Kevin Green, Prime

It's Prime Time!

Thirteen years ago, a secret government fertility laboratory manipulated the genetic structure of dozens of babies in an attempt to create a group of ultra-powered beings. However, it appeared the experiment was a failure, as none of the babies were registered as anything other than normal humans. Kevin Green was one such baby. Now thirteen years old, Kevin was living a normal life in Canoga Park, California when he discovered he had the ability to transform into a musclebound superhero. Dubbing himself Prime, Kevin set out to become the world's greatest superhero.
Note: There was a time where Prime was separated into two entities, Kevin and Prime, who each only had part of their full power and are thus weakened in all of the feats they perform. Feats from this time will be marked with [H]
Each feat will be marked with the source

Power Mechanics

Kevin transforms into Prime by creating "liquid flesh" from his torso, which envelops him and takes a form shaped by Kevin's subconscious. This form is host to a variety of powers.

General

• Transformation^P2
• The genetic material that was used to create Prime is from an alternate dimension that was made with a mix of magic and science^PO2
• The clothing is also part of the Prime-bodies^P3
  • Prototype stretches his cape^FR
• Originally, when Prime transformed back into Kevin, Kevin was trapped inside what amounts to a bag of liquid flesh he had to tear free from,^P1 though he eventually reached a level of control where the body simply sloughs off him as slime
• Kevin can terminate the Prime-body early through conscious effort^PG

Prime Time

• Prime only has a certain amount of "Prime Time" before his current Prime-body begins to decompose^P4
• Military scientists were able to stabilize Prime and reverse his body's decomposition^P5
• As Prime's control of his powers gets better, his "Prime Time" increases to the point that the doctor who gave him his powers says that he could fight for hours or even days^PG
• Prime mentions that he can stay transformed for a week^PO2
• Kevin can reverse the decomposition by focusing^P11

Regeneration

• Prime's control gets better over time to the point that he can regenerate damage done to his body^P13
• Regenerates his head after it gets splattered^UF1
• Regenerates after his skin is blasted off^HC17
• Regenerates after Black Knight's Photon Sword makes his body fall apart^UF8
• Regenerates after Kevin's heart gets ripped out while he's still Prime^PO4
• [H] Regenerates after Wolverine slashes him^RG
• Regenerates after Solitaire stuffs a grenade in his mouth^R7

Misc/Weirdness

• Colonel Samuels was able to disrupt the transformation with a special shock collar^P9
• When Kevin transforms into Prime while suffering a concussion, Prime's head is turned backwards^P22
  • He twists his own neck to bring his head back into place^P23
• Kevin uses his arm to rip open his Prime-body to spray slime at the Lizard without terminating the body entirely^R2
• While his powers are on the fritz, trying to create a Prime-body causes him to accidentally create a giant spider monster of Prime-flesh^R3

First Prime

The first iteration of Prime that Kevin transforms into. Inspired by Kevin's adoration of his father and the exaggerated proportions of comic books and cartoons, this body serves as the visual template for later Prime-bodies.

Physicals

Strength

Striking

• Punches Prototype into a large crane, smashing it and making a large crater^P4
• Flips a tank with a punch^P1
• Smacks Organism 8 into machinery hard enough to crumple it^P3
• Smashes a table^P1

Flying Charges

• Flies through the ground to bury a nuke deep enough that it won't hurt people^P9
• Splatters Organism 8's head^P2
  • Organism 8 is durable enough to leap through the roof of a building^P2
• Flies through several walls^MT7
• Smashes through a large wall in an abandoned military base^P9
• Smashes through a wall^CD
• Smashes through the roof of a gymnasium^P1
• Flies through a plane's wing^UP0
• Smashes through the roof of a house^P1

Lifting/Throwing

• Carries a plane to the ground^UP0
• Swings Organism 8 into a wall hard enough to break a big hole in it^P3
• Catches a falling tank^P3
• Lifts a large truck^P4
• Rips a jungle gym out of the ground and uses it as a cage for a demon^P5
• Carries a bunch of sandbags^FR
• Tosses a couch^P1

Grip

• Twists a flamethrower around a man^P1
• Snaps the handle of a big metal mace in his hand^P5
• Crushes a flamethrower between his hands^MT7

Other

• Shatters the big metal chair he's strapped to^P3
• Breaks the table and chains restraining him^P10
• Easily tosses aside the soldiers restraining him^P8
• Thunderclaps to take down some drug dealers^P1
• Breaks the sidewalk while landing^P2
• Rips open a car roof^MT7
• Rips off a demon's arm^P5
• Accidentally snaps a man's arm^P1

Durability

Blunt

• Takes a hit from a demon with a mace^P5
  • The demon smashed a building with its mace^P4
• Punched through a wall by Dr. Gross, who performed the same procedure on himself that gave Prime his powers^MT7
• Embedded in the sidewalk up to his waist by a blow from Organism 8^P2
• Kicked into a lamppost hard enough to warp it by Organism 8^P2
• Kicked by Prototype while low on energy^CD
• A man wearing a discarded Prime-body no sells a car crashing into him^UP4
• Blocks a slide thrown at him with his arm^P5

Piercing

• Machine gun fire is harmless^P1
• A knife breaks against a man wearing a discarded Prime-body^UP3
• Bullets bounce off a man wearing a discarded Prime-body^UP4

Explosives

• No sells a point-blank nuclear explosion^P9
• Hit by a missile, though he was close enough to the end of his cycle that he turns back into Kevin^UP3
• Heavy machine guns, grenades, and bazookas deal only superficial damage^P1
• A missile bounces off of a man wearing a discarded Prime-body^UP4

Energy

• Blasted in the face by Prototype then blasted through a brick house^P4
  • Prototype's blasts are hot enough to evaporate a water giant^FR
• No sells a flamethrower^P1
• Electricity can't hurt him^P3
• Blasted with microwaves^P4

Other

• A man breaks his ankle kicking Prime^P1
• Even while decomposing, the Prime-body still protects Kevin from the heat of reentry and an impact that makes a giant crater^P6

Flight/Speed

• Ducks a punch from Organism 8^P2
• Dodges a flamethrower^MT7
• Flies from southern California to Somalia and back in a very short time^P1

Powers

Energy Blasts

• Blasts back a demon that has him in a bear hug with a burst of energy from his chest^P5
• Blows men in power armor off of him by releasing an energy blast from his body^CD
• Blasts himself out of a goop monster suffocating him^CD

Misc

• Spins in place, destroying the house he's in^P1
• Blows out a flamethrower with super-breath^MT7

Rogue Prime

As Kevin becomes more cynical and jaded doing superhero work, with rising anti-Ultra sentiments among the public and people trying to manipulate him for their own means, his Prime-body also changes. Inspired more by rugged, individualistic antiheroes, Rogue Prime has a different costume and color scheme, as well as piercings and tattoos

Physicals

Strength

Striking

• Shatters a big rock^UF1
• Punches Hardcase to the ground hard enough to leave a crater^PG
• Cracks the ground with a blow^GF
  • Again^P16
• Punches the ground, knocking a slab of pavement up^P13
• Smashes machinery^UF2
• Breaks a pillar with a backhand^P15

Flying Charges

• Flies Elven through the levels of a parking garage and makes a big crater in the ground^UP5
• Destroys a house^P14
• Smashes through the roof of a stone temple^RU6
• Flies through the roof of a club^P11
• Charges Hardcase into the Hollywood sign, smashing part of it^PG
• Tackles Prototype into a building^UF0B
• Destroys Navy helicopters^P14

Lifting/Throwing

• Tosses around large rocks^UF1
• Lifts Muscle Beach with one arm^P12
• Throws a car^P13
  • Throws more^UP5
• Lifts a car^PG
• Flings Hardcase into a tree hard enough to break it in half^PG
• Throws a man over some buildings^P0.5
• Throws two men across a street^P16

Other

• Rips the roof off of a lab^P10
• Bends a tank barrel^GF
  • Again^P13
• Rips Anything off of him while being smothered^GF
• Rips off a helicopter's windscreen^P16
• Rips a stool out of the floor^P11

Durability

Blunt

• Takes blows from Planet Class, who he says is stronger than him^P13
• Slammed about by Atalon's gravity powers hard enough to smash stone^UF1
• Takes hits from Hardcase^PG
• Tanks a punch from Cayman^GF
  • Cayman rips off vault doors^P13
• Crashes into Turbocharge, which launches him hard enough to carve a trench in the ground^P16
• Falls hard enough to smash stone with his face^RU6
• No sells a man shattering a chair on his head^P11
• A man breaks his hand punching Prime^P11

Piercing

• No sells a tank shell^P13
• Bullets bounce off^GF
• A helicopter blade breaks on him^P16
• Uncut after flying through a window^P14

Energy

• Hit with a blast from Prototype that destroys machinery^UF2
  • Prototype bores through stone with a blast^UF5
• Blasted by Rune using the Sword of Fangs^RU6
• Blasted by Mantra^GM
• Blasted by Pressure directly in the mouth^GF
  • Pressure's blast smashes stone^{Godwheel 1}
• Electrocuted by Plug^GF
• Blasted with some kind of electric energy cannon^P0.5

Other

• Withstands Samuels' electric collar and rips it out of himself^P10
• Resists mind control^E0

Flight/Speed

• Keeps up with Turbocharge^P16
  • Turbocharge is faster than jets or rockets and can cross 1000 miles in a matter of minutes^R10
• Easily overtakes a car on the highway^PG
• Flies faster than Prototype^UF1
• Does tight loops while flying^PG

Powers

• KOs Kutt with a blast^P13

Final Prime

Kevin's ultimate Prime-body, a form that reconciles the idealism that inspired First Prime and the cynicism that inspired Rogue Prime

Physicals

Strength

Striking

• Trades blows with Thor^AU
• [H] Trades blows with Professor Hulk^IH
• [H] Defeats a gamma giant with Professor Hulk^IH
• Launches Captain America with a punch to his shield^CA
• Launches Atalon with blows^UF5
• KOs Primevil, a magically-reanimated Prime corpse^P23
• KOs an alt-universe Rogue Prime^CA
• While his power is being magically sapped, clashes punches with Sludge which makes a shockwave that levels half of Central Park^SL12
• Right after being tackled into the street hard enough to make a giant crater, Maxis says that it can't measure how hard Prime hit it when he punches it into a building^RC12
• Punches Sludge through a wall^SL12
• Punches Sludge into a tree hard enough to uproot it and break it in half^SL12
• Backhands Wrath hard enough to bust a hole in a wall^WR9
• Shatters a large security machine^RC1
• Punches through a cyborg^RC6
• Punches into a metal wall^RC8
• Punches through a sewer wall^MT15
• Hits the floor hard enough to knock UltraForce and some monsters off of their feet^UP
• [H] Smashes concrete^R4
• Punches through a Shifter^US1B
• Punches out demons^UP8
• Punches out a komodo dragon^R15

Flying Charges

• Creates earthquakes on an island by repeatedly striking the ground^UF5
• Flies through the ground to make a tunnel to an underground kingdom^DF
• Burrows into a volcano^US1B
• Flies up from a lab beneath the sewer through to the street above^PG
• Flies up to the street through the subway^P18
• Flies out of a giant monster then KOs it^P17
• [H] Flies through a giant monster's head^IH
• Hits the ground, shaking it to knock over Turbocharge^R9
• Flies through a steel hatch^DF
• Destroys a cyborg^RC6
• Bursts through rubble^UF6
• Tackles a man through a thick concrete wall^R14
• Smashes through a wall^RC2
• Flies through a hangar floor^RC8
• Smashes through a cathedral wall^R7
• Smashes through a pillar^US1A

Lifting/Throwing

• [H] Lifts a giant monster bigger than the Statue of Liberty^IH
• [H] Lifts the Statue of Liberty's arm then throws it high into the air^PI
• [H] Carries a plane with a giant Prime-flesh monster riding it to the ground safely^R3
• Carries a van full of people^UF8
• Holds up a big slab of metal while its being welded^RC10
• Throws two men into the air^R7

Ripping/Tearing

• [H] Rips apart a giant slime monster^R3
• Rips a tank in half^UI
• Rips off a jet's wing^R1
• [H] Rips apart a techno-organic creature^RR
• Rips off a sewer wall and hits Dr. Gross with it^PG
• [H] Tears apart Spider-Prime's webbing^R4
• [H] Rips off a car roof^IH
• Rips off a car door^R7

Grip

• Twists a girder into a sharp point^RC11
• Crushes a ray gun^R9
• Crushes a concrete pillar^RC10
• Crushes power armor gauntlets^R11

Other

• Matches strength with Juggernaut^NE4
• Pushes an aircraft carrier out of the way of an incoming missile from the inside^MT24
• Pushes Hardcase and Demonseed through a portal^RC15
• [H] Catches Rogue's punch^RG
  • The X-Men were vaguely weakened by being in the Malibu universe^RG
• Holds back Elven^P26
• Flexes out of Ben Reilly's hold^US1A
• Flexes out of chains^R14
• [H] Stomps on the ground to cause several gamma-irradiated children to fall then thunderclaps^IH

Durability

Blunt

• Trades blows with Thor^AU
• [H] Trades blows with Professor Hulk^IH
• Tackled by Juggernaut^NE4
• Hit by Atalon^UF5
  • Atalon splattered Rogue Prime's head^UF1
• Takes hits from Primevil, who is as strong as him^P22
• Takes hits from an alt-universe Rogue Prime while low on power^CA
• Not hurt by Elven's blows^E1
  • Elven punches him through several buildings^P26
• Hit by Keith^R8
  • Keith destroyed a building^R6
• Slammed by NM-E to the ground hard enough to make a crater^HC17
• Fine after crashing to the ground hard enough to make a big crater^R4
• Tackled through a wall by Prototype^RC9
• Knocked through walls^UP
• Punched through a wall by the Manhattan Project^P18
• Hit by Dr. Gross over the head with a pipe^PG
• While having his power magically sapped, gets hit by Sludge^SL12
  • While at full power, he can barely feel Sludge's blows^SL12
• No sells a blow from Captain America while low on power^CA
• A tanker truck crashes into him^R6

Piercing

• Bullets bounce off^P25
  • [H] Again^R3
  • Once more^RC6

Energy

• Blasted by Nemesis, an entity comprised of the Infinity Stones^AU
• [H] Unfazed by a combined blast from Storm, Banshee, Bishop, and Jubilee^RG
  • The X-Men were vaguely weakened by being in the Malibu universe^RG
• Blasted by an alt-universe Rogue Prime^CA
• Struck by lightning^P20
• Blasted by a man in power armor^R11

Other

• Withstands Black Knight's Photon Sword^RC8
• Withstands a paralysis ray^R9
• Unharmed by Sludge^SL12 when coming into contact with Sludge melts flesh^UP8
• Withstands Whistler's sonic powers, which cause convulsions, unconsciousness, and hallucinations^RC5
• A harpoon in the chest doesn't affect him^RC1
• Ben Reilly says a mountain could fall on Prime and he wouldn't be hurt^US1B

Flight/Speed

Reaction/Dodging

• Dodges charges from an Ultra copying his powers^P18
• [H] Does a blast of fire from Phoenix-possessed Amber Hunt^RA
• Dodges NM-E's energy cannon and missiles^HC17
• [H] Catches Rogue's punch^RG
  • The X-Men were vaguely weakened by being in the Malibu universe^RG
• Catches Captain America's shield throw^CA
• Dodges a strike from Thor^AU
• Dodges a spire thrown by Keith^R8

Flight/Movement

• Lags behind Turbocharge and Zip Zap in a race at first, but uses more power to gain on them^R10
• Tags Captain America^CA
• Vibrates his fists at ultraspeed to shake apart a monster^P19
• Flies in a circle quickly to create a vortex and funnel away smoke from an oil fire^P20
• Pulls a man out of a falling car before it hits the ground^P26
• Flings Ben Reilly off of him then catches him before he can fill on a sharp pillar^US1A
• Catches a kid who jumped off of a building^R7
• Saves two kids just before they get hit by a car^R12
• Flies fast enough that people can't see him^R9

Skill/Misc

Combat

• Counter's Dr. Gross' punch^PG
• Gets an alien in a wrestling hold^NE4

Misc

• Has enough control to crush Whistler's throat just enough that he can't use his powers^RC5
• Defeats a group of tengu using his shadow^R5
• Talks Hiruko out of killing him^R5
• [H] Punches the Phoenix Force^RR

Powers

• Blasts Primevil^P23
• Senses that a witch has taken control of Sludge and follows that sense to stop him from breaking into a museum^SL12
• Can glow^P17

Temporary Forms

Space Prime

Colonel Samuels of the US military discovered Prime's secret identity and coerced Kevin into assisting him with military missions. To that end, Kevin was manipulated to reshape Prime into a form suited for a moon mission. This form has a metallic shell to prevent the body from expanding in the vacuum of space as well as air-tanks, as well as oxygen tanks and a space suit inside for Kevin if the body decomposes.

