Hi I’m a 29 year old female. When I was 13, I fell pregnant. This wasn’t a consensual relationship, I was a virgin who didn’t really even know how babies were made, i still played with barbies, I was raped by my friends 23 year old brother during a sleepover.
I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t know I was pregnant, Id only started my periods a few months prior so there absence didn’t concern me and like I said, I didn’t really know how babies were made beyond the basics. I found out I was pregnant at 29 weeks when I went to ER with my parents for stomach pain.
My parents were very angry at me despite the circumstances. He was convicted and imprisoned. They tried to find a doctor who’d give me an abortion but none would due to gestation. They said I had to give the baby up and I went along with it, I had no support from them and I grew up having a very cold relationship with them. When my daughter was born I was inconsolable and didn’t want to give her up. I refused to and my daughter was forcefully taken from me at the hospital. I was told that I was too young and because of that they didn’t need my consent for adoption just the consent of my parents. After which I was hysterical and had to be sedated. I made attempts on my life in the months after that. I was then put in to boarding school, where I stayed until I was 18.
It wasn’t an open adoption, I was allowed to leave a letter with her and I also left her my necklace which was my prized possession at the time. The adoptive mother stated she wanted no contact which I was devastated about but the social worker told me I could have contact when she turned 18. After I turned 18 and left boarding school, I moved in with my Nan whilst attending university. My Nan gave me so much love and care and was very disappointed in my parents (my Nan had no knowledge of me even being pregnant)
When I was 21 I graduated and I also got pregnant, that relationship didn’t work out but I’ve since married and had 3 more children. But I’ve never stopped thinking about my first born. I gave birth to her on my 14th birthday so we share a birthday and every birthday I feel like I’m grieving. I go through periods of just crying and staying in bed feeling guilty at what I’d done. I still feel so guilty and I can’t cope with guilt it eats me up.
Anyway, my daughter who is now 15 found me on Facebook 2 weeks ago (I have a distinct name and I still use my maiden name on there) she messaged me an angry message and then blocked me so I couldn’t even respond.
She messaged me saying that she hates me and I’m dead to her, she told me how much she loves her adoptive mother and as far as she’s concerned I don’t exist. She says I’ve turned her in to a “messed up person” She told me how she thought I was a disgusting person for giving her up for adoption because I wanted to “enjoy life without the burden of a child” her words. She called me a slut (among other words) and questioned why I was having sex at 13. She said that she hoped my other children die and called them racist terms (they are mixed) because she is angry that I kept them and not her and that she felt that meant I wasn’t good enough. She then went on to say her adoptive mother told her that
1: My parents (her bio grandparents) wanted her but I refused to look after her and wanted her to be adopted (lies)
2: I wanted an abortion and told adoptive mother that I wished I could have had an abortion (lies)
3: That adoptive mother had reached out to me when I was 21 and pregnant with her first sibling to ask if I wanted contact, and I (according to her birth mum) said I didn’t care about her and wanted to forget the whole thing and asked her not to contact me again. (God knows if that had actually happened I would have jumped at the chance)
4: That I was sleeping around with a lot of men my age and didn’t know her bio dad as I’d been with so many male school friends which is why I got sent to boarding school because I was “out of control” (lies)
All the above are just outright lies. I am glad she doesn’t know the circumstances of her conception, I’d be happy if bio mum had told her for example that her father was a childhood boyfriend of mine because the truth is something she shouldn’t know until she’s older, but to suggest I was sleeping around with multiple men at the age of 13 and didn’t know who he was is disgusting when it’s not true.
Im not able to contact her back because she’s blocked me. I’ve looked at her profile from my husbands account, I’ve seen her adoptive mum and dads Facebook profile but I don’t intend to contact any of them as much as I want to because I guess I will just tell her everything when she’s 18 if she wants to hear it because perhaps now is not the appropriate age.
Her mums Facebook shows that she is her only child, that she’s now divorced (her and her husband adopted my daughter so she’s since divorced him) they have lots of photos together. She has one post saying they were being evicted and asking if anyone knew any landlords so not in stable housing.
I found her adoptive fathers Facebook. No photos of my daughter but plenty of photos of his new wife and their 3 children. It seems he’s moved overseas.
My daughters Facebook is concerning and it’s public so I could see everything. She posts quotes about depression and anxiety, has scars on her wrists which I believe are SH scars) writes status’ such as “no body cares about me I may as well just die” and posts indicating how she hates her adoptive father (not sure what’s gone on there, likely adoptive mother has poisoned her against him too or won’t allow access but he possibly he just doesn’t want involvement) constantly posts pictures laying in a hospital bed and attached to a drip with wounds on her arms.
I know I shouldn’t have been snooping on adoptive parents and daughters Facebook as much as I did but I needed to ensure I had all info to give to social services and so I knew the situation. When I met them, they seemed kind. Social services are allowed to tell birth parents a bit about the adoptive parents life at the time of adoption, they told me they had been together for 10 years prior, she was unable to carry a pregnancy past 20 weeks and had lost a lot of babies before pursing adoption, that they had a lovely big home and that she didn’t work so had a lot of time for baby and her husband was in the army and how they had lots of extended family to love the child.
I have since informed social services about what I’ve seen on Facebook and they’ve just told me that they can not discuss this with me due to confidentiality as she’s legally not my child but have said they can assure me that they are looking in to it (I screenshot and sent the posts) and are doing everything necessary to ensure she is ok and now have involvement with her and bio mum. They can’t update me on their circumstances now (like they did when she was adopted) because the adoption is done.
I don’t really know what to do. She has a false impression of me told by her adoptive mother. None of which is true, she was so wanted and I’ve never got over it. I now fear that her thinking I rejected her and didn’t want her and she wasn’t good enough has led to some serious mental health issues and potentially these will only get worse or she could harm herself very badly based on lots of lies.
I want her to know I love her, I want her to know I wanted her but I was forced to give her up, I want her to know that I still love her and always will and that I’d do anything for her. I want to tell her I was never contacted by adoptive mother and had I have been I would have jumped at the opportunity to even just talk to my daughter. I want to tell her that I do know her bio father and I wasn’t sleeping with multiple men (although the truth regarding the rape shouldn’t be disclosed right now) I just want her to know all of this, but I’m powerless until she is 18. I have been told if I message her from a different account since I’m blocked I could face legal charges.
I am so scared of her hurting herself based on lies. Her adoptive mum whilst I believe does love her, has poisoned my daughter against me in an attempt to get my daughter to hate me because she doesn’t want daughter potentially coming back to me or forming a relationship with me and her getting pushed out, so she’s said all of this to make that impossible so she will be her only mother.
But that’s to the detriment of my daughter, my daughter clearly has mental health issues and whilst they could be from other things I know that feeling unloved, unwanted and having being told this information that is outright lies must be weighing heavily on her and making her feel inadequate. I can’t imagine if I was adopted and I heard things like that about my bio mum, it would devastate me and I would hate myself.
I don’t know what I’m hoping to gain from this post just looking for advice. I can contact her in 3 years. But I’m scared in those 3 years something bad could happen with the way her mental health is, and that something bad may happen without her knowing the truth about how much I love her.
I’ve been off sick from work since, I have been an emotional wreck. I just hope she’s okay even if she does hate me. Of course I’d love to tell her the truth but more than anything I want her to know the truth for the sake of her own mental well-being even if that means she still doesn’t want to speak to me. Social services just keep telling me that they can’t discuss anything with her about me beyond the basics of the fact that she’s adopted. The rest is down to adoptive mother to disclose if she wishes. When she is 18 she will get access to her file and know the true circumstances but until then, everything she knows is based on lies.
I fully understand her angry reaction because I can understand being told that about your bio mother would upset and anger anyone. I’m more concerned about the fact her adoptive mum thinks this is ok just to keep daughter close to her and away from me but to the detriment of her mental health and feelings. She could have just for example said “your mum was young so couldn’t care for you but I’m sure she loves you” that’s what I’d say if I was an adoptive mother - even if that wasn’t the truth!

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.

Preface With Part 2 out for a good while, I thought it would be time to make this thread. I'm sure there are other threads that I probably missed in the months since the release of Part 2, but I'm going to start this regardless. If anyone has a reference to a previous iteration, please link it.
The complexity of Part 1 was apparent. It's why many of us watched it over, and over. Obviously not perfect (stares at the few long time community members). I was drawn to the visions. It wasn't until the third time I saw Part 1, tripping on mushrooms as any proper DUNE enjoyer should do if your serious about the franchise. If that's a bridge too far, sorry, you're not a fan. Do I have to point out the sarcasm? Something that I really focused on were the visions. After watching twice before, the memories of those viewings were playing tricks on me. It felt like an intentional experience crafted to put forth the themes of prescience in a way outside of narrative foreshadowing. To quote my previous post:
It almost felt like it was supposed to be watched this way with how the oppressive music made me feel. The relief I felt when Paul meditates during the thopter escape in the sand storm. I must not fear, fear is the mind killer. so many things specific to what they say when going on a trip. That's the point of Spice right? It's psychoactive, but also taps into prescience. The past, the future folding in on itself. Holy shit I picked up on a lot of details I had not noticed. Like Jamis and the Fremen's prophecies. How the spice gives them a tangible connection to their beliefs. Sensing the future through spice, convincing them of who Paul is, because it was preordained according to the seed planted by the Bene Gesserit. So when Paul came to them in the desert, Jamis knew he was going to die if Paul was really the one. Jamis appearing earlier in a vision to Paul, talking about going with the process, guiding him, was more clear to me. He became Paul's guide in a more important way with his death.
The scene before the fight when Paul tries to say something to Chani, but couldn't find the words. I think the words he was looking for was "sorry to disappoint you" in regards to him being expected to die. He almost seems to giggle. Another moment too, when the Baron has Duke Leto at the dining table and had just killed Yueh. The Baron says "you know what's next?" In the context of Spice, this came across very differently. The line hovered in the air for a long moment. It felt like it was being said to the audience in part. Like, "you know what's coming, you've seen it before".
Of course, this is all speculation, but tied to my experience with the adaptation none the less. I use this thought as an example of cool experiences or neat details people noticed or have built into their headcanon. Perhaps they are less talked about, more objective details. I'd love to hear about them!
Another detail I noticed in Part 1 was the Space Guild Heighliner. It doesn't operate like in the books or other adaptations. The Heighliner in Part 1 acts as a sustained Portal between destinations. We see this clearly when the Bene Gesserit flies through. The planet in the background would take up far more of the screen. Also, it was flat-out confirmed by production designer Patrice Vermette on the Dune Pod podcast.

Connections between Part 1 and Part 2 have overt parallels.

Such as the scene in the final battle sequence where Chani fights the Sardaukar. It is not an exact recreation, but a very close match to Paul's vision in Part 1. In the vision, he saw himself. In reality, it was Chani. It visually establishes that Paul's visions were not perfect in Part 1. This is to contrast the clarity of vision he obtains after consuming the water of life. This was done as foreshadowing for the connection between Paul's vision of Chani in Part 2. Obvious to anyone who has read Messiah.
Combined the scenes for reference: https://x.com/Solahmi_/status/1777108950829383778
A less overt connection is one I thought about today while listening to the Part 2 OST. If you haven't watched Thomas Flight's video on the breakdown of Part 1, I recommend doing so now. https://youtu.be/P50VrsM_xlU Specifically, the 5:45 timestamp is relevant for this discussion. The track used for "Paul's journey" is titled Herald of the Change. Keep that track in mind. Specifically the part at the beginning with the the duduk. In Part 2, as the fight between Paul and Feyd comes to its climax, the same section from Herald of the Change plays. The section when Paul was receiving an education about Arrakis and the Fremen from a film book. Now it was being used again, intentionally so. But why? Another important detail here is that the duduk is playing along side the iconic Octobass lines that represents Paul's KH status. The grungy, dirty, dark, malicious tones that signifies his awakened mind in all its terror. That combination makes me think this combination invokes Paul teaching the first of many brutal lessons. Paul heralding in a radical change that will be recorded in the history books to be read to future generations. When listening to Herald of the Change again, I realized for the first time that the Octobass, Paul's KH status, was teased all the way at the beginning of Part 1, directly before being tested by Reverend Mother Mohiam.
These movies are so damn cool.
Anyone have stuff they'd like to contribute? or discuss the ones I've mentioned?

Do you work with clients to produce standardised documentation?

• Policy and procedure manuals.
• Quality Assurance documentation.
• Compliance documentation (regulatory guidelines, audit reports, compliance checklists, etc.)
• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
• Legal documentation (contracts, agreements, case files, wills, etc.)
• Proposal documents (RFPs, RFQs, project proposals, etc.)
• Marketing and sales collateral (brochures, catalogs, sales kits, etc.)
• Quotes, purchase orders, invoices.
• Work safety documentation (JSAs)
• HR documentation (job descriptions, performance reviews, etc.)
• Employee handbooks.
• Training manuals.
• Technical documentation
• Real estate documentation (listings, disclosures, closing documents, etc.)
• Healthcare documentation (patient records, treatment plans, clinical guidelines, etc.)
• Manufacturing documentation (work instructions, quality control manuals, etc.)
• Project management documentation (project plans, status reports, etc.)

Inspired by a recent comment, I realised that I have at my disposal, a huge collection of software tools that I have coded over the years in support of my main business.. that I should making more extensive use of..
I don't have the time & inclination to add proper licensing, documentation, demos, support and essentially build a whole business around selling 'that', ie. selling the software tools.
But what I am interested in, are JV partnerships with industry experts/consultants/people on the ground, handling in a somewhat manual/ad hoc way, the things that my software can do for them, their clients or maybe even the general public.
Where together we can bring structure to this kind of repetitive documentation and sell it on a more wide-scale (possibly self-serve) basis. Or just really streamline that process within a business.
To sum it up in 1-line, the software handles massive and complex mail-merging from sets of whole and fragmented documents.
Data is collected from the client (in many different ways), transformed, rules merged and the customised output documentation delivered.
It could be a 1-page targeted brochure, or many thousands of pages of policy and procedure manuals delivered to hundreds of franchise locations..
Interested in exploring? Please contact me through Reddit chat and we will go from there. Include a brief outline of your industry/idea, your location, time zone & availability for a zoom call. btw: I am in Melbourne Australia, GMT+10.

Heavy on the spoilers and devoid of all brevity, but if I do not get this off my chest I will lose my mind. I’ve been on a Shatter Me high all week. The first three books have altered my brain chemistry. I have said the words “Aaron Warner, the man you are” so many times I am beginning to question my sanity. I cracked open Restore Me last night, fully prepared to trust-fall into the arms of my #1 Fictional Boyfriend of all time.
So, um, what the fuck was that?
Look, I can forgive messy plotlines and overwriting, I can ignore ill-planned and lazily-executed rebel coups. I can even appreciate the absurd surplus of metaphors and similes crammed in between strings of dialogue, if for no reason other than comedic value.
What I can’t get behind is Book 4 Aaron Warner.
Seriously, who is this guy? Because I’ve gone through the five stages of grief, turned around and reread the entire book in frank disbelief, and the only conclusion I can possibly come to is that I’ve somehow picked up an imposter, written in very bad faith. When Adam Kent did a 180 in Ignite Me and went from “gentle, pathetic childhood crush who can suffer through Juliette’s touch in some small capacity” to “bitter, controlling ex-boyfriend driven mad with jealousy,” we all understood this to be much-needed fan service. Juliette was, after all, being an idiot; she needed a little push, to realize that Aaron Warner was the undisputed crown jewel. Most of us came to this conclusion two and a half books ahead of her, but better late than never. I walked away from Ignite Me feeling content. The power couple has been established. Anderson is dead. Juliette’s rise to Supreme Commander was satisfying, if a bit hasty. I went into Restore Me confident that, with Aaron at her side, Juliette could achieve anything.
The transition was…jarring, to say the least.

“The Reestablishment does not allow time for people to grieve.” - Book 3 Aaron.

(Alas, this is Book 4, and *insert obligatory Bob Dylan joke*)
The Times, They Are a’ Changin’
Anyway, what I’m getting at here is that Aaron is grieving, he is mourning, he is SAD. This is totally understandable, both to me as a reader and to Juliette as a character. It appears to be the guiding factor behind his new penchant for stonewalling and emotional blackmail. Before diving into THAT can of worms, I’d like to add a couple of bullets to my list of “Miscellaneous What-and-Why-the-Fucks:”

• Why does Juliette have zero advisors? Where is her council? Her attendants? Her scribe? Her translator? Her GUARDS?
• What, exactly, is Kenji’s job? She refers to him as her “second-in-command,” and while I adore his character, I can’t help but feel that lending snarky input does very little in the way of running a tight ship. Why is she entirely on her own?

