Marijuana pre flowers

Welcome to This Week In KPOP, a collection of everything you may have missed during the past week on kpop.

May 11, 2024 - May 17, 2024

TOP 10 STORIES

#	Votes	Thread	Comments
1	(+3146)	CL shares new 2NE1 pictures in honor of their 15th anniversary	125 comments
2	(+2423)	tripleS have earned their first ever music show win for "Girls Never Die" on SBS M The Show (240514)	129 comments
3	(+1941)	fromis_9 Receives Love Calls + Comeback After Calling Out Neglect from Agency	99 comments
4	(+1849)	Ailee to marry Single's Inferno's Choi Sihun	109 comments
5	(+1795)	29 year old sentenced to prison for posing as BTS members to obtain unreleased tracks	89 comments
6	(+1666)	7 Members' Agencies For Kep1er Reportedly Agree To Extend Contract — Yeseo And Mashiro To Join LIMELIGHT Instead	299 comments
7	(+1587)	TWICE Nayeon to have her comeback on June 14	55 comments
8	(+1552)	TWICE's Dahyun Reportedly Cast As Female Lead In Korean Remake Of Taiwanese Film "You Are the Apple of My Eye"	83 comments
9	(+1404)	KISS OF LIFE Confirmed To Make Summer Comeback	54 comments
10	(+1193)	Fire At M! Countdown Filming Studio Results In aespa's Comeback Recording Cancellation	81 comments

HYBE vs. ADOR

Votes	Thread	Comments
(+361)	Megathread 5: HYBE vs. ADOR - Ongoing Dispute, Meetings Ahead, and More	6276 comments
(+437)	Megathread 6: HYBE vs. ADOR - Insider Trading allegations, MHJ Injunction Hearing, and More	6338 comments

TOP ANNIVERSARIES

#	Votes	Thread	Comments
1	(+3141)	CL shares new 2NE1 pictures in honor of their 15th anniversary	125 comments
2	(+370)	Happy 9th Anniversary to MONSTA X!	14 comments
3	(+209)	Happy 6th anniversary to UNI.T!	18 comments

TOP 10 PERFORMANCES

#	Votes	Thread	Comments
1	(+1031)	[Live] Comeback Stage: aespa - Supernova @ Mnet M Countdown (240516)	63 comments
2	(+557)	[Song Cover] XG Chisa, Hinata, Juria - Losing You (orig. FLO) (XG Vox #6)	39 comments
3	(+336)	[Performance] IVE - Accendio (1theKILLPO)	18 comments
4	(+295)	[Live] Follow-up Stage: IVE - Accendio @ Mnet M! Countdown (240516)	16 comments
5	(+279)	[Performance] tripleS - Girls Never Die (M2 Relay Dance)	16 comments
6	(+238)	[Live] Follow-Up Stage: tripleS - Non Scale @ SBS M The Show (240514)	7 comments
7	(+214)	[Live] NMIXX - Love Me Like This, Roller Coaster, DICE, Run For Roses, DASH @ 2024 Sungkyunkwan University Natural Science Campus Festival (240516)	19 comments
8	(+110)	[Song Cover] NMIXX Bae - Flower (orig. Johnny Stimson) (MIXXTAPE: Track 06)	2 comments
9	(+109)	[Performance] BADVILLAIN - Hurricane (Live Clip)	1 comments
10	(+105)	[Song Cover] Ailee and NMIXX Haewon - Wild Flower (orig. Park Hyo Shin) @ KBS Synchro U Episode 2 (240517)	2 comments

TOP 5 DANCE CHALLENGES

#	Votes	Thread	Comments
1	(+167)	tripleS Xinyu (with SEVENTEEN JUN) - Girls Never Die (Dance Challenge) (240511)	2 comments
2	(+148)	TripleS Xinyu (with ZB1 Zhang Hao) - 'Girls Never Die' (Dance Challenge) (240517)	7 comments
3	(+93)	SEVENTEEN Jun (with tripleS Xinyu) - MAESTRO (Dance Challenge) (240511)	1 comments
4	(+89)	aespa WINTER & CHUNGHA - Supernova (Dance Challenge) (240514)	0 comments
5	(+82)	tripleS Nien & Xinyu (with NMIXX Sullyoon) - Girls Never Die (Dance Challenge) (240512)	0 comments

TOP DISCUSSIONS / FEATURES

#	Votes	Thread	Comments
1	(+42)	Throwback: JUN HYO SEONG made her solo debut with "Good-night Kiss" this week in 2014	1 comments
2	(+24)	/kpop Top Ten Tuesdays Results: P1Harmony (2024)	4 comments
3	(+21)	JTBC Girls On Fire - Episode 5 (Post-Episode Discussion + Preliminary Ranking + 72-Hour Survival Game Performances Part 3 + Second Elimination + Rival Death Match Performances Part 1) (240514)	7 comments
4	(+24)	What Are You Listening To? - May 15, 2024	30 comments

MUSIC SHOWS

Date	Performances	Discussion Thread	Winner
20240511	Music Core	Thread	SEVENTEEN
20240512	Inkigayo	Thread	ZICO / JENNIE
20240514	The Show	Thread	tripleS
20240515	Show Champion	No Broadcast.	No Winner.
20240516	M!Countdown	Thread	SEVENTEEN
20240517	Music Bank	Thread	SEVENTEEN

 

NEW RELEASES

Day	Artist	Album Title	Type	Music Video	Streaming
11th	You Dayeon (ex-LIPBUBBLE)	keep it low	digital single	keep it low
12th	JO1	Love seeker	Japanese pre-release single	Love seeker
13th	Stray Kids	Lose My Breath (Remixes)	remix single	Lose My Breath (Stray Kids Ver.)
	aespa	Supernova	pre-release single	Supernova
	ALICE	MILKY WAY	digital single	MILKY WAY
	ZEROBASEONE	You had me at HELLO	mini album	Feel the POP
14th	Chaewon (CLASS:y)	Americano on a rainy day	digital single	Americano on a rainy day
	DXMON	HYPERSPACE 911	single album	Girls, Love boys, Love girls
	WHIB	ETERNAL YOUTH : KICK IT	single album	KICK IT
15th	ITZY	Algorhythm	Japanese single album	Algorhythm
	We;Na	Step like We;Na	mini album	Baby Step / Valhalla
	The Wind	Sirius Part. 2	anniversary single	Sirius Part. 2
16th	UmYull	Love Innocence	digital single	Love Innocence
	Mark (NCT)	200	digital single	200
	Ryu Sujeong (Lovelyz)	Orange Juice	digital single	Orange Juice (feat. Yein (Lovelyz))
17th	Sorn (CLC)	crazy stupid lovers	digital single	crazy stupid lovers (feat. Hongseok (PENTAGON), WILD)
	257	BLACK OUT	debut single album	BLACK OUT
	MEANSHOCK	The Promised Flower	digital single	the Promised Flower (feat. Byeol Eun (ex-Melody Pink Eunbee))

"This Week in KPOP" Archive

This is for us normies who don’t want to sift through a hundred youtube videos just to figure out basic information that should be readily available. This guide is designed for people who are new to modding.
This LLO follows Brxsie’s model. For more detailed info on categorization refer to their reddit post.
You can leave out any mod on this list that you don’t want except for USSEP.
Key:
*= my personal notes explaining what a mod does or why I added it
e.g. = extra examples of popular mods that should be placed in that category
Blurb
(skip this section if you want the quick version of this post)
Hi everyone; I’m not a modder nor a PC player, but I was desperate to figure out how to safely load my game with reasonable lore-friendly updates. Every LLO guide I’ve found so far has either been outdated, contradictory to other sources, does not specify which mods fall under what category, is way too vague, or way too specific. The mods I’ve listed here should be easily searchable on the recently updated Xbox creations menu so that any Xbox player can easily copy this list. Originally, I was just recording my LLO for my own personal use, but I figured this could help people who don’t have the time to put in as much research as I have.
If you are brand new to modding, vanilla+ means that you want to stay faithful to the original game as much as possible while upgrading the look of your Skyrim world and making a few convenient tweaks. The least “true to the original game” mod on this list is convenient horses. In my experience so far, this LLO plays just as smoothly as vanilla Skyrim.
Unless I wrote a note next to the mod stating otherwise, all of these mods are independent of one another, except for: divine atmosphere, divine atmosphere snowflake edit, and realistic snowflakes. If you like the ugly fractal snowflakes in divine atmosphere then don’t bother with the other two mods, but if not, you need the vanilla snowflake edit and the snowflake texture mod to go together. Therefore, you can leave out any mod on this list that you don’t want except for USSEP), and the game will function normally.
To customize settings of mods while in-game, go to magic -> powers. “Equip” the mod you want to change and press RB once out of the menu. This is relevant to divine atmospheres, divine interiors, flute finder, convenient horses, and some dialogue mods.
Most mods on this list can be downloaded or deleted safely while playing a pre-existing save file. Deleting mods become problematic when you have already added and interacted with a custom item to the game and then delete the mod that supported the item. When testing new mods, I suggest only adding a few at a time so that you know what to delete if you encounter any issues.
If you are reading this on a laptop or PC, you can press command/control F to search for keywords of the mods you want to install to find where they belong in the LLO.
Personally, my favorite mods that I’ve added to the game are the dialogue mods and the texture mods. They make Skyrim feel like a real world with real people living in it and I would highly suggest using some or all of them. I’d also love to hear everyone’s suggestions on proposed edits to this load order. Please let me know if you are aware of any conflicting mods or bugs, or if I have made any mistakes in my layperson's explanation of techy stuff. Unsure if this is relevant information, but I’m located in the USA.
Extra notes:
What the heck is a leveled list? A leveled list is a change in the code that makes changes to certain values. Such as changing how much gold a character has or how powerful an enemy is.
And what exactly is an area edit? An area edit is any mod that adds or significantly changes a location in the game. This includes adding extra trees, adding extra smelters, or adding custom player homes that do not exist in vanilla, among other things.
Why are there all of these categories and why is it so complicated? LLO sorts mods so that the game can load the most important files first. When LLO is not followed, the game will inevitably crash. Categories allow us to sort mods into the LLO based on how they interact with the game's code. People sometimes disagree on what order to put the categories in, but all LLO templates use the same basic categories.
I do not use immersive citizens AI because multiple people have reported bugs. Other people have no issues with it, but I prefer to stay on the safe side.
Remember to lower your in-game brightness, especially when you are using divine interiors and divine atmospheres. If the brightness is all the way up, things will start to glow. You will have to use torches in locations with zero light, such as corners in caves. This adds a realistic feel to the game. If you give a torch to your follower, they will automatically use it in in low-light conditions. I switch between default/glimmegrim/vivid depending on where I am and how colorful I want things to be. The game may look darker overall as you can see in the screenshots, but this is more true to how lighting works in the real world.
Skyrim 101 tip: When you ditch items to reduce your carry weight, store them somewhere (such as a dead body or a chest) instead of dropping them on the ground. If you drop items all over your game it will eventually lag.
When creating a new character, keep in mind that once you start playing, you might change the lighting and make the colors more saturated. For example: I accidentally gave myself yellow hair instead of natural blonde because I forgot about lighting and atmosphere changes. This is another reason to install the vanity mirror mod, which allows you to change your character mid-game.
Storage space: all of the mods I have listed here take up approximately 4.36GB.
I suggest keeping a note of your LLO on your phone so that you can easily categorize mods you want to add the future.
Sometimes LLO will not save, so I recommend double-checking that everything landed in the right spot or backing up your LLO to bethesda before exiting the LLO menu.
Sometimes you need to restart your game to enable a newly installed mod.
How to delete a complex mod without causing problems: disable the mod, hard reset (hold power button for 10 secs or unplug the console), uninstall the mod, hard reset.
I’ve noticed a bug where I cannot tell my follower (Lydia) to do anything in “command mode”. I don’t know what’s causing this- it seems like a dialogue issue but I rarely use the command mode feature anyway so it’s small enough for me to ignore for now. Let me know if you find out what's causing this!
*Blurb over\*
Master Files

• Unofficial skyrim special edition patch (USSEP) *almost every source says that this must be installed. It fixes core bugs in the game that developers have not bothered to update themselves

Foundations: Lots of game changes (e.g. cheat room, encounters overhaul, etc.)

• Convenient horses *allows you to summon your horse from anywhere, store items on your horse, give followers horses, etc.

Dialogue Overhauls

• Guard dialogue overhaul
• Follower commentary overhaul
• Misc dialogue edits and more
• Relationship dialogue overhaul

Fonts/UI (excluding map mods)

• Font replacer - eadui

Alterations to vanilla quests
Any craftable item

• Vanity Mirror *this is to fix the makeup bug where your lips are off center when you create your character. I have not tested this yet, but apparently if you open up the customization menu with the vanity mirror then the makeup will work again. Cheat room also works for the makeup issue, but I didn’t want so many extra cheats in my game just to fix this one ridiculous bug
• Get no more dead followers *functionally turns off friendly fire for followers

Game mechanic changes: races, perks, vampires, adoptions, etc.

• Flute finder - a skyrim gps tracker for npcs *this is because I always lost my followers in vanilla and it was super annoying
• Multiple Marriages *haven’t tested this yet so cannot vouch for its effectiveness
• Auto unequip ammo *unequips arrows when you uneauip your bow so that you’re not always walking around with a sheath on your back

Level Progression (e.g. Clever leveling)
Perk overhauls/changes
Magic additions and modifications

• Master of Destruction (xb1) *adds new high level spells that target specific characters instead of killing everyone in the area
• Mining spell *I hate carrying a stupid pickaxe everywhere, so this spell mines for you. I haven't tested this mod yet though

Leveled list changes (e.g. rebalanced leveled lists)

• Better gold *adds slightly more gold when looting specific high level enemies
• Master trader 1x *this replenishes merchant gold each time you speak to them

NPC Leveled list (e.g. organized bandits in skyrim)
Any audio

• Chapter II - Jeremy Soule inspired music *Jeremy Soule composed the original game soundtrack. This adds a few hours of similar sounding music that blend in with the game

Weather and Atmosphere (put weather up ^ in LLO if the mod is just a weather mod and not an atmosphere mod)

• Divine Atmosphere: Aetherius *my favorite setting is vivid or grim
• Divine Atmosphere: Aetherius vanilla snowflakes option
• Ultra realistic snow flakes (custom snowflake texture) *if searching for this mod, search for “snow flakes” instead of “snowflakes”

Grass
Grass Fixes
Skin/skeleton physics and appearance changes

• pristine vanilla movement
• XP32 maximum skeleton special edition plus *changes some physics for smoother movement

Animation mods

• 360 walk and run *at first I put this in the gameplay mechanics category, but it did not work there. In the animation category it works as intended

Meshes and Textures
*The mods I’ve listed in this section should cover almost every visual in the game. Nothing is too drastic of a style change and fits right in to the game’s vibe.

• Wear multiple rings *this mod is more useful for stacking enchantments rather than pure aesthetics. Not necessary if you want a more vanilla game
• Divine texture pack - architecture
• Dark ages: fantasy dungeons
• Dark ages: dragon Textures
• Divine creatures texture pack
• Omen armors weapons and clothing *I highly recommend this one!
• Fluffy snow
• Dark ages - landscapes
• Divine skins and bodies for men *misleading name: this is actually unisex. Make sure this goes above^ divine people otherwise you might experience an occasional face glitch. This must be used along with divine people in order to work correctly
• Granite mountains *another mod I highly recommend
• Dark Ages: Trees of the north
• Divine SMIM *Static mesh improvement mod. SMIM mods redesign lots of small items in the game
• Lucidaps’ high poly project v5.x *This corrects blocky items to make things look more realistic. It cooperates with the SMIM to create beautifully textured and realistic item designs, such as the ridiculously good looking head of cabbage

Non-combat NPC AI
Immersion (e.g. immersive patrols, landlord etc.) - can be tricky to categorize
Anything that changes a character’s/npc face or hair (e.g natural eyes)

• Divine people of skyrim: celestial *For more vanilla/gritty looking people, try the dark ages texture pack. Both divine people and dark ages people mods must be paired with its corresponding skins mod, otherwise the textures will get cut off at the neck due to mismatching colors

Interior lighting changes

• Divine interiors shadows and light *my favorite setting is glimmer or default if the game looks too oversaturated because of the lighting. I highly recommend this mod, it makes the game feel much richer

Interior decorating changes
Lightweight multiple area edits

• Unique bridges of skyrim
• Divine forests
• Get more smelters *haven’t tested this extensively but I don’t foresee any issues since it doesn’t interfere with anything big

Single area edits like player homes
Multiple area edits (e.g. divine cities)
*I do not recommend divine cities or divine villages because it can be buggy. One time Lydia got permanently stuck in a modded tavern and I had to backtrack through an hour of progress to get her back out
Adding individual unique objects

• Auto Harvest Ring *because I like alchemy but hate picking flowers. Equipping this ring automatically harvests ingredients in range. Just remember to ditch the cabbages to reduce your carry weight

Combat changes, combat AI (e.g. realistic damage, wildcat)

• Dark ages: immersive dragon ai
• Better stealth ai for followers *followers will not start fighting automatically while you are trying to be sneaky

Unique follower mods (e.g. Sofia)
Mods that add new quests (mods that alter vanilla quests do not go here)

• More to say 9.0.2 *this dialogue mod is here because it adds new quests. The other dialogue mods I’ve added are less consequential and simply add a little immersion. I’m unsure if this conflicts with the other dialogue mods

Map mods

• A quality world map - vivid with stone roads *map mods use up VRAM and many people recommend against using them. I’m not a tech person, so forgive me if this isn’t accurate, but VRAM is similar to regular RAM. This means you can reset VRAM if you hard restart your console. If you are playing with tons of heavyweight mods all the time then maybe you should skip map mods, however in this LLO I have not noticed any FPS changes at all and personally, it’s worth it to me to hard restart the console every once in a while so that I can keep this mod. Source for the tech info (posted Oct. 2023) - https://www.xboxforums.com/threads/ram-and-vram.24007/
• Pastel map markers *Can you tell I like organizing? Color coding the map makes it more readable and gives locations a touch more personality

Mods that specify bottom LO

Marking it spoiler for BFDIA 12, which Fries and Spongey are related to with another reason.
This post is just for fun and to have a discussion because people love talking about how Fries and Teardrop have plot armor. Be civil and this is not meant to hate characters or people who feel that way about them.
With Teardrop, I get it because in TPOT, she joined in TPOT 2 despite competing in post-split BFB and they kept her around to justify her existence in the season.
The reason I included Match in this is the BFDIA 5 section as a whole though people could argue about BFB 8.
Clock is an obvious case as he was kept around specifically for his plot after he was eliminated, getting screentime past his elimination episode in TPOT 7 compared to other eliminated contestants before finally being sent to the elimination area in TPOT 10.
I'll censor parts for these last two but I do want to ask how Fries has plot armor to the point of being in this debate. He's placed horrendously in votes a good chunk of the time. I can see the case with BFDIA 10 being a joke episode like the rest of BFDIA but with a different gimmick being that it's a team of one against everyone else, reminiscent of the first episode. However, he died in BFDIA 12 and is UFE alongside the other two teams which makes me more confused on his case.
And the last character, Spongy. I think it's obvious that he has plot armor and if you think otherwise, feel free to say why. He was eliminated at the end of pre-split BFB but still got to compete, competing in post-split with another character who was eliminated much prior, Loser.
Another thing against Spongy though, is BFDIA, which TV also has against him as well despite not being a contestant in the season. Spongy is rather relevant in the newest BFDIA episode, even if it's just for jokes at his expense because he's one of the main reasons this episode's plot exists alongside Needle, Flower, and Golf Ball
Who do you think has the most plot armor in the series and do you have anyone you would include or remove from this topic? If it wasn't obvious, I personally think that Clock has the most plot armor in the show thanks to TPOT but I not complaining.