Striking

• Punches off the heads of a moon rock giant^P7
• Chops through a large moon rock column^P7
• Shatters stone on the moon^BT2
• Destroys moon rock monster copies of his parents^P7
• Knocks away a flying saucer on the moon^BT2

Flying Charges

• Flies through a moon rock giant, leaving a large hole in its torso^P7
• Breaks through a moon cave wall^P7
• Smashes through a rock column rising from the moon^P7

Misc Strength

• Breaks out of the moon ground after it opens up and buries him up to the waist^P7

Durability

• Hit by a rock column rising from the moon^P7
• Blasted with laser guns and a beam from a flying saucer^BT2
  • The laser guns smashed rock^BT2
• Serves as a heat shield while re-entering Earth's atmosphere^PT6

Flight

• Flies out to the moon^BT1
• Flies out of quicksand-like moon dust^P7

Spider-Prime

While Prime was trapped in the mainline Marvel Universe, he tried to help Spider-Man fight the Lizard. With his powers on the fritz, he transformed into a body inspired by Spider-Man which he dubbed Spider-Prime. This body only had a fraction of the power of his regular bodies due to his powers going haywire. This body had six arms (though when he transformed again later he had only two) and allowed Prime to use webbing like Spider-Man

Strength

• Repeatedly punches Lizard and rings Spider-Man's bell^PI
• Flips a bulldozer^R1

Durability

• Tackled through a wall by Final Prime^R4
• Slammed into a wall by the Lizard hard enough to break it^PI

Agility

• Mentions his body is designed for speed and agility while dodging Final Prime's blows^R4

Webbing

• Wraps up some men^R1
• Webs Final Prime's face, though he rips it apart^R4
• Web swings like Spider-Man^R4

Misc

• Showed up in Spider-Verse

Phoenix Prime

When the Phoenix Force traveled to the Malibu universe, it took Prime as a host. Because the Phoenix Force originated in the Marvel universe and not the Malibu universe, it is not at full power when it possesses Prime

• Blasts Storm, Banshee, and Rogue^RG
  • The X-Men were vaguely weakened by being in the Malibu universe^RG
• Roasts Wolverine^RG
• Absorbs life energy from UltraForce and the X-Men^RG
• Withstands attacks from UltraForce and the X-Men before the Phoenix leaves Prime^RG

Respect Threads for scaling:

• Thor
• Professor Hulk
• Juggernaut
• Rune
• Spider-Man
• Ben Reilly
• Captain America
• Storm
• Rogue
• Wolverine
• Bishop

We see it a lot. Adamantium, vibranium, mithril, Valyrian steel. The metal that is light as a feather, yet stronger than steel. The techniques by which to forge ir having long been lost.
What's your version? What are it's properties? How is it made/shaped?
Mine is...not very original, being mithral. Also known as "elvensteel" and "moonsteel." Unlike Tolkien, however, mithral is not a naturally occurring substance. Rather, it's an alloy. The exact nature of its creation has been lost, as the details of its creation was a closely guarded secret by the elven Magi-Lords. What is known is that the process involved steel, silver, and magic.
Mithral, once created, had properties that made it ideal to forge into blades and armor. It was extremely light, at least for metal, and also made almost no sound when wrought into armor. Despite this, it was unnaturally strong, and able to keep an edge indefinitely. A mithral blade, even lightly enchanted, could easily break a common sword.
These properties make mithral highly coveted, and many a great hero and King have used it. Despite this, it isn't ideal for every purpose. It's light weight makes it all but useless for blunt weapons like maces and hammers, and it is prohibitively expensive to create, even when it was known how to forge it. Now, only a few know even how to shape the metal without damaging it, and their price is steep.

• Teva’s 2023 Healthy Future Report highlights the Company’s renewed sustainability strategy, which guides Teva in addressing global challenges while also supporting its business, allowing for the continued supply of medicines for patients
• New ambitious targets are centered on net zero emissions, renewable electricity and a holistic approach to health system strengthening and capacity building to support underserved populations
• A second series of sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs), valued at $2.49 billion, brought Teva’s SLB total to $7.5 billion—making Teva the largest issuer in the pharmaceutical sector and the second largest across all sectors worldwide

TEL AVIV, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (NYSE and TASE: TEVA) today published its 2023 Healthy Future Report, sharing its actions to promote healthy people, a healthy planet and a healthy business. The report unveils new targets to achieve net zero emissions across Teva’s operations and value chain by 2045 and 100% renewable electricity across all Teva sites by 2035, as well as to reach 200% more total beneficiaries of health system strengthening and capacity building initiatives in support of underserved populations by 2026 (vs. 2022-23).
Healthy Future, Teva’s renewed sustainability strategy, is a continuation of the Company’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) journey and aligns with its Pivot to Growth strategy. Teva’s 2023 Healthy Future Report demonstrates how this new approach is stronger, with enhanced action and transparency across areas most important to Teva and its stakeholders; bolder, with a clear focus on the six areas requiring the most attention to advance sustainability at Teva and create long-term value; and simpler, with a refreshed and simplified governance model to further drive responsibility and ensure accountability.
“Operating in a sustainable way is the right thing to do,” said Richard Francis, Teva’s President and CEO. “Our renewed sustainability strategy is our purpose in practice—we are all in for better health—and our 2023 Healthy Future Report shows how we are taking action and tracking progress in areas where Teva can uniquely make an impact.”
Last year, Teva issued a second series of sustainability-linked bonds valued at $2.49 billion, bringing its total issuance to $7.5 billion and making Teva the largest issuer in the pharmaceutical sector and the second largest across all sectors worldwide. The Company’s sustainability progress is evidenced by its improved scores from key rating organizations, including MSCI, Sustainalytics, ISS ESG and EcoVadis, and recognition from ESG Investing as Best Healthcare Company for Sustainability Reporting.1
Getting more people the medicines they need
Based on an assessment of the Company’s economic impact, Teva’s generic medicines contributed to $40.9 billion in savings across 20 countries in 2023. To help reach even more patients, Teva launched two new access to medicines programs—in Spain and Chile—bringing its total to seven and placing the Company ahead of schedule to reach its goal of eight programs by 2025. Through its access to medicines programs, Teva donated 18.8 million doses, worth $21.5 million, to patients around the world.
Taking action to protect the planet
Teva reduced its scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 27% compared to 2019, achieving its 2025 target two years ahead of schedule. Teva also reduced its scope 3 emissions by 12% (vs. 2020)—tracking strongly against its goal of a 25% reduction by 2030—and engaged its suppliers in reducing their emissions. The Company announced ambitious goals of achieving net zero emissions across its operations and value chain by 2045 as well as 100% renewable electricity usage across all its sites by 2035. As a result of its efforts and transparency, Teva received an A- score from CDP for climate action.
Conducting business responsibly
Teva continued to instill a culture of integrity, publishing Teva’s Integrity Hotline Complaints Procedure and training nearly 100% of targeted active employees on compliance and ethics. The Company also holds its suppliers to high sustainability standards. It evaluated 60% of significant suppliers on sustainability topics and received an A score from CDP for supplier engagement.
Stepping up at a difficult time
As a global company headquartered in Israel, Teva and its employees have been impacted by the events of October 7th and the state of war declared in Israel. When the demand for medicines and medical equipment increased, Teva responded to the need, while also caring for its employees and communities. Teva’s employees in Israel stepped up and volunteered more than 7,000 hours of their time. Teva also established Support the Soul, a program to help Israel’s therapists address the country’s unprecedented trauma.
FULL RELEASE: https://ir.tevapharm.com/news-and-events/press-releases/press-release-details/2024/Tevas-2023-Healthy-Future-Report-Showcases-Renewed-Sustainability-Strategy-and-Ambitious-Targets/default.aspx

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Welcome back to this write-up about a complicated artist's complicated book.
Don't be absurd, of course you have time!
Part 1 Part 2
Now that we've established what the book is about, let's take a look at The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls' rich publication and re-publication history. I promise, it's more scandalous than it sounds.

“HER SPEECH IS NOTHING, YET THE UNSHAPÈD USE OF IT DOTH MOVE THE HEARERS TO COLLECTION” (HORATIO, ACT IV SCENE 5)

As I've mentioned in the last installment, TAFWVG has been released multiple times, in multiple editions – four of them, to be precise. And I wish I was exaggerating when I say that three of those four releases have been veritable masterclasses in testing your audience's loyalty. In case you're wondering: the secret is to alter your source material in strange and unpredictable ways, while also constantly messing up on the customer service front.
Most of this installment condenses and combines these two excellent write-ups, which contain most of the receipts: TAFWVG: A History / The Bloody Crumpets: An Inconsistent History. 🔍 Anything that isn't sourced with links is in there. While there were only minor differences between the first and second pressings, the third and fourth editions came with significant alterations to the structure of the book and the story itself, notably the cast of fictional Asylum inmates... a handful of which had, in fact, been obvious avatars of EA's IRL friends and collaborators.
It turns out there are good reasons why most fiction authors don't do real-life inserts so overtly – but in EA's case, it did make sense, and was warmly embraced by fans upon release. When the book first came out, some of these people had been familiar to the fanbase for years, frequently appearing in candid pictures on EA's blog and leaving comments on the forum; some were also involved in her music and show. Recognizing that one character's name was a pun on So-and-So's username was a nice Easter egg for veteran fans, and newcomers got to learn about fandom lore; it brought the story to life and the community closer.
One side character, for instance, was named after EA's best friend from Chicago, whom many fans had had direct interactions with: she co-ran EA's online stores during the Enchant years, and acted as admin, main moderator and EA-liaison of the forum throughout its near-decade of existence.
One crazy girl who thinks she's a pirate is 100% OC... but her description and illustrations 🪞 were explicitly modeled after pictures of Bloody Crumpet Vecona (one of EA's back-up performers), who became the first stand-in pirate character 📺 in the live show. Captain Vecona was also celebrated as the “Asylum Seamstress” 🪞🔍: most of the iconic early Opheliac costumes were her design. She had a following of her own, even prior to touring with EA, for her professional costuming work and her collaborations with German photographer Angst-im-Wald. (Shitty archive link, sorry - most of those badass photoshoots seem to have been lost to time. But if you were a European goth in the mid-2000s, search your old hard drives: I promise you, you've downloaded some of those pictures.)
Inmate “Veronica”, a cabaret girl diagnosed as a nymphomaniac, was a doppelgänger of her namesake, burlesque dancer Veronica Varlow 🪞 – the ride-or-die Crumpet, whom EA often lovingly called her “husband”, saying they had been lovers in a previous lifetime. Veronica was part of every single tour post-Opheliac release and developed a solid fanbase of her own, which she maintains to this day.
Even the brave and well-mannered talking rats (oh yeah, there's talking rats in the Asylum story) were named after EA's real-life pet rodents, who had featured in glamorous photoshoots. (Slight NSFW for sideboob.)
You get the general gimmick by now: EA turns her personal life into art, which she turns into a fictional world, which she then prompts the audience to inhabit with her. The whole Asylum concept was essentially an open invitation to self-insert parasocial fanfic: “Here's this very personal world that I've created, in which I, the artist, exist as a fictional persona, alongside all these quirky inmate characters that you've seen in my stage show, and who are avatars my real-life friends. Come on in, make it your home, and populate it with your own zany Victorian alter egos.”
And it worked, to an extent: like I've said, most fans were on board before they'd even read the book, and the Asylum became “real” in that sense.
But it can get a bit disorienting to find your place in a fantasy world, when said world keeps changing based on the author's shifting feelings about her story, her target audience, and her friends... plus, you'd love to read the book, but the darn thing still hasn't shipped.

