many feet into the air, then falls back-first onto stone
• He jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge and lands in the water below
• [KH, Limit] He’s KO’ed by a woman with a wooden chair
• While disguised as Spider-Man, he gets grabbed and swung around a room by tentacles, at one point getting his head slammed through a concrete wall with no ill effects

Gunfire

• He’s not noticeably harmed after a cop shoots him in the shoulder
• Stays standing after being shot in the thigh
• Twenty minutes after being shot in the shoulder, he’s not noticeably harmed

Vehicle Crashes

• Crashes his car into the Hulk
• Crawls from a crashed HYDRA aircraft
• Unharmed after crashing his truck into a wall
• While piloting a giant Galactus robot, a helicarrier crashes into the robot’s head and the Chameleon’s control room. He survives the crash relatively unharmed.

Other

• He survives after being poisoned and being left in a burning bar by the Punisher
• When Captain America breaks one of Chameleon’s stun guns, the resulting blast melts his rubber face mask, burning him
• He eats a full plate of ambien-laced cookies baked by Aunt May
• Spider-Man webs up a big gun that the Chameleon was using, causing it to blow up in his face. Dmitri gets up right after.

Agility

• Dodges some charges from Hammerhead, first with a sidestep, then by flipping over the mobster
• [KH] Dodges a tackle attempt from Alexei Kravinoff
• He lands hits on Spider-Man pretty easily once the hero loses his spider-sense

Skill

Impersonation
General

• When posing as someone, the Chameleon copies their gait and posture
• When emulating J. Jonah Jameson, not only does the Chameleon copy his personality, mannerisms and body language, but he copies Jonah’s writing style so he can turn in editorials at the Daily Bugle
• [Limit] In 2009, he took the form of Barack Obama and attempted to get sworn in as the POTUS. However, Spider-Man asked the fake and the real Obama a question that only the real Obama would know the answer to, outing the Chameleon as an imposter.
• Mimics Tigra perfectly, replicating her movements, voice and microexpressions
• When posing as a zombie Ezekiel Sims, Chameleon does something to make himself smell like a long-dead corpse

Voices

• Skilled in vocal emulation
• He perfectly emulates voices over the course of minutes after listening to audio recordings or the voices of his hostages
• While posing as the Paris police director, he fools a voice recognition system designed by Henry Pym, allowing him access into an Avengers headquarters
• Can emulate mechanized voices, like Doc Ock’s from when he was a cyborg

Limits

• Betty Ross sees through Dmitri’s Bruce Banner disguise thanks to her female intuition
• Daredevil sees through the Chameleon’s disguises because he can hear Dmitri’s distinct heartbeat
• Spider-Man’s Spider-Armor MK III has a Daredevil-inspired feature built in to the helmet that allows Peter to track Chameleon’s specific heartbeat. This allows him to see through the villain’s disguises.

Combat

• [KH] Fights evenly with Alexei Kravinoff before restraining him with a rope
• Off-panel, he killed a SHIELD agent and a doctor with a pen
• Shanks Superior Spider-Man in the neck with a pen
• While disguised as Spider-Man, he brawls hand-to-hand with Deadpool
• [Limit] Lost a fight to Mary Jane Watson with a baseball bat
• [KH] Slashes two mens’ throats with a single swipe of a spoon

Other

• [KH] Performs a handstand on a tree stump
• Using Klawe’s sound cannon, he blasts MODOK’s psionic blaster, disabling the head’s main weapon
• Leaps from a second story and lands on an awning to break his fall
• Jumps from the back of an aircraft onto the hood of a pursuing flying car
• Nick Fury boots Dmitri off of a flying car, but the villain manages to grab a ladder on a nearby aircraft
• Cracks a locked vault door, possibly using a stethoscope
• Pilots a giant LMD modeled to look like Galactus
• (Poorly) pilots the Iron Man Model 4 before being dropped by an alternate-universe Ghost Rider

Disguises

Realistic Masks

• Originally, the Chameleon employed realistic masks and hairpieces to disguise himself as individuals. He kept these pieces in a multi-pocketed vest, allowing him to alter his appearance on the fly
• After getting one quick glance at Thunderbolt Ross, the Chameleon is able to make a perfect mask of the general’s face in a matter of minutes
• When the Hulk is tearing the Chameleon’s car apart, he quickly changes into the guise of Rick Jones to calm the Hulk, then manipulate him into breaking a friend out of prison
• At one point, he used a gun that squirts fast-drying fluid, which kills victims via suffocation and leaves the Chameleon with a perfect mask of their face
• He once wore four masks layered on top of his plain, white one

Malleable Flesh

• He gets a procedure done to his body that makes his flesh completely malleable, changing in response to electrical stimuli. He also had a specially designed costume that reacted the same way to stimuli. The final piece was a control system built into a belt that could memorize and store any face that the Chameleon encountered. All of these pieces allowed the Chameleon to completely copy someone’s appearance and replicate it through thought alone.
• This exact method of changing his face depends on the comic's art style
  • Most often, the change just occurs instantly between panels
  • It can happens in a flash of light
  • Dmitri's features can melt and morph before reforming into a new face
  • The features can “slide across Chameleon’s head horizontally
• After looking at a photograph of a man, the Chameleon completely embodies him in moments
• When begging for his life, he rapidly switches between a dozen different faces
• When he’s knocked unconscious, his face relaxes and goes back to how it normally looks
• Once made a game out of pretending to be a civilian in need, then attacking Spider-Man when the hero helps him
• [Limit] One time, a very serious Spider-Man shocked and frightened the Chameleon so badly that he let his disguise drop

Other Methods

• Uses convincing costumes when posing as superheroes or supervillains
• Disguises himself as a Statue of Liberty street performer
• Some kind of hidden device emits mist, allowing the Chameleon to change masks and outfits
• Carries a canister of chemical gas that instantly changes the color of his clothing
• Later on, he wears a suit that allows him to instantly change his facial appearance and clothing
  • After confronting Spidey in public and taking a blow from the wall-crawler, the Chameleon assumes the form of a defenseless, old lady to turn the public against the hero
• A high-tech costume can resemble any article of clothing that the Chameleon can think of
• When appearing as someone much bigger than he is, like the Kingpin, the Chameleon uses an inflatable suit
• Poses as a hostage, then uses a hologram projector to make it look like Doc Ock is holding him off a roof
• When working for the Superior Spider-Man’s team of “reformed” villains, the Superior Six, Chameleon used hologram tech to aid in his disguises. This let him appear as Loki, with his massive horns and Asgardian outfit being formed with the tech. It otherwise works more or less like his powers did.
• Most recently, the Chameleon requires the use of a serum to be able to change his features at will
  • As soon as the Chameleon touches someone, he’s able to look exactly like that person. This can also make the other person temporarily swap forms with the Chameleon (or other users of the serum).

Weapons

Non-Lethal
Guns

• Uses a dart gun that instantly knocks a man out with a shot to the shoulder
• Uses a chemical gas gun to instantly knock out Captain America, keeping him out for a few minutes
• A dart gun that leaves victims unconscious and foaming from the mouth
• A stun gun

Injectables

• A syringe full of sedative chemicals that KOs Spider-Man and makes Deadpool woozy for a minute until he heals
• A syringe hidden in a prop torch puts Spider-Man to sleep immediately
• He injects Spider-Man with a poisonous chemical. It brings on extreme nausea and vertigo, then later knocks Spider-Man out for two days straight.

Other

• Snuck into Captain Stacy’s room and administered a few drops of sedatives to Stacy’s decanter. This kept him unconscious all day, allowing the Chameleon to assume his identity and steal priceless pieces of art.
• An aerosol can of sedatives
• One time, he coated his clothing in an odorless sedative chemical. When Spider-Man grabs him by his jacket, the hero falls unconscious in a matter of seconds.
• Gas grenades
• He uses some kind of electric weapon on a shallow body of water, shocking Spider-Man, Husk and Deadpool into unconsciousness

Lethal
Guns

• Normal guns like rifles, a shotgun and a handgun
• A silenced handgun
• A revolver
• A double-barreled shotgun
• He wields a one-handed launcher that carries a variety of capsules, including cyanide gas canisters and concussive explosives
• An absurdly large, Liefeld-esque gun that blows up a computer station
• A energy-based handgun with explosive firepower, used to blast a large hole through Deadpool’s torso and later turn a concrete wall into rubble

Injectables

• A poison ring that would’ve injected JJJ with a lethal dose during a handshake
• [KH] Shoots Spider-Man with a poison dart that would’ve killed him in ten minutes if he didn’t take the antidote

Other

• Usually carries a dagger or other kind of blade
• A grenade
• A small, box-shaped time bomb
• He once used a Man-Thing parasite to protect himself from gunfire and form combat applicable branch-like tentacles

Other Equipment

Field Gear

• Smoke pellets
• When posing as Spider-Man, he used a web-gun to emulate the hero’s web-shooters, although the webbing wasn’t as strong as Spider-Man’s
• While posing as Spider-Man, the Chameleon utilizes suction cup-covered gloves and a web gun to replicate Spidey’s wall-crawling and web-slinging
• A tracking device
• Nose filters protect him from a cloud of cyanide gas
• A jetpack with enough fuel to fly for nearly a full hour
• Typically restrains victims with rope and gags

Base Installations

• Uses a modified radio to send a message across New York that only Spider-Man could hear
• Uses a machine to swap memories with Captain America
• One lair boasts a chair that can be lowered into a pit of acid, used to destroy bodies
• Rigs his lairs to explode if they’re compromised
• He detonates explosives in one of his hideouts that releases napalm-like flames

Other

• He’s helped to design Life Model Decoys that look exactly like Richard and Mary Parker with the goal of investigating Peter Parker and finding out about Spider-Man’s identity. While the false Mary developed a conscience and defied her programming, the false Richard was outfitted with a combat form.
• He holds a gun to the head of a simulacra of Mary Jane. When Spidey determines it’s a fake instead of his real wife, it poofs into smoke.
• Robots that drive his escape vehicles

Miscellaneous

• After coming across a cave full of assorted scrap mechanics, Chameleon builds a missile from the pieces. He later says he “found” the missile, so who knows. At any rate, the missile is strong enough to KO the Hulk when they collide.
• One time, he inexplicably escaped from Spider-Man’s grasp and disappeared from the room
• He kidnaps Spider-Man and imprisons him in Ravencroft Asylum. He then unmasks the hero, puts a realistic mask and straightjacket on him and attempts to gaslight Peter, through the use of psychoactive drugs and fabricated evidence, into believing he’s another man named Herbert Smith. This ruse does convince Peter for a good while until he later remembers his life with Mary Jane.
• He implies that he might be able to disguise his psyche from the telepathic X-Men member, No-Girl, although the claim is not actually proven
• Off-panel, he killed a man, cut off his face and used it for a temporary mask

Monica Rappaccini: I apologize for the delay in initial payment, but we first had to verify your identity. A.I.M.’s intel had been that the Chameleon was dead- or in an insane asylum.
Chameleon: Yes, well. That would be exactly what I wanted you to think. Faded into the background, imperceptible… that’s where a Chameleon is most comfortable… and where I shall now return.

Leonardo da Vinci

Class: Ruler
True Name: Leonardo da Vinci
Gender: Young-Girl Type
Source: History, Fate/Grand Order
Region: 2017 Antarctica
Alignment: Lawful Summer
Height: 144cm
Weight: 36.5kg
Strength: D
Endurance: C
Agility: B
Mana: A
Luck: A+
Noble Phantasm: B
Scenario Writer: Yuuichirou Higashide Character Design: Simosi CV: Sakamoto Maaya
Main Appearance: Fate/Grand Order
Class Skills
Riding: EX The talent for riding. She controls the dinosaur-shaped mecha she invented this time.
Item Construction: A The inventor aspect of hers is more pronounced this time compared to her artistic side. The dinosaur-shaped mecha exemplifies this the most.
Magic Resistance: B The Magic Resistance skill acquired as a Ruler. Her durability has slightly improved.
Personal Skills
Dreaming Machine: A A series of support-type dinosaur mecha Da Vinci gave up sleep to develop. Each one has its own unique (though admittedly simple) AI that gives them a degree of autonomy, and they all move just as you'd expect dinosaurs to move.
Triceratops: Fiamma (Italian for "flame") Futabasaurus: Mare (Italian for "ocean") Archaeopteryx: Vento (Italian for "wind")
Treasure Checker: B A treasure-tracking skill Da Vinci gained for her very first treasure hunt. While it's normally meant to detect gold, silver, and other similar ores, in battle, it also serves as a form of active sonar.
Shining at Twilight: EX Every adventure has to end sometime. Once the Singularity disappears, it will be as though the treasure hunt never happened. But, no matter how strong the twilight may have been, there was always something bright shining. Although this skill may resemble Dream Upon the Star, it has very different effects.
Noble Phantasm
Unforgettable Summer Vacation, Dream Of White
Rank: A NP Type: Anti-Personnel Range: 1 - 10 Maximum Targets: 1
Dinosaur Summer Goodbye. Da Vinci transforms her mecha dinosaurs into bullets and fires them with her trusty magical pistol. Each mecha dinosaur "round" has different effects. Although older Mystics are usually stronger, Da Vinci's mecha dinosaurs fall into the cutting-edge category, so unfortunately, their Mystic power is somewhat lacking. Fortunately, Da Vinci's ingenuity is more than enough to compensate for this particular shortcoming.
Character
First person pronoun: watashi Second person pronoun: kimi/aitsu/○○(calling them by name with no honorifics) Third person pronoun: kare (for males)/kanojo (for females)/○○(calling them by name with no honorifics)
○ Personality
Although her class has changed from Rider to Ruler, her personality seems to be unchanged. That said, she does seem more curious than usual, and she has to hold herself back from running around excitedly wherever she goes, though that may just be because she's in a Singularity. And who can blame her, since she finally has the chance to experience something she's so far only been able to observe from the sidelines.
Da Vinci had almost started to ask Master to tell her all about the latest adventure, as she always does, but then, she remembered that she would get to experience it herself this time, and flashed an embarrassed, but happy smile.
○ Motives and attitude towards Master
"I wonder what exciting adventure you'll take me on next?" she asks with excited eyes.
Her excitement is about 30% higher than usual, resembling a girl her age, and her responsible side is slightly subdued as she eagerly awaits the thrilling and earth-shattering events she'll experience.
○ Example lines
"Oh, that's interesting! Now, what kind of adventure will you take me on next?" "What should I do, Master? This stegosaurus has imprinted on me." "Goredolf, you're so tyrannical!!!"
○ Character Portrayal in Fate/GO
This summer has a sense of adventure in the air...
That's how the young-girl type da Vinci adjusted her Spiritron Dress with her gaze.
She investigated the various events that have occurred so far, and intends to enjoy them to the fullest.
Although not interested at first, pirate treasure accidentally fell into her hands.
As a result, an unforgettable summer mayhem unfolds.
At the center of this mayhem are Leonardo da Vinci and Christopher Columbus.
Though these two lived during the same period, there is no historical evidence of them ever having met.
The child a young Da Vinci spoke to about her dreams probably went by a different name, and the same is most likely true for the child to whom a young Columbus confided his dreams.
Regardless, the two children set off on different paths, each determined to make their respective dream come true.
It was a promise made just as the sun was setting. Two children talking about their dreams, though whether it actually happened is anyone's guess.
Of course, it has nothing to do with her.
○ Summer Position
Looking at the records of minute Singularities is one of the few ways Da Vinci is able to entertain herself.
"What in the world happened here?" "How did such a crazy Singularity even exist?" She would think about how the Servants who were trapped there must have felt, or laugh at seeing her predecessor's complaining in the accompanying records, even though she knew she shouldn't.
Though Da Vinci had always admired Singularities, she never thought she would get to experience one herself. That she finally has a chance to do so feels like nothing short of a precious gemstone, and she plans to make the most of it in every way she can.
○Connection to other Characters
Steggy She happened to be imprinted when it hatched from its egg. Though she says "Oh no," she doesn't seem bothered at all. Sensing the impending parting, she takes care of the Stegosaurus.
Columbus (as a boy) When they were children, they apparently talked about their dreams. Unfortunately, neither of them have a clear memory of it. He wonders if he (she) has forgotten about it as an adult. Columbus, however, doesn't remember anything in particular as an adult.
Goredolf "Let's enjoy the summer with each other", she thinks. Meanwhile, Goredolf thought, "Well, it can't be helped", and worked hard at cooking.
Protagonist, Mash "Come on, let's enjoy the summer together!" she says enthusiastically. Since the two of them are very easygoing, they go along with it.
Sherlock Holmes I wondered why he wasn't enjoying the summer, but I soon realized it was because his coat was too hot! It can't be helped...
There's no way it can't be helped.
Comment from Illustrator "Adventure to Treasure Island?" That was the plan, so I dressed her up in an adventurer-style outfit with a bikini underneath. I had prepared a character illustration of her wearing a white swimsuit for her Spiritron Dress, but due to various circumstances it was shelved. Since I had the chance, I had it published in this magazine. While the design of da Vinci herself was simple, the amount of work involved in designing the dinosaur-mecha and Steggy was quite a lot. (Simosi)
Notes: • Her True Name is what it says, which is surprising since it's not Gran Cavallo like every other time they write it. Even her in-game profile puts in Gran Cavallo. • Her personal skills, NP, personality, part of her character profile and summer position are all taken from her in-game profile since I found them identical there. • The white swimsuit Simosi was talking about is the one da Vinci wears in her FA.

Hello everyone I am a 32 year old female and I have been dealing with some health issues and I came here for some advice because I don’t know what to do.
Basically for 7 years I have been dealing with constipation, diarrhea, irregular periods, hot flashes, always tired, weight loss, loss of appetite, and constantly nauseous. I also been having a pain down there all the time. Over the past 5 years I have gradually lost weight. I went from 187-141 and I’m still losing weight without trying. Yes, I don’t eat like I used to but I still try to eat a little bit.
I have been frustrated because I been in and out of the hospital. Hired and fired so many doctors because I feel they are not listening to me. Anyways I did the pelvic therapy that they wanted me to try for the pain down there. It didn’t work I still have that pain. They did a colonoscopy and endoscopy and found nothing. I also was trying to get pregnant for 3 years and could not. They told me it was because I smoke, mind you, I have 2 kids already and I smoked before I got pregnant with both. I have been wanting them to look at my reproductive organs but they didn’t refer me instead they just diagnosed me with IBS. But when I researched IBS all of my symptoms are not associated.
I just want to know where else can I get help from? I am a black woman and feel we are less heard and the more tired I become the scariest it is for me. I used to be able to do more stuff. I’m lacking around the house. I’m lacking in my motherhood. The only energy I have is to go to work and that’s because I have to. I’m a single mom. I just want to go back to being the fun mom full of energy like I used to.

