Just wanted to update and thank this subreddit for helping me through the past year and a few months, and give an update to anyone who might be in a 1st DUI situation.
Arrested for DUI in February 2023 in PA(0.12, no accident, just simply pulled over). Completed ARD (12 HR Course, 30 Day suspension, $700 in fines, 6 months unsupervised probation). Started ARD in May 2023, completed class, fines, and all requirements by end of May 2023). Released early from ARD in August of 2023.
Due to the completion of ARD everything from this was supposed to be expunged, however come May 2024 everything is still flagging on a background check. I am currently still working with my legal council to get this expunged, however they basically make it impossible to get a straight answer on how to get everything done and make you jump through lots of hoops and red tape.
My biggest concern through all of this was by far was the criminal record side of things, as I am 23 years old and a young professional in my field. In January 2024, I started a new sales role with an extremely large and well known corporation in my industry and was absolutely terrified about the background check. I ended up coming clean to my hiring manager before the background check, and they were completely understanding as well as never brought the incident up again!
Fast forward to May now, I receive a call from a director at quite literally my dream company asking me if I’d be interested in a new role opening up since they were looking for someone who had past experience using certain systems that I had with my old job I was at when the DUI occurred. This job was a massive pay bump, I would get to move back to my hometown near family and friends, benefits were better, overall just a huge upgrade from what I am doing now.
Then comes the EXTREMELY rigorous background check. I was absolutely terrified I was going to lose this opportunity, as well as I didn’t want to mess up the job I was at currently by telling them I was leaving and having the new job not work out. I always have thought about background checks as a “only give information if asked” situation. However, with them wanting me to start at the end of the month, I simply just couldn’t take it anymore and I brought it up to my hiring manager again. Thank god I did as they were so happy that I was proactive and told them, and informed me it wouldn’t be an issue, and that it might be a different story if I hadn’t been upfront with them!
The charge showed bright as day on my background check, and all I had to do was provide documentation to HR that I had completed the diversion program, as they still hadn’t updated my docket yet saying I have.
Starting my dream job at the end of the month and I couldn’t be happier and more relieved I was able to take this opportunity!!
In my personal opinion when it comes to job hunting and background checks, if it is just a simple DUI no extentuiting circumstances, I would guage the rapport you have with the hiring manager and make that judgement call if you disclose to them or not. I knew mine was going to show up and in my specific situation wanted to control and own up to the situation so there were no surprises later.
The last year and couple months have been the most stressful of my life being a recent college graduate, and I would say forced me to grow up so incredibly fast.
For someone out there like me who was constantly reading this Reddit and having major anxiety, depression, and other issues due to being arrested and charged with a DUI, I promise it gets better with time and getting through it is a hard but good lesson! You will get past this and overcome this, and down the line with it will just be a blip in your timeline. However, always remember how this situation made you feel (I wear a wristband on my wrist every day that I had grabbed from the DMV when I was dealing with my license issues) and use that to make sure whenever you think about making the choice to drive even after a few drinks, YOU DONT!!
Post year and a couple months, I still drink socially, however if I ever have a single drink my car is staying where it is or I won’t have a sip if I know I have my car out with me and need to get it home. Buy that uber!
You are human. You made a mistake. You will prevail and make it out on the other side a better person because of it!!

Author note: The Cryopod to Hell is a Reddit-exclusive story with over three years of editing and refining. As of this post, the total rewrite is 2,182,000+ words long! For more information, check out the link below:
What is the Cryopod to Hell?
Join the Cryoverse Discord server!
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...................................
(Previous Part)
(Part 001)
"Hell yeah, I wanna go exploring." Jason says to Calanthra with a smile. "How do we navigate around Ripspace though? Traveling to other galaxies is going to take billions of years, right? Surely, there's a shortcut."
"Ripspace is not as it seems." Calanthra explains, gesturing grandly to the epic sight before them. "It is a connection between the past and the present; the near and far. The further away or the further back you want to travel, the higher the price you will have to pay."
Jason's smile vanishes. "Wait... you can use Ripspace to travel back in time?!"
"No." Calanthra clarifies. "Time is linear. We cannot travel through it. Some can slow it down or speed it up. A rare few can even pause it for a short while. But moving forward and backward is impossible. Countless have attempted to do so over the eons, but all have failed."
She looks at Jason meaningfully. "Many Rulers would wipe out galaxies if it might let them obtain such a power. The fact they still haven't proves it is impossible."
Jason nods slowly. "I won't lie. I have a lot of regrets. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and save my daughter from dying."
"Everyone has regrets." Calanthra muses, looking off into the distance. "I have plenty, myself. But it's better this way. There would be pandemonium if time travel ever became possible."
She pauses before continuing with her explanation. "While we cannot go back in time, we can look back into time. Pinpointing exact moments in history is difficult, to say the least, but it is possible to use Ripspace to search for key moments in intergalactic history."
"So it's like a massive seer-stone." Jason muses aloud. "But wait, didn't you imply earlier that you used Ripspace to travel to the Milky Way from Andromeda? How does it allow you to jump between galaxies? Are other species using Ripspace for intergalactic travel?"
"You can indeed use Ripspace to travel to distant reaches of space." Calanthra explains. "But... you have to pay a certain price. Akasha's Barriers still protect every galaxy. Cosmics cannot travel between them easily. Mortals can, but the price we must pay is unimaginably steep. That is also the reason my mother perished not long after arriving in the Milky Way and giving birth to me."
The Fairy Monarch sighs softly.
"My people used the power of Ripspace to travel to several other galaxies. We were fortunate that the Creator had died, allowing us to take up residence here in secret, but the Angels, Titans, and Dragons were still a threat we could not overlook. Later, the Volgrim rose up too, and that was something that worried us for a while. Particularly when their Sentinels began to rapaciously erase the lives of innumerable Sentients."
She waves her hand. "Ultimately, very few galaxies didn't have a Ruler in power. Traveling to one that did meant flipping a coin and praying our people could avoid their gaze. Sadly, time has shown me that we were likely unsuccessful. I have lost contact with all my sisters across the cosmos."
The image of innumerable galaxies floating in the distance changes before Jason's eyes. Calanthra manipulates some unseen power, causing herself and Jason to suddenly materialize directly in front of a beautiful spiral galaxy.
"This is our Milky Way." Calanthra explains, waving her hand to conjure another, far bigger galaxy beside it. "And this is Andromeda."
"Is it just me or does Andromeda seem... brighter?" Jason asks.
"Andromeda contains far more interstellar particles, cosmic energy, and latent magical power than the Milky Way." Calanthra says. "Of course, in the ancient past, it had even more than it does now, but such is the way of entropy and Chaos."
Jason nods. "How exactly do galaxies lose power over time? Doesn't this feel self-defeating in a way?"
"Every Ruler enters the Unending War with a strategy." Calanthra says, motioning with her hands to disperse the galaxies and reveal images of ghostly creatures, some standing on two legs, some on four, and plenty that appear as mere blobs of energy. "I cannot pretend to know the thoughts of such high and mighty beings, especially as I am a mere mortal myself. Even so, I can definitively state that there are Rulers who seek to put as much galactic energy into their initial creations as possible, while others wish to adopt a more energy-efficient growth-model."
She pokes her finger against Jason's chest. "Take the angels and humans, for instance. The Creator poured the vast majority of his power into creating a galaxy full of Apex Cosmics. At their peak, the angels as a whole commanded enough power to flatten other galaxies. But what did they do instead? They fought with one another, killing themselves due to sheer boredom, if not outright ego."
"I see." Jason says, brushing Calanthra's finger away. "So the Creator dumped all the Milky Way's energy into the angels. I take it this is uncommon among Rulers?"
"Of course. It's a wasteful strategy and usually loses Rulers the War for that Eternity." Calanthra says dismissively. "The Timeless used a different strategy. She created the fairies as mere mortals that evolved over time, gaining greater and greater power through their own efforts. This meant that instead of devouring Andromeda's abundant Cosmic energy, they could slowly sap off its excess over time. For you see, the more energy a galaxy has, the more it can produce. If you ration it long enough, you can reap more of it across the duration of an Eternity."
"That makes sense." Jason concludes. "It's like a Rush build in an RTS versus an Economy build. You sacrifice long-term gains in exchange for short-term power. The problem is, with Akasha's Barriers preventing Rulers from attacking their enemies straight away, a Rush build is dumb because you're just wasting your resources and sacrificing Cosmic energy when you'll actually need it."
Calanthra blinks twice. She looks at Jason with a strange expression, then turns away for a moment, trying to understand the strange terms he's used. They mostly make sense, but some of them are a little...
She shakes her head and returns to the topic at hand. "Right. Rush strategy versus Economy. Of... course. Well, in any case, there is one advantage toward the first strategy. If you drain all the energy from your galaxy, it becomes less appealing for other Rulers to attack. Because Andromeda was so large and still filled with Cosmic power even billions of years after the Expansion Era, it stoked the hunger of the Dark Ones. Meanwhile, the Milky Way only needs to deal with the Plague, which is threatening for mortals, but manageable for Cosmics. In that respect, we've gotten off much luckier."
"I get the bigger picture now." Jason says with a nod. He turns to look back at the cosmos before him. "So, what about all this? Are we gonna go exploring, or what?"
"In order to explore the universe presented here, we would need to make sacrifices we cannot afford. I think you would find the price most disagreeable. But there is something we can explore freely..."
She waves her hand, and instantly, the brilliant and beautiful cosmic view of the universe vanishes.
In its place, Jason and Calanthra suddenly appear inside a dead, barren wasteland. Brown and grey dirt rises up in huge dunes stretching off into the distance. Fallen towers made of gold and stone lay on their sides, or stick into the ground, buried nearly up to their tops as they point diagonally toward the sky.
And speaking of the sky, it glows faintly grey, as if some weak, pale imitation of a star were trying to shine through a thin atmosphere clouded by dust and grime. The very air itself smells of sulfur and toxins, making Jason's nose curl up when he takes a breath.
"Ugh... what the hell? Where are we now?" Jason asks, as he turns and looks around at the dead world surrounding him.
"An Ancient Domain." Calanthra says softly. "A remnant of a dead universe. All life stripped away. All hope lost. Septillions of different Sentient species, gone. Their mortals, their Cosmics, reduced to dust by the Contraction."
The Wordsmith frowns. "This Ancient Domain represents a dead universe? But how can that be possible? If the Heat Death played out and all the galaxies faded to cosmic dust, then there already wouldn't be anything left. And then, if the entire universe collapsed into a singularity before exploding again, there definitely wouldn't be anything left behind resembling physical matter."
"You perceive reality through just three dimensions." Calanthra intones. "Time and space can be considered two dimensions. Cosmic Power is another dimension. I must admit I do not understand how Ancient Domains have continued to exist across countless Eternities, and I don't know how they retain a vaguely familiar form... but I can assure you that in spite of bending logic itself, they do exist and they can provide tangible benefits to those dedicated to exploring them."
"You've been exploring them, then?" Jason asks, turning away from the dead world to scrutinize Calanthra's phantasmal image.
"Me, a little. But often, I dispatch my descendants to scour these Ancient Domains for things of value. It may surprise you, but there are powerful artifacts, vengeful spirits, and all manner of other inter-dimensional horrors lurking within these so-called dead-lands."
Calanthra pauses. She shifts her posture to look at Jason deeply.
"And that is why I've brought you here, Jason. It's time for me to get down to the crux of the matter and breach the subject that I find most important."
He nods. "I'm listening."
"It's like this." Calanthra explains. "The Ancient Domains are unfathomably broad. Think of how large a universe is. Think of how many universes have existed. Think of how much space my people have yet to explore."
She pauses.
"The gains we have received have made my people stronger than you would expect. Among those gains are Yredelemnul's Eye and other leftover remnants of power that many dead ancient Rulers lost when their Existences became forfeit. While their tangible Existences may have perished, their spirits sometimes live on in these broad, unending dead universes..."
"That's why you approached me." Jason says, while crossing his arms and leaning on the ball of his heel. "You said you wanted an alliance with humanity. You... want humans to help you explore the Ancient Domains?"
"Trust is hard to come by among mortals, Cosmics, and Rulers." Calanthra says simply. "I never would have considered allying with the humans before, but you have shown me the broadness of your mind during the debate against your clone and the commander of your military. To some, you certainly appear naive, but to me I see an opportunity I would be foolish to ignore."
She continues. "The Fairies cannot reproduce efficiently. Every fairy we send into the Ancient Domain is one less fairy we have among our Empire. We already have a difficult time replenishing our numbers through the remaining Male Fairies, but do you think it is easy for us to reproduce with other species?"
Jason slowly shakes his head. "Blinker and Kar's children were all crocodiles, not fairies. From that, I can only imagine that most of the time, your mating attempts do not create more of yourselves, but instead more non-fairy children."
"That's exactly correct." Calanthra replies. "But that all changed recently when I found out one of your human males somehow spontaneously altered his genetic profile to become a fairy. There is no doubt about it; Samuel Baker harnesses all the capability to reproduce that you humans do, as well as the trueborn powers of any male fairy."
"So... are you seeking a marriage alliance with Samuel Baker?" Jason asks, scratching his head in confusion. "You could just ask him yourself, you know?"
"This is not about one man." Calanthra retorts. "Samuel Baker, if he were to join our ranks, would certainly help us stave off extinction for a while longer. But that is hardly worth all this melodrama and me taking you to the Ancient Domain in person..."
Jason's eyes widen in realization. "I see! You... you're thinking that if my magic could make one male fairy, I could surely make another, and another..."
"Yes, precisely." Calanthra says, revealing a beautiful smile. "Additionally, if humans were to assist us in scouring these Ancient Domains, we could make great gains together. There is plenty of room for another species to join ours in locating powerful artifacts and other items capable of Uplifting us."
"You want to become Cosmics still." Jason muses. "You haven't resigned yourselves to your current fate."
"Quite the opposite." Calanthra says. "The curse placed upon us is unbreakable by those beneath the realm of Ruler. As I said before, the fairies have lost this Eternity's war. However, while we cannot Ascend any longer, that does not mean the humans are subject to the same limitation. If we could groom a human into becoming the Milky Way's Ruler, we could finally break free of our shackles by virtue of having a powerful ally."
She pauses, looking meaningfully at the Wordsmith.
"If the Demons or the Volgrim were to become our Ruler, we would not enjoy such a benefit. At best, we would only maintain the status quo, and at worst, they might eradicate us out of fear of having an unsightly tumor in their midst."
"Haha." Jason laughs. "So you brought me here to show your sincerity. I get it. Well, I'm definitely not opposed to helping you. Blinker is my good friend. If she were to ask me, I'd definitely say yes to just about any request."
Jason turns away. He walks a few feet off to the side and pauses, standing to gaze out at the Ancient Domain and its endlessly rolling plains which stretches off into the infinite distance...
"Here's what I can do." Jason says. "My people are already working on laying out the options for humanity and where our fellow men and women will depart over the next few weeks. Some will travel to Maiura. Some will go to Sharmur. Some will stay on Tarus II. It's no trouble at all to put Pixiv on the list, especially as I was already planning to do that. I even have some other places I'd like to include, too..."
"Such as Camael's Cube?" Calanthra asks with a smile. "Or do you perhaps mean Chrona and Hope's Hall of Heroes?"
Jason nearly jumps out of his skin. He whirls around to look at Calanthra with shock in his eyes. "What?! How do you know about Chrona? How do you also know about where Hope has been hiding?? I don't even know that much!"
"For those who are talented in magic, it is possible to see through many lies and deceptions." Calanthra says calmly, unfazed by the alarm on Jason's face. "Your Spynet Sphere isn't so different from the many options I have at my disposal. I have many means to keep an eye on the galaxy. And while Diablo does not know exactly where or what Chrona is, he certainly knows of its general existence."
Her smile turns cold. "I would advise you not to take Unarin lightly either, Wordsmith. That ancient creature is more capable than you can imagine. He is hiding a great many secrets from the galaxy... secrets he does not know that I am aware of. If he were to learn of the true extent of my information web, I fear that he would dispatch a handful of High Psions to eliminate the fairy species tomorrow."
Calanthra's words truly rock Jason to his core. All along, he assumed the precautions he put on Chrona, precautions that fooled even Hope, would make his hidden dimension impossible to detect.
But how could he be so naive?
As the daughter of an Apex Cosmic, Calanthra must have her means, and that likely means Unarin and Diablo aren't too far behind either.
"Shit." Jason curses, lowering his head as a flicker of anger smolders in his heart. "I was too complacent. Chrona isn't secure, which means it's only a matter of time before more Cosmics learn of its existence. How long before they can find its exact location and invade it?"
"Calm yourself, child." Calanthra says soothingly. "The situation is not that dire. After all, Chrona still exists within a highly accelerated timespace. Any biological entity that wishes to travel there could suffer severe after-effects. Furthermore, the entities born inside will be too adapted to living within a higher dimension, so they won't pose much threat to the creatures of realspace."
She waves her hand. "Let's move on, Jason. I want to discuss other matters before dying of old age."
The Wordsmith cools himself off. He inhales deeply, then returns his attention to her.
"Alright. What next, then?"
"Fairies are not the only Sentients capable of entering Ancient Domains." Calanthra explains. "There are others who rarely appear inside here. That is why exploring these domains can be dangerous. The good news is that Cosmics have little need to enter these barren lands, as most of the heritages, treasures, and other such gains you might find inside are only useful to mortals. There are exceptions, but they are so rare as to be a needle found within ten million haystacks. A waste of effort better spent simply progressing one's Cosmic power the ordinary way."
"So what you're saying is, when you send fairies into an Ancient Domain, they can die as a result of crossing paths with Sentients from other galaxies." Jason concludes. "But if you had an army of humans to enter with you, your people would be a lot safer."
"Safety in numbers, yes. And you humans are... uniquely advantaged in Ancient Domain exploration." Calanthra says mysteriously. "Before that, though... do you know what the Power of Imagination is, Wordsmith?"
Jason raises an eyebrow. "Imagination? Like the mental ability to visualize stuff in your head? Yeah. It's not that complicated to understand."
"Ah, that's where you're wrong." Calanthra chides gently. "Imagination is the key to magical power. Imagination, Conception, Visualization, these are all key capabilities powerful maguses and sorcerors use to uplift their capabilities! And as it turns out, most Sentients are actually quite terrible at conceptualizing thoughts into imagery."
She gestures grandly. "Just take the Volgrim! You may think they are a powerful Sentient species, but in fact the Volgrim have terrible imaginations. They are stodgy, dull, and lack a great deal of creativity. All the gains their Technopaths make through technology are developed via brute force. They slowly improve their technological prowess by minute fractions over long periods of time, eventually resulting in a large and cohesive buildup."
"At the same time, the Psions Uplift themselves through meditation and sitting motionless for thousands of years at a time. Can a species capable of such incredible feats of drudgery also possess limitless imagination? I think not."
"Maybe the reason they're able to sit still for so long is because they live in their imagination?" Jason posits. "In which case their power of imagination should be quite formidable, right?"
"Possible, but unlikely." Calanthra says with a wave of her hand. "Never mind that. The point I'm trying to make is that humans have an extremely high affinity for magic. If your people were to ally with mine, we could teach you our ways. You could help us through your Wordsmithing and superior genetics, creating more fairies and humans alike. This would create a recursive cycle that would continually bolster both our species to greater and greater heights!"
She lowers her voice back to normal. "An alliance with humanity would have other benefits. You humans are equally adept in technology and magic both. You are versatile, capable of learning any skill provided you have time to devote to your studies. The bursts of inspiration you receive also allow you to make large jumps in capability as well, which could mean that in a relatively short period, you might even be capable of challenging the Volgrim."
Jason nods. "That does sound tempting, Calanthra. I'm willing to help you, but I won't demand my people join the fairies. It would be better if those who were the most interested did so instead."
Calanthra playfully twirls a finger through her hair. "Well. My daughters are all beautiful. Perhaps you should make mention that the fairies are... aggressively interested in copulation?"
"COUGH COUGH!" Jason wheezes, taking a step back as he asses her bold choice of words. "Yeah! Uh, I can probably- I'll let everyone know about that too. Obviously!"
Calanthra chuckles. "Such a cute boy. Well, it seems I've accomplished what I wanted. Let's return for now. You can always pay Ripspace a visit later."
"I will." Jason says, nodding seriously. "Waypoint."
Calanthra raises an eyebrow. "You think you can return here without a Ruler's power?"
"Won't know unless I try." Jason smiles back.
...
Not long after, Jason and Calanthra emerge back into Realspace. He shivers as he feels the Eye of Yredelemnul fixating on him from behind, but Calanthra quickly reactivates the Formation of Light, sending the sliver of a Ruler back to the shadows so it can no longer interact with the physical world.
"You know, Jason." Calanthra says. "You are a Candidate. You have the capability to become a Ruler someday."
"I am?" Jason asks, before thinking back to a conversation in the past. "Oh yeah, someone did mention that to me before. But... eh. I don't know. Becoming a Ruler sounds awful."
"Awful?" Calanthra asks. "How so?"
"It seems... lonely." Jason says, his voice softening. He looks at the space between the four statues, where Yredelemnul's Eye has disappeared. "Imagine all your loved ones dying, but you're stuck behind, living through the end of an Eternity, which takes trillions of years before Heat Death finally eradicates everything. Then comes the next Eternity, where you can remake your species again... but it won't be the same. Even if you remake your loved ones, it won't really be them."
Jason lowers and shakes his head. "That sort of life doesn't suit me."
"I understand why you'd think that way." Calanthra says. "In fact, you are suffering from the same affliction that plagues all Candidates who began their Existences as Biologicals. We have too many ties to the mortal world, so the majority of Biologicals who ascend to the rank of Ruler... fall to their non-biological opponents."
"As for the things which are not biological..." Calanthra says, looking at Jason with disgust. "You should already know what they are."
"Highly evolved Artificial Intelligences?" Jason guesses.
"That's right." Calanthra affirms. "There are several tiers of power a superintelligence can possess. The Volgrim have taken great care to prevent anything above a Beta Core from forming in the Milky Way, but once, a long time ago... they made a huge mess by accidentally creating the Milky Way's first Alpha Core Synthmind."
Calanthra chuckles. "The stupid fools didn't only create an Alpha Core, they gave it autonomy in the hopes it would be able to stop the wars between their factions. They built indestructible bipedal bodies for its splintered intelligences, and called them... Sentinels. Luckily, they were able to defeat the Alpha Core before it ascended further, but countless other biological species have failed at that juncture, creating an Alpha Core that ultimately devoured the full power of their galaxy for itself."
A chill trickles down Jason's spine. "You're saying the vast majority of Rulers are actually Alpha Core AIs? AIs that control entire galaxies?!"
"No, Jason." Calanthra counters. "Alpha Cores can defeat advanced civilizations. But there is one Existence higher than an Alpha Core, a tier that can only be reached once it has swallowed the power of a galaxy."
"That would be an Omega Core. a sentient artificial intelligence that has become Ruler over one or more galaxies. And in Akasha's game, more than 90% of all Rulers are estimated to be these superior lifeforms."
"It is for that reason that these highly adaptable entities are known as The Evolved."