Moving on.
A TIMELINE OF SHITTY EVENTS, IN WHICH I HANG UP MY ‘ADAM KENT’S #1 HATER’ JACKET AND SHRUG ON MY ‘AARON WARNER SUCKS’ VEST:

• Juliette is trying to make peace between two unruly schoolboys who refuse to get along at the playground. Sorry, Juliette is trying to make peace between two grown men, both of whom appear, in some capacity, involved in the running of North America. This is going “Not Very Well,” if Aaron’s botched haircut is any indication. Fortunately, he comes to terms with his Slim Shady Era, and while he’s clearly going through some things, I could roll with the punches and learn to love the buzz cut, if only he didn’t IMMEDIATELY TURN INTO THE JOKER AFTER THIS.
• Aaron knows better than anyone else about the role and responsibilities of a Supreme Commander. Still yet, he appears completely uninvolved in Juliette’s day-to-day regimen. He makes zero effort to inform her about details that might save her from needless embarrassment. Her fuck-ups seem imminent. Perhaps this is why he has no inclination to avoid them, nor lessen their impact on her pride or public image. Slim Shady is a lone wolf. He has completely forgotten that whole “I’ve told you from the start, we would make an excellent team” spiel. North America is a One-Woman (De?)establishment. Kenji appears to play the role of court jester, though he lends emotional support when necessary–and always with more empathy and forethought than Regent Warner, who, I might remind you, has the power of READING ENERGIES (“hers, especially”).
• Enter Delalieu, to inform Juliette her quarters are overflowing with unanswered mail, and worry that this may reflect poorly upon her as a new leader, to which she’s like “I have quarters?” This revelation comes on the heels of Castle’s memo that “all of her correspondence is being monitored.” I suspect somehow this is Castle’s fault, which brings me to my follow-up point.
• In Book 4, Castle becomes less of an incompetent hippie and more of a prick to Juliette. He terrorizes her with cryptic warnings, but refuses to divulge any information he may have about Warner’s past, which–given her new status–seems like it ought to be grounds for some sort of official noncompliance. He also had her reach out to the other supreme commanders “as an experiment.” It was at this point I decided I wasn’t a fan of how everyone kept undermining or making a mockery of Juliette at every turn. I couldn’t help but notice how Castle’s comments to Aaron about her went entirely unchecked. I am reminded, if you will, of that scene in Shatter Me, when Aaron staged a big spectacle in which a soldier was killed, to ensure his men knew not to fuck with Juliette. He seems to have forgotten this virtue, in Book 4.
• Despite being warned that Ibriham’s children are en route, Aaron lets a conversation with Kent take precedence over informing Juliette what to expect, how to dress, what to say, etc. Castle also informs him once Haider arrives. Juliette chooses to meet Haider without waiting for Aaron, but he should have been there regardless. He can FEEL her energy, he doesn’t need her to say it out loud to realize she’s insecure and needs him to be there, and she wouldn’t BE insecure about so much shit if he would step in and stop allowing everyone to make her the butt of every joke!!! Where’s that supportive boyfriend act you roped us all in with, buddy? Also, literally neither she nor Kenji know jack shit about politics, why would he let them walk into a meeting with the children of foreign leaders entirely blind?
• Speaking of the meeting with Haider, Aaron has a closet full of clothes organized by color and shade; yet he didn’t think to help Juliette pick out a new wardrobe for her designation as Supreme Commander? He literally chose her entire last wardrobe, and look, I get it, they’re busy with war things and his evil dad is dead and that’s sad and all, but don’t introduce us to a standard you can’t maintain! She goes to meet this snotty rich boy in BLUE JEANS AND A PINK SWEATER. Kenji “cringes” at her. This was so humiliating I literally felt my face getting hot when I read it.
• Again, Castle specifically *told* Aaron when Haider arrived, but when he and Juliette discuss it later, he turns it around on her to justify why he didn’t show up to support her!

“You didn’t tell me he’d arrived earlier. I wish I could’ve been there to assist somehow.”
Like, are you fucking kidding me? Again, he can FEEL her energy; he is well aware that she spent that meeting getting humiliated, and still decides to make his absence a product of her incompetence. Like, his entire pep talk after this left me filled with visceral rage.

• Allow me to share this absolutely infuriating passage in Aaron’s POV:

“She [Nazeera] has the same long legs and lean frame as her brother, and she carries herself with great pride, like someone who was born into position and privilege. She wears a gray tunic cut from fine, heavy fabric; skintight leather pants; heavy boots; and a set of glittering gold knuckles on both hands.
And I’m not the only one staring.
Juliette, who’s been watching quietly this whole time, is looking up, amazed. I can practically see her thought process as she suddenly stiffens, glances down at her own outfit, and crosses her arms over her chest as if to hide her pink sweater from view. She’s tugging at her sleeves as though she might tear them off.
It’s so adorable I almost kiss her right then.”

Are you fucking SERIOUS? So she is here, dying of embarrassment, already feeling inferior because she’s comically underdressed and only speaks one language, and his response is to GAWK AT A HOT GIRL IN FRONT OF HER AND INFANTILIZE HER IN HIS INNER MONOLOGUE. “I’m not the only one staring” ???? Be so for real right now, like I am lost for words!

• Aaron is “fairly certain” and generally insistent that Castle’s suspicions will prove false. Like, why would Castle just be pulling random hunches like this out of his ass? When I read it, I was like, “Hmm, kinda sounds like Aaron is just rationalizing why he isn’t going to tell Juliette any of this.” Spoiler alert: I was right.
• Aaron sits in silence and watches Juliette flounder helplessly while trying to explain to Haider how she only sort of knows what the “Continental Symposium” is.* OH YEAH, DID I MENTION IT IS ALSO TWO DAYS AWAY? Like, Aaron clearly knows this is a big deal, it appears to be a tradition of sorts. Why is he once again letting his girlfriend be humiliated and condescended by their guests? He also *CRINGES,* he CRINGES at her for not knowing about it. Like, at this point I am beginning to greatly resent this man.
• He also doesn’t defend Juliette when Haider calls her “some idiot psychotic girl” TO HIS FACE. RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER. Actually, SHE steps in and defends HIM. I wish she hadn’t. After this, in his inner monologue, Aaron is like, “I wonder if she knows I would do anything for her.” FUCKING DO SOMETHING WARNER, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
• Juliette peeks in on Aaron in his office, finds him listening to old vinyl, discovers he likes Bob Dylan. ME TOO, BUDDY, I’ve seen him live. Might I suggest a little less “Like a Rolling Stone” and a little more “Just Like a Woman,” “Tangled Up in Blue,” “Lay Lady Lay,” ‘COZ I AM BEGINNING TO HATE YOUR ASS FOR THE WAY YOU ARE TREATING JULIETTE!
• Again, Aaron is fully aware of Castle’s warnings that people are coming for Juliette. WHY is she walking unarmed and unguarded on the beach at night? That’s right, because he ran off with Haider to count gold coins or suck each other off or something, leaving her to be sad and alone and not on the lookout for danger. Once again, he fails to come through and keep her safe, and she gets hit with some kind of bullet or dart or something.
• AGAIN, why is Castle allowed to stand here and disrespect Juliette right to Warner’s face, invalidate her and tell him how HE should have been the one who became Supreme Commander? Like, she already has zero support around her whatsoever and this rat is allowed to talk shit about all the things she does and doesn’t know, what she gets told, and potentially also her MAIL. Why hasn’t Warner killed this fucker yet? Warner, ARE YOU STILL IN THERE?
• Remember when Aaron was clever? Yeah, me too. He seems to have abandoned that trait in Book 4. Things like “taking basic precaution” no longer hold any precedence. He and Juliette have, however, found the time to fuck twice, despite having no time or opportunity for all the critical conversations they’re not having that could have redeemed Aaron Warner in my heart and mind. P R I O R I T I E S.
• *slams the back of his head against the wall in frustration* I actually had an ex who did this once when I caught him cheating. It is not something intelligent people do, in my experience. I am beginning to hate Aaron the way I hated Adam. Side note, I still hate Adam. Glad he kind of disappears after the first couple of chapters.
• Great, Juliette is now hallucinating from poison bullets. Good thing Aaron is there to…look really scared and terrify her even more. Moral support? Don’t know him! Just…staring fearfully, jumping in to prevent her from going outside. Maybe a pat on the head or something would help…no? Okay then.
• At this point he decides it’s time to fess up. He couldn’t have chosen a worse time, by the way. Juliette asks if it’s okay if she washes the blood and sand off first (she was just attacked on the beach, remember?). She is clearly still sick and “hallucinating” (seeing the bright white lights outside of her window, the way people do right before they die). Maybe he could…I don’t know…HELP HER? Run her bathwater? Help her clean up? Yeah no, he just nods. She can do all that by herself, just like everything around here. Juliette, girl, if you don’t kick this deadbeat to the curb I’m gonna SCREAM. P.S.: WHO IS THIS MAN? THIS IS NOT THE AARON WARNER I KNOW. Remember how he remembered to bring gloves and a coat for her before he dropped her off at Omega Point? They weren’t even dating yet. How hard did he slam his head into the wall? Maybe he should keep going. Maybe he would like a little help? I’m not busy at all rn.
• See the thing is, now Aaron has to do a big fess up about Juliette’s life. He’s obviously lied and withheld some vital information, but more importantly he spent a couple of years torturing a sister she doesn’t know about yet. And while I realize he didn’t have any CHOICE in this particular matter, I also loathe him at this point for a ton of other shit he’s done leading up to this, so it’s really hard to feel sorry for him when–REALLY THEY FIND TIME TO FUCK AGAIN AT THIS POINT? SOMETHING IS FUCKING WRONG WITH THESE TWO. I can’t help but notice she’s “crawled on top of him” both times now. Guess she’s doing all the work in the sack, as well. Remember that “flip over on your stomach” line from Ignite Me? That guy is dead now. This dude blows and I hate him. Separate LOL at “onto to the floor.” That’s really in there. You can check.
• So the only time these two can communicate is during coitus. Cool. Maybe instead of reminding each other of their mutual love, they could reinforce their bond with something like…confessional hour? Maybe Aaron could use his energy to feel her energy and figure out something safe to say, that isn’t super fucked up and wrong. Spoiler alert: he doesn’t.
• CONFESSION TIME! She starts crying when he gets to the “Reestablishment is coming for you, they’re coming to take you back” part. This is pretty reasonable, but he doesn’t pause to reassure her about it before he’s like, “Oh yeah and about your SISTER–” At this point she actually asks him to stop, probably so she can digest some of this horrifying information, but he says, and I quote, “No.” I really feel like he could have paused for a few minutes to let her process, maybe find some solid ground to stand on(since the man whose lap she is sitting in is a spineless moron and awful boyfriend, and thus not at all likely to be of any assistance).
• Juliette panics. Again, this is not entirely unjustified. Aaron speaks seven languages, none of which are “reassurance,” or “comfort,” and so when she actually gets up and runs away he just…accepts it. I want a refund. I want the first three books to apologize for love-bombing me. I made this man my #1 book boyfriend of all time. THIS Aaron Warner…this man is a fraud and I hate him. She should honestly just hook up with Kenji. At least he still calls her princess. Has Aaron called her love even once in this book? It’s possible I missed it, over the sound of his ceaseless letdowns from Chapter One onward.
• Aaron has a panic attack. Luckily his nemesis Kenji is there to comfort him. Why is no one worried about Juliette? While we are all crying over Warner’s psychosomatic breakdown, she is hysterical, hallucinating poison, has a voice in her head, and is being hunted by some kind of evil bureaucrats and possibly her own parents.
• Allow me to share yet another passage that made blink in disbelief:

He [Kenji] shakes his head. “You just can’t, man. You can’t be with someone and keep that many secrets from them.”
“It’s never stopped me before.”

At this point, Mafi, I already hate him. You did not need to include this passage, at all.

• **PARAPHRASING** Kenji’s like, “Hey man, you’re kind of being shitty to your girlfriend by not telling her about things like all your exes.” Aaron is like, “Well, I wouldn’t have ever done anything to hurt her (barring all those things I did to hurt her), but since I already lost her, who cares? Water under the bridge!” To which Kenji reminds him that ‘water under the bridge’ means Juliette can go out and fuck someone else, and Aaron doesn’t like the idea of that, so he decides he probably wants to fix things, after all.
• Aaron: “You couldn’t have called, Lieutenant? Isn’t that what our phones are for?”

Nothing significant here, although it is news to me that they have phones. When did they get phones?
Anyway, turns out Delalieu tried to call him, but Warner disconnected his phone. Can we like, demote this guy or something? This guy SUCKS.

• Juliette chooses the moron’s escape route (blind sprint into the open night), and gets snatched up by Jazeera (who can fly). This is the first time Jazeera has shared said secret with anyone, which she confides when they land in a tree. It’s a really great time for these two to kiss, and it’s only fair. After all, Warner never had any friends, so this childhood friend of Warner’s technically doesn’t count. Juliette lets Aaron block her blessings once again, but Jazeera is nonetheless more emotional support than Kenji and Aaron put together. You know, I usually read fantasy to ESCAPE the disappointing reality of Men. This book is reminding me they manage to infiltrate even sacred spaces like fiction. Jazeera is sucking on a hard candy, and I’M turned on, but Juliette is sad, so I’ll be quiet.
• Jazeera tells Juliette that Warner isn’t a bad person. Unfortunately, I must disagree. She’s still hot so I’m still listening.
• Lena Mishken? Yeah, no, never heard of her, but once again thank the gods for Jazeera, who spills the tea. It is…entirely embarrassing that since-revoked #1 fictional boyfriend Aaron Warner would let this information have to come to his girlfriend through a near stranger’s gossip, but turns out Lena is Aaron’s EX-GIRLFRIEND. I wonder how he could forget to mention a thing like that. Maybe Good Guy Aaron Warner didn’t anticipate she would still be part of the global, troubled teen Brady Bunch they’ve all been part of since they were kids, who are all apparently coming to visit. I’m not sure why he didn’t anticipate this, and I’m also not sure why all these people are showing up for this “Continental Symposium.” Symposiums typically involve presentations of some sort, that is the extent of my knowledge. I am sure if that was the case here, Warner would conveniently forget to remind his girlfriend about it. I am truly convinced at this point he gets off on humiliating her, so he’ll really enjoy making her walk on stage unprepared for something like this. I personally preferred when he was firmly ddlg/cgl coded in books 1-3. Uhhh, I would have appreciated a tw for this kind of content rebranding, but no matter.
• Did I mention Lena and Aaron were together for TWO YEARS?
• Did I mention Lena and Aaron only broke up EIGHT MONTHS AGO?
• Did I mention the Reestablishment is planning to destroy Sector 45?
• Also Lena is Russian. That seemed arbitrary, unless we are just supposed to know she’s extra hot or something. I don’t think Juliette needed any more tearing down, actually, but duly noted!
• Lena shows up outside of Warner’s room. Let me include this tiny snippet from his POV:

“Open the door, asshole.”
“You never did hold back with the flattery.”

Okay, this second line is what I would consider ‘flirting’ and I don’t like that. Good thing I decided I cannot stand this man like, twenty chapters ago, so at least this isn’t anything unexpected by now. This character is utterly irredeemable to me, and I wish I could act like I didn’t cry about it, but I can’t. I am devastated by the character assassination that took place in this book.

• Next up, Lena is attacking him because he broke up with her through a letter to his mom. Nothing surprises me at this point. Also, there is this:

She’s still thrashing against me, landing several kicks at my shins when I finally manage to gentle her arms and pull her close.

Suddenly, she stills.
My lips are at her ear when I say her name once, very gently.

This is an...awfully intimate way to subdue your ex-girlfriend. This would end any relationship in its tracks, for me. Also Kenji is here watching this all happen. He will not say a word to Juliette about it, if my guess is correct.
Why…did the author do this? I am literally sick to my stomach. This is worse than never getting a fourth book. I am really so hurt.