Nuclear Blast released a statement and it’s made me wonder what’s to come. In the statement, they remarked that Manson is a “metal” artist, although I have barely heard him referred to as such, especially in the last few years. And considering that the company has major metal bands, I can only assume that this album is going to be a lot heavier.
I only spotted it recently, but the part of the song shown in the teaser kind of reminds me of the pre-chorus in The Beautiful People (the creepy synth in the back most notably).
The teaser looked serious. Not as silly as his last few albums have looked. In fact, he looked more serious than he has since Holy Wood.
Do you think this is going to be a soft album? Or a heavy album?
People are saying that this seems like the return of Marilyn Manson, as in using things such as Adam and the first flower after the flood and so on. Is there anymore evidence of this?
My gut tells me that Marilyn Manson is back.
Harder, and stronger than ever.
I cannot wait.

First time going to this med store. Very good team at that store everyone was extremely friendly and helpful.
I grabbed: -Betty's Eddie's Chocolate Sunnyday Ice Cream 20MG Full Spectrum -Native Sun Slurty 3 flower 5g -In House Yuzu Fizz flower 3.5g -Insa Sherbanger 22 flower 3.5g -In House Jillybean Disposable Vape Pen .5g
65 out the door after the med deal. Not bad. I didn't get natures heritage because I've tried it before but looking back on it I should have grabbed some while I was there since it's their own line of bud which I didn't know. But it's probably fresher there since it's their own brand.
The ice cream was 5 dollars with a deal they're doing right now. 9 dollars for 2. Good deal and it came with this cooler bag too. Nice!
I'll be posting pics and reviews for each product individually so keep an eye out. Thanks everyone :)

LOOOONG first time trip report! 5/13-5/18, stayed at Beach Club, visited all four parks, bought Genie+ every day, had the standard DDP. Family of 4, two girls 5 and 9. I learned so much from this group over the past year and especially loved trip reports, so hopefully this post will be helpful to someone!
💲BUDGET💲
-- I booked the trip a year out so I could break it up into 12 manageable payments. I opened the no fee Disney VISA, which gives you several months of no interest on charges made towards Disney travel packages, rewards dollars to use at Disney, and a couple other perks like character meet and greets and discounts.
-- I signed up for Disney Movie Insiders. This is what you're supposed to do with all those little codes that come in Disney DVDs/Blurays. You enter the codes in exchange for points, and at 1000 points, you can redeem for a $10 Disney gift card. You also get points for being subscribed to Disney+, seeing Disney movies in the theater, their social media accounts, and a whole bunch of other things. I got $50 in gift cards from this alone.
-- If you want Disney-themed luggage, try thinking outside the box to save money! I got plain luggage in Mickey colors--red and black--and Mickey luggage tags to make them Disney themed.
-- I tried to budget for souvenirs via gift cards... but I failed, lol. Everything is so expensive, $100 is gone in a second. Plushes are like $40, coffee cups are $20, etc. Whatever you're planning to spend, double it! I get what people say about most shops having the same stuff, but it's definitely not all of them, most of the ones post-ride have unique stuff. And honestly it's kind of nice most of them have the same stuff, if you want to get whatever your kid was asking for earlier, you don't have to walk all the way back to the one shop you saw it at.
-- We paid for Memory Maker and I'm on the fence about it. On the one hand, it's really nice to get all the ride photos and meet and greet photos and magic shots. It's also really nice for the whole family to be in a lot of pictures and not have to swap with the other adult or find someone willing to take your picture. On the other, we definitely didn't utilize it as much as I wanted to because a lot of the photographers had pretty long lines and I just didn't want to spend time waiting for a picture I could take myself. If we came across someone with a shortish or no line, we made sure to get it, but for anyone with a long line, we just stood around the same spot and took our own.
🗓️PLANNING🗓️
-- If you have kids and live within easy driving distance of another amusement park, highly recommend making a visit BEFORE going to Disney to get an idea of how they handle that kind of day/environment, especially if they have never been. I quickly discovered we would absolutely need a stroller and I would need to be militant with the kids about staying hydrated. Also to avoid face paint, as heat + tears + paint + eyes = bad day! I felt so much better making these discoveries beforehand and being able to prepare accordingly, rather than making them at Disney.
-- USE AN AGENT! An agent is free to you, so why not have the help? Ours was amazing, she gave us quotes, booked the package, rebooked as needed later when a better deal came out, made all the payments, dining and extra reservations, and was just all-around awesome to work with. It was such a load off to know I wasn't on my own with all this stuff.
-- Watch everything Ear Scouts. No one explains Genie+ better, and Rob and Erick's videos are just so positive and beautiful and well done.
-- I also enjoyed reading Disney Tourist Blog--lovingly snarky but super informative!--and Disney Food Blog for fun tips and news.
-- I didn't find any park to be a half day park, we filled our whole day in every one and still didn't see everything!
-- My kids did really well, whenever they were on the verge of cranky, we had one ride in the stroller for a while, bought a snack (usually ice cream or popcorn), and used the bubble wand, and/or gave them some ibuprofen, and everyone felt better pretty quick. We never tried to do fireworks, we were all done by 8 so always left after dinner. The only park we closed down was EPCOT because we didn't get out of dinner until after close, and that was a really cool experience, the park was so quiet and empty and beautiful!
-- You don't NEED a Magic Band... but man, was it convenient. We just had 1.0 Magic Bands though, we didn't bother with the 2.0s.
-- I guess moving through security fast is important to people rope dropping... but as someone who didn't, it added like maybe 30 seconds to a minute to the experience the couple times my bag got flagged, it's really not a big deal.
-- I'm not saying anyone's lying about bad experiences or exaggerating or anything, but try to remember that far more people go on the Internet to complain than they do to praise. I got so stressed about all the things that could go wrong, and we had a pretty much perfect trip. The only attraction that broke down on us was Muppetvision, of all things. The only "bad behavior" we witnessed was the morning we were leaving, we could hear a dad across the hall yelling at his family, I think they overslept and were going to miss their flight or something? We just turned the TV on so we didn't have to hear him. A couple times we forgot to take our stuff with us when we parked our stroller or forgot some food in it, and neither people nor animals bothered it. The only dicey thing that happened to us was me dropping my phone into the Dumbo moat, the cast members fished it out and it still worked, I sent them a cast compliment for all their help! All the cast members were great, I'm not really sure what people expect but IMO they all do amazing for having to be peppy and helpful all day in absolutely blazing heat, walking a ride conveyer belt nonstop, repeating the same spiels over and over, meeting person after person, etc. I wouldn't last a 2 hour shift let alone 8. Cast members, you rock!!!
✈️TRAVEL✈️
-- We flew Delta, flight there was flawless, flight home was delayed by an hour waiting for crew and was a little bumpy (which is not great for a nervous flyer like me) but otherwise fine.
-- Get TSA PreCheck! Good for a few years, if the adults have it the kids have it too. It made the whole experience so much easier. That said, even PreCheck still moves kind of slow at MCO, so definitely get there at least 2 hours early for your flight. Use curbside check-in for bags, way faster than the long line inside!
-- On our agent's recommendation, we used Away We Go for ground transport in Orlando. They communicate really well, both ways were flawless, no complaints!
-- We used Minnie Vans to get to Animal Kingdom + Sanaa and Magic Kingdom, what a wonderful service! Definitely pricey, but they had cartoons on in the car, booster seats they set up for you, and the drivers were so nice and friendly and had fun trivia to share. I never had any problem requesting one when I needed it.
⛱️BEACH CLUB⛱️
-- We knew we wanted an onsite hotel where you could walk to at least one park. This pretty much limits you to a handful of Deluxe hotels or the Swan and Dolphin. Beach Club won for us because it's "in the Disney bubble" and you can walk to 2/4 parks. Note that while you can technically walk to Hollywood Studios, it is a LOOOONG walk. The boat is a nice not crowded alternative! We did not make use of Early Entry or Extended Hours, we're just not built for either. Beach Club was lovely, we booked a resort view but I think we ended up with a water view, we were right by the quiet pool and could see the water beyond from our room. Stormalong Bay was a little crazy for us but we loved the quiet pool. Best thing about Beach Club though is the location, EPCOT is literally steps away!
🌳ANIMAL KINGDOM🌳
-- We had read that there's really no bad day to do AK, so we started there. We rode: Navi River Journey, Flight of Passage, Kali River Rapids, Everest, Kilimanjaro Safaris, Triceratops Spin, and Dinosaur--so pretty much everything! With Genie+ we walked onto all of them. We also met Moana, Pocahontas, and Russell! The only thing we didn't do here that we wanted to was the Gorilla Falls trail, but we just ran out of time before the park closed.
🌐EPCOT🌐
-- We had read to avoid EPCOT on Fridays and Saturdays, so we went on Wednesday. We rode: Grand Fiesta Tour, Living with the Land, Nemo, Spaceship Earth, Imagination with Figment, Frozen, Remy, Journey of Water, and Guardians--everything we wanted! Again, with Genie+, we walked right onto everything! Outside of our character meal (more on that in the dining section!), we also met Anna, Elsa, and Asha! Tried a couple of Flower and Garden snacks: chicken and waffles, fruit and cheese strudel, and potato pancakes, all were delicious! Everyone had a different favorite day, but EPCOT was personally my favorite day, it felt like we were firing on all cylinders and the day just went really smoothly!
🏰MAGIC KINGDOM🏰
-- We had read that Wednesdays were the quietest days at MK, so we were originally going to try to do it that day, but we could only get a reservation for Cinderella's Royal Table on Thursday, so we switched it up. Definitely the most crowded of all the parks we visited, but I think that's just the norm for MK, everyone wants to go to the castle park with the most rides. We rode: Regal Carousel, Tomorrowland Speedway, Barnstormer, Magic Carpets, Mad Tea Party, People Mover, Dumbo, Small World, Little Mermaid, Pirates, Space Ranger Spin, Jungle Cruise, TRON, and Peter Pan. Again, with Genie+, we walked right onto everything! The only ride we missed at this park that we wanted to do was Pooh, I couldn't manage to get a return time that was earlier than we planned on leaving. Outside of our character meals (more on those in the dining section!) we also met Mirabel, Tiana, and Rapunzel! We had both the Rapunzel and Aurora ice creams, both so good and cute!
🎬HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS🎬
-- We had read that, like MK, it's better to do HS later in the week, so we went Friday. We rode: Slinky, Alien Saucers, Toy Story Mania, Rise, Smuggler's Run, Runaway Railway. Again, with Genie+, we walked right onto everything! The only ride we missed was Tower of Terror, again I couldn't manage to get a return time that was earlier than we planned on leaving. We also met Olaf, be aware Olaf doesn't sign stuff, they just give you a signature card. This park needs more shade IMO, especially Toy Story Land, I know it's supposed to be Andy's backyard, but I don't see why that means we can't have some shade from trees or something. 🤪 Blue milk from Galaxy's Edge was really good, the family was all fighting over it!
🍽️DINING🍽️
-- We almost certainly lost some money on the DDP, but I'm still glad we got it because it allowed us to do more table service meals and have less stress overall about expenses. We easily used up everything but child quick service credits, we had a few of those left over near the end.
Here's where we ate!
BOARDWALK DELI/PIZZA WINDOW: Pizza for the kids, sandwiches for the adults. Tasty and satisfying after our day of travel!
BEACHES AND CREAM: Got the kitchen sink for the experience, but honestly it's not great, all the ice cream and toppings melt together quick and you just end up with weird ice cream soup.
SAT'ULI CANTEEN: LOVED this place, everything was so yummy! Best quick service we had!
SANAA: Since Animal Kingdom closes so early, we thought we'd try to extend the experience by eating at Sanaa. What a great idea, we got seated right by a window and saw so many animals! The food was great too.
AKERSHUS: Our favorite princess meal! We met Aurora, Tiana, Snow White, Ariel, and Belle. They were all lovely, and the breakfast was really good too. Only 1 credit on the DDP!
GARDEN GRILL: Our kids really enjoyed getting to look down over Living with the Land and the fact that the restaurant spins. We met Farmer Mickey, Pluto, and Chip and Dale. They were fun and even came to our table more than once. Food was good!
SPACE 220: Not on the DDP, but wow, what a cool restaurant! Almost like a ride with the theming and the elevator up. Food was really good.
CINDERELLA'S ROYAL TABLE: You gotta eat in the castle! We paid for it OOP because we didn't want to use up 2 DDP credits here. You're really going for the location and the princesses, the food is kinda meh, not bad but not as good as other places. The restaurant is small and they have to turn tables quick, so it's very understandable to me that the princesses have to move fast. It's not that they rush you, they'll take all the pictures you ask for and sign whatever and answer your questions, but if you don't have much you need, they try to keep moving. Akershus is much bigger so they are able to be more relaxed there. The only small bummer is that we didn't see Merida (maybe she was on vacation too!) We did meet Cinderella, Ariel, Jasmine, and Aurora though!
CRYSTAL PALACE: We are not big on buffets but we enjoyed meeting Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger!
TOPOLINO'S: Maybe the best food of the trip, steak and eggs were so good! The character artist costumes are so cute too. It was fun to have an excuse to ride the Skyliner to get here from Beach Club too.
DOCKING BAY 7: The theming is great, but the food wasn't as good as Satuli Canteen IMO.
THE MARKET AT ALE & COMPASS: We had quick service credits we wanted to use up on the last day and we didn't want to leave the resort again, otherwise I would have gone somewhere else, food was meh.
✨EXTRAS✨
-- I originally wanted to book Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique for my kids, but it's so expensive/competitive that I decided to didn't want the stress. Instead I booked Have Wand, Will Travel to come to our room and bought dresses from Presley Couture and Only Little Once. I chose Have Wand, Will Travel because they keep character throughout. Fairy Godmother Elyse was amazing and so much fun, my kids loved it and kept talking about it all day!
-- That same morning I ordered a Sammicakes breakfast box with beignets for us to eat. I also ordered a pretend letter from The DCP and Me on Etsy to make it seem like the breakfast came from Tiana. My kids also loved this and had fun telling Tiana about it both times we met her. Sammicakes was good but a LOT of food, sadly we didn't end up eating half of it. It can last you at least 3 days!
-- We had Birthdays and More decorate our door, it was a really fun surprise for the kids on our first day and made our room easy to find. The kids also loved reusing the decorations at home on their own doors!
-- Matching shirts and ear hats, all from Etsy! So many cool designs there, hardest part is choosing!
-- Got my kids a pin trading lanyard with some pins, they loooooved pin trading! It was like free souvenirs.
🧳PACKING🧳
-- Things the Internet Told Me to Pack That I Needed: Scissors, ziploc bags, ibuprofen (kids and adults), garbage bags, big carabiners to hook on the strolleuse to carry multiple bags at once.
-- Things the Internet Told Me to Pack that I Didn't Need: stainless steel straws (the paper straws are more like hard cardboard, they really don't break down unless your kid is gnawing on them or something), ponchos (it did rain some most days, but wearing a poncho was almost more miserable than not wearing one, it's so hot and humid to be walking around in a plastic bag! We did better taking shelter and using umbrellas.), wipes (obv you need them if your kid is younger, but mine were older and just never got messy enough to need them), glow sticks (we never stayed anywhere long enough to use them), bottled wateLiquid IV (the tap water tasted the same as home to us, but we live in a rural area so maybe we are just used to imperfect water?) Basically, the less you can get away carrying in the parks, the better. It's annoying to lug stuff around you don't end up needing or using!
🛞STROLLER🛞
-- I know it seems insane that your 5 year old and 9 year old will need a stroller, but mine definitely did. Once I accepted that I was going to have to get one, I tried to make the best of it, and actually got really into decorating it so we could always easily spot it in the sea (the decorations also later made nice wall decor for a gallery of our trip!) The Magic Spotter flag was the best investment, hardly anyone had them so it was easy to instantly spot our stroller anywhere we left it, even if it got moved. That said, I definitely didn't want to spend a lot on a stroller we were really only buying for this one trip, so I got a used Joovy Caboose on Facebook Marketplace for $50. It was very hard to handle with two older kids in it, and even with one it was hard to handle unless the kid was in the back seat. So we basically used it like a single stroller, glad I didn't spend a lot on it since it was so hard to drive!
☔WEATHER☔
-- We had mostly great weather, it rained some every day except Magic Kingdom day but it passed within an hour each time. We wore socks with Crocs so that if/when it rained, we could just take our wet socks off and walk in our Crocs, this worked great! Don't trust the weather reports though, two days it wasn't supposed to rain. One day it actually didn't, the other day it did and we had to walk in wet shoes because we didn't wear the Crocs that day. Just figure it might rain any day and be prepared! See above note RE: ponchos being not great and shelter + umbrellas being better. When it didn't rain, It. Was. Hot. 🥵 In the 90s but definitely felt hotter with the humidity making it so sticky. We felt there was plenty of shade at Animal Kingdom and EPCOT, but hardly any at Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, which I would say slightly affected how much fun we had on those days comparatively.
Phew! That's about it, let me know if you have any questions!