ROUNDS 1 & 2: THE HARDCOVERS

\A MINOR ADJUSTMENT\
TAFWVG was first teased in spoken-word bonus tracks 🎤 on a 2007 EP. In spring 2008, EA started reading excerpts from her upcoming book at live shows. Early excerpts from the Asylum narrative featured a character named “Jo Hee” 📺; in the story, she is a cellist from “the Orient” (love that Victorian geography) and Emily's childhood confidante.
In real life, Lady Jo Hee, Center of Happiness, was the OG Bloody Crumpet. 📺 She had been there since from the very first Opheliac show in Chicago in 2006, accompanying EA on the electric cello – the only instrumentalist ever featured in the line-up besides EA herself.
In August 2008, Alternative Magazine ran a feature about the upcoming book.🔍, teasing some of its pages. Fans were quick to spot a very sisterly picture of EA and Jo Hee 🪞, borrowed from a fan-favorite photoshoot of the two. (An aside: this specific picture also became famous in the fandom for another reason. At some point, someone made an edit replacing Jo Hee with Amy Lee from Evanescence; for a while, it kept making the rounds in alt/goth internet circuits, casual onlookers kept getting excited about it, and Plague Rats kept having to step in and disappoint them.)
Anyway. For reasons undisclosed by either party, Jo Hee quietly left the Crumpets after that tour, never to be mentioned again.
By the time the book came out in late 2009, the character of “Jo Hee” had been renamed “Sachiko”. (I guess it didn't matter whether the one non-white character in the story was meant to be Korean or Japanese.) Jo Hee's face had been edited out of the (still clearly recognizable) photograph, and eerily replaced with Nondescript_Asian_Woman_023.jpg from Shutterstock.🪞
You'd think that the switcheroo would have raised more eyebrows, or at least some awkward chuckles, among fans of an artist whose better-known lyrics include “If I Photoshop you out of every picture, I could / Go quietly, quiet - but would that do any good?”. Yet to my knowledge, it did not. Possibly because, by the time people got around to reading the book, some fans had been waiting for their copy longer than Jo Hee had been a Crumpet.
A ROCKY RELEASE
Although the book seemed just about ready for publication at the time of those 2008 readings, the initial release was delayed by technical difficulties (some data had been lost during the editing process). And then delayed some more when, a year later, EA cancelled the US leg of a tour and slammed the door on Trisol, accusing the label owner of exploitation and embezzlement (he was allegedly selling fake tickets to her shows on a phony website). In August 2009, she signed over to The End Records, and we were back in business, baby!
Not only was The Book on its way to the presses, but the long-awaited release would coincide with a “Deluxe” re-issue of Opheliac, with new cover art and bonus tracks. For $100, you could pre-order the “Ultimate Book/Album Collection”, which included the revamped album, the book, a t-shirt, a tote bag, a recipe booklet and some bonus digital downloads, to be shipped in October. Or, for a more up-close-and-personal experience, you could purchase a VIP bundle for her upcoming shows in the fall: $50 plus ticket price would get you the book, a swag bag, and a meet-and-greet. (VIP tickets were capped at 20 slots per show; from what I gather, informal interactions with fans at the merch table were becoming overwhelming on previous tours. Again: fast-growing audience.)
Alas, due to printing issues this time, the making and shipping were soon pushed back to December. VIP ticket-holders were assured, at the start of the tour, that their copies would be shipped first as soon as the books were printed, with handwritten dedications from EA. Purchasers of the “Book/Album” bundle would receive theirs shortly thereafter. This seemed like a reasonable trade-off for a minor delay, and no one was too upset. (Well, some might have been, but at that juncture in Asylum history – for reasons that will become apparent in a later installment, when we get to EA's altercations with her fans – I guess they knew better than to get mouthy about it.)
The bundles came first... and in many cases, “bundle” was a generous term, because they arrived incomplete. When the t-shirt or tote bag weren't missing, they were printed the wrong colors. Many digital download codes had to be requested via email. The book itself was beautiful, but poorly bound, typo-ridden, and missing entire pages. (This was largely fixed in the second hardcover release.)
As far as I know, everyone who complained to the distributor got their money back – and I imagine it was a nice surprise when some items showed up, inexplicably, months after they had already been refunded. But it was still a bit of a “sad trombone” moment for many loyal fans, who had to request a refund on the Ultimate Super-Cool Preorder Exclusive Bundle to purchase the book and album separately.
As for the VIP package books, those didn't start shipping until late 2010 – a whole year after the official book release, months after less invested fans had already received their non-preordered copies. Worse: none of the books were signed, much less lovingly adorned with a personalized handwritten note as EA had promised. (And had tweeted about doing during the year-long shipping delay!) After enough fans meekly expressed their intense disappointment, EA's BFF-forum-admin mailed out signed bookplates that people could stick in their book in lieu of a personalized autograph. No real explanation was given. As far as I know, this particular let-down didn't cause a mass exodus of disappointed fans – but, in the midst of other goings-on, it certainly contributed to eroding many fans' trust in EA's word.
EA TAKES ON HOLLYWOOD
The 2011 release of the largely-identical second edition was better planned and overall uneventful, which gives me time to catch you up on contemporaneous events – like the reason EA ditched the Opheliac red and went platinum blonde. 🪞
Around that time, EA got herself a supporting role and a solo number 🎵📺 in The Devil's Carnival, Darren Lynn Bousman's psychocircus-themed movie musical. (If you're scrambling to place the name: depending on what kind of deviant you are, DLB is either the guy who directed half of the Saw movies or the guy who directed Repo! The Genetic Opera.)
If you've clicked the last link: see the bad boy greaser she's dancing with at the end of the song? That's the titular “Scorpion”, played by Marc Senter, and they were totally hitting on each other while shooting this. 📝🪞 They've been an item for twelve years now, in what appears to be a loving and mutually supportive relationship, and they seem besotted with each other. That's only marginally relevant to the story, but it's nice to know that at least one nice thing worked out in all this mess.
Back to 2011. Through her friendship with DLB and the Devil's Carnival cast (a motley crew of top-shelf B-listers 🔍 that included Bill Moseley, Paul Sorvino, the chick from Spy Kids, and the clown from Slipknot), EA also made a bunch of new industry connexions. That's how she came to decide that TAFWVG was meant to be more than a book, more than a live show: it had to become... a musical. Full company, full orchestra, big names, the works. Her 2012 album, Fight Like a Girl, was written and recorded with this project in mind, with most songs narrating events from the book and EA singing as various characters – which turns love duets into finger food for Dr. Freud. 🎵
Shortly before the album release, EA announced on Twitter that the Asylum Musical was scheduled to debut in the London West End, under the direction of Bousman, in 2014. "Casting calls to be announced soon!" (They were not.)

ROUND 3: THE AUDIOBOOK

2014 came, and brought... another TAFWG re-release announcement.
But wait – this time, it was going to be an audiobook! EA had been teasing one since before the original release, so people were quite excited. (It also sounded like a more achievable goal for the calendar year than a West End debut.) In early 2014, recording was well on its way, and the 6-CD boxset was due to ship in May.
PLEASE STAND BY, YOUR ASYLUM WILL BE PROCESSED SHORTLY
First, EA discovered “a new microphone ... that, upon testing, produced a recording of far greater beauty and expressive quality”, which naturally meant the whole thing had to be re-recorded. Two month's delay. No biggie. Our girl is a perfectionist.
But our girl also had to write, coordinate and rehearse her upcoming “Asylum Experience” – an afternoon-long interactive theater event, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, which would be performed at five dates of the Vans Warped Tour in August. (It's not exactly the West End, but it's a start! 🔍) And then she had to prepare for the filming of the Devil's Carnival sequel in the fall. So, obviously, the July deadline was not met. When she finally gave an update in late 2014, the ETA was basically “we are ever so close, but the audiobook gets there when it gets there; feel free to ask for a refund if you're not along for the ride”.
And then she signed with a literary agent. TAFWVG was going to be made into a “real” book, that readers could purchase in stores for a normal price and request from their local library – big event! (More for EA, I think, than for her fans. By that point, the second edition could be purchased as a PDF, and I believe most people who pre-ordered the audiobook had already read the story.) But this involved tailoring the narrative to a more general audience, which meant portions of the book had to be re-written... which meant further delays.

...Besides, and let’s have a teacup of “honesty time” here, if the new Asylum becomes an internationally best-selling novel, not only can we enact more change for good, but the Asylum Musical takes over Broadway faster, the Asylum Movie takes over theatres faster, and YOU are all dressed up as rats/inmates in said movie, you guessed it, faster (“Asylum Audiobook Announcement from EA”📝)

Well, you know what they say in show business: if you can't make it in London, there's always New York.
As EA assured her fans, their patience would be rewarded with a brand new, professionally polished version of the story – and in due time, I guess, a role in the movie. (“Let's hope she doesn't find another new microphone!” 🐀)
From that point on, there seems to have been an ever-widening gap between EA's enthusiasm and fan expectations. When audiobook snippets 🎤.mp3) were released, many fans were unimpressed by the oddly flat, overproduced recording (turns out a microphone can be so good it's a problem! 🐀), which highlighted EA's stilted, uncanny diction and not-quite-transatlantic accent. That caught everyone off guard, because she didn't use to read like... that. Even die-hard apologists had to concede through gritted teeth that, tragically, it was giving William Shatner. (If you're curious, you can find more previews here 🎤📝, along with EA's captions.)
Fans weren't just getting irritated with the various delays and excuses: they were baffled, angry, and embarrassed. When EA clapped back “U know U can just get a refund, right? That is totally within your power to do” on social media, and it came out that requests for refunds had been getting ignored for weeks or months 🐀, seasoned fans were like “Yeah, that tracks.” The whole never-ending ordeal was just starting to feel silly.
All told, the audiobook took two years to complete, with little to no new music in the interim. Two years is a long time for a young-leaning audience! Fans who had preordered at the end of their sophomore year were graduating high school by the time it came out. Others who had been in the middle of undergrad were now looking for full-time jobs. People had gotten pregnant, given birth and potty trained, or had houses built from the ground up. Genuine ultra-fans of the book had had time to... presumably, read other books. (“I wonder how many people passed away waiting for this shitty audiobook to be finished?”)
When the audiobook came out, many long-time Plague Rats had defected, either lamenting the misguided decisions of their favorite artist, or just calling EA a money-grabbing fraud and a lying liar. And a number of patient and unbothered fans had, quite simply, grown out of their EA phase.
Your humble servant, for one, ordered the audiobook the week it went on sale, and stuck with that preorder through five address changes and two graduation ceremonies. Now, bear in mind: through all the ups and downs, even as the charm dispelled, my taste in music evolved, and my perception of EA herself changed, I never formally stopped considering myself a fan. (Mama didn't raise no quitter.) To this day, and to my profound embarrassment, I give enough of a shit that I'm taking the time to write this story at all, and that I was able to draft most of itfrom memory.(Mama didn't teach me how to prioritize.) Well, get this: I have never once listened to the audiobook. I remember unwrapping the signed boxset (minimal artwork, flimsy cardboard, no liner notes), thinking “this could have been an email”, telling myself I'd get around to it for old time's sake... and then I never did, because it was ten hours long, and I just couldn't force myself to care about that story anymore. I was not an isolated case.
In light of this, I apologize in advance for any potential errors in the following paragraphs; others listened so posers like me wouldn't have to 🔍, and I'm going off of their word. The new and improved edition was, indeed, a different book – in that a bunch of things that felt meaningful to fans had been either reworked or excised.
THE AUDIOBOOK EDITS
The hospital narrative had been shortened in favor of the asylum story, and the controversial “Drug / Suicide / Cutting” diaries had been scrapped. Part of the fanbase applauded this decision, but others were disappointed 🐀, as they had found the diaries to be the most (some said only) personal, authentic, and insightful chapters in the book.
Curse words, some abuse, and all mentions of abortion had also been purged. It made the book tamer, but not by much... because Emilie's age had been changed from 27 to 17. Apparently, the literary agent had suggested this to make the book more marketable to a Young Adult audience. No other biographical detail had been altered, so the main narrator was now a 17 year old girl with no parents but an established music career, who checks in by herself into a high-security adult ward, no questions asked. (I'm still perplexed by this one. Did they not expect YA readers to know how hospitals work...?)
The pirate captain, formally known by her “mass of tangled black hair”, was now... a blonde. According to EA, this was a purely aesthetic change: it made the three main Asylum girls a redhead, a blonde and a brunette, which would look better in the stage adaptation. Between the lines, it also distanced the character from its original dark-haired muse: Vecona, who had left the Crumpets in 2008 after a rumored falling-out with EA over unpaid costume work.
The minor characters based on EA's old Chicago friends had been discarded entirely. Which likely made sense for EA – she hadn't lived there in years, the friend group had drifted apart as friend groups do, and by that point, there no longer was an EA forum to administrate or comment on – but not so much for her readers. Some fans had grown fond of these fictional inmates (wasn't that the point?), and weren't too happy to see EA symbolically treat them as disposable. Others were saddened that EA would just scrap these remnants of her old life, and of what felt like simpler, happier times in the fandom. Either way, children, this is why you shouldn't get a neck tattoo of your first boyfriend's name, OR openly base the “good guys” in your career-defining book on friends you made in your early twenties.
To compensate for the loss of... most named inmate characters, Veronica was given a much more prominent role in the plot. Namely, instead of being best friends, Veronica and Emily were now... in love! Lovers! Lesbian lovers! Which naturally meant that Veronica had to die. 🔍 Besides, fans famously love it when you pull a gay ship out of thin air between your two main characters, and then kill one of them off so that the other suffers more.
One last one, because I find it especially goofy: a scrappy teddy bear named Suffer, given to Emily by the talking rats, was replaced with...a Very Large Spoon, which gets its very own number in the musical. 🎵 The rationale was that Emily could use the spoon as a weapon in the climactic uprising against the Asylum doctors. Which, fair enough... except that, prior to being a cute and anachronistic 🔍 MacGuffin in the fictional Asylum story, Suffer the Bear had been a beloved mascot🪞 from the early Opheliac live shows. Some still remembered when EA had raised HELL, even starting a #FREESUFFER campaign on Twitter, because she thought someone had stolen Suffer from the stage (it later turned out that he had been misplaced in a flight case). All that noise back in the day... and now Suffer didn't matter anymore? The nerve. “She made shirts and everything!” 🐀
All this to say, reception was lukewarm. EA hadn't performed live since 2014 and the Devil's Carnival sequel had failed to make a splash (despite decent reviews, the franchise and main collaboration fell apart before the end of the promotional tour 🔍). People were checking out. There was only one way to correct this. A true paradigm shift. A fresh start – a new theme?
Hell no. It's another edition of The Asylum for Revisionist Tortureporn Friendfictions!

ROUND 4: THE E-BOOK & THE QUEST FOR THE SPOON OF ROYALS

In 2017, about a year after the audiobook release, EA self-published a digital version of TAFWVG through Amazon. The literary agent hadn't worked out in the end: publishers were put off by how dark the book was, even after the audiobook edits. EA explained that she hadn't been comfortable with some of the alterations in the first place; she respected the agent's input and had tried to give it an honest shot, but in the end, she wanted to do it the way she wanted to do it, solo... and this was it.
EA had reverted a number of the audiobook cuts (including swear words, mentions of abortion, and the narrator's age), but kept most of the changes to the Asylum narrative – namely, the omission of Former Friends Characters, and the romance between Emily and Veronica. In the newsletter announcement, she mentions being in the process of “re-recording the few little bits of the audiobook to reflect the current text version”. Not sure where we're at on that front; it's never been brought up again, and I don't think anyone's checked. (I assume most fans had war flashbacks when they read the word “re-record”, and instantly repressed that part of the communiqué.)
The “Drug / Suicide / Cutting” diaries were still omitted in the first release of the e-book, but re-included as a coda soon after, by popular demand, under the title “Evidence of Insanity” – with fantastical “doctor's annotations” like“W14A seems to have disassociated her own identity, episodic, each lasting for a longer period of time. We suspect she will continue further in this – stronger medication is needed, schedule electroconvulsive therapy.”
A physical paperback edition was released a few months later; in anticipation of this, the e-book was a stripped-down, text-centric version of the story. (Honestly not a bad call, because the digital version from 2012 was a scanned, non-searchable, 1.3GB PDF behemoth – not super Kindle-friendly!) No elaborate backgrounds and color photographs in this edition, but the pages were still illustrated with inserts of rats, keys, teacups, and... hold on... ciphers??🪞
As always in the Asylum, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. In a throwback to the prelapsarian days of the Enchant Puzzle (remember? the one that no one ever managed to solve?), the e-book illustrations contained puzzles, which formed the master-key to... a scavenger hunt! And in keeping with tradition, the grand prize was an extravagant adornment hand-crafted by EA: the “Spoon of Royals”.🪞📝 Oh my!
Some of the puzzles are simple anagrams that can be solved for keywords. A clickable word within the adjacent text takes you to a password-protected link, which takes you through to an audio file – a song or an atmospheric instrumental that goes with that moment of the story. There are also more complex ciphers that decode into riddles. Each key depicted in the book has a number or letter engraved on it. The total number of rats in the book is apparently significant. One link takes you through to a blank page whose source code contains a list of coordinates from various bridges around the world.
Oh, it was a whole thing. When the book came out, you could send a picture of you doing EA's signature “rat claw” hand sign🪞 to request admission to a private Facebook group (the “Striped Stocking Society”) where people could help each other solve the clues and EA would occasionally pop in for a chat. There was also a series of mysterious newsletters in early 2018, culminating in a Los Angeles event where EA showed up in person to pass on extra puzzle-solving material to a handful of lucky fans (although said material raised more questions that it answered 📝).
Overall, it was a great idea! Although the fanbase was generally smaller and less active after four years without a new tour or album (and a fair amount of other drama, which we have yet to get into), the e-book puzzle did pique people's interest in purchasing yet another version of the same story.
Unfortunately, once again, EA overestimated either how intuitive her fans were, or how invested they would remain. After months of collaborative efforts across multiple platforms, a number of puzzles had been cracked 🔍, but it was still unclear how the individual anagrams and numbers and riddle-solutions all fit together as scavenger hunt clues.
EA kept up the hype for a while, but the few hints that she gave on social media only revealed yet more encryption factors without really helping fans connect the dots. One cipher remained unsolved on Instagram for days and days before EA caved in and hinted at which key to use. She did helpfully specify that if you didn't know how to read music, you'd better start learning. (...Was this a fun puzzle, or a prep school admission test?) The in-person LA event had also sown some confusion as to the rules and constraints of the game: would winning involve traveling to a physical location? That didn't seem very fair. EA had mentioned physically burying some items – but could you solve the puzzle from a distance? Is the Spoon of Royals literally just buried under the Shakespeare Bridge in Los Angeles, California?? 🐀
I'm just saying: if this had come up in 2008? People in corsets and platform boots would have been out there digging.
But this was 2018. As we've mentioned, the core of EA's active fanbase (a lot of whom had been teens and young adults when she was touring Opheliac) was fast aging out of the years when most folks have the spare time, dedication, or desire to essentially do super-involved homework out of love for their favorite singer. Uncovering new songs was a fun perk the first year – but after the new album came out in 2018, none of the passwords led to exclusive material anymore. It felt a bit lacklustre for something so labor-intensive.
(The new music itself wasn't a rallying point either. Behind the Musical was, quite literally, an intended vocal guide for the Asylum musical – so, basically a collection of demos. The sound was VERY Broadway Revival, somewhat Phantomish 🎵, in a way that's either good or bad depending on who's saying it. The violins, to fans' chagrin, sounded all-MIDI; no sign of actual instrumental recordings. EA sang all the parts herself, as she had on her previous album. I'm not saying there's no merit in a one-woman Andrew Lloyd Weber tribute. Many old fans enjoyed the new material well enough, some even really liked it – but most agreed that it just didn't hit like her earlier stuff used to, and that it felt rather unfinished.)
Unlike with the Enchant Puzzle, the prize itself was not much of an intrinsic motivation. While the Faerie Queen's Wings were a straightforward concept that evoked EA's own signature stage costumes, the Spoon of Royals was... a large spoon attached to a necklace, community-college-art-teacher style. It looked impractical both as a spoon and as a necklace, and more importantly, I'm not sure how many readers felt a deep emotional connection to the spoon in the story. The spoon that had usurped Suffer the Bear, no less!
In short: people gave up on the game because it was too hard, it came too late, and they had other things to do.
Thus, the Spoon of Royals remains unclaimed to this day, and I doubt I'll see anyone crack the puzzle in this lifetime. The Striped Stocking Society FB group was terminated in 2020, around the same time a bunch of fansites folded and EA closed her Instagram comments for the first time. By that point, both EA and her fans had bigger rats to skewer – but we have a ways to go before we reach that part of the story.
I would encourage you to give the puzzle a shot for the hell of it (in case you're a cryptography nerd and currently under house arrest or in a full-body cast) but... I just tried a bunch of the links, and the passwords don't work anymore. So I guess that's that. To quote old Bill by way of conclusion: “Much ado about nothing”.