"Hell yeah, I wanna go exploring." Jason says to Calanthra with a smile. "How do we navigate around Ripspace though? Traveling to other galaxies is going to take billions of years, right? Surely, there's a shortcut."
"Ripspace is not as it seems." Calanthra explains, gesturing grandly to the epic sight before them. "It is a connection between the past and the present; the near and far. The further away or the further back you want to travel, the higher the price you will have to pay."
Jason's smile vanishes. "Wait... you can use Ripspace to travel back in time?!"
"No." Calanthra clarifies. "Time is linear. We cannot travel through it. Some can slow it down or speed it up. A rare few can even pause it for a short while. But moving forward and backward is impossible. Countless have attempted to do so over the eons, but all have failed."
She looks at Jason meaningfully. "Many Rulers would wipe out galaxies if it might let them obtain such a power. The fact they still haven't proves it is impossible."
Jason nods slowly. "I won't lie. I have a lot of regrets. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and save my daughter from dying."
"Everyone has regrets." Calanthra muses, looking off into the distance. "I have plenty, myself. But it's better this way. There would be pandemonium if time travel ever became possible."
She pauses before continuing with her explanation. "While we cannot go back in time, we can look back into time. Pinpointing exact moments in history is difficult, to say the least, but it is possible to use Ripspace to search for key moments in intergalactic history."
"So it's like a massive seer-stone." Jason muses aloud. "But wait, didn't you imply earlier that you used Ripspace to travel to the Milky Way from Andromeda? How does it allow you to jump between galaxies? Are other species using Ripspace for intergalactic travel?"
"You can indeed use Ripspace to travel to distant reaches of space." Calanthra explains. "But... you have to pay a certain price. Akasha's Barriers still protect every galaxy. Cosmics cannot travel between them easily. Mortals can, but the price we must pay is unimaginably steep. That is also the reason my mother perished not long after arriving in the Milky Way and giving birth to me."
The Fairy Monarch sighs softly.
"My people used the power of Ripspace to travel to several other galaxies. We were fortunate that the Creator had died, allowing us to take up residence here in secret, but the Angels, Titans, and Dragons were still a threat we could not overlook. Later, the Volgrim rose up too, and that was something that worried us for a while. Particularly when their Sentinels began to rapaciously erase the lives of innumerable Sentients."
She waves her hand. "Ultimately, very few galaxies didn't have a Ruler in power. Traveling to one that did meant flipping a coin and praying our people could avoid their gaze. Sadly, time has shown me that we were likely unsuccessful. I have lost contact with all my sisters across the cosmos."
The image of innumerable galaxies floating in the distance changes before Jason's eyes. Calanthra manipulates some unseen power, causing herself and Jason to suddenly materialize directly in front of a beautiful spiral galaxy.
"This is our Milky Way." Calanthra explains, waving her hand to conjure another, far bigger galaxy beside it. "And this is Andromeda."
"Is it just me or does Andromeda seem... brighter?" Jason asks.
"Andromeda contains far more interstellar particles, cosmic energy, and latent magical power than the Milky Way." Calanthra says. "Of course, in the ancient past, it had even more than it does now, but such is the way of entropy and Chaos."
Jason nods. "How exactly do galaxies lose power over time? Doesn't this feel self-defeating in a way?"
"Every Ruler enters the Unending War with a strategy." Calanthra says, motioning with her hands to disperse the galaxies and reveal images of ghostly creatures, some standing on two legs, some on four, and plenty that appear as mere blobs of energy. "I cannot pretend to know the thoughts of such high and mighty beings, especially as I am a mere mortal myself. Even so, I can definitively state that there are Rulers who seek to put as much galactic energy into their initial creations as possible, while others wish to adopt a more energy-efficient growth-model."
She pokes her finger against Jason's chest. "Take the angels and humans, for instance. The Creator poured the vast majority of his power into creating a galaxy full of Apex Cosmics. At their peak, the angels as a whole commanded enough power to flatten other galaxies. But what did they do instead? They fought with one another, killing themselves due to sheer boredom, if not outright ego."
"I see." Jason says, brushing Calanthra's finger away. "So the Creator dumped all the Milky Way's energy into the angels. I take it this is uncommon among Rulers?"
"Of course. It's a wasteful strategy and usually loses Rulers the War for that Eternity." Calanthra says dismissively. "The Timeless used a different strategy. She created the fairies as mere mortals that evolved over time, gaining greater and greater power through their own efforts. This meant that instead of devouring Andromeda's abundant Cosmic energy, they could slowly sap off its excess over time. For you see, the more energy a galaxy has, the more it can produce. If you ration it long enough, you can reap more of it across the duration of an Eternity."
"That makes sense." Jason concludes. "It's like a Rush build in an RTS versus an Economy build. You sacrifice long-term gains in exchange for short-term power. The problem is, with Akasha's Barriers preventing Rulers from attacking their enemies straight away, a Rush build is dumb because you're just wasting your resources and sacrificing Cosmic energy when you'll actually need it."
Calanthra blinks twice. She looks at Jason with a strange expression, then turns away for a moment, trying to understand the strange terms he's used. They mostly make sense, but some of them are a little...
She shakes her head and returns to the topic at hand. "Right. Rush strategy versus Economy. Of... course. Well, in any case, there is one advantage toward the first strategy. If you drain all the energy from your galaxy, it becomes less appealing for other Rulers to attack. Because Andromeda was so large and still filled with Cosmic power even billions of years after the Expansion Era, it stoked the hunger of the Dark Ones. Meanwhile, the Milky Way only needs to deal with the Plague, which is threatening for mortals, but manageable for Cosmics. In that respect, we've gotten off much luckier."
"I get the bigger picture now." Jason says with a nod. He turns to look back at the cosmos before him. "So, what about all this? Are we gonna go exploring, or what?"
"In order to explore the universe presented here, we would need to make sacrifices we cannot afford. I think you would find the price most disagreeable. But there is something we can explore freely..."
She waves her hand, and instantly, the brilliant and beautiful cosmic view of the universe vanishes.
In its place, Jason and Calanthra suddenly appear inside a dead, barren wasteland. Brown and grey dirt rises up in huge dunes stretching off into the distance. Fallen towers made of gold and stone lay on their sides, or stick into the ground, buried nearly up to their tops as they point diagonally toward the sky.
And speaking of the sky, it glows faintly grey, as if some weak, pale imitation of a star were trying to shine through a thin atmosphere clouded by dust and grime. The very air itself smells of sulfur and toxins, making Jason's nose curl up when he takes a breath.
"Ugh... what the hell? Where are we now?" Jason asks, as he turns and looks around at the dead world surrounding him.
"An Ancient Domain." Calanthra says softly. "A remnant of a dead universe. All life stripped away. All hope lost. Septillions of different Sentient species, gone. Their mortals, their Cosmics, reduced to dust by the Contraction."
The Wordsmith frowns. "This Ancient Domain represents a dead universe? But how can that be possible? If the Heat Death played out and all the galaxies faded to cosmic dust, then there already wouldn't be anything left. And then, if the entire universe collapsed into a singularity before exploding again, there definitely wouldn't be anything left behind resembling physical matter."
"You perceive reality through just three dimensions." Calanthra intones. "Time and space can be considered two dimensions. Cosmic Power is another dimension. I must admit I do not understand how Ancient Domains have continued to exist across countless Eternities, and I don't know how they retain a vaguely familiar form... but I can assure you that in spite of bending logic itself, they do exist and they can provide tangible benefits to those dedicated to exploring them."
"You've been exploring them, then?" Jason asks, turning away from the dead world to scrutinize Calanthra's phantasmal image.
"Me, a little. But often, I dispatch my descendants to scour these Ancient Domains for things of value. It may surprise you, but there are powerful artifacts, vengeful spirits, and all manner of other inter-dimensional horrors lurking within these so-called dead-lands."
Calanthra pauses. She shifts her posture to look at Jason deeply.
"And that is why I've brought you here, Jason. It's time for me to get down to the crux of the matter and breach the subject that I find most important."
He nods. "I'm listening."
"It's like this." Calanthra explains. "The Ancient Domains are unfathomably broad. Think of how large a universe is. Think of how many universes have existed. Think of how much space my people have yet to explore."
She pauses.
"The gains we have received have made my people stronger than you would expect. Among those gains are Yredelemnul's Eye and other leftover remnants of power that many dead ancient Rulers lost when their Existences became forfeit. While their tangible Existences may have perished, their spirits sometimes live on in these broad, unending dead universes..."
"That's why you approached me." Jason says, while crossing his arms and leaning on the ball of his heel. "You said you wanted an alliance with humanity. You... want humans to help you explore the Ancient Domains?"
"Trust is hard to come by among mortals, Cosmics, and Rulers." Calanthra says simply. "I never would have considered allying with the humans before, but you have shown me the broadness of your mind during the debate against your clone and the commander of your military. To some, you certainly appear naive, but to me I see an opportunity I would be foolish to ignore."
She continues. "The Fairies cannot reproduce efficiently. Every fairy we send into the Ancient Domain is one less fairy we have among our Empire. We already have a difficult time replenishing our numbers through the remaining Male Fairies, but do you think it is easy for us to reproduce with other species?"
Jason slowly shakes his head. "Blinker and Kar's children were all crocodiles, not fairies. From that, I can only imagine that most of the time, your mating attempts do not create more of yourselves, but instead more non-fairy children."
"That's exactly correct." Calanthra replies. "But that all changed recently when I found out one of your human males somehow spontaneously altered his genetic profile to become a fairy. There is no doubt about it; Samuel Baker harnesses all the capability to reproduce that you humans do, as well as the trueborn powers of any male fairy."
"So... are you seeking a marriage alliance with Samuel Baker?" Jason asks, scratching his head in confusion. "You could just ask him yourself, you know?"
"This is not about one man." Calanthra retorts. "Samuel Baker, if he were to join our ranks, would certainly help us stave off extinction for a while longer. But that is hardly worth all this melodrama and me taking you to the Ancient Domain in person..."
Jason's eyes widen in realization. "I see! You... you're thinking that if my magic could make one male fairy, I could surely make another, and another..."
"Yes, precisely." Calanthra says, revealing a beautiful smile. "Additionally, if humans were to assist us in scouring these Ancient Domains, we could make great gains together. There is plenty of room for another species to join ours in locating powerful artifacts and other items capable of Uplifting us."
"You want to become Cosmics still." Jason muses. "You haven't resigned yourselves to your current fate."
"Quite the opposite." Calanthra says. "The curse placed upon us is unbreakable by those beneath the realm of Ruler. As I said before, the fairies have lost this Eternity's war. However, while we cannot Ascend any longer, that does not mean the humans are subject to the same limitation. If we could groom a human into becoming the Milky Way's Ruler, we could finally break free of our shackles by virtue of having a powerful ally."
She pauses, looking meaningfully at the Wordsmith.
"If the Demons or the Volgrim were to become our Ruler, we would not enjoy such a benefit. At best, we would only maintain the status quo, and at worst, they might eradicate us out of fear of having an unsightly tumor in their midst."
"Haha." Jason laughs. "So you brought me here to show your sincerity. I get it. Well, I'm definitely not opposed to helping you. Blinker is my good friend. If she were to ask me, I'd definitely say yes to just about any request."
Jason turns away. He walks a few feet off to the side and pauses, standing to gaze out at the Ancient Domain and its endlessly rolling plains which stretches off into the infinite distance...
"Here's what I can do." Jason says. "My people are already working on laying out the options for humanity and where our fellow men and women will depart over the next few weeks. Some will travel to Maiura. Some will go to Sharmur. Some will stay on Tarus II. It's no trouble at all to put Pixiv on the list, especially as I was already planning to do that. I even have some other places I'd like to include, too..."
"Such as Camael's Cube?" Calanthra asks with a smile. "Or do you perhaps mean Chrona and Hope's Hall of Heroes?"
Jason nearly jumps out of his skin. He whirls around to look at Calanthra with shock in his eyes. "What?! How do you know about Chrona? How do you also know about where Hope has been hiding?? I don't even know that much!"
"For those who are talented in magic, it is possible to see through many lies and deceptions." Calanthra says calmly, unfazed by the alarm on Jason's face. "Your Spynet Sphere isn't so different from the many options I have at my disposal. I have many means to keep an eye on the galaxy. And while Diablo does not know exactly where or what Chrona is, he certainly knows of its general existence."
Her smile turns cold. "I would advise you not to take Unarin lightly either, Wordsmith. That ancient creature is more capable than you can imagine. He is hiding a great many secrets from the galaxy... secrets he does not know that I am aware of. If he were to learn of the true extent of my information web, I fear that he would dispatch a handful of High Psions to eliminate the fairy species tomorrow."
Calanthra's words truly rock Jason to his core. All along, he assumed the precautions he put on Chrona, precautions that fooled even Hope, would make his hidden dimension impossible to detect.
But how could he be so naive?
As the daughter of an Apex Cosmic, Calanthra must have her means, and that likely means Unarin and Diablo aren't too far behind either.
"Shit." Jason curses, lowering his head as a flicker of anger smolders in his heart. "I was too complacent. Chrona isn't secure, which means it's only a matter of time before more Cosmics learn of its existence. How long before they can find its exact location and invade it?"
"Calm yourself, child." Calanthra says soothingly. "The situation is not that dire. After all, Chrona still exists within a highly accelerated timespace. Any biological entity that wishes to travel there could suffer severe after-effects. Furthermore, the entities born inside will be too adapted to living within a higher dimension, so they won't pose much threat to the creatures of realspace."
She waves her hand. "Let's move on, Jason. I want to discuss other matters before dying of old age."
The Wordsmith cools himself off. He inhales deeply, then returns his attention to her.
"Alright. What next, then?"
"Fairies are not the only Sentients capable of entering Ancient Domains." Calanthra explains. "There are others who rarely appear inside here. That is why exploring these domains can be dangerous. The good news is that Cosmics have little need to enter these barren lands, as most of the heritages, treasures, and other such gains you might find inside are only useful to mortals. There are exceptions, but they are so rare as to be a needle found within ten million haystacks. A waste of effort better spent simply progressing one's Cosmic power the ordinary way."
"So what you're saying is, when you send fairies into an Ancient Domain, they can die as a result of crossing paths with Sentients from other galaxies." Jason concludes. "But if you had an army of humans to enter with you, your people would be a lot safer."
"Safety in numbers, yes. And you humans are... uniquely advantaged in Ancient Domain exploration." Calanthra says mysteriously. "Before that, though... do you know what the Power of Imagination is, Wordsmith?"
Jason raises an eyebrow. "Imagination? Like the mental ability to visualize stuff in your head? Yeah. It's not that complicated to understand."
"Ah, that's where you're wrong." Calanthra chides gently. "Imagination is the key to magical power. Imagination, Conception, Visualization, these are all key capabilities powerful maguses and sorcerors use to uplift their capabilities! And as it turns out, most Sentients are actually quite terrible at conceptualizing thoughts into imagery."
She gestures grandly. "Just take the Volgrim! You may think they are a powerful Sentient species, but in fact the Volgrim have terrible imaginations. They are stodgy, dull, and lack a great deal of creativity. All the gains their Technopaths make through technology are developed via brute force. They slowly improve their technological prowess by minute fractions over long periods of time, eventually resulting in a large and cohesive buildup."
"At the same time, the Psions Uplift themselves through meditation and sitting motionless for thousands of years at a time. Can a species capable of such incredible feats of drudgery also possess limitless imagination? I think not."
"Maybe the reason they're able to sit still for so long is because they live in their imagination?" Jason posits. "In which case their power of imagination should be quite formidable, right?"
"Possible, but unlikely." Calanthra says with a wave of her hand. "Never mind that. The point I'm trying to make is that humans have an extremely high affinity for magic. If your people were to ally with mine, we could teach you our ways. You could help us through your Wordsmithing and superior genetics, creating more fairies and humans alike. This would create a recursive cycle that would continually bolster both our species to greater and greater heights!"
She lowers her voice back to normal. "An alliance with humanity would have other benefits. You humans are equally adept in technology and magic both. You are versatile, capable of learning any skill provided you have time to devote to your studies. The bursts of inspiration you receive also allow you to make large jumps in capability as well, which could mean that in a relatively short period, you might even be capable of challenging the Volgrim."
Jason nods. "That does sound tempting, Calanthra. I'm willing to help you, but I won't demand my people join the fairies. It would be better if those who were the most interested did so instead."
Calanthra playfully twirls a finger through her hair. "Well. My daughters are all beautiful. Perhaps you should make mention that the fairies are... aggressively interested in copulation?"
"COUGH COUGH!" Jason wheezes, taking a step back as he asses her bold choice of words. "Yeah! Uh, I can probably- I'll let everyone know about that too. Obviously!"
Calanthra chuckles. "Such a cute boy. Well, it seems I've accomplished what I wanted. Let's return for now. You can always pay Ripspace a visit later."
"I will." Jason says, nodding seriously. "Waypoint."
Calanthra raises an eyebrow. "You think you can return here without a Ruler's power?"
"Won't know unless I try." Jason smiles back.
...
Not long after, Jason and Calanthra emerge back into Realspace. He shivers as he feels the Eye of Yredelemnul fixating on him from behind, but Calanthra quickly reactivates the Formation of Light, sending the sliver of a Ruler back to the shadows so it can no longer interact with the physical world.
"You know, Jason." Calanthra says. "You are a Candidate. You have the capability to become a Ruler someday."
"I am?" Jason asks, before thinking back to a conversation in the past. "Oh yeah, someone did mention that to me before. But... eh. I don't know. Becoming a Ruler sounds awful."
"Awful?" Calanthra asks. "How so?"
"It seems... lonely." Jason says, his voice softening. He looks at the space between the four statues, where Yredelemnul's Eye has disappeared. "Imagine all your loved ones dying, but you're stuck behind, living through the end of an Eternity, which takes trillions of years before Heat Death finally eradicates everything. Then comes the next Eternity, where you can remake your species again... but it won't be the same. Even if you remake your loved ones, it won't really be them."
Jason lowers and shakes his head. "That sort of life doesn't suit me."
"I understand why you'd think that way." Calanthra says. "In fact, you are suffering from the same affliction that plagues all Candidates who began their Existences as Biologicals. We have too many ties to the mortal world, so the majority of Biologicals who ascend to the rank of Ruler... fall to their non-biological opponents."
"As for the things which are not biological..." Calanthra says, looking at Jason with disgust. "You should already know what they are."
"Highly evolved Artificial Intelligences?" Jason guesses.
"That's right." Calanthra affirms. "There are several tiers of power a superintelligence can possess. The Volgrim have taken great care to prevent anything above a Beta Core from forming in the Milky Way, but once, a long time ago... they made a huge mess by accidentally creating the Milky Way's first Alpha Core Synthmind."
Calanthra chuckles. "The stupid fools didn't only create an Alpha Core, they gave it autonomy in the hopes it would be able to stop the wars between their factions. They built indestructible bipedal bodies for its splintered intelligences, and called them... Sentinels. Luckily, they were able to defeat the Alpha Core before it ascended further, but countless other biological species have failed at that juncture, creating an Alpha Core that ultimately devoured the full power of their galaxy for itself."
A chill trickles down Jason's spine. "You're saying the vast majority of Rulers are actually Alpha Core AIs? AIs that control entire galaxies?!"
"No, Jason." Calanthra counters. "Alpha Cores can defeat advanced civilizations. But there is one Existence higher than an Alpha Core, a tier that can only be reached once it has swallowed the power of a galaxy."
"That would be an Omega Core. a sentient artificial intelligence that has become Ruler over one or more galaxies. And in Akasha's game, more than 90% of all Rulers are estimated to be these superior lifeforms."
"It is for that reason that these highly adaptable entities are known as The Evolved."

Im trying to find a very nice leather laptop bag in the range of $1-2K
Von Baer - I notice quite literally 100% of these guys comments on reddit are astroturfing. It's painfully obvious, and extremely scammy looking. For this reason alone I'm likely not going to buy anything from them..... but im open to being proven wrong if someone has any experience.
https://vonbaer.com/products/city-large-leather-laptop-bag
Maxwell Scott Calvino - This one looks pretty amazing
https://us.maxwellscottbags.com/products/calvino-leather-business-case.html

I want to use the VVFat behaviour that is documented here (Redhat) and here (Qemu) to let an otherwise isolated VM directly write-out to a directory on my disk, but it's not very widely talked about from what I can tell and I can't figure out how I would go about adding it to my VM in Virt-manager. Presumably I'd need to add a piece of hardware, then edit the XML for it to be a VVFat mount instead, but I have no idea how to write the XML to do that as none of the (very sparse) documentation I can find ever mentions XML configurations.
In particular I'm trying to have an extremely isolated Windows VM, but one that can still read and write to a limited section of my file system. I'm not doing malware analysis or running anything explicitly malicious, but I'm only keeping this VM around to run smaller obscure programs that don't have any clear linux equivalent or way of running under linux psuedo-natively via Wine or something similar. That also means that running some sketchy/niche programs is fairly likely, and given I also don't lose anything from keeping it extremely isolated I want to isolate it as much as reasonably possible. Basically I only want to use VVFat so that I can give it the ability to extract relatively large archives (mounted as fixed-size .isos that can be trivially created via something like xorrisofs -o ./mountable.iso ./di if they aren't an iso by default which I know a few archived games are only archived as their disk-installers) without me needing to create a massive blank .iso for it to write into. So if I want to extract a large archive or do something else disk-space intensive it can send that straight to my actual file system, (btrfs if relevant) but otherwise it has almost no access. It would be possible to create a dummy write-out iso for those tasks, but it seems like VVFat can do it far more seamlessly and, since it's only exposed as a simple FAT external drive, it doesn't seem like there is any real risk of that being leveraged if the VM did get infected. Admittedly I'm no security researcher so I could be wrong on that, but if it truly is exposed to the VM as a plain FAT filesystem I can't see how that would be leveragable by malware, at least not when put relative to actual directory-sharing.
I would be open to alternative methods of doing this, but this is admittedly a pretty niche use case since I both want it to be as isolated as possible and want to balance that against a very narrow cone-of-convenience/usability. Typically people either want it to be completely isolated or want it to be extremely usable, but I only want this VM to be usable for a very narrow range of tasks and otherwise would like it to be completely isolated. As far as I'm concerned this VM is basically only around to run software that's so niche no-one has needed it in a decade, but that one guy on a forum a decade and a few days ago shared a program that claims to be able to do it and other people said it worked, but otherwise I never plan on booting it up.
(other examples of this sort of use case would be creating stripped-down isos for other VMs. I actually had a really hard time getting a stripped down windows ISO without windows since people obviously can't distribute pre-stripped windows ISOs and instead need to distribute utilities to modify user-provided ISOs. Unfortunately these utilities often need to run on Windows, so you already need a windows machine to create the stripped down Windows ISO. I ended up just installing a stock windows ISO and using a OOBE/BYPASSNRO bypass for the account requirement thing then using CTT's WinUtility for this VM, but that's the sort of niche usecase I'm keeping this VM around for. Things where you just need to use windows and there isn't a real way around it.)

This is advice I would have given myself before I started studying, had I known everything I do now, to make my bar prep easier. I passed in July 2023. A lot of the "advice" posts on here I feel aren't very accurate, helpful, or are extremely generic.

1. Don't over extend yourself and focus your efforts on committing what you've learned to long-term memory.
   • It's better to focus on the heavily tested topics than it is to try and learn EVERYTHING. The scope of "possible" topics on the bar is so large that if you spend your time stressing or trying to learn literally everything that *could* be tested, you will ruin your mental health and miss out on review time, which is when the rules actually *click* and stick for you.
   • I tried so hard to watch both the Barbri lectures AND read the conciser outlines AND read JDadvising outlines, etc, because I was so afraid I would miss some obscure rule or example. This ended up working against me, as I barely had any time left for review by the end of it. I should have just stuck with one, focused on the heavily tested topics, and given myself plenty of time for review to commit it all to longterm memory.
2. Reserve time for practice. Dont spent all your time just on reading/learning. Do LOTS of MBE practice questions. Buy Adaptibar. Don't waste time writing essays, but try to read and do issue spotting outlines for as many essays as possible so you learn what your pitfalls are.
   • At the end of the day, knowing the black letter rule is absolutely no help if you've never seen the format of the MBE, or applied that knowledge to a prompt.
   • When I first bought Adaptibar, I got so many questions wrong, even though i could recall the rule, because I didn't understand the questions and didn't have practice applying the rule to facts.
   • The black letter rules are ultimately abstract concepts. You NEED to have practice applying it in order to pass the bar. For example, only after doing several evidence essay questions did I realize I was consistently missing easy points because I would forget to talk about relevance. Don't waste time writing full essay answers, do outlines.
3. Quit your bar prep program early if it isnt working for you, and come up with your own schedule.
   • I stuck with Barbri's program until late June because I felt I had to, when I should have quit much sooner.
   • Everyone's study habits are different. Don't stick to your program if you know it isnt working. I eventually completely stopped watching the lectures and focused solely on reading outlines and making flashcards, because I knew my problem was recall. I understood the rules just fine, so watching lecture after lecture of someone explaining the rules to me wasn't actually helping me.
4. Be okay with not passing.
   • Anxiety, stress, etc., will not help you with retention and will affect your sleep. You need to come to terms with potentially not passing. Internalize it.

Hi everyone. I've been lurking for a long time, for as long as I've suspected I've had some condition under the umbrella of neurofibromatosis. I've read so many posts from all of you over this time and I feel like I should introduce myself, and also ask a few questions of you all.
Introduction
I've always been into genetics as a hobby. My grandmother had an incredibly rare condition that took many years for her to be diagnosed with, and every day of her life she was at risk of sudden death as a result (and has absolutely nothing and no relation to any form of NF). When I started in school and learned about genetics even being a thing, I was convinced that her condition was likely a component of it. As it turns out, it is. I couldn't become a geneticist: school was so challenging to afford to begin with, even with really fantastic grades, and I was a high school dropout, so my career became something else (software engineering), but I was always interested in the subject.
Many years ago, I got several consumer-level DNA tests. One of the tests had a mutation in NF1, and I checked to see if it was a miscall. It appeared not to be. I had gotten a new job with fantastic insurance and wanted to see if I could get it checked out.
I see the geneticist. No mutations in NF1 detected, but a mutation in LZTR1 was present, along with a Variant of Uncertain Significance that had not been recorded and studies at the time (now, it's published). So I went about my life as of a few years ago knowing that was a possibility. Saw a neurologist, got an MRI, they said I looked good, life moved on.
A few years before this happened, I had a child (who does not have any of my pathogenic mutations.. I've checked). So this whole time, I started getting some symptoms of issues with my eye over the years: a symptom where i had sudden extreme pain that felt like my eye was out of the socket almost, happened twice, eye doctors had no idea what was going on. Then, a retinal hole, so I had surgery to repair it. My vision just has never been as strong there.
As of the last few months especially, I've had other symptoms on the same side as my eye: tinnitus, a feeling that my ear felt dislocated until I put it back in place, slight aching, a little bit of dizziness, and in hindsight I think my hearing was already being impacted. Less than two weeks ago, I had a moment where everything hit hard: all of the sudden, it hurt more on the same side with my eye, the vertigo got worse, I could definitely tell I had lost hearing, double vision when seeing up close. I knew in that moment that something more than just some sort of ache was going on, that this seemed worse. Also keep in mind, I actively avoid getting COVID-19 by masking, air purification, vaccines, etc. So as of now, I have never had it, and thankfully have also barely been sick at all in the past few years beyond these other unusual symptoms.
I saw my neurologist immediately after realizing what was going on. I told him what I thought this was: an acoustic neuroma, and maybe something else additional with my eye or something similar to it. The appointment ended up being really disappointing, dismissive and not at all in the direction I had hoped, and I'm going to find care elsewhere after I get my MRI because I know I deserve better than someone who does not care to drop his ego. But I did convince him to get me an MRI (it's been two years), which happens tomorrow morning. And I did also find out that my optic nerve is tortuous, especially the left side (and I doubt he reviewed it himself back in the day, beyond the written report). And I pointed out to him again about the mutation I had in NF1, and how I also have cafe au laits and freckles in patches throughout my body, that are just harder to see because I'm multiracial and they're very close to my own skin tone. And he confirmed my conductive hearing loss. And examined my ears and ruled out an ear infection. So... what else could it be in someone who has LZTR1-related neurofibromatosis diagnosis from a geneticist?
So I have, what I believe, is mosaic neurofibromatosis type 1. I think the first DNA test I saw that in was legitimate. I also think the LZTR1-related schwannomatosis is kicking in, but that I knew about. I think I have even a spot on my spine, as I've had pain there with pressure for almost my entire life (at least as long as I can remember).
And I am hoping someone can take me seriously at another place of care once my MRI comes back. Whatever is happening is large enough to impact my hearing and vision and face. And it's the weirdest experience knowing part of this in advance of it before I had symptoms I noticed. It's like every step of the way, I've had to convince someone else of what I thought was going on. But I am super lucky to know enough in advance to find the care I need. WIsh that was the case for everyone.
TL;DR: Inadvertently found out I have LZTR1-related schwannomatosis and I suspect mosaic neurofibromatosis type one. Might have acoustic neuroma based on symptoms, some optic nerve involvement based on symptoms, MRI tomorrow.
Questions
I have some questions just to generally ask. I try to search the subreddit, but sometimes it's just easier to ask in the way I need to, and I want to add a bit more detail to some of the questions to help clarify what I'm asking about.