I bought a collection of random phals from Emerald Orchids in western Washington. Never again. Every single phal was in bad shape - withered & floppy leaves, infested with scale, black centers where the leaves join, etc. I've been nursing them to health for 8 weeks and am looking now to repot them, and am thinking I want to do semi-hydro cultivation. I live in near-desert conditions in eastern Washington. The orchids are next to the winter humidifier kept at 50%. In summer it will be drier, and I can't fix that. My experience growing plants spans 60 years and includes orchids (20 years ago, phals and cattleyas in this location), aquatic plants in tanks, hydroponic no pesticide marijuana, and dozens of types of veggies and flowers outside. I have a pretty good grasp of the basics for plants, I think. My questions:

1. Should I be using wicks and water gauges per hydro-orchids.com starter kits? My first thought is that with the summer dryness I should use a wick. My other first thought is that the gauges are necessary because the inner pot is shielded from view by the opaque outer pots, and that without an outer pot I don't need a gauge. If you have experience with this I would like to hear about it. I figured out my confusion over this. Duh.
2. Can anyone comment on their experience using First Ray's Kelpak and Quantum pro-biotic? Do these make a real difference in growth? I'm inclined to think they do but really do not know. I am cost-sensitive but willing to pay the money for good supplies.
3. If you do S/H, do you use Ray's fertilizer, MSU fertilizer or some other? Have you found one to be especially better than another? Also, do you use pots inside pots a la hydro-orchids, or just clear ventillated pots with saucers?

Thanks for your help. I have found First Ray, Orchid Girl, and many other websites and channels from reading this sub-reddit but if there is one you think I need to be pointed to, please do. In fact feel free to tell me anything you think I need to know.

Hi everyone 👋 another cool selection of gold and silver jewelry up for grabs today!
Most of the items are brand new and anything else is in excellent pre owned condition.
All items ship in a jewelry box along with reusable polish cloths.
Proof: https://imgur.com/a/zVKmkQ7
Gold Chains:
1.) 20” 24k Gold Baht Chain 3mm 37.24g $3230 https://imgur.com/a/6S5msRk
2.) 19” 24k Gold Bar & Anchor Baht Chain 2.1mm SOLD https://imgur.com/a/eeHnpFt
3.) 16” 24k Gold Anchor Chain 1.7mm 7.24g $590 https://imgur.com/a/vpqve42
4.) 16” 24k Gold Bar & Anchor Baht Chain 1.8mm 12.0g $1050 https://imgur.com/a/Dr8QunI
5.) 24” 18k White Gold Diamond Cut Fancy Link Chain 2mm 11.5g $725 https://imgur.com/a/FdqxYTS
6.) 7” 14k Yellow Gold Rope Bracelet 2.3mm 3.91g SOLD https://imgur.com/a/ctHq4AY
7.) 24” 14k Gold Prism Cut Rope Chain 4.6mm 50.5g $2475 https://imgur.com/a/ZqrFWCN
8.) 24” 18k Yellow Gold Cuban 2.3mm 11.4g $720 https://imgur.com/a/C03PsYA
9.) 7.5” 24k Yellow Gold Cuban Bracelet 10mm 75.0g $6200 https://imgur.com/a/rF1rRGU

10.) 23” 24k Yellow Gold Baht Chain 2.9mm 28.5g $2270 https://imgur.com/a/ZPdo3xo
11.) 20” 14k Yellow Gold Rope 2.2mm 7.2g SOLD https://imgur.com/a/wnE1NRa
12.) 18” 14k Yellow Gold 5 Motif Solid 14k Gold Necklace 10.9g $570 https://imgur.com/a/V24Bllt

13.) 18” 14k Yellow Gold 5 Motif Mother of Pearl Necklace 7.1g $380 https://imgur.com/a/gnjdlE4

14.) 18” 14k Yellow Gold 5 Motif Black Onyx Necklace 6.8g $380 https://imgur.com/a/mtArnIV
Earrings:
15.) 14k White Gold 5.12ctw VS Lab Diamond Studs 2.32g $1355 https://imgur.com/a/feze7v6
16.) 10k Yellow Gold 6mm Amethyst Studs .5g $90 https://imgur.com/a/Fc4NpWq
17.) 10k Yellow Gold 6mm Garnet Studs .5g $90 https://imgur.com/a/arVhDsA
18.) 10k Yellow Gold 6mm Square Citrine Studs .9g $100 https://imgur.com/a/p2PIZvn
19.) 14k Yellow Gold 5mm Aquamarine Studs .5g $100 https://imgur.com/a/GGAtoeZ
20.) 10k White Gold .35ct Black Diamond Studs .5g $100 https://imgur.com/a/0pD1cdh
21.) 10k White Gold 1/2ct Black Diamond Studs .8g $140 https://imgur.com/a/7p1pM3I
22.) 10k Yellow Gold Ruby & White Sapphire Flower Studs 1.5g $140 https://imgur.com/a/N4SiewZ
23.) 14k White Gold 10mm Huggies 1/10ct Natural Diamonds 1.0g SOLD https://imgur.com/a/YFPlZWE
24.) 10k Yellow Gold 12mm Square Huggies .15ct Natural Diamonds 1.1g $180 https://imgur.com/a/uVRiN2s
25.) 14k Yellow Gold 1ctw VS Lab Diamond Studs .8g $320 https://imgur.com/a/jVWTUXo

26.) 14k White Gold 1ctw VS Lab Diamond Studs .7g $320 https://imgur.com/a/KHKkb6b
27.) 14k Yellow Gold 1 Motif MOP Earrings (large) 2.32g $135 https://imgur.com/a/39QwZIP
28.) 15mm 14k Yellow Gold Hoop Earrings 3mm thick 1.6g $99 https://imgur.com/a/fQgOSIa

29.) 10k Yellow Gold 1/2ct Natural Diamond Square Cluster Studs 2.2g $90 https://imgur.com/a/9SzAau4 (missing one tiny diamond. Can not see it while wearing them)
Bracelets:
30.) 7.25” 14k Tennis Bracelet 2.76ct Natural Diamonds 7.2g SOLD https://imgur.com/a/qO170HX
31.) 7.5” Silver Tennis Bracelet 12ct White Topaz 8.6g $100 https://imgur.com/a/kakktxl
32.) 7.5” Silver Tennis Bracelet 12ct Garnet 8.3g $100 https://imgur.com/a/jmDbphV
33.) 7.5” Silver Tennis Bracelet 12ct Peridot 8.5g $100 https://imgur.com/a/iXgts8K
34.) 7.5” 10k Yellow Gold 2ctw Natural Diamond Tennis Bracelet 10.7g $650 https://imgur.com/a/f8s5XQR
35.) 7.25” 10k Yellow Gold Opal Tennis Bracelet 7.24g $240 https://imgur.com/a/UwolKOo
36.) Size 18 14k Yellow Gold C artier Juste un Clou style nail bracelet 15.0g $800 https://imgur.com/a/It3AP4z

37.) Size 19 14k Yellow Gold C artier Juste un Clou style nail bracelet 23.1g $1210 https://imgur.com/a/EEi2GJg

38.) 7.5” 14k Yellow Gold 20.3ct Natural Ruby Tennis Bracelet 9.33g $550 https://imgur.com/a/5iwaEFs

39.) Size 20 (7.5”) 14k C artier Love Style Bracelet 8.7g $470 https://imgur.com/a/MOlZs6f

40.) 7.25” 14k Yellow Gold 5 Motif Black Onyx Bracelet 6.7g $340 https://imgur.com/a/MiPcTEd

41.) 7.25” 14k Yellow Gold 5 Motif MOP Bracelet 6.7g $340 https://imgur.com/a/QjQTClY

42.) 7.5” 14k Yellow Gold 3 Motif Black Onyx Bracelet 3.9g $220 https://imgur.com/a/4J3FkPL

43.) 7.5” 14k Yellow Gold 3 Motif MOP Bracelet 3.9g $220 https://imgur.com/a/8MdEdSa

44.) 7.5” Silver Tennis Bracelet 1ctw Natural Diamond 9.5g $160 https://imgur.com/a/MHpNCQg

45.) 7.5” Silver Tennis Bracelet with Rainbow Gemstones 11.6g $45 https://imgur.com/a/zPDRl9B

46.) 7.25” Silver Bracelet 2 Row Rainbow Gemstones 17.2g $55 https://imgur.com/a/fnNAtsR

47.) 7.25” Silver Bracelet Floral Style Multicolor Gemstones 15.2g $55 https://imgur.com/a/ilVWKxA

48.) 7.25” Silver Tennis Bracelet with Green and White Gemstones 7.4g $35 https://imgur.com/a/0ZVzSKU

49.) 7” Silver Women’s Station Bracelet with Yellow and White CZ 6.7g $30 https://imgur.com/a/sG1d6oA
Pendants:
50.) 14k Bezel with 5g 24k Gold Bar and .14ct Natural Diamonds 9.8g total weight SOLD https://imgur.com/a/jpecpOw
51.) 14k Bezel with 5g 24k Gold Bar 5.4g total weight $435 https://imgur.com/a/dDXIdLe
52.) 14k Yellow Gold Eagle Pendant 4.7mm Bail 7.7g SOLD https://imgur.com/a/Zy4pf6h
53.) 10k Yellow Gold Goat Pendant with CZ 6mm Bail 5.4g $195 https://imgur.com/a/NL9j0FF
54.) 10k Yellow Gold Star Pendant with CZ 6mm Bail 5.5g $200 https://imgur.com/a/FqoK21l
55.) 14k White Gold NY Yankees Pendant 2.8mm Bail 2.1g $95 https://imgur.com/a/YWvVEON
56.) 14k Hamza Pendant 2.7mm Bail .8g $40 https://imgur.com/a/CNmC5Wq
57.) 1.5” x 2.5” Silver & CZ Cross Pendant 5mm Bail 10.4g $30 https://imgur.com/a/CyJs7yx

58.) 2” x 1.25” Silver Cross Pendant 5.5mm Bail 8.6g $30 https://imgur.com/a/wPaKtqk

59.) 2” x 1” Silver Cross Pendant 5mm Bail 4.7g $25 https://imgur.com/a/typRoDr

60.) 1” x 1.5” Silver Cross Pendant 5mm Bail 4.5g $25 https://imgur.com/a/Rr1jAZj

61.) 1.5” Silver Italian Horn Pendant 2.7mm Bail 3.4g $25 https://imgur.com/a/BI9Kzi7

62.) 1” x 1.75” Silver Crucifix 5mm Bail 5.3g $25 https://imgur.com/a/8iCvWNa

63.) 1.5” Silver & CZ Jesus Piece 4.8mm Bail 6.2g $25 https://imgur.com/a/9xI23mY

Rings:
64.) Size 9.5 14k Yellow Gold Men’s Ring with .85ct Very Clean Natural Diamond Solitaire 10.6g $800 https://imgur.com/a/7N080JL
65.) Size 7 10k Yellow Gold Braided Link Women’s Ring 1/4ct Natural Round & Baguette Diamonds 2.6g $170 https://imgur.com/a/qwSEz7O
66.) Size 10 10k Yellow Gold Men’s 3 Diamond Ring 1/3ctw Natural Diamonds 6.3g SOLD https://imgur.com/a/B3GiOh8
67.) Size 9 10k Gold 2 Tone Men’s Ring with 1/4ct Round Brilliant Natural Solitaire Diamond 7.5g $325 https://imgur.com/a/U7yZWBt
68.) Size 11 14k Yellow Gold Brushed Finish 1/3ct Natural Diamond Cluster Ring 5.7g SOLD https://imgur.com/a/KpjGNc2
69.) Size 7 14k White Gold 3/4ct Natural Diamond Engagement Ring 5.7g $450 https://imgur.com/a/tKyivSx

70.) Size 12 14k White Gold 1/4ct Natural Diamond Men’s Ring 5.8g $330 https://imgur.com/a/EIZZiuJ
71.) Size 7 10k White Gold & .2ct Natural Diamond Promise/Engagement Ring 2.7g $125 https://imgur.com/a/XbKM3VV

72.) Size 7 14k Yellow Gold Ruby & Natural Diamond Fashion Ring 2.0g $240 https://imgur.com/a/7auS2AP

73.) Size 7 14k White Gold Blue Sapphire & Natural Diamond Ring 2.0g $240 https://imgur.com/a/FevzOle

74.) Size 7 14k Yellow Gold Floral Design .65ct Natural Diamond Ring 3.2g $250 https://imgur.com/a/4ggt41A
75.) Size 5 10k White Gold Star Sapphire 2.6g $82 https://imgur.com/a/k4trN2N
76.) Size 6 14k Gold 1/4ct Natural Cluster Diamond Ring 1.8g $175 https://imgur.com/a/Bd1jbNg

77.) Size 7 10k Yellow Gold & 1/10ct Diamond Band 1.6g $100 https://imgur.com/a/ES2fP7e

78.) Size 10 10k Yellow Gold & 1/5ct Natural Diamond Band 2.5g $125 https://imgur.com/a/CJOigsp
79.) Size 10 Men’s Silver Ring with .05ct Natural Diamonds 6.5g $45 https://imgur.com/a/qSWV19M
Pendant Chains:
80.) 18” 10k Yellow Gold Chain with Mystic Topaz & .1ct Natural Diamond pendant 1.6g $170 https://imgur.com/a/0trtsC8
81.) 18” 10k Yellow Gold Chain with Blue Sapphire & .1ct Natural Diamond Pendant 1.31g $170 https://imgur.com/a/cZaYffe
82.) 18” 10k White Gold Chain with Blue Topaz & .1ct Natural Diamond Halo Pendant 1.2g $150 https://imgur.com/a/AZ1SAfO
83.) 18” 10k White Gold Chain & Triple Diamond Pendant 1.5g $100 https://imgur.com/a/zfydoKW
84.) 18” 10k Yellow Gold Chain and Amethyst Pendant .1ct Natural Diamond 1.1g $120 https://imgur.com/a/ZKEDHKW
85.) 18” 10k Yellow Gold Chain and Opal Pendant with diamond accent 1.24g $120 https://imgur.com/a/H4uqG1W
86.) 18” 14k Yellow Gold Chain & 1/4ct Natural Diamond Heart Pendant 2.0g $140 https://imgur.com/a/QXKlGHw

87.) 18” 10k Yellow Gold Chain & .05ct Natural Diamond Cross Pendant 1.8g $80 https://imgur.com/a/KvcYwgS

88.) 18” 10k White Gold Chain & .15ct Natural Diamond Cross 1.0g $120 https://imgur.com/a/a8mGpY3

89.) 18” Silver Chain & 1/4ct Natural Diamond Heart Pendant 2.7g $70 https://imgur.com/a/FMMrIpm

90.) 16” 14k White Gold Wheat Chain & Cross Pendant 3.0g $150 https://imgur.com/a/pIzzAUV

91.) 18” Silver Box Chain & 6ct Natural Blue Sapphire Cross 6.2g $70 https://imgur.com/a/hIiudnk

92.) 18” Silver Box Chain & 6ct Natural Ruby Cross 6g $70 https://imgur.com/a/N6pe6bO

93.) 18” 14k Gold over Silver Chain with .1ct Diamond Heart Pendant 2.4g $25 https://imgur.com/a/8g3JnKU
94.) 18” 10k Chain & Loupe Pendant (loupe actually moves) with 1/4ct VS Lab Diamonds 2.2g $200 https://imgur.com/a/V4rBXsc
Silver Rope Chains:
95.) 16” 3.5mm Silver Rope 19.3g $44 https://imgur.com/a/5G3Os0I
96.) 18” 3.5mm Silver Rope 22.2g $50 https://imgur.com/a/1sKPcQG
97.) 20” 3.5mm Silver Rope 24.8g $56 https://imgur.com/a/6UGgvNC
98.) 22” 3.5mm Silver Rope 26.8g $60 https://imgur.com/a/l95KxWu
99.) 24” 3.5mm Silver Rope 29.5g $66 https://imgur.com/a/hXo2RYZ
100.) 26” 3.5mm Silver Rope 31.1g $69 https://imgur.com/a/hXo2RYZ
Silver Francos:
101.) 20” 4mm Silver Franco 34g $79 https://imgur.com/a/H0hLMUW
102.) 22” 4mm Silver Franco 38.6g $89 https://imgur.com/a/R2t4YJq
103.) 24” 4mm Silver Franco 43.9g $100 https://imgur.com/a/AYtcqmt
104.) 8” 5mm Silver Franco 27.0g $62 https://imgur.com/a/MeCy2gu
105.) 20” 5mm Silver Franco 63.7g $146 https://imgur.com/a/5GZbeek
106.) 24” 5mm Silver Franco 75.2g $172 https://imgur.com/a/pxC9S3m
Shipping available via first class ($5) or priority ($9). All items ship within 24 hours of purchase.
Payment via Zelle, Venmo, CashApp, eCheck, PayPal (It’s a biz acct so I only have G&S which is +3.5% due to the PayPal fee).
I DO NOT ACCEPT FORMS OF PAYMENT NOT LISTED. ABSOLUTELY NO EXCEPTIONS.
Any questions please let me know! Thanks
P.S. My chats don’t always come through. Please send me a follow up if you don’t get a response from me. Thank you 🙏

Simple question: Do you have to get drug tested as part of the pre-hiring process, and what happens if you test positive for weed ?