ROUND TOO-MANY: I'LL SEE YOU ON BROADWAY OR I'LL SEE YOU IN HELL

So, what now? Well, not much.
By the late 2010s, what kept many fans semi-invested – if nothing else, because it clearly meant so much to EA herself – was the prospect of an upcoming stage musical adaptation. The way EA talked about it 📺, it was very much a “when”, not an “if”. Sure, ten years on, we were still collectively stuck in the Asylum, but it would at least be a new format – and a return to EA's main field of expertise, ie songwriting and performing. Not only did the core fanbase long for new music and new shows, but Fight Like a Girl and Behind the Musical had brought in small influxes of new fans who were very eager for any chance to see her live. So whether it was out of genuine enthusiasm for the project, or out of “let EA have her musical so we can maybe finally move on”, the fanbase was overall supportive.
Even though people still joked about the 2012 announcement of a “2014 West End debut” (seriously, what was she thinking?), EA had really buckled down in the intervening years, and it looked like the project was plausibly well underway. As in, we had more than just EA's word to go on: the involvement of other people, who did not reside in the Asylum, seemed to confirm that the musical was a thing.

[CONTINUED IN COMMENTS because Reddit is being ridiculous about the character count. I swear I was under 40,000!]

Hello! I’m 29(F) and got my tonsils removed 3 weeks ago. I was really scared because of all the horror stories I’ve read on reddit, tiktok and youtube. So decided to share my success story to let people know that even for an adult it can be not as bad! Also some tips!
Day 1 I woke up from surgery and nurse kept pumping pain killer and IVF so I felt almost no pain all evening and morning next day. Day 2 my fiance drove me almost 3 hours home. Kept on top of my liquid off counter pain killers and paractamol schedule. Put timers. So pain was mild. Days 3-4 really managable pain, but YOU MUST keep on schedule. Even if pain is barely there - timer rings I drink a pain killer. Felt really tired. Nights 3-6 at night time pain SUCKED. I woke up 2 hours before pain killer time without the alarm and laid there waiting for the time to drink pain killer. Just sipped cold water with ice and used ice packs to be able to endure it. But at the day time it was really not that bad. From day 6 I started talking. And trying to eat more solid foods. From day 7 drove myself to family doctor and asked for another 7 days off work. Started reading books and was able to fill my cup myself. Around days 11-12 i was feeling decent. Could eat solid foods by chewing well. Day 15 got back to work and after 3 weeks went to gym for easy weights session.
I was waiting for pain to ger worse but it never did.
Main tips that helped me to survive: Water!!! A lot of water, I drank constantly. Some people say room temperature, but for me only freezing worked. At night I woke up every hour with alarm to drink few gulps. Emotional support person: my man was taking care of me and everytime I cried from feeling hungry and tired he was there to comfort me. Because it is harder mentally than physically. Walks: from like day 7-8 try to go on a short walk. A good book: from day 7 I felt well enough to read so helped to occupy m. Ice packs: literally saved me the times when pain hit me. Ice cream: have something without citrus ir acidy, I accidentally ate pineapple ice cream and thought I’m gonna die. Also try have some healthier version as my stomach HURT from all the junky icecream. Imagine having diarrhea in addition to other pain. No fun. Painkillers: OTC is really enough if you follow schedule. Unless your pain goes wild, then ask for something stronger.
Maybe no one will see this, or maybe it will give someone hope :)

Here’s a play-by-play of the lesser-heard podcast about the “theft.” Seth is cohosting. Make it make sense…
•Bubba begins by saying this will be a very popular podcast. •Bubba reports that his “handlers” are warning him to be careful. •Bubba declines to allow videos to play-“just audio” •Bubba plays a clip of him asking Blitz “Why are you skimming?” •Blitz says that Bubba gave him a “slush fund” •Bubba tells Blitz that Richard Febreezee (?) would just show up at Blitz’ house with a gun •Bubba says if “he was some other guy, he would have law enforcement there.” •Bubba says he doesn’t care about the amounts •Bubba says the IRS are going to look at the STD kit •Bubba says this is all a test, all he wants is an itemized list 🚩🚩At this point (even after Bubba has claimed this whole issue has been examined, screen-shotted and spreadsheeted to death), Bubba says Merch just brought down new examples of Blitz stealing 🚩🚩 •Bubba goes over the Home Depot charges •Bubba claims Blitz bought Peppercorn 🚩🚩🚩***Things that make you go hmmmmm here: At this point, Bubba claims that Merch went to these places and gave a credit card number to management and found every charge and the item purchased. Good luck with that- most stores can only go back so far to provide you that info. Maybe a warrant could get all the details. Source: Working a crappy job at Home Depot for the past seven years.
•Bubba reports Blitz bought multiple phones and masks 🚩🚩🚩🚩***BUBBA CLAIMS THAT THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF BLITZ CHARGES. That is a direct quote. Do the math. •Bubba reads off all the cameras Blitz bought. Lummy says Blitz had, like, twelve cameras. •Bubba goes to audio saying to Blitz, “If I’m in trouble, you’re in trouble.” •Seth says he can tell Bubba is being 100% truthful 🚩🚩🚩🚩**Bubba says he worked on “this” with Ashley for seven hours yesterday, even buying something for his MacBook to see all the charges. Does this mean he never worked on it until Anna got fired? Well, that’s a head-scratcher. •Tom Bean, Bubba says, and Bubba’s accounting firm fleshed all this out. •Bubba says this story got him a lot of donations •Seth the Snake says one donor hated Anna •Bubba say she’s “under the gun” with the IRS (even tho he’s been saying he settled with them) •Bubba says Anna “disgusts” him -he was giving her the benefit of the doubt •Lummy says he caught Anna lying about the DJ deck (he better pray Anna doesn’t have a receipt for that dam thing) •Bubba says Anna was negative, Seth the Snake runs Anna down •Blitz apologizes (but for what we don’t know- this part is edited) •Bubba says he has five years to put Blitz in jail and tells him not to fuck with him •Bubba says to Blitz, “Everyone knows what you’re capable of doing” •Bubba says “we need to make a prepared statement we agree upon” 🚩🚩🚩Bubba gives the first figure here: $280,000 stolen from him🚩🚩🚩 •Bubba tells Blitz “I have to cover my ass here” 🚩🚩🚩🚩Despite saying there were 100s of thousands of Blitz-charges, at this point in the podcast, Bubba slips and says there are 286 charges that need explaining. 🚩🚩🚩🚩 •Bubba says he won’t arrest Blitz because he’s “scared of his abilities” •Bubba says Blitz knows dark secrets about him, but none of this stuff will land Bubba in jail •Bubba reiterates the $280,000 figure 🚩🚩He tells Blitz he has to sign an NDA and he tells Blitz he will not speak beyond the bounds of their agreement against him.🚩🚩🚩🚩 🚩🚩🚩NEW FIGURE ALERT! Tom Bean talk here: Bubba says Tom bean found about 187 charges that need explaining. Seth says Tom is a scary gangster. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩Bubba says that his meeting with the IRA is the day after this secretly filmed meeting with Blitz where he accuses him. Does this mean the entire audit by Ashley, Merch and crew only took place days before the IRS meeting? 🚩🚩🚩🚩 •Bubba takes a moment to ask for parody songs 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩Bubba tells Blitz that if Blitz will only supply him with something explaining away a bunch of charges, their relationship could be stronger than ever. 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩Bubba threatens Blitz with jail again and tells Blitz he went bat shit- audio is cut off and we don’t hear Blitz response to this.🚩🚩 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩•Bubba says that he never planned on getting rid of Anna until he found out that she applied elsewhere •Seth seems to immediately know this is a misstep and he attempts to make Bubba backtrack and say he was unhappy with Anna for a while now🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩 •Bubba begins to choke •Bubba discusses his generosity and willingness to let Anna resign to protect her career •Bubba discusses Anna’s’s statement •Seth giggles femininely •Bubba makes fun of Anna’s career •He tells Anna “Fuck You” •Bubba said he wasn’t going to post Anna’s letter, so he read all of it aloud on the podcast •Seth the Snake asks Bubba if he’s so happy that he can do what he wants with Anna’s chair now •Bubba says he is happier with Macho •Bubba says he has Blitz in golden handcuffs •Bubba says he has binders and those binders will get Blitz arrested as long as he has Blitz’ birthday to give to the cops •Apparently, Blitz changed Lummy’s locks •Bubba says Blitz and Anna are going to start “fucking with him” •Bubba says he really wants to arrest Blitz, but that will mean the show will have to go into “War Mode” 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩Bubba says Steve Diaco advised him to “do nothing while you have Blitz in these golden handcuffs” 🚩🚩🚩🚩 •Bubba says this should be a really good podcast

I had my surgery April 8 and am entering week 3. As many others have mentioned, weeks 3 and 4 are know to be the worst, which I have accepted.
Any advice on pain management at this stage? Specifically incision site soreness around my nipples and the underside of my boobs where the incisions meet my abdomen. My boobs are ultra swollen to almost pre-op size, so I feel like the steristrips and plastic wound closure strips that my surgeon put on me after they removed my wound vac at 10 DPO are being stretched and I'm just going to burst open! I have just lollipop incisions so I do have pretty free range of motion, but the constant pain is getting to me.
Things I've tried that don't work: - Advil (600mg) - Tylenol extra strength (500mg) - 4% lidocaine patches (standard OTC) - Icing (helps on the bruises around the outside for a few minutes, but I have been told I cant ice the incisions yet)
I've been prescribed Norco by my surgeon but very limited amount, and those make me ultra loopy and dizzy for almost 12-18 hrs after taking them, so I'm leaving that as a last resort if the pain becomes unbearable.
My brother in law is a doctor and offered to prescribe me 5% lidocaine patches to try, but I'm skeptical if they will be that much stronger than the 4% ones.
My surgeon's RN suggested the LightStim device for pain, saying it could be soothing, but it's like $200!

I shared this in response to another theory which was really good, made by u/Sad-Philosopher3879. But after Chapter 157, I have a new theory on Ignia's plan. Previously, we learned that Ignia and Dogramag had a plan which would end the human age and prolong the Dragon age. We had no clue what that plan was, except that it involved the creation of the Great Labyrinth of Dogra and that Lucy's narration said they had no idea what would come from the Labyrinth's collapse, as well as the resulting earthquake, which reshaped Guiltina.
​
However, in the previous Chapters, we've learned that Ignia has been gathering Fire Mages, taking them as disciples to form a Dark Guild named Fire and Flame and that the Labyrinth was to help burn away Guiltina someday.
​
With this information in mind, I theorize that there is something about the continent of Guiltina that would prevent it from being completely destroyed. And that for some reason, something pivotal to Ignia's plans is hidden below Guiltina itself. I'll speculate on what this could be a tiny bit later on. But to achieve this, I think Ignia and Dogramag took the following steps:
​
*Dogramag created the Labyrinth in such a way that it would run underneath pivotal fault lines for Guiltina, all around the Continent. If Dogramag were to reabsorb all his Dogra Cores and abandon his connection with it or die, the resulting collapse would not only create an earthquake, but reshape Guiltina, resulting in the weakening of its structure.
​
*Then, with enough Fire Mages by his side, trained to bring out their full potential, Ignia will send a massive flame throughout Guiltina's exposed, reshaped, and weakened underground. While Ignia would have somehow convinced them that this is of benefit to them and that they'll be assisting him, he's merely strengthening them so he can eat and take all their flames, to create a flame even stronger than he could produce on his own as, whatever is strong enough to prevent Guiltina's destruction is somehow strong enough to withstand his normal flame, even when severely weakened.
​
*The destruction of a continent could throw the world into severe chaos, but could also expose something buried/sealed/hidden under Guiltina which could be paramount to Ignia's plan. What exactly? No clue. I don't have one solid theory so I'll share a couple below:
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**An item is buried underneath Guiltina, or at least is thought to be, and Ignia needs it to reanimate the Dragons.
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**The remains of Dragons have somehow been buried so deeply beneath Guiltina that they could not be reached while the continent still stands. Ignia has the means to revive them, just not the remains to revive.
​
**(This is the weirdest one but its the one I'm leaning towards) Dragon eggs ir young Dragons were sealed underneath Guiltina, in a seal only an intense flame could burn, so they'd be safe from Acnologia if Guiltina was ever found, and the Dragons above ground would protect them. The continent of Guiltina formed above this seal. But the Dragons underneath cannot come above ground, for despite their strong destructive power, the seal under Guiltina is so strong to protect them that only a strong destructive power can destroy it. In this theory, Ignia isn't reviving the Dragons, but he's restoring the Dragon age by releasing existing Dragons so they can dominate the Earth, rather than literally laying low.
​
Anyway, these are just my theories and I'm curious what ya'll think.

