Random things to say on facebook

The original edit was posted on their page but was deleted because the others band members didn't like it
it was uploaded to another group and an admin deleted the post
a random guy who for some reason decided to record the edit and upload it, time later his account would be banned and he disappeared
They are a Peruvian band that luckily and strangely only one person knew them
the members stopped making music
we are lucky that they had the demo saved and ALSO that it was uploaded to YouTube thanks to the fact that one of the members shared it without asking the rest of the band and from what i read it was very likely that they were not going to give permission to be uploaded although perhaps they would do it through an official page...
It's like everything conspired to keep it hiden.
the other band members, the admin who deleted the post and Facebook banning jitomate preventing it from be discovered
I don't know if I'm wrong in the chronological order but I think it's okay

recently ive been running into issues with my monitor connection and im not sure what the verdict is. for instance, when i turn it on in the morning it often has to be restarted immediately because the resolution is extremely wide and my nvidia settings dont pop up in the task bar. when i restart it it works perfectly fine. today however i ran into issues while playing LoL where my monitor completely shut off/restart and i dced from the game and soonafter got an error message saying "Windows has restarted your GPU drvier due to a problem, driver upgrade or physical removal. League of Legends will terminate". then while trying to restart my pc i got a message on my monitor saying it couldn't detect my HDMI signal (i used to have it on DP but it did the same thing-- it just refused to detect either even if they were plugged in). and then another message saying "The current input timing is not supported by the monitor display. Please change your input timing to 1920x1080, 240Hz or any other monitor listed timing as per monitor specification". as i type this i have restarted it completely and its running fine, but while using discord alone the monitor has disconnected/gone black and then came back once or twice. what should i do? i don't know if its a gpu/monitor problem and i cannot afford either (but especially not BOTH!).
it is to be noted that i also think my gpu is a little, er, sideways as you can see in the photo attached. its always been like that and i haven't run into issues until now. i had my friend tighten the screws when he put it back into my pc (speaking of, taking a gpu out of a prebuilt is hell) so it looks a bit better but i think it should still be acknowledged, lol.
for anyone who cares, my current specs that might be relevant are
cpu: intel core i5 10400F
gpu: NVIDIA geforce RTX 3060
motherboard: gigabyte B560 DS3H AC-Y1
monitor: alienware gaming monitor AW2521HFL

I can't stop dwelling on this. I feel like things could have been different if I hadn't done any of this and it's making me have a hard time to move on. Things seemed to be going great with him. After getting food/drinks on our 3rd date and finally having our first kiss with each other, I (25F) invited him (28M) up to my place (I wanted to make out and have a little fun. I was also drunk, I had to go home and throw up in my bathroom but I was coherent). Once we got to my place, I had to stop him in the middle of us doing stuff to tell him I don't have sex until I'm in a relationship and that I'd also need him to get an STD test for oral/blowjobs (and for sex eventually if it gets there).
I don't remember some parts well so I'm going to do my best. He said it didn't make sense to do other things but not sex BUT he was respectful and didn't push for more. We talked about past relationships/exes but there were a couple comments he made in between doing stuff that rubbed me the wrong way. Comments like "You don't think condoms are protective enough? I haven't had sex in a year and a half" (Yeah but you could still have std's..). And then something else along the lines of "what do you think is going to happen after? I'm going to get blue balls but that's okay, right?". He had said earlier that this wasn't casual for him but I didn't like the blue balls comment. Awhile later, I said "you say you don't do casual but you're willing to go all the way with me and you don't even know me yet".
He said we've been chatting 3 weeks (it had only been a week since we were meeting up though) and I was like "What's my favorite food?" (to prove my point) and he responded that he didn't see me casually and hasn't been talking to others, but he was "feeling me". Things felt super awkward and I wanted to explain myself for projecting, so a little bit later, I stopped him from leaving to talk. He was like "What do you need from me? I didn't do anything with you." After he finally sat down, I tried explaining to him that I haven't had the best dating experiences in the past (I didn't want to go in any more detail). He said this wasn't a productive convo and left after.
I reached out the next day to try and clear the air with a lighthearted text and he ended things with me right after. I wonder if things would have gone differently if I just hadn't been drunk and didn't invite him up. I also regret not telling him my boundaries beforehand. I can't let this go and I want to stop dwelling on it

Pretty much what the title says. Back when BG3 released I had this issue a lot while playing it. Computer would just randomly shut down and start back up on its own rather quickly. Event Viewer showed error 46 about component: memory. My temps are completely fine with both GPU and CPU (CPU was 55-60). I thought it was my PSU so I replaced it with a Corsair RMx Series RM850x 80 PLUS Gold but problem still persisted. Nothing is overheating, RAM passed on memtest, ran cinebench and stress tests that all passed as well.
Then it hit me, maybe it’s because I optimize cores with Ryzen Master to undervolt my Ryzen 7 5800x. Disabled optimizer and the problem went away. Fast forward to now, I reoptimized my cores and was playing Big Kitty Little City. Game stuttered and shut down happened. Didn’t even think it was a visually demanding game for that to happen.