• Juliette has gone 2009 Britney and shaved her head. I really cannot take anymore humiliation of this protagonist who spent two and a half books learning how to make eye contact with other human beings and is now being torn down and betrayed by every single person she has ever cared about.
• For some reason Kenji and Warner walk in at this point. She is obviously wrecked and in her underwear, with a half shaven head. It’s nice to confirm that Kenji has sided with Warner in the breakup. This is the most debasing experience for me. Like I was really here for the found family and learning how to trust in love tropes. I wish I had never opened this one, to be quite honest.
• Warner talks to Juliette like she is a small, crippled animal (she is, essentially, and I would call this at least 75% his fault, but moving on). She is pathetic and drunk and we’ve all been there and I do not want to listen to her idolize her piece of shit boyfriend she broke up with but will get back with in the morning. She begs him to stay and hold her and he obviously can’t do that and still play the victim so he goes to the living room. I am honestly sick to my stomach.
• Warner has some “woe-is-me” inner monologue that I skim because I hate him with a burning passion at this point.
• Juliette wakes up and is, predictably humiliated. Now she has to go in front of all these terrible rich snobby assholes after manic shaving her head bald the night before. The author attempts to turn it into a big empowering moment, but this simply is not realistic as the author has just spent the entirety of the book tearing down and crippling every shred of confidence this girl gained over the course of the first three books.
• Lena is transphobic. That is an odd detail. Moving on.
• Warner tells Juliette he likes her hair. She asks him why he didn’t mention Lena. He tells her it “wasn’t a real relationship.” He tells her it was “purely physical.” The only explanation at this point is that the author did not want to write another book, but then she continued o write books after this so…I have no idea why she destroyed this man’s character so meticulously. I am honestly at a loss for words.
• Juliette is reasonably upset about this, and Warner launches into explanations and excuses for why he doesn’t think before he speaks or consider her feelings the way he did when he was trying to steal her away from Adam. Like, at this point it is safe to say Adam Kent was telling the truth, despite the fact that he also sucks very hard.
• He’s like “blah blah before you I never wanted to get close to anyone.” Well you clearly had no problem getting CLOSE to her, but you also refuse to be emotionally vulnerable with Juliette, so all of this is useless rabble and he is just a narcissist trying to win back a girl who will probably forgive him at the end of the day, to her own undoing. He says some lies and then ends with, “Give me another chance. Please. I swear on my life I won’t disappoint you.” Yes, yes, this is what they always say. If you keep refusing he’ll promise to go to therapy, too, Juliette, this is a universal experience and not the one any of us wanted when we cracked open this book. He kisses her after that and it’s special because it’s in front of all these people he’s been humiliating her in front of for like however many days it’s been now.
• After their kiss, Juliette runs away for…I don’t know. Theater?
• Castle shows up and pretends to be a father figure to Aaron, for some reason. I don’t like him so I don’t care to elaborate.
• Juliette stands at a podium and gives a speech about what she wants to make better in the world and nobody wants that so a bunch of people in the crowd advance on her and she gets shot in the forehead but she’s invincible somehow. Once the first bullet doesn’t do anything they all start shooting. It’s okay because she screams and kills 554 people, which may or may not have been real, I’m not really following at this point. She runs through all her old friends, most of whom she’s just killed, and then a couple greet her and tell her they’re her parents and they’ve come to take her home.
• Warner’s POV is blank. He’s probably still alive. Who cares? He’s ruined either way.
• Juliette wakes up in a child’s bedroom. Spoiler alert: it’s hers. She starts snooping and finds a letter from Warner’s dad about how they’ve found a suitable family for her (she is obviously the “her”). She finds photos of her and her sister before school, then photos of her, her sister, and Nazeera. Oh yeah, then she finds a photo of her and Aaron together as kids. Her real name is Ella.

This is all good and fine, the plot twist was even cool. But there is literally no salvaging what was done to Aaron Warner’s character or his relationship with Juliette in this book. Like, what was the point? I literally have cried way too many times about this and I thought reading it a second time would convince me I am being dramatic or embellishing the level of betrayal I feel but no, like, I am certain this was devastating.

This show happened in 2015. Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ09RF_Axpk
Experimenting with "soundscapes" on the field has happened many times in drum corps history. Obviously at first with brass choirs. Sometimes it happens naturally due to where members are placed on the field, sometimes it's intentionally part of the design like with Bridgemen's Civil War Suite, or many of Star of Indiana's shows (especially 1990).
In 2015, Bluecoats focused in on this idea with speaker locations on the marching field, and about a half-mile worth of cable to make it work!
Who?
Bluecoats was founded in 1972 partly to honor the city's police officers (hence the name & color). The corps would perform but struggle until 1983 when the father of a marching member took over after they nearly folded. Year-to-year improvement led to them being the first Ohio corps to make the DCI World Championship Finals in 1987. They would only miss Finals once since then (1999). Since ~2005, Bluecoats have been innovators with their design choices - including this show in 2015.
What??
Kinetic Noise Shaker Loops by John Adams & Jon Anderson / Electric Counterpoint by Steve Reich / Woods by Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) / Gene Takes a Drink by Michael Gordon / An Animated Description of Mr. Maps by Nick Zammuto & Paul de Jong (The Books) / Dense by Daniel Denis (Univers Zero)
This show was built around the electronic speakers being placed in 4 different areas of the marching backfield (+ 2 on sides of the pit) spanning left to right. The purpose being to use these sound sources to create new listening experiences with the electronics' capabilities. Sometimes players would be in one location but heard in another in quick succession ("Kinetic Noise"). Sometimes you won't be sure what is synthetic & what is live brass, or where the sound actually came from.
Some quick bullet points:

• Paying copyright for minimalist works in DCI shows seems weird sometimes because I think you could get away with making a knockoff version without paying & nobody would notice. Granted there's name value in John Adams, Steve Reich, & Michael Gordon, so that does probably have an effect.
• One of the minor issues with watching this show is a lot of the interesting effects with the speakers aren't nearly as obvious if you're not live with them in the stadium.
• The contra feature in the lengthy opener is much more obvious to notice, even on video. I think the really quick left-to-right audio is a nice microcosm of what the show wants to say.
• I like the body visual motif of everyone kinda balancing on one foot. Gives a sense of teetering-on-the-brink while implying gracefulness; matches the show pretty well.
• I think the entire point of the show is boiled down to those sampled quotes from the old 60s physics video they chose about frames of reference.
• The other sampled quotes from "Mr. Maps" I'm not a big fan of including. I know the original song is about someone perceiving the world in strange ways (synesthesia), but the sample itself is from an actual FBI most wanted in the 1960s describing a man who very likely killed his family & disappeared afterward. So yeah, could've done without this section of quotes.
• Percussion had one subcaption judge score them 1st overall - I think the first time in corps history a single judge had them #1 overall. Took a long way to get there considering their drumline was kicking butt back in 05-07 as well.
• Love the literal sound wave set just before the closing moments.

When?
2015
Where?
Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ09RF_Axpk
Why?
2015 is an interesting point in Bluecoats history. They had been showing shades of possible title-challenging status for about a decade (in 2007 they beat the Blue Devils I think more than once during the season?), but this show was a solid stamp of trying to innovate in ways nobody else was trying to. And what's weird is I don't think anyone has tried anything quite like this since? It might've been more trouble than it was worth with the wiring & latency, but definitely bonus points for trying it.
So what are your thoughts on the show? Have you seen it before? Let us know in the comments!
Here if you missed it earlier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ09RF_Axpk
Full list of writeups - https://old.reddit.com/drumcorps/comments/1ckqffb/shows_to_know_updating_full_list_of_dci_show/

Preface: I am NOT considering the anime. I am ONLY looking at the manga. So Goku fighting Kid Buu in multiple Super Saiyan forms is NOT canon because it is NOT in the manga. Yes, this post is very long. I originally posted this elsewhere, but this community seems more intelligent. I've sorted this by breaking it down into main points and addressing counter-arguments I've seen over the years. I will only be using the manga as a reference with one citation from Daizenshuu 7 (which is sometimes wrong, just like all guidebooks). The anime explicitly confirms Kid Buu is the strongest Buu multiple times, but I am talking about what is canon. (Z ep. 279 and Kibito Kai saying, "He has gone back to the original, most difficult, powerful Majin Buu!" at 3:48 into episode 151 of Kai.) Points 8 and 9 are only canon if you consider Super to be canon.

tl;dr

Kid Buu is canonically stronger than Buuhan. Everyone arguing otherwise either never read or misunderstands the manga, misunderstands Kid Buu in particular, and/or misunderstands Toriyama's intent.

1) ABSORPTION

One of the main arguments is that absorbing more characters = stronger Buu. This is how Super Buu works. This is NOT how Kid Buu works. He gets stronger by PURGING those impurities from him. Kid Buu's absorption properties are NOT the same as the rest of the series! "The souls he ate tamed him." (Z ch. 314) SUPER Buu's ki got smaller after removing everyone. (Z ch. 312) But disconnecting Fat Buu caused him to start reverting to Kid Buu, and his ki got LARGER. (Z ch. 313) This only makes sense because they are impurities. Normal absorptions being removed make the character weaker. See: Perfect Cell losing Android 18. (Z ch. 217) But Kid Buu's is different. He got STRONGER.
Counter-argument 1: "Let's say Kid Buu is actually the strongest form. Surely absorbing Gohan elevates Super Buu beyond him."
I find this argument to be the most reasonable take by people who think Buuhan is the strongest. However, I don't believe there's evidence to support this. Please read the entire post for why.
Counter-argument 2: "But that large ki wasn't Kid Buu, it was XYZ Buu!"
First of all, this is talking about an unnamed transition to Kid Buu. "Ultra Buu," "Buff Buu," and whatever other names that are applied to it aren't forms of Buu. We know this is true because Kibito Kai says, "This... This process...," as Kid Buu is transitioning and both Goku and Vegeta wonder how long this process will take. (Z ch. 314) Second, this claim is willing to admit that Buu got stronger after removing absorptions, which goes against the logic of more absorptions = stronger. Third, nothing is added or removed from Buu during this transformation sequence like in every other Buu transformation. (Fat Buu -> Evil Buu -> Super Buu -> Buuccolo, etc.) This is how we know "Ultra Buu" isn't a unique form, but rather Kid Buu's process of returning to himself. Fourth, this claim thinks the final villain of the series suddenly got weaker without anyone ever commenting on it. Goku and Vegeta only commented on how his ki raised and on his physical appearance. Which leads to...

2) BOASTING

Super Buu is an unreliable judge of strength. He claims that Buutenks is his strongest form in the past, present, and FUTURE. (Z ch. 305) If Buuhan is stronger, this statement can't be true, and it's dubious at its very best anyway due to the boastful nature of Gotenks and the consequences of absorbing him. As Buuhan, he also says, "Now I'm stronger than ever before!" (Z ch. 308) This directly contradicts his previous statement. Therefore, Super Buu's opinion on his own strength can't be trusted. Furthermore, Super Buu does not see Kid Buu as himself. When Vegeta is about to free Fat Buu from inside Super Buu, Super Buu tells him, "Don't cut him outta me!! I won't be myself anymore!!" (Z ch. 313) So if Buuhan, for some reason, was accurate in describing himself as the strongest he ever was, this still does not apply to Kid Buu because he does not see himself as Kid Buu. We can tell this is true because he also refers to Fat Buu in this scene as a separate entity. "Don't cut HIM outta ME*!!"* (Emphasis mine)
Additionally, boasting about or overestimating one's strength and then losing is a staple of the series. See: Vegeta going from "Heh... heh heh heh... look at our little friend!" (Z ch. 314) about Kid Buu to "This creature is beyond my power." (Z ch. 316) and "He's killing me...!!" (Z ch. 317) Or Goku going from "Yeah! We can take him!" (Z ch. 314) and "What?!!! He's asleep?!!! Who does he think I am?!!!" (Z ch. 315) about Kid Buu to "He keeps comin' back no matter what I do!" (Z ch. 316) and "The portara coulda done it. Maybe I tried to act too cool... but I thought this would be better...!" (Z ch. 316) Or how both Gohan and Vegeta thought they could beat Fat Buu (Z ch. 267) and then Gohan nearly died to him after 1 physical attack and 1 ki beam (Z ch. 268 - 269) and then Vegeta actually died against him (Z ch. 273).
Counter-argument 1: "XYZ doesn't say that! The official translation is wrong!"
You need to provide evidence that the exact things I am citing are mistranslated if this is your argument. And yes, I am going to trust the official translations over some Internet randos. In section 1, I quote the Viz translation as "The souls he ate tamed him." If you want to get technical, it's actually "weakened." Or how Viz translated "most troublesome" to "most difficult."
The "Viz translation" actually gives more credence to the Buuhan being stronger argument by using more ambiguous terminology. Another example: the Viz translation makes Buuhan a little bit more ambiguous as a judge of power, (while still being unreliable) but the literal translation shows that he is even worse at it by saying Goku and Vegeta fusing would be no match for him. Additionally, this thread seems to suggest that everything I cited from Super is also accurate as it lists errors and none of the chapters I cite are mentioned. And there are these two tweets that confirm what I wrote about Merus at the bottom of this post: 1 and 2.
In my own research, I haven't found anything to suggest that what I'm referencing is wrong either. On the topic of using non-official sources, guidebooks agree with me. This guidebook says Kid Buu powered up when Goku prepares to fight him, which would confirm what I explain in the post. But, guidebooks are sometimes wrong. For example: this one says Buuhan (yes, Buuhan) is on par with Super Saiyan 3 Goku. Or how the anime explicitly, in Japanese, says Kid Buu is the strongest multiple times: 1 and 2.
Counter-argument 2: "There are only 2 Buus, evil and good. Every form of Evil Buu is still Evil Buu and thus Buuhan was talking about every form of Buu when he said he was the strongest, and he also had access to god ki for that same reason."
When Super Buu says he won't be himself anymore, he is discussing ego death without necessarily knowing what that is. Buu is one being, but is also not. It's a contradictory state of existence. It's similar to the MCU character, Moon Knight. Marc Spector, Steven Grant, and Jake Lockley are all the same person, but they're also technically not. Buu is an extreme example of this where the alters can actually take separate physical forms (who then always immediately fight for dominance). Similarly, Marc Spector in the MCU can access the power of Moon Knight, but the other alters can't. This is just like how it works with Kid Buu. Kid Buu can access the god ki, but that doesn't mean the others can. And frankly, it's a bit of stretch to assume what Merus said applies to them anyway when he directly references Kid Buu. See point 8.

3) SUPER VEGITO

Some people seem to think that Super Vegito was necessary to beat Buuhan. This isn't true. By his own words to Buuhan, "I thought you'd be tougher. C'mon. Make me use my full power." Super Vegito was literally toying with Buuhan. It wasn't close at all. His entire plan was to make Buuhan desperate enough to try to absorb him so that he could free the others. He was beating Buuhan using only his legs and as a piece of candy. (Z ch. 311) By absolutely overwhelming him in his Super Saiyan form, Super Vegito was able to accomplish his goal. So even if Goku was on-par with Kid Buu like some people mistakenly think (he wasn't) and Kid Buu was stronger than Buuhan (which is true), it still would not make it untrue that Super Vegito was leagues beyond everyone else. In real manga canon, the Kid Buu saga (but including Vegito and Super Buu) power ranking looks like this: Super Vegito > Vegito > Kid Buu > Every Super Buu form > Super Saiyan 3 Goku > Fat Buu > Super Saiyan 2 Vegeta

4) JUST "MORE DANGEROUS"

Kibito Kai was much more afraid of Kid Buu than Buuhan. (Z ch. 314) When Buu transformed into Super Buu, he had an expression of apprehension, (Z ch. 292) contrasted to the palpable fear for Kid Buu. (Z ch. 314) Kibito Kai then confirms Elder Kai's question that Kid Buu is the "most difficult" form of Buu. (Z ch. 314) The arguments saying Kibito Kai is only more afraid because Kid Buu is just "more dangerous" are ridiculous at their best. Elder Kai states that letting Buutenks win against Gohan would be "the death of the universe." (Z ch. 306) Buuhan, after "absorbing" Super Vegito, also says, "Nothing can stop me now!!! I can enjoy the death and suffering of all living things to my heart's content!!!" (Z ch. 312) Kid Buu never spoke any words even once (Z ch. 314 - 322), but we can assume his motives are the same. If they weren't, Kibito Kai's heightened fear would make no sense. Why would Kibito Kai be more afraid of Kid Buu if he was not more capable of bringing about the "death of the universe," aka, being more powerful? It simply doesn't make sense. Kid Buu is stronger than Buuhan.
This is honestly what it sounds like the people making this argument are trying to make Kibito Kai say: "Oh no!! The big bad guy who plainly stated he wanted to kill all life in the entire universe has been replaced by a significantly weaker version that several characters could dispose of!! This doesn't comfort me at all and actually worries me for some unfathomable reason!!" Do you understand how ridiculous this sounds now?
Counter-argument: "The Supreme Kai is an unreliable judge of powecharacteetc., too!"
Actually, not really. This is more about him being, at first, unaware of how strong Goku, Gohan, and Vegeta are and his own hubris, than it is about him being unreliable. Once he understood their strength, he altered his judgment to fit the current situation. So, in actuality, the Supreme Kai is a very reliable judge of powecharacteetc. Here are some examples in chronological order: He knew that Goku and the others would join him to investigate and try to stop Babidi. (Z ch. 251) He knew that he likely wouldn't succeed without them. (Z ch. 251) He knew that Babidi's magic wasn't to be underestimated despite never encountering him before. (Z ch. 253) He knew that Dabura was luring them into a trap in Babidi's spaceship. (Z ch. 254) He knew that Babidi transported them to an area that is advantageous to Pui Pui. (Z ch. 255) He understood before the others that Babidi was going to try and control Vegeta. He also knew how to make Vegeta overcome this, but Vegeta refused. (Z ch. 262) He knew that Vegeta and Goku fighting would awaken Buu. (Z ch. 263) He correctly warned Gohan that they needed to leave after Buu was resurrected because they would die (and both would have died if not for Kibito being revived and also the Supreme Kai saving Gohan's life). (Z ch. 266 & 269) He correctly predicted that Babidi would eventually not be able to control Buu. (Z ch. 268) He correctly knew that Gohan had latent power within him that could surpass Buu. (Z ch. 276) He knew Gohan would be able to wield the Z Sword. (Z ch. 278) As we can see, he's actually a very reliable judge of powecharacteetc.