To understand where I’m going with this I need to lay out some stuff about two topics, the deep and the dragons. Some of this is my own interpretation of some rather vague concepts but I’ll do my best to link or quote lore directly.
If you don’t want to read a long ass post feel free to skip to THE TWIST
THE DEEP
The deep is a place, it is places, it is a state of being, it is forces, it is an entity. The thing they all have in common is they smother.

++We live on the edge of a war— —a war between Formless and Form++ ++between the Deep and the Sky—
++MY EYES ARE WIDE, MY GAZE IS LONG++
—Across the universe, as far as I see++ ++the Sky works to charge its fires— —and the Deep drowns the ash++

For simplicity I’m going to talk about the deep in two separate ways, the lowercase d deep, which is the state of being, the philosophical principle, and the physical spaces that are literally deep in some way, and then the capital D Deep, which is the witness, it’s taken power, and possibly something more
Season of the Deep let us experience the lowercase deep in a literal sense and also painted a nice portrait of the idea behind it. In the crushing depths, much like the depths of fundament the hive sisters experienced, the precious air we need is compressed into scattered bubbles. The way forward is narrow and without fighting for air our existence below isn’t sustainable.
The RoN raid reveals another facet of the deep though, that being birth. The deep is also a warm womb, all life must first crawl out of the ocean.
To quote some impossible dream/memory of Savathun from the raid book

My father's worm did not tell me only of swords. It had vast things to say, painted the cosmos in shine and gore, truth and fiction. I looked forward with three clear eyes and chose the path of the sword to cut open our future. To reach the stars, first one must crawl out of the ocean. It is a question of priorities.

The raid is full of more than anything primordial life, including Ammonite shells. Little pockets of light and complexity in the forms of eyes and sensors, protected under dark forms of shell teeth and carapace.
The raid book further associates the deep with the past, comfort, and memory, showing it again to not always be a negative smothering

Funny, isn't it? How can you miss someone when you know they're always in the Dark? I close my eyes, and in the warm nest-hide of sleep, I know you are real and happy and out there on some other part of the world, far from the river, far from the [untranslatable] where our ancestors (dream/exist) together. But it isn't the same as having you near, knowing your truth is under the same stars. Being able to simply turn my (head/face/bloom?) and ask for your opinion. Dear sibling, come home. Live in my house, and let me (dream/exist) close to you again…

The “bubbles scattered in the water” reflect another deep that is less real

First. A mandala. Rings of rippled light. Pinpricks like stars, selected elements of a Lie group: the math-skeleton of this new place.
What is this? Where am I?
A sheet of paper, blank with static. Her hands flat upon the face. A plasma of quarks and electrons, so hot and bright that it is pitch black. The mean free path is too short for photons to travel. The fire is too thick for light.

This describes the place the awoken found themselves in, the primordial broth before they built the Distributary.
This place reflects both the ascendant realm and the capital D Deep, and the taken black flame it grants. However the Deep is different from the natural primordial deep in one very important way

Yet the more I analyze, the more I ponder, the less I understand. A cacophony, an overwhelming weight of presence and thought and intent. A person, but not a person. More than that. Imagine if that first place where we the Awoken came to be had been nothing but screaming chaos.
In the noise, in the oppressive weight, I learn pieces as delicate as spiderwebs, as scattered as stars

Mara reiterates more recently in the Final Shape collectors edition:

MARA: Last night, I had a dream.
[I sat up straight.]
MARA: It began in nothing. Neither Light nor Dark; the absence of both. But in that nothing, I began to perceive an impossible something.
MARA: Stone hands clutching at the fabric of the sky. A mountain of screaming bone. A crumbling spire choked by kudzu. A great cancerous growth. Necrotic tendrils digging into flesh, which was earth. Darkness turned gangrenous, strangling the Light.

You will drown in the deep. Whether that’s an ocean, or memories, or oppression, or resonant darkness, or magical black fire, it will drown you and your light
So with an understanding of the ways the deep or Deep can be referred to, let’s look at some lore that points to the Deep as a location. Already just above Mara referred to the witness as being like that place that was the primordial broth, that has the same qualities as Oryx taking fire. You’ll find that Books of Sorrow do this many times over
To start, Oryx cannot access the Deep from his throne world, which is in the ascendant plane

In the cold abyss of the sword world, King Aurash walked under a cloak of green fire. He walked through the sky and the sky shuddered and froze beneath his feet. He walked until he found Akka, the Worm of Secrets…
“I give no secrets,” said Akka, whose voice was code.
Auryx the First Navigator set upon his god with his sword and his words, and cut Akka to pieces, and took from those pieces the secret of calling upon the Deep. He wrote this secret on a set of tablets, which he called the Tablets of Ruin. And he wore them about his waist.
Then Auryx said, “Now I may speak to the Deep, the beautiful final shape. I will be King of Shapes. I will learn all the secrets of our destiny.”

A couple books later it says:

Oryx went down into his throne world. He went out into the abyss, and with each step he read one of his tablets, so that they became like stones beneath his feet.
He went out and he created an altar and he prepared an unborn ogre. He called on the Deep…
…And it arrived, the Deep Itself.

So so far, oryx can travel the ascendant and his throne, but needs coded secrets from Akka to commune with the Deep. The Deep is personified here, it is an entity that ends up speaking to Oryx, one we now know to be the Witness.
It is worth noting that Mara, upon her death, inserted herself into Oryx throne and was able to transfer herself across the ascendant plane back to her own thrown, even in her weakened state, and attributes her ability to do so to her time spent in the awoken primordial broth when she had to hold her form in that “fire too thick for light”.
So already we have the Deep somewhat disconnected from the “basic” ascendant realm.
Further into BoS, Savathun and Xivu cut off Oryx tribute and he becomes trapped wherever he was. The Deep tells him “this is a place of peace” but then immediately this is followed by a dream where the deep is Oryx father and

I start wailing like I’m two days old again and I say, Dad, I thought you were my friend, I’m supposed to be safe here. But he just puts out his fist and I realize he’s laughing at me for believing him, why did I think I’d be safe? In his fist he’s got a black sun and he holds me by the throat and goes to tip the black sun inside me.

Oryx realizes what his sisters have done, and starts making a plan to revenge them (lovingly), but says

But I’m lost somewhere strange…
…When I get home from my wanderings in the Deep, and I take back my throne, I’m going to have children. That’s what I need.

Xivu reiterates Oryx being in the Deep, a place, saying

BETRAYAL. We have marooned Oryx within the Deep.

Again later on after Oryx has daughters:

he came upon his twin daughters dying in a wound between places.
“What are you doing, my daughters?” he asked. He was afraid that Ir Halak and Ir Anûk were trying to go into the Deep, where only the Tablets of Ruin allowed Oryx to go

Wound between places, is the hive term for portals between reality and unreality, their means of teleporting to and from the ascendant and their thrones. Once again the deep is presented as separate.
The drifter says that the Witness owns the whole ascendant realm, but I don’t think that means that the whole ascendant realm is the deep. If you think of it like an ocean, I’d say the witness is an oil spill, originating from the literal deepest trench of said ocean, where most cannot go. Within that ocean there are various islands and currents and shores that lead to rivers and bays, and all are affected by the oil spill.
Calus also sheds some light on this when he meets “the perfect void”

It was as if the ship had been plucked from the cosmos like a berry by some gargantuan hand, rolled between forefinger and thumb, squeezed and tested for ripeness, and then, having been found satisfactory, slung backward in an unknowable direction toward an unknowable maw.

He leaves his ship and goes out into it alone, having terrible visions of the end and whispering voices in unknown language he somehow understands, whispers that grow louder and louder
Anyway before moving on I want to quickly look at how taking works.
Ikora says:

I have been talking to Eris about the Taken.
She agrees that what we observe — the apertures, the starlight, and of course the Taken entities — is not Hive magic. If Hive arcana is a metaphor, this is the meaning; if they make appeals, then this is the judge.
The process is simple: an aperture opens, like a jaw, and swallows a living thing. It passes into — another place. Later, it returns.

Again a place, but not any throne or pyramid or part of the ascendant we’ve yet discovered or heard of in any way.

But Oryx’s fist is full of black fire, and the next thing Quria sees is a light like stars.

//

Consider IT the power Titanomach world-ender and consider what IT means. I met IT at the gate of the garden and I recall IT smiled at me before before IT devoured the blossoms with black flame and pinned their names across the sky. ((like stars?)) IT was stronger than everything.

Remember going forward, the deep and Deep are not a question of light vs dark. There are bubbles in the ocean and there are stars in the black flame. There is light in the deep, it is just smothered by darkness.
The Dragons
I’ll try to keep this section relatively brief because it’s less important, but if you want a long slightly meandering post about all the ways the dragons relate to the void and unreality and the deep, feel free to check out this post from around lightfall. Keep in mind some of that hasn’t aged well
I believe the dragons and others who “whisper” are meant to represent social organisms. This would include obviously the worms and ahamkara, but also Nezerac, Calus, The Witness, and in a different form the Nine (the nine being a causal form of the same kind of emergent pattern)
A quick and dirty tl:dr of the idea of a social organism is that when a sufficiently large group of individuals creates a sufficiently complicated set of ever evolving rules, the social group they create ends up fitting all the definitions of an organism. They evolve, they compete for resources, they trade or “mate” when beneficial, they fight, they have a life expectancy. Those that don’t make efficient rules get superseded by those that do.
And most importantly they are self sustaining and exist on a meta level independent of the will of any individual. You can watch this happen as more rules get posted on your office walls, as policies change, as leaders and workers come and go, the company exists beyond them, and either survives or doesn’t.
But of course in Destiny a social organism would be literal.
The dragons are the first, living between the leaves and roots of the flowers. They are separate from the game itself but dependant on it, feeding on “what is and what might be”.
Falling into reality at its inception they came to find new ways to sustain themselves. They still feed on what is and what might be, but they now digest reality and use the masses to do so. The worms are rather obvious in their parasitic tribute, but even the ahamkara feed off as many as possible. It’s easy to miss that Riven was essentially using tribute by sticking around Mara

Mm. And why do you roost here when there is rich hunting beyond my Reef?"
"Truly I say to you"—here Mara hides a small smile—"the Awoken have entrusted What-Will-Be to you their Queen, and thus they are all dry as a stone to me. Pleasantly so, for wetness is sweet feed, but dry stone is a friendly basking-place. You, you are as hot and flat as the plateaus of Mercury, and your heat stirs my blood to move."
Mara nods and says nothing more, though she thinks a while on the three-parted curse used by Ahamkara to mark their prey, the shackle between Appellated and Appalling.

By giving their will to Mara, every wish she made was a wish her whole people made, and when she died the weakness in their structure was exploited and the city became a trap.
In both cases they can manifest realms in unreality, realms tied to themselves and to their hosts. Again, Mara could basically walk from Oryx throne back to her own
The key difference is those in the deep have only one wish available, survival, while those in the sky are possessed of ennui and their wishes are fleeting like the ahamkara.
The Will of the Thousands, and the Thousand Voices
We know little of the proto worms, but Both Ahsa and Leviathan seem to speak in frequency that controls the swarming millions of small life forms above the ice shelves/planetary core they live below. Ahsa could also apparently freely travel the ascendant plane to span huge distances over countless millennia, so clearly it’s not just the corrupted worms that are tied to unreality
Speaking of planet cores, the nine seem to have consciousness only because of our many billion individual lives we live and choices we make. They inhabit the void, and are both realms and entities, and the void is where the dead seem to “go” based on what we know from Thanotonics. Their realms are also named “infinity/eternity/heaven/hell”. They are a place and an entity made up of and dependant on us, maybe even made up of our countless dead

We try to guard and nurture you. AND WE CHERISH YOU AS SHADOWS CHERISH FLAME watching your swift bright lives flicker, die SUSTAINED BY THE PATTERNS OF YOUR THOUGHT – Do you understand our fates are intertwined? FOR YOU SEED THE ANISOTROPY WE SUSTAIN but decay is decay is decay A COLOSSAL FRAGILITY, A COMPLEX FIDUCIARY. T O N G U E L E S S W E T R Y T O S P E A K There must be - another way we must become + more than we are always together = never touching .dependence i s deathfated.

when you whisper to the void does it whisper back?
We know the least of Nezerac, but he too infected the consciousness of whole civilizations, starting cults and feeding off their fears, manifesting and dying only to return from the void to haunt more civilizations.
For Calus I’ll just mention that his power is basically that of an ahamkara, given to him by the witness, and he makes races sign bargains then turns their planet into an “Ananthema World”, the leviathan sputtering to life to grant their wish but he screws them over like an ahamkara, enslaving or destroying them and taking a shadow from them.
Finally the Witness. I believe that while the dragons and others may represent more general ideas of social patterns, present across many societies who starved or thrived, the Witness represents something more specific.
I believe it is the manifestation of Fascism or systems of control like it. Not one born out of necessity for survival, or gluttonous excess, but instead born of a desperation for purpose in an empty sky. One who demands order, and brings “salvation” with burning hatred in its heart.
We know that the witness race gave their lives to create the witness, but I think it is more than that. I think they feed it, actively, like the other meta beings are fed by the many actions and choices of individuals, and that the Witness race is stored in the Deep. I believe that the deep is not quite a throne world, not quite like the vex network, not quite the same as the Neomuni neural network, but shares qualities with all of them. I believe it is the penultimate form of a game within a game and has been present in Destiny since day one.
I believe it is the system of seven suns
THE TWIST

Beyond.
It is a place, a place casting shadows and emotion.
It's a real place, I know.
One hot blue sun, say. And other suns too. Five? I like seven better. What I'm recalling is a giant star with a family of six smaller suns, and you could spend days and nights counting all of the planets circling those suns...except there are no planets. Not anymore. The powers in charge have carved up all of the worlds, and maybe a brown dwarf or two for good measure. With that rubble, they fashioned a topologically creative enclosure, a twisting of space and time sealed behind doors that admit only those who know the magic words. The bones of a hundred planets have been cut smooth and laid out like a floor, a polished and lovely floor creating vast living spaces. A floor bigger than ten thousand worlds, catching the fierce glory of the seven suns. For light, for food. For beauty. And nothing escapes. Not heat, not gravity. Not even the faintest proud sound.
It could be anywhere. It can live in the cold between galaxies, or folded up inside matter, near enough to touch right now...
I remember it and maybe it's exactly as I describe it. Seven suns wrapped inside magic. Or it's something else entirely, perhaps. A place still fat with life. An abundance of sentient souls, some decent, maybe a few of lesser quality, and everybody stands about or floats about, or they bounce between dimensions. The point is that the residents of this hidden realm live inside a bottle so perfectly hidden that they can't see beyond their own borders. Which shapes a mind in very specific ways.
But, Beyond is their name for a mysterious, doubtful realm that they can't see.
Which is us, of course.