My mother had been ill for my entire life. Lots of chronic illness and things they couldn't quite pin down to an exact cause, but were nonetheless there. She had cancer twice in my life, and that was the easy stuff compared to this. My parents didn't get along and were separated. When I was around 10~ she made a deal with my dad. She would get back with him on the condition he helped raise my sister and I.
Well, to say the least, he was still a pretty shitty person. I don't think he has a bad heart, but he certainly is not upto the task of taking care of other human beings. Taking care of my mother essentially got sicced off to my sister and I. She would have grand-mal seizures, blood pool in her legs and come out off blisters that would develop all black, have these weird age regression episodes and all sorts of other medical disasters. She was extremely narcoleptic between when I was about 10 and 16 (this is when she had the regression things too). She also had a rare condition called Addison's which means she couldn't really control her emotional responses and didn't produce the proper hormones. So when my dad would be a dick it'd put her into shock and she'd start turning blue. When this happened you'd have to give her a solu-cortef emergency injection to bring her back into a state of not dying from shock.
My dad was of course clueless and left this all up to my sister and I when we were adolescents, pre-teens and teenagers. I had severe social anxiety my entire life and stunted social development. My mom advocated to put me into home-school after 7th grade since she thought I might do something drastic. I was in home school until we moved to be with my dad as well because of it. She was always my strongest advocate and understood me like no one else on the planet did.
Anyways, to continue her little story. I got sent off to a specialty clinic thousands of miles away with her. Just her and I no one else when I was 14. I lived in a hotel for about a year and then in an apartment near the clinic after that for another year with her. Taking care of her when she could barely move. There was a good half dozen times she was on the brink of death and we barely scrapped by. There was times her heart literally stopped or she completely ceased breathing only to be resuscitated. She would forget who I was for days at a time and regress to being a teenager. She would think I was her brother who molested her when she was little and get moderately violent or irritable towards me (understandably, from her perspective. I do not hold it against her at all). In her times of lucidity she begged me to return to my home with my father. She forced me since she thought she'd really hurt me and my bestfriends father (not even my own father) drove all the way down and picked me up. He drove me thousands of miles all the way back. My dad sent my sister out to take care of her instead for the last year (of 3 she spent down there).
Well, eventually she and my sister came back. I started working at 16 pretty much right after I got home because university was certainly not in the cards economically anymore. When they returned my mom was functional enough to live somewhat normally. She was permanently immune-compromised and prone to fatigue so she was really in no state to work or anything of that sort, but my dad essentially forced her to start working after a few years. He refused to help fix her car (which had just been sitting in the garage rotting away while she had been sick all this time) and would get rough with my sister and I. This would upset my mom so much every-time that she would need her emergency injection or go into seizures. Sometimes he would pin her down or push her down and I would have to fight him off of her and this would make him more and more upset.
My sister left and ex-communicated him. So it was just my mom and I. She secretly stashed away some of her money and came up with a little plot to escape from my dad. Hired a traveling mechanic to fix her car, got extra money from her brother who she barely talked to in years because of history from their childhood. It was a whole situation. She was working in home care for elderly people and turns out one of my dad's childhood friends was on disability. So she took him in so she could take care of him in the comfort of our own home. Less stress, easier, etc.... My dad was naturally pissed for reasons only god knows for her being able to fix her car.
Anyways she finally had enough money. Her and chuck hatched an idea that she takes care of him, she gets paid, and I help with the rest of the apartment cost. I chose last second to stay with my dad. The rationale was I've seen my father have suicidal episodes and knew he was deeply troubled and not fit for the world. He is very old fashioned, only worked for his family, retired at 44 (and then went destitute because the medical debt). I mean this dude can not use a phone to save his life.... He has never written a resume because he never had to. He alienates everyone he has ever known because his ego does not match his status because of our families legacy. He thinks he is some brilliant person that knows all and is infallible no matter what. If you even challenge him he gets violently upset and angry. BUT I still was worried about him. So I stayed with him because I knew he'd be screwed alone.
My mother is much smarter than him.... So I thought she'd be okay with the situation. She was still Ill but I think I was blind to it. Having experienced it my entire life..... So I didn't go with her. Because of her fragile constitution even before she left she had a hip that had broken (and fused back together, without her even knowing), several broken ribs that had done the same, broken knee and a collapsed lung. She also got / had constant shingles because her immune system just couldn't stop it.
Anywho. My mom had been having a rough time after 5 or so months... Seemed the guy she was taking care of was running her super ragged and she was getting super worn down. Due to my stunted development I couldn't drive and my dad was no help there either. He just cash cowed me for my work money like he did to my mother. I was trying to save for a car and driving classes (I'm 24) so I could get a car and visit my mom and help her.
I finally had the resolve... enough of my dad... to admit to her that I should have gone with her. We decided I'd get a car and we would move in together just her and I. Go someplace far away and the rest would be history. She was going to be fine. I was going to be fine. I missed her dearly. When she was gone for 10 months I only saw her face twice when she dropped by. She would hug me and tell me how much she loved and misses me. She absolutely didn't want to see my dads face so I couldn't get him to bring me to where she lived. She didn't want him to know where she was in general.
She was dead less than 48 hours after we had that phone call. She overdosed on her pain medication she had taken for 20+ years while in the ICU (she was in the ICU a lot). The last person she talked to was my grandmother saying she felt like she couldn't breathe and is suffocating. I think it was an accident but I'll never know.
I know the guy she was taking care of was abusing her and that is when I decided that we should move in together. About a week before she died he shit on her carpet and would drag a bunch of homeless people into their apartment and do drugs while she was in the hospital. She kept putting him into rehab and he kept just leaving and coming back. It turns out he fakes a lot of his disability so the government helps him and so he can push people around and is just a drug addict asshole. Last conversation I ever had with her was like 36 hours before she died she asked to borrow money for her phone bill. I of course gave it to her.
After she died and we got the news, by the time we got to her apartment for her belongings everything was taken. Her safe was broken into. The entire place was desecrated and destroyed and looted. Her phone, cards, wallet, purse, car... everything gone. Luckily they left most of the sentimental stuff. There was only 2 people that could have robbed her and the police just kinda don't care.
My dad has been heartless about the whole thing. He doesn't seem to care that much and has been pushing me around harder than ever. Asking me for super large rent payments to live in his house when I told him I need to get a car. It's like he wants me to be imprisoned to him like he imprisoned my mother. Since if I leave he will be absolutely alone. I pay for anything he asks me to already. Thousands of dollars. I didn't mind helping.
I hurt so much inside, since if I went with my mom... chances are she would still be alive right now. She wouldn't have to stress herself nearly as bad ending up in the ICU... getting out and going back to work and repeating. She was always so sick her ending up in the ICU didn't even set off my mental alarms. I would have never known she was so close to death.
She was truly the closest person to me in the entire world. Not a single person was ever more important to me. She made me who I am. She was the only person I saw as not only my parent but an emotional confident. She advocated for me my entire life. She understood me. She in spite of all her own trouble was my rock and my comfort. I loved her with all my heart and I grieve her loss with that and more.
I fear for all the times only her and I shared. Only I have those memories now. I worry about the slow sands of time warping my memories and thoughts. I can never ask her "is that how you remember that". I can never ask her what she thinks of something or for her wisdom. So much of my life just with her it's like it never existed since it only exists within me now. I can never be assured the voice in my head matches her voice in life. I can never be sure she didn't die in loneliness because I didn't make a good enough effort to visit her by my own means.
She was only 48. The idea I'll have lived exactly half my life without her when I reach her age is scary to me. Even more frightening yet is the idea that once I'm old I'll have lived only a fraction of my life with her. She will fade in my memory into the distant past; a nostalgia. I fear becoming someone she wouldn't recognize. I fear every day I have to continue to live without her. When I see the blue skies I think about how it's a blue sky she will never have seen. When I see a TV show I think she would have liked it hurts me to think that I'll never know for sure. It devastates me all the questions I didn't ask her that I'll never know the answer to. What flowers did you enjoy mom?
I wish I would have been less frugal and done more for holidays and her birthday. I so desperately wish for even one hour to talk to her about all this in a final parting.
And what makes me feel just a little better? She had mostly online friends. A self proclaimed recluse. She was very much like me and shy herself. Introverted and just interested in what she was interested in without a care in the world. A lot of her friends have messaged me and other people from throughout our lives telling me how much I resemble her. Not only her physical likeness but in personality. She of course would say this to me herself when she was alive. It comforts me in a weird way to know that I'm so much like her, that I am truly in every way her son, that if I like or dislike something I can say with some confidence she probably feels the same. In a way I feel like I can really experience the things she wanted to do for her. This is the only thing that drives me forward right now. I had been incredibly suicidal until I made this realization.
It also comforts me to know how much people cared for her even when she was in her own world away from the world. When people tell me I have her kind heart and gentle soul I realize that those are qualities they saw in her and respected. And I feel great pride that people would see her in me because I loved her so dearly.
Finding meaning without the person you cared for more than anything is truly a Sisyphean task.
Love you forever and ever mom, I'll never forget you. I'll forever be your little pessimist!

TLDR: 30yo prior marine CIS grad needs help finding a job. No internship Experience, fulltime dad/student/husband/job Should I work for free to get foot in door or grind away at applications? I have what I think is a good amount of experience.
First of all here is a bit about me. I am a prior US Marine as mos 0411, maintenance management specialist. Depending of the company I was assigned to within my unit my duties varied quite a bit. Some of the duties included maintaining a PEB pre-extended bins for frequently used parts where data was updated and changed via GCSS software by ORACLE. Created and inspected commodities for upkeep of training binders. I also ran queries to organize and report to higher leadership of deadline equipment and readiness. I assisted in writing new orders and directives.
I honorably finished my 4 years of service. After that I spent about 2 years in Colorado. Due to the insane cost of living and trying to make a relationship work I jumped straight into the workforce as a Armed security operator for retail Marijuana Dispensaries and some construction work. I was planning of starting college as soon as I got out of the service but that didn't quite happen.
After a failed relationship there I moved back home to Missouri. I soon fell into love with a HS crush and have now been with her for 6 years and married for 2 years. We have a 4yo son and 1yo TWIN girls so our hands are super full!!
I did however start school in late 2019 and due to having kids and taking some time off for that, my education has been extended a bit. My school faculty is also short staffed so there has been 2-3 semesters of waiting around so to say.
It looks like I will be able to graduate in spring of 2025. I will have my BS in CIS computer information systems. I have had many classes that I hope to aid me in getting hired after graduation. Some of these classes include C# programming 1&2, Data structures, Cryptography, DBMS 1&2, android/ios dev, web admin, and a few others.
Now with being a full time student/dad/husband/job I do not have the time to take an internship. Do you think I could possibly get on somewhere and work for free for a while and try to "earn" a spot? Or should I just grind away at applications for a year? If you know of any opportunities or ideas please let me know. I currently work a weekend shift which is new and has helped me free up alot of time M-Thursday.
Thanks to anyone who made it to the end!

Kapnos - Strawberry Apricot
I got this when I went to Garden Remedies and got the Realm bud. I don't know anything about it and I didn't ask about it but I think it may be a new brand. If anyone knows more definitely lmk.
The Buds are surprisingly fresh for the pack date of 2/24. Not dry or crumbly at all.
The buds are solid and dense af. Slightly sticky.
Smell - the smell in the bag actually does smell like dried fruit lol, I'm not one to usually fall for the names of buds but that's what the bag smelled like to me at least like dried apple slices or something. Taking it out of the bag and breaking it up is definitely fruity and earthy. Maybe kinda gassy or skynky too. When ground up it releases some pine.
Smoking - taste is honestly fruity but not strawberry or Apricot. Well idk what Apricot taste like I don't think lmao but still. Fruity/earthy. It's good. At the middle of the joint it turned to straight earthy af lol.
I honestly can't tell if I liked this better than the Realm or not but I'm interested to try more from this brand before I make my decision to recommend them or not. Plus I've only smoked one joint of it so far so for now this is what it is. I'll update in the comments with more for sure. Let me know if there's anything you're interested in or if you know anything about 5his brand because I'm interested. Thanks guys.
8.211/10.000