• Is there anyone else here who has Mosaic Neurofibromatosis Type 1 and LZTR1-schwannomatosis? Or anyone that has any form of mosaic NF1 and schwannomatosis?
• For those of you with acoustic neuromas / vestibular schwannoma, is there anything you would want to know or tell anyone who goes through any treatment for it?
  • I know a ton about the general facts and procedures for the moment. I mean anything that you would have found helpful to keep in mind, or something that helped you during the treatment and in recovery?
• For those of you with anything around the optic nerve including optic nerve glioma, is there anything you would want to know or tell anyone who goes through any treatment for it?
  • I know roughly about this, but looking more for anything that you would have found helpful to keep in mind, with treatment, recovery?
• For absolutely anyone in the umbrella, what helped you cope with finding out this news?
  • I usually deal by digging deep into a subject and educating myself, which I've done ad nauseam already. But I am really struggling with what's going on, the juxaposition between how I feel just god awful physically on the daily, and also coping with this news, and how I have been treated by my neurologist and others. I imagine some of this will probably be helped by actually seeing and knowing the details after tomorrow. I know I'm pretty resilient because I've been through so much real shit in my life, and I know I am in no degree perfect, and I'm going to try to persevere as much as I can. I just try to be a good person, and life just hits me with the hardest situations. And now I have a kid that I want to do absolutely everything in the world for and that's jeopardized. And I am the only person I know like me.

I know that was a massive post. Thank you for reading. Thank you if you give any answers. And thanks for being a part of this community, I wish none of us had to face this, but I am glad there are places where we can know we're not alone in our experiences.

[ [FIRST] [NEXT>]

Season 10 “Days of Fury” - Episode 2 “Visiting Omen”

He had hoped for a boring day. Boring days are good at work, and Santos was already expecting to not have many of them for a while.
The first couple of days were boring, as usual- Blackriver is a small town, and the worst that had happened was Nila and Kessa making a few wellness checks after worried calls from neighbors. A couple of people in denial, a few ashamed at their own violent outbursts and a stern warning to Tamm about painting others’ properties without asking first.
This morning, however, began with an all-hands meeting. There were no meeting rooms in the office, so they made do in the general workspace room, they all stood there at the center while Keya looked them over.
“We have received a report from a neighboring city about a convoy of protestors making its way to Blackriver” she describes without tone. At this point nobody bothers interrupting.
“This convoy is comprised of approximately four hundred and seventy eight individuals of multiple species, primarily human and venlil but with operationally relevant representations of the entire spectrum of size and mobility types” her paws are behind her back, her ears focused directly ahead, her eyes centered to keep the entire team on the core of her focus “They have crossed multiple cities already, generally engaging in verbal sparring with any figure of authority, parading signs and banners denouncing all manners of authorities as well as occasionally engaging in physical altercations with officers.”
“They are also known to engage in vandalism. Though primarily aimed at exterminator and police precincts as well as public offices, they have already caused considerable collateral to others they have identified as ‘collaborators’” there’s a single heartbeat of waiting for breath before she continues “They have, however, not shown to be an incredibly organized group or one with a clear goal and objective. The convoy appears to contain only extremely emotionally charged people with no clear overarching goal.”
“We are incapable of dealing with the situation should they turn aggressive, as such we will be simply maintaining watch and relocating the populace should they become a problem.” Then, she picks up her holopad and passes it to Lunek beside her “They can only follow one path with the entire convoy, the central street, therefore I have divided it into four sectors. One of each will be assigned to a sector.”
First her ears turn to the first target “Lunek, sector one at the entrance. As the most approachable member of the precinct your task is to give an initial image of harmlessness. Do not engage first, do not take initiative against them. Ensure the members of the herd in the area are warned of their approach. If they become aggressive, retreat and focus on the escape of the herd.”
She tilts her head a little bit, turning her ears the other way “Marik, sector two. Mostly the commercial area, your task is ostensive protection to lower the chances of them initiating aggression. Whereas protection of the herd is first priority your second priority is ensuring Tenve’s Hardware Store as well as Sunbreeze Meals and Watchful Café remain capable of providing anyone whose residences become damaged.” suddenly, she turns her head entirely to face Marik “Ostensive protection means dissuasion, ensure that they know they are not under threat and as long as those specific areas are not engaged, do not provoke”
Next in her line of fire is Santos “As our human officer you will be in sector three, nearby the precinct. They are liable to become most agitated in this area and your presence may serve to calm them. You are not to engage, if deemed necessary the precinct’s materials are considered expendable, do not attempt to stop them”
“Sector four, the exit of town, will be with me to ensure that they have fully left Blackriver and will not attempt to turn back” then she tilts her ears again “Aren, you will gear up with a CCG and remain out of view range, your task will be quick emergency response should the need arise.” she then points her tail at the last three officers “Vess, your task will be to inform the herd and ensure a clear path for the convoy while Nila and Kessa will gather all of our medical supplies and set a staging area out of the convoy’s range. Organize ambulance assistance from Striped Hill and Everrain”
Then, she turns her ears around to focus each one in turn “As any attempt at aggression will end only in negative consequences, and in order to reduce the apparent levels of threat you will be unarmed. The estimated time of arrival is a third of a claw, ready yourselves and be at your post in time. Dismissed.”
“Not sure if I like or I don’t that we had the cold bastard right now” Aren says, as soon as Keya had left the room “Maybe we should move in closer when the convoy gets to sector four?”
“Probably a good idea to be nearby” Santos adds with a sigh “They might take umbrage with her demeanor, hopefully they won’t be set off too hard.”
And with silent signs of agreement all of the officers of Blackriver depart for preparations. The first ones to leave the precinct are the ones in charge of support, the two girls set off early to find someone willing to permit usage of their lawn as a possible impromptu field hospital and a little while later Aren leaves with a heavy CCG.
Slowly, the clock ticks to the appointed claw… And soon enough, Lunek can see in the distance the incoming omen of people. At first a distant line in the horizon, slowly the dark mark on the road coalesces into distinct shapes, the shapes of hundreds of vehicles slowly rolling down the road.
When the first few get close to the initial buildings of the main street, the entire convoy slows down. Their process of preparation is seemingly laborious, each vehicle houses multiple people at a time, smaller cars full to the brim, flatbeds with more people on their cargo space than can safely be contained, even buses conscripted for the effort. They carry with them signs, flags, a multitude of symbols as they dismount their vehicles and start spreading out to fill the street.
They seem to naturally form two distinct yet highly mixed groups, at its most distinctive is the pack of humans who keep a good distance from each other. But they are not alone in this group as takkan, mazic, yotul, zurulian and even drilvar form this central group. But flowing around them, not avoiding their presence but never infringing in their space is the grey mass of venlil, packed tight together, and mixed in there adding color to the monochromatic flux are krakotl, tilfish, sulean, iftali, sivkit and even a seemingly very confused duerten.
And at the very core of the moving group are their vehicles, which gently start rolling forward again as the group starts moving. Lunek simply waits, silently, by the side of the road, his ears attentively swiveling from one side to the other, expression having given way to function. Before the first of the convoy even arrives close he turns to the side, making a pointing sign with his tail. A woman who had been watching from her yard flicks her right ear and runs back inside.
He continues to wait, scanning around at all times for the presence of… Anything. The street is empty of locals when the first visitors start to alight. The convoy is loud, their symbols carry a loudness of colors and their vehicles make as much noise as they can to draw attention, but those who walk seem content in allowing their tools to speak for them, for now. Lunek tries to make sense of the banners and signs, but the messages are disparate as the group- Some speak of injustices against their people, some speak of anger at invaders, some speak of betrayal.
“Fuck off, fireman!” comes the harsh bark of a human, causing Lunek to flinch. But flinch is all he does, he simply starts walking alongside the moving convoy.
The exterminator’s attention is drawn to the details of the few people he can distinguish amongst the mass. Something tickles at his pattern-recognition but he cannot quite ascertain what for a while, until a lightly limping mazic makes her way to the edge of the mass “Want to finish the job?!” she trumpets, her form towering over his.
“I’m just observing, ma’am.” Though the tremor of his voice is noticeable, he remains stoic. But her proximity makes him notice something about her body, marks in her wrists, neck and feet. Though mazic have powerful wrists and knuckles upon which they support the front half of their weight, her left wrist seems completely incapable of it, giving her a limp particular to a three-point walk. “To make sure there’s no impediment on your path” he notices the leathery skin around her left wrist is deeply blackened.
“Oh, ‘no impediment’ is that it? So everyone that lives here is an impediment?!” her voice booms.
“Ma’am” still, he does not yield nor does he break his pace following the convoy “We have not done anything other than inform our people of your presence…” for a half second all he hears is the sound of his own heart “We can’t do anything else.”
Those words, then, sealed his fate. The first shout to echo in his direction was a yotul howling “Yeah you’re useless!” and soon the avalanche came in multiple voices and languages “Can’t do shit!” “You’re just here to hurt people!” “Useless crap!” “Idiot!” and many more.
With every step and twitch the very average exterminator puts all of his focus on just being there. He lets himself cower a little bit, against the barrage it is difficult not to, but he continues to accompany. A few curious coats step out from their houses to watch, but the front of the convoy seems far too focused on the sole exterminator in view to bother anyone else.
A few steps ahead, an older venlil with a cane has moved the closest to the convoy as any watcher has up to now. Seeing her proximity to the increasingly rowdy crowd causes Lunek to speed up, quickly approaching her “Leva-”
But his words are stalled when she puts a paw on his shoulder, she gently puts her head against his for just a second “You’re doing good pup, keep at it” she mutters to him before breaking contact and turning around to walk back inside. He can spy her grandchildren looking on through the door. Lunek looks back at the still-shouting moving convoy, takes a deep breath, and continues to accompany them forward. A small pawful of them, however, seem to have fallen silent.
Once having reached the limit of his assigned zone, however, Lunek stops. He watches the convoy move forward, past the houses, now noisier than before. The initial hollering at him had turned into disjointed screams at some indistinct foe- Though the herd had been noticed of a foe, it was yet unaware of who, or what, said foe was. So for now it howled at the ineptitude of… Someone. And as the last of the convoy passes beyond the imaginary line of his duty, Lunek lets out a deep sigh and allows himself to sit down on the ground.
He stays there for a moment, without thought, simply letting the tension, confusion and fear permeate his body until a gentle paw touches his arm. He doesn’t need to look to identify it, he lets his lover use her strength to prop him up, raising him to his feet “Keina you shouldn’t-”
“Neighbor’s looking over Tiss” his wife wraps her arms and tail around him “I’m not leaving you alone.” she stays like that for a second, before breaking off “Do you need to go after them?”
“No”
Marik stalks through the sidewalk, moving with energy. His speed outpaces the movement of the convoy, his paws twitch to grasp at something that isn’t there and a deep and intense motion makes his short fur stand on end. He had let the convoy’s head move in front of him, simply standing still as he assessed as many as he could in the mass, and now he had begun to move towards the front again.
As he stalked forward he focused his sight on every member of the convoy that seemed of interest. A human whose clothes seemed suspiciously loose, a venlil whose movements were far too stiff, a gojid who kept his claws behind his back. He stared at each like they were his quarry, analyzing every piece of movement they made for threats, and yet aside from the challenge in the human’s gaze he saw no danger arise.
Tenve had closed his shop, so as the convoy moved forward Marik simply continued to follow along, scanning the crowd for threats. But the next point of interest arrives, and he rushes ahead placing himself in front of the only restaurant of the town. Sunbreeze Meals wasn’t a very common sort of restaurant, Blackriver did not have enough visitors for a normal restaurant to be profitable and was small enough most people had their meals at home, it most often served takeout for those farmers who’d spend so long in the field they would return home without the energy to feed themselves.
Sparing a look inside at the only five tables, Marik couldn’t keep a small thought away from his mind. How most who got their meals from Sunbreeze these days did so because they enjoyed the cooking rather than their need of work, ever since the sunspeck population has been brought under control and the maintenance of the fields had become much smaller. He feels the presence long before he can recognize what led him to feel it and turns to stare at a group of six that approach the entrance: Two humans, a tilfish, two gojids and a takkan had broken off from the convoy and approached the restaurant.
He traces his color band over each in turn, and they all bristle at his stare. One of the humans hesitates before continuing to walk inside, and Marik simply remains by the door with his arms crossed, left ear twisted as far back as he could to listen to the inside.
“What have you got here?”
“W-we mostly ha-have ready ma-made meals to go or- or- Or you can look over the menu”
“There’s no need to stutter, y’know”
“So-sorry-”
“Really, after everything y’all are still with this predator crap?”
The chimes on the door echo for the second time in sequence as Marik makes his way inside. The tilfish had started to lean over the counter while the other five had arrayed themselves behind her. They all turn their attention to him as he enters, including the venlil manning the counter. Marik keeps his gaze directly on the tilfish for a few uncomfortable seconds, before looking at the man behind the counter and making a simple sign with his tail, a short vertical bob with the tip and a slow horizontal swipe. It’s meaning simple: >Safe<.
After a few seconds someone else appears from the kitchen. The tall venlil carries a large stack of plastic boxes in his arms, all of them seemingly designed to attach to themselves so as to be carried with ease. He puts them down with a resounding crash on the counter, and opens up his voice with ice “Farmer’s Pots, good meal when you’re working and can’t go home.” With each word the owner of the restaurant and main cook comes closer and closer to the tilfish, until the last “Ten credits each.”
Nobody moves for a couple of seconds, and then one of the humans steps closer and brings a holopad over to the credit reader. There’s a noise indicating payment, and then the owner raises his head and tilts it to focus his favored eye and both of his ears at the man who paid “Now,” he shifts register in his voice and the language he speaks in “fuck off” he finishes.
With no small amount of surprise the group of six retrieve the stack of packaged meals, carefully walking out and back into the convoy. Marik stays behind for a moment “Didn’t know you spoke human”
“Pup’s enamored with their languages. Of course, first greek words he learns is swearing.”
Outside, Marik stalks further ahead to the next point of interest. He moves faster than the convoy, and has time to move in front of it. For a few meters the street is still clear as he arrives to find a group of people standing in front of the Watchful. Standing there were all of its employees, and even all of its regulars, twenty people total standing there as if they were having the most normal day. If not for their raised ears tracking every noise coming from down the street and their swaying tails swinging about like angry beasts.
One of them simply points his tail at the other side of the street as Marik comes closer, and the hunter doesn’t need a second command to understand the meaning. They have this, he has a less practical but just as important duty. He crosses the street quickly before the convoy starts coming closer, and heads towards the park.
As the regulars of the Watchful had feared, it took little time until a large group had broken off from the convoy. With the town on alert about the convoy they had found themselves bereft of prey and now this group had set out to find some, anyone who might be willing, or not, to listen to their grievances. And what is clearly a place designed for people to congregate looked most appetizing.
Marik shadowed the group as they moved through the park, but they were accompanied by nothing but silence. It wasn’t until they ran into the centerpiece of the park that he took initiative, stepping ahead of the group and simply… Standing there a distance away from the tree of many scions, between it and the group.
“What’s so important over there, fireman?” it was a venlil who asked, but his usage of an english word was not lost on Marik.
“A place you will respect” the exterminator has his arms crossed, the one good portion of his gaze set on the man who asked “This is a grave.”
Though the group that now prowled was large, those who heard were taken aback. One such, however, approaches closer. He was a venlil whose fur shifted between a soft, brownish color and a dirty white “A tradition of the tenets right? One of those family trees?” The man would have been distinctive in any other group due to his missing patches of fur around neck, wrists, even portions around his head. But such signs of long term damage were common in the convoy.
Interest. They had shown true interest, or at least one of them had. “No, but similar… The forgotten tree is a grave for the forgotten.” He felt like these people, at least the ones before him, could probably understand the meaning of this place “It is of no tradition. Someone, a long time ago, wanted to honor someone who was gone but whose name was not meant to be remembered. Someone who had disappeared in the system… So they borrowed on another’s tradition, and added a scion to this tree, with something in their memory. Others have done so similarly, until it became… A grave for the forgotten”
“Didn’t think you’d be worried about this kind of place” it’s a human that speaks up this time
“Our duty is to protect this town, what you think-” but Marik’s words are interrupted by that same venlil who had asked before. His demeanor suddenly shifts, his ears perk up and his entire body shifts forward for a moment. He hesitates, for a second everyone’s focus is on him, and then he runs towards the tree.
Marik follows behind, stopping just by the man’s side as he finds himself at the base of the tree. The man makes a direct line to somewhere, something he had found from the distance, as if it had called him. He finds a thick and heavy branch that had been bent down by the weight of its scions and memories, near its base and speaking of a memory left behind long ago is a braid of fur made of three colors, a dirty white, a soft brown and a dark grey, bound by the braids are two beads.
The man raises up a paw, but does not touch it. As if cradling it, he recites the words engraved in one of the beads “I will cross every star to return home” others have come closer to listen to the man’s hoarse voice “There will always be a home for you” he reads of the second one. The names on the beads have been scratched out. The man falls on his knees “S-she kept her promise and… I couldn’t keep mine…”
Marik steps back as he watches two others come closer to comfort the man. He looks as a few others approach with more caution, looking up at the tree with a bit more reverence than they had before. Then, he turns around and starts heading back towards the main street.
Gazing out as the convoy gains a new flux, some leave it as it passes to move towards the park while others leave the park to rejoin the convoy, Marik simply stays there at the side of the street looking as stern as he could. Though the noise of the convoy remains great, here in this portion it seems to die down a little. A thought crosses his mind as he turns an ear as far back as he can, a thought he can’t help but voice “I wonder how many are looking at their own graves…”
As the convoy progresses, Santos simply stands by the front of the precinct, hands in his pockets. He watches the convoy arrive, heart beating fast, constrained hands the only reason he hasn't started shaking quite yet. He starts tapping his right foot as he watches the first few people cross by without noticing what this place is yet, everyone knows where the precinct is, so aside from the words printed on the sign by the entrance there is no other marker of what this building’s purpose might be.
Of course, it is impossible for nobody to notice. The entire convoy seems to stop as soon as a zurulian riding on the shoulders of a human points a claw at the building and says something. A large group breaks away at the command, all of them holding disparate signs and messages. They turn on the building with enough roars that whatever they are attempting to transmit is lost on him.
Santos is thankful his hearing isn’t nearly as good as his coworkers’, as the cacophony is already overwhelming him. He changes stances slightly, taking his hands out of his pockets and crossing his arms. This prompts a small group to turn their looks at him, the focus easily identifiable with the humans in their midst, focus which made the hair in the back of Santos’ neck stand on end. Living in this place had refined his sense of danger, but he didn’t need that to realize what could happen.
It was a group of five that approached, four humans and a venlil. “Didn’t think they’d be letting humans live out here in the boonies” said one of his kin.
Santos just shrugs “Got hired to work here. Honestly, rural folk get a needlessly bad reputation, most of the time they just don’t care as long as you’re not bothering them”
“Really? In my-”
Santos interrupts the man “Cut it out” there are many ways in which humans make themselves obvious, many of which are their eyes. Santos did understand the fear of them and why it was primal, it was not the fear of the eyes but the fear of attention, it was knowing you were under the scrutiny and judgment of another that set off that emotion. It was rarely the eyes that showed this attention for most species, but for humans it was, and the man’s clear gaze on his badge made the entire situation clear to him “Stop beating around the bush and say it already.”
Someone else is who speaks. The tall woman starts not with words, however, but by spitting on Santos’ uniform “You fucking traitor” her voice is both fierce and cold at the same time. A very emotional coldness.
“There we go” he sighs “Just… Move on. We’re not getting anything out of this conversation”
“Why?” It was the venlil in the group that started this time “These people hate you, they hate you for what you are! Why do you work for them?!”
Santos rubs his eyes and sighs “Because someone has to. Change only happens when you make it happen, simple as that”
“Change?!” another one of the humans howls “Do you think those people can change?! You know the truth, those fuckers have never done anything good!”
“You know, if you had read your history books…” Santos stares at the one who had just had their outburst “You’d remember that we once thought the very same about the police” there’s the sound of glass breaking, but he doesn’t reaction “And a lot of us still do”
The human staring him down shifts their gaze slightly at the broken window of the precinct, then back at Santos “A broken window is easy to fix” he shrugs “As I was saying. Same shit.” he crosses his arms again “There’s a role those people play, a role that needs to be played because it’s important. Different name, different problems, still the same shit. Gotta fix this, I’m doing my part” he then stares at the venlil in the group “You do yours. Simple as that.”
“Role?!” the venlil of the group steps closer “What role could they possibly have?! They only exist to hurt people!”
Santos steps back, and raises his eyes a little bit. Of course, the classics had shown themselves in this instance. With as many humans as there are in the crowd there were now quite a few objects in the air, most clearly aimed at the precinct behind him. Though given the failed arc of some of them it was clearly not just the humans indulging in such a tried and true method.
“I used to be a wildlife preserve ranger” Santos then focuses his gaze on the aggravated venlil “This is a frontier town, if you walk in the brushes with shorts you’ll walk out with your ankles numb. The athai out there are rather harmless, but they keep the sunspecks under control.” He takes another step back “Since coming here I’ve been pest control, had to catch an exotic animal set loose, investigated a murder, helped stop a child from taking her own life, stopped large scale fights, helped a dozen people avoid being arrested for self defense and helped break a fucking siege”
Santos cracks his knuckles “There’s roles. Jobs that need done and there is one fucking organization doing it all. That is a problem.” Then, he sighs and takes a few more steps to the side, offering indifference from this point on “There’s nothing I can say that would make you calm down.” he says one final time “Just make sure not to injure yourselves in the process, alright?” His words seemed to be enough to make the small group cease trying to interact, as the convoy had begun moving again. Though the one human who had called him a traitor gets one final parting shot at the precinct “Where the hell did you get an egg in this planet…” Santos says with a raised eyebrow as the projectile impacts the front door.
Keya stands by a large sign, the same one that welcomes you into Blackriver on one side and sees you out at the other, the official limit of the town. Her arms behind her back, her attention directly towards the front of the convoy as they march. Something gains the whole of her attention, the car in the front. Someone draws her focus, a human with a megaphone on top of the car. The man shouts words of encouragement at the people behind him with the megaphone before turning to his holopad, then he bends over downwards to discuss something with the driver.
She simply remains there, waiting for the convoy to pass. But instead of moving on out of the city, here the convoy stops completely. Keya observes as the further end of the convoy starts to slowly compact upon itself, and her ears pick up something “Alright everyone, start getting ready, next town over is more than a claw away, make sure you’ve left nothing behind” the words were not meant for her, nor for anyone too far. They come from the same man she had seen standing on top of the car, but he had now climbed down and was talking with a group of multiple species.
It is clear they have some degree of leadership, though the convoy does not stop cleanly nor does it begin to organize with alacrity they do respond to the group’s organization. So Keya keeps her focus on them as they point, wave and talk between themselves, others and devices. But at least one of them has noticed her attention, a gangly and light-skinned human with fire-red hair, the man that was atop the car. He starts walking in her direction, before turning around for one final set of commands as he walks backwards “And make sure the guys at the back got all the crap! We’re here to be heard, not to trash the city!” he says before turning back again to head towards her. A venlil with pure white fur erupts from inside the car he was riding, quickly dashing to his side as they notice where he was going.
In a few moments both have come up to her, the human looking down at her with the venlil bristles at his side “Saw anything interesting, fireman?”
“What are you doing here?”
“What? Isn’t it obvious?!” it was the venlil that roared a response “You saw all of it! You know what they’ve done to us! What they’ve done to everyone! And you still work for those brahking monsters! It’s like you’re thankful they made you a cripple!”
The human puts a hand on the venlil’s shoulder, calming her demeanor just a little bit “We’re here because honestly, we’re all too tired of being fucking ignored is what. So what the fuck are you gonna do?!”
“I have put the wrong emphasis” Keya says with her lack of tone. She can see the human shiver just a little bit “My task is to ensure the safety of this town. Your convoy is a danger. We have eight field-capable officers, we cannot ensure the safety of the residents against a group like yours. People will take actions for reasons, you have broadcast your reasons clearly. You have chosen this place for a reason which I cannot ascertain.”
She makes sure her ears are trained towards both the human and the venlil, an action which causes the venlil to cower behind her partner “We do not house government agencies. This is a farming town of little note. The local precinct is a simple precinct, we have no regulatory or command authority. The town population is approximately double that of the number of your convoy. We have no individuals of appreciable social or political reach. There is nothing in Blackriver of interest to people attempting to change government policy, nor have there been actions taken here that I can identify as being cause for retaliatory actions within the context of your message.”
“I must ensure this does not happen again and the only way of doing so is minimizing our attractivity as targets. A logical assumption of your choice of quarry would be a town with the presence of politicians, a large city with constant news coverage, cities housing important government agencies or those containing the Regional Firebases”
“So I ask again. What are you doing here?”
The two remain silent for a few seconds, before the human turns around with a mouth noise “Whatever, I don’t need to explain myself to someone that won’t listen. Come on!” he starts to stalk back towards the car, but stops once he notices his venlil companion wasn’t moving.
The snow-white venlil has their focus on Keya, who offers a simple low forward swipe of her tail, a sign to proceed. Still, the venlil seems frozen in place until the human comes back and grabs hold of their paw with a gentle touch. At which point both finally return to the convoy.
Keya remains at the side of the road, watching as the convoy readies itself again to leave. People get back inside cars, they hop on the back of trucks and load themselves into buses. She continues to watch as the convoy takes its time riding out, making their way out of the town.
Once it is finally gone, multiple footsteps sound behind her. When she turns around she meets her officers, having returned from their assigned positions “They have left. I expect your reports of what happened in each sector by the end of your shifts” she states plainly, before looking at Santos “They did not appear to have a specific reason for targeting Blackriver.” The question remains unspoken.
The human officer just shrugs “Sometimes, you don’t know what you’re doing. We’re just a little town, I doubt they even know what exactly they’re angry about.” He looks at the tail end of the convoy as it leaves “Town was probably just a place they felt safe going to.”
“D-do you think we might get more like that” Lunek says, at the back of the group.
“Who knows…” Santos sighs “But if human history applies anywhere here… This is just a sign of worse things to come”
[ [FIRST] [NEXT>]
And thus the omen passes by. Feelings, emotions of all sorts, without a plan or a reason other than just their own rage and distress.
Did any of these even know what they were doing? And how much worse can it be when they do?