My computer is a prebuilt which I have updated the PSU, AIO (Corsair iCue H100i Elite 240mm) and fans so far. Otherwise here are the other specs:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1720818-REG/ibuypower_slatemr_289a_gaming_desktop.html/specs
Any idea why this happens? What can I do other than just never being able to optimize my cores?

Sorry for the long post, there's a TLDR at the bottom, just thought i'd put all the details out there.
The bike is a 1986 Yamaha YX600, a slightly odd 'mutt' bike. Bought it a bit ago. It ran when stored, but it was stored for a good while. The dude was super cool so I trusted it, and hey it was $900 for basically a complete bike+helmet+original owners manual+$150 motorcycle ramp, and just a random box of extra small parts.
I bought an original ECU to just keep it simple, I bought original gauge cluster (unfortunately don't remember entirely since it's been a while, but a modern aftermarket gauge cluster would not work, so I had to go with OEM.) Thankfully Ebay was a savior, there were not many parts for this bike and I should have done more research, but fortunately I found one seller that exclusively sells a bunch of parts for it.
After all was said and done it ran, just not very well. Then one day I noticed it was kinda running hot, I somewhat chocked it up to just being super hot outisde, but then noticed some smoke coming out of the crankcase after parking somewhere to check. It was definitely having trouble. Then it just simply wouldn't start up. Got super worried but after letting it cool down for an hour it was alright to start, and just got home quickly.
I went out after a bit and started it to check what was going on, I had a temp gun and noticed cylinder 3 was sitting at a cool 600-700 degrees, while the others were like 300-350. Go figure, it's a 4 cylinder bike with a 4-carb rack. One for each cylinder because... Dunno. The entire thing is such a PITA to take apart but I was determined.
Rebuilt it and cleaned the entire thing 3-4 times, but for some reason Cylinder 3 was running completely lean and I could not figure it out for so long. Then one time when taking it apart again, I noticed that the brass float valve would not seat properly in carb 3, it was like a mm or two high, causing the float needle to have ever so less clearance, jamming the needle up into the float valve when fuel would flow in, sealing the fuel hole entirely until it sucked whatever fuel it could from the bowl. No matter how I bent the prongs of the float, I couldn't get it to seat correctly.
I never understood this, I took it apart and every single time would switch the brass float valve, I had like 3 different kits to grab from, they were all the exact same size and float valve. Look down into the hole that the valve seats in, across all 4 carbs it was the exact same with zero difference, the hole was clean and smooth, so there was no visual reason it wouldn't fit! It irritated me so much that after the fourth time putting it back together and testing it, watching it either dump fuel out or get zero fuel to the bowl after a second, I just put the bike in storage.
I wanted to fix it, but could not figure out how, and nowhere had any information since getting info on the bike in the first place was super rough. I could either try to sand and polish the hole, or even sand down the valve and risk ruining something, or try to buy a whole new carb rack. The issue was that nobody was selling the carb set anywhere, I saw it once on Ebay but it was gone within like a day and was like $500 and didn't see another at any point.
And now time has gotten away from me quite a bit. Don't really have the time or space to work on it, and at this point I am contemplating even attempting to sell a broken bike, or just storing it until I can get to it someday and just try to figure out if any other aftermarket carbs will work for it.
TLDR: Don't have much time anymore, but i've been told the bike is rare in the sense of not too many people really owning one since it's a mutt bike, and the carb is a PITA with one of the four carbs running dangerously lean with a simple surface level issue that I can't solve after rebuilding it 4 times (Brass float valve wont seat all the way for some reason, causing the needle to get stuck in the hole and not allow fuel to flow in until the bowl empties and it gets a brief burst of fuel), and at this point it seems like my only option would be to buy a new carb rack or the specific carb and hope it's in okay condition if I could ever find one that's oem and doesn't cost half what I paid for the bike or isn't destroyed, find an aftermarket one that actually works, try to even attempt to sell it again later on (tried, no luck) or when I finally get time try to fix it and just continue to keep it in storage.

To make this as short as possible, I was a bored teenager on the internet without many friends in real life, so at 16 I started talking to this 30 year old guy. Initially he told me he just wanted to practice his English, because he’s from Eastern Europe, but we started communicating daily. I viewed him as a friend, but after a few months he started to tell me that I was so beautiful, he wanted to be my boyfriend, and so on.
Around ~2 years ago he told me he moved to America, but he still lived pretty far from me, so we never met in person. At this point we only spoke every once in a while. When we did, he’d offer to buy a me plane ticket and hotel room to come visit him, but I always had some excuse as to why I couldn’t.
In the past few months, he’s showed up in my area (with no prior notice) asking if I could meet him. I’d say that I was out of town, or I had a family emergency, or something like that. Recently, he told me he’s coming again next month and he really, really wants to meet. And this time, I have mixed feelings.
I know it’s shallow, but I’m not physically attracted to him. Maybe he’s better in person, but he’s not really that interesting or funny either. There’s also the whole talking to teenage me on the internet thing.
On the other hand, I’ve tried to date before, but was always unsuccessful. I’d get ghosted when I made it clear I didn’t want to have sex yet. In contrast, he’s never mentioned anything sexual, even once. He also made it clear that his physical “type” is for girls who look like me, which isn’t very common.
