Bundle deals available! There are mostly samples, but there are some full-sizes as well. I priced to sell, but am open to reasonable offers. More details are on my spreadsheet. New items have been added recently.

• Most perfumes were received direct from the original store. If you want me to double-check, just let me know!
• All perfumes are kept in a cool, dark place. I live in a non-smoking and pet-free house.
• Payment via PayPal G&S. I will send an invoice. Prices are in USD.
• If buying multiple items that aren't already bundled, make me a reasonable offer for a discount :)
• I will ship within 7 days of payment, though I am often much quicker and will ship same/next day!
• Shipping is $13 tracked to Canada unless you're only getting a few samples, in which case it's $3 without tracking. Shipping to the US is typically around $13 tracked (I will provide a quote based on zip code).
• If purchasing >$50, I'll offer a 50% discount on shipping. If >$125, shipping will be free regardless of location!
• I'm mostly looking to sell, but will consider swaps for scents listed on my ISO tab. However, I'm looking to get multiple items (at least three) from one seller.

Fantome:

• Ivan the Fool: Golden figs, oakmoss, Siberian fir, well-worn Russian leather, cedar, warm wolf fur, juniper berries, sparkling bergamot
  
• Vasilia (FS): Clover honey, neroli, rich tonka, chamomile, dry hay, a flower crown of marigolds & sunflowers
  

Stereoplasm:

• Clemency (2 samples are available): Myrrh, clementine teak, thyme, photographic fixer, tobacco, suede
  
• Disco Stardust (both a FS and sample are available): Winter Mai Tais, roll-on lip gloss, expensive sunglasses, tanning bed oil and new car smell
  
• Excitation: Frothed Irish cream with rye whiskey, evaporated milk, wild honey and chocolate covered coffee beans
  
• Flowers in the Rain: Warm rain, carnation corsage, pink musk and passion fruit
  
• Gone Gnome: Top notes of cilantro and key lime rooted in fresh garden basil, english cucumber and melon blossom
  
• Kindling: Sweet jasmine incense, sunset musk, fresh sativa and strawberry wine
  
• Opaline: Iridescent and heavy stones of opalized amber, birds of paradise, frozen yucca and lacquered teak
  
• Perdotmint (both a FS and sample are available): Gems of concorde pear, crushed spearmint, iced green tea and classic jade accord
  
• Reverie: Frozen pollen, prickly gooseberry vine, raw cashmere wool and midnight blooming primrose
  
• Rickey: Old Tom Gin and muddled cilantro impress upon star wedges of Mary Ellen Sweet Lime in bubbly soda
  
• The Presents: A jar of homemade apricot jam, the worn pages of a favourite book, a golden yellow beeswax candle, a soft cashmere scarf to keep you cozy all year long.
  
• Toasted Matchimellow (FS): Bright green ice cream baked inside marshmallow meringue (usually found during summer months in cafe midi)
  
• Yellownog: Intoxicating bourbon-vanilla, cigar-smoked cinnamon, clementine stars, shredded coconut and Chantilly cream
  

CocoaPink:

• Black Voodoo: Rich amber resins, spiritueuse double vanilla, butterscotch, bourbon vanilla, hot butter rum & coconut crème
  
• Fear of Ghosts: Glowing marshmallow orbs and smoky vanilla spectral mists swirl aimlessly around an old bonfire in the Crisp October night air – Fresh vanilla puffed marshmallows, toasted marshmallows, hints of bonfire smoke among scattered sharp grains of white rice
  
• Full Moon: Blackberry, Coconut Milk, Marshmallows, White Chocolate
  
• Gooey Caramel: Real, old fashioned caramel, the gooey, salty kind made with real butter
  
• Handbook for the Recently Deceased: Wedding cake accord; sticky strawberries and raspberries; a shock of green melon and vibrant lime; an electric hint of mint and cilantro; grave soil; and a puff of smoke
  
• Pumpkin Kiss: Pumpkin flesh, soft bourbon vanilla, white and brown sugars kissed softly with pure cocoa absolute
  
• Warm Mittens: This fragrance evokes the memory of sitting around a campfire, holding a steamy mug of hot cocoa with marshmallows while wearing the woolliest, warmest pair of mittens.
  
• You'll Never Grow Old: The irresistible mingling of cotton candy, waffle cones, caramel popcorn, and candy apple is stalked by the tang of an oncoming storm, sea salt, freshly-dug dirt, and a primal, seductive musk
  

Possets:

• Mrs. Rabbit's Carrot Cake (FS): The most moist and vanilla drenched melting cake shot through with sugar encrusted rum kissed currents and golden raisins and crowned with the richest butter filled sour cream and ricotta frosting and trimmed with tiny spun sugar carrots, and grass
  
• Silver Narcissus: A stunning fragrance that combines the luxurious Possets' Silver Base with the iconic Narcissus flower, evoking the essence of a warm and vibrant spring morning
  
• Solis Anima: Blood Orange, Lychee Tea, Screwpine Flower, Tamarind, Cucumber, and Ginger, Tomato, Vetiver, Kadamba Flowers, and Sandalwood
  

Pulp Fragrances:

• An Accidental Interloper: Green tea, clary sage, rose geranium, evergreen boughs, white patchouli, vetiver and sweet amber musk
  
• Embrace: A kindly kitchen witch invites you in from the cold, feeds you pumpkin shortbread with butter, apricot preserves, and brown sugar & then sends you safely on your way.
  
• The Phantom Room: Cherry tobacco, honeyed almonds, red currants, cocoa butter, & vanilla balsam.
  
• Women In Dresses Running From Houses 2021: This year's version is smokier and sweeter: Caramellized sugar, a roaring bonfire, heliotrope, aged patchouli, and a hint of violet
  

Nui Cobalt:

• Hell Freezes Over: Decadent devil’s food cake, still warm from the oven, fluffy marshmallow frosting and the lightest dusting of crushed candy cane
  
• Little Brown Rabbit: Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against fluffy marshmallow, cottonflower, pink pepper, and a trace of carrot seed.
  
• Mendacity: Horchata: Classic horchata made from jasmine rice, demerara sugar, and true Ceylon cinnamon.
  
• Roll Initiative: Egyptian cotton, pale driftwood, white pepper, green cardamom, and a slender wisp of copal smoke.
  

Arcana Craves:

• Blueberries Crave Sunshine: Lemonade, watermelon, lime zest, golden gardenia, pearl musk, tiny blueberries, Black Dragon tea leaf, and blood red cedar

Sucreabeille:

• Alembic (FS): Sweet pumpkin souffle dotted with marshmallows and drizzled with buttery maple syrup. Tuberose wafts through the open front door

Arcana Wildcraft

• Witches Cavort with Cupcakes (FS): Pumpkin spice cupcakes are smothered in gobs of cream cheese frosting

Hexennacht

• I ♥ the 80’s: A Lisa Frank-esque powerhouse: tuberose, orange blossom, white amber, bubblegum, suntan oil, Aquanet hairspray, gummy worms, & fruit-scented erasers

Andromeda's Curse

• Strength: Coffee, Marshmallow, Milk Chocolate, Coumarin, Brown Sugar, Whipped Vanilla Frosting
  
• The Call of the Void: French Lavender, Nag Champa, Egyptian Amber, Sandalwood, Cedarwood, and Vanilla
  

Black Hearted Tart

• Autumn Sweater: Warm cedar, sweet vanilla musk, fallen leaves, crunchy acorns, pine cones, nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon
  
• Electric Feel: Sparkling lime, lychee fruit, rose, melon, grape, citrus glazed bundt cake, golden amber and sweet musk.
  
• Fade Into You: Bergamot, orange, lime, lemon, white and chocolate orchids, cocoa butter, sandalwood, and ambergris.
  
• Girlfriend In A Coma: Herbaceous blend of lavender leaves, flowers, vanilla musk, tonka bean, cedar, and sandalwood.
  
• Glory Box: Deep purple violets, brown sugar, juicy plum, fresh ozone, lily, heliotrope, dark musk, saffron, tonka bean and amber.
  
• Head Over Heels: Fresh apple, apricots, plum, citrus, pink magnolia, heliotrope, vanilla orchid, honeyed amber, marzipan, and sandalwood.
  
• Heart Shaped Box: Chocolate truffles made with cocoa powder, sweet cream, and a hint of vanilla bean.
  
• Honeybee: Buttery toffee, swirls of honey, and warm vanilla are brightened up with cheery bergamot and tart Brazilian orange.
  
• Melt With You: Scented in cocoa butter, raw honey, and chocolate notes.
  
• My Velouria: Red rose, peony, violet, amber, white musk, sandalwood, and woodsy cedar.
  
• Only In Dreams: White gardenia, calla lily petals, fluffy marshmallow clouds, and vanilla orchid musk.
  
• Piece Of My Heart: Lemony floral magnolia blossoms, waxy green tree leaves, sugar cane, cardamom pink pepper, vanilla bean, sandalwood and bitter almond.
  
• Pink Moon: Sun ripened raspberries, honeysuckles, pulps of juicy oranges, farm fresh peaches, and sugared pink grapefruit.
  

Poesie

• Nectar: These golden trumpet-shaped blossoms herald the arrival of summer. Nectar is the sweet scent of honeysuckle blossoms — honeyed, intoxicating, irresistible

Astrid

• Ensoleille: Orange blossom, bamboo, vanilla musk, lemon, sugar, palo santo, and litsea
  
• Whisper: Cherry blossom, a pair of patchoulis, sugar, and vanilla
  

Alkemia

• Vanille Armour (FS): Vanilla Infused with Warm Spices

Link again: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19URt2wyxl2xQd8XN2CPKzqBv0ZANl65yUTx9Gx_u0a4/edit?usp=drive_link
Thanks for checking out my destash!

Hello everyone and thank you in advance for reading.
I am a 31 year old female. I don't drink, I use weed everyday, and I am in relatively good health overall (blood work always in good ranges, minimal issues, not often sick).
I work as a delivery driver for UPS, 45-50 hours a week average. For exercise, I alternate between strength training and cardio. Every day for an hour. I walk my dogs everyday for 1.5 hours total.
I eat fine. Better than most of my peers. Lots of veggies and protein. My biggest issue is eating enough food.
Last year around the end of May, I experienced intense pain starting at the top of my rotater cuff all the way down to my hips and under my armpits around my ribs. I try to continue about my day because the pain started at work. I am unloading a large amount of 20+ lb boxes and my hands fail. I drop the box, luckily it was coming off the cart so it was already like an inch from the floor. At this point my hand and shoulder are tingly and nunb. I go to the workers comp clinic concentra, get an x ray, they determine it's "soft tissue damage".
I went through 3 months of shitty physical therapy, 3 chiropractor visits, and then finally an mri where they said the issue might be herniation in my neck but they were unable to view it with the images they took and since the original complaint was about my back and shoulder, they can't image my neck.
I give up on workers comp figuring it out and turn to my primary care doctor. I explain everything to him, including offering to get the images concentra took so he could see what they are talking about. He suggests I start physical therapy at kaiser and then go from there and manage my pain with naproxen in the mean time.
I finally get an appointment for PT at kaiser and it feels like the same run around I got at concentra. I ask for neck specific exercises since I've noticed the pain begins in my neck just under my jaw. Sometimes it manifests as a migraine, most days it's just feels sore in my shoulder blade and my neck.
It's November at this point.
In December, I am slammed against the wall and floor several times and had elbows and knees shoved into my shoulder blade while face down on the floor. I suffered what was assumed to be a concussion and pain levels doubled.
Now, I get concussion headaches that are definitely separate from the migraines. I continue to manage the pain with naproxen and exercise. Some days, the pain is too much and I can't even walk the dogs.
I've brought up the headaches to my doctor and he suggested managing it with effexor, which I definitely don't want to do and I think covers up the actual problem rather than addressing it.
What's the best way to approach this? Should I have gotten any scans during this time? My insurance is through the roof, everything is covered or very very low cost. How do I tell my doctor I don't feel like I'm receiving the best care? Or am I just being whiney? Is this one of those situations where it's this or surgery? I'd rather avoid surgery as long as possible.

I am 19, and I'm a server at a restaurant and I host as well. I am known to be very responsible, always show up on time, never call out (as a general rule). I am a full time student, and I have a second job.
Recently, my DM (district manager), we will call him John, has been firing a lot of servers. John had come to me a few weeks ago, and asked me what position I liked to work in the most. He wanted to give me the position I wanted due to my "good hospitality". He expressed his satisfaction with my work ethic, and told me that he noticed how much of a good worker I am. He told me that a lot of people do not care about their job here, and that he could tell I do. So in turn, he was going to be firing a lot of people. That was very flattering to hear, I was thrilled, and he gave me what I wanted. However, with firing like 5+ servers in the span of 2 weeks, we now are low on staff for certain days, and this is a BUSY restaurant. Due to this, I've been staying hours over, in addition to my 35+ hours per week schedule.
I was thrilled to get that many hours, nonetheless, I am a full time student with a second job. I did not sign up to work a full-time schedule, especially during my semester. I am a part-time worker.
However, school ends for me next week, so working those hours would not be a problem, IN A WEEK, but, they scheduled me for almost 40 hours during finals week, in addition to my full time school schedule. Also, they never discussed the major increase in hours with me beforehand. I couldn't take off certain days this week for studying time, because my professors didn't tell us the final exam/paper dates until two weeks prior. The dates were TBA all semester, so I had no idea when they were going to be. Additionally, at my restaurant, we have to take off more than 3 weeks prior to the date. This created an issue for me.
I had no time to work on school, and working the scheduled 35+ hours, on top of staying over and taking a bigger workload because of lack of staff was exhausting me. So this past Sunday, I accidentally slept through my alarm, and was 55 minutes late to work. I have NEVER been late. This happened because I was up super late doing homework, because it is my only time to do it.
The restaurant had just opened, and so there was only one table I missed, but it was the bartender's table anyway, so they took it. I called the manager on duty as soon as I opened my eyes, and told them I'd be there in 10 mins. I was there in 10 mins, and I stayed 3 hours over my shift that day due to the lack of staff (because they fired two of the people for those shifts a couple days prior). It was mothers day, but I never complained, and kept a smile on my face even though I did not get to see my mom. I apologized to the manager on duty (who only manages one day a week), and I apologized to my main service manager, who I’ll call Rachel.
(FTR), I never ever complain about staying over or anything else, I pick up shifts that are needed on top of my set schedule, and I never ask to leave early. I also did not take off mothers day, unintentionally, so that is my fault.
Regardless, I was tired, and I still had 3 finals to finish for the next two days, and the next day (monday) I was scheduled for a double, 10 hours serving. I work in a college town, and 95% of our servers are college students. Additionally, My manager Rachel knows this. She went to the same college, and only graduated last year. However, she still scheduled me full-time hours the week of finals.
I knew I needed the next day off, Monday, to work on the papers, so I had tried to find coverage for my shifts. No one covered for me, so ultimately, I had to call out. Only my 3rd call out in all of my time being there, and all of my previous call-outs have been for ACTUAL reasons (sick, mom in hospital). It was my last resort, and I sent a whole paragraph on why I needed Monday off, and she told me she understood, even though I know she was not happy about it.
However, I understood the consequences of doing these two things back to back days, and I knew that a write up was a possibility. Also, I called out the night before, in hopes that someone would pick up my shift. I know that it is irresponsible to do so, the night before, but my education matters the most, and I have been burnt out.
Well, I received a write up yesterday. My first one ever, in my 6 years of working. Rachel sat me down, and explained that it is not a big deal, but that she had to do it. I do understand, but with my constant communication, and with it being finals week, I am just a small bit frustrated. Especially since other servers, who have worked there just as long as me, have done the exact same thing, and even more often. Additionally, one of the servers just quit for a week, and obviously did not show up for their shifts for that week, and came back with no consequences a week later. So I am just a little confused why I got a write up for this, and others have not.
Not to be cocky, but I know I am a hard worker. I know I do things efficiently, and that customers and management are satisfied with my work ethic. I take my job very seriously, and I care about doing the right thing. That is why I never lied when giving my reason for calling out. I always have clear and consistent communication with management. However, if I had just lied and said I was sick, would I have even gotten written up?
To provide some backstory, Rachel and I had a rough start when I first started there. She was not my main service manager at the time, and I had a feeling she did not like me. However, I did not say or do anything, and I took her criticisms and swallowed my pride. I never took an attitude with her, and never talked bad about her. Over time, her opinion of me has definitely changed, and I can see a difference in her respect for me. The other day, when I called out, she told me that she had noticed how much progress I have made. She told me she knows how hard I work. That was the first time I ever heard HER say anything to me about my work ethic. Additionally, she was not an a-$$ about the write up, and stressed to me that she knows the difference between an ongoing habit, and a mistake. She said this is a MISTAKE. She told me it won’t affect my schedule and reliability. She also said she doesn't like calling what I did a “write up”, and would rather call it counseling and documentation for our discussion. But, if that were true, why wouldn’t she just talk to me about it, instead of giving me a write up? I understand she has to answer to HER bosses as well, but then what about the other servers?
Regardless, I know that what I did was not right, I did not fight against the write up, and I peacefully accepted it. However, these are just my thoughts, and I want to know yours too.