Different Zombies types with Different Abilities + Zombie Bosses

Raidable Bases, XP, Skills, No Max Team size - Road & Rail Events
New Player Starter Kit - Economics - RP Store - Skinbox - Taxi
Plane & Heli events - Monument Events - Shop - Leaderboard
Zombie Hordes - Walking Dead - Night Crawlers - Raiding Zombies - Zombie Events
Raid Alert - Zombie Bosses - Lottery - Backpacks - Events - Cash & ATM's
Car Mods - Mini Events - Automated Rail Network with Stations
Connection Info: 51.195.161.171:28080
Join Our Discord - https://discord.gg/4g7Va88eMn
Welcome to The New-World
The road to survival will be full of dangers. Civilization has collapsed, there are no governments, no authorities and no laws. Anarchy reigns this new apocalyptic world. Survival not only depends on avoiding the hordes of the undead, you must also defend yourself from other players.
Zombies
Take care this is an extreme zombie survival, do not underestimate how brutal the zombies are. They mainly roam the map in large hordes, rise from dead player corpses and will even attack your base! Carrying a variety of melee weapons, chainsaws & flame throwers. Some zombies carry a mutated zombie virus that can be passed onto players if they come into contact with an infected zombie. Infected players will also pass on the virus to any other players they come in contact with.
Rustwood City (PVE)
Rustwood City is the perfect place for new players, solo players or those looking for a more PVE RP Experience. Complete with all facilities including on site vending machines, workbenches, large furnaces, recyclers & refineries. Raiding is prohibited whilst living in the PVE town. Rustwood is a friendly community and all players are welcome to set up home here.
Raiding
Though not encouraged raiding is permitted map wide (excluding the PVE area) so make sure to build solid defences. The server has Raid-Alert enabled and players need to simply sync their rust+ app to the server to be notified if a raid is attempted on their base.

Swordlances and Shield Bros (that actually attack) have gotten a lot of criticism in the BB community, but how bad are they really?
I wanted to find out, so I did a run where I banned most of the meta builds, as well as throwing weapons and close range two handers. I also banned gunners, qatal duelists, mace duelists and cleaver duelists. I also banned berserk and killing frenzy as I wanted to experience the stamina system without relying on berserk recover.
Reach weapons were allowed as their damage is more in line with other weapons. Possibly a mistake though, as they circumvent the weirdness of the stamina system.
Standard pure defense tank builds and normal banner builds were allowed, in order to keep the test focused on the performance of the other builds. Sword duelists were allowed as a filler option for bros without the stamina to do anything else, flail duelists were allowed for guys with bad melee skill.
This started off as a challenge run but it turned into more of a build testing experiment as the off meta builds turned out to be strong enough that it wasn't really much harder than a normal run (until the end). So I fought certain battles multiple times for testing purposes, but still let bros die normally.
Team composition:
4 Attacking Shield Bros, 4-6 frontline Swordlances, 1 Normal Banner, 1 Normal Tank, rest filler in the form of sword duelists & flail duelists. One Shield Bro was also a spearman. Two Swordlances were semi ranged units with around 46 ranged skill and carried crossbows so enemy parties with weak ranged would advance normally. Exact builds in pics.
Team Part 1
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Team Part 2
Results:
This team actually had a relatively easy time with most fights, getting in ~215 fights by day 149 and finding / buying 33 famed items while only finding a few champions and only buying a few good items. Core bros from early in the game hit level 15. I am not a speed runner or super high fight density player, so that's a decent result for me, which indicates the team was actually surprisingly strong.
Builds:
Frontline Swordlance:
This made up the bulk of my damage. While swordlance has gotten a lot of criticism, frontline swordlance just seems like a good tempo build for most of the game. Aside from gunners, it's simply the easiest way to AOE without requiring high stats or good armor. You can use a daytaler with mediocre starting stats for swordlance, while AOEing with a two hander requires a much better recruit who can survive a fair amount of enemy contact.
Winning against large numbers of humanoid enemies in early high tier camps is largely based on morale checks and getting fearsome procs. Using AOE abilities is a good way to get fearsome procs. Obviously it clears out weaker enemies and that lowers the morale of stronger enemies. But the damage doesn't really fall off too badly until you get to the most heavily armored enemies. It's even fine vs Chosen as you can use the increased reach and mobility to focus fire and get in multiple AOEs and stay out of trouble. Maybe vs later Chosen camps past day 150 that would become more difficult.
In general, with pathfinder + polearm you almost always get at least one attack in and you can focus fire very easily, while keeping your damage bros safe, which goes a long way in terms of tempo compared to other builds that have more dead turns.
Swordlance is also good against beasts like Lindwurms as many beast fights seems to favor the strategy of walk forward, hit with reach weapon, walk out of attack range. You can just AOE the lindwurms down while your damage bros are perfectly safe.
Is it better than Javelins? Probably not, javelins are OP, but it uses a much easier to obtain recruit type and it does have advantages in some fights compared to javelins, as in many of the more risky mid game camps the enemy likely has more range than you, forcing you to advance. Swordlance can simply walk right up to the walls and reap away, while throwers have trouble setting up throwing lanes and one range attackers get clogged up and can't attack.
Swordlance can also invest in a full set of defenses and survivability perks. (That's why it's "Frontline Swordlance".) It doesn't have to waste a scarce backline spot but can safely take contact from even Chosen temporarily, as long as it's not getting swarmed by them. So the more relevant comparison is Swordlance vs Dodge Quickhands. In that comparison Swordlance seems to have a lot of advantages while the disadvantages are minor (especially since in a normal run you can just keep a two handed axe as backup.)
Swordlance damage only really became a problem vs masses of uncontrolled, heavy armor enemies, like if you fight all the Ancient Undead at the same time in Monolith (more on that later). However, in normal fights Ancient Honor Guards aren't challenging due to predictable AI and by day 150 Orc Warriors are still in relatively small numbers and are easily controlled and their morale is easily broken. I guess if you played super late swordlance might start to struggle in some larger camps.
Swordlance build: Poleshield:
Stole this build from this subreddit, thanks! Most of the time he plays as a normal swordlance, but he has the option to swap to a heater shield when he gets stuck in melee and needs the defense. Start with swordlance out, swing (5 ap), swap to shield (4 ap). End turn. Next turn, wait with relentless as shield stays out, swap to swordlance at the end and swing (4 ap + 5 ap). Next turn you will go before slower enemies so you can swing again and put your shield up for the rest of the turn. Most swings hit while shield is up. For most of the game this wasn't needed very often and he instead used a 4 ap weapon as a sidearm so he could dump his stamina into damage as quickly as possible. He tries to stay out of trouble so he doesn't need the shield. However on Monolith or in dangerous situations the shield option did come in handy. One polearm swing per turn isn't great damage, but with AOE it's not horrible and the shield does a lot to keep them alive until they can get out of trouble (can reach 50 defense with dodge). It's also helpful to have the shield out when you use recover.
Swordlance build: Fake Ranged Tempo Poleshield:
If you aren't going to build ranged units, you probably want a couple of fake ranged units, otherwise enemies with minor ranged abilities (like orc young with javelins) won't walk up to you as they normally do. Just take a mediocre ranged recruit with high based ranged skill and get him up to 46 ranged skill, then put the rest of the stats in melee. Start the fight with a crossbow in hand so it's loaded. The AI treats it as a normal ranged unit and will advance normally. You still have to advance if they have a lot of ranged so it's the same as normal runs. He can actually hit quite often with his crossbow vs certain enemies. Bags and belts performed great on these guys but duelist was for a specific weapon and probably shouldn't be taken normally. One died but he had similar stats.
Shield Bros:
While four shield bros that attack plus a tank and a tank banner (who usually just stands there holding the banner) is overkill (or uhh underkill) in terms of low damage defensive units, the shield bros performed surprisingly well in terms of tempo, even though I was never able to find an ideal candidate for a battleforged hammer + shield bro.
In a normal run it often takes a quite a long time to find candidates who can hit a stat line like 85/35 at level 11 to qualify as fatigue neutrals, which means that you can end up with a team full of nimble damage dealers with few defense bros aside from the tanks. That delays your ability to shift to optimal tactics, where the front line is made up of high defense high armor bros who take most of the enemy attacks, while the damage dealers stand in safer positions and try to only get attacked by one enemy at a time.
A unit who wouldn't quite measure up as a fatigue neutral can be made into a Shield Bro instead and he'll have plenty of defense to fill a front line spot and stand up against 3 enemies or more, while still contributing some damage over time.
Probably the most desirable attacking shield bro is a battleforged hammer shield bro, but that only works with high fatigue backgrounds, I didn't get the right recruits for that so I was forced to compromise on my shield bro builds.
Shield Bro Build: Fatigue Neutral Iron Lungs:
Stamina management is a huge problem without access to two handed weapons. Getting attacked by a lot of enemies quickly uses up a lot of stamina and only a small percentage of recruits can have enough stamina to tank in battleforged armor and still swing two times per turn. I never really found many skilled recruits with a high stamina pool like that.
Battleforged is still essential though. Bros with iron lungs can be fatigue neutral and swing certain weapons twice per turn, every turn. Normally that's limited to cleavers and swords, but if you get famed weapons you can expand the list of one handed fatigue neutral weapons. I was lucky enough to get famed weapons for these two, although they were not great ones.
Defensively, these guys performed better than the numbers indicate as they didn't take any bleeds, injuries or fearsome checks. And while their defense is only in the mid 50s with shield, that still makes them significantly tankier than a normal fatigue neutral. Their damage is pretty bad but it adds up in the course of long fights, so I think you'd lose tempo in most fights if you substituted pure defensive tanks. In Monolith they could survive for many rounds tanking up to 7 ancient undead at a time, which nimble or nimbleforged bros could not handle.
With recruiter retinue it makes sense to check a lot of guys for traits anyway and this can be a high impact way to use some guys with iron lungs and mediocre stats. It's a bit niche but I would consider using this build in a normal run, especially if I got an appropriate famed weapon and didn't need a duelist. One of these guys started as a 55*/2* Iron Lungs Daytaler, his performance as a damage sponge + damage over time was solid in this build, but as a duelist he'd have been mediocre and used up a lot of tools. In this run more damage was needed, but in a normal run there is usually a shortage of high defense forged units.
Shield Bro Build: Hammer Shield
One handed Hammer still performs well even without double grip or duelist. Destroy armor still does a lot of armor damage on the appropriate enemies and the regular attack will always proc fearsome, which often means he can simply walk up to an orc warrior or chosen and rout him with a couple hits, while having 60 defense.
This run didn't really maximize the strengths of the hammer shield bro, ideally he'd be a high stamina background in forged armor and he'd be paired with high damage teammates like a barbarian two handed axe that just need a little armor softening.
Nimble and nimbleforged are definitely fine for large camps at 150 days of scaling and earlier but if the late game camps scale to the point where he has no choice but to be focus fired by many high damage enemies, then you'd want a forged bro instead. Mine started to run out of steam when fighting both undead groups at once in Monolith. Still, this is a build I would routinely consider adding to the line up. Another great reason to build this is that Nimble Hammer Shield combines well with Spear + Shield, which is great for mid game tempo.
Shield Bro Build: Spear Specialist
Spear specialist performs a similar role to the indomitable tank, but becomes available earlier. Due to the way the AI works he can often hold off as many as 4-6 enemies for several turns. The spear specialization perk is very valuable as you can continue to refresh spearwall even while tanking another enemy, often you can arrange it so the only available spot for an enemy to attack is next to the spearman, causing several enemies to waste their turns trying to move in. Two handed enemies like chosen and berserkers are particularly crippled as they can only move one tile and attack, so you either force them to waste their turn by moving, or if they walk into spearwall they lose their turn if the spearman hits even once. The spearman singlehandedly increases the number of camps that will be profitable for your team. Spear combines well with shield and hammer in the classic Spear Hammer Shield Build from early BB, giving you something to do when you are done spearwalling. Will build again.
Weaknesses and Monolith:
I did multiple Black Monolith fights for testing purposes.
https://preview.redd.it/tgvvrj14881d1.png?width=1779&format=png&auto=webp&s=a58156df46337efd136bccea6564799c81e2abf2
I'm aware of two strategies for Monolith, with one being significantly easier than the other.
The "Speedrun" strategy (seen in Shringshring's video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayh35O9mLUw&t=8429s) involves splitting the undead into two groups by running the tank to the top left corner of the map, while the rest of the team retreats towards the bottom left corner of the map. The fight plays out as two separate fights with a break in between. It is reliable if you move like he does, the necrosavants may attack if your team spreads out too much though. Even if you only move a little bit though, it's enough to split the undead as long as the tank makes it to the corner.
The other strategy is the "Normal" or "Hard Mode" strategy for Monolith, where the tank runs approximately 4 hexes towards the top of the map and the team retreats approximately two hexes to the left. The fight starts sooner and it is possible for the tank to die relatively quickly. You need either a good tank to last a long time or a good amount of damage, otherwise you can end up facing both undead groups at the same time. This is the more difficult strategy but high damage late game teams with good tanks can handle it fine.
The Shield Bro + Swordlance team doesn't have any problem with Monolith with the speedrun strategy. It's true that the swordlances feel a bit weak against the ancient honor guards, but there isn't excessive pressure on the team so it can take the time to set up good AOEs with swordlances, weaken armor with hammer bros and focus fire. It plays out like two normal fights back to back.
However, when trying to brute force both Ancient Dead groups with the "Hard Mode" strategy, the team finally starts to show its weakness. The team takes 20 to 21 rounds to beat Monolith using this strategy. That's much slower than normal for Monolith. The Battleforged fatigue neutral shield bros performed well, surviving for many rounds while getting hit by up to 7 ancient honor guards at a time, but having the fight take so long leaves more time for things to go wrong and win rate on Monolith was probably only about 60% with this strategy, as there was a risk of the tank going down early. This could have been reduced with a better tank and/or more potions. Fighting both undead groups + necrosavants all at once was too much for the team to overcome reliably. Swordlances ran out of stamina and got stuck in non optimal positions for AOE, hammers were not able to eliminate Honor Guards quickly enough on their own. It may also have been a mistake to go from 5-6 Swordlances in most normal fights to only 4 in the Monolith, by benching the faked ranged for newly trained high defense bros, as there was a real lack of damage for the "Hard Mode" strategy.
While there isn't much reason to do the "Hard Mode" strategy instead of the "Speedrun" strategy, this still hints at a weakness that might show up in certain extremely highly scaled camps late in the game, like very late sea of tents. Just not enough damage vs armor, plus tons and tons of armored enemies pushing in too fast, getting in contact with vulnerable nimble units. However the amount of orc warriors that spawned in early game Sea of Tents were no problem at all, swordlance guys could just keep a tier 2 hammer in the pocket and easily rout them with fearsome after routing the young and berserkers.
Finally, fighting both undead groups at once illustrated some problems with the stamina system in this game as it relates to 4ap weapons. I left the sword duelist option available for filler bros with lower stamina who couldn't do anything else. Normally the build performed fine, however when there was an extremely high density of enemies and the sword duelist was getting attacked a lot he quickly ran out of stamina and could rarely regain enough to swing twice. He could either use recover, which was never needed in any other fight, or he could stand there and swing only once like an idiot. I gave them reach weapons for just this reason, but it was kind of a crutch to play around this imbalance of the stamina system, that's why two handed weapons are so good after all. In the Speedrun strategy when the undead were split into two groups, the sword duelists had no problems as they could take positions where only small numbers of enemies could swing at them.
Conclusion:
The meta builds exist for a reason of course, but the Devs generally did a great job balancing this game and you can definitely make a lot of non-meta builds work. Sometimes they even feel quite strong. However, when designing your non-meta builds keep in mind the imbalances with the stamina system. For a tanky character with a high stamina pool who uses high stamina cost moves, like the Hammer Shield Bro, taking a turn to recover doesn't feel too bad. But pathfinder based 4 ap builds that don't use much stamina in normal fights can find their offense shut down if they let a lot of enemies swing at them. That kind of limits the value of high defense and high durability on this kind of unit and makes me want to avoid putting 4 ap weapons on them, even though it seems more thematic than giant two handed weapons.

Hey guys,
Have any of you had good experience with getting yourself to a body fat of say 15-20% and just focusing on getting stronger? I want to put on muscle over time (along with strength) and I’m not worried if recomping isn’t quite as optimal as bulking/cutting cycles but also want to make sure I’m not just spinning my wheels.
I have a heavily physical job that varies dramatically so I find it extremely difficult to maintain a small surplus as it’s very easy to accidentally be in a deficit or misjudge how much I need to eat and be in too large of a surplus. Ideally I’d love to just have enough body fat that I can recomp and just focus on getting stronger, building muscle and enjoying powerlifting itself without really caring whether I’m technically maintaining weight on a day to day basis.
Cheers