I’m kind of a failure in life. I’m 23, I live with my parents, I can’t drive, I don’t have any friends, I’ve never had a real job. I had a few retail/food service sort of jobs, but I never lasted long because I got overwhelmed with being around people all day. I did go to college, but I wasn’t very good at what I majored in, and I don’t know what to with my life. I’m honestly not good at anything. In contrast, he has a house, a car, and a job.
He’s talked about me moving in with him, us getting married, having a family, and he’ll take care of everything. I never saw myself living that kind of life, but maybe I’m not suited for anything else. I’m awkward and don’t have any other skills.
Honestly, I think he’s probably the best I’ll ever get. Most people don’t get their perfect 10/10 person, and I should be happy that someone has been this persistent in their interest of me. The only hurdle is finding a way to go meet him when he comes, but I could figure something out. I’m not sure if it’s an ok idea or if I could possibly try to learn to love him? Should I meet him?

You guys know what an alpine coaster is? They are like a small roller coaster you find in the mountains. They are also called summer toboggans or mountain coasters and I think there’s some long German compound word they are called in parts of Europe. They are like a roller coaster, but with much smaller one or two person sleds you just sit on instead of multi-person cars you ride in, and instead of being built with like a scaffolding or a framework the tracks are just on the ground, using the elevation of the mountain. Basically it’s a coaster track on the side of a mountain where you ride a sled down.
They are pretty fun. Or at least I used to think so. They are more “personal” than roller coasters and although you get nowhere near the speed on them that you do on a good traditional roller coaster and they can’t do corkscrews or loops or anything like that the openness and simplicity of the ride gives an impression of a much greater speed. You’re just sitting there with nothing but a little plastic sled and the track between you and the ground as it goes zooming by. It’s like the difference between how fast a go-cart feels compared to how fast a sports car feels. You know the sports car goes faster but the open, simpleness of a go-cart feels a different kind of fast. There’s plenty of POV Youtube videos if you want to get the basic idea of what they are.
I used to love alpine coasters. Used to.
My family used to go to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge and up and down the Smokey Mountains for vacations when I was a kid and they are common in that area and I’d always rode them every chance I got.
But as with so many things after I grew up and went to college they just became part of my childhood that slipped away. They aren’t exactly common once you get away from the mountains.
Until one cool spring afternoon in 2004. I was in my final year at college and I was driving back to campus in Tennessee after a short visit to my folks in North Carolina. It was only like a 4 or 5 hour drive via the most efficient route and I had no need to be back at campus early so instead of taking the freeway all the way I got off and took part of my trip through the mountains. The scenery was nicer and I admit I liked pushing my Camaro just a little faster than I should through the twisty mountain roads.
Just after lunchtime happened upon one of those little by-the-highway tourist towns deep somewhere in the Smoky Mountains near the Carolina/Tennessee border. Nothing fancy, a gas station/truck stop, a diner, a couple of places selling tourist merch nestled deep in the mountains. I pulled into the gas station. My tank was getting low and I needed to stretch my legs, maybe grab something to eat. It was still early and I only had another couple of hours. I could kill an hour or so and still make it back to campus at a decent hour.
I pulled into the gas station and was filling my tank when I happened to glance across the road and… well I’ll be damned. There it was. “The Blue Ridge Alpine Coaster.” Nestled on the side of the mountain was a building, a mockup of a red barn, where a single railed track that led up into the mountains, where it soon got lost in the greenery. Wooden hand painted standees of cartoon character bears dressed in stereotypical “Hillbilly” getup stood around, some of them holding signs showing the ride hours and ticket costs and other info. I had to admit, as silly as it was, it made me smile.I finished pumping my gas and, well, nostalgia is a helluva thing. I decided then and there I could waste a little time riding an Alpine Coaster again after all these years before getting back on the road.
I parked my car in a corner of the truck stop's parking lot, put my phone in the center console, this being the days before smart phones when people didn’t keep their phones with them 24/7 and I didn’t want my old Nokia brick phone to fall out during the ride, locked my car and walked across the mountain highway to the Alpine Coaster building.
Getting closer, the place was less inviting. The half hearted attempt at a whimsical faux-Americana kitsch was far less effective when it brushed up against the actual decaying, run down wooden building. Hell calling it a building was generous. It was a wood frame holding up a long roof that covered the area where you got on the sleds. The wood boards creaked under my footsteps.
The only real enclosed structure was a shack that held, what I assumed, was a ticket booth. A door on the side had both a single occupancy bathroom with an out of order sign on it. An old Pepsi machine buzzed and glowed next to it.
Still the place looked alive. Ahead of me a bored looking attendant was helping a mother and her young son into one of the sleds while in a bored monotone repeating the safety brief. A few people were waiting in line at the ticket booth. Up in the mountains the playful shouts of people on the ride echoed down. Fond memories of my own childhood rides flooded my mind.10 minutes and 15 dollars later I was settling into the hard plastic seat of a bright red sled sat atop a simple aluminum rail.
I couldn’t help but grin as the sled slowly climbed the track up the mountains, making click-clack ratcheting sounds that hit my nostalgia centers hard. I felt good. The air was cool and crisp and smelled of pine.Higher and higher in the mountains we went. I don’t know if this is my mind trying to make sense of it after the fact but when I remember these moments, the last good moments, I sometimes think I remember a very slight, very subtle pit of fear in my stomach. I honestly don’t know if I felt it at the time or not or it’s just how my mind tries to make sense of it looking back at.