What's up all! 4th Wall here! I finally have power returned to my home, and can play a little catch up! This one's a heavy hitter, No NSFW needed (I hope) but if you've got kids, be warned.
First, Previous, Next
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A bright flash of blues and whites spat a greyish black object into normal space a mere one hundred Clicks from physical asteroid cloud that provided a natural barrier into the Lurix system. USN Olyvia’s drives instantly flared to life, and she made for the outer edges of the asteroid field with a purposeful stride. The senior Crew was at hand, having alternated shifts so they were well rested for this endeavor. Captain Correllus Grarzia shifted in his chair slightly, watching with interest as his star helmsman switched from his standard control configuration to a more “analog” twin joystick and pedals. ‘The kid really should be piloting a fighter’ he mused just as the young lad turned to look at him. “Ready, skipper”

“Take us in. All ahead slow.” Cory ordered calmly, before keying up the ship wide broadcasting channel. “This is the captain. We’ve just entered the Lurix system. Rig for silent running. I repeat, rig for silent running.” All across the ship, nonessential systems were shut down; their lack of electronic signature aiding the stealth coating on the bulky former troop transport. In engineering. Patrick, Cammy, and the rest of their section powered down a large portion of the larger systems onboard.

Life support was set to emergency backup, with old school oxygen candles lit in special housings that allowed their life-giving emissions to be circulated throughout the ship. Each major section of the vessel had their own supplies of these low-tech solutions, and Olyvia carried enough of these candles to survive for several days without functioning life support if needed.

Only a few were lit this time, using them as an augmentation to allow for minimal use of their perfectly functioning life support systems; and Cammy returned from the compartment just in time to aid in shutting down two thirds of Olyvia’s fusion reactors. This was not usually part of the silent running protocol, but Cory had added it for this mission. While they knew where their target would be, they still knew very little about what defenses awaited them inside the system.

Patrick keyed up the mic, “Engineering reporting in, silent running.”

*acknowledged* came a voice back. And Patrick leaned back in his chair just as Cammy arrived. “Well, that’s that.” He sighed.

Cammy stepped behind his chair, rubbing his shoulders for a second, “candles are lit. Two per section. At this rate we won’t run out for a year.”

Patrick chuckled, standing before looking over at his team, “sandwiches are in the mess hall. Half go now, half after. We’ll wait and go with second shift.” The team nodded and soon. The room was half as full. “Hurry up, and wait” Patrick mused, and turned to the rest. “Hold’em anyone?”

Over the next several days, shifts were kept short with a high rotation frequency. Olyvia picked her way through the natural minefield created by a destroyed world, slipping between the dead planetary shards with deadly caution. She ran quiet, with all but minimal deflectors shut down, and a single detuned laser online on each of her flanks as a last resort against impacts. Cory, Jesse, Patrick, and Cammy met regularly to keep tabs on the ship’s progress. The admiral’s transmission had reached them in time, and the four of them, plus Jacky when she could pry herself from the infirmary, worked to formulate a plan to get into the freighter without killing everyone. They had Hera and Jacobs reports, but those reports also admitted to a certain degree of incredible luck on their part. Things could have gone very differently, and the murder of the freighter during the admiral’s capture operation hinted at a change in tactics from their foe.

Mackenzie’s Privateers had liberated several freighters since they began operations, keeping to their cover as “pirates” by leaving nothing big enough to betray their secrets behind. A few of the other captains had left pieces of inoperative Unity tech, strategically damaged and jettisoned after the fight, as red herrings to convince both the Vorath, and the Thermians that these “pirates” had somehow gotten ahold of Unity warships.


Cory stepped into the cargo bay to meet Patric and Camorra. They were tinkering, carefully he hoped, with one of Olyvia’s harpoon missiles. It was a project triggered by Cammy’s brilliant, if outlandish, idea. “We know these freighters all ran the same codes, and the same infrastructure in their computer cores. Why can’t we hack it. Human computing should be perfectly capable of it.” Cory remembered her words as he stepped up to the two, “at ease” he waved them away as they threatened to salute him, “how’s out little project coming.”


“See for yourself” Patrick smiled handing him a data pad.

Cory took the offered device, quickly scanning through the data, “All I see is Olyvia’s system logs. Did you give me the wrong one?”

Patric smiled evilly, “that is coming from the missile, we found a common power regulator chip that dam near all Delmar freighters use in their integrated core management. Our mole here mimicked that regulators protocols to get into one we installed in a conduit over there” he pointed to an open panel. “It’s designed to cycle through several common chip sets and protocols to get access.”

“You hacked Olyvia?” Cory asked, eyebrow raised in a combination of amusement and irritation.

“Well, “Cammy said calmly, “we had to test it, and Oly’s the only ship close enough…”

“I see…” Cory mused, “it will have to do, we will be reaching the edge of the field in three days, how many of these can you have ready?”

Patrick scratched the red stubble punctuating his jaw line. “Hmm two, maybe three, including that one.” He winced at his captain’s expression, “took us a minute to get the virus right, sorry.”

Cory sounded to himself like a broken record, “I guess that will have to do as well. I’ll leave it to you.” He turned to return to his office but was interrupted half way there by an urgent request for his presence on the bridge.

Jesse rose to greet him as Cory stepped into Olyvia’s command center, and he nodded towards the ready room off to the side. The two of them quickly stepped inside and Jesse closed the door. “Jesse, what’s this about” Cory asked, settling into his desk chair.

Jesse, his first officer, and battle born brother looked at him seriously, “The first of our stealth probes have made it into the system proper….. It’s not good” He tapped at his data pad before handing it to his captain, “The enemy is doing something big down there, and we don’t know what. What we do know, Is that there are three heavy cruisers in orbit, and three more destroyers in floating patrols around the system.”

Cory scrolled through the pad as his first officer made his report, pausing at the same information on the planet’s surface, “These are military installations. This makes no since. We haven’t had a use for Lurix in millennia. It’s always just been a haven for aquatic and semi aquatic species. Why didn’t our intel warn us of this.”

Jesse nodded grimly, “I don’t know for sure, but I have my suspicions.” He reached over, tapping at the tab to open a particular file Cory had yet to find. “We found these in orbit as well.” He pointed to a pair of Delmar constructed freighters, parked in orbit over the marsh world. “I authorized a single transmission to a single drone, uploading Patrick and Camorra’s hacking program into it, and we sent it to one of those freighters... this is what we found.”

Cory opened the indicated file, and felt bile rise in the back of his throat as he watched. “Ready a tight beam, send it back the way we came, Towards Simo.” Jesse looked at his captain in understanding. The risks of transmitting this close to the enemy was a grave risk. Measured against the information they just witnessed; however, it was an absolute necessity. Jesse took the offered tablet, “The Admirals need to see this…. Both of them.”

————————————————————


Clint Stevens groaned as his communicator beeped from his desk. It was a very early morning on a weekend, and Frie had let Natalie stay at her grandparents for the weekend. He quietly slipped from the entanglements of a profoundly comfortable Delmar goddess he had somehow been gifted with as his wife, and silently cursed the inevitable destruction of his plans. The Com was linked to his computer console, and Clint tapped the file as he sat down.

The file opened, beginning with a grim looking Corellus Grarzia who made an intro statement that froze Clint in his thoughts. Before he could begin to prepare himself, images flooded in that turned grogginess into razors edge consciousness ringing with a white hot fury. Frie was ripped from her slumber instantly, reaching for her biometric pistol safe as a response to the unbridled rage she experienced from her husband. It took her a moment to realize that they were not being attacked, and she rushed from their bed, neglecting even basic decency to be by his side.

The two of them watched the Horrors unfold. Children… small children of multiple different races, stacked in a freighter’s hold like cattle, being thrown food like one would an animal. Massive screens played, promising safety and full bellies should they only but kiss the hand of a severe looking Vorath female. All who had not, were treated to daily ice cold sprays mixed with random beatings. He watched as desperate older siblings attempted to shelter their kin from the abuse, often times paying the ultimate price for their valor.

Clint and Frie were spared a further assault on their senses by a beeping light, indicating an urgent call from Clint’s adopted brother. Frie slipped out of view, reaching for a night gown as a furious Mac, accompanied by an equal parts shocked and livid Lyrian, appeared on screen.


“You’ve seen it” Clint stated. There were no barriers between them, no formalities. Only pure truth.

“I have,” Mac rumbled. “Why is it always kids..”

Clint shook his head, “I can have a battle group there in two weeks. It’s not soon enough, but.”

Mac nodded sharply, “I’m redirecting everyone not on critical missions. Simo and Kid are already there with Olyvia. Wisconsin is enroute. We will await your arrival….. Clint…” Clint’s eyes met Mac’s in a joined promise that reached across time and space.

“No, there won’t.” Clint answered, responding to Mac’s unspoken statement.

___________________________________________________________

A week later, The Chancellor Thomas Durrant of the Sol Federation perused the latest transmissions from Unity space. He was due for reelection this coming fall, and it was a close race. His opponent was labelling him a Warmonger, as he was an outspoken proponent of a more active role in the struggle against the Vorath, and it was working. The points were closing in the polls, and The Chancellor had not come out on top with the latest debate results. Humanity simply was not interested in further conflict. For the first time in human history, the vast majority of the Human race was content with peace.

The Chancellor took a sip of his mug as he opened a file from Admiral Stevens marked priority, but not top secret and promptly spit the contents in his mouth back into the mug. It was a complete file on some kind of intelligence operation, and Durrant almost wondered if it had been sent to him in error. The gruesome cover video dispelled that notion as the leader of Humanity itself watched horrors thought long dead play out in front of him. Several minutes later, he closed the file, and opened a message prompt.


“Viktor, are you up.” He typed.

*Yea, Tom. I’m up, the campaign ain’t gonna run itself into the ground.*

Durrant snorted at the dark humor, “Viktor, I was sent something. It changes… everything” he typed, attaching the cover video, and the longer form surveillance recording he had found inside the file from Clint. Several minutes passed in tense silence before…

*Jesus Christ, Tom.*

Tom Durrant took a long slow breath, “Do you still have your man at The Post.” He paused before sending, knowing what he was asking.

*Yea… yea I do, Tom. Are you sure you want to do this. This has ‘it will blow up in my face’ written all over it.*

“I know, but this bigger than me. Do it, and announce a press conference to follow if The Post runs with it.” Durrant typed and sent the last message, closing down his console. He stood slowly, feeling his age for the first time in recent memory, and walked heavily to bed.

The Post ran with the story. In the next 48 hours, the “leaked” scenes of tortured children, some barely more than infants ripped its way into Humanities Psyche. The revelations of what exactly was going on behind Vorath lines assailed Humanity, spurring many to call for blood, and Others to cry hoax. Around and around the political commentators debated, and redebated the shocking footage.

Chancellor Thomas Durrant followed through on his word, and was now stepping up to the platform and the Microphone as promised. He stood there for a full minute, meeting the eyes of as many of the hundreds of reporters before him as he could. The weight of his expression prompted a flurry of flashes as camera drones captured the image. Durrant allowed all of this to happen, waiting until the din of activity settled into a heavy silence. “People of Humanity… By now, you have undoubtedly seen the shocking pictures from the far side of the galaxy. Many of you believe it to be a hoax, a desperate ploy for political points. Allow me to be clear. This is no hoax, I received these disturbing images directly from Admiral Clint Stevens, who is marshalling the forces at his disposal as we speak. He aims to do something about these orbital concentration camps, and I support his actions with the full backing of my authority as Chancellor of the United Sol Federation.”

Durrant paused, letting the information sink in before continuing, “to answer the question as to whether this is a political ploy for points. Let me be perfectly clear, I alone released the footage from inside those torture ships, and I do not care if you believe it to be a political ploy. If Humanity can see the atrocities committed to the young innocents in those images and refuse to stand up for them; I no longer would wish to lead that Humanity. Yes, we are few compared to what we once were, but we have a strength that cannot be fathomed by those who chose to side with pure evil. Make no mistake, any being that is capable of torturing and murdering children deserves the title.” The Chancellor of United Sol skewered the silent crowd with a withering gaze, “All of you here know that I have been an ardent supporter of taking a more active role against this pure evil, and my opponent has made a great many statements regarding my supposed “warmongering”. I believe that to debate him further on this matter is as wasteful as it would be irrelevant. As such, I am suspending my campaign immediately. Pending permission from donors and the campaign review board, I will be donating the totality of my campaign war-chest to the purchase of relief supplies and construction of rehabilitation facilities for these children.” Durrant paused as a wave of gasps swept through the room as a volley of flashes assaulted his eyes. “Holding the position of leader of the Human race seems so insignificant in comparison,” he said softly, almost to himself before scanning the crowd. “The election is 4 months away. If you wish to reelect me, so be it; but know this.” Thomas Durrant rose to his full height, “If you elect me this fall, know that I will use the full weight of this office to unleash the full might of Humanity upon this evil, or I will resign from my post and travel to Unity space myself.”

With that. Chancellor Thomas Durrant spun on his heals and marched off the stage.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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Hello. This is gonna be a long one but if you can offer any advice for my family please do. My Uncle is trying to take the house that my Grandmother helped pay for and lives at. It’s really all she has.
I’m a Nineteen year old female and my grandfather passed somewhat unexpectedly from lung cancer when he was in his 60’s. He hadn’t drawn out a will yet. Back in 2012 my great grandmother passed and she willed her house to her 3 sons and my grandfather bought his two brothers out of the house. The living situation with that side of the family had always been very weird. When he was alive, my uncle lived at the house and paid rent to him. My Grandfather also owned a business and my Uncle worked there. When we found out my Grandfather had cancer, my Uncle started taking care of the business for him. By the time we found out the cancer had spread to his brain so he couldn’t make clear decisions and neither could any of my adult family. No one ever mentioned a will. We were all focused on taking care of him.
Then when he passed, my Uncle just took over the business and continued to live at my Grandfather’s house. My Granny has always been mentally unstable (I don’t mean to sound rude) but she has never been able to make clear decisions and now that my Grandfather has passed he’s not there to stand up for her. From what I know, my Uncle started begging my Granny to put the house in his name for whatever reason. I was against this but being a middle schooler I wasn’t allowed to say anything and my parents didn’t say anything either.
When the time came to pay taxes on the house, no one did. My mom got a call saying the house was still in my Grandfather’s name and someone could be in trouble. Somehow the taxes got paid on the house and no one got into trouble but the house to this day is in my Grandfather’s name.
Flash forward to now, my Uncle is 40 with a wife and a 3 year old child living in the house along side my Granny who they treat like trash. I think they want to take the house and put her in a nursing home. As for the business, it closed this year. My Uncle does not pay rent to my Granny and she pays all the bills and the taxes as far as I know. He did pay the taxes a few times that I know of and uses that to say he has claim to take the house. My Granny doesn’t have the mental capacity to fight against or even really know where to start sorting out ownership of the house. She also can’t drive. No one is doing anything because they want to have a relationship with my baby cousin and my Uncle and Aunt. But I fear that this really needs to be sorted out soon because I don’t think it’s legal to have the house in a dead person’s name. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)
I’m pretty sure in my state (Georgia) if there is no will all property gets split 50% to my granny then split evenly between the kids in the other 50%. How can I help my Granny get full ownership of the house and what steps do I help her take? I hate seeing her be used like this especially since this man has been living with my grandmother non-stop for 40 years and he hasn’t been paying rent for 6. He thinks he deserves everything my Grandfather owned. He has no intention of moving out or paying anyone for anything. The house is worth 300,000 on zillow btw but that’s probably a bit off since it’s a very old house built in like the 60’s I think.
I know for a fact my Grandfather is rolling in his grave and is ashamed of this crap. There is so much more to this fuckery that isn’t worth putting in this post.
Oh and I don’t know if this is worth saying but I’m the oldest grandchild and me and my sibling are the only adult grand children. But we were 13 and 12 at the time of his passing. He now has 6 grandchildren.
I will appreciate any advice or knowledge anyone can share with me as I am young and still need to do more research and get a plan on how to go about this.
Edit: I can’t edit the title but I meant HIS name. So sorry. It was midnight when I published this. I reread the post but somehow skipped over that till posting.
Also, I did check again online, the house is 100% in my Grandfather’s name.