Freshly back and awake after a twelve day stint for my first time there. I knew that I wanted to go in general, and while I didn't have a firm itinerary planned out, there was one main goal that I had in terms of sites within the country. The main video game that I play is Beatmania IIDX, and it has internal trophies which are represented as badges. Your profile allows you to assign up to five of them as visible when you start a new round, and there are badges to earn for playing at least one round in every prefecture in Japan, as well as every subregion. Getting the Kanto badge meant that I needed to play at least one round in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama, Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, and Chiba. After five days, I had that complete, and now I have a permanent record of this trip within the game itself. There was also a time-limited event to earn points in IIDX in order to exchange them for goods, such as a hat, or a towel, or a new account card and a poster, and I managed to get that taken care of in somewhat dramatic fashion. I did some other things too.
Primary general points
· Getting Suica set on the phone and using it was generally painless. There were only two times where I needed to summon the help of a resident JR employee to clear up an issue with the gate not reading the card for some reason.
· Most vocal interaction which I had was the opposite of painless, because I continuously kept trying to speak Japanese and failing, and most people would realize that I was completely failing at it and responded with English (some with full on sentences, others with just a few words). There were a few rare times that I was able to express my intent in Japanese, receive a response, understand the response, and reply as necessary, but that was rare. Once English was invoked, I would stay with it, because that's what they were expecting. I've been self-studying the language for more than twenty years in varying degrees of intensity, and while my reading comprehesion seemed sufficient enough for this trip, and while I didn't expect my speaking to be as good because I don't have any opportunity to practice speaking, I came away bitterly disappointed in my vocal and speaking comprehension in terms of my interaction with people there. Even within the trip I could at least overhear common chitchat better, but any time I needed to converse with someone for some reason, I usually needed to have things repeated several times and broken down before I finally realized what was being said.
· You are going to be asked about separately buying a bag with every non-food purchase. Accept or immediately present one that you are carrying to indicate how your purchase shall be bagged.
· I never once had my passport requested for presentation.
· Only once did a person volutnarily reach out to address me, and it was just to ask me where I was from in English. Otherwise, everyone left me alone the entire time.
· Weather through the period was ideal. Mid to upper 70F/25C range and only a few days where it was rainy, and even then it wasn't a downpour. A while ago I personally resolved to only wear suits in public and I purchased a new pair of Mephisto shoes after hearing reports of the extensive walking causing problems for traveller's feet and shoes. My attire help up well; there were only a few times that I needed to avoid sunlight to not get too hot, and I have no issues to report from the shoes.
· I only got X'd out of a restaurant one time, and I think it's only because I wandered into it before it was ready for service. Otherwise, I never once waited in line for food, I never once went to restaurant more than once, and all food was acceptably priced for the portion and excellent for the quality.
For these per-day recounts, I wrote them contemporaneously at the end of each day, so you'll need to forgive me for some writing being in present tense and other writing being in past tense.
Day 1 - Travel, Sugamo, Ikebukuro
Non stop flight from Chicago OHare to Haneda. 12 hours. Good thing I usually don't watch movies, because that just means that all I needed to do was binge a few to make the trip go by.
Pre-trip research led me to choose APA Sugamo as my home base for the visit, and I think that it was a very fortuitious choice. I'll have more to say about it later.
Some awkward encounters happened right away upon checking in here. I was at the nearby Family Mart to buy some things and I didn’t catch that he was making sure I wanted a bag until he repeated it five times. Yes, I’ll take it. Before getting there I was coming down to ground level after checking into my room, and when that person saw that I would have been the only other person going down to the ground, they ducked right back out. I was warned on both of these kinds of things happening, so I guess it’s good to have that immediately out of the way. It would turn out that people deliberately avoiding me was rare throughout the trip.
Despite not sleeping on the trip, I had freshly arrived and had no sense of being tired, so once I had my stuff down, I went off to Ikebukuro right away. No picture or video truly conveys how crowded these areas can get. It can only be experienced in person to be understood.
I soon found Round One Ikebukruo and went right in. So dense and loud. It’s entirely alien to me to see no less than ten IIDX machines in operation and all of them in use. I dumped the money into random tickets, as I foresaw doing, but now I have to wonder if that was the right thing to do, or if it’s tied to that location. I guess I’ll find out.
The forecast is for rain so I need to be in a hurry to figure out where I’m going to go. There might be only one day left for me to get my time limited toys.
Day 2 - Kawasaki, Kanagawa - Utsunomiya, Tochigi - Oomiya, Saitama
My body decided that it only needed four hours of sleep this morning. Without doing more research, I somehow decided to assume that more of the Round One locations were close to 24 hours of operation much like Ikebukuro. Answer: no. I hopped on the train early and went to Shibuya first, but it was very quiet, so I decided to get some of the travels out of the way today and headed south to Kawasaki. I still needed to dawdle for a while until Silk Hat opened at 900AM, and when I finally was able to get inside, I was only able to verify that their store had several allotments of the campaign goods and all allotments were out. Played one round on a monitor that was surprisingly blurry, and I don’t know why that would be the case with a lightning model, but it was, so that was enough.
After doing all of that, I resolved to try to go to Chiba and Ibaraki afterwards. I figured that with Kanagawa and Tokyo likely all out, going to the outskirts would make more sense. However, there was an injury on one of the rails that threw everything off normal, and the train I found myself riding was bound for Utsunomiya instead. Seeing as how I was going to go there eventually, I rolled with it.
It doesn’t take too long to move away from Tokyo metropolitan area before you encounter more forest like areas and rice paddy fields. Halfway through the trip I noticed that two older women suddenly hopped off while the train was waiting to go to the next stop, and I followed them when I realized they found the express line. Utsunomiya has a substantial size to its area and buildings but it was very quiet on the streets there in midday. Walked a mile to Sega GIGO, found that they didn’t even have the goods tracker up. All out. Interesting buliding for it having several neon signs, all vintage and authentic at that. Getting to there from the south meant cutting through Saitama, so I knew I had enough time to make one last attempt there. Research shown two stores being near Oomiya station, so that’s where I ended up. Taito Station was immediately visible upon exit, and they have two IIDX machines specifically with 20 gram springs, which is closer to my home setup and that much lighter than standard 50 gram springs. The final hour drew near and I made one last visit to that city’s Round One. Unlike nearly every other place I went to so far, it only had one IIDX machine. However, and maybe because of that, their goods listing didn’t show everything as out. One painful language exchange later, I was able to discern that what I wanted was available. When you spend more than 3000 yen in a single credit, the game wants to verify if you really want to proceed. It does it again at 6000 and 9000. Yes, I really do. But, having made that money dump I was able to get my hands on the e-amuse card and poster with fifteen minutes left before the deadline. Mission complete. By this point in the day it was exceedingly difficult to even look at the screen so I was ready to come home, but not before getting some goods at the Oomiya Book Off and redeeming what I could for points at Round One Ikebukuro. By the end of the day the only thing that I could tolerate doing was to buy some chicken and nigiri from the nearby train station. Good enough. At that point in the day my body felt like it wants to rock back and forth after all the train riding done today. But, it ended up being worthwhile after all.
One nostalgic feeling I had the most strongly in the day was at the Utsunomiya location where the smell of it triggered past buried memories of yesteryear. I think I want to attribute it to the stronger second hand cigarette smell but I’m not sure - all the same I felt its presence strongly there. Also, I don’t see Oomiya (or really Saitama itself) mentioned as a fun place to go, but it might serve as an acceptable alternative to Ikebukuro, only not as massive in scale of human quantity. Depending on how the trip goes in total I may end up back there for IIDX playing, at least if I don’t find any other place that has 20G springs.
Day 3 - Akihabara
With the travels out of the way, it was time to keep things more regionalized and stick to one area, and there is shopping that needs to be done, so it was off to Akihabara and to see how much of other posted tales hold true. The answer is that it is a lot of it. Kotobukiya can stand to open sooner than noon. Super Potato is indeed priced for a market which wants to snap up anything cheap - I at least found Xi for under 500 and felt that it would have been a bit silly to buy only that, but it didn’t make spending 2000 on one single issue of Arcadia any better. I had no idea that Hey Arcade was right next to both of them; while it was assuredly nice to be there and see the row of Cave shooters among everything else, something got messed up with my registration of my new eamuse card with everything else, so that quickly added to my stress. Having to carry around a few hundred dollars worth of crap with every step didn’t help matters. At least I was able to help a person recover their lost phone by applying a bit of logic to the situation and deducing it to belong to the only person there who looked French, as it was on the Lock Screen. They were relieved, yes. Then, rain came, and it was more than I was anticipating, and I left the umbrella at the room, particularly since I knew I’d be shopping this day. It also turns out to have not mattered much, because I went to visit Bic Camera so that I could get myself a hair trimmer while here, and that turned into me finding a bunch of Kit Kats available, so that meant a second bag. The wind kicked out the rain and my umbrella. In trying to get as many gifts secured as possible, I found some gachapon, but it needed 100Y coins, and I didn’t need paper money in the trip yet. After fighting with maps, I found an ATM to get cash, and got the gachapon. I came home late with feeling rather crushed about the day in that I couldn’t take pictures very well with having to juggle weather and bagging considerations. There were some nice parts of the experience to be sure but between that and more gawking at Super Potato pricing ($135 for PS3 Caladrius? $6000 for Pulstar?) and seeing similar markups on other goods, I don’t think it’s unfair to say that there is a reputation that this area carries and the pricing is there to go with it.
Day 4 - Laundry Day. Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku
I was so drained at the end of Day 3 that I fell asleep on the bed immediately after ending the night call, which meant that I woke up at 0200AM to a room that was fully lit. This meant that I needed to look up how to resolve my eamuse problem or else I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. I did both. Awake at 0800AM meant that I had time to do laundry while I figured out what to do with the rest of the day. This meant that I was able to get more of Sugamo in pictures, and it was nice to be able to walk among the actual residences, and do other things like come across a school as it was actually in session. With them being close by and all in succession, I figured to get Shibuya, Harajuku, and Shinjuku visited. It turns out to have been a good day for it, as the temperature was perfectly cool and no rain came, and the sun came out only for a little bit. Shibuya somehow doesn’t seem quite as large in scope in person but the crowds were definitely there, and it is much more hilly than I anticipated as well. After wandering around and not seeing any arcade for a bit, I came across a series of coffee and cookie shops and remained strong to not indulge. It was there while looking at a Disney store (which gets tourists to take pictures of it for some reason) that the song Alone Again came on through the nearby public speakers. What timing. It drove me to finally get a treat for myself, and the frozen latte (black sesame and houji) and croissant (dark chocolate filing) were certainly good, it ended up costing more than the dinner I’d have later this day. I found a seclusion with a garbage can to eat the food and not carry the trash around, then an arcade soon after, and it was time to determine if I could fix the problem. Just like an easy click, it was. New to trash. Old to new. Done. Why did it have to be this way. Harajuku came next, and the environment there was distinct. This one in particular felt like it was an extended carnival atmosphere with the single tight knit market street and emphasis on fashion. A conversation with a freelance artist in the subway actually went well enough that I didn’t feel dumb. The same sensation carried to Shinjuku as well, only it was more spread out. Kabuki street was interesting to see in person, and I didn’t get any unseemly vibes from the place. Maybe it’s different later at night. A return home at a reasonable time allowed me to go down Sugamo’s market street a bit; most of it was closed, but it was interesting to come across the few remaining stores that were open by 0800PM, and more so the one that wasn’t. Coming back to the hotel I found a 24 hour ramen shop with nobody inside. The chef didn’t want to speak and only pointed to the ordering kiosk when I addressed her. The food came through a slot in the obscured window. At least her thank you as I left was a bit more warm, and the food was certainly delicious. To match with the matcha dessert that I bought from Sugamo station, I swung by a 7Eleven to get a drink, and found a milk tea for cheaper than a vending machine. The overhead music in the store was an instrumental version of Alone Again.
Day 5. Ibaraki - Mount Tsukuba, Miraidaira. Kashiwa, Chiba. Akihabara 2.
Awake at 0500AM on my own and knowing the current forecast meant that my envisioned plan for the day was quickly realized. Reaching the Tsukuba Express starting point from Akihabara needs you to get very far down into the ground before getting out into sunlight. I was on the ride early enough to see schoolchildren going about their commute, some of them being no older than ten and going about it unaccompanied. The people of Tsukuba seemed to be particularly helpful and cheerful that day, even despite my Suica issues at the gate. I didn’t ask his name at the counter but the man at the service desk was eager to speak with me about my career and what I was doing there. One asked where I was from on the way up to the summit and another caught my cable car ticket on the way down. There had to have been a few of them who saw my doing this climb in my business attire and thinking me to be a complete idiot if not outright mocking them for doing it that way while they employed the use of dual walking sticks and the like. I know I read some reports of the home stretch being difficult, but it did get pretty close to being an actual rock climb instead of a trail hike for that part of it. A quick stop to Miraidaira on the way back to get the Ibaraki play. The way the town center greets you upon leaving the rail gate struck me as incredible, as well as for how quiet it was. It was like walking onto a movie set. I did find the sweet shop after the play, and that was another painful interaction yet again. Oh well. Two quick stops down Tsukuba Express and one across from Tobu Urban Park line was enough to have a toe in Chiba, and I didn’t even need to leave the physical building of the train station to get to the basement level to find a machine for a play. Thank you, Kashiwa, you were great. Gunma is all that’s left. The descent from Tsukuba did take some earnest exertion, and after doing that the two stops, that put me back in Akihabara about when I anticipated; what I failed to anticipate is how much that place seems to drain on me. I think I just need to eat at an actual dinner time. Once I got back to Sugamo and had food it was a bit better, but while in Akihabara and being around that environment, and not finding things on a shopping list, I found myself just standing still and watching life pass me by. I hemmed and hawed a while for a maid girl’s hour of service for chitchat, but eventually I talked myself out of it because I just didn’t want potential trouble, just like her name. Komaru. I thought about doing this once just to say that I did, but I ultimately decided against it. You cannot go to this place with the expectation that you will find anything unless it is advertised and new. If you are looking for anything used, don’t count on it being there. You also cannot go there without having a strong resolve to not engage with the touts, because it becomes disheartening to see them do their job and blankly stare at the world when they're forced to stand out there and do nothing. Back to Sugamo to find a place that advertised Wagyu but the price they wanted was more than I wanted to spend. The ramen and seaweed & rice servings were fine, but they advertised endless drink and I didn’t receive that. All for $20? No, son. I did better than that elsewhere, I’ll know better now. Long day.
Day 6 - Tokyo Flea Market, Nakano Broadway, Ueno.
The weather couldn’t have been better for this weekend. I’ve read reports that the flea market held near the horse race track will be arbitrarily cancelled regardless of what is reported on the website, but my gut instinct told me that it would occur today, and it did. Turns out that a flea market is a flea market which is a flea market, no matter where it happens. Same allotment of clothes and stuff that few people really want to buy, although I was able to find myself some neckties at least. I probably overpaid based on what I saw later in the route, but that’s fine. They look nice. I settled on some shot glasses for a gift as well, but I’m surprised that I can’t ind something ornate that isn’t part of a sake set. Seated in the shade with a chocolate churro while rap music played in the background - it’s like I never left home. A woman came to sit across from me for the sake of sitting down; she was from Holland and today’s her last day in the country. Her husband came with food eventually. She had three weeks here and went to several places (allegedly, she didn’t list them out) and I asked her about Nakano Broadway. She didn’t make it there. It’s a good thing that I did - this is probably the kind of environment and market that people expect of Akihabara now, and maybe that’s how Aki was years ago, but it’s different from this. What’s more interesting is that Mandarake has a larger presence here than in Akihabara (so it seems to me), and their stores had floor after floor of any and every kind of pop culture product that’s been made in the past sixty years at least. Buttress that with extensive watch and jewelry stores and a slender arcade in the basement, and it’s a very well centralized microcosm of the country’s economy on the whole. I actually made a point to have dinner earlier than usual this time and found a place to serve some deep fried pork cuts served with rice and soup on the side. It was enough, and very well made. The day had not ended and my bag was heavy with several books purchased there, so I reported back to base briefly and decided to try visiting somewhere else, and settled on Ueno. Just as I arrived, a festival was underway where local teams of people made an elaborate show of carrying a home made shrine to a temple. Streets were officially blocked by police to allow the procession. In following the line I came up against makeshift food and amusement stands with the traditional toy gun shooting and goldfish catching. It appears that this is an official “start of summer” festival and I was able to watch it all happen in front of me. That was the good part of the day.
Day 7 - Tachikawa / Kunitachi. Shinjuku 2.
One of the games that I've never played is Beatmania III The Final. I've played some BM3 7th Mix years ago, but not The Final. I found a location that has one - World Game Circus in Tachikawa. In looking around that area before the trip, I saw that there was a nearby shinkansen museum, and not much else, so I figured that going to both places would make that walk worthwhile. Turns out that it wasn’t a museum in the proper sense of a dedicated building. Rather, it was a bullet train engine car on the side of a building that was unrelated, and that was it. A cute interaction happened here - when I approached the car, I heard some children running around inside, so I approached cautiously without knowing if I was encroaching upon someone else's alloted time or something. Once the children saw me, they gave a hearty irrashaimase as I entered, and the boy stamped a paper and presented it to me. Perfect. Despite it not being a typical musem, the card did have some interesting content, and it's good to see some kind of commemoration for their achievements and progression in that industry regardless. They have a lot to be proud about there. Off to WGC. Maps wasn’t lying about the walk taking twenty minutes. It's a good thing that I looked it up on streetview beforehand, because I otherwise would have walked right past it without knowing it was there. Then there it was, and there I confronted a past that I couldn’t visit again. Sure, I got to play BM3 The Final at last, but my timing was off, my hands were off, there wasn’t much I could do. Along with that I can say that I’ve played on a Beatmania II cabinet, and that was better than 5th Style at least. But that was it, that was all I could stand to do. It was right there and I couldn’t bear to put up with it more than a few rounds at best. Dream big, because only disappointment follows if your smaller dreams ever are fulfilled. I don’t know why finding IKEA back in Shinjuku was so difficult, but it took a while. I bought a bag, and then I bought a bag because the other bag was at the end of the register, which makes sense. I did feed myself before getting back to the Taito station to play some songs, but it still wasn’t good enough. All thumbs. Ended the day with laundry since the timing worked. Speaking of making dreams big, it’s time to cross another one off the list tomorrow. I can’t wait.
Day 8 - Takasaki, Gunma. Oomiya, Saitama 2.
It’s a good thing that I only needed to get to Ikebukuro to transfer over to the next stop, because that’s where that particular run ended for some reason. I wonder what was up. Speaking of things getting messed up on trains, I managed to find my way on a train that needed a separate ticket, which I didn't have. The conductor found me right away and had me disembark at Uraja for me to wait for the proper transfer. The weather forecast said there’d be rain, and the travel forecast said it would take two hours to get there, and neither lied. I feel like I had more people staring at me in Gunma than other places. I will say that I found the Takasaki station area to be rather charming, with the stores that it had inside and the emphasis on the music culture there. It’s one thing to offer a piano to the public to play, but it’s another to have a public willing to use it. This location had both. Having what was essentially a Bic Camera built into the facility was a nice touch too. The Leisure Land arcade was sandwiched between other floors that had its own offering of gaming stuff, so that was an unexpected bit of a fun thing to look through. The area was clean and sparsely populated, and it wasn’t picked clean of all matter of things that would normally get snapped up, so that was interesting. Finally, I made it over to the machine. They had separate fans for each location. I got the songs and then the medals came, and that’s that. Kantou Seiou. I would have stayed a bit longer but I wanted to have the medals show up right away, and my internet wasn’t cooperating, so that’s all I could do. I think there was an Internet cafe that I could have used in the facility, but I didn’t want to deal with an awkward conversation. I did get some Lawson on the way out, as well as some trinkets from the local Gunma-chan store as well as some mini croissants and some macademia cookie things. More vocal awkwardness. Omiya was one of the stops on the way back, and I found a place to serve omrice, so that’s another one off the list. No shoes allowed inside. The value wasn’t there but the service was good enough, as was the flavor. The machines with the 20G springs are indeed legit. Back home in time for some McDonalds, and that’s another food-checklist item marked off. Takoyaki mayo dipping sauce - somehow it’s both salty and sweet. While returning to the hotel, I did happen to encounter an argument amongst two teenaged locals where the guy ended up half-heartedly kicking the girl and getting her to cry. I wonder what their argument was about. I didn’t play hero, but someone else did so enough to prevent an escalation and called the police over.
Day 9 - Sugamo, Tokyo Sky Tree, Akihabara 3, Kanda
Up early enough to decide that I should at least visit the Sky Tree while I'm there just to say that I did, and that I should visit the Sugamo street market upon its open since it was right there in front of me. I'm glad to have done so. With everything open, this felt more like what one would think to expect from a flea market environment that's operated and supported by the local populace. Small stores were open both sides of the street that go on for many blocks, and some tents and tables were set up to sell second hand goods as well. I was able to find someone selling a US Morgan dollar and he wanted only 2000Y for it, so that was an easy buy. If I would have known better to anticipate this area, I wouldn't have felt compelled to buy kitchy tourist crap that is expected as gifts elsewhere. If you are looking for a place to idly shop around that doesn't get extremely crowded and has an authentic local feel to it, consider making a point to come here. Off to Sky Tree. Getting the combo ticket for the second deck was worth it just for the lack of crowds on the upper area. If you're going to come here, consider getting a phone selfie stick or something of the kind so that you can take pictures against the windows without the structure scaffolding obstructing your view. On the subject of shopping again, this might be another area to consider visiting just for the sake of the specialty stores to be found here, such as those for chopsticks or hairpins. To close out the day, my wife reminded me to look for something from the Square Enix cafe, so that meant swinging by Akihabara yet again. Since it is within a walkway, it was a bit of a pain to find this place even with using maps, but I eventually found it and got what she wanted to find. Played some IIDX at Game Panic, which was surprisingly small and the one machine that was avaialble to play had some 2P turntable issues, so that didn't last all that long. Dinner was at a nearby place that specalized in tofu, so that was a good ramen serving with that infused. For the evening, I wandered south to Kanda to get night pictures, and found it to feel pretty similar to Ueno.
Day 10 - Ginza, Tokyo, Kanda & Akihabara 4
Launrdry in the morning. I also wanted to say that I went to Ginza in my time here, and I didn't research anywhere to go to keep it a surprise. It was a bit warmer and sunnier than usual that day, and I stuck to the main road for most of the walk, so I can't say that I found too many points of the interest along the path that I walked starting from Yurakucho station and heading out that way. High class store for high class people, and that's too rich for my peasant blood. Similarly for Tokyo proper itself, I suppose I'd have to needed to wander far away from the Yamanote vicinity to find points of interest there, as I didn't encounter anything that was remarkably distinctive here in comparison to other areas that I have previously seen. Continuing north across Nihonbashi brought me to Kanda and eventually to Akihabara yet again, as if it was a magnet that pulled me inside every time. For the sake of trying a different place I chose to play some IIDX at the Leisure Land arcade there, and I'm glad to have done that, as those machines were probably in the best coniditon that I encountered within that area. Dinner was at Tenkaippin, which I didn't realize until after I placed the order was cash only. The clerk didn't request it beforehand but I voluntarily left my passport there to show that I would return, and promptly went to the same ATM that I had found days prior in order to get the cash to pay for the bill.
Day 11 - Haneda T3, Nishi Nippori, Nippori, Uguisuidani, Otsuka, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ikebukruo, home.
The end. I resolved to take the subway over to Haneda today to get the one luggage over there and stored, and it’s a good thing that I did - there’s no easy solution for getting over there without encountering a crowd. If anything I wonder if Yamanote is actually better. Regardless, I got that much done. With the day left to go, I ventured to Nishi Nippori and I needed to summon the map several times to make sure I found the location, as it was as obscure as it could get. Just a sign on the ground for the third floor, a stairway that led to the back, an elevator that had no decoration, a single room that housed everything. Arcade PCB kits on shelves, joystick panels in exposed boxes, nicotine odor from years past - it was like I was transported to 1995 upon entry, beyond the fact that the games weren’t as old. Most of them, they did have a lot going for SF3 3rd yet. I was able to take care of some game business in a hurry since I was the only one there. It was a very pleasant respite for play in comparison to most of the other sessions. The region itself felt much the same as this arcade - old and well worn, as in well lived. Venturing south to Nippori led me to stumble upon a shrine and cemetery just by following some stairs. Usuigudani was cleaner but mostly had hotels as points of interest. Back home to buy some mochi while mochi was for sale in midday. Then to Otsuka, thinking that I would wander to Ikebukuro, but I ended up wandering back to Sugamo instead. Whoops. Meal at Sugamo, then back out to return to Shibuya and Shinjuku at night to catch evening shots, when I hadn’t done so before at these places. Good thing I did that to get Golden Gai area shots at night. With the night winding down, I decided to have one last IIDX play at Round 1 in Ikebukuro to symbolically end where I started.
Ending arcade comments
· Although the upkeep is generally better and more consistent than the US, some machines will have hardware issues here too. I was surprised by the blurriness with some of the LM IIDX machines.
· Densha De Go on the propert large cabinet is nice but quickly becomes very expensive.
· Bombergirl is OK enough and having the dedicated detonator button that pops up for hitting the base is a cute touch.
· Chase Chase Jokers feels rather clunky and I'm not sure what the game is trying to do. Interesting side screen concept at least.
· Nostalgia is delightful and would probably find a small fanbase worldwide if it had more exposure.
· Favorite IIDX locations are Taito Station in Oomiya for the light keys and Leisure Land Akihabara for the high quality of the LMs there. Honorable mention goes to the Game Versus loctation in Nishi Nihonbashi, but that might not be worth it for a dedicated trip unless you go there first thing in the morning.
Ending overall comments
This was a life altering trip for me, as would be expected. While I'm glad to have made the journey, as to be expected, I will only want to return after making an extensive redoubled effort into speaking and hearing comprehension, because I know that I came across like a blubbering idiot so many times, and it's truly aggravating because I generally know what I want to say and most of the words that are used to say it, but it just doesn't come out of my mouth properly when it needs to be done.
I welcome any questions you may have, as that will help for me to recall the memories and have me write them down.