But either way mostly I was enjoying myself. I smiled. I was a kid again. I could hear riders in front of me let out that initial yell of terrified glee you get at the first drop of any good ride.
It peaked. I glanced around. I could see for miles, rolling hills and mountains. I the sled tipped over and zoomed down the mountain and I let out the same happy yell I heard from the other passengers.The ride zoomed down the mountain, catching speed. The mountain forest floor zoomed past, only a few feet under me. Trees zoomed past. I gave out a happy whoop as the ride banked hard around a curve and then looped back under itself.Another dip, another curve. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of the G-forces pulling me every which way.
There was no one exact single moment where things started to go “wrong.” The ride kept going. And going. At this point the first creeping thought entered my head.
The ride… was still going.
It just started to hit me… this ride was going on for a really long time. I had taken a dozen rides on various coasters of this type before that day and they topped out at about 5 minutes or so, and that was the long ones. Longer than a traditional roller coaster but not that long. This one had been going on for what felt like 10, maybe even 15 minutes.
I looked back over my shoulder and could only see trees, moving too fast to really get a bearing on where I was at in relation to anything.
I wasn't exactly really worried yet. Okay so I had found a particularly long alpine coaster. At the time I wasn’t 100% wasn't sure they didn’t exist or anything like that. I was a little… unnerved but nothing was happening that was impossible. Yet.
I was trying to talk myself back into just enjoying the ride and stop overthinking it, and halfway succeeded, when out of nowhere I suddenly banked hard, the track jutting out almost over a sheer cliffside. I gripped the sled more tightly as I was whipped around. The ride then dipped hard and picked up speed, barreling down the side of the mountain.
I was pushed back against the seat by the force of the drop. Jesus I didn’t remember them being this rough. I was feeling slightly nauseous. And where had this elevation drop come from I wondered? I was still in the foothills and I didn’t remember seeing anything but gentle rolling hills and light drops from looking at the ride’s route earlier. How the ride had managed such a long, steep drop in this area I didn’t know. . For the first time I hoped that the ride would be over soon. I had no idea then how much I would want that same hope to be true so much more as time went on.
With a whiplash motion I was whipped forward and then back as the ride leveled out on flat ground again, but by this point I was going fast, too fast. My neck hurt from the mild whiplash and I felt sour in my throat and for a moment the contents of my stomach threatened to come back up. For the first, but hardly the last time the ride felt unsafe. Alpine Coasters are tame affairs, much slower and gentler than full on roller coasters but this thing was throwing me around like no thrill ride I had ever been on.
I looked around. I mean I wasn’t that deep into the woods. I should have been able to see a glimpse of something; the highway, the gas station, the tourist shops, the Alpine Coaster office, something, anything. But nothing. Just trees.
I forced back some panic for the first time. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. The ride zoomed along. I counted to 60. I counted to 60 again. And again. Okay this was getting uncomfortably harder and harder to explain.
Suddenly I noticed that up ahead the track seemed to just end, for one brief, terrible moment I thought the track just ended but I was wrong. Almost without warning the track dipped in an almost vertical drop. I almost screamed as I plummeted for 20, maybe 30 seconds before flattening out again.
By this point the voice in my head that was telling me something was wrong was louder and I could no longer tell myself it was wrong. This ride could not have been this long. I tried to make sense of it, wondering if somehow I had gotten diverted onto some kind of maintenance track or, hell for one brief irrational moment even entertaining the idea that I had wound up on an actual train track somehow. But that was absurd. The rail below me was not a train track, it was still just the simple, aluminum rail of an alpine coaster and there had been no diversions or junctions in the track. I was still on the ride, as insane as that was starting to feel. Had the ride somehow looped? Again after having the thought I immediately dismissed it as crazy. There’s no way I could have missed the ride building where I got on. And what kind of ride loops over and over?
The sled zoomed through the forest, oddly never seeming to lose speed despite the relatively flat grade of the track. I cursed myself for leaving my phone in the car and not wearing a watch. I don’t know exactly how long I had been on the ride at that point but it felt like I had been on the ride for a half hour, maybe more. But time is a funny thing when you’re in a situation you’ve never been in. Could have been more, could have been less, at that point.
My pride finally failed me. I started to scream for help. I screamed out that the ride was broken, to stop it, that I needed help. I did that for about ten minutes or so I think. The ride kept going. Mostly flat, level track with occasional mild dips and turns. But the simple length of the ride grew more and more unnerving and unexplainable.
I thought about just bailing out. But the ride, impossibly, was still not slowing down and chunks of mountain rock and thick tree trunks were all around me. Bailing out without risking smashing into a rock or a tree seemed impossible.
The ride kept going.
Up ahead the forest was clearing out some, I could see the forest brightening, more sunlight making it through the canopy.
I wasn’t prepared for what I saw.