5) MISUNDERSTANDING TORIYAMA

I have read EVERY published work by Toriyama and he CONSTANTLY makes shorter characters more powerful than larger ones. Some examples are: Kid Goku throughout all of Dragon Ball, Arale and Gatchan (Dr. Slump), Beelzebub (Sand Land), Peke (Alien X Peke), Tongpoo (the Adventures of Tongpoo), Ackman (Go! Go! Ackman), Kajika (Kajika), Ken'nosuke (Young Master Ken'nosuke), Toki (Kintoki), Muwa (Tokimecha), Jaco (Jaco the Galactic Patrolman), Karamaru (Karamaru and the Perfect Day), Vegeta (main villain in the Saiyan Saga), Frieza (main villain in the Frieza Saga), Gohan in the Cell Saga, Gohan against Super Buu, and Kid Buu against Goku and Vegeta (main villain of the Buu Saga). This is not an exhaustive list. There are scant few exceptions to this, and they are exclusively to make the hero grow in power. This is probably Toriyama's number one trope. With this knowledge of the author, we can assuredly know that Kid Buu is the strongest form. (Source: literally all manga written by Toriyama, excluding one-shots like Mahimahi the Lungfish)
Counter-argument 1: "But what about X character? They're smaller than Y!"
Were they the main hero or main villain of that arc? This is a purposefully dense nitpick. There will always be exceptions to every rule, especially for background characters and minor heroes and villains. This in no way invalidates everything else Toriyama has shown us in all of his manga. Think about every major hero and villain in all of Dragon Ball and Z. Plus there's this quote by Toriyama acknowledging this exact trope of his when asked about it with a reference to Kid Goku, Frieza, and Kid Buu: "I wanted to go against people's expectation that the strong ones always get stronger and bigger. I consciously tried to switch being telling a straightforward story and telling one that was unconventional and contradictory."
Counter-argument 2: "But when X temporarily transformed, X got bigger!"
This doesn't invalidate that their normal, most-used form is smaller.
Expanding the list of short(er) characters being more powerful than tall(er) characters in final battles:
Kid Goku vs. everyone, Master Roshi vs. Kid Goku (both are short), Kid Goku vs. the entire Red Ribbon Army, Kid Goku vs. Tao Pai Pai (second round), Kid Goku vs. Fortuneteller Baba's champions, Kid Goku vs. Tenshinhan (used as a way to show Kid Goku's growth against next villain), Kid Goku vs. King Piccolo (second round), Goku vs. Piccolo, Goku and Piccolo vs. Raditz (to show growth), Vegeta vs. Goku, Vegeta vs. Dodoria, Vegeta vs. Zarbon (second round), Goku vs. Captain Ginyu, Goku vs. Frieza (required Super Saiyan), Trunks vs. King Cold, Vegeta vs. Android 19, Future Goku vs. Heart Virus (lol), Gohan vs. Cell, Fat Buu vs. Dabura, and Kid Buu vs. everyone. Are there other fights? Obviously, but I listed the ones that either end the overall story arc (Saiyan Saga, Frieza Saga, etc.) or are (one of) the last fights of one of the characters. Denying this trope exists is, frankly, delusional.

6) UNEQUAL TO KID BUU

The people who think Goku did well against Kid Buu did not read the manga. Goku does NOT stand toe-to-toe with Kid Buu. (Z ch. 316) He doesn't deal any lasting damage to Kid Buu, and flatly says that Kid Buu is just toying with him. "He keeps draggin' this out! This little punk's havin' fun!" See this comment for the direct Japanese translation of one of Goku's comments on fighting Kid Buu. We also know for a fact that Goku and Vegeta both made no dent on Kid Buu because Vegeta and Goku both notice that a Buu's power can only be lessened when fighting a version of himself. "...Have you noticed, Kakarrot? The fat one's power is going down... They can get hurt, when they're fighting another Boo." (Z ch. 320) The fact is that Goku and Vegeta did nothing to Kid Buu, or they would have noticed this during their own fights with him.
While Kid Buu is being destroyed by the Spirit Bomb, Goku expresses his interest in fighting him 1-on-1 in the future and that he will train until then. (Z ch. 322) Why would Goku need to train for years to have a 1-on-1 with someone he's already "evenly matched" with? Goku needs the help of both Fat Buu and Vegeta (and the universe) to defeat him. All 3 of which flatly admit they have no chance against Kid Buu and 2 of which nearly die. (Z ch. 316 - 318)
If Goku were ANYWHERE near Kid Buu's power, his Spirit Bomb would have connected without issue (Z ch. 322) See: the Spirit Bomb against Frieza where Frieza was at the bare minimum 20x stronger than Goku at that exact moment. (Z ch. 122, Daizenshuu 7) It was definitely more than 20x, but I'm just rounding down for Kaioken x20. Additionally, the Spirit Bomb against Kid Buu was way more powerful than previous ones as it contained the energy of everyone on Earth, (Z ch. 321) New Namek, and the Underworld. (Z ch. 322) Goku not only needed the Dragon Balls to restore his power, but also needed to be Super Saiyan to have this multi-planetary and multi-dimensional Spirit Bomb connect with Kid Buu. The fact is that Kid Buu extremely overpowered Goku.
Counter-argument 1: "Goku could have beaten him with Super Saiyan 3 if he was still dead. He just couldn't generate the power while he was alive."
Maybe? This is something we can't know. Goku was also confident when he showed up to fight Frieza saying "I'm going to destroy you!!!" (Z ch. 114) and only ended up winning that fight due to the order Frieza attempted to kill them all in being the catalyst necessary for Super Saiyan 1 (Piccolo -> Krillin -> Gohan -> Goku). (Z ch. 123) If you look at the Spirit Bomb that was required for Kid Buu, I would have to strongly disagree with Super Saiyan 3 being enough. Goku thinks that he needs a minute to charge up his power to take on Kid Buu. This isn't a guarantee of victory, just like Kaioken x10 (Z ch. 118) and x20 (Z ch. 119) weren’t guarantees of victory against Frieza despite his initial confidence. In this fight alone, Goku has already shown us he's severely underestimated Kid Buu. The only thing he's actually confident in is the portara being enough. See points 2, 5, and 8.
Counter-argument 2: "Goku was so scared of fighting (X form of Super Buu) that he wanted to use the portara, but he was much more confident against Kid Buu and didn't want to use the portara."
I cover the response to this throughout the other sections, but this is a specific argument that is brought up constantly, so I felt it worth addressing directly. There are 2 main points against this. The first is that, narratively, it would feel cheap if the hero we've followed for 11 years needed to "cheat" to beat the final boss of the entire series. That's fine in the movies, but this is the main story. Also, narratively, it would not feel fulfilling for this hero we've followed for so long to beat the enemy at their weakest or in a comparatively weaker form than their previous form(s). That's why every arc of Dragon Ball has the villains defeated at their absolute strongest. To suddenly change course for the last arc makes no sense at all. Additionally, the dilemma caused by not having the portara also adds needed drama for the end. "How is Goku going to win this time when the odds are so stacked against him?" The second point is that you can also judge Goku's words and facial expressions before-and-after Kid Buu arrives on the Supreme Kai's planet, and before-and-after he fights Kid Buu. He clearly understands he made a huge mistake destroying them. Besides this section, it is also covered in points 2 and 7 with the exact sources.
Follow-up: "How is Goku relying on Vegeta and Fat Buu any less cheap than using the portara?"
Vegito is insanely overpowered. That's how. It was a desperate fight with the 3 of them. All of them nearly died. It wouldn't have been exciting at all if Vegito just nuked Kid Buu.
Counter-argument 3: "Kid Buu was trying to kill Goku in the fight. Even with his antics, he was fighting seriously."
No, he wasn't. If Kid Buu was trying to kill Goku, he would have. He could have simply blown up the Supreme Kai's planet just like he did with Earth. The fact is he enjoyed toying with them. If he didn't, the series would have ended right after he teleported to the Supreme Kai's planet. Re-read this section for the exact quotes where Goku says Kid Buu is toying with him.

7) MISUNDERSTANDING SAIYANS (PORTARA REJECTION)

Destroying the portara doesn't mean Kid Buu isn't stronger than Buuhan. For one, they had no idea Kid Buu would be able to find them in another dimension/plane of existence. So they assumed they'd have time to formulate a plan. (Z ch. 315) It was, at that point, completely unprecedented that a villain could not only travel to the Other World alive, but also to the Supreme Kai's planet specifically. It's very easy to stay calm or act confident when you don't know your enemy has the ability to reach you. It's also a fundamental misunderstanding of Saiyans. There was no way in Hell that Vegeta was going to let Goku fuse with him again and risk being stuck together permanently. Pure blooded Saiyans always want the 1-on-1 fight. However, despite Saiyan pride, Goku still regrets destroying the portara after actually fighting Kid Buu. (Z ch. 316) Read point 2 again for the exact quote.

8) GOD KI

Super adds a new element to Kid Buu being more powerful than Buuhan. Kid Buu had god ki. (Super ch. 49 & 66) Ask yourself if Goku is stronger with or without god ki. Do you truly believe Super Saiyan 3 is stronger than Super Saiyan God or even Blue? Obviously, he is stronger with god ki. So then why would a Buu form without god ki be stronger than one with it? It makes no sense at all. Additionally, since Kid Buu had god ki, that helps explain why Vegeta and Goku underestimated him. They simply couldn't sense the danger involved.
Counter-argument 1: "But X character has god ki and they're weaker than Y character without god ki!"
I'm not saying there aren't characters without god ki that can be stronger than those with it. Look at Jiren. I'm saying that if you compare the same character with and without god ki, they are, of course, way more powerful with it. Goku is a perfect example of this because we see how much stronger it immediately makes him. (Super ch. 4)
Counter-argument 2: "If Kid Buu had god ki, then that means Buuhan did, too!"
No, it doesn't. Only Kid Buu had it. The Super manga specifically refers to Kid Buu and even uses his image to make sure no one gets confused by this. Goku says, "That little guy had actual god power in him?" after Merus speculates, Kid Buu had it. (Super ch. 49) Buuhan is not little. Of course, this speculation is later confirmed when Dende and Jaco talk about Kid Buu's god ki. (Super ch. 66)
Counter-argument 3: "If Kid Buu had god ki, then how was Piccolo able to determine that Kid Buu died in Z ch. 323?"
This is Piccolo after fusing with Kami. Kami was the god (DB ch. 163) of Earth for hundreds of years (Z ch. 50) at the time they fused together again. Kami not only knew of the Other World, but as a god, he has been there himself and knows (some of) the higher gods. (Z ch. 11) This is why he was eventually able to understand that Supreme Kai and Kibito were higher gods. (Z ch. 245) (Even though he didn't know they were at the top of the top until it was revealed.) (Z ch. 246) After fusing, his vast knowledge is shared with Piccolo. (Z ch. 166) Additionally, Piccolo explains to Gohan early in Super that the reason Gohan can't detect Goku's ki anymore is because it's god ki now, showing he has foreknowledge of god ki. (Super ch. 4) Finally, Dende remarks, "My own divine power is still developing...," (Super ch. 66) which implies that the gods of Earth also have god ki. So, we can safely assume it's Kami's knowledge and power that allows Piccolo to detect Kid Buu's death. If it were simply a matter of detecting ki, then Gohan would have been able to detect the death of Kid Buu, too. Instead, he needed to ask Piccolo for confirmation. (Z ch. 323)
Follow-up: "But since he was unaware of who the Supreme Kai was, that would imply that he also would not have knowledge of the goings-on on his planet, which is where Kid Buu was killed."
In most cases, this would likely be true. But not in this one case. King Enma knew about what was happening there with the fight against Kid Buu (Z ch. 322) and so did Piccolo. (Z ch. 320) It's not far-fetched to assume that he would thus have knowledge or some type of connection to the Other World that allows him to tell if Kid Buu died or not.

9) IMAGE TRAINING

Why would Goku image train against the strongest forms of Frieza and Cell, but not Buu? (Super ch. 1) He's fought both Buuhan (as Vegito) and Kid Buu, so it's clear the answer is because Kid Buu was stronger.
Counter-argument 1: "Those weren't their strongest forms because Frieza wasn't bulky!"
Frieza doesn't need to transFORM to go to 100% when he looks that way. He only needs to power up. (Z ch. 127) Frieza never once refers to this as a separate form. However, he DOES refer to the other forms as "forms" or "transformations." (Z ch. 101, 102, 103, 107, 108, 109) In his second form, he even says, "I have two transformations left." (Z ch. 107) He didn't say he had three left. So, no, bulky 100% power Frieza is not a separate form. Goku is fighting them all in their strongest forms.
Counter-argument 2: "Goku was just fighting them because they have unique moves/powers, and not because they're the strongest. That's why he chose Kid Buu."
Kid Buu and Frieza do have unique moves. However, outside of spawning Cell Jrs., (which could be something he got from King Piccolo (DB ch. 137) via Piccolo) Cell doesn't have any. So this argument doesn't work.