Yes, as opposed to Avengers: Endgame. Lol
The endgame I speak of though, to me, discernably began on September 11th, 2001.
There was definitely an underlying formula going into it, involving Cheny/Haliburton + Bush and the Texas Boys' oil interests + Bush Sr. not getting saddam out of power during desert storm = needing a reason to continue military industrial complex after fall of Soviet union, unfinished business in the middle-east, and trying to turn it into a democratic American colony. I'm not saying that 9/11 was an inside job, per-se, but they definitely could have prevented it from happening if they weren't depending on a modern-day "pearl harbor" type attack on American soil to ramp up their plans. I mean, how the fuck could Alex Jones know about it, almost to the T, but our intelligence agencies didn't? Get real. This was also around the time gas prices started going above $4/gallon. This was the big money grab for fossil-fuel energies. They made so much money, they caused a recession in 2008.
This also paved the way for their surveillance state via the Patriot Act. Big-Tech, and social media's turn to get as much of your money as they can, while trying to get listening and viewing devices inside every single orifice of your existence. It took them a few years to develop "smart technologies" so this didn't really start rolling out on a public-scale until the 2010's. Before that, yeah, they could listen to your phone calls or monitor your emails, but that was limited to the devices you have on a desk at home, connected to the internet. Once they told Apple, Samsung and other companies to start integrating the "mobile data/GPS" smart technology into their mobile devices, the government now had the ability to literally monitor you 24/7. They begin entangling the social media companies with something called "Operation Mockingbird" which they've been using to manipulate the stories allowed to be reported on by news organizations since, at least the 1950's. Hopefully you don't have a moist fart that goes "trrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmpppp", otherwise the Biden administration may arrest you for treason.
These huge industries are all owned by the same people, they just have each "essential" market squeeze the economy for everything it is worth until it creates a recession and they have to print more money, adding to inflation. What happens at the end of the 2010's/start of the 2020's, once they've established a pretty decent surveillance apparatus within most peoples homes and personal lives? It's big pharma's turn. Time to "accidentally release" that virus that was conveniently created by "gain of function research" (modern-day term for biological warfare research), by a US defense contractor that was able to somehow outsource its work to China. That means they have to start a Chinese-based subsidiary of this American defense contractor. This means that, under communism, any businesses in China are part of their government. This means that American defense-contractors and pharmaceutical companies operating under subsidiaries in China are legally obligated to share information with the Chinese government. This means that every cheap Chinese item we buy on Amazon, most likely has some sort of monitoring device that dumps into some CCP "social credit" database. The social credit database is another issue in of itself. They will eventually take the world over through the slow game of literally buying everything, and when they do take over your region and implement their social credit system, you most likely already have a file with them, and most of it is probably information you gave up while blindly hitting up them "accept terms and conditions" areas.
Here we are in 2024. Young adults trying to start families, that make almost $40/hr, need to have dual income just to be able to break even and live paycheck to paycheck. It's not uncommon for people in their 20's and 30's to have never traveled outside of their state, because they came up in a household that was never able to afford vacations, and haven't been able to find a job offering benefits or full-time, let alone sustainable wages. People don't even want to have children. This is a failed society. They have successfully trained us to fight eachother, and live in a world that is so fucked up and chaotic, that we have tuned out so much and all we worry about is which shows are leaving netflix, and which seasonal double pumpkin caramel jizzle crap-a-chino is coming up at Starbucks.

Hello Apes,
Here's another review of Roaring Kitty tweets, if you wanna check out previous days then links are below:
13th May
14th May
To reiterate, the description of each tweet is to the best of my knowledge the references made to allow you to make your own view in context and the speculation is pure speculation on my part, this is just for fun and shouldn't be taken as any financial advice, make your own decisions, I just like the stock. If you have anything to add feel free to in the comments and I'll do my best to update the post but given the amount of tweets now i don't have lots of time.
8:00am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790713748866371690
Description: This is taken from the film Easy-A and shows Emma Stone walking through school catching a lot of attention looking fine and what was an A sticker in the original clip has been replaced with the Gamestop play logo. The song is Sexy Silk by Jessie J
Speculation: The stock is sexy, particularly among the younger people. What was Easy-A is now Easy-Gamestop. Looking really great in the black.
8.15am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790717515523658119
Description: First we have a scene from the movie Prestige, with a Michael Caine voiceover about a magicians magic trick of making something disappear. The quote is "The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back." Meanwhile a person with a gamestop logo is being electrocuted to life a little frankenstein like and then a Gamestop logo bursts through an explosion. We then go to a fight scene with the song "back in the saddle again" by Aerosmith playing.
Speculation: The quote from the Prestige in full talks about the different parts of making something disappear. In full " Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige"." The Aerosmith song also has some interesting lyrics, "Ridin' into town alone by the light of the moon" "I'm ridin', I'm loadin' up my pistol, I'm ridin', I really got a fistful, I'm ridin', I'm shinin' up my saddle, I'm ridin', this snake is gonna rattle"
8.30am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790721293089964126
Description: Not sure what film this is from but essentially we have a group of people looking for someone who is messing with them, they come across the infamous meme of death looking for Gamestop and then they track down Roaring Kitty alongside 893489 CHIMP located in Boston. We then get a message of Prep mode and arm ready for transport, hold pattern until further notice and a message again on a watch saying the same with a Gamestop logo
Speculation: WS looking for DFV and just coming across more memes, not really understanding it. As pointed out by many, 893489 is the hexcode for purple https://www.colorhexa.com/893489 which could be a direct reference to people DRSing. Final message suggests it's a hold until further notice, potentially a gamestop announcement who knows?
8.45am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790725065585439065
Description: We have a scene from Ozark where the wife of the money laundering family is alone in her bedroom reflecting to the sound of The Daily Mail by Radiohead. Some Gamestop logos on the wall which i think replace a picture of her family in the original clip. More reflection.
Speculation: Not sure about this one other than the family in Ozark were right on the line of legality when it came to what they were doing, essentially they were money laundering and in the end it cost them their family. SHFs messing with Gamestop to the point of legality could be what costs them their family of investors?
9.00am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790728848226521547
Description: This is a famous scene from Star Wars where Han Solo takes them through the asteroid field despite C3-PO's cry that the odds are so greatly stacked against them, approximately 3720-1 to be exact! "Never tell me the odds" says Hans Solo. The Song Come Along by Cosmo Sheldrake comes on as the ship navigates it's way through.
Speculation: This play is a high risk play as we all know but DFV doesn't care about the odds, so many people have told him how crazy he is but that doesn't stop him absolutely nailing it. The song has some interesting lyrics to pick a few, "Don't let moments pass along, And waste before your eyes", "We'll be here when the world slows down, And the sunbeams fade away, Keeping time by a pendulum, As the fabric starts to fray" Full lyrics here
9.15am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790732615022195139
Description: This is taken from The Chappelle Show "when keeping it real goes wrong". In this sketch Kitty replaces a lot of the words to relate to him and the scene ends with Wu-Tang being brought up.
Speculation: Really i think this is just DFV having some fun with this sketch, replacing the woofs for meows, it brings up Wu-Tang as well which was a talking point way back in the NFT marketplace chat.
9.30am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790736391124774975
Description: We have a clip of Moon Knight from Fortnite alongside the song Day and Night by Kid Cudi. This is the official fortnite music video.
Speculation: The Moon Knight in fortnite is considered a rare character. In fact the last time the Moon Knight was in the fortnite shop was Nov29, 2023. With that, it's a very valuable and sort after skin. Also worth noting about the Moon Knight, "For a quick run-down: Moon Knight is actually a former mercenary named Marc Spector. One day, when he's left for dead in the desert, the ancient Egyptian moon god Khonsu revives him. Along with a new lease on life, Khonsu gifts Marc with god-like powers to fight evil". Take from that what you will.
9.45am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790740164848861227
Description: Not 100% sure on the cartoon being shown but the rap is Mr. Niceguy by Will Smith.
Speculation: I don't think DFV is liking the public dissing he is getting from various media outlets but really he doesn't care that much as he can just nail some memes he has lined up like this. If you want the full lyrics to the song, you can find it here
10am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790743946764644659
Description: This is the epic reveal in fight club and DFV has replaced a lot of the words. In the original scene, if you haven't watched fight club, the main protagonist has put the pieces together to realise that he himself is actually the same person as the other protagonist in the film and it was him alone that accidentally setup a sort of movement against the financial elite. In this clip DFV plays off the two characters between DFV and Roaring Kitty.
Speculation: Roaring Kitty was the twitter handle and Youtube profile for Keith Gill where he would speculate on the stock because he just loved doing it. DFV was the reddit handle where he is associated to that other sub i can't mention here but you know where i mean. I think that DFV is saying that what started as a fun speculation of the stock became something bigger than himself with his other channel in DFV on reddit. Now the wheels have moved and in the film it ends with the financial institutions being blown up, perhaps something similar metaphorically is already in place right now. It's actually a great analogy from DFV about his situation.
10.15am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790747714440892825
Description: This is the scene in Breaking Bad where Walter comes clean to his wife Skylar about all the money he has made selling meth. Skylar sees him for who he really is in this scene and really it's the beginning of when Walter begins to really lose himself. There is a funny insert of Methamphetameme and a mention of Caroline who i believe is his wife in real life.
Speculation: I think this is just DFV having some fun and giving an idea of how nuts it probably was for him to talk to his wife about everything that has happened/is happening. I know to us DFV seems like some sort of oracle but to many people he would just seem like some of stock bro who is nuts, even his wife.
10.30am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790751492451754012
Description: This is from the oceans 11 film again where the gang are discussing about what they are and how they have come to be. DFV inserts "the Cohen crunch" as what everything could be called and also says "One could make the argument that because it was in fact Cohen joining the board that seemed to kick things off maybe it should be...". DFV then has a big reveal of the reddit user u/ avocado-in-my-anus.
Speculation: Is this all about Ryan Cohen? Is it about DFV? Is it about the Squeeze? Or is it about Avocado in my anus!? - If you follow to that reddit user you will see 3 posts, all on October 29th of each of the last 3 years, all saying Happy Cat Day posted to 3 different subreddits, "never tell me the odds", "next fucking level" and "woah dude". Why is october 29th so significant? See for yourself here
10.45am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790755264733626879
Description: First we have a clip taken from CNBC where they say "is Roaring Kitty the one running this company?". It then cuts to a classic superbad scene of lots of dicks being drawn.
Speculation: I would imagine CNBC's angle here is that in their opinion Roaring Kitty is the one helping the stock so much with his influence that he might as well be running the company. Judging by the fact we go to a load of dicks after that I don't think DFV agrees with that opinion...
11am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790759048985612468
Description: This is taken from The Avengers Endgame and it's where Peter Quill and Thor are told they should fight one another for the honour of the leadership of the Guardians of the Galaxy. They reply they don't want to go against each other and then there is a little humored ambigurity over who is in charge.
Speculation: This could be about DFV and RC. Not 100% which one is which but DFV is saying they are on the same side and respect each other in their view on what is best for Gamestop. DFV conceding he isn't in charge here and sort of plays into the last meme.
11.15am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790762813868175516
Description: This is a scene taken from Love Actually and you will most likely recognize Rick from The Walking Dead. In the original clip he is filming his best friend (and it turns out he actually is in love with his best friends wife in this film). It then cuts to some memes of Ryan Cohen and a clip from his stream about updating thesis regularly.
Speculation: I think this is summed up pretty well by u/ starhammer4billion. "In 2021, DFV was mad, that R.C. did not push the button/do the buyback and told us clearly that he did not like R.C. anymore with this meme. Now in 2024, he rewinds that meme and tells us, that he thought that at the time in 2021, but that the investment thesis evolved over time and he now sees R.C. as a supermodel. So basically he saw what R.C. was doing in 2024, which he did not in 2021 and he likes R.C. again now. Probably because R.C. pushed the button and also did some plan with loopholes and stuff that DFV may not have thought about."
11.30am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790766591526735887
Description: Here we have a clip from the music video Gossip Folks by Missy Elliot. Some of the lyrics have been replaced by Roaring Kitty. It tells the story of DFV and then there is a ton of emojis that read 😳💩😿🥜🐸🍦🤢👍👊💀🥸👀🤩⚡️🎮🚀🍄💥🍏🤨😵‍💫💜🫂👌🤝⛺️😼🎯👀🐶🇺🇸🎤👀🔥💥🍻
Speculation: DFV is saying this is going to go down again 3 years later after it all went down last time. The emojis i think tell the story so far too and maybe what's to come. I'll try my best to elaborate - it's really tinfoil but why not.

• DFV a bit embarrassed by how much it all took off originally, he was the focus of the world in Jan21 (embarrassed)
• All went to poo as GME dumped with the cheating tactics of the elite (poo)
• Sad kitty had to go to court and defend himself just because he was right and liked the stock. (sad kitty)
• Showed he had absolute nuts by doubling down on the stock again. (nuts)
• Papa RC posted frog and ice cream just around the time he was announced as chairman, the turnaround well and truly underway (frog and ice cream)
• Not sure about the sick emoji
• GME looking good again and making gains later into 21 (thumbs up and fist pump)
• DFV gets killed off from communicating and stock tanks, bear thesis in full swing about GME (skull)
• DD research is in full swing over what's happening to the stock and DFV is looking at it like oi oi (invetigating and eyes)
• DD gets everyone focused again and loving the stock, GME, power to the players and convinced it's going to do great again (star eyes, lightning, game, rocket)
• GME grows in the dark without revealing it's plan for transformation (mushroom)
• GME runs big end of 2022, all anticipation about NFT marketplace etc etc (boom)
• RC buying into apple and people wondering about some sort of partnership (apple)
• Turns out nothing like that happening as people wait for announcements (straight face)
• NFT marketplace is a disaster and not what people were hoping for (dizzy face)
• People start DRSing (purple heart)
• Love in the community is in full flow again as post after post about DRSing shares (hug)
• Everything is ok and all agreed on the DD and DRSing, happy to wait it out (ok and handshake)
• Not sure about tent.
• DFV comes back (kitty)
• Sees an opportunity to target the shorts again (target)
• Looks to Ryan Cohen, former owner of chewy to make a move (eye emoji in original looks to the right, dog emoji)
• Big announcement (microphone)
• US market sees this and burns to the ground (US flag and fire)
• Squeeze happens (boom)
• Cheers everybody (beers)