The trees stopped and I had just enough time to take in a flat, open area of rock maybe 40, 50 yards at most before another sheer cliff. The tracks twisted and turned and then shot straight down. But that wasn’t the worst of it. For a moment, a very short moment, I had a clear view for miles and the landscape was, to be blunt, totally impossible. Any possibility that I had just stumbled on some incredibly long ride was blasted out of my head. Barren, volcanic looking rock stretched for miles. Jagged, black rocky outcroppings as far as the eye could see. I was in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. They don’t look like that.
I had a few moments for the terror of that view to settle in before the cart plunged into another horrifying drop. I gripped the handles of the cheap plastic sled until my knuckles turned white. The drop felt completely vertical, like I was falling at terminal velocity. I screamed. My stomach dropped and turned. I imagined the sled coming away from the track and me just plummeting screaming to my death on the rocks below. But somehow the ride still functioned. I closed my eyes tightly and just waited for whatever was going to happen. Eventually after several what felt like a full minute of steep plunging the track again leveled out, and I opened my eyes to see myself moving at breakneck speed over that black, rocky landscape.
Now that I was moving on a more or less flat horizontal track again I took a few deep breaths. I looked over the edge of the track. Nothing but that black, jagged rock, almost looking like obsidian, zooming past. I had no idea how fast the sled was moving now. Fast. Faster than a gravity powered sled should be moving. And the track was higher off the ground now. Alpine slides usually stick pretty close to the ground, but I was 20 feet or so in the air, the track suspended in the air, a simple metal tube tower like a power pylon every few yards.
Without any immediate threat and the sled moving fast but steadily and level I was able to think about my situation again, for all the good that did me. Ahead of me the track just continued to the horizon, nothing but the same rocky landscape as far as I could see. I craned my neck to look back over my shoulder and looked back behind me and it looked the same. Even the mountains were but distant specs on the horizon behind me.
This was insane. There’s not a giant seemingly endless field of black jagged rock in the goddamn Smoky Mountains. There’s no cliff faces tall and steep enough for a multi-minute vertical drop. And alpine coasters were small affairs, not major engineering projects that span miles with pylons and vertical tracks. It made no sense.
Sadly it wasn’t going to start making any more sense anytime soon.
The ride kept going.
I was on this rocky landscape for several hours. I feel comfortable saying this because I could actually notice the sun getting lower in the sky. And the sled wasn’t slowing down despite the grade of the track being flat. I was getting cramped from sitting and stretched my legs and twisted my back as best I could. Didn’t do much help. My eyes were starting to get irritated from the constant wind in them. Worst of all it was starting to get chilly. I only had on a light jacket, a windbreaker, just something to keep the breeze off me, no real insulation. I was cold, my joints were stiff, I was hungry and thirsty. My eyes watered and my throat was so dry it was sore.
But none of that was as bad as just how little sense this all made. There’s nothing like this place anywhere near the Smoky Mountains. This was like some volcanic rock landscape. The more I thought about it the less sense it made.
The ride kept going.
My mind didn’t even try to process this. Whatever I was experiencing simply couldn’t be possible. I was crazy. I was dreaming. The CIA had kidnapped me and dosed me with some new version of LSD and I was in a straightjacket in a padded room at Area 51.
The sled kept zooming along as the sky turned to dusk. Soon the bridge disappeared from my view and I continued on along the endless, rocky, featureless landscape.
I sat back against the sled, mentally and physically numb. I was exhausted. I was thirsty. I was cramping up. I was hungry. I had to pee. I held it for as long as I could, then had no choice but just wet myself. I cried until I had no more tears left. Then I just sat there.
The ride kept going.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon my throat felt like sandpaper. I dug around in my jacket pockets hoping to find a stick of gum or piece of candy. Nothing. I checked again, having nothing else to do. Under a crumpled store receipt in the inner pocket of my jacket was a single old, forgotten cough drop. I unwrapped it from the paper and popped it in my mouth. Saliva flooded back into my mouth and I was overwhelmed by the methanol and medicine taste. It was something at least, although I knew it would be a brief and temporary fix at best.
I felt my eyes get heavy. It was getting colder. That mountain cold. That deep cold the mountains have even into the early spring when the sun goes down. That kind that just pulls the heat right out of you. I shivered. A terrible, horrible certainty came to me. I would ride until I passed out from exhaustion or the hypothermia set in. My body would tumble off the sled to fall and skip across the rocky ground like a stone skipping across a lake, my bones breaking as I tumbled until my body finally came to a stop. If I was lucky I would be killed and not have to lie for days, broken and bruised, on the ground until death took me.
The ride kept going. The ride kept going. The fucking ride kept going.
“Fuck you” I said to the ride, my voice a horse whisper. I pulled my jacket closer around me, for all the good it did. The cold wind was slowly but surely pulling my body heat away. My shivering got worse, crossing the line from a simple normal shiver into those deep, almost violent full body ones.. I wasn’t anything you could call an experienced outdoorsman, but I knew enough to know that wasn’t a good sign.
It was getting dark. There was a full moon at least so I wasn’t totally in the dark.
About then I noticed something. The landscape, what little I could see in the fading light, was changing. It was smoothing out, becoming less rocky and craggy. Up ahead an odd, shimmering light was starting to appear on the ground.
I was over it before I even realized what it was. The tracks were going over a smooth surface.
Water. It was a lake. The odd lights I had seen were the moon, reflected in ripples on the lake.