Universal Century and Regild Century (original timeline)(From Gundam 0079 - Gundam Reconguista in G)
GM Dominance
GM Ground Type
Gundam GP02A (Type-MLRS)
Gundam GP04 "Gerbera"
Gundam Pixy
Methuss
Hyaku Shiki Kai
Hyaku Shiki Kai Mass Production Type
Full Armor Hyaku Shiki Kai
Mega Bazooka Launcher as a EX-skill or a burst skill for the Hyaku Shiki.
Bolinoak Sammahn
Enhanced ZZ Gundam
Gundam TR-1 ［Hazel-Rah］
Hrududu
Nu Gundam Heavy Weapons System
Nu Gundam’s Duel Fin Funnels
Hi-ν Gundam Heavy Weapons System
Hi-ν Gundam’s Hyper Mega Bazooka Launcher (as an awakening skill)
Sazabi FF
Sinanju Stein
G-Defenser for Gundam Mk.II to become Super Gundam
Deep Striker as a MA boss
Delta Gundam
Gundam Delta Kai
Mudrock Gundam
Full Armor 7th Gundam
Full Armor Gundam (Light Armor Thunderbolt Ver.)
Atlas Gundam (Bandit Flower Ver.)
Gundam Ground Type S
GM (Thunderbolt Ver.)
Kshatriya Repair
Moon Gundam
Moon Gundam (Long Rifle Equipped Ver.)
Varguil
ReZEL
ReZEL Commander Type
Unicorn Gundam 03 Phenex (Gundam NT Ver.)
Armed Armored DE (Gundam NT Ver.)
unicorn gundam perfectibility divine
Gundam F90
Gundam F90’s missions packs A-Z
Gundam F91 Twin VSBR Type
Gundam F91 Heavy Weapons Type
Crossbone Gundam X-0
Crossbone Gundam X-1 Skull Heart
Crossbone Gundam X-1 Patchwork
Crossbone Gundam X-1 Full Cloth
Crossbone Gundam X-2
Crossbone Gundam X-2 Kai
Crossbone Gundam X-3
Ghost Gundam
Phantom Gundam
Second V
Gun-EZ
Gunblaster
S-Gundam's Beam Rifle
Narrative Gundam A-packs (as a MA boss or awakening skill)
Narrative Gundam B-packs
Narrative Gundam C-packs
Gundam FSD
GM Intercept Custom
GM Guard Custom
Gundam Local Type
Heavy Gundam
Penelope
Odysseus Gundam
Neo Zeong (as an awakening skill)
Engage Gundam
Gundam GPO-3 Dendrobium (as an awakening skill)
Gundam EX
Gundam G-Arcane
Gundam G-Arcane Full Dress
Gundam G-Self Space Pack
Gundam G-Self Assault Pack
Gundam G-Self Reflector Pack
Gaeon
Dahack
Montero
After War (GundamX)
Gundam Airmaster
Gundam Airmaster Burst
Gundam Leopard
Gundam Leopard Destroy
G-Falcon
Gundam Belphagor
Daughtress
Daughtress Command
Gundam Ashtaron
Gundam Ashtaron Hermit Crab
Cosmic Era (Gundam SEED and SEED Destiny)
M1 Astray
Murasame
METEOR (as an awakening skill)
Gunbarrel Dagger (also know as the 105 Dagger + Gunbarrel striker)
Strike Gundam’s Strike Bazooka
Lightning Strike Gundam
Blu Duel Gundam
Verde Buster Gundam
Dreadnought Gundam
X Astray
Calamity Gundam
Forbidden Gundam
Raider Gundam
Gundam Hyperion
Gundam Astray Blue Frame D
Gundam Astray Turn Red
Gundam Astray Noir
Load Astray Ω
Civilian Astray DSSD Custom
Destiny Impulse Gundam R
Destiny Impulse Gundam
DI Adaga
GINN High Maneuver Type
CGUE DEEP Arms
GuAIZ
GOUF Ignited
ZAKU Phantom
ZAFT ZAKU Bazooka
Slash ZAKU Phantom
Blaze ZAKU Phantom
Kerberos ZAKU Warrior
Kerberos wizard pack
Kerberos BuCUE Hound
DOM Trooper
Abyss Gundam
Gaia Gundam
Chaos Gundam
Saviour Gundam
Strike dagger
Strike dagger Parachute pack
Dagger L
Dark dagger L’s Mk39 Low-Recoil Cannonl
Windam
Doppelhorn Striker
Multi Striker Pack
Maneuver Striker
Raijin Striker
Eclipse Gundam
Eclipse Gundam Reactor 2
Testament Gundam
Gundam Astray Out Frame
Gundam Astray Out Frame D
Zeus Silhouette
Destiny Gundam Spec II
Infinite Justice Gundam Type II
Mighty Strike Freedom Gundam
Rising Freedom Gundam
Immortal Justice Gundam
ZGMF-MM07 Z'Gok
Another Trial Sword Strike Gundam E & Another Trial Launcher Strike Gundam E
Destroy Gundam (boss)
Gundam Astray Mirage Frame
Gundam Astray Mirage Frame 2nd Issue
Gundam Astray Mirage Frame 3rd Issue
Gale Strike Gundam
Hail Buster Gundam
Regen Duel Gundam
Nix Providence Gundam
Nebula Blitz Gundam
GELGOOG Menace
GYAN Strom
GYAN Strom (Hilda Harken colors)
Cavalier Aifrid
Lightning Buster Gundam
Duel Blitz Gundam
Type 35 Prototype Advanced Railgun
NOG-M1A1 Shi-ve.A
NOG-M4F Rud-ro.A
NOG-M2D1/E Cal-re.A
Raigo Gundam
Raigo Gundam Speculum
Raigo Gundam Sumbullet
Raigo Gundam Calibarn
For Anno Domini (Gundam 00)
0 Gundam
0 Gundam (type A.C.D.)
1.5 Gundam
Seravee Gundam GNHW/B
Arios Gundam GNHW/M
Gundam Exia Repair 1, Repair 2, Repair 3 & Repair 4
XN Raiser
00 XN Raiser
00 Raiser GN Condenser Type
Gundam Avalanche Exia (Non Dash Ver.)
Arios Gundam
Seravee Gundam
Seraphim Gundam
Cherudim gundam’s GN Sniper Rifle II sub-machine gun mode
Cherudim Gundam SAGA
Gundam Harute final battle version
Gundam Zabanya final battle version
00 Qan［T］ Full Saber
Raphael Gundam
Gundam Astraea
Gundam Astraea Type F
Gundam Astraea Type F Full Armament
Gundam Astraea Type F2
Gundam Avalanche Astraea Type F
Gundam Plutone
Gundam Rasiel
Sefer Rasiel
Reborns Gundam Origin
Reborns Gundam
GN Arms type E (as an awakening skill)
GN Arms type D (as an awakening skill)
For After Colony (Gundam Wing)
OZ-06MS Leo all equipment
OZ-06MS Leo [Space type]
Taurus Custom
Vayeate
Mercurius
Wing Zero Custom’s Drei Zwerg
Wing Zero Custom’s Wing Shield Neo
Gundam Griepe
Gundam Aesculapius
Gundam Geminass 01
Tallgeese 2’s Heat sword (EWoL)
Tallgeese Flugel
Tallgeese Flugel’s Heat Halberd
Gundam Deathscythe Hell custom’s Buster Shields
Gundam Nataku’s beam cannon & twin beam cannon (aka Altron Gundam custom’s beam cannon & twin beam cannon)
Shenlong Gundam EW Liaoya
Gundam Deathscyythe EW Rousette
Gundam Heavyarms EW Eagle
Gundam Sandrock EW Armadillo
Advanced Generation (Gundam AGE)
Genoace Custom
G-Exes
G-Bouncer
Zeydra
Ghirarga
Gundam AGE-1 Swordia
Gundam AGE-1 Flat
Gundam AGE-1 Glansa
Gundam AGE-1 Full Glansa
Gundam AGE-1 Razor
Gundam AGE-1 Sparrow
Gundam AGE-2 Double Bullet’s twin Rifles
Gundam AGE-2 Artimes
Gundam AGE-3 Orbital
Gundam TRY-AGE
G-Xiphos
G-Xiphos (Snake Sword Equipment Type)
Shaldoll Rogue
G-Exes Jackedge
Post Disaster (Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans)
Gundam Barbatos 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th form, and 5th from ground
Weapons for Gundam Barbatos Lupus. Arm Rocket Launcher, New Long Sword, Large Railgun, Variable Mace, and Anti-Ship Lance Mace
Gundam Gusion Rebake Full City
Gundam Gusion Rebake Full City booster
Gundam Flauros (Ryusei-Go)
Gundam Flauros (Ryusei-Go) Short-Barrelled Cannon
Gundam Flauros (Ryusei-Go) Dainsleif Super Galaxy Cannon
Graze Dainsleif
Graze Ritter
All weapons and equipment for Graze
Graze custom
Graze custom II (Ryusei-Go)
Graze Custom III (Ryusei-Go)
Schwalbe Graze
Geirail Scharfrichter
Geirail
Helmwige Reincar
Gundam Kimaris Trooper
Gundam Vidar
Gundam Astaroth Rinascimento
Gundam Vual
Gundam Astaroth Origin
Gundam Dantalion
Gundam Dantalion Half Cowl T
Gundam Dantalion Half Cowl B
Gundam Dantalion Perfect Cowl
Long Distance Transport Booster Kutan Type-III (as an awakening skill)
Gundam Hajiroboshi
Gundam Hajiroboshi Alector
Gundam Hajiroboshi 2nd from
Gundam Marchosias
Gundam Asmoday
Gundam Gremory
Grimgerde
Rouei
Reginlaze
Helmwige Reincar
Reginlaze Julia
Reginlaze Julia Final battle
Sigrún
Shiden Custom
Orga's Shiden
Shiden
Landman Rodi
man Rodi
Hekija
Hyakuri
Hyakuren
Oltlinde
For Gunpla Builders Beginning G
Forever Gundam
Beginning Gundam (original variant)
Beginning D Gundam
Beginning J Gundam
Gundam Build Fighters and Divers
Build Gundam Mk-II and make the build booster Mk.II a separate backpack
Build Strike gundam’s beam gun
Star Build Strike Gundam
Build Strike Galaxy Cosmos
Build Strike Exceed Galaxy
Try Burning Gundam
Kamiki Burning Gundam
Shin Burning Gundam
Lightning Gundam Full Burnern
Lightning Gundam Strider
Lightning Zeta Gundam
Gundam Leopard da Vinci
Gundam X Maoh
Gundam X Jumaoh
Crossbone Gundam Maoh
Wing Gundam Fenice
Gundam Fenice Liberta
Gundam Fenice Rinascita
Lunagazer Gundam
Gundam Portent
Gundam 00 Shia Qan[T]
Transient Gundam
Transient Gundam Glacier
A-Z Gundam
Reversible Gundam
Zaku Amazing
Kämpfer Amazing
Gundam Amazing Exia
Gundam Exia Dark Matter
Amazing Strike Freedom Gundam
Gundam Amazing Red Warrior
Ballistic Zaku
Weiss Sinanju
Sengoku Astray Gundam
Ninpulse Gundam
Gouf R35
Dom R35
Denial Gundam
Gundam Schwarzritter
Cathedral Gundam
Mega-Shiki
Kurenai Musha" Red Warrior Amazing
Gundam Lightning Black Warrior
Galbaldy Rebake
Gundam Astray No-Name
Gundam Love Phantom
Gundam 00 Diver Ace
Gundam 00 Sky
Gundam 00 Sky HWS (Heavy Weapon System)
Gundam 00 Sky Moebius
Gundam 00 Diver Arc
Gundam AGE-II Magnum (SV ver.)
Gundam TRY-AGE Magnum
Impulse Gundam Arc
Impulse Gundam Lancier
Gundam Stormbringer
Gundam Valkyrie
Core Gundam［Rize]
Core Gundam and core Gundam Gundam 2 with planet System
Re:Rising Gundam (as an awakening skills)
Plutine Gundam
Veetwo Gundam
Mercuone Gundam
Marsfour Gundam
Nepteight Gundam
Earthree Gundam
Uraven Gundam
Saturnix Gundam
Jupitive Gundam
Uraven Gundam Extra Limited Change
Gundam Anima［Rize］
Aun[Rize] Armor
Gundam Justice Knight
Gundam Aegis Knight
JMA0530-MAY Wodom Pod
Valkylander
Avalanche Rex Valkylander
Ex Valkylander
Alus Core Gundam
Alus Earthree Gundam
Fake ν Gundam
Gundam Barbataurus
Gundam Areus
Gundam Artemis
RX-Zeromaru
RX-Zeromaru (Shinki Kessho)
F-Kunoichi Kai
Winning Gundam
Star winning Gundam
Star winning Gundam (Real Type)
Gundam Seltsam
Gundam Tertium
Gundam Amazing Barbatos Lupus
Gundam Barbaric
∀ Gundam Shin
Other
Extreme Gundam
G-Saviour Space Mode
Ex Impulse
Phoenix Gundam (SD GUNDAM)
Tornado Gundam (SD GUNDAM)
Sisquiede (A.E.U.G. colors SD GUNDAM)
Sisquiede ( Titans color SD GUNDAM)
Kouki Gundam
Avalanche Rex Buster
Tertium Arms
Seltsam Arms
GN Sefer
Dáinsleif (Graze & Gundam Flauros)
Gusion Axe and Gusion Chopper
Gundam Lfrith Anavata
Gundam Lfrith Jiu
Gundam Lfrith Pre-Production Model
Gundam Lfrith
Mirasoul Flight Unit
Gundam Pharact
Gundam Aerial Rebuild
Gundam Schwarzette
Gundam Calibarn
Gundam Calibarn Permet Score 8
Blot Gundam
Gundam Maxter
Gundam Spiegel (a.k.a shadow Gundam)

Universal Century and Regild Century (original timeline)(From Gundam 0079 - Gundam Reconguista in G)
GM Dominance
GM Ground Type
Gundam GP02A (Type-MLRS)
Gundam GP04 "Gerbera"
Gundam Pixy
Methuss
Hyaku Shiki Kai
Hyaku Shiki Kai Mass Production Type
Full Armor Hyaku Shiki Kai
Mega Bazooka Launcher as a EX-skill or a burst skill for the Hyaku Shiki.
Bolinoak Sammahn
Enhanced ZZ Gundam
Gundam TR-1 ［Hazel-Rah］
Hrududu
Nu Gundam Heavy Weapons System
Nu Gundam’s Duel Fin Funnels
Hi-ν Gundam Heavy Weapons System
Hi-ν Gundam’s Hyper Mega Bazooka Launcher (as an awakening skill)
Sazabi FF
Sinanju Stein
G-Defenser for Gundam Mk.II to become Super Gundam
Deep Striker as a MA boss
Delta Gundam
Gundam Delta Kai
Mudrock Gundam
Full Armor 7th Gundam
Full Armor Gundam (Light Armor Thunderbolt Ver.)
Atlas Gundam (Bandit Flower Ver.)
Gundam Ground Type S
GM (Thunderbolt Ver.)
Kshatriya Repair
Moon Gundam
Moon Gundam (Long Rifle Equipped Ver.)
Varguil
ReZEL
ReZEL Commander Type
Unicorn Gundam 03 Phenex (Gundam NT Ver.)
Armed Armored DE (Gundam NT Ver.)
unicorn gundam perfectibility divine
Gundam F90
Gundam F90’s missions packs A-Z
Gundam F91 Twin VSBR Type
Gundam F91 Heavy Weapons Type
Crossbone Gundam X-0
Crossbone Gundam X-1 Skull Heart
Crossbone Gundam X-1 Patchwork
Crossbone Gundam X-1 Full Cloth
Crossbone Gundam X-2
Crossbone Gundam X-2 Kai
Crossbone Gundam X-3
Ghost Gundam
Phantom Gundam
Second V
Gun-EZ
Gunblaster
S-Gundam's Beam Rifle
Narrative Gundam A-packs (as a MA boss or awakening skill)
Narrative Gundam B-packs
Narrative Gundam C-packs
Gundam FSD
GM Intercept Custom
GM Guard Custom
Gundam Local Type
Heavy Gundam
Penelope
Odysseus Gundam
Neo Zeong (as an awakening skill)
Engage Gundam
Gundam GPO-3 Dendrobium (as an awakening skill)
Gundam EX
Gundam G-Arcane
Gundam G-Arcane Full Dress
Gundam G-Self Space Pack
Gundam G-Self Assault Pack
Gundam G-Self Reflector Pack
Gaeon
Dahack
Montero
After War (GundamX)
Gundam Airmaster
Gundam Airmaster Burst
Gundam Leopard
Gundam Leopard Destroy
G-Falcon
Gundam Belphagor
Daughtress
Daughtress Command
Gundam Ashtaron
Gundam Ashtaron Hermit Crab
Cosmic Era (Gundam SEED and SEED Destiny)
M1 Astray
Murasame
METEOR (as an awakening skill)
Gunbarrel Dagger (also know as the 105 Dagger + Gunbarrel striker)
Strike Gundam’s Strike Bazooka
Lightning Strike Gundam
Blu Duel Gundam
Verde Buster Gundam
Dreadnought Gundam
X Astray
Calamity Gundam
Forbidden Gundam
Raider Gundam
Gundam Hyperion
Gundam Astray Blue Frame D
Gundam Astray Turn Red
Gundam Astray Noir
Load Astray Ω
Civilian Astray DSSD Custom
Destiny Impulse Gundam R
Destiny Impulse Gundam
DI Adaga
GINN High Maneuver Type
CGUE DEEP Arms
GuAIZ
GOUF Ignited
ZAKU Phantom
ZAFT ZAKU Bazooka
Slash ZAKU Phantom
Blaze ZAKU Phantom
Kerberos ZAKU Warrior
Kerberos wizard pack
Kerberos BuCUE Hound
DOM Trooper
Abyss Gundam
Gaia Gundam
Chaos Gundam
Saviour Gundam
Strike dagger
Strike dagger Parachute pack
Dagger L
Dark dagger L’s Mk39 Low-Recoil Cannonl
Windam
Doppelhorn Striker
Multi Striker Pack
Maneuver Striker
Raijin Striker
Eclipse Gundam
Eclipse Gundam Reactor 2
Testament Gundam
Gundam Astray Out Frame
Gundam Astray Out Frame D
Zeus Silhouette
Destiny Gundam Spec II
Infinite Justice Gundam Type II
Mighty Strike Freedom Gundam
Rising Freedom Gundam
Immortal Justice Gundam
ZGMF-MM07 Z'Gok
Another Trial Sword Strike Gundam E & Another Trial Launcher Strike Gundam E
Destroy Gundam (boss)
Gundam Astray Mirage Frame
Gundam Astray Mirage Frame 2nd Issue
Gundam Astray Mirage Frame 3rd Issue
Gale Strike Gundam
Hail Buster Gundam
Regen Duel Gundam
Nix Providence Gundam
Nebula Blitz Gundam
GELGOOG Menace
GYAN Strom
GYAN Strom (Hilda Harken colors)
Cavalier Aifrid
Lightning Buster Gundam
Duel Blitz Gundam
Type 35 Prototype Advanced Railgun
NOG-M1A1 Shi-ve.A
NOG-M4F Rud-ro.A
NOG-M2D1/E Cal-re.A
Raigo Gundam
Raigo Gundam Speculum
Raigo Gundam Sumbullet
Raigo Gundam Calibarn
For Anno Domini (Gundam 00)
0 Gundam
0 Gundam (type A.C.D.)
1.5 Gundam
Seravee Gundam GNHW/B
Arios Gundam GNHW/M
Gundam Exia Repair 1, Repair 2, Repair 3 & Repair 4
XN Raiser
00 XN Raiser
00 Raiser GN Condenser Type
Gundam Avalanche Exia (Non Dash Ver.)
Arios Gundam
Seravee Gundam
Seraphim Gundam
Cherudim gundam’s GN Sniper Rifle II sub-machine gun mode
Cherudim Gundam SAGA
Gundam Harute final battle version
Gundam Zabanya final battle version
00 Qan［T］ Full Saber
Raphael Gundam
Gundam Astraea
Gundam Astraea Type F
Gundam Astraea Type F Full Armament
Gundam Astraea Type F2
Gundam Avalanche Astraea Type F
Gundam Plutone
Gundam Rasiel
Sefer Rasiel
Reborns Gundam Origin
Reborns Gundam
GN Arms type E (as an awakening skill)
GN Arms type D (as an awakening skill)
For After Colony (Gundam Wing)
OZ-06MS Leo all equipment
OZ-06MS Leo [Space type]
Taurus Custom
Vayeate
Mercurius
Wing Zero Custom’s Drei Zwerg
Wing Zero Custom’s Wing Shield Neo
Gundam Griepe
Gundam Aesculapius
Gundam Geminass 01
Tallgeese 2’s Heat sword (EWoL)
Tallgeese Flugel
Tallgeese Flugel’s Heat Halberd
Gundam Deathscythe Hell custom’s Buster Shields
Gundam Nataku’s beam cannon & twin beam cannon (aka Altron Gundam custom’s beam cannon & twin beam cannon)
Shenlong Gundam EW Liaoya
Gundam Deathscyythe EW Rousette
Gundam Heavyarms EW Eagle
Gundam Sandrock EW Armadillo
For Advanced Generation (Gundam AGE)
Genoace Custom
G-Exes
G-Bouncer
Zeydra
Ghirarga
Gundam AGE-1 Swordia
Gundam AGE-1 Flat
Gundam AGE-1 Glansa
Gundam AGE-1 Full Glansa
Gundam AGE-1 Razor
Gundam AGE-1 Sparrow
Gundam AGE-2 Double Bullet’s twin Rifles
Gundam AGE-2 Artimes
Gundam AGE-3 Orbital
Gundam TRY-AGE
G-Xiphos
G-Xiphos (Snake Sword Equipment Type)
Shaldoll Rogue
G-Exes Jackedge
For Post Disaster (Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans)
Gundam Barbatos 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th form, and 5th from ground
Weapons for Gundam Barbatos Lupus. Arm Rocket Launcher, New Long Sword, Large Railgun, Variable Mace, and Anti-Ship Lance Mace
Gundam Gusion Rebake Full City
Gundam Gusion Rebake Full City booster
Gundam Flauros (Ryusei-Go)
Gundam Flauros (Ryusei-Go) Short-Barrelled Cannon
Gundam Flauros (Ryusei-Go) Dainsleif Super Galaxy Cannon
Graze Dainsleif
Graze Ritter
All weapons and equipment for Graze
Graze custom
Graze custom II (Ryusei-Go)
Graze Custom III (Ryusei-Go)
Schwalbe Graze
Geirail Scharfrichter
Geirail
Helmwige Reincar
Gundam Kimaris Trooper
Gundam Vidar
Gundam Astaroth Rinascimento
Gundam Vual
Gundam Astaroth Origin
Gundam Dantalion
Gundam Dantalion Half Cowl T
Gundam Dantalion Half Cowl B
Gundam Dantalion Perfect Cowl
Long Distance Transport Booster Kutan Type-III (as an awakening skill)
Gundam Hajiroboshi
Gundam Hajiroboshi Alector
Gundam Hajiroboshi 2nd from
Gundam Marchosias
Gundam Asmoday
Gundam Gremory
Grimgerde
Rouei
Reginlaze
Helmwige Reincar
Reginlaze Julia
Reginlaze Julia Final battle
Sigrún
Shiden Custom
Orga's Shiden
Shiden
Landman Rodi
man Rodi
Hekija
Hyakuri
Hyakuren
Oltlinde
For Gunpla Builders Beginning G
Forever Gundam
Beginning Gundam (original variant)
Beginning D Gundam
Beginning J Gundam
For Gundam Build Fighters and Divers
Build Gundam Mk-II and make the build booster Mk.II a separate backpack
Build Strike gundam’s beam gun
Star Build Strike Gundam
Build Strike Galaxy Cosmos
Build Strike Exceed Galaxy
Try Burning Gundam
Kamiki Burning Gundam
Shin Burning Gundam
Lightning Gundam Full Burnern
Lightning Gundam Strider
Lightning Zeta Gundam
Gundam Leopard da Vinci
Gundam X Maoh
Gundam X Jumaoh
Crossbone Gundam Maoh
Wing Gundam Fenice
Gundam Fenice Liberta
Gundam Fenice Rinascita
Lunagazer Gundam
Gundam Portent
Gundam 00 Shia Qan[T]
Transient Gundam
Transient Gundam Glacier
A-Z Gundam
Reversible Gundam
Zaku Amazing
Kämpfer Amazing
Gundam Amazing Exia
Gundam Exia Dark Matter
Amazing Strike Freedom Gundam
Gundam Amazing Red Warrior
Ballistic Zaku
Weiss Sinanju
Sengoku Astray Gundam
Ninpulse Gundam
Gouf R35
Dom R35
Denial Gundam
Gundam Schwarzritter
Cathedral Gundam
Mega-Shiki
Kurenai Musha" Red Warrior Amazing
Gundam Lightning Black Warrior
Galbaldy Rebake
Gundam Astray No-Name
Gundam Love Phantom
Gundam 00 Diver Ace
Gundam 00 Sky
Gundam 00 Sky HWS (Heavy Weapon System)
Gundam 00 Sky Moebius
Gundam 00 Diver Arc
Gundam AGE-II Magnum (SV ver.)
Gundam TRY-AGE Magnum
Impulse Gundam Arc
Impulse Gundam Lancier
Gundam Stormbringer
Gundam Valkyrie
Core Gundam［Rize]
Core Gundam and core Gundam Gundam 2 with planet System
Re:Rising Gundam (as an awakening skills)
Plutine Gundam
Veetwo Gundam
Mercuone Gundam
Marsfour Gundam
Nepteight Gundam
Earthree Gundam
Uraven Gundam
Saturnix Gundam
Jupitive Gundam
Uraven Gundam Extra Limited Change
Gundam Anima［Rize］
Aun[Rize] Armor
Gundam Justice Knight
Gundam Aegis Knight
JMA0530-MAY Wodom Pod
Valkylander
Avalanche Rex Valkylander
Ex Valkylander
Alus Core Gundam
Alus Earthree Gundam
Fake ν Gundam
Gundam Barbataurus
Gundam Areus
Gundam Artemis
RX-Zeromaru
RX-Zeromaru (Shinki Kessho)
F-Kunoichi Kai
Winning Gundam
Star winning Gundam
Star winning Gundam (Real Type)
Gundam Seltsam
Gundam Tertium
Gundam Amazing Barbatos Lupus
Gundam Barbaric
∀ Gundam Shin
For Other
Extreme Gundam
G-Saviour Space Mode
Ex Impulse
Phoenix Gundam (SD GUNDAM)
Tornado Gundam (SD GUNDAM)
Sisquiede (A.E.U.G. colors SD GUNDAM)
Sisquiede ( Titans color SD GUNDAM)
Kouki Gundam
Avalanche Rex Buster
Tertium Arms
Seltsam Arms
GN Sefer
Dáinsleif (Graze & Gundam Flauros)
Gusion Axe and Gusion Chopper
Gundam Lfrith Anavata
Gundam Lfrith Jiu
Gundam Lfrith Pre-Production Model
Gundam Lfrith
Mirasoul Flight Unit
Gundam Pharact
Gundam Aerial Rebuild
Gundam Schwarzette
Gundam Calibarn
Gundam Calibarn Permet Score 8
Blot Gundam
Gundam Maxter
Gundam Spiegel (a.k.a shadow Gundam)