Honestly, I’m surprised I haven’t seen this brought up before given that bungie cannot stfu about stars any time they talk about the deep or taken.
Why did we assume it’s in the traveler? Because it’s where ghosts come from? What part of that description sounds like any theme related to the traveler if you really break it down?
And now we are going into the traveler, and to me the pale heart sounds nothing like the So7S
How about this:

I remember the moment we were born. There was pain, and loss, and a feeling of falling. Was this the end? The shadows gathered, colored bruise-purple and gray in Our fading consciousness.
Our shell cracked and splintered. Parts of Us were lost, or carried away. We felt those wounds, jagged and sharp. We could feel them still, attached by a gossamer-thin strand of understanding.
We felt a garden with no blooms. A valley shrouded in gloom.
We felt ourselves dying. We didn't want to go. Then there I was, separated from the whole. I could feel it shrink, slip back into itself, dim and unseeing. I knew it was waiting. Resting. Watching. Considering.
And I knew what I needed to do. Somewhere in this wide, amazing galaxy there was a person. They were quiet and dead, like We had been, but I could bring them back. I could share what was inside of me, this glorious warmth and life and breath and being.
Together, that person and I would do what We, the We before me, could not.
I wrapped the spark that was me in metal and glass, a tiny bit of something that reminded me of the home We had shared. Then I set out to find my person. The keeper of my Light.
There were so many people. So many still, fragile things, decaying into dust, lost to memory. I touched each one, looking for… something? A fragment of ember under the ash?
I didn't find it. I know now that there is one person, only one, that is mine. I have been to many planets. Seen things I never knew were possible. Hid from monsters. Followed dreams. I have seen others of my kind, the other pieces that were once Us. Their search is over. They are complete. Stronger. Braver because they found their counterpart.
I am alone. I know you are still out there. That you're waiting for me. But it has been so long, and I am so…
Very…
Cold…
I will rest here and think about Us.
For…
A…
Moment…
Cold…
Where…
We…
You!

Notice how the Ghosts made themselves, at least physically? They wrapped themselves in metal and glass to remind themselves of the place they were from. A place where they couldn’t see out from. A place with barren planets turned into a polished and lovely floor creating vast living spaces
This isolated place, where they cannot see the outside world they affect, makes for “very specific minds”. Minds that might feed a very single minded space nazi cloud?
They were ripped from a whole, connected by gossamer strands, gossamer literally being thin bundled spiderwebs. Like the weave maybe? Because the witness race used the veil in their ritual?

In the noise, in the oppressive weight, I learn pieces as delicate as spiderwebs, as scattered as stars

Now look at the new CE lore book Entelechy
Entelechy means

the realization of potential.
-the supposed vital principle that guides the development and functioning of an organism or other system or organization

In Entelechy the witness race is described as using Glass Minds, something Eido says must be connected to the vex
But then look at this description of the garden world they try to make:

I arrived at the garden-to-be to find barren rock, as lifeless as the expanse around it. Just as the surveys said.
It's perfect. Rather, it will be perfect.
Yes, now I can see the path to the [summit/Pyramidion/final shape]. Here, the matredda blade-leaves. There, the green-glass isbati blossoms arcing overhead. I have brought enough progenitor material to seed a hundred worlds, never mind five! In time, there will be a grand harvest of panacea from this garden. I'm sure both you and your [Merciful/Penitent/Benefic] will be pleased.
I could cover these bare rocks with greenhouses, of course.
Rows of neat enclosures, lights in just the right spectra, growth solutions mixed to just the right proportions, microclimate domes calibrated within a fraction of a degree. Very neat. Very efficient.

Glass gardens over barren rock. Sounds a little familiar doesn’t it
Later the fundamental problem with the witness race search for purpose is revealed, the thing “the We before me couldn’t do”

RS6243199
The purpose and the means are inseparable. It is simple teleology. We are not advocating for needless cruelty. There are countless methods of intervention at our disposal with compassion as their guiding pillar. The [transition/uplifting/enlightenment] would be uncomfortable, naturally, but the alternative is to sit idly by and watch the inevitable extinction of a species. An extinction we could prevent!
HN W047622
If the final shape truly is the greatest good imaginable, then its rightness should be self-evident. It should be so clear to anyone and anything that comprehends it that we should never need to do more than share the information for them to reach the same conclusion.

Eido, ever the guardian, remarks

We can see in this log that HNW and RS, at least, were preoccupied with the concept of a higher purpose. They sought the final shape, but at the time of this exchange, they did not agree on what it was, or how to achieve it. RS speaks of how the final shape will prevent suffering and maximizing benefit;
HNW expresses concern over the methods of achieving this.
I notice, however, that they never speak of communicating directly with the species they discuss. There is no consideration of consulting others, or even if they are capable of reaching the final shape for themselves and others. The most pressing matter, in their discussion, is if they should or should not intervene, and to a lesser extent, whether some coercion is acceptable for the greater good. Personally I think this is the whole narrative point of destiny. The purpose for those in the sky is those in the deep. If you cannot find purpose in the sky it’s because you’re looking inward. Sacrifice, without a promise of reward. That’s a guardian. Others are our purpose.
And I knew what I needed to do. Somewhere in this wide, amazing galaxy there was a person. They were quiet and dead, like We had been, but I could bring them back. I could share what was inside of me, this glorious warmth and life and breath and being.
Together, that person and I would do what We, the We before me, could not.

This actually reflects the last message we hear from HN right before they do the ritual and create the Witness.

I compose this message in secret. The rest of the Consensus would not understand; they do not know you as I do - did? - but they could. It is in that hope that I reach towards you now. My friend, the Consensus has won. Yesterday, the Penitent voted aye. The [Nihilists] and [Solipsists] have been destroyed. We will exuviate, and shepherd the universe to its final shape…
…Even as I say those words, I feel the old doubts crawling through my thoughts again. But it has been long, and longer still, since you renounced the Consensus and set off into the cosmos. You have not seen the violence that visited our shores; a terrible reflection of that ancient history, which we believed was behind us…
…I tell you this because I respect you. Of everyone I have ever known, you have been fiercest in your compassion; most keenly aware of the gap between means and ends. If you return, if you join the Consensus, then I will know our cause is true. That, after all this time, we have finally found our apodictic truth. I will discard myself with no regrets…
And when we have completed the process and thrown off our lesser selves... we will be perfect. Even so, I cannot help but nurture this seed of heresy, the grit which I hope will be subsumed by the pearl: that what we become will be lesser, if it is made without you. How could perfection be lesser? Yet the feeling burns in my veins, so I must share it with you.
I confess this in selfishness. I do not want to forget you.

A dark bottle, where no light can escape, perfected in polished stone and glass, where the minds within are separated and brainwashed. Drowned in the deep. No connection to the real world, no way to know the horrors their US commits. Their limited view of perfection forced on reality, wounding it, leaving it infected

they fashioned a topologically creative enclosure, a twisting of space and time sealed behind doors that admit only those who know the magic words

Wasn’t it magic words that let oryx enter the deep, and send others there to be rendered final? Secrets from Akka, whose voice was code?
The Hidden Dosier and Medusa both have a similar thought towards ghosts:

If the Light forgets while the Darkness remembers, then why does a Ghost's power of determination let it access latent memories imprinted in the dead? That's paradoxical. That should be a property of Darkness. How can such fundamentally opposed forces do the same thing?

//

AI-COM//MDSA: FARFLUNG//C3I//COVERT I AM SORRY Well. Your Ghost is very good at peeling away the cryptographic spackle I use to hide my message formats. I can't delete the headers any more than you can strip your fingerprints from your hands; being a Guardian, your Ghost would just restore them the next time you died. Your Ghost and his knack with codes. I was certain this was the right way to win your trust, but I've done just the opposite.

I think ghosts work fundamentally exactly opposite to the witness and the coding that takes place within the deep, what they referred to as “consensus”

I dream about what happens on the inside. I dream about what might happen. Are the victims devoured, and replaced by simulacra? Husked out and filled up? Is some mathematical operation conducted on them, translating them from one shape to another?
What would I see, if I leapt inside? What would happen to a Guardian? Is that how we end this — all of us leaping into the dark, to fill it up with light?

What do Eido and Mara say about the way the witness operates?

EIDO: It seeks... compression. The combination of a chosen past and limitless future into a perfect forever. A state of being that cannot be anything else, because it is everything it could be.
MARA: Taxidermy.
EIDO: But it cannot achieve this goal, can it? Not perfectly.
EIDO: What it does instead is mutilation. Its tools leave scars on reality. Great wounds that do not heal. It may preserve some elements, but it always botches the process.

The Deep, some combination of a throne and a network and code, controls memory and isolates to create “perfect” shapes.
And now it is in the memory of existence itself. In true Fascist form it seeks to achieve the final shape using revisionist history.
But the ghosts use the same power of memory in the fundamental opposite way, scanning a thing and then extrapolating all the potential that thing could have, giving it another chance
And lastly, how were the ghost actually made?
There were no magic words used, it says “our shell was cracked”. That definitely made everyone think of the traveler but if the shell was the “dark bottle” and that dark bottle is the Deep… then maybe the traveler simply blasted the Deep open?

I could feel it shrink, slip back into itself, dim and unseeing. I knew it was waiting. Resting. Watching. Considering.

I mean, that exact exchange ripped open a door to what became the Distributary, which Mara says is just like the Witness.
Let me leave you with a last couple lore pieces and you decide for yourself

I was right, at first. In the ever-expanding Blighted-place, even Light must obey the sword-logic. Even you Guardians, you best and brightest of the dying dawn…
You were not supposed to touch the Light.
How did you find your way into the King's Cellars? How did you even recognize that benighted draught for what it was? Do you not know that the Hive pursue Light precisely for the purpose of devouring it with slavering jaws and slick greedy gulping throats? How did you take (or rather, un-Take) the Blighted Light that Oryx gathered to offer in sacrifice to Akka, and ignite it so that it burned and burned the Darkness?
It was barely Light anymore. But you took it. And when you took it, you did not keep it. You set it free.

//

This is why the Light wipes away memory. It strikes away the pain of the past to break the pattern. To create the possibility of grace. This is why the Dark remembers. We need to remember how we were hurt, so we can avoid being hurt again…
…The Darkness, or the being that speaks for it, claims that the extermination of all those who choose the Light is inevitable; that the universe will be inherited by morally impoverished advantage-seekers like the Vex and Hive. Logically, I cannot see an escape—so long as I accept the Darkness's logic.
But this is exactly why we fight, Sen-Aret. Not to preserve our own lives, but to preserve the possibility that we represent. When all choices are measured by their fitness pay off—by what they do to benefit the continued existence of the chooser—the Darkness has won completely. The most important thing we can do, the most formidable blow we can strike against our true enemy, is to offer irrational grace: to choose unreasonable hope and unreasoning compassion even if it goes against calculated advantage.
It is only by disregarding the logic of mere survival that we can create a possibility of existence outside that logic.
So. If they do not offer you a spot at the campfire. If they call you naïve. If they dislike your complaints about the casual violence of the casually violent. If they quote from the Unveiling texts, tell you how the Gardener lost because it always stopped to offer peace, and the Winnower always struck—then ask who they would rather sit by at the fire: Gardener or Winnower.
Then ask them if they would like to live in a universe where no one ever sits beside anyone else at the fire.
Never forget that even in the miserable logic of the prisoner's dilemma, it is the cooperators who create the best world. Two cooperators will score higher, together, than two defectors ever could. A world of cooperators would defeat a world of defectors if the defectors could only be kept away from the cooperators' bounty.

//
MARA: Last night, I had a dream.
[I sat up straight.]

MARA: It began in nothing. Neither Light nor Dark; the absence of both. But in that nothing, I began to perceive an impossible something.
MARA: Stone hands clutching at the fabric of the sky. A mountain of screaming bone. A crumbling spire choked by kudzu. A great cancerous growth. Necrotic tendrils digging into flesh, which was earth. Darkness turned gangrenous, strangling the Light.
MARA: But I was not afraid. As I woke, I felt the lingering warmth of a campfire, chasing the chill from my hands.
[She leaned forward. Though I was the one who recorded her words, I believe she was speaking to you.]
MARA: It is not too late.

TL;DR : I think the system of seven stars where the ghosts come from is “within” the witness, and the souls within are “light drowned in the deep” that empower it like the other whispering forces such as dragons are empowered by those under their control

I hurt myself yesterday in such an odd way during my HIIT class, I’m going to do my best to explain. The exercise was doing squats while holding a sandbag (sort of a duffel shaped bag with handles. The one I was using didn’t have an exact weight marked, but ir was over 75 pounds). My legs are a lot stronger than my arms, so even though I can squat with it no problem, I was having a hard time initially lifting it up to the height I needed it. I got it kind of midway up my back, and then yanked it in an upward motion to get it to my shoulder. I overshot and accidentally smacked myself in back of the neck (around C3) and it made a pop. My neck has felt stiff ever since. Not excruciating pain, but like a bad crick in your neck you get from sleeping funny. Unsure if this is a soreness that will just last a few days, or if I need to go to a doctor. And if I do need to see a specialist I have no idea where to go. Open to advice

The surgery was performed by a truly skilled surgeon. He said the kidney tumor was caught so early that he was able to save 99% of my kidney.
With that said, recovery was brutal. The initial pain in recovery had me really willing to embrace death. Thankfully, the nurses that took care of me truly prioritized pain management. I bluntly told the primary nurse that tramadol isn’t going to cut it and the hydromorphone didn’t last the 2 hours it was intended to.
The doctor substituted the tramadol for norco (10mg hydrocodone/325mg acetaminophen) and it helped immensely as the hydromorphone wore off.
I was sent home the following day and slept quite a bit. This was truly the hard part. I am an active man that frequently works out (weights, strength training) and felt utterly weak. Feeling physically weak takes a mental toll, especially if working to be big and strong is a part of your routine.
My employer and peers were very supportive, bringing me more food than I could eat. I am forever thankful for their generosity and support. I’d never felt that before. They even started a donation fund to help pay for medical bills. Truly, what a wonderful place to be. I’m a Detective and having the support from my brothers and sisters was paramount for my mental and physical health.
The first four weeks were rough. I wasn’t supposed to lift more than 10 pounds… did you know a gallon of milk is almost 10 pounds?! I found out the hard way.
After 4 weeks, I flew to Alabama for training and met so many awesome people from all over the US. In Alabama, that was the first time I worked out and I definitely over did it. I felt fine the next day, and kept working out and reading. It was nice being in a hotel, alone, with the ability and freedom to consider how I am to move forward.
I’ve been going to the gym again on a daily basis and feel stronger than ever. I’ve received many compliments regarding how I look better than before. I don’t see it, maybe they’re just being nice.
So, a little less than 2 months after surgery, I’m back to myself, but with a certain sense of mortality that I hadn’t experienced before. All the wild and dangerous things I’ve done at work and the thought of dying rarely, if ever, crossed my mind.
Life is beautiful. I’m glad to be back to normal (mostly, as normal as I can be).
If I can offer any advice to someone going through diagnosis and surgery, it would be this:
Make sure your doctor is on the same page. Make sure he’s experienced in treating people with this rare anomaly. Keep your head up, because it will get better.
Stay strong, my friends.