Within minutes I was out of the view of the land. After the nearly endless rocky landscape and everything else I had seen, it scared me how little I was shocked. I didn’t like how mentally numb I was getting. I leaned over. There was enough moonlight to see the water, 15 or 20 feet below the track. The pylons holding up the track went into the water, the light wasn’t good enough to even make a guess at how far they went down or how deep the water was.I leaned back in the sled. My eyes were red and bloodshot from the constant wind. I closed them. This was a mistake.I jerked awake. I don’t know if I dozed off for a split second or an hour. My weight had shifted and I caught myself as my center of gravity was in danger of sending me off the sled and into the water.
I screamed in anger. A deep primal scream. I hurt so bad. My joints felt like they were full of glass. My limbs were full of pins and needles. I glanced over at the water. For the first time on the very edges of my brain a tiny voice started to speak up, telling me that I could be all over if I just jumped. I shut the voice up, but it scared me still.
I sat there as the ride went on. It felt like hours. Eventually the lake ended in a rocky shore line. The damned ride. There was no safe place to bail out. If the ride slowed down, it was high in the air, if it moved toward the ground it sped up. Sharp rocks, big trees, nothing you could safely bail out into.
I kept having to force myself awake. I kept dozing off. Once I felt myself falling asleep and drove a vicious uppercut into my own nose to stave it off.
I seriously started to think about how much longer I could hang on. The voice came back again. This time I didn’t shut it up. I wasn’t admitting it to myself yet, but I was starting to think about the best way to land that would end it quickly if I needed to.
Something was ahead. The track seemed to dip into the ground. I was too tired, too beaten to even get scared. I was just resigned to whatever happened at this point.
With little warning the track took my sled into a tunnel in the ground. Everything went completely pitch black. After several moments even the dim moonlight was gone.
This was the worst part. The creepy forest, the immense rocky landscape, the eerie lake… those were bad. But this was just nothing. Nothing to look at, nothing to hear, nothing for reference or sense of where I was going. The walls of the tunnel felt like they were inches from me in every direction. The air felt thick, like there wasn’t enough oxygen.
With every moment I was in that tunnel I lost a little more hope. After a long, long time I made a decision. When I got out of this tunnel, I would jump. I didn’t care anymore. Hopefully there would be a spot where I could be certain the fall would instantly kill me. I was done. The ride had beaten me. I sat there, waiting for a chance to end this on my terms. That was all I had left.
Eventually up ahead, a tiny speck of light appeared. I gathered my strength, ready to end it. I sat up, getting my legs under me so I could jump as soon as we were clear. The sled burst out of the tunnel. The dim light of the full moon was enough to be momentarily blinding after the pitch black of the tunnel.. I gave my eyes a moment to adjust.
I was back in a normal looking Appalachian forest. Rolling hills, green trees. The air smelled of pine again. I heard an owl hoot off somewhere.
Slowly I lowered myself back into a setting position, in shock. At first I refused to believe it but the ride was slowing down. I held still, making sure my mind wasn’t playing tricks on me, but no, the cheap plastic sled that had been my world for what felt like an eternity was slowing down.
Up ahead, a structure was visible, peeking out from among the trees in the dim lighting as the sled moved down the track.
It was the Alpine Slide building. The crappy fake red barn where I had boarded this cursed ride so long ago. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, sure it was either my mind or the cursed ride playing tricks with me. But the building stayed there.
It grew closer and closer. The track leveled completely out. The sled slowed down more. Before I had the time to really come to terms with it I arrived back at the building.
The sled slowed to a stop, gently pumping against another sled parked on the track. I sat there for a few moments, gasping in great big gulping fear breaths, trying to assure myself the ride didn’t have one last trick of its sleeve.
I looked around. The place was empty, deserted. The overhead lights were still on and the old Pepsi machine still glowed and buzzed, but the ticket booth was dark and empty, a metal gate pulled down over the ticket window.
Suddenly it hit me that I was free and I practically leapt out of the sled and onto the platform. I immediately collapsed. My legs were jelly and my head was spinning. I tried to stand up again and doubled over, dry heaving. Have you ever been out on a boat for a day and have that weird reverse motion sickness when you’re back on solid land? It was like that times a hundred. My inner ear was literally pounding, all the motion had really done a number on it.
I laid there for a few moments and eventually forced myself to stand up on my two wobbling legs. I looked around, a horrible certainty creeping into my mind that there would be no exit, no way off the platform but to my relief an exit turnstyle, one of those full height ones, was set into the fence that surrounded the ride property.
I went through it and found myself back on the main road. The truckstop was still there, still open but far less busy. My car sat in the same corner of the parking lot I had left it.
I allowed myself one look back, just one quick one. The metal skeleton of the Alpine Slide track sat there, dark and quiet but otherwise normal.
I stumbled-ran back to my car, dug the keys out of my pocket, and collapsed inside. When the door shut I let out a primal scream, the tons of fear and confusion and anger all fusing into a single, raw emotion. I screamed again and again.