Residential Contracting 101
With over 20 years of building experience, I would like to share with you my insights in navigating becoming a successful contractor. With many different avenues of the building world its key to understand what problems will arise on any given day. A man once told a saying that stuck-the 6 p’s in life- Piss Poor Preparation leads to Piss Poor Performance. Preparation builds everything in construction, without preparation the jobsite will not run correctly. The best advice I was ever given was to learn a little about every trade giving you the ability to understand trade lingo and secrets. An example would be painters use the terminology flash; this means when the sub structure bleads through the paint. Subcontractors will give the best pricing if they respect your knowledge of the industry. If the subcontractor feels they will have to hold your hand through the job they will charge an extra fee…i.e. I call it the aggravation fee. In this blog I will explain the key elements in finding success in all aspects of the industry. Contracting is a physically and emotionally demanding job which requires planning and foresight to complete projects on time within budget. Picking your customer is just as important as picking your employees or subcontractors. I have worked for some of the most demanding customers leading me to question at the end if the job was even worth it. Sleepless nights, constant changes, lack of payment, lawsuit threats, adding work that was in the contract are just a few things you could face with a tough customer. With so many moving parts at all times it is critical to be able to adapt to changes within a short time frame. Materials will come in damaged, subcontractors will be late, employees will get sick, but the deadline you set does not change. The stress can be overwhelming at times keeping your mind in a good place is key to navigating all that is thrown at you. Choosing your client picking the right jobs-Keep these questions in mind The first question to be asked is what the time frame is to start the job to see if it fits within the timeframe for your business. If the time frame doesn’t work then move on from the project or let them know when you would be available to start. If the client really wants to use, they will wait until you are available. Taking on too much work will only lead to problems. Construction is a serviced based business, staying on top of the project and client will eliminate an unhappy customer and construction issues that will be over seen. With online presence if details are missed and customer service lacks it will only be a matter of time the phone will not ring. The second question to be asked to the client is do they have a budget in mind for the project. If they answer yes this is good, follow through with what the budget is. If the budget seems low let them know, this will eliminate a tire kicker, educate them on what the price range could be. If the budget seems reasonable then continue the discussion to the next question. If they answer no let them know that you can give them an estimate to see if the project is feasible with their finical capabilities. Taking on a job that is not correctly budgeted will lead to an unsatisfied customer due to non-transparency of the construction cost. The third question to be asked is anyone else bidding on the job, if the answer is yes, understand you might just be number check for the contractor doing the job. Dig a little deeper and find out how many numbers they are getting and why. If your business model is to be competitive be completely transparent with customer, this will gain trust with them. Let them know you get what you pay for and if you they choose the lowest bid it could lead into lack of quality of work.
The fourth question I will ask is there any specific subcontractors they wanted to use. If the answer is yes then I would explain to them you only use the subcontractors you have a working relationship with. Otherwise, this could backfire as the subcontractor might not show, do subpar work, talk behind your back to the homeowner. In my experience I would stay away from using any homeowner to alleviate problems down the road. A quick conversation now can save headaches down the road. The fifth question I will ask are planning on getting the job permitted, this needs to be known it takes more time for the permitting process. Plans will have to drawn submitted and approved to the city before work can commence. The sixth question I will ask if a residential remodel is are you going to be living through the remodel if yes understand this will take more time to navigate the project due to answering questions and cleaning the house on a daily occurrence. I would recommend seeing if the customer would be willing to move into an Airbnb or friends for at least the demo portion of the project. If they do plan on living through the remodel add a couple hours a day to accommodate the extra time that will be required. The seventh question I would ask in a residential remodel is how old the house is to see if there is asbestos that would need to removed by a proper company. A home built before 1979 will most likely have some asbestos in the house, use a licensed company with proper insurance to dispose of the materials. If everything looks good to this point find out a little more about the client personality. If the client seems reasonable, I would bid the job. Unreasonable people can cause you more stress than its worth. These are some red flags I would look out for. Some jobs are not worth the money. Very demanding in the way you are going to perform your job- I.e., tell you how you are going to do your job- You’re the professional not them! Give you a hard time about your price- haggle with price you estimated- The price is the price! If they are a family with little money and you want to help them out is one thing, if they are trying to beat you down is another. Mention they have a lawyer-there is no need for them to bring up that they have a lawyer - Run for the hills as if the job goes south, you will be the one losing out! Tell you what the payment terms are. It’s your business you get paid how it works for your company. If you want to get paid every Friday, put it into your contract-If the clients do not agree move on it will save you frustrations If they talk bad about the last contractor, chances are they will talk bad about you. There is a reason why the contractor does not work for them anymore, unless he did subpar work this a red flag Clients are using an interior decorator that will purchasing all of the materials- The materials could be ordered incorrectly by the interior designer your company will not make the mark-up it deserves. Interior decorators usually add time to the job as well as act like your boss. Charging a little extra for the time and stress that it will entail is only fair. Clients want to purchase the materials- You are using your knowledge to buy the correct materials-The mark up on the materials keeps the doors open working for wages only pays the bills The husband and wife do not get along-You will become the mediator between the couple it will lead to taking sides a losing proposition- A drama free work place is always best! Dangling carrot-if you do this job the next one will be better-Only look at what there offering at the present moment, if its not a good fit do not take the job for a job down the road…Its not worth chasing a job that might not happen! The Art of the Sale First things first selling your company is all about presentation. In meeting your clients for the first time show up with a collared golf shirt tucked in, belt, nice jeans, and newer shoes. Have a truck that a clean, no dents scratches, preferably washed the day you are going into your meeting. Have a leather note pad that is clean no dirt or paint visible. Show up 5 minutes early, if you’re running a little late shoot them a text to let them know. Treat the situation as if were going on a first date, best foot forward. As you introduce yourself give them a warm greeting, letting them know you are very interested in the work. Find out a little about them, hobbies, where they lived, etc etc. You are going to be working with them on a daily basis its nice to know what makes them tick. Having a good working relationship from the start is key forming a solid relationship. As the conversation progresses find out who wears the pants in the family…ie who’s the final decision maker. If its fits the wife, chances it is…..then kindly let the husband know happy wife happy life when their in a stall mate on an issue. As your looking at the project throw in some suggestions of what you think would look good from past experiences, this will get their attention that you have knowledge and want what’s best for them. If you see ways to save them money in their project let them know, money is a large point of the sale keep that in mind. Mention that you’re not the least expensive contractor but you’re not the most expensive either. Your customer satisfaction is your number one goal which leads to more time spent on keeping them happy. One happy customer will lead to another, one unsatisfied customer leads to work in the future. Bring up the fact the finishing the job on time is key goal to your business, many contractors run several jobs at once causing the jobs to be finished way behind schedule. You must stand out as having integrity, good morals, and the ability to problem solve to get the job. The clients will be testing you to see if you’re a good fit as well. Keep in mind as you take your notes that you must not forget anything they mention as it will come back before the job is completed…i.e. we mentioned that to you before we started the job! Take pictures of the proposed area for work, that way you can use it to better right your estimate. Let them know you will give them a detailed outline of when the job will be completed letting them see how long each phase will take and correlate it with your payment schedule. Before you leave their house let them know when the estimate will be sent to them. MAKE SURE YOU HIT THAT DEADLINE! Once you sent the email over with estimate make sure you get confirmation that they received it. Wait at least 2 days before checking with them, hopefully they contact you first! If they want negotiate the price, let them know that it is the best price that you can manage, its not worth losing money before you start. I closed 80% of the work I estimated by being very transparent and friendly. If you come off with an attitude charge double what the going rates are you might only land 1 out of 10 jobs as well as getting the reputation of being expensive. Bidding the job Looking up industry standards on pricing is what I would go buy for pricing. If you google the coat of any installation there will be a cost range for everything. Looking at the cost ranging from high to low I would tend to be in the middle. Some items might be low on the internet if this is the case use your best judgment not to lose money. Closing sales is key to success and keep the doors open for business. Being in the middle on pricing is key as most customers shy away from contractors that are extremely low or high on the price range. I tend not bid out hourly as wages do not pay for retirement. Bidding is better as customers no the exact price of the cost of construction. It also keeps the job moving quicker as time and material contractors take longer to complete projects…Thus costing the client more money and valuable time they could spend in their house. Using a Contract Using a detailed estimate tied to a contract covers your butt in 99% of the time. Having a piece of mind that every aspect of the job is covered in the estimate and contract protects both your company and the client. Key terms to include in your estimate/contract are. Have a schedule on excel showing the start dates and dates of each trade this will show the customer you are organized with time lines. If not written in the detailed in the estimate the item is excluded- This ensures if its not written down its not included. TBD- To be Determined- A phrase on a line item that has yet to had final decision of products or service needed. -The pricing will follow the decisions to be finalized Give out what your written warranty will be for parts and labor this changes state to state. If the homeowner provides the product than no warranty will be given on that particular item. In the contract have a start date and end date with the verbiage subject to change due to weather, product delivery, change orders Have a progress payment schedule to ensure the client understands when funding will be expected-Including if not payment is rendered service to the project will stop. Have written terms of how change orders will be charged-cost plus 20% or a set fee Make sure in your contract that arbitration is required versus going to court- This will save lawyer fees and going to court Many contracts can be found online and each state requires different contracts
Finding leads Finding leads is easy with the right network of people. I personally do not find working for friends or family members a good fit. Relationships get strained when money is involved, causing undue stress for both parties. I have listed a couple of ways to build a network or find work using the internet. Get in contact with realtor’s- Realtors have a big client base of homeowners who need work done Contact local Architects to see if they are working with any general contractors Leave some business cards at your local materials suppliers-Doowindow/lumber-many times clients will ask salesman for a referral. Join a business networking group- BNI is one of many Join a internet website lead generation company- Houzz, Angie’s List, Home Advisor, thumbtack, Yelp run an ad on craigslist Use a marketing company to market your website-This could become costly with little results Create a Facebook business page Create a Yelp business page
Building your subcontractor base Having 2 subcontractors for every trade, gives you the flexibility of completing jobs on time if the one the subcontractors is too busy at the time you need their service. Your subcontractors are the face of your business, choose owner run companies that are professional. Check to make sure there license are up to date..ie workman’s comp, liability insurance, state license. Choosing subcontractors with lettered vans, logoed t-shirts is s key to looking professional in the clients’ eyes. In the past I have gotten a lot of subcontractors for material supply shops, stopping by jobsites, researching the internet using Yelp, Home Advisor, etc etc. Once you get one good subcontractor ask them if they know any other trades they would recommend. One good subcontractor leads to another in most cases. The key to having a good group of subcontractors is to let them know that you are there to get help them get the job done. They do work for you but without them you are nothing…keep that in mind! Make them aware a clean jobsite is required at the end of everyday to ensure the proper safety for all parties including theirs! Over the years I have referred a lot of companies work when there is only 1 trade needed. Referring work to subcontractors is a good way to get top priority when you have work that needs to be completed ASAP. Timing is everything in times of emergency having a good group of subcontractors will make your business run smoothly. Pay your subcontractors immediately after performing work, this will make them feel appreciated! A happy subcontractor is one that will gladly go the extra mile for you knowing that there not just a number to your business! Buying lunch once a week for the jobsite is always a good token of appreciation!
Supervising In supervising any jobsite its key to monitor everything from materials on hand, weather, vehicle parking (if applicable), jobsite safety, and subcontractors’ workmanship. If you hired a professional there should be little supervision in the work being performed, on rare occasions a new hire might need some mentoring to get the results completed correctly. If you see a problem with there work address it with the worker directly, no need to call his boss…. building repour with the worker letting him know you got his back goes miles down the road! Checking in on the job first in the morning to answer any questions or changes that need to be conveyed and once in the afternoon to make sure all work be completed is done per construction industry standards. A job that is run blindly will have many more issues than one that is watched over. I have seen many jobs with no site supervision, leading to subpar quality work as well as safety hazards. Its better to be like an eagle than cluck like a turkey!
Working with the City/Inspectors On permitted jobs the city and site inspector will be a large part of how smoothly the job runs. Each phase of construction has an inspection allowing for the project to continue. Make sure your subcontractors are aware that the project is inspected before starting the job. The best way to stay on his good side is to provide a clean jobsite and having the job built to the highest standards possible. When having the site inspected be courteous to the inspector asking any questions or concerns you have with the work during the job. Being completely transparent will save you aggravation of problems down the road. The more he trust you the better if you seem sneaky or rude he will make your life a living nightmare! Many inspectors will have an attitude towards you….I suggest keeping quiet and doing what ever he wants….he’s the boss no need to get in a pissing match you will not win at. How to deal with irate customer Stay calm during any argument with an irate customer. Never raise your voice or show that you are bothered by their disgruntled behavior. If the customer is trying to get more from you than agreed upon stand your ground. Worst case scenario is you walk from the job, which in the long run be more of a loss for the client. I have only run into a couple of these clients; they are unreasonable and not worth losing sleep over a few dollars. Its best to terminate the relationship as it would be my best guess that a referral from this customer would not be one you wanted anyway. If you feel it was just a miscommunication on your end, take reasonability and remedy the problem. Taking accountability for your mistake will go a far way in their eyes and on future issues that arise. Prepping the homeowner pre-construction Before starting the job, it very important to give the homeowners a warning of what will happen during the construction process.