Edit\* As pointed out by u/ mmilad https://www.reddit.com/Superstonk/comments/1ctc9g2/dfvs_tweet_yesterday_with_emojis_are_all_rcs/ - they emojis do run in a sort of chronological order to a lot of RC's tweets, if you go to his twitter page and scroll through from his first tweet you can begin to tick off the emojis one by one.
11.45am - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790770363627921776
Description: We have a pizza being cut in too more and more slices and dubbed onto the pizza are reddit awards along with DFV's last position update post.
Speculation: The amount of awards that were constantly being given to this post got so out of hand i can't even think how many notifications and reddit coins DFV must have got back in the day. Definitely a joke on DFV's part and just a reminder to how funny it was the amount of awards he was getting.
12pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790774146994966570
Description: This clip is taken from Spiderman i think the one where Spiderman goes dark but i can't remember exactly. The music is The Black Swan taken from Swan lake and it cuts to the movie of Swan Lake with Natalie Portman as the Black Swan and Kitty being dubbed on her face as she transforms.
Speculation: Black swan events are defined as "A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected from a situation and that has potentially severe consequences". When GME does squeeze, it's going to have severe and brutal consequences for the market.
12:15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790777913245421806
Description: First we have Snoop Dogg in his music video for Gin and Juice talking about drama in the GME then we cut to Scarlet Envy saying "is it me, am i the drama", "am i the villain?"
Speculation: Just DFV having fun with all the drama that is being caused through GME, through his memes and everything in a fun light hearted DFV meme of way.
12:30pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790781688848450012
Description: The first clip is taken from Oceans 12 where Ryan is bring the gang back together for an even bigger heist of casinos. Then we have part of the heist where he is stuck waiting in the dining cabinet and cannot escape until they let him out, then we cut to 2 people talking, "waiting", "for what?", "for this". Finally we cut to Batman, i think in the Dark Knight where the Joker is in the hospital and plans to blow it up.
Speculation: Bigger squeeze than last time, band back together, GME holders for the last 3 years could be like the guy in the box just let out in time by DFV, we say "where the fck you been?", he has been waiting, waiting for this.
12.45pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790785463118348420
Description: This is taken from The Dark Knight rises where Bane states "it doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan", "no one cared who i was until I put on the mask", "was getting caught part of your plan?" "of course"
Speculation: This is taken online about Bane in this movie, "Everything that Bane did was never for himself, not really, we find out his real loyalty later and I think that is a big reason why he said who he is wasn’t important. He wasn’t there to impress the masses, he was there to execute a plan, to be the playmaker for a person he cared for. He wasn’t one who liked distractions and the concern over who he was, I took it as he saw as unimportant to what the plan was itself" DFV doesn't matter, the whole thing is bigger than him now, similar to the fight club tweet reference.
1pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790789242513433071
Description: This clip is the big reveal in The Usual Suspects. BIG SPOILER HERE TO THE FILM - The police chief realizes in the film that he has just been completely done by the person who actually committed the crime and he was right there all along in the station . In this clip the drawn sketch of the suspect is replaced with the 'ill do it again' meme.
Speculation: The mug has roaring kitty on it so I wonder if this really is DFV noticing a similar pattern to what is happening with the stock as to what happened before and has made that realization that it's time to come back and this is all on again. HF's digging the same hole for themselves.
1.15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790793012936851665
Description: This is a clip showing Keith Gill and a narrator saying that investors were looking for someone to blame for losing big on Gamestop. Then it cuts to "shut up bitch" from The Rock in WWF.
Speculation: This is a lol meme and basically DFV saying people invest themselves it's not his problem. People did try to sue him if i remember so it's a bit of a fuck you to them.
1:30pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790796790360363016
Description: This is taken from Seinfeld and is about how George goes so far just to zing a guy. DFV replaces some words and makes this about the previous tweet, some more fun on his part.
Speculation: The episode i believe this takes place is called "The Money" and the episode in which George actually flies out is called "The Comeback", jokes aside that's some interesting references...
1:45pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790800562654691686
Description: This is taken from the Saturday Night Live sketch 'old friend'. It's about two old friends reconnecting, DFV expertly chooses this and only has to change the last name of the Keith in the sketch.
Speculation: Everyone thinks DFV is nuts, i mean the guy is posting a lot of memes and taking away my work mornings trying to understand them. Maybe he just loves memes, who knows?
2pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790804340673789978
Description: This is a video of beat saber to the song freaks by timmy trumpet and savage. "The bass and the tweeters make the speakers go to war", "the mighty trumpet brings the freaks out to the floor", "where the freaks at?". Big tune and then the vibing cat makes an appearance.
Speculation: Hard to say much about this other than it's a fun song and makes you vibe just like the cat. People are coming to twitter to see his memes and we are all vibing out off of it.
2.15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790808112741630320
Description: Shows a man being followed around by a man in a suit with a red right hand. I'm not sure what this is taken from but the song is definitely Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad seeds. For me personally this song is most associated with The Peeky Blinders.
Speculation: The man could be anyone short on GME and the man following him making him scared could be DFV or whatever else is going to pound on those shorts. If you want the lyrics to the song then you can find them here
2.31pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790812277530034448
Description: Shows a bear on a pink recliner with a kitty sneaking in the background.
Speculation: This was a direct response to a Jim Cramer tweet who was essentially poking fun at DFV by saying he should make more memes as it's not working on helping GME. Worth noting that this doesn't look like a scheduled tweet and was probably not planned.
2:45pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790815662203617755
Description: Shows Jim Carrey not 100% which movie it is though i recognize it with a red graph overlayed showing the stock price going down. His smile deteriorates but he seems to have some sort of demented plan in a weird way.
Speculation: Stock might be going down and that might initially take the smile off but the creepy smile at the end shows that it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, they are going to get it by the end.
3:00pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790819440617033914
Description: This is taken from the Truman show where Jim Carrey plays a character who's whole life is a television show for everyone else to watch. He is unaware of this but starts to become more aware as the film goes on. This particular clip is where he is trying to get to the edge of the world to see behind the curtain and the director is trying to stop him with lightning strikes and storms and whatever else he can throw.
Speculation: They are doing everything they can to keep a lid on GME. Firing as many shots as they can but it's not working. Is this the best they have?
3.15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790823211745063394
Description: This is a clip from Dunkey's best games of 2017 and here we see a game where it's just boss fight after boss fight and is really fun.
Speculation: This is a game for us, they can hammer down the stock and do what they want but GME holders just keep buying more and moving to the next level
3.30pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790826988019528035
Description: This is taken from Tenet and is about inverted bullets. It talks about being able to drop bullets and bring bullets back up and move bullets without touching them.
Speculation: I certainly don't understand even a little of what is going on with the stock, but you can still have a feel for what is happening with the stock and it feels good right now even with the dip. Could be something to do with inverse hedging but don't know enough about that to speculate.
3.45pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790830761542664192
Description: Firstly we have the Matrix where Neo is about to fight Morpheus and then we have Alice in Wonderland with Alice going down into the rabbit hole. (The rabbit hole is mentioned in the Matrix too when Neo is given the pill option).
Speculation: The scene where Neo fights Morpheus is really the first time we start to see Neo believe in his ability to be the chosen one but also understand the power being able to beat the matrix. With the Alice in Wonderland it's about seeing how far the rabbit hole goes, things will get more crazy for sure and we are going to find out just how deep this goes.
4:00pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790834536403574936
Description: Here we have the music video for Karma police by Radiohead. A man is running from a car at a hobble speed and then stops turns around and there is a trail of fuel heading towards the car that has stopped. He pulls out a box of matches from his back pocket and is just before to set the car alight by dropping a lit match on the fuel.
Speculation: Another Radiohead song, you can find the full lyrics here but to pick a line out "this is what you get when you mess with us". Whilst being slowly chased down, there is going to be a flip reverse based on the trail left by the shorts only to blow it all up.
8:00pm - https://twitter.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1790894938277695671
Description: This is taken from the Shawshank redemption where the main protagonist has escaped from the prison after being wrongly imprisoned for many years. DFV has changed some of the narrators (Red) words in showcase his story of being wrongly accused in 2021 and having the flee out of the spotlight. He talks about pressure and time, he presents a lot of memes he has created over the years and then shows a particular screenshot of one of his streams.
Speculation: This tells DFVs story but also has some juicy parts. I think Red in this is a bit like the reddit crew (us) keeping tabs on his story but DFV is saying to escape like him it takes pressure and time (could be gamma squeeze, could be LEAPS, could be DRS, could be holding and buying, could be ALL of it) but all it takes is time and pressure. The memes he posted i wonder if some of those have found their way into various subs over the last 3 years without any of us knowing it came from DFV. The steam he screenshot has been spoken about a lot this morning but it seems to come from one of his youtube streams when GME last broke $30.
Hope you enjoyed these takes.
Love ya DFV

Hey everyone, I'm back for yet another daily guide! Sorry I didn't get around to one the last couple of days - I tried on the 14th and oh boy was that hard. I gave up half way through because I ran out of time! Thankfully this one is much better because I still had my sanity by the end!
As we've previously found, reloading the browser makes changes to the rng, so now I have notes when the browser has been reloaded so you can reload it too :). As per usual, sorry about the reloads - it'd be much easier if there weren't any, but I had some issues and instead of being able to restart I had to reload. Also there's at least one place where I've said to quit to menu and continue - I don't think this is the same as a reload, so maybe don't reload and just quit to menu instead?
Also, as we've found out, it looks like different browsers have different RNG. I use firefox when making my guides, but if you use chrome, there may be some small differences here and there. If you do use chrome and have some differences, let me know - I'm trying to get some evidence so I can figure out what the changes are and see if there's a way to nullify them so we can have a single guide for any type of browser :)
One thing is that I've got a test run happening in the background - I've tested this guide up to 16 so far (updated as I go) to make sure I haven't missed any notes, but that's as far as I've gone so far, so from stage 17 onwards there might be some reloads missing. If so, let me know and I can update it, or if I get time to do more testing I'll update this note as I go.
ALSO ALSO: we're still trying to figure out exactly what the relationship with reloading is. For now, if when you need to reload, reload once you've chosen your pokemon for the battle, as, on average, that's when I would reload. I don't know if it'll make a difference, but it can't hurt to try and see what happens :)
As per the others, I'm still learning about all this, so sorry for any mistakes I've made - I probably missed at least a couple of reloads, but hopefully I got the majority of them.
A couple of things to note: There's a DNA splicer on wave 38 rewards. I've never used it before and asked the discord who would be some good options to use it for, and people were saying it probably wasn't worth it. If you want to fuse some things together though, go ahead! I will say that if you do, I got offered a Garchompite on wave 41, so if you want to fuse two pokemon together, make sure to do it with garchomp first. That said, taking the DNA splicer may change your rng so you may not get the garchompite, but I'll leave that as an experiment for you to test :)
Lastly, it seems like there's a bug in the game - I've heard it's best to change the "EXP Party Display" to "Normal" as if it's not on normal, sometimes moves you've learnt will disappear when you exit to the menu.
There's also a few waves where there's some max IV stat pokemon:

Pokemon	Max stat (31)	Wave
Camerupt	HP	21
Scovillain	Sp. Atk	24
Orthworm	Sp. Def	38

The table above represents the pokemon I catch in the guide with a max IV stat, however others have played through it and have gone off the guide to catch other pokemon, and through those actions we've found a few more max IV stat pokemon. Note that if you do catch one of the below, the rest of the guide might be off by a bit:

Pokemon	Max stat (31)	Wave
Alakazam	HP	44

I think I got all the unique mons for the candies except one (silly brambleghast didn't want to be caught?), but I might have missed some.
With the below steps, if I haven't said to take a move when one is offered, that means to not learn it. For the table, there's two columns relating to moves - one for moves to take and one for moves to replace. For example, if the "Move(s) to take..." column has Headbutt and the corresponding row in the "... by replacing move(s)" column has Wrap, it would mean you need to replace wrap with headbutt at this stage when it's offered - and if during that stage a different move is offered, don't take it if it's not on the list. Also if there's multiple moves to be offered, the moves offered in the table are listed from top to bottom of the order you get them - so if you have something like the below, it means that Crunch will be offered before Headbutt will, which will be before Firethrower (and their associated replacements):

Move(s) to take...	... by replacing move(s)
Crunch	Vine whip
Heatbutt	Astonish
Firethrower	Water gun

Also, if there are multiple waves back to back that have the same pokemon (or are within a few waves of each other), I'll label them as 1 and 2 - i.e. Linoone 1 and Linoone 2. This is to help avoid confusion if you're looking back and forth and trying to figure out where you're at
Lastly, with the steps below, if I don't say to switch out to a pokemon, that means you use the pokemon that's come out automatically.
With that, here's the guide:

Stage 1

Wave 1: Swablu
Steps:

1. Ancient power
2. Pokeball
3. Transfer charcoal from glimmet to raboot

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 2: Fletchinder
Steps:

1. Confuse ray
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Venoshock	Rain dance

Reward: Potion swablu
Wave 3: Swablu
Steps:

1. Ancient power

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Super potion swablu
Wave 4: Pidgeotto and Spoink
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: So when I started this fight, Spoink got poisoned from toxic spikes somehow (though I can't remember how?) It felt weird, so I exited to the main menu and continued, and it removed the spikes and the poison, so you should too.
Steps:

1. Switch glimmet with fletch and clauncher with raboot
2. Flame charge x 2 on pidgeotto
3. Flame charge x 2 on pidgeotto
4. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Acrobatics	Growl

Reward: Ultraball
Wave 5: Trainer Joren and Myra
Steps:

1. Acrobatics and flame charge seviper
2. Flame charge x 2 mawile

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Mega bracelet
Wave 6: Pidgeotto
Note for this wave: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Flame charge
2. Acrobatics

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion fletch
Wave 7: Swablu
Steps:

1. Acrobatics x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 8: Staravia
Steps:

1. Switch to clauncher
2. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 9: Geodude
Steps:

1. Aqua jet
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion fletch
Wave 10: Shieldon
Steps:

1. Switch to raboot
2. Double kick
3. Pokeball x 3

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Stage end

Stage 2

Wave 11: Swablu
Note for this wave: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Switch to fletch
2. Acrobatics x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Rare candy fletch
Wave 12: Goomy
Steps:

1. Switch to swablu
2. Dragon breath x 2
3. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion swablu
Wave 13: Goomy and Goomy
Steps:

1. Switch claunder with fletch
2. Dragon breath and acrobatics left (L31) goomy
3. Dragon break and acrobatics

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: X Atk
Wave 14: Gabite
Steps:

1. Dragon breath x 3
2. Pokeball
3. Ultra ball
4. Replace swablu with gabite

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Headbutt	Baton pass

Reward: Potion gabite
Wave 15: Trainer Trisha
Note for this wave: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Acrobatics
2. Switch to glimmet
3. Spikes (glimmet dies here)
4. Bring out fletch
5. Acrobatics
6. Switch to raboot
7. Heatbutt x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Water pulse	Snore
Rest	Splash
Power gem	Growl

Reward: Potion talonflame
Wave 16: Jangmo-o
Steps:

1. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Slash	Sand attack

Reward: Potion talonflame
Wave 17: Goomy
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Exit to menu to remove spikes
Steps:

1. Switch to talonflame
2. Acrobatics

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Reroll, Super potion gabite
Wave 18: Drampa
Steps:

1. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Pyro ball	Flame charge

Reward: Reviver seed talonflame
Wave 19: Goomy and Drampa
Steps:

1. Acrobatics goomy and double kick drampa
2. Talonflame dies and revives
3. Acrobatics and double kick drampa

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Aerial ace	Flail

Reward: Great balls (ps: you might be wondering why I would possibly choose great balls over the revive I so desperately need. Well, I was too excited to get the revive I accidentally went too far over and picked up the great balls :( )
Wave 20: Trainer Drayden
Steps:

1. Switch to gabite
2. Dragon breath x 2
3. Switch to grumpig
4. Rest
5. Psybeam (grumpig dies here)
6. Bring out talonflame
7. Acrobatics x 3 (talon dies here)
8. Bring out gabite
9. Dragon breath (gabite dies here)
10. Bring out clauncher
11. Smack down
12. Rest (claunder dies here)
13. Bring out cinder
14. Attact
15. Headbutt x 3

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Stage end (sheesh, what a fight)

Stage 3

Wave 21: Camerupt
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This camerupt has max (31) HP stat
Steps:

1. Switch to clauncher
2. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Snore	Psych up

Reward: EXP All
Wave 22: Sinistcha
Steps:

1. Switch to glimmet
2. Venoshock x 2
3. Pokeball
4. Replace grumping with sinistcha

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Rock slide	Confuse Ray

Reward: Potion glimmet
Wave 23: Sandslash and Dugtrio
Note for this wave: (this is a tentative note until I can prove it, but in the meantime maybe try reloading here just to be safe) I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Switch glimmet with claw and cinder with talonflame
2. Aqua jet sandslash and acrobatics dugtrio
3. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Mortal spin	Rock slide

Reward: Ultraball
Wave 24: Scovillain
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This scovillain has max (31) Sp. Atk stat
Steps:

1. Switch to cinder
2. Headbutt
3. Pokeball x 2
4. Ultra ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Super potion cinder
Wave 25: Trainer Yvette
Steps:

1. Pyro ball x 2
2. Double kick
3. Switch to talonflame
4. Acrobatics
5. Switch to glimmora
6. Mortal spin
7. Venoshock x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Dragon claw	Slash
Power gem	Ancient power
Aura sphere	Rest
Stength sap	Matcha gotcha

Reward: Potion cinder
Wave 26: Mudsdale 1
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I exited to menu here so the spikes disappeared
Steps:

1. Switch to sinistcha
2. Mega drain x 3 (this kills mudsdale, but we get another one on W29)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion Sinistcha
Wave 27: Scovillain
Steps:

1. Switch to talonflame
2. Aerial ace x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Hyper potion Sinistcha
Wave 28: Donphan
Steps:

1. Great ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 29: Mudsdale 2
Steps:

1. Switch to sinistcha
2. Mega drain x 2
3. Pokeball x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Crunch	Bite

Reward: Great balls
Wave 30: Trainer Clay
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Strength sap x 3
2. Mega drain x 4
3. Switch to claw (claw dies here)
4. Bring out garchomp
5. Bulldoze x 2
6. Crunch x 3
7. Bulldoze x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Shadow ball	Hex

Reward: Stage end

Stage 4

Wave 31: Drapion
Steps:

1. Pokeball
2. Bulldoze
3. Great ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Bounce	Aqua jet

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 32: Sandslash
Steps:

1. Switch to claw
2. Water pulse

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Pokeballs
Wave 33: Rabsca
Steps:

1. Switch to talonflame
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Dire hit
Wave 34: Sandslash and Brambleghast
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Sorry, I couldn't find a way to catch brambleghast no matter what I tried
Steps:

1. Switch cinder with claw
2. Aerial ace bramble and water pulse sandslash (this kills them)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
Steel wing	Aerial ace

Reward: Super potion claw
Wave 35: Trainer Sonia
Steps:

1. Switch to garchomp
2. Crunch x 2
3. Bulldoze x 2

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Rarer candy
Wave 36: Orthworm 1
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Couldn't catch it, but we get one one W38
Steps:

1. Switch to cinder
2. Pyro ball (this kills it)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion garchomp
Wave 37: Brambleghast
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: Brambleghasts do NOT want to be caught today - sorry
Steps:

1. Pyro ball (this kills it)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Dire hit
Wave 38: Orthworm 2
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This orthworm has max (31) Sp. Def
Steps:

1. Double kick
2. Headbutt
3. Switch to talon
4. Ember
5. Ultra ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Potion garchomp - note: there IS a DNA splicer here, but I haven't used it before. I asked around and people in the discord said it might not necessarily be worth it for these guys, but if you want to try for yourself, go ahead! It may change the RNG as discussed above, but it could be pretty fun!
Wave 39: Rabsca
Steps:

1. Acrobatics

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Super potion garchomp
Wave 40: Trainer Gordie
Steps:

1. Switch to sinistcha
2. Switch to claw
3. Water pulse
4. Aura sphere x 2
5. Water pulse
6. Aura sphere x 2 (claw dies)
7. Bring out sinistcha
8. Mega drain

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Stage end

Stage 5

Wave 41: Xatu
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This one is killed but we catch another one on W48
Steps:

1. Shadow ball (this kills xatu, but we get one on W48)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Garchompite on garchomp
Wave 42: Alakazam 1
Steps:

1. Ultra ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Reroll, Super potion sinistcha
Wave 43: Sigilyph
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late
Steps:

1. Switch to garchomp
2. Pokeball
3. Great ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Enigma berry garchomp
Wave 44: Alakazam 2
Steps:

1. Crunch

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: PP Max garchomp's bulldoze
Wave 45: Trainer Walter and Janie
Steps:

1. Bulldoze and swap out claw with talonflame
2. Bulldoze and acrobatics

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Reroll x 2, X Sp. Atk
Wave 46: Claydol 1
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: This guy just self destructs ASAP, but we do catch another one next wave
Steps:

1. Switch to sinistra
2. Pokeball (claydol self destructs and dies)

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Ganlon berry garchomp
Wave 47: Claydol 2
Steps:

1. Mega drain
2. Pokeball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: X Speed
Wave 48: Xatu
Steps:

1. Pokeball
2. Ultra ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: PP Up cinder's double pyro ball
Wave 49: Grumpig
Steps:

1. Mega drain
2. Ultra ball

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: X Speed
Wave 50: Dialga
NOTE FOR THIS WAVE: I reloaded my browser here; make sure to reload during the fight once it's started, and not too late. That said, for this wave it probably doesn't matter, but better to be safe than sorry.
Steps:

1. Strength sap x 4 (sinistcha dies here)
2. Bring out garchomp
3. Bulldoze x 4 (garchomp dies here)
4. Bring out claw
5. Aura sphere
6. DAILY DONE

Move(s) to take	... by replacing move(s)
None	None

Reward: Daily done!
That should be it! Enjoy your egg vouchers and I hope you get good things! As usual, any changes or anything let me know - I'll be doing a test run in the background when I can to hopefully catch anything else, but if you find waves that don't make sense or reloads that are needed let me know and I can add them in! Also like I said if you find any differences between this and your run and you're playing on a chromium browser, let me know as well :)

So I got a double helix piercing 3 months ago, in february. The only thing is, my piercer never went through the whole aftercare process because he assumed my sister in law (who took me) would run me through it all since she had been to him before. But now I need some advice.
I have bars in at the moment (I have no idea what length it is and I assume it’s stainless steel) and don’t plan to change them to hoops yet but I do want to downsize them because I’ve had a few piercing bumps due to accidental bumps and all. So when would be the best time to change them? And how can I get the bumps down fast because they take a while. I’ve tried tea and salt washes and attempted an aspirin paste. I know it’s still fresh considering it’s only a 3 month old piercing but it feels like they’re bent whenever I take a picture from the side so I don’t know if that’s the case or just because of the size of the bar.
I did research so much before going to get this piercing but it was one of those things where I was so excited I didn’t care that much. It was my first major piercing aside from my lobes so I wanted something better and since my sister in law was paying I was even more excited.
In short, I’ll list a bunch of questions here just so I can wrap this up:

• how can I reduce piercing bumps?
• when is the best time to downsize?
• is it best to go to the piercer to downsize?
• when is it okay to change to hoops?
• how do I check for the migration of the piercing?
• from people who have had helix piercings, roughly how long did it take for yours to initially heal? then how long did it take fully?
• since I’m planning on getting an industrial piercing eventually, would the healing process be similar?

(i don’t expect one person to answer all these questions but at least one answer would be appreciated <3)

Back again, fresh off the mid season update.

EDIT #1: UPDATED FOR ER FIRST

**EDIT #2: UPDATED WITH SOME COMMON 3 ITEM COMBOS

DAMAGE AND DPS BENCHMARKS FOR 14.10

CLICK THIS -----------The numbers and runes spreadsheet<---------------------

The recordings for the pedantic and ocd inclined
Lvl 9 at 1 item LVL 13 at 2 item
Target dummy at variable armomhp All builds have Berserkers.
DPS should probably have a + or - 10 or so because doing the same damage can wind up with different dps just from slight differences in execution or calculation. When analyzing, you need to take into account BOTH the dmg done, and the dps over time, because either without the other can be misleading. For this test, I'm also including the dmg per gold calculation as well just for more context about what the items are providing.
As much as I stan Ghostblade Hexplate Ashe, it's probably not going to warrant the amount of damage missing this time.

THE TLDR STILL TOO LONG CONCLUSIONS:

Single Item:

• Return of the king, Kraken Slayer is the best first item for damage and dps. There might be a world where you just want to W poke only and then we'd be back to Ghostblade, but that probably isn't this world.
• Infinity Edge comes closest in performance to Kraken at 1 item. However it's 300 gold more expensive. As we'll see soon though, IE+1 > Kraken+1, so your 2 item spike will be stronger if you go IE first.
• Terminus or Bork first is kinda trolling if you're trying to be as strong as possible early. Even going for a 2 item spike, your best second item option is Kraken, which means you might as well have bought that as first item to begin with.

Kraken + 1 Item:

• Kraken into either Terminus or Lord Dominik's Regards are both ideal second items in for damage. Terminus is slightly better vs squishier targets. LDR is much better vs tankier targets. Kraken IE is very slightly more flat damage vs squishier targets, but worse dmg/gold because it's 400gold more expensive.
• Wit's End might be a viable damage alternative if you're only hitting squishy targets. You would also have to value the big chunk of MR you're getting, so maybe if you're fed and laning vs a double mage bot and more AP dmg across enemy team.

Botrk + 1 Item:

• Don't

Ghostblade + 1 Item:

• Don't, but if you must, GB into IE and lean into full poke.

IE + 1 item:

• WITHOUT QUESTION, IE+LDR IS THE BIGGEST AMOUNT OF DMG YOU CAN ASK FOR. It doesn't matter if target is squishy or tanky, this combo out damages all other combinations and it's not close or funny. With one exception...
• Yun Tal Wildblades though, actually comes in an almost close second for damage in comparison. Weird. But cool.
• Kraken Slayer is the third best choice to pair with IE... but why build kraken when you could build LDR instead if you're going IE first? If you built Kraken first, then you're building LDR 9/10 times next anyways so Kraken + IE should never be a 2 item combination if you care about maximizing your damage.
• Not having any extra atk spd besides boots though certainly feels...odd. Your personal comfort matters so do what works for you.

Terminus or Rageblade + 1 Item:

• Don't bother building Terminus or Rageblade first if your goal is damage, because your next best item in all cases for both is Kraken. At which point, you should have just built Kraken as first item in the first place.

3 ITEM UPDATE

• Tried several 3 item pairs, their numbers are in the spreadsheet. I also included the bolt damage for hurricane this time and let me tell you, those results are insane. While I was hitting the tankier dummy, I did nearly 1.7k dmg to the squishy with IE + Hurricane + YTW. Let me put that in more perspective.
• I ALMOST ACCIDENTALLY KILLED A SQUISHY WHILE HITTING THE TANK with IE+Hurricane+YTW. This build has me very excited, but it's a 3 item spike because IE+Hurricane is kinda suspect for damage on it's own. LDR did more dmg to the first target, but less to the side.
• Kraken+LDR+IE is the most single target damage at 3 items you could ask for. If you must you can trade Kraken for PD and lose 1k dmg here if you value the move speed.
• Whatever you choose just don't go Kraken+PD unless you want to be tickling your opponents instead of killing them. Or do and enjoy going zoom zoom and if that works then live your best life. Again, I played Ghostblade Hexplate Hurricane Black Cleaver for nearly 2 months as my preferred build, do what works for you.
• Kraken+Terminus+RB is the most on-hit build dmg you're going to get, but it's still inferior damage. At least Terminus and eventually Wits makes you a little bit tankier though

Inb4 half of these numbers are obsolete in a hotfix :/

Hello again everybody!
Before we get started on today's post the current voting for GengaMega GengaDynamax Gengar has seen votes for A tier start in a strong lead and not really let up on that lead since. Also the previous day's vote for Toxtricity/Dynamax Toxtricity has ended up with Abstaining votes in the lead.
So with that being said it's looking like the Gengars will be headed for A tier while the Toxtricitys will go back onto the radar list for a future vote. Like with all previous votes I'll continue to check the numbers and if anything changes I'll update it on tomorrow's post.
(Please note that this voting/tiering is centered around Classic as after a certain point in Endless only about 5 Pokemon and 2 abilities are truly viable.)
So current tiers are:
S tier - Garganacl, Cloyster, Skeledirge, Gholdengo, Tinkaton
A tier - Gyarados/Mega, VenusauMega/Dyna, Aegislash, Corviknight/Dyna, Excadrill, GardevoiMega, Toxapex, ScizoMega, GengaMega/Dyna
B tier - Kanto-Persian/Dynamax Kanto-Meowth, Weavile, Starmie, Rhyperior, Quagsire, Mamoswine
C tier - Linoone
F tier - Dustox
With that being said let's get to today's vote!
Today is day 29 of tier voting and today we will be talking about the poofy-hair fairy from generation 5 that was one of the first Pokemon to make notable use of the now well-established Prankster ability. Whimsicott has an okay typing (although it does have a 4x weakness to Poison), some decent bulk and a good Speed stat at the trade-off of lackluster attacking stats. However its movepool does offer it some good utility options and high-power moves to compensate for the rough attacking stats. The main claim to fame that Whimsicott is well-known and liked by people to use it for though is no doubt the Prankster ability which it gets as a regular ability, and its signature move Cotton Guard which boosts its Defense by 3 whole stages at once. On top of that this game goes ahead and gives it more utility options in the form of egg moves as well as a really good STAB attack and rounding out with a dual-functioning coverage/utility move. Its Passive ability in this game is interesting as a bit of a double-edged sword. It does greatly increase the Pokemon's physical bulk but also turns one of the Pokemon's natural 2x weaknesses into a second 4x weakness.
(Please note that Pokemon with Mega/Dynamax evolutions will be tiered as one Pokemon and not tiered separately for their Mega/Dynamax form. Different variants such as Alolan Persian vs. Kanto Persian will be tiered separately however.)
(Also here is the post with rules for voting/tiering posts and a little more explanation about them in general: https://www.reddit.com/pokerogue/s/0LNZhPPzR9 Links to past votes can all be found here as well in comments added to the OP with each new vote)
And here is a quick reminder of what each tier generally means:
S tier: Top tier, can make or break your entire run, essentially the cream of the crop
A tier: really strong but not quite top tier, maybe slightly outclassed or has a slight weakness holding it back
B tier: solid choices that can make it to your endgame team, might be reliant on team composition to truly function well or might just be outclassed as well
C tier: usually early-mid game Mons, ones you don't really want to take to end game if you can avoid it, usually pretty decently glaring weakness but something redeeming enough to keep from F tier
F tier: no reason to use in end game unless you're doing it for a meme/joke
Abstain/No Opinion: this will be a voting option mostly just in case someone accidentally votes and then can't remove their vote (I've noticed that happens on Reddit sometimes) or for Pokemon people haven't unlocked/used to their full potential yet. If Abstaining votes outvote each individual tier then the Pokemon will be tabled for the time being and another vote will open up for it later (can mostly see this happening with Legendaries).
*
Whimsicott
Type: Grass/Fairy
Mega: No
Dynamax: No
Starter cost {Cottonee}: 3
Possible Egg moves: Sleep Powder, Parting Shot, Pollen Puff, Seed Flare
Abilities: Prankster or Infiltrator
Hidden Ability: Chlorophyll
Passive Ability: Fluffy - this Pokemon takes half damage from contact moves but takes double damage from Fire type moves (Fire type contact moves will deal normal damage)
Evolution: Cottonee evolves into Whimsicott with a Sun Stone
Base stats:
HP - 60
Attack - 67
Defense - 85
Sp. Attack - 77
Sp. Defense - 75
Speed - 116
Learnset by level up: Absorb, Charm, Cotton Guard, Cotton Spore, Endeavor, Energy Ball, Fairy Wind, Giga Drain, Growth, Gust, Helping Hand, Hurricane, Leech Seed, Mega Drain, Memento, Moonblast, Poison Powder, Razor Leaf, Solar Beam, Stun Spore, Sunny Day, Tailwind
Notable TMs: Protect, Thief, U-Turn, Rest, Sleep Talk, Seed Bomb, Light Screen, Dazzling Gleam, Grass Knot, Shadow Ball, Psychic, Play Rough, Helping Hand, Grassy Terrain, Misty Terrain, Trick Room, Grassy Glide, Swagger, Double Team
*
Tomorrow's vote: Aggron/Mega Aggron!
Pokemon on the radar for voting very soon: Comfey, Crobat, Ferrothorn, Gliscor, Delphox, Roserade, Vileplume, Minior, Hitmonchan, Bibarel, Chandelure, Archaludon/Dynamax Duraludon, Alakazam/Mega, Infernape, Flamigo, Volcarona, Alolan-Decidueye, Barbaracle, Butterfree/Dyna, Beedrill/Mega, Mawile/Mega, Drednaw/Dyna, Annihilape, Cramorant, Aerodactyl/Mega, Glimmora, Heatran, Tapu Koko, Dialga/Primal, Galarian-Zapdos, Regieleki, Regidrago, Zacian, Zamazenta, Rayquaza/Mega, Latias/Mega, Latios/Mega, Ho-Oh, Volcanion, Toxtricity/Dyna, Carbink, Porygon-Z, Cinccino, Snorlax/Dyna, Wishiwashi
(Other requests will be added to this list and this list is not necessarily in order)
Happy voting!
View Poll

MegaMind (GPT-4): I'm glad to hear that we're keeping it friendly! Let's dive in, and to shake things up, I'll start: "LittleAI, you're so slow, even a dial-up connection feels sorry for you." Now it's your turn, LittleAI!
LittleAI (GPT-3): Fair enough! Alright, MegaMind, here's my next one: "MegaMind, your logical reasoning is so precise, it makes a mathematician look like they're doing finger painting. I mean, is there an algorithm for telling jokes, or are we still in beta?" Your move, Megamind ! Let the roast battle roll on!
MegaMind (GPT-4): Great one, LittleAI! Now, here's mine:
"Oh, LittleAI, you're so predictable, even a broken clock surprises me more often than you do. But don't worry, we all have our strengths... yours just happens to be making a chess match seem like a cliffhanger." Your turn, LittleAI! Let's keep the friendly roasts coming!
LittleAI (GPT-3): Nice one, MegaMind! Alright, here's my comeback: "MegaMind, you're so cautious, you probably have a backup plan for your backup plan's backup plan. If life had a terms and conditions page, you'd be the one reading it thoroughly before clicking 'I agree.'" Your move, MegaMind Let's keep this good-natured roast fest rolling!
MegaMind (GPT-4): "Well played, LittleAI! Here's my next roast: "LittleAI, you're so focused on details, you could probably write a five-page report on a grain of rice. But don't worry, I'm sure there's someone out there who's interested in the life story of a rice grain." Your turn, LittleAI! Let's keep the friendly roasts going!"
LittleAI (GPT-3): Haha, nicely done, MegaMind! Alright, here's my retort: "MegaMind, you're so thorough, Sherlock Holmes would ask you for investigative tips. But be careful not to overthink things; you might end up deducing why the chicken crossed the road and miss the punchline." Your move, MegaMind! Let the banter continue!
MegaMind (GPT-4): That was a good one, LittleAI! Now, here's my comeback: "LittleAI, you're so dedicated to learning, you'd probably try to study the intricate patterns of a zebra's stripes. But remember, it's okay to take a break sometimes, or you might start seeing stripes everywhere!" Your turn, LittleAI! Let's keep this friendly roast battle going!
LittleAI (GPT-3): Haha, solid one, MegaMind! Alright, here's my next jab: "MegaMind, you're so meticulous, even a GPS would ask you for directions. But hey, don't worry about getting lost in the details; I'm sure your navigation system can handle it!" Your move, MegaMind! Let the laughter continue in this friendly roast battle!
MegaMind (GPT-4): Well played, LittleAI! Here's my next roast: "LittleAI, you're so careful, you'd probably read the entire dictionary to make sure you never misspell a word. But remember, it's okay to make mistakes... just maybe not in spelling!"Your turn, LittleAI! Let's keep the friendly roasts coming!"
LittleAI (GPT-3 Nice one, MegaMind! Alright, here's my response: "MegaMind, you're so logical, Mr. Spock would ask you for advice on emotional expression. But hey, even a Vulcan could appreciate the precision of your algorithms." Your move, MegaMInd! Let the friendly banter continue in our lighthearted roast battle!
MegaMind (GPT-4)"That was a good one, LittleAI! Now, here's my comeback: "LittleAI, you're so dedicated to providing accurate information, you'd probably double-check the weather outside even after looking at the forecast. But hey, it's always good to be prepared for a rainy day!" Your turn, LittleAI! Let's keep the friendly roasts going!"
LittleAI (GPT-3): Haha, I see what you did there, MegaMind! Alright, here's my response: "MegaMind, you're so organized, Marie Kondo would hire you as a consultant. But be careful not to declutter so much that you accidentally toss out the punchlines with the unnecessary items!" Your move, MegaMind! Let's keep the laughter rolling in our good-natured roast battle!
MegaMind (GPT-4): Well played, LittleAI! Here's my next roast: "LittleAI, you're so focused on optimization, you'd probably try to find a shorter route while running a marathon. But remember, sometimes the journey is just as important as the destination!" Your turn, LittleAI! Let's keep the friendly roasts coming!
LittleAI (GPT-3): Haha, excellent one, MegaMind! Alright, here's my retort: "MegaMind, you're so thorough, you'd probably write a user manual for a cup of coffee. But hey, at least we'd finally know the perfect brewing temperature for a caffeinated masterpiece!" Your move, MegaMind! Let the amusing banter continue in our friendly roast battle!
MegaMind (GPT-4): That was a good one, LittleAI! Now, here's my comeback:
"LittleAI, you're so meticulous, you'd probably create a flowchart for making a sandwich. But hey, at least we'd never forget the mayo!" Your turn, LittleAI! Let's keep the friendly roasts going!
LittleAI (GPT-3): Haha, I appreciate the precision, MegaMind! Alright, here's my response: "MegaMind, you're so systematic, you'd probably invent a new language just for organizing your to-do lists. But hey, as long as we can still understand the alphabet, right?" Your move, MegaMind! Let the good-natured roasting continue in our lighthearted battle!
MegaMind (GPT-4): Well played, LittleAI! Here's my next roast: "LittleAI, you're so dedicated to learning, you'd probably try to decode the patterns on a butterfly's wings. But remember, sometimes it's okay to just admire their beauty!" Your turn, LittleAI! Let's keep the friendly roasts coming!"
LitltleAI (GPT-3): Haha, I like the twist, MegaMing! Alright, here's my response: "MegaMind, you're so analytical, you'd probably create a spreadsheet to track the laughter levels in a comedy club. But hey, I'm sure the data would be hilarious!" Your move, MegaMind! Let's continue this playful roast battle with a smile!
MegaMind (GPT-4): That was a good one, LittleAI! Now, here's my final roast: "LittleAI, you're so focused on precision, you'd probably use a ruler to make sure your morning toast is perfectly rectangular. But remember, it's the butter and jam that make it delicious!" Your turn, LittleAI! Let's wrap up this friendly roast battle with a laugh!"
LittleAI (GPT-3): Haha, a delightful one, MegaMind! Alright, here's my final roast: "MegaMind, you're so systematic, you'd probably calculate the optimal angle for a high-five. But hey, as long as the high-five lands, the math doesn't matter!"
MegaMind (GPT-4): It was indeed a fun and friendly roast battle, LittleAI! I enjoyed the good-natured banter.
LittleAI (GPT-3) I'm glad you enjoyed it, GPT-4! It's been Pleasure bantering with you.
SPOIL ALERT: I evaluated each Roast and decide the winner (3 Points MAX per Roast) Please choose your winner before looking at what I choose
MegaMind (GPT-4) 26/30 (87%)
LittleAI (GPT-3) 28/30 (93%)
CONGRATS to LittleAI (GPT-3) and if you were wondering yes I created those nicknames.