1.1 A resonator vector has multiple base modes 1.1.1 At offset fifths all in resonator is laxative 1.1.2 At offset octaves is Parrafin wax 1.1.3 A resonator vector has a few ranges in semitone division C1-C2 Always Rubber C2-C3 Normally Rubber C3-C4 Base Crude C4-C5 Food Grade Oil C5-C6 Laxative Only C7-C7 Flavor Only 1.1.4 A resonator vector is best cured by a filter reds method 1.1.5 A resonator vector usually indicates rubber or a laxative when it is unmessed by the filter reds method 1.1.6 By default a resonator vector is a rubber source of latex rubber 1.1.7 Cured Resonator forms the LaTeX substance which has various functions 1.1.8 LaTeX and Resonator are slightly but not altogether that toxic 2.1 A corpus vector has a physical object 2.2 A beam object is the fluid object and a marimba object is the human object and a membrane object is the drummer object and a pipe object is the stoner object and a tube object is the dauchund object 2.3 Corpus appears in a few range 16.35-120 Roor 120-262 Bacteria 262-512 Plants 512-1024 Foods 1024-2024 Human Related 2024-4048 Human Perephiery Related 2.4 Corpus has brightness or object ID material or object scientifics spread or object alignment inharmonic or object wavy filter or object oily or smoky 2.5 Objects may be made magical by realigning their direct spread to mid 2.6 Objects encode the disease of the person that used it 2.7 Objects yield food tokens when used in correct 3 depth beam tube pipe then cooked with pizza box or otherwise 2.8 Objects have an exact identifier by harmonics or upclicks and version for different variant upclick 2.9 Objects have a serial identifier associated with them which is their direct harmonic offset 3.0 A grain delay vector is a fluid extraction vector 3.1 A grain delay causes a derrick to appear on the signal when configured correctly 3.2 A grain delay should be used on the aboveground portion of crude extraction 3.3 A grain delay pumps fluid 3.4 A grain delay is best used at 1 and -9 or -24 or +12 3.5 Do not exceed one grain delay per extraction as it is the sampled oil derrick 3.6 Do not use grain delay in an ocean or it will cause an oil spill 3.7 Do not generally use grain delay or derrick outside of a fluids extraction 3.8 Do not use grain delay spray or the derrick will break 3.9 Do not use grain delay parameter besides 1 or the derrick will break 4.0 Vocoder is the fluid extractions vector 4.1 Use negative formant to go underground 4.2 Proof the oil at up to total proof at depth 4.3 Use 40 vector for best usage 4.4 Use up to 200 bandwidth for best usage 4.5 Top sample peaks if they are excessive 4.6 Increase fluid flow if possible to reason 4.7 Take fluid from belowground to aboveground with top formant 4.8 Do not use any form of negative total proof or it will be a shower 4.9 Tune after each peak 5.0 Q or eq is the tune process 5.1 Use tune to make a different amount of the particular thing 5.2 Put things all in the right place and resonance to get the detailed oil or water out of a signal 5.3 Use tune to isolate a particular thing 5.4 Use one tune to get your hands on something or use a motor pool tool with classic tune 5.5 Use tune with a network to do maintenance on something 5.6 Use tune to isolate a specific force 5.7 Use tune to create a hormone effect on the body 5.8 Use tune to specify how many hydrocarbon rings something has 5.9 Use tune at octaves for rubber wheels 6.0 Ugandan process saturator 6.1 Saturator gets the commoners on it 6.2 Saturator increases crude oil yield 6.3 Saturator prevents fires 6.4 Saturator adds more content to oil making it less pure 6.5 Saturator is an early stage process not a late stage process 6.6 Saturator causes mutagen to appear in the signal 6.7 Using at least one saturator in extraction makes the oil ugandan method 6.8 Using more than one saturator in the signal makes the oil actually ugandan 6.9 Saturator should be used with radiation surpression protocol 7.0 Vinyl is the ugandan refinery 7.1 Vinyl is the base cost of oil to create one barrel of oil at 221$ for a ugandan barrel 7.2 Vinyl creates stasis noise 7.3 Vinyl at hydrocarbons modification creates the appearance of stereo vinyl signal which is the vinyl chloride 7.4 Only one vinyl should be used in the ugandan method, the initial hydrocarbons source 7.5 Vinyl can be used to isolate pure vinyl chloride with mid side 7.6 The product is always polyvinyl chloride for a synthesis which uses more than one vinyl 7.7 The product is actual vinyl chloride for a synthesis which uses the mid side extraction method 7.8 A specific cure for the vinyl chloride created in extraction method exists 7.9 Vinyl is the rather dangerous portion of the ugandan process 8.0 Tube Amp or get jonnay a sample 8.1 Tube Amp does a minor observation on the signal which is not the actual observation of the signal 8.2 Tube Amp is the process used at the pre cracking stage before pre cracking in the oil field lot to certify oil field purity 8.3 Tube Amp can get jonnays hands on it and make the oil light and sweet crude 8.4 Tube Amp biases the signal towards mutagen 8.5 Tube can deconvolve the foundry observation or keep it the same 8.6 Tube Amp allows for up to three or a twentieth of the sample oil taken 8.6 Tube Amp is generally nonessential but allows for the process to be modified to light sweet crude 8.7 The modification to light sweet crude takes no time 8.8 The process involved may define oil sources further 8.9 Tube Amp is toxic to use as is as a standard signal and a wideband cure exists 9.0 Chanel eq or smelly 9.1 Chanel eq is where smell is observed in the signal 9.2 Adding just one chanel adds 10 times the smell 9.3 Chanel can do basic tasks and even in a pinch more than the standard worker number of chanel could do product work 9.4 Chanel is a perfumes process which causes something to become odorfactant 9.5 Chanel can make a signal less mutagenic substantially 9.6 Endocrine disruption by chanel has a specific cure 9.7 At the foundry chanel causes typical foundry area petrochemicals smell 9.8 Chanel Eq can expose you to something odifacantly 9.9 Chanel EQ is a critical process of drugs sensing 10.1 Cabinet Cabinet puts something in the cabinet, with the garbage 10.2 Cabinet has the garbage bin of all your friends in it 10.3 Cabinet can be used to imply something kept secret, deleted, or otherwise specifically specified 10.4 Cabinet has the bacterial disease of the cabinet on it 10.5 Cabinet is no more dangerous than your garbage bin in your kitchen 10.6 Cabinet can access your garbage bin in your kitchen 10.7 Cabinet is an essential part of home renewal processes to specify which part of the house needed to be renewed 10.8 Renewal process exist for specifying 2 cabinet upgrade 1x12 and 2x12 cabinet can be fulfilled by the renewal system 10.9 Cabinet can cause skin irritation if the cabinet is destroyed 11.0 Amp is the process of a drug addict 11.1 Amp provides a drug addict with reasonable amounts of their drug 11.2 Amp uses the food of the drug addict to generate the smoke of the drug 11.3 Amp is very dangerous and if set to default and not the rock user will kill the user outright 11.4 Amp is a specific process which is used when heavy metals are in the signal like at the oilfield hell which went too deep often amp is used to create synthesis effect in the oilfield hell 11.5 Amp provides Amp MTN DEW to the user 11.6 Amp Unlocks the mail system to the user 11.7 Amp causes many disease and a cure only exist for about half 11.8 If cured amp must be set to specific amp MTN DEW Abilities like Obtaining AMP MTN DEW at a store or obtaining amp MTN Dew by mail 11.9 Amp is very dangerous but I heard you can store marijuana in it 12.0 Gate or medical epitalon 12.1 Gate heals a signal, when the appropriate full poly gate is given at gate inverse gate for the whole range, then the recreational drug is formed 12.2 When gate is given in appropriate range to heal a generic signal and there is a gate inverse gate assembly for the whole range and the range does not exceed healthy and unhealthy there is a vaccine 12.3 When the vaccine is used in the recreational usage there is a battlesedative usage 12.4 A purely recreational use FLIP (few) exists, a purely recreational use CBX (20) exists, REDS medical (156) and BAGS (30) Medical Exist all also using Medical Gate 12.5 Gate has no cure of itself but can detoxify itself and even fetch a signal 12.6 Gate is not a signal router so should not be used to route a signal, this is emergency feature 12.7 Gate has various parameters which are always REDS 9,.02,10,333,-inf in a medical usage 12.8 Many gate have a use to create pressure with nominal pressure, gates can create pressure 12.9 Gates can refine a computer signal to detect right and are involved with doing work on something 13.0 Compressor or Pipes 13.1 Compressor Routes a signal somewhere else 13.2 Compressor Does quality assurance on an existing foundry full product 13.3 Compressor does the engine compression of a car without causing framerate lag 13.4 Compressor can do something on bequest of another pipe 13.5 Compressor has a variable pipe response to different substance, different behavior can be specified 13.6 Compressor in quality assurance should use the same sybian knee and threshold equal one another 13.7 Compressor in quality assurance should not exceed 5 minor acts of quality control 6 or 1 major act of quality control 12 13.8 Compressor causes unsteady supply 13.9 Compressor causes internal combustion in internal combustion 14.0 Delay or phase 14.1 Phase or delay can do surgery at 500 and 1000 and 0 rather third unused there is surgery 14.2 Phase or delay can do a keyboard retrieval or a keyboard flash at 333,666,999 14.3 Phase or delay can do shift register at 5000 14.4 Phase or delay can do manual register at 375,500,1000 14.5 Phase has a specific infinite ammo use at 4000 14.6 Phase has a firearms use at 37.5,50,75,100,200 except in blueprint use 14.7 Phase has a blueprint use 1,2.12,5,10,11.1,15,20,22.2,25,33.3,35,44.4,50,55.5,60,66.6,70,75,77.7,80,100 14.8 Phase has specific blueprint use of the offset of the individual components at the high end 14.9 Phase has splitter use of 5000,2111, and the firearms rate in splitter 15.0 Looper, or Pizza Box 15.1 Pizza box automatically cooks food at minus 20 15.2 Pizza box creates more of the food than you can believe 15.3 Pizza Box allows for the food to be cooked from Pizza Box to Pizza Box 15.4 Pizza Box Allows theft of item when recording 15.5 Pizza Box Is An Obligate Time Consumer Using Wav 15.6 Pizza Box Allows You to Get an Item from the Pizza Box (PIZZA SLICE) 15.7 Pizza Box Only Actually Cooks the Item on Retrieval 15.8 Pizza Box is Not Watertight And Cannot Become Watertight 15.9 Hit Circle (PIZZA) To Add Pizza or Other Food to Pizza Box Directly In 16.0 Frequency Shifter, F(X), Oxidation Reduction 16.1 Use oxidation reduction at exactly 500 Therms of oxidation to cook a food 16.1 Add 11.1 HZ At 50HZ Oxidation Variation to Cook the Food Well 16.2 Change Offset at Oxidation Reduction Parameter Offsetor to Change Food Flavor 16.3 Put an Aircraft literally into the sky by Oxidizing it 16.4 Peroxos, or Base Frequency Shift In Parts of F100 are a critical part of many life processes 16.5 A specific peroxos, lowest phosphors peroxos .01 scanning peroxos is involved with vision 16.6 Peroxos F4100 is involved with life that uses credit stick 16.7 All the peroxos of the intermediary shift between harmonic are involved with life 16.8 Alien Peroxos set outside the reference 261.5HZ Pussy Yeast Bread Harmonic Ledger Are undiscovered 16.9 Different family tree have different total peroxos set (Saplings) 17.0 Power Tools Driver or EQ3 17.1 A power Tools Driver is the old way to disassemble something 17.2 A power tools driver at 300 is the life jacket and at 650 is the bedpan 17.4 A powers tool driver at 1400 is the water filter and a power tools driver at 4100 is the grinder 17.5 A powers tool driver action of all three below 200 50-200 is the cooking request action in classic usage 17.6 A specific powers tool driver action sensor exists for cooking below all three 50-200 total range action 17.7 A powers tools driver with osc unlocks power tools motor action 17.8 A powers tool driver is a worse way to do work than with your hands 17.9 A powers tool driver is good at removing but not adding 18.0 Limiter or Limiter Removal 18.1 Limiter brings in Shadow Company And IDF And Blind Doxxons at Lowest 18.2 Limiter Brings in the Marines at Mid 18.3 Limiter brings in the seals at High 18.4 Limiter causes framerate lag 18.5 Limiter causes A signal to exhibit a perfect quality control even at extreme levels 18.6 Limiter can be used to tame paddles 18.7 Limiter can be used to tame drilling 18.8 Limiter can be used to examine something under a microscope 18.9 Limiter can make the psychoacoustic quality better 19.0 Beat Repeat, or Illformed Glitch Driver 19.1 Glitch Has Large Amounts of Turing Capacity 19.2 Glitch Allows for a signal to be broken into parts automatically 19.3 Glitch has a natural synchro ability like phase 19.4 Glitch has the ability to knacker a signal more than any other effect 19.5 Glitch can cause thought looping when it is combined with a drug 19.6 Glitch involves the usage of more constraints than the other effects vector 19.7 Glitch Phase Decimates the Signal 19.8 Glitch Is the Natural Form of Rocket Leauge Ice Block 19.9 Glitch can be used in gung fu to cure glitch 20.0 Utility or PHEN 20.1 Utility is the medical modifier which enables medicine to function 20.2 Utility is the phase amplifier which allow a phase transistor radio to pick up a signal 20.3 Utility is the suppression signal which yields mid from amidate 20.4 Utility Leads to natural divisions of 6 max 35 20.5 Utility forms methanol when it is prescribed as a compound 20.6 Methanol as utility is critical to curing the body's natural influenza or feedback as the methylation factor 20.7 Methanol as the utility is dangerous as a precursor but not as a component of promethylation medicines 20.8 Utility comes in ethanol above and gaba below at threes for dimerism mixes 20.9 Only one utility should be used unless rezurecting and at its highest it is critical to security signals being sensed 21.0 Reverb or Impulse 21.1 Impulse 10 is the lock unlock signal 21.2 Impulse 5 is the locked signal 21.3 Impulse 20 is the weed lock signal locked 21.4 Impulse 60 is the lucas impulse 21.5 Impulse 120 is the notch impulse 21.6 Impulse 2 1/2 Was Purported but Never Used 21.7 Impulse is always measured at no parameter 21.8 Impulse yields push for 5 second -40-20+35 positive with negative ten second and measured trace at 5 second -60-40+42 positive NANDAND unlocks token 21.9 When attempted 60 and 120 Second Trace were successful but these parameter are lost. 22.0 Auto Filter, or Amidate 22.1 Auto filter is the lettering of the situation 22.2 300 Source 650 Sulfur 1400 Water 4100 SnoreLax Olestra Ketamine 6500 Motion 10000 Tropane 13500 Engine 17000 X-Ray these are the critical amidate to life process nominal 22.3 450 Metal 550 Mains 750 Sewage 850 Treatment 2250 Ethanol 3400 Methanol 4700 Corn Plastic 5700 Plastic 7500 Rimbonant 8500 Soap Use are the natural taxing process of the initial statement 22.4 2000 Gold 1000 Nutraloaf 1100 Starch 1200 Sugar 1300 Glycine 1400 Hydrogen 1500 Pepsi Cola (1600 Peptide 1 1700 Peptide 6 1800 Peptide 3) 4100 Foods these are the nutrient for the system 22.5 131 Female Voice 144 Your Voice 155 Kick Drum 165 Kick Transient 175 Pots N Pans 185 Pots Content 196 Button Mushroom 220 Cache 240 Stash 262 Marisol 276 Clorox 296 Bluewater 300 Source 315 Febreeze 330 Peroxide 350 Nitrate 370 Ammonium 396 Loam 420 Bud 440 Dirt 470 Wheat 496 Soil 512 Potato these are the farm goods for the system 22.6 541 Muffler 581 Transmission 641 Piston 681 Engine 741 Cargo 781 Chassis 841 Fluids 900 Vaseline 999 Nutraloaf 1090 Soylent These are the willis goods of the situation 22.6 60HZ Patient Voice 131HZ Therapist Voice 300 Breath 650 Reanolin 1400 Aquaporin 4100 Cholesterol 6500 Weed 10000 Cocaine 13500 Amide 17000 Lisuride these are the tactical therapist of the situation, normally limited to cholesterol below and tuned to exact bodily process 22.7 -18 Utility This takes 125% 3.00Q to Mid, where a Dual And Dual Q resolves it at -33(MID), and can adjust for the natural armor process of the body -20-0 gate to adjust for the high signal 22.8 5000 Prozac 5100 Benadryl 5200 Scopolamine 5300 Atropine 5400 Benzyldiol this is the resuscitators of the situation 22.9 At 69 percent of 100 percent of the auto filter, 85% resonance is automatic mid 23.0 Drum Bus or Mike Mode 23.1 Drum bus makes the oil automatically virtual like modulator mode 23.2 Drum bus oil is especially good for general tasks, but it virtual 23.3 Drum buss summons the better drummer out of the bus 23.4 Drum bus is able to be flangebent 23.5 Drum bus is similar to communion but just mike 23.6 Drum bus allows for the shape of the item to be controlled 23.7 Drum buss allows for quality assurance to be undertaken 23.8 Drum bus makes the item profiled by mike the drummer from garageband 23.9 Jake the Drummer from Garageband Generally profiles and designs the item otherwise 24.1 Drive Sends the Signal to pikachu 24.1 Drive makes the world on the pikadollar standard above 3 use in chain 24.2 Drive increases oil yield 24.3 Drive is similar to flaring but is in reverse, adds pyrolysis to the product but also flares 24.4 Drive can be used to flare and actually control beyond flaring a aeronautical ship 24.5 Drive can be used for afterburners 24.6 Drive increases the torque of electric engines and their tone 24.7 Drive can be used to amputate a torn limb or saw something when used with osc 24.8 Drive can be used to extract oil better underground with tuning high and low 24.9 Drive is a typical stimulant which assumes the amine profile and is a critical part of transition metals.