10) A SIMPLE LIST OF FEATS

Buuhan:

• Fought Super Vegito (Z ch. 310 - 311)
• Dodged a rebounded ki attack (Z ch. 310)
• Was not fast enough to hit base Goku before he could use Instant Transmission (Z ch. 309)
• Landed only a single attack (candy beam) against Super Vegito during their entire fight, and it backfired spectacularly (Z ch. 311)

Kid Buu:

• Destroyed a planet (Z ch. 314)
• Fully regenerated from a planet-destroying attack (Z ch. 315)
• Learned Kai Kai after only seeing it once (Z ch. 314 - 315)
• Was completely unaffected by SS3 Goku's, SS2 Vegeta's, and Fat Buu's attacks (Z ch. 316, 317, 320)
• Made Goku regret destroying the portara earrings (Z ch. 316)
• Defeated 3 galaxy-level threats back-to-back-to-back (Z ch. 316, 317, 321)
• Required a multi-planetary and multi-dimensional Spirit Bomb to be defeated (Z ch. 322)
• SS2 Vegeta stopped a small (in size) planet-destroying ki attack (Z ch. 314)
• Was hit by several attacks during his fights, despite them doing no damage (Z ch. 316 - 318)

Exhausted female here who is being jerked around by the dealership.
I live in a town whose two BMW dealerships are notorious for being crooked, at least the service dept. 8 years of bad experiences over two bmws.
I purchased the certified bmw in CA and live in Texas.
I have. 2018 330i with 45,000 miles .
I took the car into the dealership for two reasons. One, fuel filter or filter tube will trigger the gas nozzle to shut off. I have to stand there and keep clicking the nozzle to deliver fuel to my car.
Second problem is my screen has a black dot where the pixels must be burnt out. There is no image where there is a black dot.
I have included the warranties I have plus the repair estimate. How are they denying these are under warranty?
I currently have two active warranties :
7 years / Unlimited miles Status: Active Maximum Months: 84 Maximum Mileage: 999,999 Effective Date: 09-22-2018 Max. End Date by Age: 09-22-2025 Deductible: $0.00
Federal Emissions 8/80 FE 96 MO/80K MLS Status: Active Maximum Months: 96 Maximum Mileage: 80,000 Effective Date: 09-22-2018 Max. End Date by Age: 09-22-2026 Deductible: $0.00
I received a 13,700 quote and none of the repairs are covered by my warranty according to the service specialist.
Here is the repair report ; Repair Order Estimate Printed Date: May 16, 2024 We have performed our multi-point inspection on your vehicle and the following services were recommended. EXISTING SERVICES Job Quote FUEL SYSTEM CONCERN CUSTOMER STATES WHILE FUELING THE VEHICLE SHE CANNOT GO MOR 174.95 BODY EQUIPMENT CUSTOMER STATES CENTER IDRIVE DISPLAY HAS A BLACK DOT ON THE PENDING EXT WARRANTY HAS BMW ESC WARRANTY - CHECK FOR COVERAGE PENDING COMPLIMENTARY INSP COMPLIMENTARY MULTI-POINT INSPECTION. RESULTS CAN BE EMAILED 0.00 Existing Services Total $ 174.95 SUGGESTED SERVICES Job Quote MISC DRIVABILITY IMMEDIATE ATTENTION catalytic converter efficiency too low fault present. 5,453.16 catalytic converter efficiency too low fault present. Qty Part Number Part Description Price Ext Price 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 Misc Code SS 18-32-8-685-968 18-30-7-581-970 18-30-7-606-136 18-30-5-A09-B63 Misc Description SERVICE CHARGE RP CATALYTIC BM GASKET RING BMBIMI SCREW CLAMP BMBIMI SCREW CLAMP BMMI 1780.28 36.10 56.82 53.81 1780.28 36.10 56.82 53.81 Ext Price 36.00 Labor Hrs 1,379.70 Parts 3727.01 Misc 36.00 Tax 310.45 Total 5453.16
Job Quote GENERAL VEHICLE ELEC IMMEDIATE ATTENTION center idrive display has black dot on screen. 4,321.04 Dead pixels in the Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) diodes. recommend replacing central information display rechecking for further issues after repair. Qty Part Number Part Description Price Ext Price 1.00 Misc Code SS 65-50-6-837-127 Misc Description SERVICE CHARGE CENTRAL INFO BM 3318.45 3318.45 Ext Price 36.00 Labor Hrs 689.85 Parts 3318.45 Misc 36.00 Tax 276.74 Total 4321.04
Job QuoteCHARCOAL CANISTER REPLACE CHARCOAL CANISTER charcoal canister clogged, gas fumes cant escape and pressure building up in the fuel tank. charcoal canister captures any gas fumes to prevent toxic vapors from escaping into the atmosphere. Recommend replacing charcoal canister and rechecking for further issues. 1,774.55 Qty Part Number Part Description Price Ext Price 1.00 1.00 1.00 Misc Code SS 16-13-7-464-301 16-13-7-333-302 16-13-7-438-487 Misc Description SERVICE CHARGE ACTIVATED CH BM LEAK DIAGNOS BM VENT PIPE WI BM 581.50 251.06 133.47 581.50 251.06 133.47 Ext Price 36.00 Labor Hrs 689.85 Parts 966.03 Misc 36.00 Tax 82.67 Total 1774.55
Not included Are brake and tire recommended services.

Greetings, as I was trying to emerge games-util/steam-launcher, I ran into a problem compiling the package x11-libs/extest and have no clue how to get rid of it. Here is the output of emerge --info '=x11-libs/extest-1.0.2::steam-overlay' :

Portage 3.0.64 (python 3.11.9-final-0, default/linux/amd64/23.0/desktop/systemd, gcc-13, glibc-2.39-r6, 6.8.9-gentoo-x86_64 x86_64)

System Settings

System uname: [Linux-6.8.9-gentoo-x86_64-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-_i5-6300HQ_CPU_@_2.30GHz-with-glibc2.39](mailto:Linux-6.8.9-gentoo-x8664-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-_i5-6300HQ_CPU@_2.30GHz-with-glibc2.39) KiB Mem: 7998136 total, 2554744 free KiB Swap: 0 total, 0 free Timestamp of repository gentoo: Mon, 13 May 2024 04:30:00 +0000 Head commit of repository gentoo: e13fe9ec8d561a8ebee2069b6c6d35c393d95f47 Timestamp of repository guru: Mon, 13 May 2024 13:33:47 +0000 Head commit of repository guru: 541549df44217b85c16a877a8f010a15f400fbf0
Timestamp of repository steam-overlay: Sun, 12 May 2024 05:07:06 +0000 Head commit of repository steam-overlay: f27a23afac69bac916ca885a7df2e4756bf2c910
Timestamp of repository torbrowser: Sun, 12 May 2024 05:07:06 +0000 Head commit of repository torbrowser: 401bde84939e3a744c7462a769468d3e96aa4f2f
sh bash 5.2_p26-r3 ld GNU ld (Gentoo 2.41 p5) 2.41.0 app-misc/pax-utils: 1.3.7::gentoo app-shells/bash: 5.2_p26-r3::gentoo dev-build/autoconf: 2.13-r8::gentoo, 2.71-r7::gentoo, 2.72-r1::gentoo dev-build/automake: 1.16.5-r2::gentoo dev-build/cmake: 3.29.3::gentoo dev-build/libtool: 2.4.7-r4::gentoo dev-build/make: 4.4.1-r1::gentoo dev-build/meson: 1.4.0-r1::gentoo dev-lang/perl: 5.38.2-r5::gentoo dev-lang/python: 3.11.9::gentoo, 3.12.3::gentoo, 3.13.0_beta1_p1::gentoo dev-lang/rust: 1.77.1::gentoo dev-lang/rust-bin: 1.77.1::gentoo sys-apps/baselayout: 2.15::gentoo sys-apps/sandbox: 2.38::gentoo sys-apps/systemd: 255.6::gentoo sys-devel/binutils: 2.41-r5::gentoo, 2.42-r1::gentoo sys-devel/binutils-config: 5.5::gentoo sys-devel/clang: 17.0.6::gentoo, 18.1.5::gentoo sys-devel/gcc: 13.2.1_p20240503::gentoo sys-devel/gcc-config: 2.11::gentoo sys-devel/lld: 17.0.6::gentoo sys-devel/llvm: 17.0.6::gentoo, 18.1.5::gentoo sys-kernel/linux-headers: 6.8-r1::gentoo (virtual/os-headers) sys-libs/glibc: 2.39-r6::gentoo Repositories:
gentoo location: /vadb/repos/gentoo sync-type: rsync sync-uri: [rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage](rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage) priority: -1000 volatile: False sync-rsync-verify-metamanifest: yes sync-rsync-verify-jobs: 1 sync-rsync-verify-max-age: 3 sync-rsync-extra-opts:
guru location: /vadb/repos/guru sync-type: git sync-uri: https://github.com/gentoo-mirroguru.git masters: gentoo volatile: False
steam-overlay location: /vadb/repos/steam-overlay sync-type: git sync-uri: https://github.com/gentoo-mirrosteam-overlay.git masters: gentoo volatile: False
torbrowser location: /vadb/repos/torbrowser sync-type: git sync-uri: https://github.com/gentoo-mirrotorbrowser.git masters: gentoo volatile: False
Binary Repositories:
gentoobinhost priority: 1 sync-uri: https://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/amd64/binpackages/23.0/x86-64
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64 ~amd64" ACCEPT_LICENSE="@FREE" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /uslib64/libreoffice/program/sofficerc /usshare/config /usshare/gnupg/qualified.txt" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/dconf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe" DISTDIR="/vacache/distfiles" ENV_UNSET="CARGO_HOME DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS DISPLAY GDK_PIXBUF_MODULE_FILE GOBIN GOPATH PERL5LIB PERL5OPT PERLPREFIX PERL_CORE PERL_MB_OPT PERL_MM_OPT XAUTHORITY XDG_CACHE_HOME XDG_CONFIG_HOME XDG_DATA_HOME XDG_RUNTIME_DIR XDG_STATE_HOME" FCFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe" FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-docompress binpkg-dostrip binpkg-logs binpkg-multi-instance buildpkg-live config-protect-if-modified distlocks ebuild-locks fixlafiles ipc-sandbox merge-sync merge-wait multilib-strict network-sandbox news parallel-fetch pid-sandbox pkgdir-index-trusted preserve-libs protect-owned qa-unresolved-soname-deps sandbox sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch userpriv usersandbox usersync xattr" FFLAGS="-march=native -O2 -pipe" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org" LANG="C.UTF8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed -Wl,-z,pack-relative-relocs" LEX="flex" MAKEOPTS="-j4 -l4" PKGDIR="/vacache/binpkgs" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --omit-dir-times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --human-readable --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --exclude=/.git" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/vatmp" RUSTFLAGS="-C opt-level=3 -C target-cpu=native" SHELL="/bin/fish" USE="X a52 aac acl acpi alsa amd64 bluetooth branding bzip2 cairo cdda cdr cet crypt cups custom-cflags custom-optimization dbus dist-kernel dri dts dvd dvdr encode exif flac gdbm gif gpm gtk gui hwaccel iconv icu ipv6 jpeg lcms libnotify libtirpc lto mad mng mp3 mp4 mpeg multilib ncurses nls ogg opengl openmp pam pango pcre pdf pgo pipewire png policykit ppds qt5 readline savedconfig sdl seccomp sound spell ssl startup-notification svg systemd systemd-boot test-rust tiff truetype udev udisks unicode upower usb vorbis vulkan wayland wxwidgets x264 xattr xcb xft xml xv xvid zlib" ABI_X86="64" ADA_TARGET="gcc_12" APACHE2_MODULES="authn_core authz_core socache_shmcb unixd actions alias auth_basic authn_anon authn_dbm authn_file authz_dbm authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CALLIGRA_FEATURES="karbon sheets words" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" CPU_FLAGS_X86="mmx mmxext sse sse2 aes avx avx2 f16c fma3 pclmul popcnt rdrand sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock greis isync itrax mtk3301 ntrip navcom oceanserver oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf skytraq superstar2 tsip tripmate tnt ublox" INPUT_DEVICES="synaptics libinput" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb text" LUA_SINGLE_TARGET="lua5-1" LUA_TARGETS="lua5-1" OFFICE_IMPLEMENTATION="libreoffice" PHP_TARGETS="php8-1" POSTGRES_TARGETS="postgres15" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_11" PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_11" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby31" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia intel" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tarpit sysrq proto logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account" Unset: ADDR2LINE, AR, ARFLAGS, AS, ASFLAGS, CC, CCLD, CONFIG_SHELL, CPP, CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, CXX, CXXFILT, ELFEDIT, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, EXTRA_ECONF, F77FLAGS, FC, GCOV, GPROF, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, LD, LFLAGS, LIBTOOL, LINGUAS, MAKE, MAKEFLAGS, NM, OBJCOPY, OBJDUMP, PORTAGE_BINHOST, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PYTHONPATH, RANLIB, READELF, SIZE, STRINGS, STRIP, YACC, YFLAGS
The complete buildlog:

[32m * #[39;49;00mPackage: x11-libs/extest-1.0.2:0

[32m * #[39;49;00mRepository: steam-overlay

[32m * #[39;49;00mUSE: abi_x86_32 abi_x86_64 amd64 elibc_glibc kernel_linux

[32m * #[39;49;00mFEATURES: network-sandbox preserve-libs sandbox userpriv usersandbox

Unpacking source...

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Unpacking extest-1.0.2.tar.gz to /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work Source unpacked in /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work Preparing source in /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2 ...

[32m*#[0m Will copy sources from /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2

[32m*#[0m abi_x86_32.x86: copying to /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86

[32m*#[0m abi_x86_64.amd64: copying to /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_64.amd64

Source prepared. Configuring source in /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2 ...

[32m*#[0m abi_x86_32.x86: running multilib-minimal_abi_src_configure

[32m*#[0m abi_x86_64.amd64: running multilib-minimal_abi_src_configure

Source configured. Compiling source in /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2 ...

[32m*#[0m abi_x86_32.x86: running multilib-minimal_abi_src_compile

[32m*#[0m cargo build --release --target=i686-unknown-linux-gnu

Compiling autocfg v1.1.0 Compiling proc-macro2 v1.0.70 Running `rustc --crate-name autocfg /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/cargo_home/gentoo/autocfg-1.1.0/src/lib.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi,artifacts,future-incompat --crate-type lib --emit=dep-info,metadata,link -C embed-bitcode=no -C debug-assertions=off -C metadata=83b06128b0a4b300 -C extra-filename=-83b06128b0a4b300 --out-dir /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/release/deps -L dependency=/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/release/deps --cap-lints allow` Compiling libc v0.2.150 Compiling unicode-ident v1.0.12 Running `rustc --crate-name build_script_build --edition=2021 /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/cargo_home/gentoo/proc-macro2-1.0.70/build.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi,artifacts,future-incompat --crate-type bin --emit=dep-info,link -C embed-bitcode=no -C debug-assertions=off --cfg 'feature="default"' --cfg 'feature="proc-macro"' -C metadata=50035885a8e7fae6 -C extra-filename=-50035885a8e7fae6 --out-dir /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/release/build/proc-macro2-50035885a8e7fae6 -L dependency=/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/release/deps --cap-lints allow` Running `rustc --crate-name build_script_build /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/cargo_home/gentoo/libc-0.2.150/build.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi,artifacts,future-incompat --crate-type bin --emit=dep-info,link -C embed-bitcode=no -C debug-assertions=off --cfg 'feature="default"' --cfg 'feature="extra_traits"' --cfg 'feature="std"' -C metadata=e9e3717942e8ea83 -C extra-filename=-e9e3717942e8ea83 --out-dir /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/release/build/libc-e9e3717942e8ea83 -L dependency=/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/release/deps --cap-lints allow` Running `rustc --crate-name unicode_ident --edition=2018 /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/cargo_home/gentoo/unicode-ident-1.0.12/src/lib.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi,artifacts,future-incompat --crate-type lib --emit=dep-info,metadata,link -C embed-bitcode=no -C debug-assertions=off -C metadata=0cfa1fe52edbc200 -C extra-filename=-0cfa1fe52edbc200 --out-dir /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/release/deps -L dependency=/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/release/deps --cap-lints allow` Compiling cfg-if v1.0.0 Running `rustc --crate-name cfg_if --edition=2018 /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/cargo_home/gentoo/cfg-if-1.0.0/src/lib.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi,artifacts,future-incompat --crate-type lib --emit=dep-info,metadata,link -C opt-level=3 -C embed-bitcode=no -C metadata=7d515e691a7da296 -C extra-filename=-7d515e691a7da296 --out-dir /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/i686-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps --target i686-unknown-linux-gnu -L dependency=/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/i686-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps -L dependency=/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/release/deps --cap-lints allow -C opt-level=3 -C target-cpu=native` error[E0463]: can't find crate for `core` = note: the `i686-unknown-linux-gnu` target may not be installed = help: consider downloading the target with `rustup target add i686-unknown-linux-gnu`

error[E0463]: can't find crate for `compiler_builtins`
For more information about this error, try `rustc --explain E0463`. error: could not compile `cfg-if` (lib) due to 2 previous errors
Caused by: process didn't exit successfully: `rustc --crate-name cfg_if --edition=2018 /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/cargo_home/gentoo/cfg-if-1.0.0/src/lib.rs --error-format=json --json=diagnostic-rendered-ansi,artifacts,future-incompat --crate-type lib --emit=dep-info,metadata,link -C opt-level=3 -C embed-bitcode=no -C metadata=7d515e691a7da296 -C extra-filename=-7d515e691a7da296 --out-dir /vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/i686-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps --target i686-unknown-linux-gnu -L dependency=/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/i686-unknown-linux-gnu/release/deps -L dependency=/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86/target/release/deps --cap-lints allow -C opt-level=3 -C target-cpu=native` (exit status: 1) warning: build failed, waiting for other jobs to finish...