Tw: E D mention
i have been through a lot this year to the point that I relapsed into depression and extreme anxiety. I started the year hospitalized because of a gastrointestinal virus which caused me chronic diarrhea and vomiting. I ate but I suffered from malabsorption, so losing weight was inevitable. It pissed me off because before I used to eat food without being afraid and even ate more. I’m in treatment for an ED. My weight in 2021-2023 was great, and my food intake was better.
Now it all went to shit. The virus left me with a post infectious irritable bowel syndrome that causes my intestine to react erratically with food. Some days, I can eat soup with chicken and rice the other day that food could cause me cramps (the pain is debilitating) bloating, loss of appetite, and a lot of nausea. It’s like a Russian roulette. My food intake has lowered at dinner (I just eat chicken breast with oregano) and even that can cause me pain, but it is more tolerable than other foods. At lunch, I eat sometimes a little because of fear of pain. Yeah, I also get that after I eat. It depends on the day, but I don’t trust my intestine anymore. (I’m now trying intuitive eating, and still after I have pain when I feel satisfied)
The thing is, this situation has got me traumatized? Scared? To the point that it causes anxiety, and mentally I feel bad and guilty for not being enough, as I’m afraid of losing weight (I went to my nutritionist two weeks ago, and told me that I was in a normal range but I cannot lose weight. I need a little bit of improvement like perhaps eating more at night)
Not to mention, thinking about what should I eat or not to eat, this obsession with the thoughts of food being dirty if it’s not “healthy”. I guess my mom’s has influenced me at some point to believe that. For example, I was getting the courage to try something at night like a chicken sandwich with the guide of the nutritionist (like, adding something that won’t cause my gut to explode) she told me that bread doesn’t “feed you” and that kind of triggered some ED thoughts, and the worst one is “the feeling of being dirty”.
I love bread. I eat it in the morning with turkey (separately) the bread is made in ny country and is very delicious. It’s soft, and tastes like heaven. I love the texture, the taste, and the after taste. I will admit that I drink chocolate milk ( apparently my belly is stronger in the morning) and it doesn’t cause me pain or nausea. Tbh, breakfast is my favorite time of the day. I don’t vary because is not too sweet, spicy, or salty. There’s like a balance, it’s soft, warm, cozy. I tried eating fruit, but I hated the sweetness of it, not to mention, when I ate a melon it gave me nausea. I tried also bananas, and made me feel nauseous and took my appetites, apples are acidic for me, I can’t eat cherry ir strawberries (doctors order) because it’s acidic, grapes more or less but sometimes it’s over sweet. I don’t know how to explain it. But the after taste also makes me nauseous.
Either way, my mom’s comment made me feel bad, like I’m not good, that what I eat is dirty. I’m trying to get out of that fear of eating food (even if it would cause me pain) yet it triggers my ED, and I step back.
I don’t know what to eat anymore. I just want to enjoy food that won’t cause me pain and food that I like, also my freaking bread without feeling bad. Even if I am with the nutritionist ny mom’s comment overpowers the doctor’s words.
I have become so anxious, depressed, I feel like I won’t get better, that my own body is a Russian roulette.
Why did I have to get sick, why PEOPLE need to comment about food.
I want to heal, I don’t want to be afraid of food anymore, I am afraid because of the pain and because I still have that stupid ED triggers that even though I’m not letting them win my day gets ruined, and I can’t stop overthinking.
Is this food okay? What I’m eating is good? Am I doing good? Will that food cause me pain? What if people see me as if I’m anorexic even though my bmi is in the normal range?
I don’t know what to do.

Unsurprisingly, Jordan has vouched to intercept any drones heading towards Israel from Iran which enter its air space. Seeing as there is often commonality with the “formal” bourgeois leadership of the PA and the Jordanian monarch, let’s say the PA ends up vicariously siding with Israel against Iran, where does the situation go at that point?
If the hatred of the IR is stronger than the hatred of the occupation, what is to be done? If the region doesn’t want war, and if they don’t want Iran’s help, the only option is to submit to the US/Israel, right? Every single country in the Sunni-sphere has been “normalized.” The axis appears to be the final domino still standing.
At this point, I just hope that no civilians are harmed and that all targets are military.

Hey all, 219MTB (or the Redditor formally known as bmied31) here, and I'm attempting to start maintaining and updating my buying guide and FAQ posts again. I started getting into cycling about 10 years ago and was so lost. Over the last decade I've spent a lot of time learning about the industry and what makes a good bike. Every day I see dozens of posts asking what bike I should get, or what is a good value bike. I hope this guide can be used as a tool on this forum and others to help them find a bike they will be happy with for a long time. This is a living document. I will attempt to update it on a semi-regular basis and I'm always open to new bike recommendations.
In addition to this guide, I have created two FAQ's as well that answer common mountain bike questions.
FAQ 1 FAQ 2

What to look for in a bike

When looking for a starter bike there are a few things I'd recommend that will get you onto a solid and safe bike that should be built to last and be worth upgrading as you see fit. Before we get started on talking bikes and prices, always make sure you're getting a bike that fits you. If the bike doesn't fit, it doesn't matter how good of a deal it is. Also, this guide is assuming you are intending on riding on actual mountain bike single track, not just smooth dirt paths and gravel. If that is all you are hoping for and don't plan on advancing beyond, any entry-level mountain bike from a major brand like a Trek Marlin 5 will do just fine, but if you are hoping to ride anything above green-rated singletrack, I'd suggest a more capable bike.
First, some rough price guidelines. As low as $500 should get you into a used but solid entry-level hardtail and about $900+ can get you a used but decent full suspension. In regard to new, you can double those prices. A new solid entry-level hardtail will be at likely be $900 and around $1800 for a decent full suspension bike.
Regarding used bikes, there are lots of places to look. Used bikes offer you a ton of value and is the best way to get the most for your money. You can get 2-year-old $4000 bikes for a huge discount. The most common places are Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Pinkbike, etc. You also can sometimes find great deals at local bike shops selling demo models (which often come with warranties) and rental fleets. Rental bikes are usually good options. They typically are well maintained and only have a season or two on them before they replace them with something newer. If you are new to the biking world and looking at used bikes, I'd recommend bringing along a friend who knows bikes or at least ask for advice on here. Lastly, if meeting someone, always be smart. I would recommend meeting at police station and bringing a friend. Now, let's get into the bikes.
Last but not least, people here are often willing to help narrow it down. Feel free to post on here a "which bike post" but follow the guidelines of this sub listed below.

• The type of riding will you be doing.
• Where you will be riding.
• Your budget (with included currency).
• What you like/didn't like about your current bike.
• Your experience level and future goals.

In addition to that, if you are listing multiple bikes, please use 99Spokes.com to create a side by side comparison. Providing this side by side comparison will make other members of the sub much quicker to help.
These are the specs I’d look for at minimum as of 2024.

1. Air fork: The cheapest fork I'd safely recommend is something like the SR Suntour XCR Air fork. Anything less than that from SR Suntour or RST is pretty much a pogo stick with poor damping and limited adjustability. The low-end RockShox coils aren’t terrible, but I'd shoot for air. Forks can be upgraded down the road but are often the single most expensive component on the bike.
   
2. 1x Clutched Drivetrain: In the last 10 years there has been a shift to 1x drivetrains across the board. At this point, any slightly trail-worthy bike will have this type of drivetrain from the factory. To clarify what this means to those new or not familiar, 1x is when there is only 1 chainring/cog attached to the crankset instead of the more traditional 2 or 3. Bikes used to need multiple chainrings up front to allow for both high speed gears and low speed climbing gears. Now, with 1x drivetrains, the difference is made up by having a very large rear cassette. Most cassettes that come on mountain bikes now have a small cog of 10 or 11, and go all the way up to 52t on the large cog. This gives you the same amount of range as those old 3x8 bikes, but with less overlap and far more simplicity. Beyond simplicity, the advantages are less weight, less cables/derailleurs, less to think about when riding, and less chain drops etc. In addition to the larger cassette, 1x drivetrains feature a narrow-wide chainring (alternating size teeth to match the chain) which helps with chain retention and a clutched rear derailleur. The clutched rear derailleur provides extra tension on the chain to reduce chain slap and the odds of dropping a chain. For the most part, dropping a chain or it falling off the chainring while riding are a thing of the past.
   
3. Hydraulic brakes This one is pretty simple, Hydraulic brakes use fluid to move pistons and squeeze down on the brake rotor to stop the bike as opposed to mechanical disc brakes that use a cable to actuate the pistons. This typically results in stronger braking, better modulation/control/and are self-adjusting. The only time I'd suggest mechanical brakes is for a bike packing/touring bike as they are easier to fix trailside. SRAM, Shimano, and Tetkro, all offer solid entry-level brakes.
   

The following aren’t as important but will help future proof the bike and make it a frame worth upgrading. If you get a bike with all these things, it's going to be rock solid for a longtime

1. Tapered steerer tube: Most modern forks use a tapered steerer. If you get a bike with a lower-end fork/frame and want to upgrade down the road, it's easier if your bike has this. At this point this is pretty common in all but the cheapest of bikes.
   
2. Thru-Axle wheels and Boost Spacing: In theory, both of these things offer higher levels of stiffness, but in reality, the biggest reason to make sure you have them is future upgradeability. Thru-axles also keep your wheels always aligned perfectly so you don't get as much disc brake rub as you would with Quick-Release axles.
   
3. Tubeless Compatible Wheels: Going Tubeless is one of the most cost effective upgrades you can perform on a bike that will make the biggest difference. Some of the benefits of going tubeless include shedding weight, tires that are less likely to have flats, and the ability to run lower tire pressures which allows you to have more grip and better ride properties. If you ride on a regular basis, you should go tubeless. They may require a little more maintenance and can be a pain to mount/install, but the positives drastically outweigh the negatives.
   
4. Dropper Post at this point is a necessity in my opinion but fortunately it can be added to nearly any frame, so I wouldn't make it a requirement on a bike as you can easily add it yourself. Dropper posts can be bought brand new for as low as $150. There are lots of options, but in my opinion OneUp, PNW, and some smaller brands like TransX and KS offer the best values.
   
5. UDH/Universal Derailleur Hangar Compatible Frame. This one is purely convenience and future compatibility benefit, not really a performance upgrade. (Transmission excluded, more on that later) For those that don't know, all modern bikes feature a derailleur hangar. This is a sacrificial component on your bike that acts as an interface between your frame and your derailleur. If the derailleur takes a hit, the hangar is allowed to bend/break. The idea is if a softer part is allowed to bend or break first, it won't damage the frame and less likely to damage the derailleur. These hangars are usually $10-$20 bucks. Way better than a frame or derailleur in terms of repair cost. The problem however is that up until 2019 there was no agreed upon standard. Every bike had its own unique hangar for the and if you broke one you usually had to resort to ordering one online and waiting for it to come. In 2019 SRAM changed all that by introducing an open and shared design called the UDH. It was well thought out and designed and SRAM worked with most manufactures to get them to implement this on their bikes. At this point almost any high end bike is coming with this as standard. Because of that, most bike shops are going to carry this hanger, so you aren't forced into special ordering something. Also, SRAM was playing some 4-D chess with this UDH. If a bike has a UDH compatible frame, it also means it is compatible with SRAM new drivetrains called Transmission, which actually bypasses a derailleur hangar all together and mounts directly to the frame giving an extremely strong mounting point and extremely high precision shifting.
   

Value Bike Recommendations

Here are some solid entry-level bikes. Not all of them check off all my recommendations, but they all are solid for the price. I don't have first hand experience with all of them, but most bikes and options from legitimate bike brands are pretty solid.
Full Suspension (Cheapest ones that are still solid bikes IMO)

1. Giant Stance (29er or 27.5) $1400+ - Check's off most boxes, but has a quick release rear axle which is not ideal.
   
2. Marin Rift Zone 29 $1700+ - Solid Frame, lower end, but solid components. Main downside is the lack of a dropper post.
   
3. Polygon Siskiu T7 27.5 or 29 depending on frame size $2000 - This bike is lacking nothing and check's off all my recommendations. The T8 is a solid upgrade as well.
   
4. Giant Trance 2 29 $2000 - In my opinion, the best cheap bike at the moment. Check's off every box and get's you local bike shop support and a good warranty. The Trance X is an equally equipped bike with a little more travel if that's what you are looking for.
   
5. Canyon Neuron $2300 - Solid bike trail bike. Check's off most boxes, but has a weak drivetrain with the SRAM SX groupset.
   
6. Commencal Meta TR $1900 - Great frame, but has SX Groupset and is lacking Dropper post. Sale Price
   
7. Specialized Status 140 $2250 - Hard hitting trail/enduro bike. Very high end components and lacking nothing. Sale Price
   
8. Norco Fluid FS A4 $1900 - Pinkbike Value Bike of the Year in 2023. Missing nothing.
   
9. Rocky Mountain Element A10 Shimano $2000 Another solid bike that checks all the boxes. Sale Price
   
10. YT Jeffsy $2250 Solid Trail Bike that had everything you'd need. Sale Price
    
11. YT Capra $2400 Probably one of the best budget enduro bikes. Sale Price
    
12. YT Izzo $2300 Cheapest Carbon Full suspension bike you can get. Only downside is the SX Drivetrain. Sale Price
    
13. GT Sensor Sport $1725 Appears to check all the boxes.
    
14. GT Zaskar FS Comp $1800 Another solid option that checks all the boxes.
    
15. Salsa Blackthorn Deore $2200 Sale Price.
    

Hard Tail (Cheapest ones that are still solid bikes IMO)

1. Polygon Xtrada 7 $1100 - Solid bike, boost frame with air fork, but lacking a dropper post.
   
2. Norco Fluid HT 2 $900 - Solid hardtail, great drivetrain, dropper post, but has a lower end fork.
   
3. Salsa Rangefinder Deore 11 $1200 - Air Fork, Solid Drivetrain, Dropper Post. Unfortuantely no rear thru-axle
   
4. Trek Roscoe 6+ $1200 This bike check's all the boxes, air fork, good drivetrain, boost spacing, dropper post. The Roscoe lineup as a whole is a good value.
   
5. Specialized Fuse 27.5 $950 - Check's all the boxes.
   
6. Marin San Quentin 29 $1400 Check's all the boxes in terms of components.
   

These are not all the options, but they are some better and more common budget/value bikes. This list is always changing, I try my best to update it, but it's difficult to keep up.
Last but not least make sure you save some of your budget for additional accessories that you will need

1. Helmet
   
2. Tire Pump (Most high-end bikes use a Presta valve, make sure the pump is compatible)
   
3. Hydration (Either bottle cage and bottle or hydration pack of some sort.)
   
4. Multi-tool with a chain breaker and basic tools.
   
5. Tire irons/levers and spare tubes (and the knowledge of how to change both).
   
6. Bike cleaning supplies, chain lube, etc. Taking care of an MTB can be a lot of work, but it will save you in the long run if you properly maintain your ride.
   
7. Quick-link to repair a broken chain.
   
8. Spare Derailleur Hangar.
   

Along with those required things, here are some things I'd highly recommend.

1. MTB Platform shoes (or you can opt to go clipless).
   
2. Tubeless tire kit. Most bikes come “tubeless ready” but don't come with them setup typically.
   
3. Starter tool kit with the basic tools.
   
4. Suspension pump assuming you have air suspension.
   
5. Work stand
   
6. Torque Wrench, especially with carbon parts
   
7. Padded shorts or liner to wear under regular shorts.
   
8. Gloves, Kneepads,Eye Protection.
   

Extra Ways to Save Money!
Check Activejunky.com which is a rebate site can get you decent savings on a lot of bike websites.