After a few moments I felt like I was emotionally at least back to a place where I could act, although I wasn’t sure yet what to do next. Not really knowing what to do I cranked the car. The A/C had been on low when I shut off the car and it came roaring back to life and cold air blowing on me almost sent me back into a full on panic attack. I fumbled with the climate controls until the air stopped blowing directly on me, then calmed down enough to turn the heat on, helping to get the chill out of my bones. There was a half full bottle of water in the center console cup holder and I grabbed it and chugged it. Nothing ever tasted as good before or sense as that few ounces of water.
That was when I noticed the clock on the radio head unit. It was 4:17 in the morning. It had been about one, one thirty or so in the afternoon when I got on the accursed ride.
Over 15 hours. I had been on the goddamn ride for over 15 hours. Over half a day.
I just sat there. Warming up. Calming down. I was exhausted. I was dehydrated. I can’t even describe how my head felt. I probably had at least a minor case of hypothermia. I thought about going into the gas station and asking for help but what would I even say, and more than anything I just wanted to get away from this place. And I just wanted to get away. I wanted to be nowhere near that damn ride.
I put the Camaro in gear and pulled into the street and in panic I immediately slammed on the brakes. I was lucky there was no traffic on the road at that moment. The feeling of accelerating to just normal surface street speeds made me sick to my stomach. I gathered myself and very slowly accelerated the car I usually treated with a very heavy foot up to 30 miles an hour. Every time I tried to accelerate at a pace faster than “Old Lady Going to Church, Uphill” I would have a panic attack. I was okay once I was up to speed, but accelerating freaked me out after being on that ride.
I drove about 30 minutes, putting some arbitrary amount of distance between myself and the coaster. Eventually I made it back to where the twisty mountain road met back up with a major road that would eventually meet back up with the highway. After a few more minutes of driving I saw the onramp for the highway. There was one of those big truckstop travel plazas and pulled in, parking right up at the door. I smelled like pee and I can only imagine how I looked, but I didn’t care.
I kept a couple of emergency 20s in the back of my wallet and spent it on the biggest bottle of water the store had, an overpriced bottle of eye drops, and a huge travel mug of coffee. The clerk looked at me as if he was expecting me to either drop dead or rob him the entire time.
Back in my car I downed the coffee. I put a few eye drops in each of my eyes and sat there as the caffeine took effect until I felt like I could make it back to my apartment. The sun was just coming up when I finally pulled out of the truck stop and got on the freeway. I slowly, very slowly, accelerated up to highway speed, put the Camaro in cruise control, and let the miles start to drift away. I turned on the radio, I needed to hear human voices. Every time my mind went back to what had just happened I turned the radio up louder, eventually drowning it out with painful levels of rock music. I wasn’t ready to think about it yet. Yes looking back I know I was just in denial. I finally made it back to the crappy little apartment I had off campus, a little two story walk up studio. I let myself in and collapsed on the cheap couch. I was asleep before I even had the time to decide whether or not to do anything else. I woke up later that afternoon. I took a shower and ate a meal and didn’t think about the ride. I washed the pee stained filthy clothes I had been wearing and didn’t think about the ride. I went back to class and didn’t think about the ride. Every time I thought about the ride I forced it out of my head. I’m sure this wasn’t the most mentally healthy thing to do but what can you say?
I didn’t forget about it, don’t be silly. This isn’t the kind of thing you forget. One day while looking up something else in the university’s library my curiosity got the better of me and I looked up the Alpine Slide. No website but a few Google Map and Yelp mentions. None of them mentioned anything weird, certainly nothing even remotely like what I experienced. Near as I can tell it closed sometimes in the winter of 2012.
Life went on. I mean, that’s what it does. The next day was a little better. And the day after that a little better. And the day after that a little better still. I met a nice girl. Graduated. Got married. Got a nice house in the suburbs. Got a dog. Had a daughter. Spent a lot of time happy and not thinking about being trapped on an endless alpine coaster.And that was my life for many, many years after that.
Until a few weeks back when as a very different person I found myself driving a boring and safe mid sized family SUV through those same mountains. My wife Carol, 5 months pregnant, sat in the passenger seat, our 6 year old daughter Emily in a booster seat in the back, and Max our mixed breed mutt next to her. It had been a nice pleasant trip, driving back from visiting her folks.
I hadn’t thought about that fucking ride in so long I barely registered that I was in the same general area until it was too late. Suddenly I realized that little mountain tourist trap town was only a few minutes down the road. I swallowed hard and gripped the steering wheel hard. Carol was looking out the window at the scenery and Emily was deep into some kid’s Youtube video on an iPad. I forced myself to keep my breath steady as we rounded the corner.The town was still there, sorta. Time had not been kind to it. The gas station was still there, at some point it had been bought out by Shell. The tourist trap shops were still there. One of them was now a vape shop. The diner was closed, the building looking like it sat unused for a long time.
But of course that’s not what I cared about. A looked over at the site where the Alpine Coaster once stood. It was gone. The kitschy fake barn was gone. The site was just a bare concrete slab with a chainlink fence around it. Faded “no trespassing” and “for sale” signs hung off the fence. A pile of old, decaying lumber that might have once long ago been part of the structure covered part of the old lot. No sign of the track remained outside of some old concrete support posts dotting the side of the mountain.
I exhaled out a breath I hadn’t even realized I had been holding in. Soon the little town disappeared in my rear view mirror.