[31;01m*#[0m ERROR: x11-libs/extest-1.0.2::steam-overlay failed (compile phase):

[31;01m*#[0m cargo build failed

[31;01m*#[0m

[31;01m*#[0m Call stack:

[31;01m*#[0m ebuild.sh, line 136: Called src_compile

[31;01m*#[0m environment, line 2461: Called multilib-minimal_src_compile

[31;01m*#[0m environment, line 1669: Called multilib_foreach_abi 'multilib-minimal_abi_src_compile'

[31;01m*#[0m environment, line 1936: Called multibuild_foreach_variant '_multilib_multibuild_wrapper' 'multilib-minimal_abi_src_compile'

[31;01m*#[0m environment, line 1629: Called _multibuild_run '_multilib_multibuild_wrapper' 'multilib-minimal_abi_src_compile'

[31;01m*#[0m environment, line 1627: Called _multilib_multibuild_wrapper 'multilib-minimal_abi_src_compile'

[31;01m*#[0m environment, line 525: Called multilib-minimal_abi_src_compile

[31;01m*#[0m environment, line 1663: Called multilib_src_compile

[31;01m*#[0m environment, line 2156: Called cargo_src_compile '--target=i686-unknown-linux-gnu'

[31;01m*#[0m environment, line 850: Called die

[31;01m*#[0m The specific snippet of code:

[31;01m*#[0m "${@}" die "cargo build failed"

[31;01m*#[0m

[31;01m*#[0m If you need support, post the output of `emerge --info '=x11-libs/extest-1.0.2::steam-overlay'`,

[31;01m*#[0m the complete build log and the output of `emerge -pqv '=x11-libs/extest-1.0.2::steam-overlay'`.

[31;01m*#[0m The complete build log is located at '/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/temp/build.log'.

[31;01m*#[0m The ebuild environment file is located at '/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/temp/environment'.

[31;01m*#[0m Working directory: '/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2-abi_x86_32.x86'

[31;01m*#[0m S: '/vatmp/portage/x11-libs/extest-1.0.2/work/extest-1.0.2'

output of emerge -pqv '=x11-libs/extest-1.0.2::steam-overlay' :
[ebuild N ] x11-libs/extest-1.0.2 USE="-debug" ABI_X86="32 (64) (-x32)"
* IMPORTANT: 22 news items need reading for repository 'gentoo'. * Use eselect news read to view new items.
Thank you, I appreciate your help.

The AAMC recently told everyone about changes to the ERAS application. They mentioned moving the "Medical Education/Training Interruption" area to the Education section, but they did not mention the massive change in context.
In previous years, the question simply asked if your medical training was extended or interrupted in any way. This allowed people to cite Covid delays, personal illness/loss, financial struggles, etc., offering reasonable explanations about why their education "took longer than it should have." Now, the question is (see page 10 of the ERAS worksheet):
"Have you had any unplanned professionalism or academic issues in your medical education or training that caused an interruption or extension? Note: This section is not intended to solicit information about your health, disability, or family status."
Dr. Carmody started a conversation about this via Twitter that's very insightful and offers a lot of critiques on this change.
My thoughts:
I wonder if the intentions were good. Perhaps "they" decided that extensions of education are common (especially for IMGs). People often take extensions for USMLE prep and clinical rotations, or for the reasons noted above like loss and financial struggles. So...perhaps this change is saying, "It's fine if you had an extension for a reasonable circumstance. However, if your course of education was longer because you had professional or academic disciplinary issues, we want to know about it here."
Another thought is that extensions are often discussed in the Impactful Experience section as they can be considered "hardships that influenced your journey to residency" (quoted from the ERAS worksheet, page 17). I wonder if they were seeing a lot of repetition in these two areas of the application.
What does everyone think?
Tiffany

Hi, clowns! Found lots of connections to an essay Sylvia Plath wrote and TTPD. Lots of info below, but was interesting!
TL; DR Plath’s college thesis paper is all about troubled poets and their “DOUBLES.”
Initial Tortured Poets and Sylvia Plath Connections
Of course, the theme of TTPD is tortured poets, so many avid literary Swifties have enjoyed seeking connections between Swift’s new songs and iconic poetry. No connections are overt, but some seem to be more likely than others. Namely, there’s been much discussion of Virginia Woolf thanks to the song “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”(perhaps a riff on the Edward Albee play title). Other Swifties have found possible lyrical links to Mary Shelley and Charlotte Bronte. Swift herself references Patti Smith and Dylan Thomas in the album’s title track.
I remembered a third poet in relation to Smith and Thomas: Sylvia Plath, obviously an all timer of a tortured poet. I remember hearing an anecdote that she had been obsessed with Thomas and stalked him outside the Chelsea Hotel (also named in the TTPD title track). I did a quick skim of Plath’s Wikipedia to confirm and then started noticing many possible connections to TTPD and Plath’s life.
In the “Fortnight” music video, Swift acts out being institutionalized for insanity and getting electric shock treatment—two significant experiences in Plath’s life. Plath was also coupled with a deeply problematic man, Ted Hughes. Plath fell in love with Hughes for his artistic talent before he revealed himself to be an unsupportive parter, ultimately cheating on Plath with a younger woman. The narrative is not too dissimilar to the narrative about Swift’s alleged ex Matty Healy, as seemingly told in TTPD. (Of course, we don’t know the true subjects of Swift’s songs—if they’re even actually confessional—but some key hints point to Healy. Whether those hints provide actual context to Swift’s life or to the story Swift is telling of her life, one cannot know.) Finally, several of TTPD songs reference a latent desire for suicide (“I might as well die / it would make no difference” etc.). Okay, post-“finally,” these are stretches, but, I’ll note anyway: one of Plath’s most famous collections of poems is titled Ariel, but an alternate title was Daddy. There are connections to both words in TTPD via the song “But Daddy I Love Him.” The title is a line from the Disney movie The Little Mermaid (which features the main character Ariel, a mermaid, caught between two worlds). Extra clowning: some people (hi, I'm people) believe Swift’s 1989 costume for her first Paris concert was an allusion to Ariel: a pink crop top and a seafoam skirt.
As I dug into Plath's life, I couldn’t help but also see similarities to Swift's life. Both women were prolific writers from a very young age. Also, although possibly obscured through artistic license, both women were/are known to write about their own lives. (Plath was apparently encouraged by her professors Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton to write from her experience. I cannot help but tie in Swift’s “The Manuscript” lyric “the Professor said to write what you know.”) Both Plath and Swift expressed/express their depression via their writing, but if you only knew them from their public personas, you’d never guess the depths of their struggles. It seems both Plath and Swift lived/live double lives. Plath was actually fascinated by the concept of doubles. In fact, the concept of doubling was the topic of Plath’s college thesis paper “The Magic Mirror.”
The Magic Mirror and TTPD
Plath’s college paper is sadly not available to the general public. (It had a limited print run in, you guessed it, 1989.) But! I was able to read a few texts about the thesis, and the amount of possible TTPD references is astounding.
Since we can’t analyze Swift’s work via Plath’s directly, I’d like to share several key quotes from the most telling article I could find about the “The Magic Mirror”: “Sylvia Plath’s Magic Mirror” by Kelly Coyne (May 2018, The Los Angeles Review of Books). (To be noted, Coyne has also written about Swift, in her article “Growing Up In Taylor Swift’s America” in December 2023 on Literary Hub—a fabulous read!)
Early in her article, Coyne sets the scene for Plath's thesis:
“Her undergraduate thesis, which she wrote as a senior at Smith College...is titled “The Magic Mirror: A Study of the Double in Two of Dostoevsky’s Novels.” “The Magic Mirror” explores literary doubles made up of a character’s repressed traits, and, as the double grows in power, it heralds the protagonist’s death. Citing Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as well as Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Plath argued that the choice to create a double works to “reveal hitherto concealed character traits in a radical manner” and simultaneously exposes the driving conflicts of the novel housing that character. Her thesis claims that both Ivan, of The Brothers Karamazov, and Golyadkin, of The Double, have attempted to repress troubling aspects of their personalities, resulting in the double.”
Immediately, I imagine the two versions of Swift from the “Anti-Hero” music video. One Swift is real, true, sensible. The other is a pot-stirring, self-esteem destroying, alcoholic. During Eras, the huge Swift (monster on a hill) screams and stomps around in the background while the real, true Swift smiles and dances in a sparkle dress onstage. The fandom seems to be referring to these two Swifts as Taylor Swift and TAYLOR SWIFT (TM). Folks have theorized Post-Malone in the Fortnight music video is not necessarily a lover, but a twin, or double, of Swift. This theory is enhances by the Eras visuals during that song, specifically two dancers walking away to the back of the stage, but then becoming one.
More Coyne: “Plath, quoting Dostoyevsky in her thesis, noted that Ivan’s double, Smerdyakov, is “wrinkled” and “yellow.” The distinct differences in appearance between originator and double, she continued, are meant to reflect the protagonist’s mental state and cultural status.”
First of all, yellow. In the Gaylor community, folks have often theorized yellow symbolizes being closeted—a reading based on the symbolic coloring in the 1999 film …But I’m a Cheerleader. However, one need not be a Gaylor to consider the importance of yellow to Swift’s storytelling. Most recently, Swift performed “my tears ricochet” at Eras in a bright yellow dress, as her dancers were dressed for a funeral. Following Coyne’s analysis of Plath's analysis of Dostoyevsky, one could guess Swift is teasing a death of some version of herself.
Coyne discusses how Plath clearly used a “double” of herself to write The Bell Jar. Plath herself spent a summer in New York interning for Mademoiselle. The protagonist in TBJ, Esther, spends a summer in New York interning at a magazine too. To go even further down the rabbit hole, Esther also doubles herself, frequently expressing normalcy on the outside and despair on the inside. On the book's first page, Esther tells her audience, “I was supposed to be having the time of my life.” (Again, I cannot help but hear a Swift echo of, “I can read your mind / she’s having the time of her life” from “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” about smiling through her depression.) Coyne makes many more references to mirrors and concealing in The Bell Jar, Ether’s split (and sadness) gets worse and worse the more she hides who she is from others. Notably, at a low point, Esther hides under her mother’s bed. (And Swift sings of a post-heartbreak depression, “Afterwards she only ate kids' cereal / And couldn't sleep unless it was in her mother's bed.”)
Coyne writes about the “imprisoned” aspect of doubles: “The wound from which Esther tries, and fails, to hide chimes with the inescapable, colonizing double, and Plath’s language again illustrates its penal nature: it is inside Esther, but it traps her like a jail cell.” (Again, I cannot help but see references to “Fresh Out the Slammer”, “The Smaller Man Who Ever Lived,” and the TTPD Eras visuals of cages and cell lighting.)
Coyne, on Plath’s doubles’ names, something Swift has not ever used (or so we think): “From her conception of The Bell Jar all the way to its final revisions, Plath suffered an exhausting amount of anxiety over its heroine’s name.” Plath wrote to a friend, “‘I’ll have to publish it under a pseudonym, if I ever get it accepted, because it’s so chock full of real people I’d be sued to death’...Indeed, this wasn’t mere paranoia; she did have to change her protagonist’s name at the instruction of her editor for legal reasons.”
Coyne continues, “Most novelists likely have concerns about being associated with the characters to whom they give life, especially the ugly ones, and especially when the character resembles its author. Yet what is unique about Plath’s case is her knowledge of the theoretical underpinnings and implications of her choice to push Esther away, and the hold this knowledge assumed on Plath’s work and life. Another look at The Bell Jar with a consideration of Esther as Plath’s double tangles the issue even further, and Plath drops clues for this kind of reading throughout the novel. Esther, for example, sits down to write her own novel and recounts, “My heroine would be myself, only in disguise. She would be called Elaine. Elaine. I counted the letters on my fingers. There were six letters in Esther, too. It seemed a lucky thing.” Not coincidentally, Plath’s first name has six letters as well.” Again, Plath was in a bizarre double infinity loop (like the loop on the Eras stage in “Down Bad”?). Plath was concealing her double, the protagonist in her novel, who was concealing her double, the protagonist in her novel.
Coyne wraps up her findings: “In her thesis, written nearly a decade earlier, as she turned 22 — the year after her first documented suicide attempt — Plath claimed, quoting Otto Rank:
In such situations, where the Double symbolizes the evil or repressed elements in man’s nature, the apparition of the Double “becomes a persecution by it, the repressed material returns in the form of that which represses.” Man’s instinct to avoid or ignore the unpleasant aspects of his character turns into an active terror when he is faced by his Double, which resurrects those very parts of his personality which he sought to escape. The confrontation of the Double in these instances usually results in a duel which ends in insanity or death for the original hero.”
Coyne seems to argue Plath believed an artist's double has the power to become bigger than the artist herself, ultimately killing her. Is TTPD Swift's predetermination of, hopefully, her her double's death instead of her own?
In Conclusion: Plath to her Mentor, Dessner on Swift
Who knows what TTPD is really truly about, and who knows if we ever will.
The biggest Easter egg, hiding in plain sight, is that the album is titled THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT. There’s no apostrophe after “poet.” Nor is there an apostrophe after the “s” in “poets.” The department does not belong to a poet or to a collection of poets. It is a department OF tortured poets, perhaps two, to be exact. …or perhaps the album indicates the departure of the tortured poet...and her double.
I’ll sign off with two final quotes from my research:
According to Coyne, three months before Plath died by suicide, she had written a mentor about her second (obviously unfinished) book. Plath wrote, “It is to be called “Doubletake”, meaning that the second look you take at something reveals a deeper, double meaning […] it is semi-autobiographical about a wife whose husband turns out to be a deserter and philanderer although she had thought he was wonderful & perfect.”
According to Aaron Dessner’s TTPD release Instagram post: ”Keep searching and you'll find some new detail, layer or sliver of meaning with each listen.”
SUBREDDIT PS! Shout out to Expensive_Succotash5 for noting the TTPD intro poem's reference to being out of the oven, could be an allusion to Plath's death. Also shout-out to Good-Amphibian-7993 for this connection to a photo of Plath with a rose, not unlike Swift's album rose art.