I have been prescribed medication for ADHD for almost 20 years now. Here's my review of both families of medications:
Dextroamphetamine/Amphetamine:
- It works great for keeping you engaged in the things you do. If the kind of the ADHD you have is primarily sensorial / this medication can heighten your senses while calming down your mind.
- It can keep the anxiety that comes from oppressed inner restlessness under control and allow you to redirect your energy into your focal point meaning = "anything that you pay attention to becomes rewarding". This particularly can become problematic if you have an addictive personality and constantly shift your focal point on addictions rooted in behaviour. What do you mean by that? Sex addiction / Gambling / can get out of control with amphetamine. "Anything you pay attention becomes rewarding remember?"... Well with already rewarding behaviours amphetamine is a DISASTER. If you have any kind of addictive behaviour / specially a sex addiction / STAY AWAY FROM THIS MEDICINE. IT WILL SIMPLY DESTROY YOU. (I ended up in a sex club house for 2 days after taking my first Adderall XR 5mg)... Yup - 5mg of Adderall XR was enough to make me extremely uncontrollably hyper-sexual for 2 days. It was the beginning of a really bad Amphetamine addiction that stole like 10 years of my life.
- IF "Pleasure = Adderall + Sex" becomes a pattern... Stop using the medication as soon as possible before your brain makes the connection. (You want your brain to not make these associations ever if you want to protect your very delicate Mesolimbic Reward System operating normally). Once this system is out of whack - everything will go down like the Titanic. You are WARNED.
- Keep the dosage as low as you can and only titrate up every 6 months. Start with 10 mg Vyvanse / 5mg Addearll XR. Allow yourself to feel the medication and get used to it... There is no RUSH to titrate up neither should you be asking your doctor every month to do it. I KNOW THE MEDICATION BUILDS UP A TOLERANCE QUITE FAST. (I was on 2 x 30mg Adderall XR at one point and not feeling the beneficial effects).
- Your base dopamine levels may be higher than you think and only needs a slight balance readjustment. Again / can't emphasize enough the "lowest dosage possible"... And only for needed periods of time. IF you are on vacations or a break from school - consider taking a break. After all / CBT and DBT is much more effective than medication for ADHD so maybe it's time to start learning some behaviour techniques... Or do you want to be 80 years old taking your Adderall? highly doubt it.
- Make sure that you supplement your day with a lot of fluids and taking Magnesium Glycinate / Selenium / Zinc / Vitamin B's and Fish Oils. If you have ADHD / you are probably deficient in these nutrients so adding them to your diet will potentiate everything you take for your mind.
- Aromatherapy has organic compounds called "Terpenes". Terpenes activate neural pathways in our central nervous system that control attention / pain / stress and sleep. Having difficulty concentrating? Limonene from lemons or Pinene from Pines may clear that brain fog and pair well with that cup of coffee. Can't sleep? Linalool from Lavender will surely get you cozy. Pair this with a cup of tea? A complete mood shifter.! Do NOT take for granted Ancestral knowledge. After all / this has worked for hundreds of years... Why won't it work for another 100?
- DO NOT - UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE - PULL AN ALL NIGHTER ON ADHD MEDS. Your attention and mood need sleep. Meds may make you believe you can do anything if you take more. DO NOT EVER THINK THIS IS TRUE EVEN IF THE MEDS MAKE YOU BELIEVE OTHERWISE. You are warned. If you do begin pulling all nighters taking ADHD medication / you need to stop taking it and reassess your priorities.
- They tell you Adderall XR lasts 10 hours and Vyvanse lasts 14 hrs. That's simply not true. The truth is that everyone's metabolism is different. It may last 14 hours for Juanito when for Juanita it lasts 7 hours for a 30 mg Vyvanse. Make a journal and log everything so that you can assess if you need a booster dosage in the afternoon. Do not take more of the medication if the medication is not lasting what is expected to last. HUGE MISTAKE AND ONE I FELL IN FOR YEARS. Rather than escalating dosage / keep the primary ADHD at the lowest dosage and ask for an IR booster in the evenings. THE BOOSTER SHOULD ALSO BE THE LOWEST DOSAGE POSSIBLE. I know I've nagged a lot on the "lowest dosage possible" and trust me on this one. You do not want your ADHD medication to be the Gateway Drug to illegal stimulants as it happened to me.
​
Methylphenidate based medications aka. Ritalin - Concerta:
- Ritalin based stimulants are very effective at treating ADHD. I would say even more so that Amphetamine based medications / but it needs to be tuned to the right dose. DO NOT LOOK AT EQUIVALENT TABLES FROM AMPHETAMINE TO METHYLPHENIDATE. Dosage is extremely subjective and sensitivities to medications are not taken into account when making an equivalent dosage. For example = 36 mg of Concerta was enough for me / whereas 60 mg of Adderall was never enough. Technically the Adderall is stronger - BUT the effect I needed was on a lower dosage of Ritalin. After all = they are different molecules. TREAT THEM WITH THE RESPECT THEY DESERVE.
- Concerta is the best Ritalin XR medication out there. Give it a chance at the lowest dosage possible.
​
PRECAUTIONS:
- THESE MEDICATIONS SHOULD ONLY BE TAKEN BY PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH ADHD OR ARE ON THE SPECTRUM OR IF A SPECIALIST INDICATES YOU NEED TO TAKE IT.
- THESE MEDICATIONS WILL NOT MAKE YOU SMARTER. IF YOU DON'T HAVE ADHD - RUN AWAY FROM THEM. THEY WILL DESTROY YOU.
- RUNNING LATE ON A PAPER OR WANTING TO DO AN EXAM AFTER AN ALL NIGHTER PARTY? THINK ABOUT IT TWICE. INSTEAD / DRINK COFFEE AND SLEEP AND GIVE YOUR PROFS SOME EXCUSE TO RECUP. YOU DON'T WANT TO DEVELOP A HABIT OF TAKING ADHD MEDS TO PERFORM AT SCHOOL. IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING THIS YOU ARE WARNED. IT WILL DESTROY YOU.
​
YUP I KEEP SAYING "IT WILL DESTROY YOU". If this resonates with you = Time to get out of the drug and find a way to control the beast yourself. . . It is very difficult to do so. Taming a beast after all is not an easy feast! But who said it would be easy?
​
THE LAST THING... LOVE YOURSELF AND BE HAPPY!
​

Desperately need help figuring out what to do with a 8283 form. We moved in 2023 and donated almost every item in the house to goodwill. Almost everything was purchased in 2019 or later (bulk purchased in 2021) and in excellent to good condition. I was able to find receipts, online order information, or current price for most of the items. And used the goodwill fair market estimate for the clothes and such. A good estimate is that we paid approximately 40,000 for everything and I appraised the fair market value of everything to be approximately 13,000 which is what we declared as the donation amount. The appraisal was done using the goodwill website, looking at what the items where being sold for on eBay, craiglist, and Facebook market. For example, a Schwinn exercise bike (currently priced for 899.99) seems to be selling used for 150-300 online so I gave it the lowest of the range (150) for the fair market value.
Since the declared amount exceeds 5000$ the form ask for an appraiser’s signature and the donee signature. I went to the goodwill we donated everything too and dispite the manager remembering our donation he stated it’s their company policy to not sign tax forms. For the appraiser I’m not even sure where to start with that as we certainly didn’t get the items appraised before donating them and cannot get them appraised now.
I’m at a complete lost. We donated a huge amount of stuff, literally almost everything in the home. I was very conservative on estimating how much we spend on the item and very conservative on the fair market value even when using the goodwill website.
I’ve typed up an Excel spreadsheet detailing the numbevalue/estimate and every item to the best of my ability. I also have picture of many of the items.
Will the IRS accept the form without an appraiser? Without the donee’s signature? (We do have the donation slips they gave us when we drop things off but the slips are extremely vague). I’m not sure how to come up with any stronger validation than what I have.
I’m filed with TurboTax and talked to three of their tax “experts” and none of them had any idea what to do.

Desperately need help figuring out what to do with a 8283 form. We moved in 2023 and donated almost every item in the house to goodwill. Almost everything was purchased in 2019 or later (bulk purchased in 2021) and in excellent to good condition. I was able to find receipts, online order information, or current price for most of the items. And used the goodwill fair market estimate for the clothes and such. A good estimate is that we paid approximately 40,000 for everything and I appraised the fair market value of everything to be approximately 13,000 which is what we declared as the donation amount. The appraisal was done using the goodwill website, looking at what the items where being sold for on eBay, craiglist, and Facebook market. For example, a Schwinn exercise bike (currently priced for 899.99) seems to be selling used for 150-300 online so I gave it the lowest of the range (150) for the fair market value.
Since the declared amount exceeds 5000$ the form ask for an appraiser’s signature and the donee signature. I went to the goodwill we donated everything too and dispite the manager remembering our donation he stated it’s their company policy to not sign tax forms. For the appraiser I’m not even sure where to start with that as we certainly didn’t get the items appraised before donating them and cannot get them appraised now.
I’m at a complete lost. We donated a huge amount of stuff, literally almost everything in the home. I was very conservative on estimating how much we spend on the item and very conservative on the fair market value even when using the goodwill website.
I’ve typed up an Excel spreadsheet detailing the numbevalue/estimate and every item to the best of my ability. I also have picture of many of the items.
Will the IRS accept the form without an appraiser? Without the donee’s signature? (We do have the donation slips they gave us when we drop things off but the slips are extremely vague). I’m not sure how to come up with any stronger validation than what I have.

Hello community,
I'm SpankThatDill (known also by my alt PackDetective) and I, like many others, was drawn back into the Pokemon TCG community when SV 151 released last year. Since then, I've continued collecting for each set that has come out, mostly including 151, Paldean Fates, and now Temporal Forces.
In my short time back in the community so far, I've seen a lot of discourse and comments regarding pack weighing. One commonly held belief that I read frequently is that modern sets can't be weighed, or that pack weights don't yield any information as to what the contents of the pack are. So, I decided to test this with 2 full booster boxes of Temporal Forces, and I have the data and results to share with you all here!
To collect the data, I used a Maxus Precision Pocket digital scale accurate to 0.01g, and calibrated across the 1g to 100g weight range using a Bekith 17-piece weight set. Both the scale and the weight set can be purchased on Amazon for about $10 each.
I weighed all 72 packs, recording the weights in a spreadsheet as I weighed, and then ripped all the packs. As I went along, I recorded the following information:

• The pack weight (obviously).
• The pack artwork.
• If the pack had a hit or not (Y/N).
• The cards pulled from the holo slots (recorded as the numbers as read from the bottom corner of the card).
• The rarity of the hit from the packs with hits.

For the purpose of my study, "hits" are defined as any card with higher rarity than the standard EX cards (so standard EX cards are not considered "hits"). So this would include full arts, illustration rares, special illustration rares, and Ace Specs.
After collecting all the data, I also created some nifty graphs and charts to illustrate the results, which I will also discuss at the end of this post.
Now that all of that is out of the way, you can find all of my tabulated data HERE! This link takes you a Google Sheet. Navigate through the 4 tabs to view my background info, raw data, graphs, and conclusions/FAQ.
You can also view just the graphs and data visualization in this Imgur album!
The overall conclusions drawn from this study are the following:

1. Unfortunately, you CAN still weigh packs and filter out the vast majority of packs that contain an IR, SIR or Ace Specs based solely on the weight of the pack.
2. The vast majority of packs weighed between 22.40g and 22.47g. I got hits out of these packs ONLY 7.6% of the time. Of the packs in this weight range that contained hits, every single hit I pulled was a normal (non-golden) full art card.
3. Of the 10 packs that I opened that weighed more than 22.47g, every single one had a hit (IR, SIR, or Ace Specs).

Finally, I'll include some brief data discussion below.
Can a reliable trend be established linking pack weights to hit probability in the Temporal Forces set?

• Based on my findings, you absolutely CAN make logical predictions about hit likelihood with a very high success rate based solely on the weight of a pack.
  So which packs have all the SIRs then?
  
• While I cannot tell you exactly which pack will have an SIR based on its weight, I can confirm that an Ace Specs, IR or SIR will almost certainly come from a pack that weighs more than 22.47g.
  

It looks like hits are coming from all types of pack ranges. Doesn't this disrupt or disprove your trending?

• The overwhelming majority of hits come from packs weighing more than 22.47g. In my sample population, the only hit types that were pulled from packs weighing 22.47g or less were non-golden full art cards. In a sample size of 72 packs, every Ace Specs, Illustration Rare, or SIR was pulled from a pack that weighed above 22.47g.
  Your data table has a 110% hit ratio for packs weighing 22.48g and above. How is that possible?
  
• One of the packs I opened contained an illustration rare and an Ace Specs, so 2 hits came from 1 pack. The 110% number is a data artefact of the double pull from the way I calculated my results .
  You're just some random guy on the internet. Why should I trust that this data is real?
  
• The beauty of scientific inquiry stems from the public review process. Anyone can repeat what I did and create their own data table to verify my results. I personally have nothing to gain from fabricating these results and if I were a pack seller, I definitely wouldn't want people to know this data.
  Why is there no data about gold full arts?
  
• I didn't pull any out of 72 packs so I have no data I can report.
  Can this data be extrapolated to older or newer sets?
  
• It's difficult to say as I haven't weighed any other sets. However, in my opinion it would be reasonable to assume that other sets could also be weighed provided that TPCI used the same types of cardstock, inks, and foils to print those other sets AND if the sets were printed on the same packaging machines. Further, I suspect that TPCI has pretty robust packaging validation data that supports their rarity claims for each type of hit.
  Do you plan to expand on this data set, or to repeat the study with other sets than Temporal Forces?
  
• Maybe, depending on the reception to this study. There is a pretty high cost barrier to entry to get a meaningfully-sized data set. I paid $200 total for the two booster boxes that went into this study, and I can't promise that I will be able to do that again with every set. However, I would definitely like to continue building data populations for every set!
  Is it possible that certain pack artworks more frequently have hits than other artworks?
  
• My gut feeling on this is that any trend linking artwork to hit rate observed in my sample set is just coincidence, though I can't be 100% certain. I tracked the artworks purely for fun and to see if a trend might emerge. The evidence supporting pack weight linking to hit rate is much stronger.
  

FINAL DISCLAIMER: I conducted this study purely for the sake of the community, and I personally stand to gain nothing from the data collected herein. I will let the readers decide what they want from this data, but in my opinion, you should never, ever buy a loose pack even from a reputable vendor. Anyone out there reading this who weighs packs and sells the dud packs, you are a piece of garbage.
If you've read this far, thank you! I'm happy to answer any questions you have about my data or my process!

Hi everyone,
I've been using a Logitech G27 with irFFB on iRacing for years and I just got my first DD base ever (CSL DD 5nm) plus the McClaren wheel. After using it for a few hours last night, I'm finding that I'm spinning a lot while driving, and the feeling that I get from the FFB is not much better than what I was used to with the G27. It's definitely smoother, but doesn't really feel stronger or more detailed to me. That is not at all what I expected from this upgrade so I'm attributing the spinning to me just not being used to the new base/wheel yet, and I'm attributing the perceived lack of improved feeling to not having the settings dialed in correctly.
I started down the road of installing some profiles that someone linked to on the Fanatec forums, but stopped because I felt like I was in a little over my head but also I think the profiles were for a different strength base, so I wasn't sure what that would do. I'm also not really sure what the profiles do in general - are they just setting the different sliders on the Tuning Menu (SEN, FFB, FFS, NDP, etc.), or are they also doing something else?
Could anyone point me to some decent settings that I should be using in Fanalab and in iRFFB? I've found other settings but I can never tell if they're for the 5nm base so I don't know if they're actually applicable to me, or if I need to make some modifications to them, or if I need to start with something else completely.
Also, I probably had this problem before with the G27 but never really cared about it: how do I make sure that I'm not clipping the FFB if I'm using iRFFB? I know that, without iRFFB, iRacing's built-in "auto FFB" should set it so that it never clips, but I can't figure out how to make sure that's not happening with iRFFB.
Finally, a few other quick questions:

1. Should I update Fanalab? I'm using version 2.00.09
2. Should I update drivers for base/wheel? In my "Fanatec" app I see that I have Wheel Base 1.1.5.5, Wheel Base Motor 1.0.1.3, Steering Wheel 40, and Wireless QR 6.0.0.2.
3. Should I update firmware? In my "Fanatec" app there's a big red button that says "NEW FIRMWARE AVAILABLE," but I've read multiple stories lately about firmware updates bricking bases. Not sure if updating the drivers and/or firmware would improve the feeling that I'm getting at all.

Thank you in advance.