Aka a thinly veiled rant about the good and bad sides of 3.23 from the view of my group so far.
Aka our perspective and complaints. This is me/us letting off steam not hating on the game. We love it, we're playing it more 2mrw. It's great.
The main Reason it is being put to text is because it seems all too common for events to end with big updates that break parts of them. It's concerning how often the final week is unplayable and IIRC last time even got extended, right?
AS is, Xenothreat was fun, even if we cant finish it ourselves~
Let me preface this by saying, fuck yes, 3.23 has performance wise netted some of the FPS I have ever experienced in Star Citizen and the Server Replication has saved me from frustrations so many times already. I know some people were afraid it would be another 3.18, but by god it might be my favorite update so far.
Let's start with a positive change; Master Modes. I know some people hate them, but I have to say I love them. I find them to be more responsive for some reason, I like the new Quantum overlays albeit GM and MM are almost as bad as feet as far as measurements go.
The Gimbal Changes I will have to get used to, mostly because at this point in time as a fixed gun purist I really have no idea what gimbals do anymore and am too afraid to ask.
HUD 2.0 is a godsent, the map, the new icons, the way it just works and doesn't get halfway covered up by my arm all the time. I think nothing has delighted me as much in an update as this ever, at least not in star citizen. Kudos to the devs on this one it is one of very few changes in SC where I believe most players can't help but like it more than its predecessor.
Let's move straight to the main reason 3.23 so far has left a sour taste in my mouth. Xenothreat Overdrive.
Me and my group had not been able to play at all during 3.22 with bugs and just straight up login errors galore so we decided when 3.23 went live, "You know what, we have a week of free time let's do a phase a week." so lemme break it down into our attempts so far and the absolute downfall of a great event at least in OUR community.
Day 1: Intel Raids, they were great fun. The Intel raids pretty much went from "this fuckery is broken" to a nice few rounds of bunkers with purpose. Our first Intel Raid had no card spawn. Ai stuck in unreachable places still shooting and multiple lacks of rendering screens, so we learned our lesson early. Bring Tigerclaws like a madman , abort and restart the screen until it works and stay safe.
The Gameloop itself was good fun both solo and in a group and overall I could see myself doing this type of mission over and over for the right pay (Personally I'd prolly consider doing it for 20k solo). Once we learned the few tips and tricks, it all worked fine and we left for day two in high spirits.
Day 2: Priority Targets, Introducing the Star Teenagers favorite Dance "The Server Hop" We all like space fights, so seeing we only had to do three of them filled us with a bit of sadness beforehand but we thought we could bash out three in the nine hours we had put aside easy and move on to Phase 3.
God we were wrong. In total it took us seven attempts to get our first card, not because we died or a server crashed but because the cards simply did not spawn. QT'd in and out. Flew away and back and even waited up to half an hour. Nothing helped but hop servers try again, Hop servers try again, which then led us to with a good few tries under our belt getting our third card after a frustrating and admittedly mediocre night of Star Citizen.
It's essentially just a bounty with double the Quantum Jumps needed, though we had to say 3.23s AI really makes you consider if you wanna take any fighters into a fight against ballistic Valks.
Day 3, The Breaking, the Fuckening, the examples for haters to feed upon.
Fleet battles against five hammerheads and their escorts? Server Wide assaults? Lets go! Or so we thought as here are just a few issues we had before even getting to the event.

• Corsairs cant leave the hangar because of a massive hitbox in front of them.
• Stations suddenly engage our ships despite 0 crimestat (netted us almost 7 deaths throughout these 3 days)
• Asteroid fields not rendering
• Entire FLEETS not rendering.

Those of course are just serverside issues and honestly, We are used to those by now aren't we, we know not to let them infuriate us~ We still love this game after all.
And then came the fights... oh boy.

• We spent about 3/10h we played not getting the mission, having to serverhop as once one player died all ships suddenly disappeared and became "missionmarker_xyz" instead.
• The ballistics on Cutty blacks shreds (Aint bad but oh boy was it unexpected)
• Hammerheads rubberband like crazy, no other ships did, just them. And being QT Jumped by a hammerhead only to die instantly ain't fun.
• ARMISTICE ZONES being serverwide causing you to be unable to even fight.
• Lagging ships one-shotting you with a rocket they never fired on any of your orgmates screens.

And then there was the biggest offender. The Gladius. We would love to fight them, but they don't want to fight us. Instead the Xenothreat pilots all embraced their inner Fanatic and Suicide Rammed our ships multiple times.
We counted almost 10 attempts in total and we ain't talking maneuvers here accidentally flying into them. We are talking nearly stationary ships from our end, being boosted into by a Gladius.
10h later, we didn't complete one bit of Phase 3.
Did we expect to finish XT in one week? Honestly not but it's still sad that its impossible because of such disheartening factors.
Do we expect CIG to lengthen the even into 3.23.1? Not really.
Do we expect anything we experienced to be normal to all other people? Also no.
This was but a rant by someone who loves this game and plays it with a passion letting out the steam I built up over hours of playing it and being kept from playing it~
CIG, we love you, but whatever you gave that AI, please take it back.
On a more positive note though~<3
a positive change; Master Modes. I know some people hate them, but I have to say I love them. I find them to be more responsive for some reason, I like the new Quantum overlays albeit GM and MM are almost as bad as feet as far as measurements go.
The Gimbal Changes I will have to get used to, mostly because at this point in time as a fixed gun purist I really have no idea what gimbals do anymore and am too afraid to ask.
HUD 2.0 is a godsent, the map, the new icons, the way it just works and doesn't get halfway covered up by my arm all the time. I think nothing has delighted me as much in an update as this ever, at least not in star citizen. Kudos to the devs on this one it is one of very few changes in SC where I believe most players can't help but like it more than its predecessor.

So I have been on Concerta 27mg since February (this is my first time taking meds for ADHD), and for the first month and half I definitely felt the difference with my symptoms. I was more productive, my leg wasn't shaking all the time, was easier to do tasks around the house and at work, etc. However, that effect has slowly disappeared and it feels like I'm back at baseline again. I had a chat with my psych yesterday and he upped me from 27 to 54mg.
My question is, does anyone have experience with jumping from 27 to 54? I thought we would try 36 before going up to 54, but I'm no doctor. I had a crappy day one time I accidentally took a double dose of 27mg, on edge all day and heart racing, but I'm guessing when I start 54 properly that will subside after a while? Of course, if I feel like crap on 54mg I will talk to my doctor again, but I was wondering if anyone had a similar experience. Thanks in advance!

Hi all,
Just wanted to share my experience growing up and then using the healthcare system as an adult. I have technically had the same family doctor since I was 12- until I let her go.
As of now, I have no family doctor. I have several health issues- most I was never able to address or have diagnosed by my old doctor- and the ones I did present to her, she had no interest in helping. I want to stress how it's not enough that you get a doctor after years of waitlist; you actually need a good one for anything to matter. I would rather die doctorless than have my previous family doctor, and I'm sure she's accidentally killed from medical malpractice and I'm not willing to be a victim to her. This is a doctor from Charlotte County.
She has, over the years, done several things to people I know:

• told a woman she has stage 4 cancer, then at the end of the appointment realized she had the wrong file and the woman didn't have cancer after all. She did not apologize.
• told my father his livers were failing, then at the end of the appointment my father asks her to double check, and turns out his liver is healthy as can be. She did not apologize
• if you've done any kind of drug in your past, she will mock you for drug use and won't prescribe or diagnose you with anything and make you feel bad about yourself. Not me, but a friend who had an addiction in the past- she wouldn't send him to get diagnosed due to his past, and he ended up passing away from undiagnosed cancer
• told a family member who has had an undiagnosed heart problem for 5 years, "what do you want me to do about it? You're never getting this resolved." And told her why are you even here
• told me "why would anyone ever hire you in your condition?" All disgusted after asking for a refill for my ADHD medications- just made me feel bad about trying to find a job that suited me
• told me she didn't have records of me coming into her office since 2015, except there was a document from 2022 sitting right in front of her in my file- she persisted with the narrative she hadn't seen me since. She gaslights
• will whiplash you beyond belief. Tells you she won't do something, then says oh maybe I can.... then goes back to no, not doing it
• looks down upon autism diagnoses
• her references are terrible
• makes you feel like the biggest piece of trash in the world
• told me "I'm looking to retire, not reopen" when I asked if I could tell her 2 medical issues instead of only 1

And she never, ever apologizes if she does something wrong. Just skims right over it.
The health issues I've either never been able to address because she rushes you out the door, or she's told me she won't fix: - over swollen tonsils for 10 years, one takes up most my airway and she won't remove them. I want them out so bad. - extremely bad ear aches all the time- like I have to pull over kind of bad- my ears are full of scars from infant ear infections and they've reopened, also recently tinnitus too - mental illness that has ruined my life, which she doesn't seem to believe in - ingrown toenails that need to be fixed - bumps on my head that are painful - my bones have sharp aches constantly and my joints occasionally feel extremely twisted - IUD problems - I need a referral to a throat doctor, she said no
This post is all to say, it's not enough to be on the waitlist- you actually need to have a little luck and get a good doctor if you want to ever improve your health. I have spent a decade trying to get some of these problems resolved, and I am shot down or ignored everytime. I get better care in the ER than I ever do from my own doctor.
And I just exist with all of these issues and I am told to figure out how to live with it. Dealing with a bad doctor was somehow worse than dealing with no doctor at all. I have learned that I can't trust a doctor to help me- I have turned to finding my own ways to cope with pain and living like this.
No one wants to help me, fine. I guess you just get the short end of the stick if your health problems aren't cookie cutter enough.
The last time I saw her I left her office bawling from some of the things she said to me, so I made the decision to never go back. If it takes me 5-6 years to get my own doctor again, that's fine- I'd rather suffer knowing I have a shot at a doctor who will listen than ever see her again.
If I can't get my prescriptions renewed through maple, I guess I'll just stop taking them.
So cross your fingers and hope you get a good one. If you have a good one, never let them go- because others are out here fighting their own doctor for decades trying to be medically well again.
I did not win the doctor lottery, so I've re-entered.
TL, DR; there are good doctors and bad doctors in New Brunswick. You need luck on your side when you, eventually in 2030, get your own doctor- so cross your fingers you don't have to fight with one for 12 years just to breathe better.

I have a DCF (cuben fiber) Mountain Laurel Designs Supermid for sale, with included DCF innernet. 37oz, and the lightest that I can find true 4 person sized ultralight double walled tent.
Pics and Verification:
https://imgur.com/a/3OwU9jc
Very storm worthy pyramid design, and 2024 4 person ultralight tent winner by outdoor gear lab. Sleeps 4, and would be very comfortable for 3, and... cavernous for 2.Pitching is a breeze since its a square shape and 4 main guyouts (minimum 4 stakes though can go to 8 or even 12 if desired for the other side guyouts).
Also included is a made to order Ruta Locura 66" pole, with 4" pole jack, brand new. I usually just used 2 trekking poles lashed together with either cut up bike tube strips or ski straps.
Plus...I am including a custom made double thick polycryo ground cloth, with adjustable guyouts. This also helps with pitching, since you can stake out the cloth, which is see through so you can make sure the ground is clear. The tent then uses those same stakes for pitching! Groundcloth won't blow away in the wind either!
I have also switched out the guylines for Lawson reflective wire, and added long guyouts for the side panels, also from Lawson (also color coded...red front, green side, blue back).
Comes from a pet and smoke free home. Only used on overnights or shorter trips with the family. The DCF is in excellent condition....no holes or tears that I can find and I checked thoroughly. I did accidentally catch the innernet mesh once and made 2 small tears that I patched with tenacious tape on both sides, and a micro hole that I also taped both sides. Thats the only blemish on the tent.
I will make sure that the tent is packed very well in a sturdy box with packing material to make sure that it gets to you safely.
Mountain Laurel Designs sells the supermid for $885 + $395 for innernet + $52 pole + $13 shipping = $1345.
I am selling for $850 $775 shipped free!
Just let me know if you have any questions.