1. All furniture in the proposed working area must be moved- I would recommend having the clients take care of this to limit the risk of damage to their belongings.
2. There will be dust that will be in the house up to 3 months after construction-I would recommend hiring a construction cleaning company at the end of the job even so after it is cleaned dust will be present months after words.
3. There will be conflicts between you in the homeowner at some course of the job. - You will do your best to eliminate them as quickly as they arise-i.e. material damages, miscommunication, job delays
4. All decisions on materials must be made before the start of the job- this will eliminate job stoppage due to materials not being on site.
5. All materials will be on site before commencement of job-
6. Payment structures must be made per contract otherwise job will stop until payment rendered
7. Cars are to be moved out of the driveway- Ensures ease of loading and unloading of materials/tools
8. Give the specific hours that workers will be present- i.e. 7-3:30
9. Determine what areas are allowed to be used as staging for tools/materials
10. If animals are present in the home that they put outside or in a room during the day
11. All valuables in the house are locked in safe
12. Ask if using client’s household bathroom is okay or to bring in Porter Potty
13. Being transparent as possible is key to keeping a great relationship with your client!

During Construction During construction it is key to take detailed photos to eliminate any damages that were not caused by the construction process. I would also make a video to ensure all areas are included. All subcontractors should also take progress pictures to ensure if problems arise in the future, they will not be responsible for any work that they did not perform. Keep an on-going log of progress to the homeowners and share the pictures for there records. This will keep homeowners excited of the progress being made. When the house is gutted to the studs it is important to have construction photos showing where all utilities are run in the walls or sub floor. If there is a problem in the future there will photos showing all utility locations. Protect all flooring with plywood or floor protective. I also like to protect front door and tarp all areas where subcontractors are to be working. Make sure to cover any chandeliers/furniture/doorways with plastic to eliminate dust. Ask the homeowners if they have any concerns that they could think of. We’re all human and possibly a detail was missed! Post Construction Phase If the project went smoothly appreciation should be shown to the customer. Find out if the husband likes a particular type of liquor. Bring the wife a bouquet of flowers. Send a Christmas card to the family letting how much you appreciated the work. You know you have done a good job if they tell you they will refer you to their friends. The best compliment you could receive is a good referral. In Summary Try to find a knitch in the market, I found kitchens to be a great remodel projects. Bathrooms are tough as they are small, expensive with little profit margin with every trade involved. Windows/doors are also another great knitch as they can be installed quickly. There are so many different remodeling items that can be stream lined to make the selling installing process flawless. Once the core group subcontractors are in place the job almost runs itself. Every day is a learning experience with new materials or methods in construction. Keeping up with codes, materials, fluctuating labor and material cost is a job within itself. Anyone can be a contractor with the right mindset.

I'm a 27F and I had a elementary school classmate who we will call Gio (26M). We've had the same classes from Pre-K to 5th grade. I've always known he had a crush on me but it was w.e. till 5th grade on Valentine's Day. Everyone is passing cards and candy around the class and Gio gets me a teddy bear and flowers and asks me to be his gf in front of everyone. I felt awkward but I told him no because I don't feel the same way. He was mad and decided to scream on the top of his lungs saying why not and decided to tell the class who my crush was (ngl I was upset that he said that) I was so embarrassed that day. So graduation comes and things were good and he invited me to a pool party and I went to. The day of the party, everyone was having fun enjoying themselves, sometime during the party, I was inside getting something and Gio's mom comes up to me asking to give her son a chance because he really likes me and will treat me right also adding on that their family is rich and stuff. Mind you, I was 11 years old at the time and this was so weird for me. And I thought that will be the last time I see or hear from him until almost 10 years later (2019), he added me on FB and we caught up like how I would normally do with old classmates. I didn't think too much about it since we were having normal conversations until he started to interrogate me about my profile pic which is a pic of me and my now husband. Asking me who he is, why I chose him, what does he have that he doesn't, ect. I ignored his messages after that since this was going on for a couple of days even after I asked him to stop taking how him since he doesn't know him. And then I finally blocked him when he tried to message my husband asking him to break up with me and commented on pics of him saying rude things. A couple of years later, I see him at trade school that I was also attending at the time and so I waved at him to be nice and everyday after class, he would try to offer me a ride home and ask me to see his mom and grandma. Of course I said no but he would get a temper tantrum. Thankfully, I graduated early so I didn't see or hear from him for like 3 years now. Until recently, I flew down to visit some family and I wanted to visit my old teachers from my trade school during my trip. As we're catching up, one of my teachers looked away and asked, "can I help you?" I look and I see it's Gio at of all people. He's staring at me with a creepy face and vibe that made me uncomfortable, well made everyone feel uncomfortable as well. So he tells them that we've known since elementary school and the last time we saw eachother was March of 2021 which pumped up the creepy vibes. He noticed my baby bump and asked who the father is and I simply told him my husband and he looked pissed and sat down. I guess he wanted to leave early because he said asked me if I wanted to say hi to his mom and my teacher helped out by telling him that my feet are tired and shouldn't be doing alot of walking. I guess he just can't take the hint, I really thought he would of moved on by now, if he was so rude and weird, we probably could of been friends.