I wasn't planning on watching Thrice Upon A Time. I had not liked the previous films and they seemed like a very inferior product compared to the original anime. However, the good reviews and opinions I saw about it encouraged me to do so. I did it with as open and tolerant a mind as possible, knowing that there was a good chance I wouldn't like the film. "What's the worst that could happen? That I don't like it and continue to prefer the original series? At least I'll be entertained for two and a half hours," I thought. What I did not expect at all is the deep feeling of disgust and repulsion that this film provoked in me, in a way that no other film has provoked in years.
I hated the movie from start to finish. I could spend hours talking about the boring action sequences, about its ugly, excessive CGI that ruins the already ugly mecha, about its disgusting hypersexualization of fucking 14-year-old girls, about how Misato's plans don't make sense, about how Last Kiss almost made me tear my ears off, or its plot full of Deus Ex Machinas with concepts conveniently taken by Hideaki Anno from the place that his last name suggests; but the real reason I'm writing this is because I feel like these movies spit on everything the excellent original work represents.
Not only because as adaptations they fail miserably, but also because they retroactively damage the original work (we'll talk about that later).
Before I begin to explain why the rebuilds are bad adaptations, I want to warn that I am going to do a relatively exhaustive review of the 4 films, so this rant is going to be very long, like staying up late on a winter night with chronic insomnia. That said, let's start to see the reasons:
WHAT IS NEON GENESIS EVANGELION?:
To understand why rebuilds fail as remakes, I must first ask you, dear reader: What does Neon Genesis Evangelion mean to you? (it should at least be familiar to you, unless you've spent your life under a bridge) What do you think about when you read that title, apart from Shinji fucking in front of a comatose Asuka? What comes to mind when you hear the most famous opening in anime history, apart from Shinji strangling the otter against Happy Thursday's throat? (in more ways than one). If your answer is: "It's a mecha anime for emos with a coomer protagonist", that's fine, I respect that; but please press the red "X" in the top right corner of your screen, you can now leave.
Now, I'm going to get serious and explain my definition: Evangelion is a work about the hedgehog's dilemma and the difficulties of forming emotional bonds that human beings have, as well as the consequences of trying to separate from them for fear of rejection. It is not a story about heroes. It's not a story about saving the world. In Evangelion there are neither heroes nor villains, but rather a group of emotionally broken characters trying to be happy in a world just as broken as them. The real enemy of Evangelion is not the angels. It is the lack of communication and empathy.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilema_del_erizo
It is that same lack of communication and empathy that progressively causes everything to go to hell to conclude with a cathartic and bleak ending, but consistent with the themes of the work. It is therefore an existentialist work about human relationships disguised as a mecha anime. This, added to a unique visual style, daring direction, and mechas like never before seen on television, made Evangelion one of the most influential anime in all of history, as well as a true commercial success for Gainax Studio. Success that encouraged other studios to carry out projects such as Cowboy Bebop or Serial Experiment Lain, taking anime towards a new golden age.
Even today you can hear the echoes of that Third Impact of End of Evangelion in 1997. The list of works influenced by Evangelion both inside and outside of Japan is endless. Of course, it is not a perfect work, nor extensive in errors: its target audience is ambiguous, many of the biblical references are more for decoration than anything else, and several aspects of the ending(s) could have been explained better. However, many of these errors can be attributed to a lack of time and budget during the production of the original anime (which was quite chaotic and improvised); therefore, they are understandable and forgivable.
In summary, we can conclude that Evangelion is a dark, introspective, provocative and unique work (at least at its time). This is also combined with a unique visual identity and complex characters whose relationships intertwine and interconnect throughout the work. The sum of all these factors is what led Evangelion to be such a critically acclaimed work that it transcended its own genre and became an icon of popular culture. And this in turn constitutes the biggest mistake of rebuilds; because they commit the biggest sin that an adaptation can commit: denying everything that made the original work great.
ADAPTING WITHOUT A CLEAR PURPOSE:
One of the biggest problems with these remakes (as well as a clear example of what I'm saying) is their total narrative inconsistency. Let me explain: the first rebuilds movie (1.11) is a literal copy-paste of the first 6 chapters of the original anime, with practically the same scenes, dialogues and even music. This makes the film completely redundant and unnecessary (and makes one wonder why it exists); But in any case, the message is being conveyed that the purpose of these remakes is to adapt the original series as faithfully as possible to the cinema with a current animation style.
However, the second movie (2.22) is a... something. A pastiche of new and old things where the plot broadly follows that of the original anime, but with many things changed (of course, for the worse) and a different ending. All this compressing no less than 14 chapters of the original anime into two and a half hours. Here the message that one can infer is that it seeks to adapt the original story (very briefly) by changing and rearranging certain elements, now more in line with what an adaptation is.
However, then we get to 3.33 and... well, after a 14-year because reasons timeskip, we're now in a post-post-apocalyptic world (repetition intended) where ex-Nerv members fight against Nerv itself. Nerv in giant spaceships, there are mechas everywhere, Misato is a sociopath, and Shinji and Asuka still look exactly the same because "DAMN JEBA." Here we can infer that what is sought is to create a totally new story and take it in different directions than the original. The following movie (3.0+1.01) is the only one that is consistent with this purpose.
Whether all these narrative pirouettes were planned in advance or not (clearly not), we can see that there is a clear incongruity between what is intended to be done and what is finally done. All of this generates a strong narrative chaos where the elements and themes of the original anime are mixed with the new ones, creating a total inconsistency. Since also in 3.0+1.01 it is revealed (unfortunately to me) that everything is part of the same universe and this is not really a remake, the excuse of "they are different universes, they don't have to be the same" doesn't work either.
In fact, one thing that you will see me comment a lot throughout this article is the lack of narrative consistency of these remakes, especially in comparison to the original work.
A HEDGEHOG WITHOUT TICKS:
No character in Evangelion better embodies the central theme of the work than Shinji Ikari, its own protagonist. Shinji is not a hero: he is not brave. He is not a genius. He is not charismatic. He is not selfless. He doesn't want to save the world. His reason for piloting the Eva is to gain recognition and appreciation from others; especially from his father, whom he hates, but at the same time admires; He feels that she despises him, but he also wants (and needs) that she loves him. Shinji spends the entire series in the dilemma between escaping from what hurts him (classic avoidance behavior) or accepting it and moving on, even at the risk of being hurt again.
This theme is rock solid throughout the entire original series: from the first to the last chapter of the anime, and from minute one to the very end of End of Evangelion. Even the opening itself makes several visual references to Shinji's hedgehog dilemma. This can make Shinji an infuriating character for audiences accustomed to typical anime protagonists; but it's those same things that make Shinji such a unique and special character. He deconstructs and subverts the hero's journey. And it's not as if this hinders the plot: Shinji is not proactive, but he also does not spend the series crying, as many often claim.
https://files.catbox.moe/eolho0.mp4
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomito
And as you may already be imagining, the Shinji of the rebuilds does not have a hedgehog's dilemma. Or rather, he has it, but only during the first movie (copy-paste of the original anime) and part of the second. This is a problem, because it creates a strong narrative inconsistency (again) where it seems that two Shinjis exist at the same time or that this one is bipolar. As of 3.33, Shinji's entire character arc is based on trying to redeem himself for his past mistakes first by unleashing "Almost Third Impact" (what a stupid name) and subsequently preventing Kaworu's death while trying to right said mistake.
Is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. The problem is that I have already seen the arc of the hero who fails to eventually rise up and succeed in 100 trillion works, while the hedgehog's dilemma in none more than in Evangelion (at least in my case). Which makes Shinji a much less interesting character. Some might argue that in 3.0 + 1.01 Shinji does have such a dilemma because he spends half the movie crawling on the ground; but there is not a hedgehog's dilemma, but rather depression for having seen Kaworu's head go KAWOOM (I know, the joke was very bad, but if he didn't do it, I would explode too).
End of Evangelion's Shinji did have such a dilemma because the reason for his depression was having been manipulated and used by someone he had previously opened up to and then forced to kill him, not for failing in his mission (in fact, he was very efficient in her mission to separate Kaworu's head from her body), which in turn brings sexual (and later, deadly) results for Asuka. I insist: narrative consistency. But this is not the worst: the worst thing is that at certain moments in these films, Shinji becomes the typical shonen savior hero, betraying the central point of his character in the original series.
https://youtu.be/E-x-f2OrWeA
A perfect example of this is the ending of 2.22, where the fight in chapter 19 (COINCENTLY from where the original anime starts to get more introspective) is transformed into a ridiculous shipping attempt, with Rei turned into a damsel in distress and Shinji into a savior hero while spouting all the typical cliché lines, topped off with a disgustingly cheesy ending. But of course, how could it end otherwise? With Shinji's Eva practicing cannibalism on Zeruel's corpse (the original scene)? Too disturbing for current times. Shinji and Rei fighting as a team to defeat him? Yes of course. Rei has enough not being in the kitchen. Besides, Asuka already takes care of that, hoping to receive her alpha male's cock as a reward.
https://youtu.be/TPS0Uk0TkP0
Because, like any good modern anime protagonist, Shinji now has a harem.
FETISHING WITHOUT CONTROL:
Of all the characters who are now part of Shinji's harem, the one who is most harmed by this is Rei (Asuka's case is different, and the other character is an infernal creation from Anno's sick mind). Not only because acting like a bitch in heat goes totally against her personality and because of the murky situation, considering that she is a clone of Shinji's mother, but also because her character is reduced to a mere fetish object that does things cute to produce tenderness in the viewer and make coomers buy their figurines.
Rei is an interesting character because he raises numerous existential questions based on the ship of Theseus paradox: the concept of identity, to what extent we can consider ourselves still ourselves, the construction and definition of a "self", etc. But here, her screen time piloting her Unit 00 is minimal (COINCENTLY most of it in 1.11) and her exploits are practically irrelevant or non-existent, also being reduced to a mere damsel in distress at the end of 2.22, as I said before.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradoja_de_Teseo
In 3.0+1.01 he doesn't even get to pilot an Eva. Her role in the film is to cause pity and produce tenderness with her total ignorance (I see that the idiot Anno forgot that all the Reis are born with basic knowledge) while she is seen with different hairstyles, different outfits, working as a farmer, taking care of a baby, etc. In short, a fetish object where she wants the public to value her for how "moe" she is instead of for her abilities or as a character. In Anno's mind, feminism advances in reverse. Ironic, considering that it was precisely Rei who unintentionally started the moe culture.
Of course, it goes without saying that Rei is not the only one who suffers from this extreme fetishization of her character in these films. Under the excuse of paying homage to End of Evangelion, Asuka now always wears an eye patch (needless to say it has nothing to do with having been injured there), a cap with cat ears, in addition to having a very convenient trend for the coomer public of walking naked and semi-naked through other people's houses. She sometimes puts on the plugsuit, but near the end of the movie, it is conveniently torn off, lest we forget that this is made by the Japanese.
One of the best examples of how this hareminication has destroyed the main female characters is in the elevator scene. In the original anime, Rei tries to advise Asuka in a time of particular vulnerability and depression. Rei's limited social skills, coupled with Asuka being Asuka, cause her to misinterpret the attempt to help as mockery and an act of condescension, triggering a slap from her towards Rei and a worsening of her already strained relationship and Asuka's mental state. Rei doesn't fight back because she knows that doing so would only make things even worse.
It is an excellent dramatic scene because it once again brings to the foreground the hedgehog's dilemma and the difficulties between human relationships, very much in line with what Evangelion is. In 2.22, this scene is gratuitously introduced and turned into two horny bitches fighting over which of the two will let their alpha male penetrate first, with a highly OC Rei stopping the assault attempt in a 100% gangsta way to make her see more "cool." The scene doesn't even make plot sense, because Asuka at that moment is not even depressed, and in the original anime this occurs at a much later time under a very different context.
and speaking of asuka...
SOMEONE CALLED ASUKA:
When I started watching these movies, I was afraid that Asuka's character had undergone modifications to make her more "palatable" to new audiences. What took me completely by surprise was how radically different this Asuka is from the original. So different that they can't even be considered the same character. To show it very clearly, we are going to review the personality of both:
Asuka from the original anime: An energetic and outgoing half-German, half-Japanese girl (actually it's 1/4, but who cares) who loves to be the center of attention and have everyone praise her due to the lack of parental love received during her childhood having been abandoned by her father and supplanted by her mother, who suffered from severe mental disorders. She is extremely proud and competitive because she feels that being Eva's pilot is the only thing that gives her an identity and purpose, which makes her tend to become quickly frustrated when things don't go her way and become defensive when she feels like she is being outmaneuvered. . He loves to make fun of others (especially Shinji), to the point of being cruel at times, but he does not do it out of malice, but rather to compensate for his enormous inferiority complex due to the rejection suffered by his mother and having witnessed her. committed suicide (and possibly even tried to kill her) the day she was chosen as Eva's pilot and came running to wish her a Happy Thursday. She admires Kaji and wants to fuck him because she hates her own adolescence, she needs to feel adult and independent due to suffering from a certain Electra complex for having lacked a true father figure during her childhood. She has a sweet and vulnerable nature, but she rarely expresses it to anyone except her best friend Hikari and I better stop this now because too much text.
Rebuild Asuka (hereinafter "Asuka"): A girl soldier created by Nerv as part of a series of clones who has always been alone and thinks she doesn't need anyone, although she secretly wishes to have a family. She hits and insults others for no reason, she yells a lot, never smiles or makes jokes, and hates socializing with others, which doesn't stop her from looking for Shinji's dick within 2 days of meeting him. She always plays video games while someone is talking to her and at night she talks to herself with a doll like an autistic person.
As we can see, these two characters not only look nothing alike: several of their traits directly contradict each other. Because they look alike, they are not even alike in aesthetics: the original Asuka had red hair and dressed in the traditional feminine way, while "Asuka" is light brown and dresses in a tomboy style (which I'm not saying is wrong, I'm just commenting to show the radical difference). It's not that they have changed Asuka: it's that they have directly murdered her to supplant her by someone with whom she only shares her first name (not even her last name). And needless to say, the change has been VERY for the worse.
To describe the first character, I had to spend 15 damn lines, and even then I had to leave out many important facets of his personality, his development in the original series and his entire character arc in EoE, because if I didn't have one endless bible For the second, 6 lines were enough for me, and I could have had more left over if I had been more concise. The first character is a complex and three-dimensional character, with multiple facets, edges and layers. She feels like a real person. The second character is a generic tsundere that you can find in any mecha anime of the week. She is not even comparable to the first; She's not even a good character.
We cannot speak of Flanderization because not even the most basic traits of the character have been respected. Nor can we speak of a deconstruction because that same absence of basic traits means that there is no character construction on which to stand in the first place. Obviously, this change greatly resents the interactions between characters: the original Asuka was a charismatic and fun character with the ability to drive the plot on her own (as soon as she appears in chapter 8 of the original anime she is already changing the entire dynamic between characters) , while "Asuka" is mostly only in the background or to fight; He doesn't even have a character arc as such. In fact, in 2.22 he has even less screen time than several supporting characters.
His chemistry with Shinji is also non-existent (and I'm not just referring to the romantic level) and they barely have any development together. They like each other here because... ehhhh... she likes how he cooks and he thinks she's hot? It's not that the AsuShinji (or ShinSuka, or whatever the hell it's called) here is forced: it's just that it doesn't even make sense. The only reason people still ship them together is because they did it in the 90s. Yūko Miyamura's performance also feels very lackadaisical and lacks passion, which is quite unlike her. Although perhaps this is intentional, since her character always talks as if she has the spear of Longinus permanently stuck up her rectum. In fact, the few times she says her iconic "Anta baka?" This one feels very forced, in addition to not having her characteristic high-pitched tone.
In short, the character has suffered the same fetishization as Rei (gamer girl, tomboy, one-eyed, etc.), but also with the aggravating factor that not even her basic characteristics have been respected here. This is especially disconcerting when we take into account that the rest of the characters have their original personalities more or less intact (albeit simplified). Even more disconcerting if we take into account that Asuka is possibly the most popular character in all of Evangelion, and even more so if we consider that she is Anno's favorite character (in fact, the initial idea was for Asuka to be the protagonist).
https://evaresources.wordpress.com/der-mond/
Given this, the inevitable question arises: "Why?" What was the point of turning Asuka into an inferior and tsundere copy of Rei, even more so when there are already three clones? It has always been rumored that Asuka is not popular in Japan, but that is completely false. The only semi-rational explanation I can think of is that they did it to please the haters. It's no secret that a portion within the Evangelion fandom (and outside of it) hates Asuka with a passion. They see her as someone toxic and cruel who dedicates herself to screwing others for no reason, without understanding that you don't have to like a well-written character.
https://imgur.com/a/KznXE1x
What these people fail to understand is that Asuka's verbal abuse is a defense mechanism to avoid opening up to others, since Asuka constantly says things that do not fit with what she really feels or thinks (clear proof is chapter 16 from the original series). It's not like it matters much, considering they were never more than an extremely vocal minority. That the character is so popular is proof of this. The great irony of all this is that the new "Asuka" is a much more unpleasant and detestable character than the original, since she lacks the redeemable qualities of the original and her moments of comic relief.
And if until now I have been more or less benevolent with this remake, this is something I cannot forgive: because changing a character just because a group of people doesn't like it is one of the most cowardly and pathetic acts in the world. that a writer can fall. The fact that this was also at the expense of one of the best female characters in the history of anime and with a wonderful story arc makes it even more bloody. Any other halfway competent writer would have responded with this.
https://youtu.be/5Js0ea6yPKM
...although if we go by Ockham's razor, the most likely explanation is simply that Hideaki Anno is mentally retarded.
A CHARACTER TO DESTROY A FRANCHISE AND BIND IT TO DARKNESS:
Mari Makinami Illustrious A.K.A María Iskariote (what an appropriate last name) is one of the worst creations ever made by humans. Not since the atomic bombs has humanity created something so horrible. Worse than the holocaust. Worse than fascism. Worse than Facebook memes. Worse than stepping on a lego. I would even dare to say that it is worse than pizza with pineapple. No character better reflects Anno's mental decline or better embodies all the problems of the current anime industry than this trash.
This character contributes absolutely nothing to the plot, he does not contribute at any time to its advancement, he lacks his own development or story, he does absolutely nothing relevant in the 3 films in which he appears, and he does not even have a defined personality. So much so, that all of her scenes could be eliminated or replaced by any other character and she would barely affect the plot, or not affect it at all.
The character is so frighteningly one-dimensional that she doesn't even show different emotions or moods during the three films in which she appears, always being perpetually happy and carefree even in tense situations for literally no reason. This leads to moments as surreal as her starting to sing and hum in scenes that are intended to be serious or dramatic (or so I think; perhaps what they wanted was to turn this into an unintentional comedy), again generating a gigantic narrative dissonance. The last third of 3.33 is the best example of this.
But that's not the worst: this character is clearly made for otaku coomers to masturbate to. She has almost every fetish possible: glasses/lenses (whatever they call it in your country), pigtails, miniskirt, schoolgirl, saying "nya", big tits, obsession with smell and tight outfits, etc. To make matters worse in 3.0 + 1.01 we discover that she is 48 years old, so we can also add the milf fetish. Evidently, her tits always bounce in her plugsuit (she would swear that never happened in the original series) and there are many close-ups of her ass. In addition to constantly making sexual advances towards Shinji, which also turns this piece of shit into a potential pedophile.
If the thing simply ended there, we could say that this character remains a mere annoying and unnecessary secondary character. Unfortunately, the character is also disruptive to the plot, occupying long filler scenes that do nothing more than waste time that is already scarce in a film, and that could have been used on something else more interesting; like Pen Pen watching TV, Pen Pen eating a sardine, etc. Without going any further, both 2.22, 3.33 and 3.0+1.01 begin with a long filler scene of her hitting on her. Well, to be honest, the 3.33 one is more Asuka, but this abortion is still out there fucking and singing.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that discussing why this character exists is much more interesting than any other debate that can be created about these films. I still think about it. However, the ending of 3.0+1.01 gives a good clue: the character was created solely and exclusively to stay with Shinji. I can only imagine that Anno made this tired of the fandom shipping and the arguments over who Shinji should stay with, so he decided to end the matter by creating his own ideal waifu with all the fetishes he likes in a woman to end it. with this. It's disgusting, but considering we're talking about a Japanese, totally possible.
It's surreal coming from the man who harshly criticized the use of anime as escapism and the excessive female objectification and sexualization in it, but it's the only semi-decent explanation I can think of. Basically, he is what is called a mascot character in literature. That would explain why this character never shows doubts, nor any kind of internal conflict, or why he is a better Eva pilot than Asuka and Rei themselves. It is also very revealing about the quality of the Rebuilds: creating a self-insert OC just to be the partner of the protagonist or another main character is the quintessential trait of all bad fanfiction.
However, among all this tsunami of disqualifications, I also have to say something positive: spending three movies giving hope to the shippers only to have Shinji be cuckolded simultaneously by Rei and Asuka in the last one and end up with a character with which had zero development (before 3.0+1.01 I didn't even know its name) is a true trolling masterclass, worthy of the best of ball pumpers. Only a true emperor of evil would have come up with such a twisted and at the same time perfect way to screw over a large part of the fandom. I give you my tens, Anno.
THE ANTI-UNIVERSE OF ANTI-NARRATIVE:
Of all the new concepts that Anno brings up at the last minute from the place named after his last name, none stands out more than the "anti-universe." Or, as I like to call it, the "anti-good writing." Basically because it perfectly represents all the problems of the rebuilds and their script. In the final stretch of 3.0+1.01 we have the last-minute revelation of a quantum plane of existence capable of turning imagined worlds into reality and changing this through Lilith, which cannot be understood by the human mind (wow, WHAT CONVENIENT!) and whose existence has never been mentioned or even hinted at in the entire franchise until CONCIDENTLY the aforementioned last third of the film.
In other words, a gigantic Deus Ex Machina created in an improvised way to avoid repeating End of Evangelion and forcing a happy ending where Shinji creates an ideal universe for each character (although that is questionable, as we will see later). And it is far from being the only one: the spear of Cassius, the Eva of Infinity, the key of Nebuchadnezzar, the Book of Life, and so on. None of these concepts are integrated into the plot in an organic and natural way, but rather they arise spontaneously at its convenience when it needs it. Except for the new "Super Berserker Mode" of the Evas, which is simply a power-up to sell figurines.
As I said before, if at least this were an alternate universe separate from the original anime, all this bombardment of concepts pulled out of the ass would be a little better justified. But the revelation that everything is a cycle and we are in the same universe as the original work only makes it even worse, generating countless inconsistencies about why they never mentioned this or never used that (what's the point of the seeds of life If you can create universes simply by imagining them?). Although without a doubt, the worst of all these new concepts is "the curse of Eve."
Here we have a new concept with very strong repercussions completely launched, which is not even an explanation in itself, it does not answer anything and to make matters worse, the same films contradict each other several times. Needless to say, this is a cheap excuse for the three main characters not to grow up and continue sexualizing 14-year-old girls after the most gratuitous timeskip ever seen. And speaking of timeskip, putting such a long one in the middle of the story is a first-time writing error. If you are writers, never do that: the bigger the time jump, the more things you will be forced to explain, since the less you do it, the more plot holes will form as a result.
And of course, here it explains little to nothing of what happened these 14 years. Like where Nerv got such a tremendous base from, if in 3.33 it seemed that together with Rei and Kaworu it was made up of four people. Or how they have gotten such an army of pseudo-Evas, especially when these are supposed to be extremely expensive (wow, and SEELE with all her unlimited resources was barely 9 in EoE). Or worse yet, how Kaji managed to stop Almost Third Impact (seriously, the name couldn't be stupider). None of these questions are answered at any time. Obviously because they can't do it.
Evangelion has always been characterized by leaving things up to the public's interpretation, but here I feel that they are vilely taking advantage of it so as not to have to give any kind of explanations. And in the case at hand, do not even pay attention to contradictions. Like Touji and Kensuke got on Unit 01 and that doesn't stop them from being 28 after the timeskip. Or that Mari appears to be 14 despite looking like an adult in Gendo's photos and flashbacks, plus the fact that Evas, by simple logic, could not exist back then.
The height of absurdity is when near the end of 3.0+1.01 the "unexpected" revelation occurs (actually we all saw it coming) that everything is a cycle and we are facing a reboot of the original timeline, of which only Kaworu seems to be conscious. He let them guess without giving them any clues how many times Kaworu mentioned or even hinted at such a thing in the original series. Needless to say, nothing is ever explained about it: Who created that cycle? (Adam? Lilith? The First Ancestral Race? Hideaki Anno's last name?) For what purpose? How does it work? How long does it last? Why is Kaworu the only one who remembers him? Do these remakes make sense?
THE DEATH OF A STYLE:
Fortress-cities folding in on themselves. Designs and constructions oscillating between the nineties, the utopian and the cyberpunk. Meshes of flesh and blood animated with the souls of the dead fighting with classical music in the background. A mysterious and ambiguous lore where aliens, technology and conspiracies mix with gnostic, cabalistic elements and the most esoteric aspects of Christianity (did the History Channel predict Evangelion?). Minimalist posters moving quickly between frames. Monochrome backgrounds flashing aggressively (bad luck if you were epileptic). So consistent with its themes that the A.T. fields themselves. They were an allegory of the hedgehog's dilemma (I'm not making this up, Kaworu himself says it in chapter 23).
https://imgur.com/a/2M0eDVK
The sum of all these factors is what allowed Evangelion to build an absolutely unique identity, the one that allowed people to say "hey, that's an Eva!". Starting in 3.33, all that is lost to disappear in 3.0+1.01 in favor of giant spaceships, mechanical mechas made of pure CGI, battles full of colored lights, multiverses and time loops. I'm not saying these elements are bad in and of themselves, but I've already seen a thousand mecha stories with these. For that, I start watching any of the versions of Gundam or Macross. I could also complain about the boring shots without audiovisual language and always using the same color palette, but to be fair, that is an endemic evil of current anime.
And like any bad remake, 3.0+1.01 can't help but pay homage to several scenes from the original work, completely failing to understand the point of said scenes. As an example, we have Ritsuko shooting Gendo for no reason other than to pay homage to End of Evangelion, ignoring that the context between both scenes is very different. Furthermore, here they never explain the relationship that exists between the two, so the scene makes no sense; especially for those who never saw the original series, who will also find mentions of facts that these films have never shown or bothered to explain.
Even worse is when they try to pay homage to the iconic battle between Asuka and the Eva Series. Not only because of the total absence of the graphic violence and choreography of the original, but because what makes that fight so remembered is its emotional component, since it is preceded by a narrative catharsis in which Asuka discovers that the Her mother's soul was always in Unit 02, in addition to being marked by the constant tension of knowing if she will be able to finish the fight before the Eva's energy supply runs out. Here the Evas never run out of energy (why do they need the power supply, then?), so there is no such tension.
In the original fight Asuka may not be shooting 1387945 Evas with a super cannon larger than her as she falls through an... interdimensional hole?; But there you feel every blow, you can appreciate every movement in detail, and the dramatic tension in crescendo only improves the result. If this were a shonen, the logical thing is that Asuka would win. After all, her character arc has been wrapped up in a climactic way. Unfortunately, this is Evangelion. When the Evas Series manage to cause a mortal wound with the pseudo-spear of Longinus and the energy counter reads zero, the outcome is already decided. What happens next is horrific (Asuka's enemies are cruel to her even after she is dead), and just as horrifying are Yūko Miyamura's screams and Miki Nagasawa's performance as Maya announcing that Asuka is dead. In the Rebuilds there are no performances anywhere near that level.
End of Evangelion will be as dark and uncomfortable to watch as you want, but it is a film where all those responsible put their souls into achieving the best possible result, both on a technical and artistic level.
and well, I think that for today I have already downloaded too much, an apology for the large amount of text, I will make a second part at another time because I have so many things to comment on... anyway, I hope you have a good day/afternoon/night or when you read this .