JAPAN
12 April 1946 – surrender of Japan, brief premiership of Naruhiko Higashikuni (14 April to 9 June 1946), followed by Kijūrō Shidehara. Occupation mostly carried by US troops, but also Commonwealth zone (UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand), led by Douglas MacArthur as the SCAP (Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers)
Situation is even way worse than in our reality thanks to all the destruction. First effort is gíve relief to the starving population. Even greater than in our reality are efforts to remove Hirohito (and it is impossible to imagine for the most of Allied leaders including Truman and Churchill to keep him on the throne after this brutal invasion), and despite opposition of MacArthur, Allies force the emperor to abdicate (and renounce divine status) in favour of regency headed by Takahito, (27 July 1946), when Akihito comes to age, he would become the Emperor. Hirohito’s abdication marks the beginning of Seika era, era of Emperor Akihito.
Hirohito is still given all possible protections against any trials for war crimes by MacArthur and is basically sent to comfortable retirement. Institution of monarchy is protected by Allies. Through 1946-1947 many westernisation reforms by MacArthur, based largely on FDR’s New Deal, as in our reality. April-May, political prisoners were released, and Communist Party of Japan was legalised and became politically active organising strikes. 10 February 1947 the first election with women suffrage, victory of Democratic Liberal Party headed by war criminal Hatoyama, who was eventually purged by Allied administration, so Shigeru Yoshida became new prime minister (22 March 1947).
By mid-1947 many officials connected to war crimes were purged, however since then, the course was reversed due to American need for the creation of a powerful Ally against the USSR and many regained power or at least avoided persecution. Through 1947 Americans wrote a new Japanese constitution (later in American myths it was MacArthur completely by himself), 3 August 1947 it was presented. Major shift from our reality is that Article 9, although considered, is not included in such sense as in our reality, it states only that “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes” second part about demilitarisation is missing. Since summer 1947, US authorities adopt “Reverse Course” policies - aforementioned rehabilitation of officials, also protection of Zaibatsu (which Americans originally wanted to break-up and weaken), and reconstruction. Tokyo Trials 26 September 1946 to 12 January 1950 – MacArthur’s cover up of Japanese war crimes to a lesser extent, but it still does happen (including Unit 731). Taft also, like in Germany, attacks trials as “victor's justice”. From 25 December to 31 1950 Khabarovsk war crimes trials in the USSR about war criminals from Manchuria.
Persecution of growing Japanese communist movement starts. 1948-1951 “Red Purge”. Since March 1949 Dodge Line plan of right-wing economic reforms (cutting public spending, limiting public consumption, and reorienting industrial production in favour of export-oriented), also increase in unemployment and law against unions passed. In 1949 conflicts between communists and authorities escalated into many strikes, pro-communist politicians and officials began to be fired, after summer strike waves also purges of workers and academics. 1 July 1949 Japanese Self-Defence forces established – official remilitarisation. 23 October 1949 election, victory of DLP, electoral success of communists.
Peace Treaty with Japan
President Taft was eager to restore Japanese Independence – SCAP already transferred large amount of authority to Japanese trough 1949, secretary of the state William Richards Castle Jr took initiative. Despite Taft’s initial opposition to idea of continuous military presence, he is persuaded to keep limited number of stationed troops. Peace Treaty with Japan was scheduled after Treaty with Germany. Talks began in August 1950, however talks collapsed over China, despite at the time everyone recognised KMT, Soviets wanted PRC representatives to also attend. Other negotiations were called for January 1951, which resulted into calling for a Peace Conference with Japan in San Francisco analogous to the previous one with Germany. 6 March to 8 August 1951 San Francisco Conference, USSR and its allies boycotted them due to not including Chinese representatives. Despite Chinese and Soviets not being present, their interests were considered. Taiwan was ceded to China, Sakhalin, and Kuril Islands to USSR, unlike OTL Okinawa and more territories were already given back to Japan. Treaty was signed 8 August 1951, valid since 8 March 1952. Separate peace treaties were signed between Japan and ROC (30 January 1953), the Soviet Union and Korea “Vladivostok Treaties” 28 April 1952, these treaties recognised Soviet control over former Japanese territories and entitled Japan to pay reparations to Korea.
8 September 1951 U.S.-Japan Security Treaty was signed, which dictated Japan to accept continuous American military presence. This treaty caused a wave of resistance in Japan, uniting Japanese from right to left. Bloody May Day – over a million protestors in all of Japan, in Tokyo these protests escalated into violence and protests were massacred by police. 1 October 1952 election victory of Yoshida’s Liberal Party. 10 November 1952 coronation ceremony of Emperor Akihito, it marks symbolic beginning of new post-war Japan.
Philippines – 4 July 1947 United States gave official independence to Philippines and retained there many military bases (agreement from 1946 establishes bases for 99 years!) and the US still keeps a degree of political and economic dominance. 28 June 1946 Manuel Roxas became president of Philippines (still under US control then), communists were expelled from Congress despite being democratically elected – Hukbalahap Rebellion resumes (June 1946) and gained substantial strength, United States interferes and supports the government. On 15 April 1948 Roxas died of a heart attack; he was succeeded by vice-president Elpidio Quirino (re-elected in a fraudulent election 8 November 1949). Since the Taft Presidency, interests of Americans in Philippine affairs decreased, aid against Huks drained. President Quirino initiated major social reforms during his second term and attempted mostly useful land reform. 1950-1951 Huks successfully boosted their strength with seizing and keeping control over the centre of Laguna province – Santa Cruz. In 1952 Huks controlled sizable parts of the country and due to government corruption and brutality against rebels had also popular support. In 1951 they started to obtain massive support from China (from 1948 they were also backed by Korea).
Indonesia
Independence
As Japan surrendered, two days later on 14 April 1946 Indonesia (then with its majority under Japanese control) Indonesia declared independence, Sukarno became president and Hatta vice-president. Indonesians took advantage of the lack of established authority. Indonesia was occupied by Commonwealth forces (started in late May 1946). 27 June to 20 July 1946 a large battle between Indonesian and British forces – Battle of Surabaya, under significant losses results into a British victory. Churchill wanted to restore Dutch colonial rule and was ready to back them.
Important is Dutch reaction, Dutch government at the time was coalition between all parties formed after liberation by the Red Army in September 1945 (in wikibox there is 1946, another mistake overlook until I needed that), all parties with exception of CPN supported re-conquest of Indonesia, while communists wanted to grand them independence. CPN is vigorously opposed to continued colonisation and due to CPN securing second place in 1946 election and to lesser degree Soviet pressure on Dutch to recognise Indonesia, talks began in February 1947. Coincidentally with the December 1946 election there was a Malino Conference in which representatives of Dutch controlled territory backed the plan for creation of Dutch aligned federal states. 15 February 1947 Linggadjati Round Table Agreement is signed, in which Netherlands recognises Indonesian Republic controlled territory and both sides agree on formation of the Federal Republic of Indonesia (Republic, East Indonesia and Kalimantan) by 1 January 1948, FRI would newly formed Netherlands-Indonesian Union with the Dutch monarch as head. Similar agreement was reached in our reality but failed. In this timeline everything goes through, despite the fall of the Dutch coalition in summer 1947.
Federation
First Indonesian prime minister under Sutan Sjahrir (April to 3 December 1946), replaced by Amir Sjarifuddin, his cabinet included leftist forces, eventually even communists, who were instrumental in making agreement with the Netherlands (as part of the Dutch coalition were also communist negotiators). This cabinet stayed in power, avoiding real life events of the Madiun Affair. New government headed by Mohammad Hatta was formed after the creation of the federal republic. Creation of this republic was met with criticism from Islamists, who launched the Darul Islam rebellion led by Sekarmadji Maridjan Kartosoewirjo (7 August 1948). Overall, young Indonesia was a very unstable country. Anti-unitary forces attempted a failed coup in January 1950. Federation was not popular among Indonesians, so it was quickly dissolved and replaced with a unitary republic (14 April 1950). The Republic of South Maluku attempted to break away with Dutch support, however failed to do so.
Liberal Democratic Period (to 1952)
Newly declared Indonesian republic adopted its constitution and became a free parliamentary democracy. First government was a leftwing one again under Sjarifuddin, however eventually collapsed due to Indonesian National Party (12 October 1950, replaced by cabinet of Mohammad Natsir), but this government managed to pass electoral law, so first Indonesian legislative elections were held (29 September 1951), lot of parties ran and get seats – four largest were PNI (left wing nationalism), Masyumi (liberal Islamism), Nahdlatul Ulama (Islamism), PKI (communists) and PSI- Parsi (democratic socialism). Result was a right leaning coalition under Sidik Djojosukarto (PNI- Masyumi and several minor parties), in 1952 Indonesia officially left “Union” with Netherlands.
British Malaya
1 November 1946 British colonies were united into the “Malayan Union”, strengthening and centralising British control, stripping local sultans of their powers. This created another opposition movement under nationalist United Malays National Organisation, they applied massive resistance and did not participate in British institutions. Unlike OTL, during the Churchill years, there was no reform. In 1952 (1 February) it was transformed due to this massive and long resistance (and also due to large scale communist uprising) to Federation of Malaya, attempting to appease at least conservative nationalists.
Anti–British National Liberation War (early years)
Postwar economic turmoil, powerful communist organisation, brutal response of colonial authorities to strikers. Malaya was a key British source of resources, to pay for US debts (even way more rising in importance after Taft). 17 June 1948 Sungai Siput incident – revenge killing of plantation managers lead to massive British anti-communist arrests, and communists went into hiding. Also, the uprising in Burma (1947) also plays a role as another new motivation. February 1949 Malayan National Liberation Army under Chin Peng is formed (reformed from anti-Japanese resistance movement), MNLA has support of the population and is based in jungles and areas very hard to access for colonialists. Britain imposes very harsh repression against the population, leading to even more widespread support for MNLA. April 1950 “Briggs Plan” adopted forced deportations of ethnic Chinese to camps (up to half million people). The UK also uses Agent Orange (as the first country in the World), murders and tortures countless civilians, and destroys villages.
6 October 1951 British High Commissioner Henry Gurney survives MNLA ambush, this is actually damaging to the British as his replacement Gerald Templer was more competent in fighting with partisans. British forces are aided by other commonwealth nations. By 1953 the UK had problems dealing with communists and communists were stronger compared to our reality.
British Sarawak, North Borneo, Brunei
These territories were separated from Malaya in 1946. This was opposed by Malays but supported by the Chinese. Resistance by Malays culminated in assassination of Duncan Stewart. Small communist rebellion also started.
Thailand – After the war in June 1946 king Ananda Mahidol (Rama VIII) returned back to Thailand, however, was found shot dead on 26 March 1947 his death was blamed on prime minister Pridi Banomyong, who was forced to resign being replaced by Luang Thamrong.
In 1946 Thailand had to return territories to France. The 20 October 1946 election resulted in the victory of the People's Party, the first government was formed by Khuang Aphaiwong, he was however replaced by Pridi Banomyong after a lost vote of confidence (6 January 1947). Pridi was supportive of Vietnamese Independence, so he ended up being overthrown in a US backed coup (8 November 1947), this coup brough Plaek Pibulsonggram back to power. Military allied with royalists and Khuang Aphaiwong was appointed prime minister. New constitution gave back powers to Monarchythat were decreased in the 1932 revolution. To counter the power of royalist military and Pridi allied supporters, another coup was carried out on 6 April 1948, fully returning Plaek to power; he eventually secured power and foced Pridi into exile. Plaek attempted to fully secure power and destroy opposition, but due to lack of US support since 1949, he was eventually ousted by Pridi and his supporters (11 February 1949). New Direk Jayanama-led left-wing democratic government, managed to secure limited support of USSR and larger one of China (but also Britain due to their previous alliance with Allies) and tried to adopt non alignment foreign political stance. Internal political reforms – reduced power of monarchy, new legislature (in June 1950 democratic election), thanks popular policy of land reform government gained widespread support from the rural population. 29 November 1951 anti-Pridi parts of the military attempted a coup against him as returned from exile Plaek Phibunsongkhram, but eventually failed and Plaek was banished. In 1952 the government turned against conservative royalists and attempted to even further weaken the monarchy.
Vietnam
March Revolution 16 March to 15 April, Abdication of Emperor Bảo Đại (already before surrender of Japan because of fears of French invasion) -> creation of Vietnamese Democratic Republic. In late April North Vietnam was occupied by Chinese forces to accept the surrender of the Japanese. In March also general Leclerc arrives. Fontainebleau Agreements in mid-1946 between Vietnam and France, Vietnam as part of the French Union. With the return of France (November 1946) fighting erupted, war erupted in March 1947. By October France took over main population centres.To increase French support, State of Vietnam was created under emperor Bao Dai (2 August 1949) In 1950 Vietnam recognised by the soviet bloc. Same year the UK recognised the State of Vietnam. In late 1950 Viet Minh launched a successful offensive. In January 1951 de Tassigny was appointed to command, under his leadership France had limited military success. Hower financing the war became a major problem around this time. In March 1951 Viet Minh won in the crucial battle of Vĩnh Yên (17 March) and Viet Minh got close to Hanoi, but the French eventually managed to hold the city after heavy losses.
Change came in 1952 from Paris, talks started in February and eventually ceasefire was declared (28 February). Paris Conference – France officially recognised Democratic Republic of Vietnam, State of Vietnam was not invited as France and DRV both agreed that it was French colony (this was heavily criticised). End of war was also connected with referendum about future of Vietnam, if people support State of Vietnam in union with France or DRV. Referendum was held 14 June 1952 and resulted into landslide victory for Vietminh. Emperor abdicates and State of Vietnam dissolves, but some members of its military continue to resist DRV.
Newly independent Vietnam became a key ally for all of the socialist bloc in Asia and supported anti-colonial movements. In 1952 land reform began – often turned violent with execution of landlords. In 1953 the first five-year plan was launched, focusing on developing the country.
Laos – After the defeat of Japanese anti-colonial Lao Issara emerged. Lao monarch king Sisavang Vong however agreed with restoration of the French protectorate, Lao Issara with aid from China and Viet Minh attempted to resist re-imposition of French rule, however movement was weak and failed to do so and eventually dissolved itself in 1949. In January 1947 an agreement was signed that pledged France to give Laos autonomy inside the French Union. 1950 – Pathet Lao is formed and joins Viet Minh against French forces. In 1952 French officially withdrew from the country.
Cambodia – In 1946 king Norodom Sihanouk attempted to negotiate independence with the French, December 1946 election was held that resulted in victory of the left-wing Democratic party over conservative Liberal party. 23 October 1947 Democratic party dominated assembly passed a constitution modelled on the French one. After the death of Democratic party founder Sisowath Yuthevong, the party divided itself and cannot agree on a concrete program. In 1948 Cambodia was given autonomy by the French. After independence in April 1952, Democratic Party was largely boosted by this success. This avoided the fall of parliamentary democracy.
Ceylon (Sri Lanka)– Sri Lankan leaders led by Don Stephen Senanayake attempted to reach independence through negotiations. However, negotiations with secretary of colonies Oliver Stanley led only to self-governance and the British initially rejected granting Ceylon status of dominion. On 24 September 1947 Senanayake became the first prime minister of the newly formed Ceylonese government. In 1948 granting Dominion status to India led to demonstrations in Ceylon, Senanayake increased his pressure towards Britain. Eventually Ceylon was given the same status as India and Pakistan 4 February 1949. The Senanayake family had a lot of power, after the death of Senanayake (26 March 1952) his son Dudley was chosen by the British governor.
OCEANIA AND AMERICAS (Basically restating history with occasional minor changes, brief)
Australia – 5 July 1945 death of prime minister John Curtin, he was succeeded by Frank Forde until Labour elected Ben Chifley as its new leader. 28 October 1946 Labour government was re-elected against the emerging Liberal Party. His government was characterised by successful Keynesian social democratic politics, similar to later Attlee in UK, (social welfare, universal healthcare – in real life modelled after British one, this timeline it is vice versa, ie. The Chifley government serves as an example for Attlee elected in 1951) starting Australian postwar economic growth. Australia also supports migration to increase its population (Europeans due to the still existing “White Australia” policy). Left-wing policies, such as nationalisations, created opposition from capitalists and their conservative affiliates in politics and media. Criticism also comes from the left due to the government's anti-communism and breaking of strikes. 10 December 1949 Liberal prime minister Robert Menzies was elected. Anti-communism, in 1950 Communist party was banned, it was ruled unconstitutional. 28 April 1951 a new election, triggered the failure of the banking bill, still a victory for Liberals, however they weakened themselves with this move. In 1951 Menzies declared a referendum about banning communist parties and this timeline people agreed, leading to persecution of many communists, it was criticised as a major attack on freedom of political expression. Red Scare was similar to the US at the time, but pushed by Menzies' government. Liberal economic policies, this time taking inspiration from Taft.
New Zealand – 27 November 1946 election, victory of ruling Labour Party, Labour declined and lost popularity due to continuous post-war rationing and Fraser’s support for compulsory military service. 30 November 1949 National Party led by Sidney Holland was elected. The Legislation was changed from bicameral to unicameral, economic reforms, however the National government still supported the welfare state. Conflict with Unions, culminating into the waterfront dispute of 1951, the government responded harshly against workers with strong anti-union legislation, even outright criminalising support for them. 11 July 1951 the government was re-elected and gained more seats as a large part of the public supported their stance against workers, due to widespread anti-communism.
Oceania – “Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands” established in 1948 was originally controlled by the USA as OTL, but eventually transferred to the United Kingdom in 1950, as the US was not interested in its administration.
Canada – economic boom, social welfare Keynesian economic policies. 20 May 1946 first postwar election, victory of Liberals, however failed to obtain majority and had to rely on leftwing Co-operative Commonwealth, resulting in Canada building the strongest welfare state from Commonwealth states and becoming the most progressive one (and also becoming a major destination for European immigrants). On 15 November 1948 King retired and was succeeded by Louis St. Laurent, a French Canadian strongly opposed to communism. Due to this anti-communist however the ruling coalition collapsed, triggering snap election on 27 June 1949, which resulted in victory of Liberals, who yet again could form government without making coalitions. Shortly before the election, 31 March 1949 Canada united with NewFoundland. Canada took an important role while the US was absent in TATO.
Mexico – 1 December 1946 Miguel Alemán Valdés became president. Pro-business policies and industrialisation, development of infrastructure (dubbed Mexican miracle), however also corruption and elitism. Pro-American foreign policy. 1 December 1952 he was succeeded by Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, he was popular due to his strong stance against corruption and rapid economic development.
Guatemala – In 1944 the country was ruled by dictator Jorge Ubico, who was overthrown by a junta that was overthrown in a popular revolution (20 October 1944), 15 March 1945 Juan José Arévalo became the country's first democratically elected president, who introduced many reforms. He developed the political ideology of Arevalismo "spiritual socialism" -it can be considered a form of democratic socialism. 12 November 1950 Jacobo Árbenz was elected president, he continued the policies of Arévalo and was even more ambitious with his democratic socialist reforms. Largest one was Land Reform (17 June 1952) which greatly benefited hundred of thousands poor Guatemalan people especially indigenous ones, however made very angry American United Fruit Company that controlled majority of land and basically country itself, UFC began to lobby for his overthrown...
British Honduras – Rise of voice for independence and People's United Party
Honduras – Rule of pro American dictator Tiburcio Carías Andino, unlike OTL he did not gave power to his puppets and continued to rule the country directly. Rise of discounted with his regime, even greater due any reforms instituted by his successor Juan Manuel Gálvez were not passed.
El Salvador – Authoritarian rule of Salvador Castaneda Castro (1945-1948), suppression of strikes and opposition, eventually he was deposed by military coup (14.12.1948), after rule of military, Óscar Osorio was appointed president (14.9.1950), he instituted some social reforms, but continued corrupt regime and persecution of opposition.
Nicaragua – Dictatorial rule of pro-American Somoza dynasty. 1947-1950 figurehead presidency of Leonardo Argüello Barreto (after Truman’s pressure for liberalisation).
Costa Rica – 12 March – 24 April 1948 civil war, after an attempt to annul victory of opposition candidate José Figueres Ferrer in election, it ultimately led to victory of rebels with US help. José Figueres Ferrer became provisional president. and pushed many important reforms: abolished the military, gave women suffrage, welfare, nationalisations of banks and also outlawed communist party. 1949-1953 presidency of Otilio Ulate Blanco that upheld these reforms.
Panama – pro-American parliamentary democracy dominated by oligarchy.
Colombia – 9 April 1948 popular democratic socialist presidential candidate of the Liberal Party Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated. This triggered the “La Violencia” (1948-1958) period of massive unrest between the left and the right, over 200 000 died, at the start of the Colombian conflict. On 9 November 1949 Liberal opposition attempted to impeach president Ospina Pérez, he dissolved Congress, creating a presidential dictatorship. Liberal leaders launched an uprising in rural areas (originally it was intended to be a military coup, that however in real life did not take place and here took place and failed). 7 August 1950 new Conservative dictatorial president Laureano Gómez Castro, admirer of Franco, suffered a major heart attack and power was transferred to Roberto Urdaneta Arbeláez in 1951.
Venezuela – 18 October 1945 military coup that brought democracy to Venezuela (October 1946 and December 1947 democratic elections) under president Rómulo Betancourt. The 1940s economy also boomed thanks to oil. However, on 24 November 1948, the military staged a coup and Marcos Pérez Jiménez became dictator, under his oppressive regime there was great economic development, and he was close to the US.
Ecuador – President José María Velasco Ibarra was ousted in military coup (23 August 1947), 1947-1948 unstable country was ruled by military Carlos Mancheno Cajas, eventually military gave power to former vice-president Mariano Suárez Veintimilla, who gave his powers to Congress that elected Carlos Julio Arosemena Tola (31 August 1947). His presidency was strongly allied with the United States. 1 September 1948 Galo Plaza, another strongly pro-American figure, became the next president. He supported technocratic approach, democracy and was very open to foreign (mostly American) influence, exporting bananas to America. 1 June 1952 José María Velasco Ibarra (former deposed president, established politician and Ecuadorian nationalist) won election and became president for third term, his term was stable and brought progress, mostly in great development of infrastructure.
Brazil – Fourth Brazilian Republic, president Eurico Gaspar Dutra (1946-1951). Close relations with the US, liberal economic policy. 31 January 1951 Vargas returned after victory in the 3 October 1950 election. Keynesian economic policy, 1953 creation of PETROBRAS. Rua Tonelero shooting an assassination attempt on leading opposition member Carlos Lacerda (5August 1954) blamed on Vargas by opposition in a strong campaign, 24 August 1954 he committed suicide.
Perú – 1945 leftwing president José Luis Bustamante y Rivero, restoration of democracy. 29 October 1948 military seized power in a coup after murder of a prominent right-wing editor. Manuel Odría's regime strongly persecuted leftwing APRA, supported powerful oligarchy and gained favour of people thanks to populist rhetoric and policies.
Bolivia – 1947 to 1949 rule of Enrique Hertzog, conservative American aligned government. Economy in a terrible state, social unrest and intensified class struggle. Dominant opposition group was Nationalist Revolutionary Movement (MRN) with a program of nationalisations and land reform. Next president Mamerto Urriolagoitía installed military rule (16 May 1951) under Hugo Ballivián. 9 April 1952 Bolivian National Revolution overthrew the junta. Víctor Paz Estenssoro became president. Many left-wing and democratic reforms transformed the country: universal suffrage, nationalisation of mining, large land reform (however created farms were eventually again taken over by large landowners), great influence of trade unions and workers.
Paraguay – Dictator Higinio Morínigo was pushed by the US to liberalise his regime, he legalised political parties and formed a coalition between Colorado and Febreristas. Later ones resigned from the government (11 January 1947) and united with opposition forces (Liberals and Communists) and attempted to topple his regime starting a civil war (7 March – 20 August 1947), despite opposition having popular support, and the government was saved by the US and Argentina. All parties with exception of Colorado were banned and the country became one party state. 16 August 1948 leader of Colorado Juan Natalicio González was elected president. He promoted nationalist policies; several American companies were nationalised. Due to American non-interventionism, three attempted coups against the president failed due to lack of any outside support. In other ways Paraguay was a stable country during his presidency.
Uruguay – functioning democracy, dominance of liberal Colorado party. Presidents: Juan José de Amézaga (1943-1947) – social reforms, economic stability and growth. Tomás Berreta (1947) died in office, Luis Batlle Berres (1947-1951) continued social and leftwing economic reforms.
Chile – Democratic presidential republic. September 1946 presidential election, Gabriel González Videla (Radical) elected. During his presidency many communist strikes, under US pressure Videla passed “Permanent Defense of Democracy Law” (8.9.1948) that banned the communist party, many imprisoned, strikes brutally suppressed, relations with socialist bloc broken. Radicals created alliance with Liberals and Conservatives. 4 September 1952 resulted in the victory of former president nationalist general Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. He repealed the ban on communists and also gained support from the left.
Argentina – Peron and Peronism. Nationalism, populism, social welfare, improvement of working conditions, development of local industry, growing power of the trade unions, authoritarian rule and persecution of opposition etc. Non-aligned foreign policy stance. 26 July 1952 death of Eva Peron.
Cuba – Presidents Ramón Grau (44-48) and Carlos Prío Socarrás (48-52) of left-wing nationalist Partido Auténtico. 10.3.1952 democracy overthrown by Batista’s coup. Pro-American authoritarian regime, serving interests of American elites owning majority of the county.
Haiti – 1946 revolution (11.1) – military seized power and new National Assembly was elected, Dumarsais Estimé became president (16 August 1946 to 10 May 1950), attempts of reforms, focused on expanding education, expansion of worker’s rights, creation of social security system (no passed), major nationalisations. His presidency was marked by growth and economic development. In foreign policy he was allied towards the US. After he tried to extend his time in office, he was removed by the military. General Paul Magloire became new president, he was elected president in 1950 first direct election.
Dominican Republic – Totalitarian far-right dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Ally of the US.
INDEPENDENT STATES IN AFRICA
Ethiopia – Emperor Haile Selassie. 15 September 1952 Federation Between Ethiopia and Eritrea formed.
Liberia – US aligned. President William Tubman (1944-1971), stable period.
South Africa – 26 May 1948 Reunited National Party won election. Daniël François Malan became prime minister, 1948-1953 apartheid instituted.
Colonial Africa would be addressed in the next part (since there aren’t too much events 1946-1952, 1953 to 1956 is extremely eventful on the other hand) North Africa covered in another post

Around Thanksgiving last year, my 22 year old daughter Izzy started complaining about her back hurting. We just assumed she pulled a muscle or had a pinched nerve. After a couple weeks, the pain seemed to be getting worse. She went to urgent care on a Friday and they confirmed she probably had a pinched nerve. They gave her some meds. That following Monday (Dec. 18) she was in a lot of pain, so I rushed her to the hospital. It was her back and her left arm now bothering her. They blew her off and said that she was fine. I insisted that she get an MRI or cat scan done. Finally at my request they did a cat scan on her back and said they didn't see anything wrong. They said it's probably a pinched nerve, gave her more meds and sent us home.
The week of Christmas everything changed. She woke up each night covered in sweat. On the 28th, her heart was beating fast, she was extremely pale, and had two knots appear on the left side of her neck and one under her left underarm. I brought her to a different hospital.
When we got to the ER, they immediately took her to a room. Her vitals were extremely high (170 heart rate) from the pain she was in. They were considering that she could have meningitis or mono. They wanted to get tests ran right away. They admitted her, and did a spinal tap and MRI. 2 days later (Saturday) the doc said they found a large tumor on her spine. Can't say if it's cancer yet, she would need a biopsy first. They informed us that she would be moved that day to their sister hospital that specializes in cancer.
When we arrived, she was put on the neurology ward in a regular room. They immediately put her on a lot of meds. She was on so many pain drugs, (Oxy, Dilaudid, muscle relaxers, Morphine, Xanax, etc.) that I kept asking, "Is this end of life? Can she overdose from all these drugs?" They would respond with, "no, it's just to keep her comfortable and we're trying to get her heart rate down." On New years day they gave her Ativan. She responded horribly to it. It was a rough day. She was hallucinating and freaking out all day and night. The next day she told them to NEVER give her that again. They told her when we first arrived that anything she didn't want to take, they would respect and not put it in her charts to receive. They would put it under allergies. We assumed they would do so as they said they would.
They finally did the biopsy on Wednesday the 3rd. When she came back from surgery, she wouldn't wake up. She slept all day Wednesday and most of Thursday. I was really concerned.They kept adding more pain meds to her chart. I again was scared she would forget to breathe. That night she wasn't breathing properly and her vitals were going down. She had to be rushed to NeuroICU. They got her stable and explained it was from all the different drugs. They explained that it's trial and error. They're trying to figure out what works for her and they decided to put her on a drip line of Dilaudid. They still gave her other drugs but Dilaudid seemed to help her pain somewhat. They also said she had a spot on her lungs what looked like pneumonia starting.
All week she was constantly telling us that she was losing feeling in her legs and her left arm. By Saturday of that week she was paralyzed. They finally took her for an MRI and saw that the tumor had spread up and down her spine and to her ovaries, and it was stealing her blood supply. She would need emergency surgery asap. They of course came to explain what was happening and the surgeon informed me that Ativan would be used during surgery. I immediately told him no, and that she is allergic to it and it was supposed to be on her allergy list. I explained to him what happened when she received it before. On Sunday they rushed her into surgery and cut the blood supply to the tumor. It was too dangerous to try and remove any of the tumor. They didn't know if the paralysis was permanent, but they were hopeful that the surgery would work. It didn't we would later find out.
When she returned from surgery, she was out of control. She was violent and cursing at me. In 22 years I had never heard her curse, but she was fluent! She was hallucinating bad and kept freaking out. It was scary to watch. They decided to give her some meds to make her to sleep, to help her heal. For 2 straight days my baby screamed blood curdling screams, she would cry out "mommy, mommy" while she slept. She screamed so much and so loud that anyone in ear shot were questioning what was going on. It was heartbreaking to witness. I thought she was having a bad reaction to the anesthesia. I later found out that they were giving her Ativan anyway. They NEVER put it in her chart as an allergy the week before, and the doctor disregarded what I said about not giving her that. They had other options they could have used but he still chose to do what he wanted. I only found out because the nurse mentioned that she would be right back with her Ativan. The nurse had no knowledge that my daughter refused that medication previously. I informed her not to give that drug to her. She went and spoke with the attending physician who changed it to haldol and ketemine. That was Monday night. By Wednesday she finally calmed down from screaming, so they decided to try and wake her up.
When she woke up she could no longer speak properly, use her left arm, or move her legs. Her fingers and toes were turning black. They said it was from a certain med she was on. That it's normal. A lay person could see something was horribly wrong.
Everyday we would see up to 30 doctors. I say we, because I never left her side. One would say one thing while another would say something else. It was confusing and scary. We still didn't have a diagnosis. We just knew she had cancer. They suspected stage 4 but couldn't say until pathology came back. It was traumatic and a nightmare. It went from a diagnosis of a pinched nerve to stage 4 cancer in a matter of a week. WTF?
We finally got the diagnosis on Tuesday the 9th.. Stage 4 anaplastic large cell lymphoma. Very rare and aggressive. They said they were starting chemo immediately. They gave her the first dose that Wednesday night. We had hope. It was a rollercoaster of terror, but the doctors kept saying that she could beat this. I googled everything I could and prayed for a miracle. It's always been my girl and I, so I was desperate for her to live through this. She wasn't just my daughter, she was literally my everything.
By week 2, she needed blood on a daily basis. She couldn't eat or drink. She couldn't relieve herself. She couldn't move. She couldn't speak clearly to explain her needs or wants. Her breathing was shallow. Her vitals were not normal. They would go down and then jump extremely high. She was so out of it, that they had to come to me concerning everything. Her oxygen was dropping significantly and they had to keep changing out the masks and oxygen levels to help her breathe. They kept changing her meds and she had multiple complications from that. They couldn't find any good spots on her arms to put her IVs anymore, and her legs were so swollen that they couldn't locate a useable spot anywhere. They put it on her right side of the neck. During all this she had multiple medical emergencies. One example is they said that spot on her lungs wasn't pneumonia but they now suspected a small blood clot. That medicine she was given would hopefully help, the only problem was that medication was causing problems for her back surgery. A few days later we found out it was blood and it was completely filled up in her chest. She was drowning in her own blood. They couldn't do surgery right away because she would bleed out since her platelets were so low even while receiving blood transfusions. That blood was somehow going into her lungs. I was floored. Everyday I would ask about it and I was told it was getting better, nothing to worry about. In fact the doctor said that very morning it had cleared up significantly. Imagine my shock when the critical team comes rushing in that evening to do ultrasounds on her and tells me they suspect it's why her breathing was going downhill.
On Monday she was transferred to a MICU room on a different floor. This floor felt uneasy to me. There was death all around and you could see it. They said that this floor was where her main doctors were, so that she would get the best care. Now they introduce fentanyl to her med regimen. They explained it that it would help with her pain. She would be allowed so much every hour if needed.
The next day they decided to do the surgery to put a tube in her chest to drain the blood. She now had an extremely dangerous back surgery, staples running up her entire back with tubes, a huge scar under her arm from the biopsy with tubes, and now a huge tube coming out her chest. Her fingers and toes at this point were in a stage of necropsy. But they couldn't do anything about it. They would just have to fall off in time. It was devastating. My daughter was a trooper through out this whole time. She never complained or was negative. She was just scared when she understood what was going on. Honestly I've never seen so much courage in my life.
When it came to her pain meds she was only on fentanyl and Dilaudid drip. She would only receive it when she asked. That was her rule. She was scared she would overdose or become hooked on it and didn't want that monster on her back. She would be in so much pain but would just sit through it. Her vitals were better, but when the pain would become to much to bare, her heart rate would go into the 150 to 170 range. As soon as she got some meds it would go down to the teens to low twenty's.
On Thursday night she had a new nurse. He would administer pain meds even when she didn't request it. I saw him give her shot when she was sleeping. I walked in on him. I asked him if she requested it as I saw she was asleep and he said no. He stated he was trying to keep her comfortable. I asked him not to unless she asks. He didn't listen.Throughout the night as we slept, he would give her meds that she didn't even need. He gave her haldol. She only received that for two days after her back surgery. No one had given her that since. He would give her a shot of fentanyl behind it. I later found this out while talking with her doctors and from her records.
That Friday morning she started having these weird episodes, what later looked like seizures to me. Her vitals would drop and she would go into a deep stare. They blamed the meds. It was constant apologies for her being over medicated again. Even the doctor didn't understand why he gave her so much.She had 4 separate episodes before they (at my constant request) sent her to get a MRI done.
She had a blood clot in her brain. Again they said nothing to worry about. But after experiencing what we went through already, I was highly concerned. As I should have been. They kept apologizing and said they would change her medication up again. I told them it wasn't the medicine it was the nurse. I couldn't understand why he would give her two doses of haldol when she didn't need it. The nurse said my daughter was anxious and thought it would help. My daughter was sleeping so how could she have been anxious. I went off. Something in my spirit was telling me to get her out of there. But how could I when she was hooked up to all these tubes. She was suffering and I couldn't help her. The only thing I could do was use my voice to try and protect her and be her advocate. The next day Jan. 20th, I woke up after a couple hours of sleep, and I knew something was wrong. She was awake and trying to talk. Her vitals were back at a steady 170 with high blood pressure and a low oxygen number so I knew she was in pain. I could feel it in every bone of my body something was different that day. I felt my baby didn't have long as I thought cancer was winning. I called all of our family to come see her. I can't explain it. At one point I pulled one of her doctors out of her room and begged him to tell me what was happening. Shoot it to me straight. He kept saying she's always been critical but she would pull through. He had so much hope.
They gave her some meds to help bring her vitals down and it started to work again. Her vitals started going from 160 to 150. At this point she was having a brain scan done in her room to see what the episodes were exactly. She was awake but could no longer move from her neck down. Which had just started the 2 days before. She had a blood infection and they had to move the pic line from the right side of her neck to the left side but we're unsuccessful because she had obstructions there (2 huge tumors) They had to put the new line back on the right side in the back of the neck. I don't know what happened since I wasn't allowed in the room. I do know my daughter said after they finished, she wasn't able to feel anything but her face. She never turned her head again.
During that day she kept having flem and spit from the congestion she had due to the chest infection and surgery. I would sit there and suck it out for her. No problem, I had been doing it for days with no complaints on my end. The doctors were coming in and out constantly all day to check her brain test and at one point the doctor seeing me and my nephew take shifts suctioning her out said he wanted to try a new medicine she had never received. My daughters nurse interrupted him and said that she didn't think that it was a good idea. They went back and forth for a few minutes and I stepped in and said, it was fine, I would sit there and suction out forever if I had to. Something felt different in this exchange as well. In all of 24 days of being in the hospital, I never saw a nurse challenge a doctor. I immediately went to the computer, where the nurse had typed in the order for this drug, and googled it. The first thing that popped up, was not to give this drug to someone with high blood pressure or high heart rate. It causes a person's heart rate to shoot up high quickly. It was too late. They already administered it to her. Since her heart rate was already high it caused her to go into cardiac arrest. I just stood there in shock screaming is she in cardiac arrest? To which the doctor finally responded "I'm sorry, yes"
They ushered me and my nephew out of the room so they could work on her. After about 30 minutes they called my phone and told me she flatlined but they got her heart beating again. I went flying back in that room screaming at them. I refused to leave the room. She was now on life support, but there was no hope for her to ever wake up again. After consulting with my family and her doctors, and looking at where her vitals were, I decided to pull the plug. She passed within seconds. I feel like the doctor should have listened to the nurse, but his ego would not allow him to. I feel like he's somehow responsible, but at the same time I saw what was happening to her on a daily basis and what cancer was doing to her body. I also witnessed a lot of negligence too on their part. I've been going back and forth since January 20th, about contacting an attorney and seeing if I have a case. I requested an autopsy to be performed, because I wanted to know what all was wrong with her. They informed me they normally don't do that because of the cancer. I argued with them and said I wanted one anyway. I wanted to know what happened. I was trying to understand this whole situation. 25 days prior it was just supposed to be a pinched nerve, but it wasn't. They explained I would have to pay for the autopsy, and I was okay with that. The next day after she passed away, I received the phone call to give my permission for an autopsy. They said it would take a couple days and would let me know when it was finished so the funeral home could pick up her body.
I've been calling for months about the autopsy report with no luck. Here we are in May, I go to the hospital to get the autopsy results and it's all of five pages. It's not even an autopsy report. It doesn't even state her cause of death. It's just bullshit paperwork. All it mentions is the necropsy to her fingers and toes and her basic info like height and weight. I'm so angry right now. I have her medical records, and I noticed on the 19th of January they finally put she was allergic to Ativan. There's a lot wrong with this situation. I even asked for a CD of all her images, from pathology. What I received only two images come up. Everything else is blocked from opening. I know my daughter took multiple MRIs, ultrasounds,and CAT scans in those three and a half weeks. There's no way it's only two images.
I counted all the times the nurse gave my daughter pain meds that Thursday night and it was double what any other nurse had given her at any other time plus with other drugs she didn't need at that time. I found out that haldol and fentanyl is something they give to patients that's in end of life care. Which I was constantly told my daughter was not. Her death certificate states she passed from lymphoma related cardiac arrest. I'm just so confused on what to do. I feel like I'm letting my daughter down if I don't look into this further.
I'm sorry this a novel. I couldn't just ask a simple question with out the back story for you to understand. It was so much more believe me, this was the short version!
Do I have a case or should I just move on and accept my daughter died from cancer related complications? Thank you....