So for a while or so I've been playing older Sonic games just to see if they still held up. So far a majority of the games I played were at the very least good with some of the best ones being Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic rush. But something that might be my biggest Sonic hot take ever is that Heroes is one of the worst games in the entire Sonic series(unpopular opinion I know but let me explain myself). And just a heads up this is gonna be a long one because I got a lot to say about this game.
Because this game has a lot of aspects that I don’t like, I'm going to first touch on some aspects I actually like about the game. Even though not every character was written the best I will say some stand out characters I enjoyed are Cream and Omega, especially Omega but I wanna touch on Cream first. Ever since reading the IDW comics I've always had a soft spot for Cream just from how innocent and adorable she was and that sentiment continued with how she was paired with Blaze in Sonic Rush. I was admittedly nervous about how she would be portrayed in Heroes for reasons I'll get into later but she was handled alright. Nothing too groundbreaking but she kept her cute nature and even had some small moments of sass which was nice. The real star of the show was E-123 Omega. He really only has one thing on his mind with destroying Eggman and doesn’t really go through any sort of character arc, but that’s fine with me because the dude’s funny as hell with how aggressive and angry he is. He doesn’t have much of a face or eyes that are able to emote but you can still tell exactly what he’s thinking. I can’t explain why but every piece of dialogue that comes out of his…mouth?....speakers?...is hysterical. From “ANNIHILATE” to “USELESS CONSUMER MODELS” even down to when he says “GOOD” every time you pop an item box or balloon every quote is comedy gold with how monotone his voice is. The chemistry each team has with each other is nice to watch since from their dialogue you can tell that these trios have known each other for a while, are good friends with one another, or in Team Dark’s case just work friends(but their banter is still entertaining with how Omega keeps telling them to stay focused). And the music is good but as a Sonic fan that’s par for the course at this point. What I’m Made Of is a stand out banger for me.
But unfortunately that’s where all the positives end as we move into the negatives with one of the biggest being the physics of the game being poorly optimized. Throughout my playthrough I have run into so many bugs or victims of poor game design that I’ve lost count. But over half of my deaths have been due to the fact that there are no invisible walls to act as safety nets for players incase they misclick or even do something as simple as do a homing attack or perform a 3 hit combo with a power character, the latter happening way too often because power characters are the most reliable way to deal with enemies. Enemies bumping you are also a common way to die but not because of running out or rings, but because of the lack of walls keeping you on the platforms. Speaking of the homing attack, with how the movement physics work with speed characters I never use them because they end up being too slippery to control with instances where it feels like I'm fighting for control just so I can move forward in a straight line or hit a boost pad on a loop. The Light Speed Dash works whenever it feels like it and there’s no way to aim the homing attack so you pretty much have to press A twice and pray that rn-Jesus does you nice, otherwise you’re falling down a pit like you’re Scrooge McDuck diving into a vault of gold coins. And remember how I said enemies bumping you off cliffs was a common way to die? Well they can also just combo you for free because this game has no invincibility frames meaning you can get hit once and then instantly die if you or one of your teammates doesn’t pick up a ring right after being hit. This is especially apparent in horde fights like Robot Storm where you can get easily swarmed. And a staple mechanic from Sonic Adventure 2 that was butchered in this followup was the rail grinding. It was super fun to build up speed by balancing and crouching but now you just mash B with any real sense of speed being from a speed character. And heaven forbid you decided to grind rail with a flight character unless you like sliding at the speed of a snail, but you might wanna do that anyway to be save because if you switch rails the game doesn’t magnetize your character to it risking you to just shoot yourself off the map just for swapping rails or getting off of a rail.
Another awful aspect with the game is the team mechanic itself. It’s an interesting idea on paper to be able to swap between 3 characters to perform different actions based on what the level throws at you. But the problem with that is not every formation is balanced. The flying formation is awful in every way. The totem formation itself looks weird and looks especially janky with how it looks when going off a set of springs or going through a dash panel loop. How it controls itself makes absolutely no sense either; you jump and jump again to fly which drains a meter, which makes sense since Tails worked in a similar way back in Sonic 2 and still works like that in every other 2D classic style game. But I didn’t learn until the last story that the gauge only drains if you move forwards and won’t drain if you don’t move forward which not only makes no sense but doesn’t work like that in Sonic 2 at all. And whenever the meter runs out you might think that you would just glide down to the floor right? No. Instead the game halts all of your momentum and has you fall straight down like a boulder making flying based platforming impossible which was not the case in Sonic 2. And for some reason there’s a limit for how high you can go even though there’s already a limit you can fly for. Wanna know what game allows you to fly as long as you want until you run out of stamina? SONIC FUCKING 2 ON THE SEGA GENESIS/MEGA DRIVE. Sonic Heroes not only came out 10 years after Sonic 2 but was released on more powerful consoles so I'm baffled that they didn’t even try to make any of this shit work in any similar fashion. And this gets even worse for Sonic Heroes because you know how I just described how they would have improved the flying mechanics in Sonic Heroes? Well it WORKS EXACTLY HOW I JUST EXPLAINED IN SONIC ADVENTURE FOR THE THE DREAMCAST 1999. What the hell were they thinking with this!? This makes absolutely no fucking sense. And the Thunder Shoot attack? It doesn’t do much except paralyze enemies and hit targets meant to help you move forward in levels. Except it only does one of these things correctly since the game doesn’t auto target the targets meaning 90% of the time you’ll be constantly throwing your teammates into the ether while missing entirely as you try again and again to change your angle to hit the target just so you can move on with the average 10 minute level. And the switches you’re meant to pull are janky in their own right but the switches you have to fly for are the worst since no matter how close you get to that switch the game won’t register what you’re trying to do which is annoying as balls. And as the finishing touch all flying character have no differences in gameplay despite slight animations and apparently they have this unique attack they can do if they don’t have party members to throw with Thunder Shoot by pressing B again...but the game doesn’t tell you that and even knew that you’ll never see it in practice because if you toss a teammate with Thunder Shoot they’ll come back almost instantly.
And the biggest failure is that you can no longer spin dash in this game. It’s no big deal, it’s not like they removed one of Sonic’s most essential moves in his arsenal that was present all the way from Sonic 2 and was even in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, useless crap like that. Instead you have to use the stupid Rocket Accel which can’t be activated instantly like the spin dash with instead having the player get a running start to have your teammate boost you forward that doesn’t go as far as the spin dash in Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. It’s an alright concept that would be fine to keep if the spin dash remained in the game and not replaced with some trash faker that doesn’t hold up to the original. Which leaves us with the power formation which is the best formation by far but not by much. Power is the easiest one to control since it allows you to properly control your character at a moderate speed, a novel concept I know. But combo attacks that involve the character moving forward in a short burst are risky to use since you could wind up pushing yourself off the map which happens way more often than you’d think and more often than it should. And because they have to share data with all the playable teams they away Knuckles’ ability to climb walls in favor of a tacky looking team glide for platforming just like they took away the Spin Dash.
Another team related mechanic the game introduces is something called the “Team Blast” which has a gauge fill up every time you deal damage to enemies or collect rings no matter how you collect said rings(remember this for later). When a team gauge is filled you can perform a Team Blast by pressing Z that acts as a screen wipe that clears almost every enemy on screen. I say almost because it doesn’t really remove every enemy on screen because some doof over at Sonic Team thought it would be a good idea to give an ultimate attack that’s meant to wipe out all enemies on screen with a limited range, which is smaller than you’d think by the way. Each Team Blast has their own special effect that appears for around 10 seconds after the attack is used which i’ll be talking about when I talk about each team on their own but know that after Team Sonic’s Team Blast Sonic will be able to use the Light Speed Attack from Adventure 1 and 2…but that’s useless when you’re able to still fight as Knuckles and it fucks up your Thunder Shoot when attacking bosses.
And the next fancy mechanic they try adding in is the new level system. And I hate this system so much. The idea of the level system is that your character starts off dealing an ok amount of damage but can get stronger the more you level up by collecting orbs that can drop from enemies. Speed characters get a stronger spin dash, flight characters get a stronger Thunder Shoot, and power characters get stronger combo enders. The problem is that in terms of combat no Sonic game has ever worked like this. For the most part every enemy in a Sonic game that came out before and after Heroes is able to be one shot by a simple jump, roll, spin dash, homing attack, mech shot, boost or punch with the only exceptions I can name off the top of my head being Sonic Rush, Sonic Unleashed’s night stages, and Sonic Frontiers. But those 3 examples are excusable since with Rush it’s only one enemy that has more than 1 HP that doesn’t spawn often and with the other 2 being based more on combat than speeding through levels as fast as possible. Your team will only be satisfying to play after everyone as at the maximum level of level 3 which can be difficult to do since whichever orbs enemies drop when defeated are not only random for when exactly they’ll drop but it’s also completely random who the level up is meant for. Imagine needing to level up your power character to get through a large horde of enemies but instead all the levels go to the other 2 teammates that are virtually useless in a fight. “Ah dammit, I needed a power orb to get to level 2…ah well might as well give my other teammates their 50th orb of the fight.” The only ways to get guaranteed levels for a certain character is with certain item boxes and balloons scattered throughout the level and with checkpoints but the latter only works for the character leading the formation when touching the checkpoint, not to mention they’re single use only. And say you grinded all those levels so you can blitz through this level, guess what, if you die all of your levels get reset and it doesn’t matter if you only lose a life or game over. And i’ve made it very clear how easy it is to unintentionally kill yourself in this game.
Something else that isn’t properly explained is the hidden difficulty system. The problem is that each team campaign has a hidden difficulty system but the game doesn’t tell you that at all unless you want to willingly listen to Omochao(note that I played the tutorial and afterwards I actively avoided his tips on the main menu). The difficulty from easy to hard is Teams Rose, Sonic, Dark, and Chaotix being a gimmick team but the game orders them from Sonic, Dark, Rose, Chaotix which is bad game design because not only are people gonna wanna play as the main character Sonic the Hedgehog, but with how the stories are laid out players would instinctively play from left to right causing them to play the game on normal, hard, easy, and then gimmick which doesn’t make too much sense. I knew the difficulty levels before going in but I played in order of Sonic, Rose, Dark, Chaotix because I like Sonic as a character. But what I wasn’t prepared for is that this game is kinda hard even on the normal difficulty because the game is full of jank that can just kill you for playing the game as intended.
But now for Team Rose and Team Dark. Team Rose is so piss easy that it’s insulting for players who are well affirmed with the series. For one they force you to play the tutorial even after you’ve completed a story previously. Which btw this is the most bullshit tutorial in the history of gaming. Most games have pop ups with button commands and visuals to help the player out or they let the player figure things out themselves. Sonic Heroes does neither of these but instead have this little annoying ass robotic fuck hold your hand throughout the entire thing. What makes this worse is that every time he pops up to tell you what to do your character is stuck in place as you gotta wait for him to shut up so you can play the game only for you to be stopped by his rambling again and again and again until it’s finally over. And most of the skills players can learn on their own since it’s not that hard to just press a random button and get immediate feedback of “oh this button does this? cool beans''. Their moveset is also broken with Amy’s tornado attack being a moving projectile meaning you don’t have to willingly get in contact with the enemy in order to use it, Big having a combo that doesn’t have him move so he can’t fall off the map along with a broken belly flop that’s good for not only combat but weirdly enough platforming, and Cream…she’s just the flier. Their Team Blast is just a win button for no good reason. Not only does it give all of your teammates a free level, not only does it give your team a shield, but it makes your entire team INVINCIBLE. Ok game I get it, stop treating me like a baby. And the finishing touch is that all the levels are cut in half. Awesome. Setting up unrealistic expectations for newcomers and disrespecting older players in one foul swoop.
And then there’s Team Dark…oh Team Dark…when they said this was the “hard” mode they were lying. Because it should’ve been called “kaizo” mode. Enemies are everywhere including places they shouldn’t be, the amount of rings available is greatly reduced, And the bosses become borderline impossible to beat at times(except for the rival fights but we’ll get to that). And not only are there more enemies but the stronger variants of said enemies spawn more frequently. And you’d think their Team Blast would make things better, well yes and no but here’s why. Their Team Blast freezes time completely and I mean completely. Rings don’t spin, projectiles don’t move, even the timer doesn’t tick down. But the most annoying part is if you’re using your Team Blast to try and move forward the puzzles are stuck in time too until the gauge runs out so you gotta sit and wait to move on. And even after you move on the game will probably toss 3 giant armored robots at you at once that fight like mini-bosses(if you know you know) immediately after your Team Blast just ran out.
But before I talk about the final team with Team Chaotix I wanna talk about the level design! Yippee! Except not really because it’s all terrible. The locations and themes are unique in their own right but each level suffers from their own issues coupled with all the bugs that can kill you outright without the player having any time to think about what just happened. Ignoring the main bugs, Seaside Hill and Ocean Palace are fine first levels in all honesty. Power Plant’s elevator section is long and tedious and it’s worse if you have a character than use the Light Speed Dash along with a super stressful rising lava section that you gotta hurry up to climb or else you’re dead. But oooh nooo it’s not that easy because the lava moves faster along with the player which means if you’re too slow, you die and if you’re too fast…you die. Casino Park and Bingo Highway have pinball mechanics that will leave you stuck in one of the tables forever unless you’re a pinball god or just lucky. And we just love games marketed at children that encourage gambling addictions, especially if said gambling minigames are rng. Rail Canyon and Bullet Station rely entirely on rails which don’t work properly as I said before and Bullet Station in particular has a cannon that’s supposed to shoot you onto another rail track but in actuality it fires you straight into the death zone if you’re unaware about this and hold forward…and because it’s a Sonic the Hedgehog game you’re gonna do that. “Gotta go fast” and all that. Frog Forest and Lost Jungle have flying flowers that are so jittery they’re impossible to control, swinging vines with an awkward timing window, and it ends on a chase sequence against a giant crocodile that relies on the janky vines that last way too long. Hang Castle and Mystic Mansion are puzzle-filled mazes with ghost enemies that show up at the worst of times to jumpscare you…which is all the time, and everything else(we all know these levels sucks moving on). Egg Fleet and Final Fortress have tons of bullshit cannons that can home in on you, can snipe you out of the air which can hit you out of a platforming segment and send you falling to your death, crumbling floors, everything’s in the sky so there’s almost no floor to stand on, and rails. The worst part about it all is that all 4 campaign’s use the same exact 14 levels. You heard me right. ALL 4 CAMPAIGNS USE THE EXACT SAME LEVELS. Sonic Adventure 2 had 2 campaigns with levels that heavily differed from each other one way or another. Each campaign has either a speed level, a treasure level, or a mech level and even then it’s not equal to how many levels each type of level gets and each level has a different setting and music track. Rush is the one case I can think of where the campaigns had minor differences. Only thing is that those differences are huge. The levels are the same but they’re in a different order for Sonic and Blaze, Blaze plays completely differently from Sonic, Blaze gets her own music tracks, and Sonic has to use special stages to get the Chaos Emeralds while Blaze doesn’t need any to get the Sol Emeralds. And at the end of every other stage you gotta face off against-
Bosses! They all suck for different reasons. The mech fights boil down to mashing homing attacks like it’s a Mario Party minigame, the rival team fights are a joke, and the horde fights…oh my god the horde fights. I’m just gonna rip the band-aid off here. ROBOT. FUCKING. STORM. This is not only the worst “level” in Sonic Heroes but the worst boss fight out of any Sonic game I have ever played. Team Sonic’s is hard enough as is, Team Rose’s is a pushover(as is every boss in their campaign really), Team Chaotix…we’ll get to them later. But Team Dark’s has to be the boss fight that throws the bullshit at you. Don’t believe me well then let’s see here, we got; a long robot gauntlet that feels like it takes years to get over with, more enemies that spawn with a lot of them being the stronger variants of the enemies we’ve already be accustomed to, multiple giant hammer wielding robots paired with either robots that heal them or robots that sap all your rings which because it’s a Sonic game it’s basically life steal, and because this game was programmed with monkeys holding hammers the enemies will constantly knock your ass off the map and there is NOTHING you can do about it except pray. Pray to rn-Jesus that you can make it out alive with what little sanity is left in your body. And after all that Eggman has the balls to say what I'd call the worst line in any Sonic game, “Don’t get too excited boys! Those were the easy ones!”. It’s genuinely unbelievable that such a level exists. This was marketed towards kids. How is fucking little Casey who just got Sonic Heroes as their first video game gonna beat this shit? He’s not. Because the developers didn’t think about that just like they didn’t think about anything in this game except making a “fun” gimmick. But that’s not all. Because there’s one more boss...
Egg Emperor…and the bullshit continues. I definitely know what true evil is when facing this boss all right. The fight consists of running across a few platforms before making your way over to a bigger arena. The boss only has 3 attacks but 2 of them are what make this boss a slog to get through. He can fire energy waves by swinging his lance like he’s Cloud Strife and a charge attack that has no weaknesses that the game says activates whenever you’re too far from him. Because this is a Sonic game I figured that meant he can only charge if you’re too slow, but if you manage to run ahead of him he’ll charge anyway. But if you get too close to him you could risk either getting hit by a lance beam or by his massive hurtbox. And you might be thinking “why don’t you homing attack the body at that point?” and that’s because he has a shield that blocks all attacks and it’s only worth attacking his body after the second part of the fight where you go to that arena section. In the arena section you have to destroy some cannons and defeat some enemies before getting to the big man himself. You can make him drop his shield by using Thunder Shoot and follow up with your Power character but you probably wouldn’t do as much damage as you were hoping for since in order to do any real damage you’ll have to level your Power character up to level 3 which could take forever in this fight. After a certain amount of time the boss will flee causing you to chase after him again and repeat the boss cycle. But don’t go too fast because then you’ll wind up smacking right into his body or he’ll swat you out the air like a fly with a lance beam attack. And you can’t go too slow or else he’ll just charge at you which if he does it at the wrong time he can intercept your approach and boop you off the map meaning you’ll be dead. And if you thought that was enough, because the developers don’t know how to properly make things different between campaigns you have to fight this motherfucker 4 SEPARATE TIMES. And it doesn’t matter what campaign you go through because you’ll always have a tough time regardless of difficulty. I know it’s the final boss and that it’s meant to be a challenge but holy shit tone it down, there’s kids playing this shit.
And the last campaign involves Team Chaotix and they’re by far my favorite team to play as…and they still have problems. Instead of going through levels the same way you did 3 separate times already it instead focuses on missions. And I have mixed feelings about this. It’s great because it finally keeps things fresh and gives the player another way to experience the game that isn’t platforming focused. The problem is the fact that it’s still the same levels, levels that were meant for an action platformer instead of things finding an x amount of…I don’t know seashells. While the treasure hunting stages were my least favorite aspect of Sonic Adventure 2 they at least did a better job with the concept than some of the collecting missions in Heroes since the maps are built specifically for this kind of gameplay and there was at least a tracker telling you if you were going in the right direction. The Chaotix has you searching through levels you’re meant to speed through while not giving you any sort of tracker to tell you if you’re in the right direction. The Casino Park one in particular was the worst one because of the instructions: “Win 200 Rings!”. Anyone who sees this probably assumes they mean to use the slot machines since we’re a casino level with slot machines built into the pinball tables. But the thing is you can easily just collect 200 rings by playing the stage. But the game doesn’t say collect 200 rings, it says win 200 rings which is the dumbest piece of misinformation in this game and that’s saying something since this game loves to withhold information from the player for no reason. Like did you know you can fire your Thunder Shoot at nothing to charge your team gauge? Or that even though the game says to use a Speed character’s tornado to deal with shield enemies Power characters can punch right through them no problem? You probably didn’t because the game doesn’t tell you this. Anyway the stealth missions are the best ones because Espio’s invisibility is broken. And their Team Blast causes any enemy destroyed to turn into rings and for the duration of the meter any enemy destroyed turns into rings. This is the most broken move in the game. Why? Well remember when I said that the Team Gauge charges from attacking enemies and collecting rings? Well the game counts any rings collected towards the meter. Meaning if you destroy enough enemies at once with this attack you can immediately get your gauge back to repeatedly use again and again. It’s such an easy exploit to pull off that I'm not even surprised that this was left unchecked in all honesty. It even makes the dreaded Robot Storm look like a joke.
So that’s it. You beat all the 4 campaigns and you’d think that it’s time for the usual last story, right?...right? Well unfortunately special stages make a return and with that the 7 Chaos Emeralds. And this is by far the worst one. In the past special stages were unlocked by method of holding at least 50 rings until the end of the stage and jumping into a warp ring in Sonic 1 or holding at least 50 rings and jumping into a star post in Sonic 2 or by jumping into a giant warp ring hidden in the level in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. Sonic Heroes decided they wanna be a bit quirky in a horrible way. In order to access the special stages in this game you have to collect a key hidden in the stage and bring that key with you until the end of the level or mission in order to unlock the special stages and collect the Emeralds…there’s so much wrong with this…Not only is it already easy for the game to send your ass to the shadow realm for existing but if you get hit and lose your key it doesn’t just fall out like rings do, it disappears completely meaning you’ll have to reload at a checkpoint or worse, restart the entire level every single time you get hit. And after you get through that bullshit we get to the special stage itself…if you’ve played this game you already know what’s up. The special stage acts similarly to the half pipe in Sonic 2 but except it’s a full enclosed pipe you run around in. The goal is to collect orbs to fill your boost meter and speed ahead to catch the emerald. It sounds very simple but remember, this game was coded by monkeys with hammers so the physics don’t function. Your character will constantly jitter around while moving making positioning yourself impossible when trying to collect the orbs. You have to pick between a Power or Speed character because Flight characters are too slow to do anything but even then you’re picking your poison. Do you wanna control your character better at the cost of speed or do you wanna go fast in order to get the emerald quickly at the cost of controlling your character? ‘Cause that’s exactly what it feels like. And I'm still not done because each Emerald is locked into every other stage. Sonic 1, 2, and 3 & Knuckles allows you to get the Emeralds as easy as the first 2 or 3 zones if you know what you’re doing. If you miss an emerald in one of the few stages they appear in you’ll have to repeat the level and do everything I just explained ALL OVER AGAIN. WHAT KIND OF COLLECTOR HATING SADISTIC BASTARD THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA WHEN THE EMERALDS ARE REQUIRED TO BEAT ALL OF THE STORY!? Before going in I knew how bad the special stages were while being blissfully unaware how bad the unlock requirements were so I used save states(yes I used an emulator) to collect the emeralds in a timely fashion. Not only did this end up taking longer than expected even with save states but I was forced to keep using them for every time I got hit, sent off the stage, or missed the Emerald causing my save file to corrupt and erase all my data. Which caused the auto save to fail and use exclusively save states to progress. And let me tell you, nothing’s scarier than booting up the game and discovering all of your save data has been completely erased even after you completed 2 campaigns previously.
Before I get into the last couple topics of discussion I'll touch on some minor things that don’t warrant their own paragraph individually. The voice acting is hit or miss with stand outs like Omega and Sonic and then there’s instances of some of the worst voice acting in the series with Tails where they deadass brought an 8 year old to voice the character. “Look at all those Eggman’s robots!”. But it gets weirder since Cream was voiced by an actual voice actress and Charmy was voiced by a teenager. Doesn’t help that the game has the characters not stop talking for every single damn action in the game. It’s the same cheesy lines for the entire playthrough. The game looks ugly with the admittedly improved models having textures that look like they’re plastic toys ready to be sold in some Walmart or Target. The pre rendered cutscenes might be revolutionary at the time but are horribly dated by today’s standards and the in game cutscenes that start at the beginning of boss fights and levels look extremely jittery and stiff with characters’ arms flailing to move into position, Omega’s eyes constantly bugging out, and the camera repeatedly having a stroke. Some assets feel like they are copy/pasted and slapped onto characters that don’t make sense. Omega and Big share the same aura color along with Espio and Sonic sharing the same aura color, purple and blue respectively. Omega’s triple glide animation looks exactly like Knuckles’ even though he could’ve been animated to use his thrusters. Rouge has a weird outfit change that is never used again. Some might think that it could be for censorship reasons but her chest is still exposed through a cleavage slit in the outfit which makes me wonder why they even bothered to change it. Plus her pink eyeshadow is less aesthetically pleasing than her iconic bright blue. It’s unclear if all the teams are doing everything at the same exact time or not making things really confusing.The way the characters are written are all over the place with a mixed bag across the board. Team Dark’s great as characters but then you have Tails who’s portrayed to act like some scaredy baby and Amy who’s been turned into a hyper thirsty yandere that’s willing to beat Sonic into marrying her. But all of that is nothing compared to how dirty they did Shadow.
Every team has their own mini story that drives their plot forwards; Team Sonic has to find and defeat Eggman, Team Rose is looking for their lost friends, Team Chaotix is tryna get the bread, and Omega, specifically Omega, is out to look for Eggman for revenge for locking him in a vault. Shadow though…ok first off, why is he here? He literally sacrificed himself to save the planet Earth from the space colony Ark with characters honoring said sacrifice and mourning his death, Sonic included…But then they decided to bring him back along with amnesia and a clone side story that makes him question who he is. The clone story is the dumbest shit in this entire damn game. As if it wasn’t enough to make him forget all the events of Sonic Adventure 2, which can kinda make sense if he was sent into a coma after crashing on Earth. But now he has to go through some midlife crisis level shit to try and figure out his past and if he’s even real, which spoiler alert: this game doesn’t resolve either plot point. These points were further developed and resolved by the next game; Shadow the Hedgehog which wasn’t the best game by all means but it gave more of a fuck to have a concrete story than Heroes ever did. And what’s worse is if the clones were gonna be brought up again in Shadow the Hedgehog and then be resolved in that same game then what the fuck was the point of doing any of this shit in Heroes!? All that did was leave Shadow’s story on a cliffhanger that accomplished nothing but made fans confused and left them with unanswered questions for 2 years until Shadow the Hedgehog came out.
But finally, after collecting all 7 Chaos Emeralds and beating all 4 Team campaigns you’re rewarded with the Last Story which reveals that Metal Sonic was the real mastermind behind everything that happened in the game so he can copy everyone’s data and assume a powerful new form…that takes way too long to transform into…with Metal Overlord…just to beat Sonic. Not even world domination, just to beat Sonic. While his dedication is admirable it’s a really shallow goal. Plus the buildup towards him being the main big bad isn’t handled as well as it could’ve been. All we get are a background element that people would miss if they’re too focused on just beating the level, an extra animation at the end of a boss cutscene that only appears for Team Sonic and Shadow’s story, and a few lines of dialogue from Team Chaotix’s “client” that makes it clear that it’s Eggman. But it would’ve been better to actually know how all of this happened in the first place. Metal Sonic shows up as Neo Metal Sonic as the first time we see him in this game with no explanation as to how he got this form or how he found out he can copy others’ abilities. Not even a cutscene or backstory from Eggman in the final story, instead he just complains about how they can’t defeat him without the Chaos Emeralds. Without prior knowledge I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking that Metal Sonic just got a redesign since he hadn't made an appearance in the Adventure era at that time. How cool would it have been to have been given cutscenes showing us Metal Sonic twisting and contorting his body to not only show how he managed to do this in the first place but how far he’s willing to go to beat Sonic without spoiling the final form to leave the audience in suspense before the final act? And him not revealing that he copied Team Rose and Team Chaotix data kinda comes off as him not recognizing their strengths and calling them too weak to copy from, even if he didn’t say so himself. The segment where the teams do their best to weaken Metal Madness for Team Sonic is fine enough except the coding monkeys did it again and made it so that Flying characters can’t do any damage. But then there’s the final battle with Super Team Sonic…Team Super Sonic…uh…a Chaos Emerald powered Team Sonic. Admittedly the fight is really cool with Metal Overlord chucking entire battleships at the player and talking about how he believes he’s the real Sonic as What I’m Made Of blasts in the background. But there’s 2 major things that bring this fight down for me. Sonic Adventure 2 did a similar sequence of the cast of characters help Sonic and Shadow go super and defeat the big bad. Only difference being the buildup was more elaborate and the stakes were higher as if they failed the entire planet was at stake along with the presentation of the final fight being better in every way. One fight takes place in outer space while the other takes place in the sky a vague height above the ground. And most insulting of all they robbed us of bringing back Super Knuckles and Super Tails. This might’ve been because of the retcon of super forms only being possible with male hedgehogs but that was a massive missed opportunity. And after the fight is done Sonic drops one of the corniest one liners in the franchise, the 5th set of unskippable credits scrolls on screen, and the game tells you to do everything again but get to A ranks this time as one final fuck you.
In conclusion the game had a lot of…interesting ideas to say the least in terms of mixing up the Sonic formula. Unfortunately they used too much gas when trying to cook and sent the entire dish ablaze. I think if they let this game simmer a bit more and took at least a year to iron out all the bugs and mishaps since this game was developed in 20 months. As a comparison Sonic Adventure 2 took 18 months to develop and was still better. And while I've made comparisons to past Sonic games I wanna make it clear that I am aware of the flaws those other games have. After all, nothing is perfect. But Sonic Team at least could’ve made sure that their game was worth it in spite of these flaws by tweaking some game mechanics to make them more fun. And feel free to say why you’d think this game is peak Sonic. Alright that’s all, thanks for reading this far and have a fantastic day.