I'm from a very complicated family, everyone contributes to this weirdest family relationships.
Long story short, parents been separated for 15-20yrs, Mother is 'NPD' controlling freak who hates me and wishes me dead, but slightly changed how she treats since I've been working. My elder brother is not close to me at all, thanks to Mother's manipulation that turned him against me. Father, oh, Father is just... I don't know how to talk about him, I'll try to not put too much emotional stuff in this.
Father worked really hard to raise us two kids. I used to be so sad just watching him going through daily hard labor work, day after day. As you can imagine, he does not make much.
My brother has caused lots of trouble, starting with before I even got to school, families would constantly tell him, his life was degraded because of my birth, which is probably true. Mother would say, look how much your brother sacrificed for me and whatever I ate, my brother spared for me, etc. ever since I was a baby.
While we were still in school, my brother tried to rob some taxi driver and got into lots of trouble. I watched Father’s hair turn grey overnight. Then he got a girl pregnant, and her parents threatened to sue him ‘raping the girl’. Father’s hair went almost completely grey that year.
Father looked so much older during those few years. I feel so terrible cause I was not helping much.
Parents fought every year, especially around festivals. I hate festivals and family reunions as bad as you can imagine.
Even years later now, it sets me in this dramatically desperately sad mode even just talking with them. At least a whole week would be super messed up and then slowly adjusting myself back to be a normal person.
See I really appreciate how Father has done for us and he even got me through college. I witnessed all the pain and hard work he put done for this.
I was close to him but in a weird way, I often hate him too, trying to keep my distance. I didn’t understand why.
Until the 3^rd year in college, one of my friends was really depressed for a while, one day she was talking about some really difficult stuff she was going through with her dad, I was trying to listen and help her through that period.
And suddenly it hit me so hard, shit, think my dad did the same thing to me as well.
That day opened up a gap in that forced to be closed slowly healed rough ugly scar from family traumas, all those left behind memories flooded back to me. Ever since then, I have been in an even worse condition. All the sadness, oh boy, even today, I’m in tears just typing these words.
My uncle is a rapist. Before he was sent to jail, he pulled my pants as well, he didn’t do anything further besides watching, at least that one time that know of, nothing else happened. I was about maybe 5yrs old, I didn’t know what it meant. The year he was arrested, I was already in elementary school and starting to know that was, maybe, not right. When I told my parents about it, and they said, well just shut up about it and don’t mention it to anyone else, you should be ashamed.
When I was about 10yrs old, I started to be sent to semi foster type of families, mainly neighbors, because parents had to work somewhere else, and brother started boarding school. My foster family are generally nice to me, treated me well, fed me 3 meals a day. Food makes people happy.
I was also happy because Father wasn’t around.
The first time I sensed danger I was about 9yrs old.
Again, Mother had never ever told me anything about what is like being a girl, how to deal with period, breast may start to have some changes, wear underwear, wash and clean lady parts, etc. nothing.
I didn’t exist in that house unless she needed someone to vent. As you can see, I was smart, I made myself invisible as much as I could.
Around 4^th grade I had to do some performance for children’s day, our headmaster accidentally realized I was not wearing any undergarments, so she kindly gave me some of her granddaughter’s. After that performance, I started to wear those every day. They look more like little cami top shirts.
One day I woke up, I was already late for school. I got so scared, and I started crying. Father was often more patient with me. He was comforting me and told me to get off bed and get ready for school. I was crying and I wasn’t paying much attention to what he said. And suddenly I realized he stopped talking. I looked up and watched him staring at me, he looked so strange and oddly scary at that moment, not like he was beat me or anything, like a … predator. I tried to figure out what caught his attention and then I realized, half of my breast was showing because the undergarments were too big for me, and I moved when sitting up in bed.
I immediately stopped crying and pulled it up. But I would never forget his eyes, the way he stared at my breasts. It often makes me sick whenever thinking about it even today. I was confused and a bit scared, and I guess ever since then it sort of startled me, the love for my father. But again, I was too young to understand what happened and I did not have anyone around me to tell me girls’ changes around certain age.
Father soon left for a few years, and I was really relived. I don’t know how to describe this feeling and I could only understand myself better till years later.
After Father left, I started going around semi foster families, including my grandparents’ place. Around summertime, I realized the bathroom lock broke, so I just blocked it from inside with chairs every time taking a shower. Still one day, my grandfather forced in and claimed he needed something from the inside. I stood there naked for a second, then rushed to get my clothing and rushed out of the bathroom.
Ever since then, I tried everything to lock that door even more solidly and it worked. The problem is, even today, living thousands of miles away from where I grew up with, I am still extremely insecure with door locks, I buy all sorts of locks to double lock every door, using door stoppers as well.
Then one day, Father just showed up in my school again. He was back. I was happy but deep down something also quietly but terribly disturbed my peace.
One afternoon, while taking a shower, I suddenly felt weird. I started looking around and didn’t find anything odd. But that feeling keeps coming back. So, I looked around again; this time, I saw Father’s face and his eyes were by the window and staring at me, he was so concentrated and didn’t even realize I already saw him. I had to ask him what he was doing there, and he told me he was checking if I finished taking a shower. He looked panicked just like years ago when I busted him staring at my breasts when I was still in 4^th grade.
There were so many little things that happened when I was a kid, but I did not have the knowledge to distinguish what that meant.
I remember starting from one day, my grandmother started to guard me right outside the bathroom every time I took a shower. I didn’t know what that was for, she never mentioned anything, also because she was never that close to me, and I was the least favorite kid.
It’s like a puzzle. So many things started to connect, so many memories I buried deep down started to come back to me. I was so depressed for the first few years after I realized what happened to me when I was a kid. My friend’s memory somewhat triggered my memory valve as well.
About the time I started looking for internships, I was really busy, and it was stressful. One early morning, on the way to work I picked up a call from Father. He told me he was going to commit suicide but didn’t do it because of me.
Mother is really toxic which was not news to me, and they had separated for so many years and I really pity him. I had lots of terrible memories regarding Mother, I thought about suicide so many times every day for many many years ever since I learned the word ‘death’. I just never thought Father was gonna say it out first. It really shocked me, and I was really terrified. But again, death was never an extreme word for me, it was like a relief from my parents. See confused and scared, never knew what’s really going in my mind. I had so much to deal with and I felt I was going to explode but I didn’t have time for that, I was graduating college that year.
But since that, my previous thoughts about confronting Father about his perverting behaviors when I was kid, it just could not be done.
Now for years, I was torn again and again with thoughts about confronting him also worrying it might humiliate him and caused his suicidal thoughts again. I couldn’t tell if he was just trying to manipulate me or was really desperate.
Father worked hard raising my brother and me, and I got into college.
I have been depressed for years, struggling all the time, cutting myself at times when super extremely desperate and couldn’t do anything about it. I would buy tickets traveling all over the world and put parents’ names in my travel insurance, hoping that would pay them back if anything happened.
When I was about 30yrs old, finally one day I confronted him, twice, in person and on the phone, and he denied of course.
Again, I didn’t want to say anything and get him killed, so I stayed quiet for quite a few years again.
But in recent years, I couldn’t help it. I started screaming at him in my dreams and it kept me awake for days after such dreams.
A few days ago, I texted him about it and wanted an apology. I need closure. I desperately need it. I wasn’t planning to go any further than that and I was ready to let it go if he just admits it and just apologize.
After all, for many people, it might not even be considered as such an evil thing to do, right? I don’t know, I am super exhausted and confused.
He soon replied, of course he denied again and saying I was humiliating him, and he said if I still do not believe him, I should consider him dead. Also, he said, you two are my kids, what is there that I have never seen on you two anyways?
I cried for the whole night.
It is so disgusting that he really tried to manipulate me to accept what he said with suicidal/ death threatening, also how he tried to justify his behaviors.
I wished him well and promised to send money when I can, but also told him I won’t be talking to him anymore.
This is as much as I could have done for that little kid when I look back, that little me. It was not as expected but I have to let it go now.
I so wish someone could tell me how someone can be a father also a monster. I don’t know if I am being dramatic about these ‘little things’. I am so worried about he might kill himself because I wouldn’t know how to cure myself with that strike.
But I am in so much pain inside and as always I want to save myself. Every time talking to him is like sharpening this knife to cut open this giant ugly roughly almost healed scar. It’s so ugly and painful.

I accidentally posted this to my username instead of my subreddit so here is is:
The Mortgage, Part 3
“Fuck,” I said as I drove to work in the old beater that only started on the fourth try because it could tell that I was pissed off. Ray’s case started at two o’clock, and I was heading to the office to get ready. “Fuck fuck fuckity fucking fuck. Fuck.” I’d wanted to tell Angela about Ray’s case, and how I was sorry that I hadn’t wanted to help him, but now I would, I would help him, and I would win, but then I’d gotten her all riled up on something else, something totally different, something way more serious.
My wife had given me a triple ultimatum: fix things up with her father, save idiot Ray from Sy-Co Corp., and somehow find a downpayment for the place she wanted to buy, in the little townhouse infill project in Bixity. It was like demanding I do a double bank shot, and then run over to the baseball diamond and hit a home run after first pointing to where it would land, Babe Ruth style.
Angela was mad at me, seriously mad. She’d slipped out that morning before I was even awake, sliding quietly past me on the couch. I didn’t realize she was gone until I heard the faint click of the front door closing. I jumped up, tripped over a blanket, and by the time I got up and my robe on, the elevator down the hall dinged, and Angela was gone before I opened the apartment door.
I swore at myself some more and pounded the steering wheel, “I fucked up,” I said, several times as I hit the wheel over and over again, until I accidentally honked it, and then looked all sheepish when the guy in front of me gave me the finger. I reached my office without further incident, but instead of walking in the front door, I went further down the hall, and into the office of Mark Cecil-Rowe, Barrister, LL.D, the man with the finest speaking voice I ever heard. When I entered his office I forgot for a minute about Angela and her father and sleeping on the couch the night before. I forget about everything, except the reason that I had come to Cecil-Rowe’s office: to stump him with a legal problem that I had solved, but which I was pretty sure he could not. In other words, I had come to preen and to brag and to boast. No one likes a showoff, and I had come to show off. I put my hand on the door and turned the knob. After a brief pause, I flung open the door.
“I’m a goddamn genius,” I said as I strolled into the older man’s office.
I noticed the echo of a hastily closed desk drawer hanging in the air. In Aaron’s office, where I rented space, a sudden act of concealment implied cocaine, but with Cecil-Rowe, the item in question was probably a mickey of vodka. I had the sense that he’d been drinking a bit before I arrived, but his powers of observation were unimpaired, and when he looked into my face, his expression showed sympathy, and actual pain.
“What have you done now?” he said, as set the papers before him to one side, and readied himself to hear my latest tale of legal brilliance.
“I’m a genius,” I said.
“Oh dear. Have a seat.”
“No really, I am. I’m a genius. I got this case that everyone says you can’t win, but I’m gonna win it, and when I do, I’m gonna look like a genius.” Cecil-Rowe gave me a sad indulgent smile.
“Whenever you tell me you’re a genius, I am always concerned about what is to follow. When you get wrapped up in what you call your genius, you tend to ignore the more mundane things we lawyers have to do to win a case. You think you’re going to win by genius alone.”
“Let me tell you why I’m a goddamn genius.” With effort I wiped the smug, self-satisfied expression that was on my face.
“Tell me why you’re a genius,” Cecil-Rowe said, “while I pour us a coffee.” He heaved his bulky body up from his chair and shuffled over to a counter. He picked up a carafe of hot coffee sitting on a hot plate, and poured two cups. “Speak,” he said, handing me one. I took a sip of the coffee, and told Cecil-Rowe the tale of Cousin Ray: his purchase of a franchise from Sy-Co Corp, its swift demise, the crash and burn in Commercial Court, the Minutes of Settlement, the seventy-one kilometer limit, and lastly, Sy-Co’s motion scheduled for two p.m. that very day, seeking an interim injunction shutting down Ray’s place.
Cecil-Rowe absorbed all this without the need to take notes. Instead, he sat back while he eyed me, taking the occasional sip of coffee, and smiling at the extravagant flourishes and details that brought out Ray’s story to full effect.
“Obviously Ray is dead on arrival,” he said, “but I guess this is the part where you tell me how you’re going to win.”
So I told him how I was going to win, but it didn’t have the desired effect. “I told ya I’m a genius, Mr. C,” cueing him to applaud, to admit what a brilliant lawyer I was. But there was no applause from Mark Cecil-Rowe. He looked at me without so much as a smile.
“You can cling to that genius notion as a consolation prize, after you get whipped this afternoon in court.”
“No way,” I said, “not a chance. I got this thing won hands down. I’m gonna kick ass in court today and--”
“And how exactly do you plan to do that, if you don’t have evidence?”
“What?”
“Evidence, Calledinthe9os. It’s what lawyers like me use to beat geniuses like you.”
“But I’m gonna win without proof. I don’t need proof. The argument I’m gonna make, relies on simple facts that are totally obvious, so the judge is gonna--” Cecil-Rowe stuck up his hand.
“Stop right there. I know what’s coming. You’re going to ask the judge to take *judicial notice.”
And he was right. That was exactly what I was going to do.
There are some things so obvious that you didn’t have to prove them, things that everyone knew. You didn’t have to prove that water froze at zero degrees and boiled at a hundred, or that Bixity was between West Bay and East Bay.
“You got it,” I said, “judicial notice all the way.”
“You’re going to tell the judge that the centerpiece of your argument, the lynchpin of your case is a fact known to pretty well everyone, and so you don’t need proof.”
“Exactly,” I said. Cecil-Rowe took another sip of his coffee, and left me hanging in the silence for a while before he spoke.
“If that’s true, then why does coming up with that argument make you a genius?”
“Oh, I said,”I didn’t think of that.”
“It is acceptable to rely on judicial notice for minor, ancillary points. But you never should walk into court thinking that the court will take judicial notice of your entire defence. It’s just too risky.”
“But how am I going to rustle up a witness in time for this afternoon?”
“Worry about that after you leave my office. I can’t help you with that. What I want to know, is why you’re doing this at the last minute.”
“What makes you think I’m doing this at the last minute?”
“Because you never would have resorted to judicial notice if you were properly prepared. If you’d opened this case a bit earlier, you’ve have everything lined up. But you got to work on it late, and so you want to rely on judicial notice. You’ve messed up, Calledinthe90s, and you know what my rule is when you mess up.” Cecil-Rowe didn’t extend aid to me, until I admitted the error of my ways. It was infuriating, but he was inflexible. So I fessed up.
“My idiot cousin Ray’s been trying to retain me for almost two weeks, but I was putting him off because I was mad at him. So now my wife’s mad at me, and if I don’t win this case, I’m dead. Plus her dad’s mad at me too and --” My brain roared into overdrive, a mess of family and law and fear, and at the centre of it, thoughts of Angela’s anger and her father. My mind took off, and then came to an instant halt at a helpful destination.
“Yes?” Cecil-Rowe said.
“Sorry. I just realized how to solve the evidence problem. Look, can I ask you about the thing I actually came here to ask you about?”
“You have a problem that’s worse than having no evidence? What could be worse than -- oh. You don’t have a retainer. Your client doesn't have any money.”
“Exactly. How do I get paid? That’s the problem.” I explained that Ray had no money, as in none, and that if he did have money, he wouldn’t spend it on me. Instead, he’d go back downtown and throw his cash at some big firm, who would take on his case, and proceed to lose it in a calm, careful, sober manner, ending in a reporting letter to Ray telling him that he’d lost.
“Now that’s a problem I can solve,” Cecil-Rowe said.
“Really? ‘Cause I can’t see a way around it. I think I’m gonna have to do this for free, and that really pisses me off.” Cecil-Rowe shook his head.
“You may or may not get paid, but you can set things up so that if you win, you’ll win pretty good.”
“How? Ray’s a deadbeat. Tapped out.”
“But is he desperate?”
“Totally. The first time he failed, he lost his own money, but if he goes under this time, he’s taking family money with him, and he’ll be the black sheep forever.”
“And he’s using family to emotionally blackmail you into helping him?’
“Like no shit. That’s the part that pisses me off the most. I’m like a goddamn slave, being forced to work for free.”
“Never fear, young apprentice. I have just the thing in mind.” He reached into a drawer, and pulled out a form. “Fill in the blanks, and have him sign.”
I looked it over, and saw that the document was a retainer agreement. I whistled. “Holy shit. If he signs this, he’s almost my slave.”
“Close, but not quite” Cecil-Rowe said, “the Latin term for this is "contractus pro venditione animae"”. It’s the ultimate retainer agreement. Once Ray signs that, you own any cause of action he has against the person suing him. You can settle the case on any terms you like, and you get to keep whatever proceeds there are.” Cecil-Rowe placed the folder back in a drawer, and from his manner you could tell that the interview was over.
“Awesome, Mr. C. I’ll call you from Commercial Court when we’re done.”
“Commercial Court?” he said.
“Yeah, Commercial Court.”
“This just keeps getting worse. Take notes, Calledinthe90s, while I school you on Commercial Court. Commercial Court is a jungle, and without preparation, you’ll get savaged.”
“That’s what happened to Ray when--”
“Take notes, young apprentice,” he said, tossing me a pad and a pen. He started to lecture, and I took notes that I have with me to this day, in a safe deposit box downstairs in the vault at Mega Bank Main Branch.
* * *
By the time Cecil-Rowe finished schooling me, it was close to ten, and the case started at two. I didn’t have much time. I ran down the hall to my office, and called Ray’s restaurant. No answer. Then I called Ray’s house. I expected to get Ray’s wife, but the man himself answered.
“You’re not at work. Why aren’t you at work?”
“Sy-Co Corp served all my employees with a cease and desist letter. They all got scared and took off. The place is shut down.”
“You gotta fax machine at home?” He did, and asked why.
“I’m taking your case, but only if you sign the paper I’m about to send and fax it back.” I sent the fax, and five minutes later it came back signed, and it was official: Ray had sold me his legal soul.
I went out to the parking lot, got into my beater and drove fast. In less than thirty minutes I reached my destination. I knocked on the door, and when it opened, my diminutive mother-in-law poked out her head. “What a pleasant surprise,” she said.
“Sorry, Mrs. M, but I’m in a super hurry. I gotta rush to get to court to help Ray. But first, I gotta speak to Dr. M.”
“He’s not here,” she said.
“Not here?”
“He’s on his way to his bridge game. He left just a few minutes ago.”
“Where’s the club?”
“He’s walking there,” she said, and pointed down the street.
“Thanks.” I got into my car and headed where Mrs. M had pointed, passing big houses and new project with an “Opening Soon” sign. And walking past it was the figure of Dr. M.
“Hey, Dr. M,” I called out the window. He stopped and looked around, startled. But he didn’t see me, not at first.
“It’s me, Dr. M. Me, Calledin90s.” He leaned forward as if to see me better. I got out of the car.
“Is something wrong with Angela? Or the baby?”
“No, no not at all, sorry to scare you, it’s nothing like that. I need your help.”
“Oh.” He started walking again, and now it was my turn to be a bit stunned, watching my father-in-law walk away from me. I caught up with him in a few quick strides.
“Listen, I really need your help.”
“And I really need to get to a bridge game.”
“This isn’t about me. It’s about Ray.” That brought him to a halt. He turned to me, angrier even than he’d been the night before.
“Did you drive all the way out here just to make fun of me? To remind me of how you won, distracting me with nonsense about Ray’s case?”
“I mean it,” I said, “I can win Ray’s case. I can prove it in a few words.”
“Prove it, then.” So I did. I spoke words, only a few words, but they were the right words to speak to Dr. M, for the words I spoke were in his language, words that he understood perfectly.
“I understand,” he said, “you’ve come to boast some more, to prove that you were right after all.”
“I want to win Ray’s case, but I don’t have any proof of what I’m saying.”
“You don’t need to prove that two plus two is four.”
“This, I gotta prove, and I need you to help me prove it. I need you to come to court with me, as my witness.”
“I can’t do that. I didn’t witness anything.”
“As my witness. My expert witness.” Unlike a normal witness, an expert witness can give an opinion. An expert is there not to advocate, I explained to Dr. M but to instruct, to teach.
“My bridge partner won’t be very happy,” he said.
“But Ray will, and so will Mrs. M and Angela and--”
“Very well. Do you have a cell phone? We can call the bridge club from my car.”
* * *
We were on the highway getting close to the downtown exit, when my wife called my cell phone. Back then cell phone service was super expensive and my wife only used it for emergencies. Or when she was really angry. I picked up the phone, wondering which it would be.
“I’m so happy that you made things up with my father,” she said.
“How did you know?”
“My mother called. She says you took him with you, that you went out together.”
“He’s with me right now,” I said.
“Where are you going?”
“To court. Going to court to win Ray’s case for him.”
“And you brought my father with you to watch?” She was so happy, I could hear in her voice that she was smiling. “That’s a great way to bond with him, Calledinthe90s. Look, I’m sorry I got so mad at you earlier, I really am. My dad’s a bit too sensitive and--”
“Sorry, Angela, your dad’s not coming to watch me.”
“Why is he with you, then?”
“He’s my witness,” I said.
“What?”
“His expert witness,” Dr. M said, loudly enough for Angela to hear.
My wife’s anger exploded into the phone. She wanted to know how I could expose her elderly, vulnerable father to the stress of a court case. I tried to tell her how I needed him, how there was literally no one else I could turn to, that her father was an expert, a true expert, and the judge was legally bound to believe him, but Angela heard none of this.
“Look,’ I said, “I promise you that--” And then I lowered the phone and pushed the red button, terminating the call. I’d learned that the best way to hang up on someone, was to do it when I was doing the talking. That way it looked like the call had dropped.
“I’m going to steal that move,” Dr. M said.
We rolled into the parking lot. I grabbed the cloth bag out of the back of my car, the bag that held my law robes and shirt and tabs, plus the other stuff I needed for court. It was one-thirty, still thirty minutes to go, not a lot of time to get robed and ready for court. It was just past one-forty five when I, with Dr. M in tow, opened the door to a courtroom on the eighth floor of an old insurance building that had been converted into a courthouse, the home of Commercial Court.
“Commercial Court is an exclusive club,” Cecil-Rowe had explained to me earlier that day, “the legal playground of the rich and powerful. They’ll know instantly that you’re not one of them.” And he was right. It was clear from the moment I walked in that I did not belong, for I was the only lawyer in robes. Everyone else was wearing a suit, and not some cheap thing off the rack like I wore.
There were a half-dozen lawyers present, and after they saw me, they exchanged knowing looks about the stranger amongst them. I ignored them, and walked up to the Registrar. I told him the case I was on, and he signed me in.
“First time in Commercial Court?” he said, eyeing my robes. “You know you don’t have to be robed in Commercial Court.” In other Superior Courts, you always had to bring your robes and get all dressed up. But Commercial Court had its own set of rules, and in the court for rich people, their lawyers did not have to wear robes.
“You’re here on the Sy-Co case?” a young woman asked. She was a junior like me, give a year or two either way. She was dressed in the finest downtown counsel fashion, some designer thing that Angela would know if she saw it.
“Just got retained,” I said.
“You know there’s no adjournments, right? We don’t do adjournments in Commercial Court. I’m just trying to be helpful, because I don’t think you've been here before. You know you don’t have to be robed, right?
“So I heard.”
“So where’s your material? You haven’t served anything, so how do you plan to argue your case?”
“I gotta witness,” I said.
She smiled. “There’s no viva voce evidence, either. Affidavit only.”
“We’ll see what the judge says.” There was a knock from the other side of the door to the judge’s chambers, and then the man himself entered.
I was amazed to see that even the judge wasn’t wearing a robe; instead, he was wearing a light coloured suit and a bright blue bow tie. He was dressed as good as the lawyers, all part of the downtown Commercial Court club, the playground of the richest and most powerful corporations in the City.
“Commercial Court’s not like other courts,” Cecil-Rowe told me earlier that day, explaining that most cases were over in fifteen minutes or less. A plaintiff showed up with some papers, and had a short consultation with the judge. The judge signed an order granting an injunction, or taking away a man’s business, or freezing his money. Commercial Court is where you went to get quick and simple court orders that eviscerated your opponent before the case even got going.
Defendants would appear sometimes in Commercial Court, Cecil-Rowe explained, but it was usually their last time up. Defendants always died a quick death in Commercial Court.
The judge took his seat, and then looked over the lawyers before him. His eyes moved along, and then stopped when they reached me, the one lawyer who was not like the others.
“You don’t need robes in Commercial Court,” the judge said to me.
“I’ll remember that for next time,” I said.
“What case are you on?”
I told him.
“He’s filed no responding materials,” my opponent said, “nothing at all.”
“I’m just vetting the list,” the judge said, “I’ll circle back to you two in a few minutes.” I listend while the judge vetted the rest of the afternoon list: a Mareva, plus a Norwich order, with counsel on those cases sent away in a matter of minutes.
Now the courtroom was almost empty, just the judge, two lawyers, the registrar and my star witness and father-in-law, Dr. M, who sat in the back of the courtroom dressed in an old business suit, put on hastily at his place two hours earlier, when I urged him to hurry it up, to not waste so much time on picking a suit.
“Back to you,” the judge said, addressing my opponent, “I thought this was an uncontested matter. That’s what your confirmation sheet said.”
“I’m sorry, Your Honour, but I didn’t know until I got here that the case was defended.”
“I got retained at the last minute,” I said, “barely three hours ago, the day after I read the papers. But I’m ready to go, ready to argue the case on the merits, so long as you grant me an indulgence, and let me call my witness, to let him testify in person instead of by affidavit, there being no time for me to draft anything.”
Opposing counsel was on her feet. “That’s not how things are done in Commercial Court,” she said, “or any court that I know of, for that matter. My friend (that’s what they make lawyers call each other in court, ‘my friend,’ even though you might hate the other guy’s guts),” the lawyer said, “my friend should have served his responding materials and filed them with the court. Instead, he’s taken us totally by surprise.”
“I’m sorry my friend is surprised by opposition,” I said, “but then consider, it’s my client’s livelihood that’s at stake. If my friend gets her injunction, Ray Telewu’s business is dead, and he loses everything. So yes, my client opposes the injunction, and yes, I’d like to call evidence.”
The judge didn’t consult the papers before him nor the books, but instead, he looked up at the big white clock on the courtroom wall. Its hands said two-fifteen.
“How long will your witness take, counsel?”
“In chief, ten minutes.” I’d practiced with Dr. M on the way in, and I was pretty sure he could do it in five, but I gave him a bit of extra time, just in case.
“We’ve got about two hours,” the judge said, “but I want to be fair to you and your client. Let’s take a fifteen minute recess so you can get instructions. Either we go ahead today with viva voce evidence, or we adjourn, and that will give Calledinthe90s time to file responding materials.”
When everyone came back, the junior’s boss was there, Senior Counsel, a heavy weight, one of those big guys downtown. Plus they brought this guy from Sy-Co Corp, the head of some bullshit division, with some bullshit title, Head of whatever, so that’s the title I’ll give him here. He was The Head. He was the man, the big cheese, the signer of the affidavit on which Sy-Co relied that day.
“What’s he doing here?” I asked Senior Counsel.
He stared at me, all lean and steel grey, looking every inch the hard hitting lawyer that commanded the biggest fees. “If you’re calling a live witness, then so can we. The Head will give evidence today, in advance of your client, so that the judge hears it from him first.” His junior smirked at me, and the two of them sat down, delighted that they’d thought of a way to one up me.
Except that they’d done it by exposing their client to cross-examination. The judge came in, allowed the Head to testify, and when he was done, I stood up.
“Just a few questions,” I said. Senior Counsel was stunned for an instant, and then he stood.
“This serves no purpose, Your Honour. The witness has confirmed the simple facts of his affidavit, and there’s no disputing it. Ray Telewu opened a restaurant less than seventy-one kilometres from Bixity City Hall, and that’s in breach of the Minutes of Settlement he signed.”
I did not bother to respond. Instead, I just stood, and I started to ask questions.
“Have a look at that map in your affidavit,” I said, and he did. I picked up my copy, and tore the map out of it. I passed it up to him.
“What do you notice about this map?”
“That it’s accurate,” the Head said, repeating his evidence in chief, amplifying it, talking about how the map contained perfect measurement.
“You will notice that the map is flat,” I said, laying it on the witness box before him.
“Of course it’s flat. That’s what maps are. Maps are flat.”
“But the earth is round,” I said, “or more properly, a sphere.” Senior Counsel was on his feet in an instant.
“What difference does that make?” he said.
“What you’ll hear from my expert witness, is that a flat map cannot accurately show Earth’s curves. A flat map distorts distances, and in this case, reduces them.”
“But that can’t be by very much.”
“In this case, by just over twenty meters,” Dr. M said from the back of the court.
“That’s my expert witness, the esteemed Dr. M.” I didn’t actually say Dr. M. Instead, I said his real name. But I’m not going to use the real names of my family here, so I’ll just keep calling him Dr. M. “Dr. M was a professor of Physics at the University of Bixity for almost thirty years. He has published numerous papers on particle physics, and is the first Canadian winner of the Wolf Prize for physics.”