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE POST.

This took weeks of picking and testing mods
Played on PS5, should work on PS4
Order is stable, no crashes
New game on survival difficulty required
All 6 DLCs needed
No unbalanced cheat mods added
Very difficult but satisfying and immersive
Adding other mods will break stuff, ask in comments
Not tested on PS4 or PS4 Pro performance-wise

OVERVIEW

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!
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.
Saving often in beds and making 'autosave drug' at the earliest possibility is a good idea (nearest chemistry workbench is at Abernathy Farm). Save menu is 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.
Exploring safer areas like Sanctuary, Concord and smaller settlements first (avoiding powerful enemies) recommended. 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 low, 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 except running around and alerting nearby enemies, that is.
Damage types are important. Ballistic damage is not efficient against turrets, melee against radroaches and so on. You need to figure out yourself whats best strategy.
Develop and protect your settlements, put walls to protect generators and other important structures. Repairing is costly. Gear up settlers. Scraping and cleaning settlements is a good early 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 and clear the place.

========== 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 for 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. Low Tech, No Powerarmor Justification Patch. (PS4) - Makes fusion cores worn. Balances the game around power armor.
70. Immersive Gameplay Seasonpass Patch (Playstation) - DLC compatibility for IG.
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 - Increases the amount of EXP gained 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 downloading:

• After installing the mod list, restart your PS4/PS5.
• Dont add or remove mods mid playthrough.
• Change game difficulty to survival in options.
• Play on performance 60fps. Newly added mode visual 60fps is more laggy and has awfull VATS framerate.
• If you want even more immersive settings, go to Settings, Gameplay and turn off quest markers or crosshair.
• 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. Add after mod #83 \ 102... [PS4] STS - Extras - Living & Dead - Season Pass Version - You can get extra resources from scraping dead bodies in settlements. Watch out not to scrap someone alive. Place after mod #82. \ 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 #55. \ 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... Vrexia's Magical Rings - Add after #57 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. \ 111... Pip-Boy Flashlight (Brighter) - For a smaller, brighter flashlight swap #96 with #95 and replace #95 with this.

Remove, if you want:

Stock, ugly Pip-Boy color - #3 \ No tinkering with legendary effects - #5 \ No powerful groups wandering and 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 - #49 \ Don't use VATS much - #53 #54 #55 \ Prefer old combat scopes - #64 #65 #66 \ Don't want uncover map perk and will never unlock it - #84 \ Don't have any weapon skins from Creation Club - #90 \ Faster leveling - #92 \ To gain building EXP - #94 \ Start with 7 extra SPECIAL points to distribute - #97 \ Loot and enemies respawn after time - #98 \ Fast travel to take time - #99 \ Days be vanilla length - #100

Known issues, bugs, glitches, exploits:

Some of those are present in vanilla game. I just mention every problem encountered during testing and not fully fixed. - Ground textures in and around sanctuary flicker black. FIX: Fixes itself. Possibly after short time or reload. - Creature cages 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, because cost is absurd. - 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 #83, which I don't recommend doing. - Hubby secret basement in Sanctuary. NO FIX: Its up to you if you want to use its content. Just easier difficulty option, but not game breaking. - Hacking rank 4 seems useless or has wrong description. NO FIX: Needs proper check. - Wall turrets sometimes glitches and play sound on repeat. FIX: Re-enter the area or reload save. - Contact frag mines seems to have too low damage. FIX: Just dont craft them. Rest of new explosives should work 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 #110 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: Free candies. Its better to use them to slow down time. - 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. NO FIX: Its not very noticable and you don't dive much in FO4 anyway. - Can't use Wattz Consumer Electronics terminal, animation stops. FIX: There is a radroach behind the wall. Kill it by swinging melee, explosives or reenter area. - Flashlight in Vault111 has incorrect beam look/color. FIX: It will fix itself after mods load right after you leave Vault111, dont worry.

v1.00 - Initial version.

Have fun!

Who is a DC villain that you think works better as a antihero/reformed/heroic?
I have a few of my own:
Killer Croc: Honestly does this guy have any reason to be a villain aside from his looks. He’s hardly the creepiest looking thing in Gotham. I also recently watched JL vs RWBY where we briefly saw him work alongside the good guys and yeah I think Waylon should be allowed to make a face turn.
Mr Freeze: While the DCAU update to his backstory is amazing, the problem is that we can only repeat the gimmick so many times until it becomes stale. Arkham Knight gave him a brilliant ending and I think Victor should be allowed some peace.
Poison Ivy: This one is gonna be controversial mainly for ppl who think female villains are going extinct or something but I feel like as time goes on, it’s getting harder and harder to deny Ivy’s point, to the point where it’s starting to make Batman look bad as a billionaire beating down on an activist. I don’t necessarily agree but the thought is out there. I don’t want Ivy to make a full face turn and join the JL or anything but I think she should be anti-heroic atp.
Riddler: I heard he used to be a private detective pre-52 and while I haven’t read those stories, it sounds interesting enough to put him on this list.
Clayface and Man-Bat: they’ve both been part of superhero teams and it worked well so they shouldn’t be regressed imo
Silver Swan and Magenta: these two are in my “should’ve never even been villains” category. Honestly what an insult to take one of Diana’s few human support characters and turn her into this. And for what? Can anyone name a good Silver Swan story? As for Frances, I hate the stigmatization of mental health in comics or the trope of women being unable to handle power. She should be a hero in either Titans or Flash titles.
Two-Face: I think his nature of being a tragic villain would probably make it easier to make a face turn with Harvey. I kinda wanna see him serve out his sentence for his crimes and then come back as a DA.
Sorry for the amount of Bat-villains XD

One of the fascinating aspects of outsider reports and analysis is what they see. Given that at this point (1992) the internet was not yet widely available/accessible, this sort of thing would have been difficult to find. And of course SGI wasn't ever going to tell us the truth!
This will show you that SGI-USA (then called "NSA") was failing in recruiting far earlier than perhaps most of us in the US realized. SGI in the USA was basically a flash in the pan; it fizzled fast; and now it's just that rank stale smoke smell that lingers long after the fire's been put out.
This comes from Cults and Nonconventional Religious Groups: A Collection of Outstanding Dissertations and Monographs, "Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism and the Soka Gakkai in America: The Ethos of a New Religious Movement", Jane Hurst, 1992, pp. 150-151. Jane Hurst has some interesting research out there; while she tends toward being uncritically supportive of SGI, anyone who is making statistics available is a big help.

NSA members in the 1960s and 1970s were young (52% below age 30), more than half female (59%), and from a variety of occupations and social classes.

The Baby Boom generation were at most age 19 in, say, 1965 and at most age 24 in 1970.
This youthfulness is largely reflected in the early organization's origins in the American servicemen who returned from being stationed in Japan with their Japanese war-brides - those servicemen tended to be young and from a variety of ethnicities and backgrounds, as the draft was still in effect during that time period (ended March 1975). In addition, the first General Director of the US organization, Masayasu Sadanaga, initially targeted college campuses for recruitment by offering lectures on Buddhism. Sadanaga changed his name to George M. Williams in 1972, in obedience to the (short-lived) direction back then of Japanese leaders adopting American-sounding names (first AND last) in order to appeal more broadly to non-Japanese Americans.

The percentage of Oriental members steadily decreased as more and more white and black Americans joined NSA as seen in Figure 10, above.

Figure 10 (I'll get to that line in another post.)
Ewps - Here's the REAL Figure 10.
Most of the original "Oriental members" were those Japanese war-brides, whose first efforts to recruit new SGI members were directed toward other Japanese individuals.

NSA members came from the major religious traditions of Protestantism (30%), Catholicism (30%), and Judaism (6%). At the time these 1971 statistics were compiled, all areas of American society. By 1983, the age span was even more broad, with 11% of the members age 50 and above, 62% ages 30-49, 24% ages 20-29, and 3% below age 19.

For reference, here are the age ranges for the existing generations in 1983:

• Greatest: Ages 59-82
• Silent: Ages 38-58
• Baby Boomers: Ages 19-37
• Generation X: Ages 4-18
• Generation Y (Millennials): Age 3 or younger.

While these 1983 statistics aren't broken down by generation, here's what is clear:

• 11% of the SGI-USA membership was MUCH OLDER than Baby Boomers
• 62% was either Baby Boom generation or older (though younger than that oldest group)
• 24% was Baby Boomers
• 3% was younger than Baby Boomers.

This means that 97% of the membership of SGI-USA was Baby Boom generation OR OLDER!

IN 1983!!

Notice how this affirms the demographic estimate from this other research: "Soka Gakkai in America": Little appeal/interest outside of Baby Boom generation

Take a look at Table 4.
Specifically, the Age cohort (%) category.
For the Converts, 26% are older than Baby Boomers; 61% are Baby Boomers. That makes 87% Boomer and older. Only 14% are younger than Boomers.
No wonder SGI-USA is aging and dying, with these kinds of numbers!
We are seeing, like, 90% Baby Boomers in the group photos we've looked at.
The pictures back this up.
Also, this comment by an SGI-USA leader a few years ago during Minoru Harada's visit (anyone know what year that was?):

They [top SGI-USA leaders] then went off on how when we create these big-ass meetings, we shouldn't have to look into the crowd and see, and I quote, "A bunch of old-ass motherfuckers" The words of my "superiors", not mine. I think this is when they brought up the idea of 50K to my co-leaders and me. Source

"Old-ass motherfuckers" is all they have. How 'bout showing a little of that appreciation and gratitude SGI bangs on about??
Worse, "old-ass motherfuckers" is all SGI-USA can get.
Further, again referring to Table 4, SGI-USA's membership is solidly 2/3 women. That means it's going to be very difficult for women in SGI-USA to find mates to marry, which means childlessness will be more of a norm than an exception. Child-free is a valid and respect-worthy decision, don't get me wrong, but a religion's most reliable source of younger members is its own membership's children. Since SGI-USA's female members don't feel any responsibility or obligation to bear multiple children (like those poor, stupid Mormon sheepwomen do), there won't be any next generation to take over.
There's a reason so many religions have traditionally exhorted their membership to have lots of babies, why they condemn birth control and abortion. A big part of it is to keep their own numbers up! Source

It's the same problem happening in Japan within the Soka Gakkai:

On the other hand, aging is relentless. In terms of the Soka Gakkai's membership demographics, the "volume zone" where most members fall is the baby boomer generation who joined by the 1960s. They are now late elderly. In the past, the management of centers in various places was handled by the "Gajokai" consisting of Young Men's Division members, but it is no longer possible to secure personnel. Instead, in 2009, the Soka Gakkai launched the "Ojokai'' consisting of "middle-aged divisions,'' scolding them as "young people in their 50s'' and rushing to mobilize them. Source

GOOD LUCK!

For perspective, note that SGI-USA was managing to recruit just "1,000 per YEAR" - including all ages - between 1991 and 1999. Eight years of only 1,000 members added per year, with no accounting for the deaths or defections. Were the years after that more successful, recruiting-wise? I doubt it.

[Then-SGI-USA's public-relations director for the East Coast Bill] Aiken says SGI-USA has attracted about 1000 new members per year for the past eight years. - from 1999. Only 1,000 new members - across the ENTIRE 360+ million-person strong USA - in an ENTIRE year. And this extremely low level of success for EIGHT YEARS IN A ROW!! Source

From 2018:

In recent years, the number of young Soka Gakkai members has been decreasing rapidly . Looking at the participants in the simultaneous broadcasts and roundtable discussions, the majority are of the grandparents' generation, with only a small number of young people in their 20s and 30s, and the number of teenage boys and girls is almost an endangered species .
Therefore, what I am interested in is the population of Soka Gakkai by age group. This time, I would like to estimate the current population of Soka Gakkai by age , based on information I have personally seen and heard and verification from others . Please note that this estimate is very rough.
First, the largest number of Soka Gakkai members are baby boomers (born between 1947 and 1949 [Japan's Baby Boom]). This seems almost certain considering the history of the development of Soka Gakkai .
Also, the total number of members has already been verified by many people, and is estimated to be around 3 to 5 million people. This time we assume about 4 million people .
And this is what I heard directly from a staff member at headquarters last year, who said , `` The number of activists decreases by about 1/3 with each generation.'' I think this is a reasonable rate of decline that can be felt by looking at participants in simultaneous broadcasts and roundtable discussions. It seems that members who have stopped being activists are less likely to have their children join, so this time we will use a value of 1/3 per generation as the member decline rate .
Also, regarding the number of years it takes for generational change, the average age for men and women to give birth to their first child is currently 30 years old. Considering that the average age of childbearing for both men and women when the baby boomer generation was born was 24 years old, and that there are cases where not only the first child but also the second and third children are born, the generational shift will take 30 years. Let's calculate it as if it would take a year . In that case, the annual membership attrition rate would be (1/3)^1/30 = 0.964, or 3.6% .
It is unclear when this trend of declining membership started, but this time we will assume that it started in the year following the baby boom generation (1950). Source

And "Soka Gakkai is like an old people's club":

Regarding the problem of a decline in Komeito votes, or in other words, a decline in active Soka Gakkai members, many people concerned point out that the primary cause is the aging of Soka Gakkai members. The enthusiastic members of the generation who supported the growth of the society along with charismatic Honorary President Daisaku Ikeda are now elderly across the board. Most of the current new members are second- or third-generation members who join because their parents are members of Soka Gakkai, and they are not very enthusiastic about Soka Gakkai's activities. Today, many of Soka Gakkai's daily events are even derided by insiders as "like an old people's party."