Sequence 4: Cataclysmic Interrer
New Abilities

• Calamity Creation: Within an initial range of 1 kilometer(increases to 2 kilometers after potion digestion), Cataclysmic Interrers can manipulate the environment around them to create four of the most common but extremely destructive calamities.
  • Tsunami: Through the creation of a sudden vertical displacement of the ocean floor, they can call forth huge water waves to crash down at their targets, washing everything away in a powerful torrent.
    • The further away the vertical displacement is from a Cataclysmic Interrer and the more digested the potion is, the more powerful the Tsunami will be.
    • Cataclysmic Interrers can choose to split a Tsunami into smaller waves and have its effects cascade onto a larger region.
  • Hurricane: By quickly swirling air together in a spiral, a Cataclysmic Interrer can quickly form a tornado that cleans through anything it passes, leaving nothing left.
    • The strength of the Hurricane depends on the potion digestion of the Cataclysmic Interrer and the environmental factors(such as humidity, pressure level, etc.).
    • They can choose to control the direction of Hurricanes or let it spiral out of control randomly.
  • Earthquake: Suddenly moving a fault within the earth can allow a Cataclysmic Interrer to split the ground in 2 and cause the surface to shake, forming an Earthquake.
    • Cataclysmic Interrers can move faults within a short distance from the earth's outer surface, allowing them to crack the ground around their enemies and bury them in the rubble.
    • In certain cases(where the ground is close to a volcano or near a magma chamber), lava may erupt inside an Earthquake. If this spot is repeatedly being assaulted, a volcanic eruption may occur.
  • Torrential Rain: They can manipulate the surrounding clouds around them to cast down heavy rain across large swathes of area.
    • The sensory chaos created by Torrential Rain is by far the highest among all the disasters they can make, even being able to disturb a Demigod's Spiritual Intuition.
    • Lightning Rain: By sending out a Lightning Strike near the area where their Torrential Rain effects, it can branch out across the entire area, forming a Lightning Rain. This is a Lightning Calamity.

Strengthened Abilities

• Siren Song: The mystical attributes of their singing voice have been enhanced significantly, making each of their songs have an indescribable effect on the target's body and mystical connections.
  • Roar: By simply roaring out loud, their vocal cords can produce a shockwave that has enough energy to topple a ship.
• Lightning Strike: The power of their Lightning Strikes has been enhanced.
  • It can hit their target with more intensity and accuracy, instantly scorching them and Purifying them from most negative influences.
  • Cataclysmic Interrers can conjure up and shoot out up to 10 lightning arrows at a time in a matter of seconds.
• Water Manipulation: The range and versatility of spells that they can use in the storm and sea domain have increased as their range of control has reached 200 meters.
  • Whirlpool: They can create a massive Whirlpool that directly leads to the deeper parts of the ocean.
    • With further digestion, a Cataclysmic Interrer would be able to create a Whirlpool that directly leads down to the deep seafloor.
  • Sealing: Through the use of tidal waves(created either from Water Manipulation or Calamity Creation), they can Seal and weaken various targets.
    • Attempts to break out of the Seal through the Spirit World will prove challenging as any possible opening to the Spirit World will quickly be swallowed up by waves of water.
    • Spirituality will be constantly siphoned by the tidal waves, increasing the potency of the Seal while also lowering the resistance of the target(s) contained within.
• Phantom Scales (Scale Armor): They possess exaggerated illusory scale defenses, enough for them to be able to withstand multiple bolts of lightning without their defense breaking.
  • If their illusory scales were to break, it would take merely a day for their scales to fully recover(provided no interference has been done on their scales).

Mythical Creature Form

• As a Sequence 4 Beyonder they receive some level of Godhood, and with it comes an incomplete Mythical Creature Form. Disregarding any consequences, Cataclysmic Interrers can choose to reveal this form and become a 1-headed Kraken.
  • While manifesting this form enhances Cataclysmic Interrer's defense, strength, and ability to control lightning, water, and wind to a degree way beyond other Mythical Creature Forms, it would result in one of the highest increases in madness among all Sequence 4 Beyonders, making it very dangerous for a Cataclysmic Interrer to utilize as a trump card consistently.
  • Their incomplete Mythical Creature form looks like a 30-meter-tall Kraken. Their skin turns navy blue and is made of a material reminiscent of a whale while their head swells up significantly and transmutes itself into the head of a squid. The area from their forehead to the nose will form the squid's eye whose pupil contains the traits of storm, sea, and authority.
    • If those under Sequence 4 saw this form, they would suffer a strong backlash as their brains would quickly be overcome with fear and devotion. If they succumb to the influence, they will prostrate on the ground and beg for forgiveness, an act that will form a temporary Anchor that can stabilize the transformed Cataclysmic Interrer.

Sequence 3: Sea King
New Abilities

• Ruler of the Sea: By establishing their Dominion over a portion of the ocean waters, Sea Kings can become the ruler and spokesperson of the area they dominate, granting them an array of unique abilities and passive boons.
  • As for how they establish a Dominion, they have two methods.
    • Merely staying near the area they want to control, and over a month, having one's influence and authority entrench into the surrounding real and Spirit World until a Dominion is established.
    • Conquest, relocating believers into the area, and any other form of external influence that is related to them to quickly infect the surrounding area with their influence and quickly establish a Dominion.
  • While the aspects and boons of each Sea King's Dominion will be different due to the environment, 5 traits remain consistent throughout these areas.
    1. When fighting in the ocean, they can unleash their fullest potential and completely overwhelm all Beyonders at the same level.
    2. They can sense what happens in the waters they control, and scenes of the overall situation would appear in their mind.
    3. They can bestow their Beyonder abilities with the ability to cascade across realms within their Dominion.
    4. They can use the natural Spirituality within the air to manipulate the weather in a controlled way.
    5. They can communicate with, and drive many sea creatures at or below their level to do their bidding.
  • They are only able to create 1 Dominion at first.
    • This will increase to 3 upon full potion digestion.
  • At the start of their potion digestion, Sea Kings are only able to control a 121-km² squared plot of sea.
    • This will increase to a 423-km² area of the sea upon full potion digestion.
  • Sea Kings can disband their Dominions simply through a thought.

Strengthened Abilities

• Calamity Creation: Its range has increased to 10 kilometers. In addition, each Calamity possesses a unique effect compared to the others.
  • Tsunami: Through the use of cyclical tidal waves, they can gradually increase the sea level within the surrounding sea, allowing them to set off large Tsunamis wantonly, better Seal targets, and further establish a sense of dominance and superiority over the surrounding environment.
  • Hurricane: Hurricanes at their highest level can now completely impede certain forms of Teleportation as the winds move around at such a high rate that targets attempting to cross into a Hurricane will often find themselves further back from where they started.
  • Earthquake: Sea Kings can create sudden displacements so powerful that they completely shock and release a powerful Sonic Boom around the affected area, causing great damage and stunning those nearby.
  • Torrential Rain: The Torrential Rain they can create could spread their Spirituality, making each cloud and each drop of water become their eyes and ears.
    • Lightning Storm: They can generate Lightning Storms by bringing down silver-white swaths of lightning from the sky or from thin air that spread into "branches" creating a silver "forest" that can span hundreds of meters, bringing forth a destructive aura and a sense of destruction. This is the enhanced form of Lightning Rain.
• Lightning Manipulation: Derived from Lightning Strike, they can generate and manipulate massive amounts of electricity from the surrounding area. They no longer need the right weather conditions to generate lightning.
  • They can create balls of lightning that instantly scorch massive swathes of land and sea.
  • Through the use of Lightning Strikes, they can produce Thunderclaps that stun enemies
• Navigation: With their newfound knowledge of various places and their enhanced intuition, Sea Kings can Navigate across various environments.
  • Even if they were to be transported to a random place in the Spirit World, their newfound capabilities would allow them to effectively Navigate through it and return to their desired location.
• Physical Enhancement: Their strength, agility, and balancing capabilities have been enhanced significantly.
  • They possess the strength of powerful sea monsters.
  • They have an incomprehensible level of balance.
  • They can travel faster than the speed of sound.
• Aquatic Affinity: Even if they haven't established a Dominion, their affinity with the sea makes them akin to a "prince of the ocean".
  • They can freely walk on the seafloor without having to worry about sea pressure and other environmental restraints.
  • Even while not being within a Dominion they control, they can command a large amount of sea monsters to do their bidding.

Mythical Creature Form

• Their Mythical Creature Form develops further. They are now a 2-headed Kraken. Their skin cracks up and resembles the sea as their first head begins to sink into their body, entering deep within as water continues to rush forth from the pores of their now hidden head. The second head will seemingly float in the air as the air around them would create storms blocking their visage
  • Their first head represents the sea and their second head represents the storm.
    • An individual looking at the first head would begin to cough up seawater and continue to experience massive levels of sea sickness, eventually turning into an unknown sea creature in the process.
    • An individual looking at the second head will begin to heat up as their nerves begin to fry up and overheat from overstimulation. If this goes on for long enough, they will eventually die as their deceased corpse becomes a new hotbed for ocean phenomena.
  • As a Sequence 3 Beyonder, they can listen and respond to prayers within a certain range. Their range is relatively far-reaching compared to other Saints as a result of their Dominions.
    • They can use Siren Songs to cast revelations and their weather-manipulating abilities to bless their believers.

"I, John, who am both your brother and friend in trouble, and in the kingdom and suffering of Jesus Christ, was on the island called Patam, for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the spirit on a weekday, and I heard behind me a voice as great as a trumpet saying: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last; And write what you see in a book, and send it to the churches that are in Asia: to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea."
Rev. 1:9-11
In this introduction, it seems as if Jovan is surprised and says, "I, Jovan," am I something special, so God reveals these things to me. Jovan was very humble when he wrote this because he continues, "I am your brother and friend in troubles," John does not say, "I John who am an apostle, who am above you or something like that" here John says, "brother" so John is a brother and not something more than a brother, John shares good and bad with his brothers. he suffered with the brothers when the church was persecuted. John did not exalt himself above the brothers as some do today, proclaiming themselves to be super holy or something similar. If we think humanly, John had the elements to "say something about himself" but he did not because he put himself in the same rank as his brothers, and that's where you can see how spiritual and humble John is. The truth is John was an apostle chosen by God, he even had special privileges to be near Jesus, he was also in the narrow circle of privileges with Peter and James, and he was given the grace to write the Gospel according to John, the three epistles as well as the Revelation in which he saw something that probably no one before him had. But John does not mention any of that nor does he use privileges with people to prove himself, he simply says, "I John, who am both your brother and friend in trouble, and in the kingdom and suffering of Jesus Christ."
Here we see that John says in the "kingdom" and this refers to the spiritual kingdom that has begun and in which Jesus reigns, that is the church of God, which we also read about in the sixth verse:
"And make us kings and priests to God and your Father"
Rev. 1:6
of course, this is also by grace because this is unimaginable for us humans. We know what we are like and what we like to do, but God does not deal with us according to our mistakes, but makes us emperors and priests.
"And you are the chosen race, the royal priesthood, the holy people, the people of gain, to announce the benefactors of the One who called you out of darkness to his strange light"
1 Peter 2:9
So we became the emperor's priests and now we all have direct access to God based on the merits of the Lord Jesus. Here John encourages the brothers and says, "Like you, I am a humble servant of Christ's kingdom. Jesus has redeemed us and now reigns in our hearts."
And the last thing that John mentions at the beginning of this verse is, "the suffering of Jesus Christ". We know that the church went through enormous problems and torments and that a large number of believers ended their lives by martyrdom, and through all of this a common characteristic permeates, "patience" and waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.. John is now writing about this. He says, "I John" humble brother, "I have the great privilege to write to you the revelation of the eternal God until the very end" which will confirm the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory to establish an eternal kingdom.
He continues further, "I was on an island called Patmos, for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ" John tells us that he was exiled to the island of Patmos to preach the word of God, and in the last part we see that he also preached the second coming of Christ, and for the testimony Jesus Christ" and the explanation is in:
"...for the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of Prophecy."
Rev. 19:10
When Jovan was sent to the island, he was about ninety years old and there he was among criminals and political prisoners because the Roman government designated the island of Patmos for those categories. The island was isolated and everyone who was on this island lost their civil rights as well as their possessions, and they were extremely rude to the prisoners, besides, they gave them very little food and they did very hard work while they slept in a cave.
Jovan also went through these sufferings, but it is not written in which group he was assigned because he was neither a criminal nor a politician, he was there because of the word of God and now amid those sufferings on an isolated island, God appears to him.
"I was in the spirit on a Sunday" John says that he was in the Spirit, which means that John was outside the normal senses that we use on earth, he was in the Spirit. So God gives him revelation in an unnatural way with the Holy Spirit on Sunday. John continues "and I heard behind me a voice as loud as a trumpet speaking", John heard the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ giving him instructions on what to do.
This voice of God is also mentioned:
"...God answered him with a voice."
Exod.19:19
"He gave you to hear His voice from heaven to teach you, and He showed you His great fire on earth, and you heard His words in the midst of the fire."
Deut. 4:36
"And I heard a great voice from heaven saying"
Rev. 21:3
This voice that John hears with instructions on what to do is the voice of God, the voice of Authority, the voice of the One who is Omnipotent, the voice of the One who has neither beginning nor end, the voice of the One who is the Alpha and the Omega, the voice of the One who is the First and the Last.
"I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last; And write what you see in a book, and send it to the churches that are in Asia: to Ephesus, and Smyrna, and Pergamum, and Thyatira, and Sardis, and Philadelphia, and Laodicea."
The Lord Jesus tells John to send a book with what he sees to the seven cities where there were churches in the order that is given from Ephesus to Laodicea and back to Ephesus. The local churches were independent and each had a preacher under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ because He is the head of the church.
"... Christ is the head of the church,"
Eph. 5:23

Like I've said before I'm an extremely new player to stardew valley I barely had it a few months and I really don't play it but that often yet but you can make the UI very very large and as a severely visually impaired person that makes me very happy :)

The Penguins of Madagascar

"Just smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave."

The Penguins of Madagascar are four ordinary penguins turned secret commando team. Born in the frozen wasteland that is Antarctica, Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico spent their childhood in boredom, waddling along the ice with seemingly no destination in mind. They were constantly told by the rest of their colony that it was a dangerous world for a penguin, and something so "cute and cuddly" shouldn't take any risks. One day, the group witnessed a lone egg rolling down the snow towards an icy cliff. When they realized no one was going to help it, the three baby penguins leapt into action. They rescued the egg from certain doom, but in the process were separated from the rest of their group, stuck on a lone iceberg and floating towards an unknown future. It was that moment that Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and the new hatching Private, became not only a team, but a family.
Fast forward a few years, and the Penguins of Madagascar have grown into a skilled group of elite commandos, partaking in various missions that have taken them all over the world, from New York to Madagascar to Africa to Europe. Over the course of their dangerous careers they have accumulated a wide variety of friends and allies. These range from the residents of the Central Park Zoo to the members of the spy agency North Wind. However they have also made no shortage of enemies, including Hans the Danish puffin, the Red Squirrel and the maniacal Dr. Blowhole.

Respect Threads

• Skipper
• Kowalski
• Rico
• Private
• Group Thread

Skipper

"Cute and cuddly, boys. Cute and cuddly."

Skipper is the leader of the group, devising tactics and gives orders. He is calculating, strict, paranoid, short-tempered, stubborn, and has a great disdain for hippies. Skipper's raving paranoia and tendency to view even the most ordinary activities as a military operation, combined with his experience in covert ops, has driven him to prepare for nearly any situation, no matter how bizarre or unlikely. While his antics do tend to alienate other animals outside of his commando team, more often than not his paranoia is proven justified, as he and his team have saved the world on multiple occasions.
Strength

• Slides into a metal door with enough force to dent it
• His punches shake a tree
• Forces open a giant alligator's jaws
• Crushes a golf ball with his flipper
• Throws a plastic unicorn toy with enough force for it to get stuck in a brick wall
• Repeatedly breaks himself out of a block of ice that was "Antarctic cold"

Speed/Agility

• Dodges a multitude of darts from a booby trap
• Dodges a large missile multiple times
• Dodges multiple lasers while charging towards an experimental laser turret
• Slides fast enough to stay ahead of Officer X's combat van
• Jumps over 1 1/2 stories onto a rising platform
• Bounces and flips around several lamp posts, rocks, and trees, eventually knocking out some pins with an explosive dive kick

Durability

• Gets kicked into a brick wall by Joey the kangaroo, cracking it
• Gets kicked high into the air by his evil android doppelganger, who was strong enough to crack concrete
• Kowalski's Nexto Skeleton knocks him through a bench with a rocket kick
• Gets pounded into the concrete by Bada
• Gets slammed into a concrete wall by Roger, creating a penguin shaped indention
• Falls through the roof of a plane mid flight
• Gets blasted into a stone wall by an explosion
• Gets shocked by the Zoo's new electric field
• For a short while, he walks across pavement that was hot enough to turn an egg to ash in 3 seconds
• After being buried alive, gets blasted through the dirt with a piece of dynamite and is perfectly fine

Skill

• Even while unconscious, his reflexes always keep him ready to fight
• Fends off the other penguins with relative ease
• Throws a playing card with enough accuracy to cut a four ropes keeping the penguins suspended in the air as well as a rope holding up a chandelier
• Throws a coin, which cuts two ropes and frees Maurice, bounces off a wall, cuts another rope and frees Mort, and finally bounces off another wall and turns off a light switch

Kowalski

"Okay Kowalski, wow me."
"Behold, a portal to times past. The Chronotron!"
"So, its a time machine?"
"Well, yes."
"So why not call it a time machine?"
"Sure, yeah. And while we're at it, let's call the Great Wall a fence, the Mona Lisa a doodle, and Albert Einstein Mr. Smarty Pants!"

Kowalski is the brains of the operation. He is a brilliant inventor, creating a multitude of different inventions and gadgets to help the penguins on their missions. If given enough time, there are few things that he couldn't invent. Unfortunately, most of the time his inventions cause serious trouble for the team, either falling into the wrong hands, turning against Kowalski, or just exploding. Not to mention, despite his intelligence, he cannot read (although he still carries around a clipboard to record drawings of their plans). He tends to over-analyze situations, trying to perfect every minute detail of a plan before he acts. This often causes the team more harm than if he would just act. That being said, he is still an invaluable member of the Penguins. Without him, they would simply be a couple of ordinary penguins that can do flips and karate chop people.
Strength

• Slides into a metal door with enough force to dent it
• Kicks a bowling ball with impressive velocity into Private's face
• Pulls down a bill board
• Digs through solid concrete with nothing but a plastic spoon

Speed/Agility

• Jumps over 1 1/2 stories onto a rising platform
• Dodges a multitude of darts from a booby trap
• Dodges several laser beams from the Penguins' lair security protocol
• Slides fast enough to stay ahead of Officer X's combat van
• Wall jumps several times to climb out of King Julian's fake volcano
• Dodges and weaves around several spotlights

Durability

• Gets pulled by Rico with enough force to dent a steel door
• His Nexto Skeleton knocks him through a bench with a rocket kick
• Gets crushed by a swinging wrecking ball and is fine moments later
• Gets crushed under a large boulder
• Gets blasted into the air by Rico's rocket launcher
• Gets shocked by 5000 volt electrical cables twice
• Gets his face torched by the Penguins' flamethrower
• After being buried alive, gets blasted through the dirt with a piece of dynamite and is perfectly fine

Skill

• Flips and dodges around several attacks from chameleon tongues while being blindfolded
• Throws his abacus, which bounces off of both Badda and Bing and then returns to him (similar to Captain America's shield)

Intelligence/Gadgets

• Invents a machine that can remove someone's intelligence and store it in a cardboard box
• Invents a fully functioning time machine, which he uses twice to travel back in time. When three Kowalskis exist in the same space it rips a hole in the fabric of the universe
• Built a thermo fusion reactor within the penguin's base
• Invents the Helmet, which allows the user to move object with their mind, as well as summon any object they think of to them at a moment's notice
• Builds an invisibility ray
• Makes a laser gun that can revert things to their younger, fresher state, which turns Skipper into a baby and eventually back into an adult
• Creates a device that can stop time, (anyone that is touching the device at the time he activates it will experience the stopped time)
• Builds a mech suit, which he dubs the nexto skeleton, that can fly, shoot missiles, is strong enough to life a large boulder over his head, and can even rebuild lost limbs out of seemingly nothing
• Builds a machine that can clone an exact replica of any living organism, as long as it has their DNA (which he uses to bring a dodo bird back to life)
• Built an anti gravity gun
• Hacks into a traffic light with relative ease

Rico

"B-but that shouldn't have worked! It breaks all known rules of science!"
"And that's why we call Rico a maverick. He makes his own rules."
[BLEH BL-BLAH BL-BLUH BLAH BLEH]

Rico is the group's weapons and explosives specialist who mainly communicates through grunts and squeals. With a stomach that defies reality, Rico swallows a plethora of useful tools and weapons and regurgitates them when needed, including ones that appear to be too large to have been swallowed in the first place. Rico has a few screws loose, so the other Penguins need to keep him on a tight leash lest he lose his mind in a dynamite filled frenzy. That said, Rico's love for explosions and destruction is an asset that Skipper has no problem letting lose on their enemies or any problem that the team may be facing.
Strength

• Breaks a fairly large hole through a brick wall
• Pulls Kowalski with enough force to dent a steel door
• Lifts an anvil over his head
• Bites through a lock
• Digs through concrete at an incredibly fast with two plastic spoons

Speed/Agility

• Jumps over 1 1/2 stories onto a rising platform
• Dodges several laser beams
• Dodges one of the Red Squirrel's missiles
• Kicks Kowalski into the air, and by the time he falls back down, Rico had already got into, started, and drove the penguins Buggy next to their base to catch him
• Cuts up a fish into perfectly sized bites of sushi in just over a second
• Climbs over the zoo's main gate in seconds

Durability

• Slams into a brick wall, cracking it
• Falls directly onto a rhino's horn
• Gets crushed by a falling elephant
• Falls through the roof of a plane mid flight and is completely unharmed
• A bomb explodes inside of his stomach and he barely reacts
• Is right next to where Kowalski shot his newly acquired plasma blaster on turbo setting, which caused an explosion powerful enough to blow a hole in their concrete ceiling (that same plasma blaster on medium setting was able to disintegrate a lamp post in a single shot
• Gets hit by a static shock that is strong enough to knock out the power in the Penguin lair
• For a short while, he walks across pavement that was hot enough to turn an egg to ash in 3 seconds
• After being buried alive, gets blasted through the dirt with a piece of dynamite and is perfectly fine

Skill

• Fends off both Skipper and Kowalski with nothing but a doll as a weapon
• Throws Marlene like a boomerang, bouncing her off of both Bada and Bing's heads and then catching her
• Shoots 3 fish out of the air with a crossbow

Swallowing/Regurgitation
Rico is able to regurgitate whatever Skipper needs as long as he has it locked away in his intestines. As soon as an object, weapon, or tool is needed he can produce it almost instantly.