Hey everyone,
I've had to do this whole post again (absolutely gutted) as the draft function let me down so sorry if I skip through a bit quicker...
Another day, another set of memes to look through. As always, you can catch my previous day round ups below:
13th May
14th May
15th May
To reiterate, the description of each tweet is to the best of my knowledge the references made to allow you to make your own view in context and the speculation is pure speculation on my part. If you just want to look at the descriptions and not the speculation then just ignore the speculation part.
This is just for fun and shouldn't be taken as any financial advice, make your own decisions, I just like the stock.
If you have anything to add feel free to in the comments.
Let's begin:
10am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791106334517010680
Description: First we have Jigsaw from Saw, "Hello, Do you want to play a game?", it then cuts to The Prestige with the quote "are you watching closely?" and then it cuts to Lucky Number Slevin talking about the Kansas city shuffle and finally it's Nas with Made you look.
Speculation: Jigsaw used to capture people who were not looking to live their life and play games with them to show them that they actually do care about their lives in the end. Maybe DFV is referring to shorts desperately trying to get out of their position and showing they will do whatever it takes to do it. The Prestige quote comes from the scene here and shows a magic trick of money appearing. The Kansas City Shuffle is "In order for a confidence game to be a "Kansas City Shuffle", the mark must be aware, or at least suspect that he is involved in a con, but also be wrong about how the con artist is planning to deceive him. The con artist will attempt to misdirect the mark in a way that leaves him with the impression that he has figured out the game and has the knowledge necessary to outsmart the con artist, but by attempting to retaliate, the mark unwittingly performs an action that helps the con artist to further the scheme" and the Made you Look songs full line is "They shootin', Aw made you look" maybe referring to what is happening to the stock right now.
10.15am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791110102797172804
Description: Here we have a scene from Kill Bill where the bride is about to take on the crazy 88 gang and the music Nobody but Me by The Human Beinz.
Speculation: On the theme of ultimate revenge, The Bride in Kill Bill was on a mission to well.. kill bill. Lots of to go through in order to get to the final boss and the song is maybe making a point that Nobody but DFV could have seen this coming or maybe he is saying RCEO can do it
10.30am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791113879684325383
Description: This is taken from Inside Man, i think it's the opening scene and has the music Chaiyya Chaiyya, also taken from the original clip. DFV has imposed a cat looking over and listening to the monologue which reads "Pay strict attention to what I say because I choose my words carefully and I never repeat myself".
Speculation: Inside man is about an elaborate heist turned hostage movie on Wall Street. Don't think there is much more to say about that other than GME is most likely the hostage in this situation.
10.45am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791117652276195516
Description: The first part of this meme is taken from The Office and Michael pulls up in a car with Lady Gaga - Let's Dance playing and states "it's Britney Bitch". We then cut to Britney Spears in her music video Hit Me Baby One More Time and the part "give me a sign" has the movie logo for Signs on it (much more of that to come)
Speculation: First part is a joke from DFV keeping the just dance theme going but then we go to hit me baby one more time and most importantly a reference to a "Just give me a sign". There are signs coming that something big is going to happen.
11am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791121430836584789
Description: This is the intro to Goosebumps and follows a lot of the original clips theme, you can watch that here. Some key changes that have been made though, R.K Gill is on the briefcase, something has definitely been edited with the man's head holding the briefcase, the billboard shows a morph to Ryan Cohen, Ryan's dog is brought in and then it's "Bear Beware" and "Goosebumps, based on the memes by R.K Gill"
Speculation: This is a really fun meme, we see some more of RC and Roaring Kitty Gill all over this. Is there a partnership or does DFV just know that RCEO is about to do something big that will send goosebumps down the bears necks.
11.15am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791125203147428066
Description: Next we have Broad City and the song Best Friend by Sofi Tukker. The meme basically just has lots of scenes around new york with friends just doing a lot of dancing. Just a fun meme of dancing really and a lot of it centers around the two best friends the sitcom is about.
Speculation: DFV and RCEO are best pals and with everything that is going on with the stock they are just dancing and having a great time. Essentially owning New York which of course is where the finance bros hang out.
11.30am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791128976632459643
Description: The first scene is taken from Devil Wears Prada with the models hanging out in New York for a shoot and the song Crazy by Seal plays with the lyrics "we're never gonna survive, unless we get a little crazy" it cuts to the official music video then back to Devil wears Prada where they say "oh i get it, the piece is called urban jungle right?", "yes the modern investor unleashes the animal within to take on the big city" Roarrr
Speculation: Another meme from New York with predominantly girls hanging out. DFV maybe noting that we all unleash a little roaring kitty by taking on his thesis with Gamestop, dunno about you but I just like the stock. Things might get a little crazy, at least to people on the outside when they are asking you why you aren't selling.
11.45am - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791132751976120778
Description: This scene is taken from the movie Signs and the Rev Graham here is woken and staring at something on the roof that spooks him.
Speculation: There will be many more references to this movie, in this case the Rev Graham (who weirdly looks like Ken G) is getting spooked at something he thought he saw. Scary stuff if you are short on GME.
12.00pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791136527801807077
Description: This is also taken from the movie Signs and it's a quote, "See what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?"
Speculation: Something big is coming, what kind of person are you? Is it possible there are no Cohencidences?
12.15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791140301895352325
Description: Again from Signs, this shows the scene where the kid takes out his baby monitor and claims he can hear the aliens talking to each other. There's two of them talking he states and again we see the sign logo flash up. We then see an overlay of alien writing that isn't in the original clip so that's been dubbed on purposely.
Speculation: Things starting to get real interesting now. This looks to be a sign that something is happening behind the scenes. A baby monitor, what's RCEO got stored up? Maybe he is pregnant? Maybe GME is pregnant? Is there a merger happening? A split of some sort?
12.30pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791144075963298165
Description: This is the scene in Signs where they go to the crop fields and there are alien crop circles everywhere, only in this meme DFV has replaced those circles with GME logos. Many GME logos some with long running lines.
Speculation: Really looking like something big is on the horizon and DFV thinks he has seen the signs. This meme would suggest maybe its a merger with multiple gamestop logos but that's just my opinion. One thing for sure is that Gamestop has something on the horizon.
12.45pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791147851466047673
Description: This is the scene in Signs where the news start reporting sightings of aliens and they show a load of kids in a different country looking down an alley way only for an alien bearing Roaring Kitty as a face to walk by, scary stuff!
Speculation: This was actually the first scene from this film that made me realize i had seen the film before and a younger me was pretty freaked out by that scene. It could imply that they have landed, they are here and or DFV is at least. Certainly a they are coming sort of message.
1.00pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791151631259574559
Description: This is taken from the animated film Luca, where one kid says "what does it mean, the thing you just said?" and the other kid goes "Come on Ill show you more stuff"
Speculation: I think this is aimed at me writing this right now and whoever is reading this right now. Ultimately i have no idea what DFV is saying i can only speculate and DFV knows that, he can't outright say what he thinks but he can show us more and more cool memes.
1.15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791155401091596494
Description: This is taken from 500 days of summer and DFV has changed a lot of the words here but essentially he is asked what he does and he says he makes Gamestop memes, the woman says he could be a really great investor if he wanted to be, he is asked why he went from being a great investor to making gamestop memes and he says "why make something disposable, like an investment thesis, when you can make something that lasts forever like a Gamestop meme"
Speculation: DFV having more meme lols here but really why would he need to do anymore investing, he already has his favourite company shares and the thesis is done, he knows what's going on and he is happy to stick with what he has. That doens't mean his thesis on Gamestop doesn't evolve, I just think he is done looking for other deep value plays.
1.30pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791159177785770273
Description: This is taken from The Shining and the song dubbed on is Matter of Time by Vandelux. The main protagonist and author in the movie, Jack is sat writing and it seems it is DFV and he is writing memes.
Speculation: Anyone that has seen The Shining knows that Jack goes to a secluded house with no distractions to write his book. Turns out it actually just makes him go completely mental and he ends up killing his family. I think DFV is just having some fun showcasing the time he has spent focusing on making Gamestop memes.
1.45pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791162950373527857
Description: We have Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See by Busta Rhymes and his music video. The lyrics he has chosen for this clip are emphasized and they are:
Flipmode Busta Bus (Uh, what?) Nine-seven (Come on, what?) Hot shit (Ha-hah) Check it out
Hit you with no delayin' so what you sayin', yo? (Uhh) Silly with my nine milli, what the deally, yo? (What?)
Do you really wanna party with me? Let me see (Uh) just what you got for me (Come on) Put all your hands where my eyes can see (Put 'em up, yo) Straight buckwildin' in the place to be (Wildin', nice, ha)
It then ends with If you really wanna party with Roaring Kitty
Speculation: More fun and dancing. Some interesting lyrics, Flipmode (reverse uno card anyone), Silly with my nine milli (could relate to shares, does RCEO have that much?) Could just be a fun meme without much else to it.
2:00pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791166726891061749
Description: This is taken from Sicario and it starts with the quote "so you wanna be a Sicario" and then shows the blonde reddit icon from the other sub tied up and then a guy looking pretty pissed off.
Speculation: The Sicarios were hitmen, that's basically what it means when it asks if you want to be a Sicario, do you want to be a hitman or assassin. The blonde icon from other sub tied up is in the place of a kid who was tied up in the film and certainly WAS NOT a friend of the Sicarios. Take from that what you will but I can't comment to much as it's about another sub.
2.15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791170783277949042
Description: First we have a scene from No Country for Old Men with the quote "you can't stop what's comin" then we cut to a train tearing it up in Chicago and also taking out a double deck chair with a Chicago Bears logo on it then finally we go to a WWE smackdown with Stone Cold Steve Austin.
Speculation: No Country for Old Men has cropped up a few times before but it's about a killer who is pretty much unstoppable mowing these people down. The train wrecking Chicago and the Chicago Bears (as a Packers fan i liked that), well option contract writers are in Chicago I believe but also it's the original home of Citadel. The chair maybe is an answer to a Cramer tweet and the smackdown i'm not sure other than it being just a fun thing to watch.
2.30pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791174276604699013
Description: This is the music video for Punkrocker by Teddybears. It basically follows a man who is being chased by the police, the cops are coming but the guy seems pretty chill about it. He listens to the music with no fear and you can too. The words are in Gamestop white and red.
Speculation: I think that this could indicate that Gamestop isn't doing anything wrong with what's going to happen, they have warned again and again in their financial postings that the stock is being manipulated and is subject to squeezes. It could also indicate a GME investor has nothing to worry about legally either, just like the stock.
2.45pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791178049939182048
Description: This is taken from The School of Rock where Jack Black is trying to ask what it takes to rock out. If you wanna rock its not about scoring chicks, it's not about getting wasted, its about sticking it to the man, and you can't just say it man you gotta FEEL it it in your blood and guts.
Speculation: Only you can decide what sticking it to man means yourself in relation to having GME stock during a big squeeze event but for me personally it's been a long 3 and a half years of having crap tossed at me just for owning this stock and i certainly pissed with the amount of corruption and cheating that has and continues to go on. If shorts never closed and still have that position, that's their mess not mine.
3.00pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791181824754106742
Description: The main scene in this meme is taken from the film Stand By Me. You have two cars on both sides of the road. The good guy in this is driving on the wrong side of the road and the other gang are on the right side, it's a game of chicken with a truck coming towards the good guy as they both drive side by side. It then cuts to Bojack Horseman trying to do some comedy and being asked to get off stage, he states "I'm not done hold on" - it cuts back to the scene and the truck bails last second. The good guy just keeps on driving and goes in front of the other car having a victory sip.
Speculation: If you take DFV to be the good guy in this car scene then he just carries on with what he believes which is in GME regardless of trying to be chickened out of it in the face of adversity. You could also say he is Bojack and wanting to continue with his memes, he ain't done telling his memeroirs yet.
3.15pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791185600453783688
Description: This is taken from Everything Everywhere All At Once and shows a woman showcasing her awards, DFV has imposed some cat photos on her desk and also 3 awards that read

• DeepFuckingValue, Degen of the Month
• Roaring Kitty, 1st Cat in Congress
• Keith Gill, Best Ethics from the CFA institute (lol)

"The quote is Do you see these? You don't get one of these unless you've seen a lot of bullshit. Excuse my French. Now you may only see a pile of boring forms and numbers, but I see a story."
Speculation: DFV is a fucking dude, the guy has a meme trophy cabinet. To us or others we just don't quite see it like he does. If DFV thinks something big is going to happen you have the choice to believe it too or not, that's completely up to you. The awards are lol.
3.30pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791189376195854606
Description: The first scene is taken from Garden State, he asks her "what are you listening to", she goes "you gotta hear this one song" and you then hear Dont Fear the Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult and the opening lyric "all our times have come"
Speculation: Don't fear the reaper, if you hold GME you don't have to as it's not going bust. The company is not going to die. There are certainly some shorts that should be fearing the reaper though.
3.45pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791193149408223306
Description: This is a hilarious meme and i'm not sure where this is taken from but i'll try my best to describe it (really you should just watch it though). Two men are in a rich guys house, the host writes a note and then has to leave tearing the note off and taking it with him, the other sneaks up to the notepad, labelled Cohen, and tries to sketch the next page to work out what he wrote. What is revealed is a cartoon man with a huge dick.
Speculation: RCEO has a big slong, what else is there to say? Ok I think that he is going to do something big and it's an exciting thing to think about. Does make you think of the tweet of Steve Smith he posted with the erect penis too.
4.00pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791196925619789864
Description: A more recently made meme shows Jay Clayton talking about Roaring Kitty showing his first meme and saying "is this something that we should be tolerating in our markets, whether it's legal lalallull" then it goes to a clip of a guy saying "i mean what did he say fuck me for"
Speculation: DFV basically saying as we would say in the UK, "whatever mate". The guy is talking a load of bullshit and to bring up legality after all the stuff he has let slide as former SEC chairman, i mean bitch please!
Edit\*
8.00pm - https://x.com/TheRoaringKitty/status/1791257325451493396
Description: First scene is taken from the car chase in The Bourne Identity, DFV has imposed a load of pictures of himself on the sheet of paper and then the car chase from the police proceeds (original clip here) There is a part in the middle of this car chase where the footage has been mirror flipped which means the steering wheel that would read Mini reads INIM then it finishes the chase and moves on to the opening scene of the movie Drive (original clip here).
Speculation: I think that the mirror flip of the video shows the steering wheel just at that point to sort of read "IM IN", surely not a coincidence given that is the only part of the whole clip that is flipped. The movie drive as someone suggested in the comments is about, "Ryan Gosling plays the unnamed Driver, a near-silent, methodical, mysterious, professional, highly competent getaway driver." - DFV has also tweeted about this movie before here.
Hope you enjoyed, still pissed i had to write this twice, my original had a lot more links to original clips and each Superstonk post as well! I'm off to bed, i'll update with the 8pm tweet tomorrow.
Love ya DFV x

Hey friends!
Looks like the Deck Building Card Battle (20 Card Decks) won yesterday. Thank you for participating in the vote.
Because this is the first group game, it will be very casual, as this will all be done on Reddit. I'll enable our chat to help out, but I'll need your help to keep people from abusing it. For the future, I want to have a discord server where we can interact better, but that's a slow process for me (anyone with experience and a desire to help please DM me).
I'll start out by really introducing myself; I'm Magnus, a game designer in Vancouver, Canada. My company, BRB Games, has been a subsidiary of a large game company, and my employees and I primarily designed games for ages 3-12. I have worked on a few other projects as a consultant, mainly doing logic, core design, testing, etc. In November we found out cutbacks were incoming. Due to a tight contract, I've had a second job the last few years as a lead robotics designer (among other hats) to cover my costs, plus top-up my own employees at BRB. I was often doing 16 hour days, juggling way too much, ontop of a 3 hour commute if I even went home. We all talked and closure was the best choice. Most of my employees were picked up right away, or transitioned into the parent company, and in April, my last person got a fantastic job remotely for an Australian company as a junior designer. I gave my notice with my employer and that brings me to here and now. I have time to actually go to conventions again, I'll be teaching 4 classes a month in person, I'm interning a highschool student in game design from California currently, doing weekly volunteer math tutoring, and I feel I can finally help everyone in boardgamedesign. I want to build this community back up, the best it's ever been. When it closed due to the Reddit protest, we lost 80,000 subs. I became the mod after 2 attempts (and a long talk with Reddit admins). Honestly, this calling in life fulfills me, and if I can pass on anything to you, or help get your game noticed and sold, I'm more than happy to. Long intro short, I'm here to help, so feel free to ask me anything and if I don't know the answer (happens a lot), we can find out!
Also, thanks to our mods u/bgg-uglywalrus and u/MudkipzLover. Without them, we couldn't do this. Their experience, determination and willingness for anything boardgames is inspirational and a foundation of what we are. Thank you, muchly.
So to get started on the game, I want to focus on the first aspects of proper design:
​

This document will be updated constantly until we lock it and create the next stage.

-------------------------------------------------

Card Game: Prebuilt Deck Builder

(Boardgamedesign Edition)
1 - Main Objective (DEVELOPMENT STAGE)

• Design an engaging card game battle experience with deck building mechanics.
• Defeat opponents deck by reducing Health to zero
• Creating a lock out condition (Deck stall)
• Aim for a complexity of 2 (ages 8+) (u/boredgameslab)

2 - Card Types:

• Character cards
• Artifact cards (?)
• Condition cards (?)
• (Group Defined)
• Universal Status Cards (shared third deck with joint positive/negative effects)

3 - Resource System:

• Cards are played from hand as defined per card
• Cards are activated using resources (?)
• Cards are activated with combining each cards defined resource value(?)
• (Group Defined Input)

4 - Deck Construction

• 20 Cards per deck hard limit (multiple decks)
• Players construct a deck using individual preset decks of 20 cards.
• Players share a pool of universal condition cards (?)
• Players are able to discard cards (deal damage?) (u/Zoql)

5 - Card and Deck Abilities, Conditions, Effects

• (Group Defined)

Deck 1 (u/Zoql) * Discarding cards deals damage at the risk of running out of cards (?)
Deck 2 (u/Superbly_Humble) * Attacks and abilities don't use resources, but conditional on meeting a card setup condition (High risk / reward) *
6 - Game Mechanisms

• Two players (u/boredgameslab) • Setup - (layout as we define structure)
  
• Shuffle
  
• Determine turn order
  
• Draw (5) cards to hand (?)
  
• First turn rules (no attacks, activations?)
  