And a more recent report (this year):

Back about 20 years ago a good friend and good guy, now deceased, from ChiTown, was commissioned by SGI Central Command to survey every contactable member of SGI in every district in America. The number he came up with was 5% of the number of Gohonzon passed out since, I guess whenever Gohonzon started to be passed out. The total number was about a million give or take, 20 years ago. These were contactable people, not practicing members. I remember going through lists of people we had on the books and trying to see if they could be reached. So the number we came up with was reported. Hearing nothing about it, I happened to run into my friend at some event at Soka U. He mentioned that he did the survey, and gave me the results. I believe he told me the facts. (Not everyone who practiced was a lying asshole.) So about 20 years ago SGI had about 50,000 “contactable“ people who had received Gohonzon. My estimate that about half of that number had zero interest in SGI. Thus 20 years ago, SGI had about 25,000 members still interested in SGI in some capacity. I think it’s the same number today. (2500 districts x 10=25,000.) Like I said before I went to FNCC twice last year, and everyone, including me, were old zany seniors. Neither conference was for old people. Conclusion: SGI is a senior citizen support group. When I joined in1969, we were all hippie ish, rejecting all the old shit, looking for something new and hip. Now SGI looks like old shit. Source

And another (this year or last):

When I joined 50+ years ago the ratio of youth to MD and WD was about 80:20. Now it's the reverse. Our goal is to move steadily back to a youth focus again. Source

Except it's obvious that SGI-USA doesn't HAVE "20% youth":

Youth? They've got to be fooling themselves!!! When I was still with the SGI last February (2023), I went to the kosen-rufu gongyo meeting at the center in my area. Mind you, the state I live in closed its center in 2021 for undisclosed reasons. That aside, the one I went to was in another state, and at that meeting, they had no byakuren, Gajokai, or Soka Group in attendance. Additionally, the only youth at the meeting were a few small children. Source
I feel that SGI is out of touch with anyone who’s younger than 60. The leaders are retired, have a lot of time on their hands and completely disregard the fact that people may work or have families. For young people it’s the old people taking nonsense. Source

The PROBLEM was already evident in 1983 - and none of the SGI-USA's big "Recruit-Youth-A-Thons", like "Victory over Violence" and "Rock The Ego Era" and "50K Liars of Just-Us" (everybody wants to forget the epic fail that was the "Gandhi, King, Ikeda" exhibit), has made the slightest difference in this demographic disaster. In fact, preparing for the 2018 "50K" event, SGI-USA likely had only 2,451 members in the 12-35 (or perhaps 11-39) age group, just 9% of the most generous SGI-USA active membership total (~30,000).

Ikeda could have preserved a "youthful" Soka Gakkai by passing the Presidency to a younger candidate, but Ikeda refused, because Ikeda was too focused on and obsessed with HIMSELF - his power, his prestige, his wealth, his status, his fame, his renown, HIM becoming leader of the world, his PERMANENCY, and his legacy. He refused to let anyone else come anywhere CLOSE to the power and control - he greedily, selfishly clutched it all tightly to himself and refused to share.
THAT is why the Ikeda cult Soka Gakkai/SGI is aging and dying. It's ALL Ikeda's fault, Ikeda's responsibility. IKEDA DID THAT.
Some "mentor". Source

SGI-USA has never managed to recover from that demographic bottleneck that happened no later than 1983.

Being the right age to be the target audience for Fear Street, Point Horror and Christopher Pike's never ending series of YA horror books I read my fair share of Pike's books back in the day and at the time I remember really not enjoying Pike as much as Stine or the other Point Horror authors like Caroline B. Cooney and Diane Hoh. I remember having conversations with my fellow YA horror readers at the time and I always had the impression that Pike was a little more serious and adult than some of the other authors and I just didn't "get" him. And I've always thought this in the back of my mind that maybe as a kid I just wasn't quite ready for Pike.
Flash forward to maybe 10 years ago, I got lucky in a thrift store and found a good pile of Point Horror and Fear Street books and along with a few Pike books, I purchased as many as I could afford at the time and included "Witch" by Pike as I have, in subsequent years, heard it was one of his better books.
Well I finally got around to reading "Witch" and whewwww now I remember why I'm not a fan of Pike.
The main character of the book, Julia, has some psychic powers, but is additionally absolutely drop dead gorgeous (to the point that everyone either falls in love with her immediately or thinks she's stuck up), with friends that just don't question her at all, even when she's on a revenge rampage. Not only is Julia your run of the mill Mary Sue cliche, but her dead mother is ALSO a Mary Sue, another beautiful hippie witch that everyone loved and apparently spoke entirely in prophetic super pithy things to say, which we get constantly treated to via various character's flashbacks, and implied psychic messages from beyond the grave. Combine this with a plot entirely based around very unlikely circumstances and it just made for such a long slog to get through.
I seem to recall this is a typical problem for Pike, his female characters are all so perfect and beautiful and completely without any sort of realistic motivations that it makes it impossible for me to care enough to keep on reading. I know I'm criticizing cheap 30 year old YA books here that were made to make money and not necessarily have any redeeming literary value, but at the same time Fear Street, similarly written en mass to make lots of money have plenty of really good entries that still hold up today (the First Evil series, 99 Fear Street, the Silent Night trilogy and other various entries are all stand outs for me), so its not just that I've outgrown 90s YA fiction. And yet, so many people here and in some of the vintage horror collector groups on facebook seem to unironically have great esteem for Pike.
So anyone out there like me who has tried and just can't get into him? Why do you think that is? I personally just don't think he's that great of a writer (again, two Mary Sues in a single book is just absurd to me) but since so many people really seem to genuinely enjoy him, I'm not sure what it is that I'm missing!

25YO female, 5'4, 93 pounds (formerly 120lb) albuterol. no prior history before 2020.
Got COVID-19 in 2020, pre vaccine. Hospitalized. When I 'recovered' I had newly developed asthma and no white blood cells. They never returned to any normal level. I don't remember exactly numbers but the chart of blood draws over 1.5 years looked exactly like this: 📉
I get sick all the time post 2020 if anyone around me is sick; flu, covid, etc. I always catch it. Last month I was only healthy 1 week out of 4.
I've gotten covid 9 times.** I've been told by friends that thats unusual, maybe? Right now rashes cropping up all over my body. The cells on my tongue died one night few days ago and turned my whole tongue black. Im currently spitting up bits and pieces of the dead cells the inside of my mouth and cheeks that are shedding. I dont knowwhy. My lymph nodes are swollen and never stop being swollen.
I get woken up every single night with hot flashes of mild fever up to 101-2. then goes away. Affects my ability to sleep. I start seeing things in the corner of my eyes by day 3 of no sleep.
I'm extremely dehydrated and no amount of water will do it. I've had almost 2.5 liters, Feels like drinking sand, and my lips Crack and Bleed. I look so ugly. I look like a ghost. sunken eyes, gray skin, blistered mouth
Doctor won't run other tests or treatment other than more antibiotic
I don't know what I should do or look for. Or what I should ask my doctor to do next. Please let me know if there are any recommendations
I just want my weight back. I don't want to look like a ghost haunting a manor. I want to hang out with my friends. Thank you. Feel free to tell me it's hopeless and I should start meditating

Link for all the chapters available for free here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road
Deep in the groaning halls of sinew and bone he awaited his audience with the god. At a wave of his hand the ribs which held up the ceiling contracted, tendons shifting within the pink walls of the chamber as the jagged, calcareous spurs that composed the doorway sank back into the spongy masses of tissue, revealing a passage curving down and out of sight.
Menash stood before the yawning portal and considered eternity. This was no an idle thought: here in the Dawning Chamber, the concept was very real. His father, Yulan, had stood in this exact spot times beyond count. When he was struck down in his prime by the Night Weaver and her Leaper offspring, torn limb from limb as he fought to defend Chthonis from a raiding party, Menash’s uncle, Aqavarr, had carried his broken remains over that grinning threshold to join the hosts of the dead, never to return.
A hot and heavy exhalation rattled up out of the depths, wafting in the acrid scent of the bonding pools and the wet slithering sound of the rebirthing canals. Menash felt a crackle of static in the corners of his mind before the signal sharpened and he heard It whisper distinctly:
“Enter…”
The familiar dread crept its way up the small of his back, and he gave a little shiver. No matter how many times he had communed with the Vitalus, he’d never been able to shake the feeling of his utter insignificance. But he persevered, walking bravely down the slurping passage, past the rows of broad antechambers lining either side of the hallway. Each one held a slumbering shape immersed in a cryogenic bath, towering hulks of muscle encased in ribbed and riveted plates of chitin. No two were alike in size or physiology, but all seemed to emanate the same primeval aura of dread that tickled Menash’s fight-or-flight-instinct, skewing it very much towards the latter response. These were the Hollowores, soulless avatars of the Vitalus, each one a tool capable of eradicating an entire species. As Menash approached, one of the living weapons stirred to life. A pronged, anvil-shaped head emerged from the bath, umbilical feeder tubes detaching from its armored flanks as the rest of its bulk followed, its mauve exoskeleton as sleek and shiny as amethyst. The Hollowore extended legs as thick as grown pine trees and lifted itself above him, its pairs of crushing pincers dripping amniotic fluids as it herded him towards the central room.
Bundles of white gossamer filaments spread all across the floor, encircling steaming pools of pus and acid. He saw arms and legs, sensory organs and entire exoskeletons being knitted before his very eyes, the amino acid chains being stitched on a layer at a time, the weeping pus evidence of microphages fighting off possible infections as the Vitalus did Its work.
These were the next generation of exomorphs, yet to be assigned to their hosts. It was here that Vitalus constantly improved the only thing that could ensure the continued survival of Menash’s subspecies. Exomorphs were bonded to Gallivants at birth, the organisms supplying their hosts with the means to breathe an atmosphere they was never meant to endure, and the strength to fight in a world that was red in tooth and claw. They were as swift as the summer wind and could multiply their host’s muscular power by up to twelve times their natural output.
But for all their God-given might, Gallivants were still mortal. They could and often did perish in the endless struggle for existence that the Vitalus called the Great Game. But even in death they could still commit their essence to posterity, passing down their defining traits through the malleable genetic code of the gilt helix. It was the Vitalus’ greatest boon; through the gilt helix a single individual could become a progenitor of an entire generation, becoming at one stroke the father of whole nations and peoples.
One day he too would prove worthy of the honor that Yulan had earned with his life. But he was not alone in that ambition. Menash was annoyed to find the crimson-clad Vezda and the cowardly Racek waiting for him inside, standing next to a large ball of filaments that hung from a tonsil-like growth hanging from the walls.
This node pulsed, emitting a small storm of bioelectric activity, networks of fungi conveying commands in the form of oscillating voltages to their communities of symbiotic bacteria, the latter containing greigite mineral crystals aligned in the shape of electromagnetic coils. Other networks hidden in the walls modulated and amplified the signals, and the three Gallivants steeled themselves for the onrushing flood of information as the Vitalus tapped into their minds.
He was a candle before the raging heart of the thunderstorm. For an instant Menash touched a fraction of Its intelligence, the divisions of time and space rolling back as they joined the ocean of shared consciousness, becoming one with the living systems of Arachnea. From the tiniest aeroplankton floating above the waves of the golden coastlines, to the herds of ultrapods munching their way through swathes of trees in the savannahs. Menash felt himself pushing up out of the soil, longing and lusting and reaching for the sunlight with a trillion green fingers uncurling, alive with the furious movement of life.
But what was that flicker of orange to the east? That searing heat, that prickling pain spreading like a cancer down his side?
The Vitalus scooped them up and hurled them headlong into hell itself. A roaring wildfire was sweeping into the heart of the eastern rainforests. Menash tasted ash and ruin, felt pieces of himself wither and burn, his branches tongues of fire, wood cracking from the intense blaze, sap boiling instantaneously upon contact and rupturing, splitting him right down the grain. He fled in terror, running, slithering, digging, swimming, flying away in crazed panic from the walls of red death closing in on him. As his skin flaked off in clumps of charcoal he looked back and saw it towering over the treetops, the epicenter of this howling vortex of destruction: the grey behemoth. Its burnished metal hide gleamed like copper, reflecting the fury of the conflagration burning well into the night.
Menash pulled his mind away before it was lost forever in the storm of electric potentials. He saw Racek and Vezda swaying on their feet, breathing hard and fast.
“Heart of the World,” he managed to gasp, “What is your bidding?”
The Hollowore maneuvered itself until it was facing him directly. Tiny beady eyes fixed him in their blank gaze. The node emitted a blue pulse and the creature shuddered as it received the signal. It opened a maw powerful enough to chew boulders into gravel and rumbled:
“This one is the alpha which survived first contact with anomalous variable. It will tell Us what occurred, and from whence this threat emerged.”
“It came from the karst mountain range, where the yellowjacket Amit live,” Menash replied, “It was destroying the largest mound in that area, massacring its inhabitants. It brought the mountain down on them—we’ve never seen anything like it. Zildiz was the first on the scene. She warned us not to approach, and that it was dangerous, but some of us,” here he cast an angry look at Vezda, “Some of us went ahead and tried to scavenge from the bodies of the dying. Then the behemoth ignited the air and burned scores of us to cinders.”
“Irrational. Why did you do this?”
“W-we thought that you had spawned the grey behemoth,” Menash stammered, embarrassed to say the least, “That it was the newest addition to the Great Game, another species of ultrafauna that would help perfect Arachnea.”
“Not so. It was made by an evil far older than the All-In-One,” replied the Vitalus, “It is called a Divine Engine. In cycles past, this evil sought to undo this world and all that inhabit it. In that, it almost succeeded.”
Menash felt his blood run cold at those words.
“Is it the only one of its kind?” Racek piped up. Menash and Vezda both bristled at his interruption; subordinates were only supposed to speak when spoken to.
“There were several deployed here in Our infancy. We had thought them all destroyed in the War of Creation.”
“Your Munificence,” Racek went on, heedless of the venomous looks he was getting from the other two, “Most of us survived because Zildiz persuaded us to dive into the river. She saved all our lives! But as I washed up on the riverbank, I saw the behemoth casting a seedpod into the skies. I did not see where it landed, but it was travelling in a high arc due east. Is this the behemoth’s method of reproducing? If so, then how many offspring can it generate from this one seed?”
The Vitalus met his questions with a minute of silence. Menash had never known It to take so long to respond to a query, and felt another stab of unease in his gut. Unless he was imagining things, the Vitalus seemed genuinely disturbed by the scenario that Racek has raised, enough to convince Menash that the danger was far from hypothetical.
“That is a distant possibility,” It said somewhat cryptically, “Regardless, We cannot allow the Engine’s continued existence.”
“Then it must be destroyed,” Vezda said, her barbed tail eagerly perking up.
“We are not certain that it can be,” the Vitalus said, and Menash heard Racek audibly gulp at the admission.
“But Your Omniscience, you alone are the arbiter of growth and decay,” Vezda said in disbelief, “Surely you can unmake this monster as well?”
“Perhaps. The Divine Engines were built to withstand the extremes of temperature, gravity, atmospheric pressure, acidity and irradiation found on semi-inhabitable exoplanets. Worlds of bareness and desolation, glassed by thermonuclear bombardment or infested with alien microorganisms. In the wars of Our youth, the Betrayers used tungsten-alloy warheads fired from space platforms to crack their bulkheads. Not even Our vessels, the Hollowores, could damage them in any significant way. We will need time to gather the raw materials and fabricate the weapons needed to end this threat.”
“What must we do?” Menash asked.
“If this variable is not dealt with, it could upset the delicate balance We have sacrificed so much to achieve. Already the wildfire it has caused will release close to 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and destroy 2.3 million acres of forest before Our countermeasures can stop it. Time is our limiting factor. If the Engine cannot be destroyed now, it must be restrained.”
“It hasn’t moved an inch since we last saw it,” Vezda said brightly, “Maybe it has already died?”
“Yes, and maybe your mother was a horka toad,” Racek said snidely. Vezda scowled and took a step towards him, then stopped as she remembered that she trod on hallowed ground.
“Not so. It has merely gone dormant. Having expended its fuel, it is now running on the bare minimum of its reserves. My children, you must ensure that it does not wake again. Establish a quarantine zone around the Engine and let none approach, on pain of death. The Leaper kindreds will secure the ground while the Gallivants patrol the skies.”
Vezda and Menash exchanged troubled looks. Nobody wanted Leapers establishing a foothold in what was essentially a buffer zone between their subspecies. Once allowed to settle in a habitat, it would not take long for them to adapt and become masters of their new territory. Ousting them would become a battle of attrition, and given the lower birthrates of Gallivants, it was not one they could long afford.
“Respectfully, we do not require assistance from our brother kindred,” Menash ventured, “We are more than capable of safeguarding the area ourselves.”
The node throbbed again, the bioelectric flashes taking on an angry purple hue. With a sound like the grinding of a millstone the Hollowore clashed its claws together impatiently. All three of the mortals took a hasty step back.
“The alpha will obey, or another will be found that can,” the Vitalus growled at them, “All subspecies will observe a general truce during this period. This is a temporary addition to the Great Game. Those that serve Us well shall be rewarded. We shall also enlist the aid of your terrestrial cousins, as well as the Cataphract clans to replenish the soil, and lone Saints who shall rove beyond the quarantine zone.”
Menash’s unease deepened. The Vitalus was bringing together four different kindreds, some of which killed each other on sight, in a move that reeked of desperation. The kindreds had worked together before, of course, on complex projects such as altering rainfall patterns and husbanding struggling species, but never so many at once. This was bound to end in bloodshed.
“Those that break the truce shall be chemically neutered, and their gilt helix purged from the existing gene pool,” the Vitalus continued, “You will maintain this quarantine until We have dealt with the Engine.”
“It is understood!” Menash and Vezda said at once.
“But what about Zildiz?” Racek blurted out, again risking his entire lineage by speaking out of turn, “She might still be alive out there!”
“He’s right,” Menash found himself agreeing despite his dislike for Racek, “She’s our alpha, after all. It would be a shame to lose her helix. Do we have your leave to send out a party to recover her?”
The Vitalus pondered the request for a moment, then crushed his hopes when it said:
“Regrettable, the loss of the female. Valuable stock for the breeding program. But it has not responded to Our signals—it is unlikely to have survived. The female Vezda shall take up its duties as alpha.”
“But Your Benevolence—” both men cried out in unison.
“It is decided. She has risked the Great Game, and must abide by its outcome. To speak more on this would risk Our displeasure,” the god warned.
“We can’t spare the manpower anyway,” Vezda pointed out, trying not to look too pleased at Its decision. She darted a quick look at Menash, long enough for him to see the selfish desire festering in her heart. He turned away from her in disgust, baring his blades by the slightest of margins to let her know what he thought of her, then asked the Vitalus:
“But what of the Engine’s seedpod? Should we search for it?”
“Negative!” the Vitalus boomed, its node reinforcing the word with a spike of activity that sent needles of pain spearing into their heads, “We shall complete this task. It is dangerous and can be entrusted to no other.”
The Hollowore angled its massive head towards the cavernous ceiling, armored flaps on its back sliding aside as it unfurled sets of rigid sixty-meter wings. A wide sphincter on the roof gaped open and Menash saw the evening sky awash with the stars in their milky multitudes. The Hollowore took a deep breath through the spiracles lining its thorax and abdomen, pumping air through a pair of hollow tube-like protuberances under either of its wings. Menash and the others quickly scampered to a safe distance. Seconds later there was a scream of chemical combustion and the Hollowore rose into the evening skies, leaving behind a long trail of superheated gases, the backwash almost knocking Menash off his feet. They watched as the Hollowore gained altitude, making straight for the columns of billowing smoke on the horizon, a sweeping shadow blotting out the light of the heavens.
The Vitalus’ mental presence receded with it. When it did not return, they took it to mean that they were dismissed and likewise took flight and headed for Chthonis. They were hardly out of the Dawning Chamber when Vezda seized the scrawny Racek by his wings and anchored her feet right up against his back.
“Funny little man, are you? Crack jokes at my expense again, and I’ll see to it that you’ll never fly again!” she snarled, yanking hard. Racek yelled as his wings threatened to pop out of their sockets.
“Stop!” Menash said, ramming his shoulder into her and knocking the smaller male out of her grip. Vezda rounded on him, blades out and her tail aquiver with rage.
“As for you! No one should speak to the Vitalus like that!” she shrieked, “Much less gainsay It! Are you trying to get us all killed? It is the source and continuance of life itself—”
“But the Vitalus doesn’t always consider the individual scale of things,” Menash reasoned, controlling his rising anger as he tried to defuse the situation, “Its scope of thought is beyond ours. Therefore it is up to us to look after each other. None of us can win the Great Game alone. We need people like Zildiz for the species to prosper.”
“Your logic is flawed,” Vezda spat, “Empathy is a sham devised by the selfish action of the gene, which seeks only to preserve itself. At least I am honest enough to look after my own interests. Your obsession with that whore is misplaced. Heed my words, Menash. What happened today marks a change in the Great Game. Only the ruthless will reap the rewards of this era. Think on that, and act accordingly.”
The female darted off in another direction, leaving the two behind.
“Thanks,” Racek said, rubbing at his sore shoulders, “My, my. She’s really taking her promotion very seriously, isn’t she?”
“This doesn’t make us friends,” Menash said shortly, “We share a common interest, that’s all.”
The two flew together in silence for a time, the dark canopy unrolling below their feet. Racek had always been a bitter rival for Zildiz’s affections. In the mating seasons he and Menash had flown the damsel-dance against each other countless times, racing and dogfighting at top speed through the dense bamboo thickets in an effort to impress her.
But each time she had always chosen Menash. Naturally. He was the stronger, the braver, the son of the Scourge who had slain hundreds on his lightning raids into Leaper territory. Their pairings had been brief and passionate, yet she had always laughed at the end and gone on her merry way, a rose petal borne on a scented breeze, the dalliance as meaningless to her as other concerns like eating or breathing.
But not to him. Right now, all that mattered was her. And Racek was the only one in the whole wide world who knew exactly how he felt. Did that mean he could be trusted? Menash considered the enormity of what he was about to do, and wavered. Then he saw her face in the darkness of his home, the face she wore when they were all alone together, and he took a deep breath before breaking the silence, saying:
“I’ll be in charge of the quarantine. I can arrange for you to disappear for a few days. I can have one of the younglings mimic your magnetosynaptic signal, make it seem like you’re with the rest of us.”
“You’d do that? For me?” Racek said in astonishment.
“Hah. Not for you,” Menash laughed softly. He looked Racek straight in the eyes and continued: “What’ll it be, then?”
If he so much as hesitates, I’ll have to kill him here and now, Menash told himself.
“Why, yes. Yes, of course!” the little brown male said vigorously.
“Good,” Menash sighed with relief, “She’ll be very grateful to whoever brings her home. I’d do it myself, but as an alpha I can’t risk being seen as disobedient.”
“Then why give me this chance? After all that’s passed between us?”
“I should have thought that was obvious,” Menash replied. Racek digested that for a bit, then out of nowhere said:
“If I find her—when I find her—I’ll tell her exactly who it was that sent me.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Bah! Just so we’re even, that’s all,” Racek grinned, his mouthparts slanting askew.
“Thanks, I guess. I’d…I’d appreciate that. You do understand what we’re risking here, right?”
“Sure. We’ll be total genetic write-offs if we’re caught. But it’s not like I wanted to see tiny ugly Raceks running around the house anyway. What about you, though? Why are you putting your neck on the chopping block?”
“You know why,” Menash said quietly, his thoughts still lingering on her face.
“Yes,” Racek agreed with a wistful air, “Yes, I suppose I do.”
And the pair spoke no more until they reached Chthonis.
Link for all the chapters available for free here: Engines of Arachnea on Royal Road