• Spits up a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse and immediately regurgitates a flash light
• Spits out a grenade filled with knock out gas
• Regurgitates a massive missile which is far larger than he is
• Continuously regurgitates hook shots so he can swing from buildings like Spider-Man
• Spits a small anchor into the air with enough velocity to strike him in the head a couple seconds after it leaves his mouth
• Regurgitates a chainsaw with enough velocity to fly into the air and cut through a sewer pipe
• Fires screws fast enough for them to secure a metal door in place and keep Jiggles the slime contained
• Throws up a cinder block with enough force to send a leopard seal flying backwards

Private

"Private, options."
"Hello? I'm the options guy!"
"But not when it comes to matters of the heart. That's where young Private here shines."

Private is the emotionally sensitive, British-accented rookie of the Penguins of Madagascar. Though younger and less experienced than the other penguins, he is the most down to earth and compassionate. Private tends to offer simpler, more commonsense solutions in response to Skipper and Kowalski's complex strategies, often in an understated tone while those strategies are falling apart. He also has an affinity for unicorns.
Strength

• Slides into a metal door with enough force to dent it
• While underwater, he kicks a baby leopard seal which flies into an adult leopard seal, reversing its momentum
• Stops a massive leopard seal from falling off an icy cliff
• Hangs onto his golf club as he uses it to swing their golf cart around a tree

Speed/Agility

• Jumps over 1 1/2 stories onto a rising platform
• Dodges several darts shot out from one of Kowalski's booby traps
• Dodges several lasers from the Penguins' security system
• In the flash that Dave's monster ray is fired, he frees himself from his bindings and hides beneath a piece of machinery without anyone noticing
• Out swims a leopard seal for a short while
• Deflects a golf ball with his club
• Wall jumps multiple times to get to the top of the zoo's gates

Durability

• Gets karate chopped by Skipper to the ground
• After covering one of Rico's bombs with a bucket, he gets blasted through the roof of the zoo's security building
• Gets crushed between Skipper and a concrete wall after an explosion blasts Skipper into him, leaving a Private shaped indention in the wall
• Falls from the outskirts of the Earth's atmosphere and crashes to the ground below
• Gets dropped onto an electric fence by Savio
• For a short while, he runs across pavement that was hot enough to turn an egg to ash in 3 seconds
• After being buried alive, he gets blasted out of the ground by a piece of dynamite and is fine
• Falls into a pit of rusty bear traps, which mildly injures him

Skill

• Defends himself from Skipper's strikes and disarms him while blindfolded
• Defeats over a dozen of Dr. Blowhole's minions with ease
• Fires a dart gun, which bounces off of several objects and walls before eventually hitting the light switch and turning off the lights

Cuteness

• Unlocks what Kowalski calls "quantum hyper cute", which causes anyone who sees him to faint because their brains are overloading from the cuteness
• By using himself as a power source, his cuteness is able to reverse the affects of Dave's monster ray

Teamwork

• Push an elephant into a cage
• Using Rico as a battering ram, they destroy a brick wall
• Forming a penguin chain, Kowalski, Rico, and Private support the weight of an elephant
• Kowalski, Rico, and Private manage to hold Officer X's van in place while it tries to drive away
• Incapacitate Capitaine DuBois and her men, tying them up and launching them out of a canon
• Take on a small army of Dr. Blowhole's lobster minions

Gear

• Grenades
• Rocket launcher
• Flamethrower that is hot enough to melt a lamp post
• Laser pen which can cleanly cut through stone
• Grappling hooks
• Jetpacks gifted to them by the North Wind spy agency

Using the Penguins on WWW

While it may vary from episode to episode, the penguins are all around the same ballpark in stats and skill. They're pretty well rounded, being able to withstand blows that damage stone and metal walls and can dish out those same kinds of hits. On top of that, most have dealt with minor esoteric damage types like heat, electricity, and cold. While they're not too crazy speed wise, they're all capable of aim dodging lasers and can avoid slower projectiles like darts. Combine that with their absurd agility and small size and these four will be extremely difficult to hit for opponents that are on their physical level.
However, it's the areas outside of physical stats that let the penguins fight above their weight class. They're all capable in close quarters combat, with Skipper being the clear standout (though Rico and Private have both shown to be able to hold their own against him under the right conditions). Rico is a walking armory that will give them access to any weapon in their arsenal at any time, Kowalski has plenty of inventions that most opponents won't have resistances too, and Private's hyper cuteness could certainly catch their opponents off guard.
The best way to beat these four is to split them up and fight them individually. They've shown many times that they are far greater than the sum of their parts, engaging in hit and run tactics or using one of their various haxes to battle opponents above their weight class. Kowalski and Private in particular are vulnerable to losing their composures if things aren't going their way in a fight (though I wouldn't exactly call that a strength for Skipper and Rico either).

My fellow gamers, for too long has our community suffered the indignation of an intolerable culture that has denigrated, besmirched, exploited, and has outright demonized our culture of unique individuals with a genuine love of a hobby that they see as profitable and progressive. They have taken beloved IP’s (Intellectual Properties) and twisted them into their own personal ideological crusade of undermining and humiliating the core aspects of characters they deemed as “Toxic” or “White Supremacy”. Through the guise and protection of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity) & ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) they have used our influence in the entertainment industry to push their narratives and agendas that have stigmatized our culture with numerous anti-consumer practices that they call “being progressive”. But the truth of the matter is they were never really looking to be a part of our community, they simply wanted to use our community as a tool of activism and propaganda in the entertainment industry as it was extremely profitable, and they wanted inclusion in that division. Ever since GamerGate & Female Frequency, we have had to endure the incursion of forced ideologies, xenophobic behaviors and inferior overpriced products that have never been in our best interest and have been flat out disgraceful towards foreign media.
Before Gaming had become a major source of entertainment, we were often categorized as anti-social or societies rejects where because we found more enjoyment in playing fictional characters and not spending as much time out and about, we never fully assimilated in society (which is a good thing if you ask me). From 1998 to 2007, at the height of innovation, creativity and production, Gaming had reached a golden age in which it had revolutionized society. Hollywood Execs who had ruined the movie industry turned their attention to video games as a source of income since video games had outperformed movies in terms of profit. No one was concerned about gaming, much less diversity or inclusivity until it became profitable. This makes people like SBI look extremely disingenuous as they were not interested in gamers as a community with its own culture. They simply wanted to use it as another weapon in identity politics.
Microtransactions; the hidden enemy to gamer progress and inducer to mental laziness of our community. Microtransactions have been around for a long time; however, it has never been more potent and apparent than in recent years. It has aided in the dismantling and segregation of players on the ideology of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and has created another sub-culture of gamers who have no real drive to be better outside of how much money they put into the game. This has degraded our culture as well as we have become “fat” off transactional gaming but at the same time we have been “starved” of purposeful gaming where our achievements were our sustenance. I am not saying that microtransactions are bad, but when they are exploitative and predatorial like they have been and don’t give gamers room to grow, we become lethargic and unwilling to improve ourselves as gamers. Oversaturated microtransactional games are one of the many reasons why we have become complacent and unwilling to fight against the exploitative tactics used by big brand game companies such EA, Ubisoft, ActivisionBlizzard, NaughtyDog and so many other western business model companies. Western style games were not like this in the past, they had much more depth and actual effort put into them with the gamer in mind. This has not been the case for over a decade and our connection to western developers has been whittled down to just being transactional. That is one of the reasons why you see so many remasters and remakes in today’s gamer community. They have lost their willingness to improve as developers of games and simply accept corporate/share holder rules.
Game journalists also do not have any real integrity or purpose outside of being funded for their involvement in promoting IPG (Identity Political Games) in a positive light to the public whether it’s positively received or not. They are not interested in what we have to say, they all support the same agenda and that is why they are a dying breed. Within the next couple of years, they will be out of the job and more than likely they will not be able to stay in the industry giving how they have responded to past articles that have clearly been scripted on the premise of diversity and racism. Not only that, but most of them are also extremely hostile to the community as they stereotype and defame the individuals that are a part of the community they are supposed to serve. We have been mentally liberated from their lies and coercive tactics as we tend to laugh at their obvious attempt at virtue signaling while hiding their misdoings so that they can play the victim.
My gamer brothers & sisters, I would not suggest the following action that we must take now without good cause. I have weighed our options and the best option for us now is this…...CULTURAL SECESSION. Naturally this is a form of segregation where they would more than likely claim they are being segregated by the dominant culture of the gaming community but that is incorrect. For years now we have been the ones who are often marginalized and ostracized for the smaller portion of our community. And when we aren’t, we’re exploited for more funds so that these companies can stay in business only to subject us to low quality products that coincide with the “WOKE Agenda” that are often huge expenses to these big brands i.e. AAA/AAAA games that will eventually flop for its obvious forced diversity and bug infested product which will undoubtedly piss off the consumer to the point of wanting a refund. Losing copious amounts of capital and stock in the process, not to mention their reputation is permanently marred.
We must separate on every cultural level in terms of entertainment and ideology. We must reject everything from the west that promotes toxic western beliefs, practices, and exclusion from other cultures (i.e. Southeastern Countries such as Japan and Korea). Japan & Korea have been the targets of unjust discrimination from Western Developers, Western Journalists, Western Localizers (The Wokelizers) and Western Society Prejudice regarding their sense of aesthetics as Westerners hate the aesthetic sense of these countries. The reason why they resort to such base tactics isn’t just because it weaponizes the ideal female form but it’s also because they have deep-seated insecurities about their own looks so when they see attractive female characters, they use terms such as “unrealistic” or “hypersexualized” to establish the moral high ground. But the truth is, they want to feel superior to that which is ideal, so they insult and dehumanize this figure that portrays natural female beauty because they see it as an insult to their own social superiority in what they believe is a hierarchy of them being at the top of all other women. Because of this and so many contributing factors, their movies flop harder than the Fat Chocobo landing on a group of enemies and their games seismically fail just as much if not more. We must sever our connection to Western Developers, Publishers, and ALL Western-Centric Entertainment for they seek to mentally enslave us to their Xenophobic ideology.
Let’s define Western Culture and its traits. Western Culture/Society is composed of more than several different ideologies that work in unison with one another to facilitate dominance over multiple aspects of society. Business, Social, Political, Technological, and sometimes even Global Affairs are affected by these ideologies that portray a specific mindset of Western beliefs. What are those ideologies you ask?

• Perpetual Victimhood: By weaponizing the fact that they are marginalized and of a small portion of western society, they can push their agenda to absurd standards that ultimately ostracize the main demographic. And when companies don’t capitulate, they are labeled as anti-progressive/misogynist’s or cohorts of White Supremacy. They use this to cancel their targets and silence them through societal defamation to keep the public on their side. They also use this mindset to justify their own lack of self-agency as they tend to throw companies who do adhere to their demands but miserably fail to turn a profit under the bus so that they can maintain face in front of the public while denying their actual involvement. They will never accept “Sense of Agency” when it’s negative but will gladly accept it when a positive outcome shines on them as if they are entitled to it.

Official Wiki GamerGate Page)
​

• Societal Terrorism: This is another form of ideology weaponization that they use in order to make companies “toe-the-line” with their agenda. By weaponizing cancel culture, they exert dominance over these companies but in exchange they also reimburse those companies with DEI & ESG funds that raise their credit score as well as having social status with the marginalized demographic. However; cancel culture has not succeeded in years and developers and publishers probably only want the money and the DEI ESG rating. But they have to maintain the image of having social economic power so that they can continue to strong-arm other developers into compliance and promoting financial benefits of DEI & ESG. In other words, if you are not for sale, they discredit and stigmatize you in the industry.

Asmongold Clips.
https://youtu.be/Iq86DnmX2xY
​

• “Its not us, its you who’s wrong” Mentality: This mentality is especially annoying as they tend to use it to hide their incompetence. They often look down upon gamers who are not in the industry to hide their obvious lack of knowledge on game development thinking that their job title grants them special status that they believe gives them the right to be condescending. But the truth they never wanted revealed has already strangled their careers of all credibility. They were never GAMERS, they were INVADERS. Community Colonists that seek to indoctrinate next generational gamers into their hive-mind and brand previous generations of gamers as villains.

@GeeksandGamers
https://youtu.be/1HbrTkqQFuM
​

• Double-standard Enforcement: By labeling something as “unrealistic” or “hypersexualized”, they can claim this is morally wrong if it promotes traditional dynamics between men and women. Heterosexual relationships are condemned while at the same time Same-sex relationships are praised. Additionally, heterosexual relationships with main white male characters turn antagonistic and spotlight stealing. This is deliberate as to promote the “Girl Boss” ideology to indoctrinate women into the Feminazi state of mind. While at the same time, should a male character also adopt the “I don’t need male/female” ideology its seen as Toxic Masculinity which isn’t even a real thing. The idea of a strong male character is taboo while enforcing strong female characters is the ideal.

@MugenLord
https://youtu.be/to5Uciy_yeg
@EndymionTv
https://youtu.be/7TPTR8-qmbk
​

• Dehumanization/Demonization: This is something that most military branches use in order to remove conscious inhibitions such as mass slaughter is wrong or categorization. By enforcing ideologies to denounce humanity in certain targets, it deactivates your conscience by saying this is not human therefore its ethically okay to treat this target without compassion and deny the fact it has sentience. We gamers fall under this category for journalists, developers, companies and society at large. This is a tactic we are familiar with to an extent as it implies that we are not normal when we do not do what everybody else is doing. “Geeks are the worse” or “Nerds need to fall into a pit of lava” are verbal dehumanization forms that most people in society say and we as Gamers tend to be relegated to those categories. This is their way of imposing the social hierarchy on us by establishing superiority. We know this as Gamers as we see it very often in the games that we play and some times experience it in real life.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gamergate#The_end_of_their_relevance
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• Deflection/Projection: This is basic psychology 101. By redirecting the conversation away from their mistakes and back on to the opposing view to avert blame and justify their innocence they can avoid criticism. However; deflection is a CONSCIOUS decision, meaning they have no real argument to justify their incompetence. If you can consciously process the situation, you have self-agency which means you don’t have a legitimate excuse. Projection is something else entirely. Most times, Projection doesn’t work on conscious decisions rather it is automatically deployed when feeling threatened, anxious or both. Instead of accepting accountability for feelings or actions that are deemed socially unacceptable they accuse others of committing that unacceptable behavior thereby exonerating themselves and proving that those feelings and/or actions are not their own.

@TheTrentReport
https://youtu.be/bPIPSKruYRo
These traits are so nefarious and unconscionable that I have a hard time believing that anyone could harbor them. However, given the social, political, and economic climate that we are in, those in power who use their influence on controlling society most definitely possess these insidious traits. Everything that they do is all about control and since video games are the biggest market in the world, they want control over it and the communities built around it to accrue more wealth and to use that wealth to subjugate other cultures. Mainstream media is a tool as well as mainstream organizations and sites to help accomplish this goal.
The government recently announced its intentions towards what they believe is “GamerGate 2.0” and now even the ADL has made an official appearance, referring to gamers as “extremist’s”. We know EXACTLY what they are doing, and they aren’t even trying to hide it anymore because they don’t think we are aware of their motives. This is just a pretext for them to exert even more control and we know why, it’s because they want the influence we as a community have to must serve them. So here is what we do my fellow gamers-
“In light of recent events and years of mainstream stigma, we the members of the Global Gaming Community [GGC] must officially renounce ALL TIES to the corporate western video game market. We have been financially exploited through predatorial monetization schemes, pelted with numerous articles of disdain and intentional misrepresentation from game journalists, news outlets regarding us as dangerous individuals and, even subjected to inferior products not only riddled with bugs but also products meant to push political agendas. For the preservation of our community and its unique culture, apart from a few select game development studios we officially sever all connections to western owned video game companies & their mainstream affiliates. From this point onward, we will no longer support western corporate developers, journalists and publishers that do not coincide with the goals of our community.”
Naturally this is completely optional. If you are okay with the state of the gaming community as it is, feel free to ignore this. But if you wish for real change and a break away from oversaturated monetization in the games you play and the push for radical ideological reform, then you are in the right place. Lets sever these rotted miasmic ties once and for all so that our community can be preserved and made better for future gamers. If you agree with this, share it with whoever you think might be interested. The more gamers who get involved, the easier it will be for us to finally break free from mainstream game companies and their associates.

Examples of Wikipedia becoming less neutral and more biased against Israel since Oct 7
Historically, I used to always consider Wikipedia one of the best sources for anything Israel-Palestine related. It was not heavily politically biased, used fairly neutral language, and seemed to offer reasonable perspectives. (This was only true for the English wiki, the Arabic version was always exactly as you'd expect). However, I've been noticing a shift recently every time I read Israel related Wiki articles.
So I decided to check if it's all in my head. I looked at some wiki articles and compared their version today vs the last version before Oct 7 to see if there were any differences in narratives. Most articles are very long and it's very difficult to look at all the changes in huge amounts of text, so I decided to only look at the first 2-3 paragraphs in each article.
This mini investigation does show me that Wikipedia no longer holds the status of a neutral source, as there's a clear attempt to subtly rewrite history and insert anti Israel propaganda.
Israel
Today vs Oct 5
This was an easy choice to try first. Even just comparing the first few paragraphs, there are A LOT of changes. Most of the changes involve removing some information, condensing information, and paraphrasing. Two noticeable differences:
• First sentence in second paragraph: describing where Israel is located: they removed that Israel is in a region that historically was called "Land of Israel" (but they kept "Canaan, Palestine and the Holy Land") Source
• Today, the article claims that the 1947 UN partition plan triggered a civil war that resulted in "expulsion and flight". This is a completely false narrative. The pre-Oct 7 article is correct, saying that during the 1948 war - after declaring independence and 5 armies declaring war on Israel - Arabs were expelled or fled (it was not the partition plan that caused it) Source
israel war of independence
As an aside, I found it strange that in the article about Israel, it did not mention even once the word "War of Independence". So I Googled "Israel war of independence", and I was very surprised to see that it redirects me to a wiki titled "1948 Arab–Israeli War". I'm 100% certain that last year there was a wiki with the title "Israel War of Independence" because I remember reading it many times. Our independence has been rewritten as just a war.
First intifada
Today vs Aug 9
• Changes "violent riots" to simply "riots" (we all know how pro Palestinians always argue that molotov cocktails and slingshots are peaceful) Source
• Changed that Israel took control of Gaza+WB "after Israel's victory in the war" to "in the wake of the war" (it's not wrong, but it's interesting that they chose to explicitly change the language to not show the Israel won a war) Source
• Changed "Palestinian territories" to "Israel-occupied Palestinian territories" - I've noticed this specific change in almost every Wikipedia article that mentions the territories or Gaza Strip. There seems to be a concentrated effort to insert "Israeli-occupied" into many texts Source
palestinian violence
Today vs Sep 22
• First sentence: "acts of violence perpetrated for political ends" vs "actions carried out by Palestinian people with the intent to end the Israeli occupation ... which can use force/terrorism" (firstly, they moved from saying that violence is "violence" to saying that violence is "actions" which "can" be involve force. Secondly, the claim that it's all in the name of "ending the occupation" is being pushed again... If that's all they want then why was there palestinian violence before 1967 when there was no occupation?) Source
Nakba
Today vs Sep 20
This word has become a favourite in the anti Israel crowd (here in a suburb of Toronto they've even officially added "Nakba Remembrance Day" to the schools calendar). Even though this is an article about something that happened 75 years ago, so supposedly it should be pretty set in stone by now, the length of the article tripled since Oct 7. It's impossible to compare to the old version because it's been entirely rewritten. A few notes:
• The first sentence says all you need to know about the propaganda push. It used to be "The Nakba was the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948, and the permanent displacement of a majority of the Palestinian Arabs." that was already biased and very politically charged, but it's nothing compared to what it says now: "The Nakba was the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians ... through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property and belongings, along with the destruction of their society, culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations." This paragraph looks 100% like it's taken from Al Jazeera... Source
• There's a new metadata section, and it's complete Palestinian propaganda. It describes the Nakba as an "attack", the attack type is all sorts of buzzwords ("ethnic cleansing", "mass killing", "settler colonialism", "biological warfare", "dispossession"), the victims says "750k expelled" (the word "fled" does not appear there - it just claims 750k was expelled) Source
• A new article was created after Oct 7 that branched off the "Nakba" article. It's called "Nakba denial", and it basically says that any Israeli narrative on the war of independence or any debate about what happened in 1948 and any Israeli viewpoint on history is decidedly lies and denialism, and what Palestinians say is the absolute undebated truth. They are changing what the term Nakba means and based on that they're building a new term to make Nakba denial sound as if it's the same as holocaust denial. It's weird to see how history is literally being rewritten. That's akin to me writing a "War of Independence denial" article which will gaslight anyone who says anything related to Nakba is just partaking in denial.
Israeli-Palestinian peace process
Today vs Sep 19
• They added an entire paragraph claiming that the international consensus is for "a Palestinian state in pre-1967 borders including East Jerusalem and a just resolution to the refugee problem based on the palestinian right of return". As far as I know, the Western world does not really talk about the right of return, and there's certainly no consensus that East Jerusalem (which includes the Wailing Wall) is going to be given to a Palestinian state. Since Oct 7, they essentially added all the Palestinian demands as if they're agreed upon by the world, but completely neglect to mention any of the Israeli demands, like security and control over their holy sites Source
Irgun
Today vs Sep 20
• Removed a sentence that said they avoided harming civilians, and without this sentence it sounds like their only objective was to kill anyone Source

I wanted to also look up some of the common old anti Israel propaganda that predated this war, to see how they changed. Here are the results:
Israel and apartheid
Today vs Oct 5
• Difficult to compare because the first few paragraphs are entirely rewritten. Pre-Oct 7, the entire third paragraph was dedicated to arguments against calling Israel an apartheid. Now, they softened and shortened the wording dedicated to that, and instead of having its own paragraph, it's just two sentences that got appened to the end of the last introductory paragraph.
• I found it strange that except for these two sentences, there was no other sections in the entire long article that discuss opposing views. Usually on wikipedia, there are always sections that show "the other side". So I checked the article in other time points going back several years, and I noticed that over time the amount of text describing the Israeli position is being removed. Until 2017 there was a section about "Criticism of the apartheid accusation" (which you would expect to have!), but since then it's been removed and now we're left with a mere two sentences.
• Just for fun, I wanted to see how Arabic wikipedia talks about this. You're going to love this! This is the first sentence in the Arabic version: "Apartheid in Israel or Israeli racism is a proven fact in Israeli politics , as it is a policy of apartheid carried out by the government against the indigenous Arab population of the region." Yep, it's a proven fact! Source
• Even in Arabic, this "fact" was only proven recently. On Oct 22, the Arabic article had this as the first sentence: "Apartheid in Israel or Israel's racism is an accusation directed against Israeli policy" Source
Dahiya doctrine
Today vs June 24
I never heard of this term, but recently I've been seeing many comments on islam talking about this and saying that this is Israel's tactic of attacking innocent civilians to get leverage against an enemy. Again, I never heard of this, I had no idea what this is, but what they claimed seemed very suspicious to me so I looked if that's true... from my research, it's a military strategy of not shying away from attacking civilian infrastructure if it's used by combatants, and it was devised after a war with Lebanon where the IDF failed because they treated Hezbollah-infested areas as civilian areas, which was ineffective in fighting Hezbollah.
• Since Oct 7, the first sentence on the wiki article changed from "destruction of the civilian infrastructure of regimes deemed to be hostile as a measure calculated to deny combatants the use of that infrastructure" to "destruction of civilian infrastructure in order to pressure hostile regimes." This new definition is exactly what the online community seems to use! It might seem like a small change, but this is the type of subtle changes that accumulate and give anti Israel people so much misinformation to accuse Source
• Again, for fun, I wanted to check out what Arabic wikipedia has to say about this. The first two sentences claim: "The Dahiya strategy ... approved by the Israeli government. The strategy states that "Finally, Israel has realized that the Arabs must be responsible for the actions of their leaders." ". Of course it seems very unlikely that the Israeli government stated such a strategy, so I followed the "source" for that quote, and of course it came from an opinion piece. So they took some person's opinion and are passing that as if it's an IDF official position. Source
ethnic cleansing
Today vs Sep 29
• Before there was no explicit mention of "Israel" in the article. Since Oct 7, they added a one-sentence paragraph, devoid of any context: "Israeli herders have engaged in a systemic displacement of Palestinian herders in Area C of the West Bank as a form of nationalist and economic warfare."
organ theft
Today vs Oct 6
A few months ago, Al Jazeera and the anti-Israel world at large were accusing Israel of harvesting organs from Gazans. Many of you probably remember this. I remember that such accusations have happened in many previous conflicts (always with 0 evidence), so I wanted to see if these "facts" reached wikipedia.
• Before Oct 7, there was no mention of Israel in this article. Today they added a subsection dedicated to Israel under "Suspected occurrences". It's about a story from 2009 about incidents from the 90s, so adding it now is very likely another attempt to add negative associations to Israel anywhere possible.
• The accusation in this article is also very biased itself - it claims that Israeli troops harvested organs from Palestinians. The real story seems to be that a specific Doctor and his lab did in fact remove organs from some corpses that arrived to their forensic lab without getting family permission. This was done to many Israeli victims of terror attacks, as well as Palestinians. It did not focus on Palestinians, and it was not done by the military. It was obviously illegal, but the wiki article paints it in a very different light to make it seem anti Palestinian.
• If you look at the other 3 coutries/cases mentioned on the Wiki page, those stories are much more widespread/organized and involved either killing people for their organs or stealing them from live people. The story that happened in Israel is much less extreme than that. I'm sure you can find stories of organ harvesting in many places. For example, I live in Canada so I just googled for "Canada harvesting organs indigenous" and the first link talks about how in Alberta, they have a law that allows harvesting organs from children who die in provincial care without asking for family approval, and 78% of those children are indigenous. There is no wiki article about it, it's not world news, you don't see masses of people trying their hardest to take facts from this story and twist it to completely demonize Canada. I'm sorry to end on such a note, but it really bugs me how much the world takes any story coming out of Israel and twists, magnifies, and spreads it and acts as if Israel is the only place where bad things happen :(

Remember that all my comparisons were only looking at the first 1-3 paragraphs of each article. Who knows how much details are removed/added/modified in the body of the articles.