Turn Structure and Phases

• Draw
• Playing
• Activating
• Resolving
• Player Universal Actions
• Resolving Turn

7 - Combat Logistics

• Activation
• Checks
• Blocks
• Damage Dealt
• Conditions (Weakness, Lasting effects?)
• Interactions
• Resolution

8 - Win Conditions

• Reducing players health to zero
• Defeating all defensive cards (?)
• Creating a zero sum condition (unique mechanic or the 'gimmick')

9 - Balancing and Maths (ALPHA STAGE)

• Spreadsheet stats analysis (as we go)
• FIRST INTERNAL PLAYTESTING (yay!)
• Recording data sets of all conditions
• Extensive strategy testing

10 - Reworks based on data / feedback

• Group input about what worked, and didn't
• Refine Ruleset
• Card conditions and activation tweaks
• Gameplay change and redesign as needed

You can ALWAYS change your game at any time, this is a checks and balance dedicated to it

11 - Closed Public Playtesting (BETA STAGE)

Closed as the artwork isn't finished yet, and play conditions are directly controlled

• Create play sheets for players
• Conditions to try Feedback for a variety of mechanics
• Seek out closed groups (either local, or online)
• Compile data and rework as needed

12 - Art and Theme

It's time to dedicate our resources to visual appeal and player immersion

Artwork

• Overall game theme
• Deck theme
• Character theme
• Dice, Spinner, token theme (components)

Player Immersion

• Game backstory ("Once a year, players...")
• Individual deck story
• Unique wording and phrases
• Compelling intrigue dialogue

Promotional Materials (Unique Art and tone)

• Art testing
• Compile feedback forms
• Test for colour visions, dyslexia and other impairments

Art reworks and touchups
13 - Rulebook Design and Creation

To be succinct, the rules will be compiled already, this is the design aspect

• List all game rules and mechanisms
• Startup guide (can be a seperate insert)
• Quick references (if complicated)
• Determine phrasing based on thematics
• Artwork and formatting
• Page count Structure and finesse

14 - Production and Distribution
Decide on platform (Digital or Physical, or Both)
Digital

• Select release program Design phase (Inhouse or hire)
• Testing inhouse
• Testing public
• Feedback Review and reworks

Physical

• Determine desired materials (Request sample)
• Playtest with physical prototypes (We know certain materials hold up and reuse them to save time, so we only need to heavily test if we are using an unknown vendor, new product or process, or new paints).
• Determine content arrangement
• Choose box size
• Design insert
• Box art creation
• Decide on manufacturer
• Get specifications about batch sizes, weight, and distribution to warehouse / choice location
• Calculate shipping and vendor distribution

15 - Creating your sell sheet

• You'll have the data to do this now.

16 - Public Review Playtesting and Attention

We are able to send out prototypes before this step

• Select choice game stores, boardgame bars, playtesting groups, reviewers, streamers / YouTubers, notable designers, game design companies, publishers, and convention directors (You'll want to have a diaglue about review in exchange for a free game, credits or money. Return shipping if needed. Also a timeframe!).

17 - Community Engagement

Honestly this should be happening very early. The more people know about your game from an early stage, the more they feel connected. Ask for controlled opinions, and respond to everyone within reasonable limits. Every person and is a potential customer now and in the future, and you are building loyalty to YOU, not the game.

• Forums, Reddit, Online videos, Interviewers, Blogs, Website, Conventions, In person, everywhere!
• Business cards are affordable, grab them
• (More?)

18 - Crowdfunding

• We'll cover this more

-------------------------------------------------
Alright, this is my basic design format for board game development, with an updated minimal and modern approach. I'm going to treat it as a loose project management, with a 2 week turn around on the development stage.
Please feel free to add a comment with the section you'd like to add to quoted. We can respond to those threads for more detail, but EACH persons comments will be a different design element. Your name will be added to that section and that's your contribution! More than 1 person can be credited for the section, and more than 1 section can be credited to a person, because we are all collaborating!
When it comes to the deck creations, keep the art and theme to yourself for now, but list what you want in a deck mechanic. We will come to themes when it is time.
Again, this document will be updated constantly until we lock it and create the next stage.
If we determine that this project comes to a marketable standing (which is not intended, but never say no to glory), contributors will have a few options. Either DM me your real info for credit or your username will be used. I know privacy is a premium on the internet, but I can only credit those that want it. If that means creating a new account to protect your privacy, you'll have to DM the mod team so we can approve you due to the low karma automod ruleset.
Lastly, anything you contribute to this project is considered the IP of the project as a whole. Credit where credit is due (having your name on a project is a HUGE start for your resume), but please only contribute if you understand that there is no financial incentive, nor compensation of any kind outside of credit. I can't afford to feed you all :)

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The information detailed in this narrative is undergoing review and in the process of being updated.
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Sometimes?
Just knowing that someone else has made it through similar difficult processes may make a huge difference to the stress you are currently (or soon will be) experiencing.
While I was going through some really rough times? I kept notes regarding some of the issues I was having, the numerous helpful resources I came across, and the search techniques I utilized.
Some of the resources I came across had nothing to do with a specific issue that I was experiencing.
However? If I thought the resources could be:

■ helpful to others?	■ relevant?
■ informative?	■ significant?

I kept track just in case the resources could be of assistance to others.
I gathered all of the notes / links I had collected and created this narrative through the years.
These resources are relative to people who live in the USA.
Although other countries may have such programs, they would (most likely) not share the same links.
You could utilize similar techniques (not the exact same links found here) to search for helpful resources in your community, perhaps.
In the USA? If you have a SmartPhone or a computer? You can actually call / locate sites that offer assistance and / or let your fingers do the walking!

This is a living document and will be changed as needed.

In your browser, type your zip code, the word "free" (if needed), and the particular assistance that you need.

12345 affordable housing	12345 eye glasses / lens
12345 electricity assistance	12345 therapy
12345 housing	12345 transportation
12345 dental care	12345 paratransit services

You get the idea!
You can use different terminology during your search.
I have found that each city / state is different throughout the USA.
You never know what your community has already established for people who need help.
You will find that some communities offer more assistance than others.
If you don't have a SmartPhone or a computer?
Go to the library. There are all kinds of resources there - most of which are free.
While there? Pick up some books!!

Always keep looking for solutions.

Reach out to others.
We are a community on Reddit - created to help each other.
Don't give up!
No matter what!
I've compiled a list of helpful information / sites that I add to periodically. Some may help you now / some may not (but could nevertheless provide assistance in the future).
It's always good to know about these resources in case you ever need them.
Programs / headings are in alphabetical order:

Children

There are organizations specifically geared towards the needs of children. A few are detailed below.
National Diaper Network.
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrtion Services - Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) - WIC Eligibility Requirements.

Disability Eligibility Requirements

If you or a loved one are 💯% disabled? You should consider applying for SSA disability benefits.
All SSA disability programs have the same criteria in regards to eligibility. If unable to work because of a medical / psychological condition, you are eligible for SSA disability benefits.
■ You have to be 💯% disabled (SSA does not award benefits for partial disabilities).
■ Unable to work.
■ Have a disability that will last for at least a year or end in your death.

We pay disability benefits to people who can't work because they have a medical condition that's expected to last at least one year or result in death. Federal law requires this very strict definition of disability. While some programs give money to people with partial disability or short-term disability, we do not.

If you have not already done so? Sign up for mySocialSecurity, with the ability to provide secure online access to your current earnings record and history. Information regarding your retirement, disability, and any survivor benefits that you and your family may be eligible for will also be accessible. Also? Your potential monthly benefits will be calculated.

Education

Continuing your education is a great way to learn.
You can go to school online and not even leave your home. Take a class here and there. Go to school at 3:00 am on a Wednesday or 4:00 pm on a Saturday.
There are no worries about parking, transportation, or rushing to make it to a class from your job.
Some states offer free college tuition for the first two years. There are other charges like room and board, textbooks and transportation (which will need to be paid for out of pocket).
Apply for Pell Grants or other types of assistance. Ask the school for whatever other programs may be avaliable to you.
Accredited Online Colleges.
Apply for Financial Aid.
Avoid fake degree burns by researching academic credentials.
The Best Online Colleges 2022.
Is Community College Free? In These 19 States, Yes.
Federal Pell Grants Are for Undergraduate Students.
Top 35 Tuition-Free Colleges For 2022

Food Assistance / Food Pantries

There are numerous resources available for food shotages. You do not have to go hungry. Don't be afraid (or ashamed) to ask for help.
14 Companies That Will Give You Food and Other Products For Free.
16 of the Absolute Best Freebies We’ve Ever Found Online.
23 Restaurant Apps That Get You Free Food.
60+ places to get FREE food via app or email signup!.
Find Food Pantries.
Find Your Local Food Bank.
Food Stamps - SNAP Food Benefits.
SNAP Eligibility Requirements for your family. In your state? There may be requirements that you have to work or other eligibility criteria that have to be met before SNAP is provided.
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrtion Services Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrtion Services Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Facts About SNAP.

Health Insurance

If you need health insurance? You might want to consider applying for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which is income based. Benefits are different for each state. Depending on:
■ what agreement your state's Governor signed and your state's legislatures approved?
■ if the last administration allowed insurance policies (that cover nothing) to proliferate your state?
Your options are variable. Meaning? Your benefits will be uniquely tailored for your financial qualifications and your state.
A lot of people are turning to the reliable ACA because of everything that has transpired.
The ACA mandates that therapy be covered, too.
Affordable Care Act (ACA) Guarantees.
Apply for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare.
Everything to Know About Obamacare (ACA) Subsidies.
Health Care Rankings - Measuring how well states are meeting citizens' health care needs.

Medicaid Expansion

Medicaid Expansion and What it Means for You
Red states that have resisted Medicaid expansion are feeling pressure to give up.
Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions: Interactive Map.
What Marketplace Health Insurance Plans Cover.

Homelessness

HH Help for Every Casualty of Homelessness: Including Disabled SSA Applicants, Disability Recipients, and Veterans.

Housing Issues

Sometimes, there are huge differences in the types of housing / assistance you may be eligible for (depending on the state or community that you live in).
There may be a waiting list in your area, but you should at least apply for all programs.
Concerned About Eviction.
Find Your Local Public Housing Agency (PHA).
HUD Eviction Guidance.
Learn More About Renting and HUD Rental Assistance Programs.
Rent Relief Resources.

Interested in Moving?

We decided we needed to move when we noticed that the community we lived in did not provide the support we needed to have a better life.
We wanted to move to a location that offered exposure to better healthcare, health insurance, housing and paratransit services.
So?
Make a list of items that are important to you and your family. Rank them in order of importance.
Remember? Each community is different and offers different services.
Each jurisdiction has a Chamber of Commerce page or other similar resource that lists issues you might be interested in.
I searched the internet, made lists, and came up with the following resources (presented in alphabetical order) that were important to our family. You and your family might have other criteria.

(1) Helping Hands

Helping Hands Action Group monitors the benefits landscape for updates and changes to policies and programs. Depending on the jurisdiction? They offer transportation and other services. You should check 12345 Helping Hands in your area.
Check out the Helping Hands Action Group - click here.

(2) Medicaid Expansion

The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion expanded Medicaid coverage to nearly all adults with incomes up to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level ($20,783 for an individual in 2024) and provided states with an enhanced federal matching rate (FMAP) for their expansion populations.

To date, 41 states (including DC) have adopted the Medicaid expansion and 10 states have not adopted the expansion. Current status for each state is based on KFF tracking and analysis of state expansion activity.

Check out the Status of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions: Interactive Map - click here.

(3) Paratransit / Transportation

Another thing you should consider adding to the list? Check to see what type of transportation services are offered.
You never have to worry about parking, blizzards, running out of fuel or parking meter money, taffic or anything else that would be a hindrance.
If your community has bus routes? You might have paratransit services available to you.
The fair is reasonable (much better than ubers, taxis or something else).
You do not need to be in a wheelchair for paratransit services.
The driver will walk you to and from the door of the building (your home and the appointment and vice versa).
You can use the services for anything you want to, such as vists to:

beauty parlors	parks
community events	physical therapy
library visits	school events
medical appts	shopping excursions
movies	veterinarian appts
museums	volunteer work

Anything you can think of - it is such a blessing.
I have lived in areas that had paratransit and areas that did not offer paratransit. It makes a huge difference in your sense of independence to be able to attend appointments and go places you need to. Without the interference of worrying about reliable transportation.

(4) Social Security Taxes

Moving to a state where they do not charge social security taxes dramatically increased our overall income. If you are interested in moving to states that do not require taxes on SSA benefits?
Check out 39 states that do not tax Social Security benefits - click here. Consider moving. It saved us a lot of money every single month.

(5) State Income Taxes

Moving to a state where they do not charge state income taxes dramatically increased or overall income. If you are interested in moving to states that do not require state income taxes?
Check out 9 states with no income tax - click here. Consider moving. It saved us a lot of money every single month.

Miscellaneous

Dial 211 Not sure where to turn? We are here for you.
Dial 988 Suicide and Crisis Support Lifeline.
Affordable Connectivity Program - Broadband Connection.
Ask Your Free Legal Question (licensed attorneys in your state / free).
Assurance Wireless - Lifeline Free Government Phone Program.
Find Help.
Go Fund Me.
Help with Bills.

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06-12-2018 Created 05-16-2024 Updated

Looking to sell your smartphones? Sell them to me. I am looking for smartphones on any status. If you have any, please let me know by commenting and sending a private message with: model, imei number, pictures, and conditions for a quick quote. You can use the chat feature too.
Phones' condition can be from cracked-working screens to excellent or new condition. It will be quoted accordingly. Message me for a fast quote!

I’ve had this theory in my mind for a while, and I’d love to expand on it with Scout’s Honor answering my questions. I think I might have an idea as to how the Infected psychology works. Be warned, this is going to be a very long post.
First, I want to look at Ink. He retained almost his entire personality, even after being Infected. I’m going to use him as an example through this entire theory.
We know Burt used the line “The smarter you are in life, the smarter you are in death” and it was brought up again much later on in Season 4, signifying some serious importance. Kelly also once said, referring to Ink: “What happens when they turn you, but you’re already a monster?” I don’t think this was just a throwaway guess. I think this has serious significance to the story and helps build my theory a bit.
Let’s use Datu and his perspective after he was turned. He said he felt like he was “watching his life through the backseat of his mind.” Like he was lacking control. But Ink retained control, and both of them are smart cookies. Why? Or why doesn’t Randy show nearly as much control as Ink, and why did his eyes AND Datu’s go cloudy?
You could say the eyes thing is related to how much control you retain, but with Scout’s Honor and Joe, and also Buffalo Bill, I don’t believe this is the case. Rather, there are THREE components at play that separate Ink / Datu and Randy / Joe and Buffalo Bill.
Using Burt’s first line, we can say intelligence is a factor in how much of yourself you maintain. But intelligence alone isn’t enough, because Randy didn’t have control like Ink did. Another factor is how much of a leader or a “follower” you are (wink wink). I think this plays into the clouding of the eyes. Every Infected we’ve seen without cloudy eyes is some kind of leader, Ink leading mass hordes, “Coal” leading the Scorpions, Buffalo Bill holding alpha status, and Joe leading the… other Scorpions. (I see what you did there, Kc) Now, whether or not the green eyes is a coincidence between all the leaders or green eyes form in Infected leaders, or green eyes has a relation to leadership, I’m not sure, but I do think how much of a leader you are also goes into play as to how much of yourself you retain.
Finally, using Kelly’s quote, how much of a monster you are. This is the third and most important component and it hasn’t been explored much, but I think there is something about how Infected turn that protects them from retaining their future self, should they hate what they’ve become. Basically, if someone who hated Infected turned, they would have the least control, because otherwise they would try and take themselves down. It’s like how humans have self-preservation, Infected also have a more complex self-preservation instinct.
The higher each of these components are, the more of yourself there is after you’re turned. Ink was a rare and lucky combo of all three, and so when he turned, he remained himself. Randy was high in intelligence but wasn’t a monster or a leader, so he had cloudy eyes and only had a small part of himself left inside. Datu was similar because he wasn’t a leader either and his eyes went cloudy, but he had a comparable intelligence. He also mentioned seeing from the backseat of his mind, as in being without control because he wasn’t a monster either.
Joe wasn’t a monster, but he was a leader. He most likely had a good intelligence because he was able to trap the kids in Scout’s Honor and predict their movements (if I listened to that right). So he didn’t retain his personality, because the “monster” part is what an Infected needs to be like themselves. In simplest terms, if you’re an unintelligent monster who follows rather than leads, you most likely won’t retain very much of yourself, but if you’re an intelligent leader who can’t stand hurting others, you would most likely see the same effect. You need all three to be like Ink.
This means Buffalo Bill was probably also a good person before death, as he shows leadership instincts and intelligence, but isn’t coherent like Ink.
Finally, there are two other parts of how the Infected work that are separate but I’d like to still mention them. One is physical characteristics, and the other is your deepest drive. I believe both of these are “amplified” once you turn. For physical characteristics, I think the changes an Infected goes under that makes them tougher, also makes them better in whatever they’re good at (an athletic person would become a runner, which could explain why jumpers were so rare because most people aren’t extremely good at jumping versus running. Also, the Infected are better on ground and chasing and so probably are strengthened in that field more).
The deepest drive thing comes from some of the conclusions made from Scout’s Honor and Descendants, with Fredo and the wedding couple and more. I think that whatever your deepest motivator or drive when you turn becomes your main drive as an Infected. I imagine the more you retain from life and the more control you have, the less of this exists, but it still does exist in everyone depending on how motivated of people they were. Many people who turned probably had no drive (like, living life day to day, with no goal), and that could explain why so many Infected are mindless.
I’d love to hear some thoughts on this and see if anyone agrees or disagrees. There’s a few leaps but I’ve tried to keep it as close to the story as I can.