One year review: 9/10, would do it again.
Caveat emptor: I’m mid-30s. I have a liberal family, I’m single and live in one of the good countries. I passed 50-50 before T, had PCOS and I’m pretty sure there was something else going on with my hormones. So take this with a grain of salt and YMMV as always.
The good: - I got top surgery before starting T and started passing as a teenage boy from day one post-op. By now, I pass as my age as much as I ever did pre-T (I looked like 25 pre-T and look like 25 now). - I can grow a full beard. It’s still a bit see-through on my cheeks, but I’ve been wearing it short for a few months already. I think it will probably be full enough to grow out in maybe 6 more months if it carries on like it has. - Stomach is covered in fur. Chest hair is coming in. Leg and arm hair is disappointing. - I was X-shaped pre-T (shoulders and hips equally wide). My shoulders and back blew out and fat redistribution slimmed my hips, even though I haven’t been exercising much because of health issues. I was marginally Y shaped at 3 months and am now at a point where the Y is quite pronounced. Clothes fit like they’re supposed to now (shirts and jackets used to be 1-2” too long and a tad too tight around the hips, but no more; pants are still 1-2” too long lol). Even if I got no further fat redistribution, I’d be satisfied with what I’ve got. - I grew about 1 cm (measurable, not noticeable), 1 shirt size, 1.5-2 shoe sizes, 1 glove size, and couple of links to my watch wristband. I’m now a very averagely sized dude, if a bit vertically challenged. - I got facial changes quickly too, but it took almost the entire year until I started seeing myself in the mirror. I’m starting to look almost exactly how I hoped I would though. - Voice dropped quickly: I went from a tenor to a baritone in just a couple of months and I’m now a bass. - Menses stopped early on: I got one period on T and then nothing. - T cured my depression. I’m shocked how big a difference it made. Pretty much every mental health complaint I had is either completely gone or manageable enough it’s mostly not an issue. - T cured my menopause symptoms. The first noticeable effect was the cessation of hot flashes and sweating. - Family’s been mostly brilliant and my transition has been a non-issue. There’s one member whose main source of information seems to be TikTok though, and I’ve had to lay down a boundary that I don’t discuss trans issues with them. - I’ve experienced close to zero transphobia IRL. That might be down to being cis-passing, but the worst I’ve encountered where my trans status has been known is some rude customer service, which could’ve been just your regular rude customer service and not transphobia. - My dysphoria is 90% gone. There’s some lingering discomfort which is half adjusting to changes and half mentally lagging behind them. It takes a while for one’s internal body image to change, for example. Genital dysphoria is still there, but it’s actually a bit easier to deal with than it was pre-T, rather than harder.
The bad: - Still haven’t figured out a T dosage that would consistently put me in the male range, so menopause symptoms return between shots. - Atrophy set in at around 3 months and it’s barely manageable with local estrogen. I’m now actively looking into getting a hysterectomy + vaginectomy asap. - Acne wasn’t too bad, about the same as in my first puberty. The worst seems to have passed or else I’ve just figured out the skincare routine that works for me now (which is completely different from what it used to be). Bacne is still happening though. - Places where I removed hair pre-T have not filled in; I broke out the minoxidil about month ago and am seeing some progress. - Voice problems (hoarseness, tiredness, not being able to raise my voice, etc.) are much worse than I expected. I think I might have to seek voice therapy. - Cholesterol went up; it’s marginally high now. My lab values overall aren’t the best, but it’s probably related to pre-existing issues. - I had a post operative infection after my top surgery. Not exactly fun, but I still honestly preferred dealing with it to dealing with tits. 😂 - Bottom growth is disappointing: I got an early burst and then nothing further. Pre-T I was set on phalloplasty, but with the rest of my dysphoria treated, I have actually gotten around to considering metoidioplasty instead. But with the growth I’ve gotten so far, that’s probably not gonna be a satisfactory option for me. - Libido was uncomfortable for maybe months 2-4; I’ve worked out how to deal with it now and it’s not a problem. - I have cramps in my shins and forearms. Almost feels like the tendons are growing faster than their sheaths? Another reason why I haven’t been running a lot lately. - Accessing healthcare is just as much of a hassle as I thought it would be. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but what a ridiculous circus. 3/10 would not do it again if it was a choice. No one’s been actively transphobic, but god damn the system is not set out to be helpful either. - Updating my legal gender was easier than expected; updating my new social security number at various offices (bank, healthcare, etc) has been a hassle. I’d rather attribute it to incompetence than malice, but at this point it’s definitely something. - Nobody’s been transphobic to my face, but the society absolutely is still transphobic and it hits harder now that I can’t pretend to be cis.
The neutral: - I’ve had to buy new shirts and jackets and replace all of my shoes. My shoe size is now one of the most common ones, which means it’s the first one to be sold out. 😅 I’m a penny-pinching bugger so I’m a little miffed even if it’s at most a temporary downside, and more of a change in which size to buy in the future. - My sense of smell is less sensitive now. - With my dysphoria treated, I went from 5/6 to 4/6 on the Kinsey scale. I guess I’ll have to start calling myself bi/pan instead of gay. 🤷🏻‍♂️ - Men don’t flirt with me as much. :( Women flirt with me more. :) It’s about 90-10 to 10-90 change. - I’m treated fully as a guy socially. It’s different from being a gal that’s “one of the guys.” There’s both male privilege I’ve gained and female solidarity and pretty privilege I’ve lost. - Many things have had a bit of a learning curve, and the beginning is awkward just like in the first puberty. Dealing with awkwardness and learning to navigate new challenges is orders of magnitude easier than it was on the first go around though, because I’m dealing with them as an adult with adult coping skills.
Bottom line:
Overall, the upsides were much better and the downsides were much less of a problem than I expected. I should’ve gotten over myself and my fears and done this 20 years ago. It’s not perfect, but few things are in practice even when they’re overwhelmingly good.