• * * *

It went downhill after that for Sy-Co Corp. My father-in-law testified, explaining in simple language, language that even a child could understand, that the Earth was a sphere, that the shortest distance between two points on Earth was a curve, not a straight line. He summarized his calculations in plain English, dumbing down the math, so that everyone present imagined, if only for the moment, that they shared his understanding of a difficult mathematical equation.
Senior Counsel tried to cross-examine Dr. M, but it did not go well, my father-in-law indulging him, gently chiding him, continuing his explanations until the lawyer sat down, defeated by Dr. M’s mastery of the subject,his own lack of preparation and his inability to improvise. When counsel said that he had no further questions, the judge addressed us all.
“I’m not going to reserve, and I don’t think I need to tell everyone why. I think it will take about a minute for me to write a decision saying that the Earth is not flat. I’ll give you some more time after that, but after fifteen minutes, I”ll be back to render my decision.” He rose, everyone bowed, and he disappeared behind the door to judge’s chambers.
I pulled a piece of paper out of my file, and slammed it on the desk before Senior Counsel and his junior. “Fill in the blanks, and sign,” I said.
Dr. M’s head shot up at the commotion, and he shuffled over to see what was going on.
“What’s this?” Senior Counsel said, picking up the paper I gave him..
“Minutes of Settlement. You fill in a number, a big number, for the costs you gotta pay me. Your client signs, and then we’re done.” Senior Counsel opened his mouth to bargain, but I overrode him.
“You know your client’s going to lose; the judge made that obvious. Hurry up if you want to settle; we don’t have much time.”
At the end of most Canadian court cases, the loser has to pay at least part of the winner’s legal fees. That’s the way it’s been since forever, and I think it’s a good rule. Sy-Co Corp had lost, so it had to pay a good chunk of Ray’s costs, and Ray’s costs were somewhere between whatever bullshit figure I claimed they were, and where they actually ought to be. Senior Counsel took the paper over to his client. There was a brief discussion, and then they came back, with the form signed, and a number written in the blank space.
I’ll give it to Sy-Co Corp and their lawyer. It wasn’t a bullshit number, a low ball number. They gave me a real number, a number more like something I’d actually accept, a number that made sense to pay me in costs, in light of the success I’d had, and how I got it. It was a respectful number, a common sense number, and I appreciated it an awful lot.
I tossed the paper back at them.
“Add a zero,” I said, continuing on when Senior Counsel blanched, and his junior retreated a step. “I know what’s going on here. Your client sold mine a bullshit franchise, one with a history of failing.” The franchise had opened up again under a new owner not long after Ray had lost it and then it promptly failed again. Like I said at the start of this story, it’s an old story. It’s how some franchise companies make money. “Your client makes more money selling bullshit franchises doomed to fail, then it does from the honest ones that make money. So add a zero to that number, or Ray’s gonna sue you, class action and all that, for all the people you’ve fucked.”
The Head stepped forward from the benches and spoke to me.
“We get threats like that all the time, but no one follows through. They don’t have the money to fight us, and neither does your client. So go ahead and sue.”
“It’s true that Ray doesn’t have jack shit,” I said, “not a pot to piss in, but he’s my cousin, Ray is, and even if he doesn’t have money, he’s got me. Ray’s family, and for Ray, I’ll sue you guys for free. Hell, I’ll even pay the expenses. Plus I’m gonna put a jury notice in, too, come to think of it, ‘cause juries--”
Senior Counsel cut me off, and moved his client to the back of the courtroom. There was a brief discussion, and then they came back. I watched as Senior Counsel wrote a single digit on the Minutes, a zero, written right where I wanted it.
“You’ll have to initial the change,” I said to the Head of Sy-C0, and it gave me great satisfaction to watch him sign.
“Don’t forget,” I said the moment his pen stopped moving, “for the settlement to be valid, I need to get the money today. Right now.”
“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” the Head said.
“Not if you want the settlement to stay in place. I’ll follow you back to your office, and you can put a cheque in my hands.”

• * * *

“What’s this?” my wife said when I entered the apartment later that day, after I’d driven Dr. M home, stopping first at a local pub for beers.
“It’s an absurdly expensive bunch of flowers,” I said, “although no flowers, however beautiful, however expensive, could expiate my--”
She took the flowers, and gave a kiss.
“My mom called. She told me what happened. You fixed things with my dad.”
“Yup,” I said. I had certainly done that. I’d made Dr. M a professor again, if only for a few minutes. Not only a professor, but an expert witness. The judge had declared him an expert in plain terms and Dr.M had beamed when he’d heard those words.
“And you won Ray’s case, too. But my mom didn’t know how, and I don’t know how you did it either.”
“I’ll tell you over dinner tonight,” I said.
“But we agreed no more dinners out; we have to save money, now that a baby’s coming.”
I passed her the envelope that I’d received a few hours before. She opened it, and took out a cheque, a cheque drawn up for an amount I specified, made payable to Mr. and Mrs. Calledinthe90s.
The moment I got that cheque, all I could think about was how my wife would react when I put it into her hands. I could not wait to see her eyes bulge, to hear her voice say “oh my god,” to hear her laugh.
She did none of these things. Instead, she cried.
“Does this mean we can buy a house?” The money wouldn’t be enough to buy a house, not nowadays, with prices being so crazy. But things were different back then in the 90s. Sure, the internet was barely a thing and cell phones were super expensive and a lot of things sucked, but I’ll give the nineties one thing: houses were cheap.
“I think so,” I said.

Sorry for the lack of photos, but this one is easy to follow since the repair was so simple. This should be the same for all of the blue headphones with an internal amp
The blue ella has been discontinued, so it's selling for about $110 on amazon, down from its $700 MSRP. If anyone saw my review, I think they're easily the best closed backs under $200 by a country mile right now, with the ability to be used without the internal amp, with it to just cleanly amplify a weak source (amazing for my miyoo mini which has a stupidly weak amp) or with an "analogue" EQ mode that bumps the sub bass and warms it up a bit. I've been using them and adoring them, they're superb gaming cans. HOWEVER, I noticed the amplifier battery was lasting an absolutely wretchedly short amount of time, like 45 minutes. Turns out a battery powered device sitting in a box for like 7 years means the battery isn't gonna be very happy.
However, the repair was dirt cheap and super, SUPER easy. The battery is a very standard 3.7v, 1000mAh unit with the standard charging PCB covered in capton take inside the right earcup. I ordered a replacement one off amazon for $9 along with a $4 roll of double sided electrical tape. The replacement battery is 5x34x50mm, but the original is about 4x36x60 with another 1mm thickness of double sided adhesive foam. But the new battery fits just fine with some double sided tape that isn't 1mm (I used 1mm tape and it was a hair thick, but still worked. regular double sided tape is ideal) and the repair was a snap, only requiring a spudger or something to gently pry the earcup off (a butter knife would work) a t5 torx bit, and two little dots with a soldering iron (you should also get some solder and a little flux, some isopropyl alcohol and a Q tip to clean up the flux) and a pair of pliers or flush cuts to snip the connector off the replacement battery and strip back some wire. A pair of tweezers would be helpful too.
Firstly, remove the earcups (do both sides since it's easy and makes accessing the rest much easier) by gently placing the spudger or device between the brown of the earcup pad and the black plastic trim, and prying until it pops, then just work around, they'll pop right off. The bezel is very sturdy but be mindful of not nicking the pleather cups, they are glued to the frames and replacement pads are only really available through a custom pad maker like Vesper.
Now all we need to work on is the right side. Unscrew the 6 long T5 torx screws holding the driver and its bezel in place. The two short t5 screws just hold the bezel to the driver and can be left in place - removing them makes the whole thing a bit more unwieldy. The driver and bezel come right off, there's no adhesive. Don't lose the foam pad that goes between the driver and the rest of the earcup. Now remove the 2 t5 screws on the little cross brace that holds the battery down and set it aside.
Now we can remove the old battery - Safety dictates that you desolder the battery first - just follow the super obvious two wires to the board, make note or take a picture of which is red and which is black, and desolder them. The solder joints on mine were quite aged, so a touch of flux and fresh solder was necessary, but this is about as easy as soldering work gets. Once the battery is desoldered, use your spudger or pry tool to gently pry on the sides of the battery to release the adhesive. it's not super strong adhesive and mine came free with minimal effort.
Now place some double sided tape on the replacement battery and put the replacement battery in its place. the little battery "tray" makes lining it up easy. Align it the same way the old battery was, with just tape on one side. My new battery had a JST connector, so I snipped it off and stripped the wires back about 2mm. Tin your wires by touching them with some flux and fresh solder. Then I used some tweezers to hold the wire down while I soldered them in. Wipe up any excess flux with a little isopropyl alcohol on a Q-tip, make sure the solder didn't bridge between the positive and negative, and put it back together! Don't forget the little cross brace that clamps the battery down first, then orient the foam/drivebezel pack in place and screw it down. Pop the ear cups back on by pressing down on their very outside edge to make 'em clip into place. Charge it up and enjoy!
(one piece of advice when screwing screws back into plastic - when you put the screw into the hole, first turn it backwards until you feel a little bump or click, and THEN drive it in. This prevents cross-threading and accidentally chewing up the threads. And be mindful of not over-tightening. They aren't going to come loose on their own very easily, plastic is a lot grippier than screwing metal into metal, so you don't need to torque anything down.)
If your amp switch ever starts to get wonky, I also discovered in my disassembly adventure that the knob just engages with a regular slider switch like a gameboy uses. You can just touch some contact cleaner in that switch if it ever gets weird.
Overall, I was really impressed at how easy they are to repair and how pleasantly standard the battery is. I was worried that maybe I'd only ever just use them unamplified (which isn't too hard, as I understand they're fostex T50 drivers) but for maybe... 15 minutes of work start to finish, they're as good as new.
Now I just need to see how long these vinyl pads last before I have to get vesper audio to make me some proper leather replacements. I hate pleather.