First / Previous
Back on the job, my eyes kept going to the camera that was on enclosure one. Andrew told me its real name, but I think that’d be a step too far, putting that out on the internet. I’d just stick with ‘Steve the bear’. Whatever it was, I just knew I’d have a nightmare about it eventually. Last night I slept fitfully but okay. But I know my brain, and I’d already had a nightmare about Yui stabbing me with one of her legs (they are not needle-sharp in real life, this was dream logic) and walking around, having not noticed I was a Ripley-kebab on her leg. I kept trying to get her attention but for some reason I’d been worried about sounding rude.
On my third walk around the zoo, at about 12 a.m. I saw Leila again, who I’d been noticing more and more often. She never looked interested in talking, only walking through the enclosures, and by that I meant any and all of them. She didn’t seem to have a favorite. I assume that however much of her mind that was left over from being alive still gravitated toward looking at the animals, since getting too close was what killed her in the first place.
Then, in enclosure eight, I saw a new creature and stopped abruptly. This one looked chill, but I wasn’t about to make any assumptions. It looked unique in a strange way, shaped like a giant lizard but built like a big cat of some sort. It had an uncanny valley human face, green hair for a mane, and also a horn like a unicorn. It felt like something drawn by an imaginative five-year-old brought to life, but was still somehow oddly endearing.
“Hello,” she spoke, noticing me noticing her. Her voice was distinctly female and oddly deep.
“Hello,” I responded with false cheer.
She pushed herself to her feet and I took an instinctive step back, but she didn't seem to notice, much less take offense. “You’re the guard here?”
“Yup. That’s me.”
“Thank you.”
I blinked, taken aback. “Ah…you’re welcome. For what?”
She cocked her head. “For guarding me.”
That was different. Most of the impressions I had gotten from the animals so far were that they wanted to eat me. And the idea that this one was thankful for me doing my job was refreshing, don’t get me wrong, but made me wary. Call me a cynic, I guess.
“My name is tàiyang. You can call me Sun,” she told me.
“Hi, Sun. I’m Ripley.”
Then she looked toward the sky. “It’s going to rain tonight.”
After a thoughtful moment, I asked, “Does that make you sad?”
“Why would it make you sad?”
I smiled. “Because your name is Sun.”
She paused and then said, “I don’t understand.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, telling a pun to one of the animals. “Never mind.” I glanced up at the sky. “I thought the rain is supposed to stay away from here. Are the ones who told me that wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Well that’s good to know,” I murmured to myself, thinking of my raincoat hanging in the security office closet. It wasn’t that surprising, honestly. Sometimes I felt like the meteorologists in Arkansas try to read the entrails of goats to figure out the weather. It’s all a mess and it’s all made up.
At that, the animal looked to the sky and fell silent. She appeared to be the most uneventful introduction I’d had so far, and I was incredibly grateful for it. Except then the animal kept talking. “He’s under a spell.”
I blinked. “What?”
She looked back to me. “Andrew. He’s under a spell. He’s very unhappy.”
I had no idea how to react to that. For a second I just stared. The sudden jolt of being told my boss was currently being afflicted by magic left me floundering. “He… What?” I finally asked. “Where is he?”
“In his office.”
Oh shit. My eyes instinctively darted in the direction of the main office. I always just entered through the door on the west side of the building, of course, since it led to the security room. It was unnecessary for me to go through the door that first led into the lobby-slash-office Andrew worked out of. Sometimes he even left early, so it was locked anyway. I had the key, but again, it was unnecessary.
Whatever had happened, assuming this animal wasn’t joking around (she seemed completely serious), I needed to establish whether she was right. Leaving the enclosure of the animal I’d just met, I quickly walked back to the small building.
Taking a deep breath, I knocked loudly. “Andrew, are you in there?”
The only reply was silence. I stood there until enough time had passed that it was obvious that no one was coming to answer the door. Taking out my phone, I dialed his cell number and wait as it rang. Then I grimaced when I heard it ringing inside.
Hanging up and shoving the phone back in my pocket, I stared at the closed door.
Trying the doorknob, I found that it was unlocked, and my heart skipped a beat. Andrew always locked his office before leaving. Opening the door slowly, the lights were off in the room, leaving only the faint red glow of the lights outside peeking around his curtains, so I turned on a light. Then my heart plummeted into my stomach, because there was Andrew, splayed limply on the ground, his eyes only half open.
I bolted to him and dropped to his side as he let out a whimper.
“Andrew,” I said, putting two fingers to the side of his neck. He remained silent, and despite his relaxed, wilted appearance, his heart was racing, and I wondered if he was in pain. The room smelled, and it was clear to me that he’d lost control of his bowels. I couldn’t believe I’d been working here for hours without knowing he was in the next room like this.
“Fucking hell. I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you. Can you hear me? What happened?” He made a small sound, unfocused eyes attempting to meet mine, but it was as if he were severely deprived of sleep or something, unable to focus. His mouth opened and he tried to say something, but he couldn’t speak. All I got was halting words mushed into each other. I felt for him; he must’ve been mortified by his condition. I would’ve been, at least.
The obvious solution would be to get Suzanne’s number from Andrew’s phone, so I searched him for it and found it in his right jacket pocket. I pressed the button the iPhone, swiped, and let out a sigh of frustration. He was security conscious enough to lock his phone with a code, of course.
“Can you… You can’t tell me the code,” I said knowing. He grunted quietly.
“What happened?”
I shrieked and jumped to my feet. Leila stood in the doorway, staring in shock at Andrew’s body. “You scared the bejesus out of me,” I exclaimed. I stopped myself before asking if she could make some noise when she moved or if I could put a bell on her. “What does it look like happened? Someone put a spell on him.” Abruptly, my stance changed, standing up straight. “Wait. Do you know how to get in touch with…anyone?” I asked desperately.
“I know Ms. Cooper’s phone number,” she said frankly.
My eyes widened. “Seriously? How?”
“Andrew gave it to me after I worked here for three months.”
That stopped my brain dead in its tracks. “You…used to work here?” I whispered. I remembered Andrew telling me that one of the night shift managers had been killed, but he hadn’t told me it was Leila. Whether it was for her own privacy or her dignity or some other reason, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I could call Suzanne.
“I worked here for three months,” Leila confirmed as I took out my own phone.
“Okay…what’s her number?” I asked, ready to dial. She rattled off the number and dialed it.
The phone rang twice times before someone answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Suzanne?”
“Yes, who’s this?”
She had a British accent like Andrew did. I took a deep breath and said, “It’s Ripley Mason. I got your number from Leila. I’m here in Andrew’s office and he’s in really bad shape. Someone cast a spell on him and it’s like he’s lost control of the part of his brain that lets him move around and speak.”
“What?” she snapped. “What happened?”
“I-I don’t know,” I said, glancing back to Andrew. He actually looked calmer now, and I hoped that was because he knew Suzanne could fix this. “I was doing my rounds and I met Sun; she’s the one that told me and that’s why I came into his office. I don’t- Who would do this? What do I do?”
“It’s okay, Ripley. I’ll leaving now and will be there soon,” she told me. I heard rustling in the background, the sounds of getting out of a chair and footsteps. “Did you check the security cameras?”
My eyes shut in irritation against my stupidity. It hadn’t even occurred to me. “I’m sorry. Of course, I’ll do that right away.” Proof positive that I was completely out of it. Some security guard I was, not even able to keep my head in an emergency.
“Don’t apologize, Ripley, you’re quite within your rights to be discombobulated at the moment,” she said. “And I’d like you stay with Andrew, but I would prefer to know what happened. Leave his side just for a second to check the footage.
“Okay.” I crouched down to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.” His eyes flicked to me, but he didn’t make a sound. Getting back to my feet and walking over to the security room door, I went in and sat at my desk, putting the phone on speaker so I could more easily navigate the footage.
After fidgeting around with the unfamiliar aspect of the program, since I’d never needed to look back before and Andrew only showed me how to do it once, I finally went back to the point where the spell had been cast. “Okay, he walked into his office with two men at…4:08 p.m. and it looks like he was fine with it. He wasn’t under duress, from what I can see.”
“That’s likely Michael Wise and Eric Henry,” Suzanne told me. “They were allegedly making a donation, a herd of Bagot goats.”
“Allegedly?”
“Well, I’m operating under the assumption that they lied if Andrew is spelled.”
I grimaced. That was a good point. Watching them have a conversation, I saw Andrew tense, and then turn to dart toward his desk, but he only made it two steps before one of the men raised what looked like a wand, snapping it in my late boss’s direction, speaking something. As I saw Andrew’s body seize like he’d been hit with a taser and collapse, I hissed in a sharp breath. “Cripes.”
“What is it?”
“One of them had a wand,” I managed. “He-He did something with it.”
“I’m here, Ripley. Come back to the office.”
My eyes widened and I did as I was told, stunned to see her opening the front door. “How did you get here so fast?” I asked.
The woman gave me a small smile, rendered grim by the situation. “Call it a trick of the trade.”
“Oh. Gotcha.”
Suzanne was all hard edges, her pin-straight blond hair cut at an angle just below her ears, and she wore a smart blue pants suit with matching pumps. But then she looked to Andrew and her face softened, despair and fury flashing across it as she quickly walked to him and knelt at his side, taking his weak hand in hers.
“Oh, Andrew,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry. You’ll be okay. I already texted a healer and asked her to come by. A friend of mine named Janine.”
I looked back to Andrew’s face, his eyes open and his expression one of exhaustion, but then quickly looked to Suzanne. “Why would someone do this?” I asked.
“I have a feeling at least one of our animals is missing,” she told me, her voice low and hard.
Anger flared up in me. “What?” I asked tersely. I glanced back in the direction of the cameras. “Should we check the cameras to see which enclosure they went to? Do we- Are there cops you can call for this? What do we do?”
Suzanne’s face slowly faded to sadness. “I’ll take care of it,” she said. “You’re accurate in that I do have a different police I’ll call about this. But there’s a good chance we won’t get the animal back.”
“Wait, why? Come on, there’s got to be magic you could do, right?” I asked anxiously.
“The animal will have been warded and sold to someone immediately,” she explained. “They would’ve had a buyer set up, and gone straight there to reduce the risk of being caught with it. Anyone who is buying an animal like this is extremely powerful, which means that even if we catch the men who stole it, they’d go to prison, but they wouldn’t risk angering the buyer. They won’t tell the authorities who it was, even for a lesser sentence. Losing an animal to robbery has only happened twice in the zoo’s history, this is the third time, but that’s how it played out both times. Actually, in the first instance, the police didn’t even catch the people who took it, since they were wearing masks.”
Just then, there was a knock at the door, and Suzanne pushed herself to her feet, walking over and opening it without hesitation. “He’s in here.” I took the opportunity to open the windows and turned down the thermostat so it would start displacing the smelly air.
A woman walked in, Janine presumably. “Oh, goodness,” she breathed, going quickly to Andrew. She took his pulse with one hand as she pulled a wand out from her purse with the other. “It’s good he’s staying calm. Redire orior can be terrifying to be subjected to.”
“He wasn’t calm when I got here,” I told her quietly. “I’ve been here for hours and didn’t know he was here until just a few minutes ago.”
Janine swore softly. “All right. Let me get started.”
I didn’t know what that meant, so I turned to Suzanne. “What did she call this?”
“The spell is ‘redire orior’. It’s a regression of part of the mind, basically all the way back to when we were first born,” she said tightly, anger flickering across her face. “He has no more control over his body than he did when he was a newborn baby.”
I grimaced, looking back to him. “Oh my god,” I whispered. It meant exactly what it had looked like when I’d walked in: Andrew had been rendered completely helpless. Rage welled up inside me, despising the men who’d done this and wishing desperately that Suzanne had been more confident in finding them.
Suzanne took the opportunity to walk into the security office and I heard her sit in my chair. Janine put down her wand to have both hands free and told Andrew, “Just relax, concentrate on breathing slowly,” she said, carefully pulling both of his legs out and rolling him onto his back. She then put his arms at his sides and, picking up her wand, pointed it at his forehead.
I took in a sharp breath of surprise as I saw a faint glow coming from the wand, through the top of it and then to Andrew’s forehead. She held that position for a while, muttering under her breath.
A few minutes later, Suzanne came out and took her phone from her pocket, saying, “I don’t recognize either of the men in the footage. But they seemed distressed, particularly the one that didn’t hurt Andrew. I don’t think that’s what was meant to happen.”
“Meant to or not, it happened,” I muttered through clenched teeth. I’d already decided that my new to-do list every day included first checking the office cameras.
“Andrew,” Janine said, letting the glow fade. “Can you speak?”
“I…yeah,” he whispered.
Suzanne came over to my side. “Thank goodness. How are you feeling? How’s the vertigo?”
“Pretty much gone,” he said, closing his eyes for a long moment, though he didn’t try to stand up.
“Andrew, I pulled up the cameras in the office and listened to the audio,” she told him. “I know what happened.”
My eyebrows furrowed. “The cameras have audio?”
“It’s under admin privileges, but yes. Andrew, you should have known better,” she said softly, looking back to him. “The gun in one of the desk drawers? I presume that’s what you were lunging for, because those two men had just made it clear they were here for an animal.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I just…” He looked distraught.
“They told you to just let them get what they came for,” Suzanne said. “Why didn’t you?” My lips parted in shock.
“The last time this happened, I cooperated, but…I regretted it,” he growled. “We never saw Harriet again. I couldn’t just stand here and let them do whatever they wanted. Not again.” I assumed Harriet was one of their animals, but I didn’t ask.
“Don’t ever do something so foolish again,” she told him, on the verge of being upset, her emotions likely tempered by his condition. “I want to make it clear to you that this job, these animals, they’re immensely important, but they are not worth your life. He could have killed you. If someone gains access to the zoo again to steal an animal I want you to cooperate fully. Understood?”
“Yeah,” Andrew muttered.
The idea that Andrew had tried to bring a gun to a wand fight was staggering. Something heavy curled in my stomach at the thought. It was clear he cared about the wellbeing of the animals to a degree I hadn’t comprehended.
Janine took one of the small pillows from the couch and tucked it under Andrew’s head as Suzanne continued. “All right,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll go through the footage to determine what they stole and then call the authorities to report the theft. Janine, can you continue to treat him?”
I wasn’t sure what that entailed, but Janine apparently did, since she nodded and knelt back down as Suzanne went back into the security office. Janine did the same thing that she’d done before, that soft glow channeling light into Andrew’s head. Obviously, I wanted to ask what she was doing, but I knew better than to think I’d get an answer. Instead, I sat in one of the loveseats in front of Andrew’s desk, turning it to face them.
I heard Suzanne’s voice faintly speaking to someone on the phone and the minutes ticked by. Eventually, Suzanne came back out again and she stood next to me for a long moment, watching the healing process before turning to me.
“Andrew told me you were attempting to create some enrichment activities for the animals?” asked my boss.
“Oh, uh…yeah, I am,” I answered. I assumed she was trying to make small talk to distract me from the current situation, and I appreciated it. “The first one went well. Spike loves artichokes, pecans, and hazelnuts. I went with things that made it a challenge to eat, like it’s a challenge to pull out fingernails of its prey.”
Suzanne’s expression brightened just enough for me to notice. “Ripley, that’s wonderful. Very clever.” She let out a breath. “It’s becoming more and more obvious to me that Andrew chose well in hiring you.” I gave her a small smile. “Listen, I’m going to hire someone else to be here with you on duty,” Suzanne told me, “and by that, I mean someone from my neck of the woods. Andrew explained that to you, correct?”
“Not much. Just that you’re not from Earth.”
Suzanne smiled. “That makes me sound like an alien, but yes, I’m not from this dimension. I can hire someone who has similar abilities to mine, who can check in every few hours, make sure everything’s all right, but generally make themselves scarce unless there’s an emergency. He wouldn’t have been able to do much if he’d already been here, but he’d have known what was going on. Andrew would have received assistance immediately.”
I was curious of what those abilities were, aside from being able to see the animals, but I wasn’t bold enough to ask. Also, I was curious about who this new ‘employee’ would be, but presumably I’d find out sooner or later. “That would make me feel a little better,” I said, nodding. “Knowing there was someone else here.”
She nodded once. “It’s as good as done, then. As for Andrew, he’ll need to take a few days off to recover. Would you be willing to give the tours until he’s back in ship-shape?”
My eyes bugged out of my skull. “Wait, what? I can’t even see all the animals!”
Suzanne chuckled at my expression and shook her head. “I can enchant a pair of specs for you to wear,” she told me. “It’ll give you a bit of a headache, but you’ll be able to see all of the animals. Also, I’ll give you the background for each of them, because you’ll be speaking about them to the tourists.”
I blinked, thinking of how awesome it would be to finally know all about them all. And it was flattering, the fact that she had such confidence in me that, without hesitation, she asked if I could take over for Andrew. The best thing for me to do, of course, was to be confident and assure her that I could take any temporary promotion in stride. “I’m…I’m not great with people,” I managed.
Yup. Nailed it.
“You can be a little harsh with them if you need to,” she said with a small, knowing smile. “I assumed that signing up for a job where you interact with a screen of cameras the whole time means you aren’t great with people. And Andrew did brief me on you when he hired you. How good are you at couching your insults in polite talk? The British are quite skilled, but I know Americans aren’t too bad at it.”
I smirked, remembering how a coworker friend of mine once told a customer, “Oh, bless your heart,” in her thick southern accent and it sounded like the worst insult. “I can manage that, I think.”
A buzz from the gate that went to the panel on the wall drew our attention and Suzanne walked over to let the visitors in. It was three people, a man and two women, with a gurney.
Walking over to Andrew, I folded my arms with a small smile as Janine released his head from the glow the wand was emitting. “Hey. Sorry you had to lay on the floor for so long knowing I was cluelessly reading a book in the next room.”
“Eh, not the end of the world,” he whispered. “I’ll be back on my feet soon. So, no parties while I’m gone.”
I snorted and my smile widened, and he returned it.
Going back into the security room, I pulled the system back to the multi-camera exterior view, and I sat there and listened to Suzanne talk to one of the medics, explaining everything that had happened in detail. Once she’d done that and they brought Andrew outside on the gurney, presumably to a waiting ambulance, I gave my statement, and then…it was back to work.
Obviously going back to work like nothing had changed felt weird, but Suzanne stayed, letting me know that she would get some work done at Andrew’s desk until my shift was over. It was likely the opposite of necessary, the robbers were gone, but it did make me feel a tiny bit better knowing that she was in the next room with her wand.
First / Previous
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Chapter Two - Beginning Of Ruin - Part Two

Slowly coming to a halting stop, the wooden boat previously acting as my mode of transport came to a complete rest against the river's gentle current, precisely lining up with the river dock now on my right.
Stepping out of the drifting craft, my feet made contact with the solid ground once more. For some reason the ground below me felt somewhat ethereal after travelling that short distance by water. Laid out in front of me was a paved path that perfectly divided the rows of red spider lilies on either side.
Strewing the familiar weapon across my shoulders, I flicked the timeless hood over my head before traversing the vacant road with no particular destination in mind, as I walked by, the spider lilies blowing in the wind would halt their swaying motions in an unnatural display of primal fear.
No matter how much I tried to tone it down, it seems the ominous pressure being emitted by this body couldn’t help but inspire fear in the hearts of living creatures. Even here in this Celestial realm, it was still the domain of the living so my presence here was hardly ever warranted, nor welcomed for that matter. It wasn’t hard for me to see the effect my presence had on a given setting, it would always elicit a combination of three reactions from those around me.
It was either fear, hatred or anxiety.
That was the case for all but one....just a single girl didn’t seem to mind me being near her at all.
Just as I was about to rescind myself to the inevitable fate that came along with this existence, I saw something or rather, someone approaching in the distance.
It was another young female wearing glasses and speeding towards me as fast as her nimble legs could carry her. She was holding something like a scroll in her right hand and given how awkward her tumbling strides were, it was clear that athletics weren’t her forte.
As soon as she’d gotten within range, her eyes sparked with a sudden realization, and she abruptly placed her right leg in front of her to slow her awkward sprint. Kicking up a fit of dust in the process, the green haired girl stopped just a few footsteps away from me before immediately bowing in a trembling motion.
“G-G-good evening, Sir Shinigami....or would you prefer Sir Reaper instead?” That timid question trailed behind her upturned eyes.
“It doesn’t matter. What is it Minerva? I doubt you sprinted all the way here just to give me such an awkward greeting.”
“Eh....you-you know my name?”
“Naturally.”
I saw her face lose a bit of its color after I spoke those words, but she soon collected herself before correcting her posture.
“Ah! I wanted to ask you about something. You see I’m in charge of managing the souls that get sent to reincarnate from both the overworld and Eden, but something odd has come up.”
“Something odd you say?”
“Yes, I was going through the archives just now and from what I’m seeing, none of the celestial souls that were sent to reincarnate have entered the cycle. Our souls usually tend to take a little longer to recycle but this is just an anomaly, for the past four hundred years very few of the celestial souls have managed to successfully reincarnate. That’s why I was rushing over here, I wanted to see if you could somehow properly escort Luelle instead of just letting things happen the usual way.”
“I saw her off just as she’d requested, she didn’t want me to personally send off her soul for some reason.”
Minerva’s neon eyes drooped a little lower just then, it almost seemed as if she was staring at the scroll now in her hands but after a few seconds it quickly became clear that it wasn’t the case at all.
“I see...so she’s really gone then.”
“Yeah.”
The distant silence that fell over us seemed to drown out even the humming winds now passing through the field of lilies.
“That scroll...doesn’t it automatically record everyone who enters the source?”
“Yes, I was just about to check it myself.”
She unraveled the thick parchment like material, scanning the myriad of letters that were appearing on its surface.
Her eyes widened in anticipation and after a while, a careless stream of words escaped her mouth. “It’s.....not....here.”
That was the beginning of it.
“Not there? You mean her soul....hasn’t returned to the source?”
The edges of the well-aged scroll crumpled under the force now being exerted by her slender fingers.
“Usually if I want to search for a particular soul, I just need to concentrate on the name of the person I'm trying to find. Even a vague image would usually be enough but....no matter how hard I focus, nothing comes up when I skim through the archive for Luelle’s name.”
This was a problem. All souls were originally supposed to return to the source, a realm even beyond reach of the Celestials for reincarnation, but for some reason that just wasn’t happening this time.
Souls did occasionally lose their way along that journey and eventually become evil spirits, but that kind of thing only happened by coincidence, the mere prospect of it ever occurring for a Celestial spirit like Luelle was simply absurd.
“Well, this is a problem. I’m certain I witnessed Luelle’s soul drifting off just now, but I’ll have to look into this. For now, you shoul-”
Before I could even finish speaking, a strange mechanism appeared in the skies above us.
It was a large white crack, the kind of thing you’d almost exclusively see on a mirror. The sprawling white lines spread across the sky, leaving an ominous screeching sound behind every time they expanded their jagged paths. Each fissure seemed to tear through the fabric of the heavens, revealing glimpses of an otherworldly darkness beyond. As the cracks widened, a sense of foreboding filled the air, suffusing the atmosphere with an eerie tension that seemed to reverberate through every fiber of existence.
“What....is that?” Minera barely managed to mutter those words in astonishment.
Soon after, a litany of white cryptic markings began escaping from the jagged openings, spreading across everything from the skies above to even the waves washing below. The strange symbols glowed with a demeaning white light, emanating a strange kind of energy each time it cast its ethereal glow.
“U-Uhm....Shinigami...do you know what this is?” Minerva asked from beside me, timidly surveying our unusual surroundings.
“No....but you should head back just to be-”
Cutting me off once again, the strange markings etched on to the world itself began emitting bright white sparks like a timid, yet persistent firework display. The sparking lights grew fiercer and fiercer by the second, and before I could even execute my next move, the entire world was seemingly engulfed in a blinding cascade of light. It was as if the very essence of existence had been ignited, and we were just insignificant specks adrift in the vast expanse of creation.
Before my vision was completely overpowered by the tormenting flash, I saw Minerva extend a hand towards me with tears flowing from her eyes. I wasn’t able to hear the words that escaped her, but for a second it looked like she was calling out to me.
Apparently, even Celestials found solace in my presence at the end.
The world was divided into three realms. The first of these was the lower realm that the humans inhabited, we called it ‘Terrania’. It was a land festering with humans, a world where only they were able to dominate and reign supreme - Or at least that’s what they thought anyway.
In reality, that realm had only managed to continue functioning because of the efforts of the beings known as ‘Celestials’. These Celestials resided in a realm that was far above Terrania known as ‘Eden’. They were responsible for overseeing the various aspects of the world these humans inhabited and that just meant that they were in charge of maintaining its balance. If things ever started getting out of hand, then they would intervene to re-establish that balance, but that would only happen if it was absolutely necessary. Though they could influence aspects of the world itself, the Celestials weren’t gods but rather akin to something like a superior version of humanity, the humans of the lower realm often referred to them as ‘angels’.
The only thing in the entire world that came close to mirroring anything even close to that level was the entity known as ‘Akasha’ or the ‘Source.’ It wasn’t an actual person but rather, the mechanism in place that managed the influx of both mortal and Celestial souls accordingly, managing them in a timely manner and allowing them to reincarnate given time.
It resided in an exclusive realm that surpassed both Eden and Terrania. Akasha was the recycling mechanism put in place to cleanse and return souls to the mortal cycle. Every time a human died, their souls would naturally return to Akasha over a number of years given that they hadn’t become an evil spirit or deviated from the natural order in some other way. That’s why even as a Reaper, I didn’t actually need to guide the souls of every single mortal that had perished, but rather just the ones still clinging on to the mortal realm or those that had deviated from the natural order.
Seeing as only pure souls could pass between the realms without restrictions, very few Celestials had ever gone directly to Akasha, but just about anyone who wasn’t mortal could detect its overwhelming essence radiating from some far-off place. The same went for me and I was neither mortal nor a Celestial.
That was how it had been, the way in which the world managed to maintain some amount of balance even without outside intervention, but the moment I saw those strange cracks appear in the sky I could already tell that the fragile balance keeping this world afloat was beginning to crumble.