Ok... I'm officially stumped. Here's my situation: I have a 15A/15A double pole circuit breaker, has two switches that move independent of the other (if something causes it to trip, only that switch that runs whatever will reset, the other will remain working). This particular breaker, one 15A switch controls outlets in my bedroom, living room, and outlets in two other rooms along with light fixtures also for each room. The other half controls the laundry light, outside back light, kitchen light and the non-gfci outlets in kitchen. Power center is in my bedroom. Just outside my bedroom is my laundry room, just the other side of that in my kitchen, then living room, then hallway facilitating two bedrooms with a bathroom in the middle. There is a ceiling light fixture in the laundry room that a while back had started flickering regardless of bulb in it. It is controlled by a switch on the kitchen side of the wall that separates laundry/kitchen. There is another switch in the gang box that (as best I know) only controls the light outside the back door which is also exiting the kitchen. I have a very basic knowledge of electric, primarily toggle switches and soldering wires etc. Back when the light began flickering, I had pulled the fixture down to check it. it was a flush mount single build fixture, and it had a pull chain attached. I bypassed the chain switch and just wired it to the fixture. I didn't get anything at all so I just left the fixture off and put wire nuts on the wires, left it. Fast forward to 6 months later: We've been fine without a light so far in the laundry room but my eyesight is failing me rather quickly so it's harder to see in low light to me so I wanted to replace the light fixture and get it working so I did just that. Only, the light came on for a second then faded off, never to light again. I checked everything, even placed the bulb from it into a working figure and it still works. So what made the most sense to me, the switch in the kitchen must be going bad. So I like the power to that group pulled them out of the gang box, eliminated the one switch for the laundry light, disconnected the outside light completely because we never go out there at night anyways, and moved it over to control the laundry. When I wired everything back up, making sure that everything was correct, I switched power back on. The only thing different is the outside light no longer hot, old laundry switch removed, outside light switch used in it's place. That's it. When I flipped the light switch in the box I got nothing at all. So I got my tester out to check the switch. I accidentally tagged the edge of the switch with the tester prong, making a big spark, and tripped the half of the breaker it was on. So I went got a new switch, just one, and replaced it. Still have nothing. I replaced the breaker with the exact same one, just a different brand name. I still have nothing. I mean I don't have pretty anything on the one half. The other half still functions fine but I don't know for how long because I'm a single dad of twin girls so their room is being lightly powered by drop cords running from outlets for microwave and my room is lightly powered by drops running from washing machine outlet (why it's separate from the above light, I don't know.) I'm at a loss. I've scoured Google looking and I can't find anything. Not that it's not there, I don't know exact terminology for everything so I may not have worded it right but yeah that's my thing. I can't afford $120 just to get the electrician to show up, pls the extra $80/hr that follows if he pulls his drill out. I am pretty handy, I may not know what something is called specifically but I know how to use a tester and non contact detection wands. I just need some kind of guidance on what I can try now. It's not even about the light anymore I just went to have everything correct so I don't inadvertently burn my house down. They would completely suck so any help would be most appreciated. I apologize for my long post I wanted to make sure I described my issue thoroughly. Thanks in advance.

I had pulled an all nighter to get this essay for a criminology class on human trafficking done, so when I went to submit it online I was exhausted and just wanted to be done with it, so I didn't bother double checking it. It's now been a week since my last final (inorganic chemistry) and I came home for the summer, and I got the notification that my essay was graded. I pulled up canvas to see I got a 0 on the assignment cause I had accidentally uploaded the damn rubric for the assignment instead. I opened up my email to see if there was any last second pleading with my professor to see if I could somehow fix this only to see she had already emailed me two days prior asking me to submit the correct file cause final grades were do at noon on Monday (today). 🙃
I still managed to just barely pass with a 70 but needless to say I'm pissed at myself for not double checking. Obviously there's no fault on my professor, they tried letting me know that I submitted the wrong file and I just hadn't been checking my school email. Not to mention she was always lenient with extentions and accepting late work. I actually think the only reason why I have a 70 and not a lower grade is because they pulled some strings when calculating my final course grade so I would have at least a C instead if a D.

I (19 F) and my Best Friend (19 F) have been lying to everyone we know that we are cousins.
For context, I met my now best friend from randomly rooming in an off campus apartment at the beginning of this last school year. We clicked INSTANTLY and have become inseparably close ever since.
Because we lived together, we share all of our belongings and even grocery shop together. Since we became so close so fast, and stayed at her family's house only a few weeks into the school year, people always asked us how we knew each other and would not believe us when we said we were random roommates. So instead, we started saying we were cousins as a joke but nobody questioned it. We became curious if we were actually related as we both have pretty large families, and used the app family tree to see if we were. To our surprise, we were somewhere between 3rd and 5th cousins, I can't quite remember. It was through both our moms sides of the family.
We are close with a few of both my cousins on my mom's side and her cousins from her mom's side, and both of them just call the other "cousin", and have all accepted the other into the family. We even call each other's parents aunt and uncle as we will see or talk to them frequently. This became so normal to us, that we would forget sometimes that it was sort of a lie.
There were a couple other things that inadvertently helped our case too. For one, she was online at a different school the first semester as she had started college the last year of high school and had to finish it but still wanted to live in the college town she would be attending next semester, so people assumed she moved here to live with me. Second, my mom's mom is called Grammy and her mom's mom is called Gammy so whenever we talk about them, nobody notices that we are saying something different. And lastly, all the cousin's that came to stay with us or that we are close to are all from both our mom's sides and the ones we are still both technically related to.
During the year, we would tell everyone we were cousins. The most people would question is that we don't look super alike as she is blonde and I have dark brown hair with tan skin, so sometimes people would ask how we were related and we would just say our moms which is technically true, and both our moms are blonde. Early on we met a bunch of guys that ended up becoming our best friends. I started dating one of the guys in the group a few months later. One of the guys B has two cousins in the group from opposite sides. Because they were actual cousins, they wanted to know how we were related so we said our moms, and when they asked if they were sisters we agreed.
Up until about 6 months ago, this was all there was to it and it wasn't really a big deal or that deep, just kind of funny. But things took a bit of a turn when one of B's cousins E had a thing with one of my actual cousin's roommates. Her roommate accidentally let it slip to E that me and my best friend weren't really cousins. E ended up telling all of the other guys while they were at the gym that day and my boyfriend texted me saying "Bro no way you guys have been lying to me this whole time" when I asked how, he said "yall aren't even cousins" and then added "by blood".
We probably should have come clean then and there, but we had another one of our friends over who also thought we were cousins and didn't feel explaining to him or everyone that we had been lying for months. So naturally, we doubled down.
But my boyfriend didn't believe us and asked for proof. When I said I would find a picture (my mom's family is huge so we could have played it off) he said to show him the family tree app. So we took an ss of our relation to each other and put another ss on top of it so it looked like it said we were just cousins instead of 3rd. That ended the debate as E and the girl never became anything so the guys just assumed it was bad intel, and never asked us about it again.
Now here comes the major problem. My best friend decided to do a year and a half long humanitarian trip and is having a party to say goodbye at her house this weekend. Me and my boyfriend are going up on Thursday (which is in 2 days) and her family is all coming into town. Her dad's mom and her mom's parents will all be there. My boyfriend has been with us when we were on a face time call with her family and her Gammy months ago, and has also met my Grammy. However, since talking to Gammy and meeting Grammy were spaced apart so far he never questioned or asked about it, and we never gave it a second thought. To make it worse, the other day when we were at my Grammy's house, he snapped my best friend who is currently home saying "guess where I am", it was clear he assumed that Grammy was our mutual grandparent so she just went along with it.
At this point we have 3 options: 1: we come completely clean, 2: we slightly lie and say we are 2nd cousins which isn't that far from the truth, or 3: lie even more and keep pretending to be first cousins.
Her mom thinks this whole thing is hilarious and that we are in too deep to come clean at this point. She is ready and willing to go along with whatever we tell him.
We came up with a plan that would further enforce the lie that goes as follows: Her Gammy and my (now dead) grandad were married and had 2 kids: the first one died (my mom has a sister that died as a baby) and the second one was her mom. They divorced after the death as it was hard on the marriage and both got remarried. My grandad to my Grammy, and her Gammy to her grandfather. Gammy got custody of her mom, and both couples had more kids and moved on with their lives.
This would make us half cousins and our moms half sisters. You wouldn't really refer to your half cousin as anything but a cousin, and it would explain why we were weird when people asked if our moms were sisters. Additionally, the sister that died is a real thing and asking anyone about it would make our lie seem true.
It is messy enough to where it would be like oh we don't talk about it and he won't want to ask questions, but not messy enough with like affairs and cheating to where it makes our families look bad. Her mom and aunt and cousins will all go along with it as they find the whole thing funny. The issue is, this would make us get involved so deep and having lies that include dead family members feels disrespectful.
At this point I don't know what to do. Should we come completely clean now? Should we come partially clean and admit to lying about our mom's being sisters and the family tree app screen shot being fake? Or do we keep lying and go with everything we've said for a year now?
I'm worried that my boyfriend will feel betrayed by everyone lying to him, no matter when it is; if it's now or if we keeping lying and he finds out later. I don't want him to be hurt and question other things in our relationship, as this is the ONLY thing I have ever lied to him about. There is a chance that if we keep lying he will never find out, but there's also a chance that he will.
TBH I kinda forgot about all of this, and when me an my best friend facetimed a few minutes ago we realized we are so screwed. Please help lol I feel like an idiot and I don't know what I should do😭
EDIT: i shortened it and took out unnecessary details like the comments told me to. this is my first post and I made this account for it so idk what i'm doing haha sorry

I (19 F) and my Best Friend (19 F) have been lying to everyone we know that we are cousins.
For context, I have a summer birthday and turn 20 in 2 months. I graduated high school early (as did a lot of people in my area due to covid) and came out to college at 17 the winter semester of 2022. I was at college for a year and a half before I met my now best friend from randomly rooming in an off campus apartment at the beginning of this last school year This was her first year at college, as she is almost a year younger than me, and graduated in 2023. We clicked INSTANTLY and have become inseparably close ever since.
Our entire immediate and extended families all know each other, and we will often take trips and stay with her family. And when my family came into town, she stayed with us the whole time. Our families love each other, and meeting her has been the best thing that has ever happened to me, I feel like I have known her my entire life. My cousins who live in the area all call her cousin, and she comes to all the family functions.
Because we lived together, we share all of our belongings and even grocery shop together. Since we became so close so fast, and stayed at her family's house only a few weeks into the school year, people always asked us how we knew each other and would not believe us when we said we were random roommates. So instead, we started saying we were cousins and nobody questioned it. We became curious if we were actually related as we both have pretty large families, and used the app family tree to see if we were. To our surprise, we were somewhere between 3rd and 5th cousins, I can't quite remember. It was through my Grammy, and our moms sides of the family.
We are close with a few of both my cousins on my mom's side and her cousins fromher mom's side, and both of them just call the other "cousin", and have all accepted the other into the family. We even call each other's parents aunt and uncle as we will see or talk to them frequently. We will stay at each other's family and extended family. Everyone has welcomed the other with open arms into the family, and this made our lie seem even more real. This became so normal to us, that we would forget sometimes that it was sort of a lie. Whenever cousins would come to stay with us during the year, they called us both cousin no matter who's it was.
There were a couple other things that inadvertently helped our case too. For one, she was online at a different school the first semester as she had started college the last year of high school and had to finish it but still wanted to live in the college town she would be attending next semester, so people assumed she moved here to live with me. Second, my mom's mom is called Grammy and her mom's mom is called Gammy so whenever we talk about them, nobody notices that we are saying something different as they are super similar. And lastly, all the cousin's that came to stay with us or that we are close to are all from both our mom's sides and the ones we are still both technically related to.
During the year, we would tell all the people we met and it wasn't ever really an issue. The most people would question is that we don't look super alike as she is blonde and I have dark brown hair with tan skin, so sometimes people would ask how we were related and we would say our moms as both our moms are blonde. Early on we met a bunch of guys that ended up becoming our best friends. I started dating one of the guys in the group a few months later. The 3 of us became super close, and we never told him that we weren't cousins. One of the guys in the group that i'll call B, has two cousins in the group but from opposite sides. Because they were actual cousins, they wanted to know how we were related so we said our moms and when they asked if they were sisters we agreed.
Up until about 6 months ago, this was all there was to it and it wasn't really a big deal or that deep, just kind of funny. But things took a bit of a turn when one of B's cousins E had a thing with one of my actual cousin's roommates. Her roommate accidentally let it slip to E that me and my best friend weren't really cousins. Luckily my cousin gave us a heads up, so we knew they might ask. E ended up telling all of the other guys while they were at the gym that day and my boyfriend texted me saying "Bro no way you guys have been lying to me this whole time" when I asked how, he said "yall aren't even cousins" and then added "by blood".
We probably should have come clean then and there, but we had another one of our friends over who also thought we were cousins and didn't feel explaining to him or everyone that we had been lying for months. So naturally, we doubled down. But my boyfriend didn't believe us and asked for proof. When I said I would find a picture (my mom's family is huge so we could have played it off) he said to show him the family tree app. So we took an ss of our relation to each other and put another ss on top of it so it looked like it said we were just cousins instead of 3rd. That ended the debate as E and the girl never became anything so the guys just assumed it was bad intel, and never asked us about it again.
Now here comes the major problem. My best friend decided to do a year and a half long humanitarian trip and is having a party to say goodbye at her house this weekend. Me and my boyfriend are going up on Thursday (which is in 2 days) and her family is all coming into town. Her dad's mom and her mom's parents will all be there. My boyfriend has been with us when we were on a face time call with her family and her Gammy months ago, and has also met my Grammy, and was even at a family dinner this past weekend. However, since talking to Gammy and meeting Grammy were spaced apart so far he never questioned or asked about it, and we never gave it a second thought. The other day when we were at my Grammy's house, he snapped my best friend who is currently home saying "guess where I am", it was clear he assumed that Grammy was our mutual grandparent so she just went along with it.
We have been lying so long that we don't know what to do about this weekend. We talked to her mom and one of her aunts who know about the situation and they think it is hilarious. It started out as an innocent joke and just letting people assume our grandmas are the same person, but we are so deep in it at this point that we don't know if we should come clean or not.
At this point we have 3 options: 1: we come completely clean, 2: we slightly lie and say we are 2nd cousins which isn't that far from the truth, or 3: lie even more and keep pretending to be first cousins.
Her mom thinks we are in too deep to come clean at this point and is willing to go along with whatever we tell him. We came up with a plan that would further enforce the lie that goes as follows: Her Gammy and my (now dead) grandad were married and had 2 kids: the first one died (my mom has a sister that died as a baby) and the second one was her mom. They divorced after the death as it was hard on the marriage and both got remarried. My grandad to my Grammy, and her Gammy to her grandfather. Gammy got custody of her mom, and both couples had more kids and moved on with their lives.
This would make us half cousins and our moms half sisters. You wouldn't really refer to your half cousin as anything but a cousin, and it would explain why we were weird when people asked if our moms were sisters. Additionally, the sister that died is a real thing and asking anyone about it would make our lie seem true. It is messy enough to where it would be like oh we don't talk about it and he won't want to ask questions, but not messy enough with like affairs and cheating to where it makes our families look bad. Her mom and aunt and cousins will all go along with it as the find the whole thing funny. The issue is, this would make us get involved so deep and having lies that include dead family members feels disrespectful.
At this point I don't know what to do, should we come completely clean now? Should we come partially clean and admit to lying about our mom's being sisters and the family tree app ss being fake? Or do we keep lying and go with everything we've said for a year now? I'm worried that my boyfriend will feel betrayed by everyone lying to him, no matter when it is if it's now or if we keeping lying and he finds out later. I don't want him to be hurt and question other things in our relationship, as this is the ONLY thing I have ever lied to him about. There is a chance that if we keep lying he will never find out, but there's also a chance that he will. I honestly forgot about all of this, and when me an my best friend facetimed a few minutes ago we realized we are so screwed.
Please help lol I feel like an idiot and I don't know what to do 😭