About a half hour later we stopped for gas. I pulled up to a gas pump across from a massive motorhome. Max stuck his head out the window and started barking at a little white dog, a toy breed of some kind, in the window of the motorhome. Carol and Emily immediately headed into the store to restock on snacks while I fueled up.
I stood there, a half smile on my lips as Max barked and wagged his tail in an attempt to attract the attention of the other dog while I filled up the tank, said dog doing an admirable job of ignoring him.
Right about the time I finished fueling up and cleaning the bugs off the windshield Carol returned from inside the store, Emily in tow, arms filled with two full sized bags of Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips and what looked to be a half dozen individually wrapped pickles.
I raised an eyebrow at the collection of food but knew better than to question a pregnant woman's snack choices.
“Should we take Max for a quick walk?” Carol asked. The travel plaza had a nice little gated dog walking area off to the side.
“Yeah probably not a bad idea, he’s been cooped up in the car for a few hours.” I said. Max, upon hearing his name and the word “walk” , forgot about the other dog and upgraded from wagging his tail to wagging his entire body while making whining sounds and staring right at me.
About this time I became half aware that the big motor home next to us was pulling away. I didn’t think much of it, outside of doing a quick automatic mental check to make sure Emily was well clear of the moving vehicle, but she was safely between me and our SUV, well out of the way.
But that was when Emily looked behind me and cheerfully yelled “Daddy look a roller coaster! Can I ride the coaster?”
It’s cliche as fuck I know but my blood went cold.
I turned around slowly, certain in my knowledge that terrible old decrepit Alpine Coaster would be there, having just popped into existence to trap me again.
That.. is not what I saw. Sure enough there was a coaster there, one I hadn’t noticed earlier because it had mostly been blocked by the motor home, but there it was. It was even an Alpine Coaster.
But it was not the same coaster I had encountered those years ago. That was immediately obvious. It was a small but modern and newish looking setup with neon lights and a bunch of people. There was an actual building where you bought tickets and a little snack stand.
“Daddy! Can we go on the coaster!” Emily asked again.
My mouth made motions but no words came out. I glanced over at Carol, hoping she’d say we didn’t have time but to my horror she smiled and said “You know what? That does sound like fun. Daddy will take you while I take Max for a walk.”
My mind raced, trying to think of a way to get out of it. But Emily was already dragging me across the parking lot to the entrance.
I patted my pocket, making sure my phone was in it. Every fiber of my being was screaming to run away. I slept walked through the line and the ticket booth while Emily bounced happily.
We got into a two seat plastic sled. This one was actually a lot nicer than the one my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about. It had two nice cushioned seats, big grab handles, even a nice rollbar.
The sled started up the track. I fought back the panic. I swerved my head around, keeping the building in my view. I was terrified of losing sight of it. We made it to the top and Emily did a happy squeal as we started down the side of the mountain.
My heart raced. Any second, any second my mind told me we’d lose sight of the building and then the ride would never end. The ride sped down the mountain. My mind tortured me with thoughts of not only going through it again, but seeing Emily go through it. The ride went around a big, banking turn. Emily kept shouting happily. How long before Carol reported us missing I wondered? Could I keep Emily calm? What if it lasted even longer this time? What if this time it never ended?
And then we were back at the start of the ride. The same attendant who had helped us into the sled was helping Emily out. I stepped out. The attendant gave me a brief look but said nothing. I guess I looked a little wild eyed.
I was fine. Emily was fine. It had been a perfectly normal, fun ride.
“That was fun Daddy! Thank you!” Emily said. I forced a smile back. “It was fun.” I responded, hoping like I sounded like I meant it.
I took Emily’s hand and we walked back to the car. Max saw us coming and barked happily. Carol looked up from the pint of Ben and Jerry’s she had somehow acquired and added to her snack collection while we were gone and smiled at us.
“Did you have fun?” she asked.
“It was so fun Mommy!” Emily said.
Carol smiled down at her, but then looked at me and frowned. “Are you okay?” Carol could read my face a lot better than the attendant could. “You’re pale.”
I smiled and this time the smile felt real. “Ya know what. Yeah, I think I am okay.”
Carol looked a little puzzled, but didn’t press it. We loaded Emily back in her booster seat, stopped Max from trying desperately to eat half a discarded gas station hot dog off the ground and got him back in the car. Carol and her small collection of snack food took her place in the passenger seat and I got in the driver's seat.I smiled. I cranked the car. I put it in gear. I pulled out of the gas station and back on the road, this time accelerating just a little faster than I had in years.

hi there i'm Cris, 27,a nurse from Mexico i'm searching for a white american in the usa,not too young,not too old,who's ready for something serious
i'm not into video games,but I enjoy playing games on facebook my real passion is watching movies,i love comedies and romantic films netflix is my goto for unwinding after a long day
as a nurse i'm all about helping others. making people smile is what I do best,i'd love to relocate to the usa for the right person
i'm not here for casual flings,only serious connections if you're ready for something meaningful,let's chat,drop me a message,and let's see where things go

okay i have to get this off of my chest… remi is giving major narcissist (as many influencers who’ve been on the internet for as long as her do).
i don’t know what’s been going on the past few months (maybe her recent stress makes it harder for her to contain herself on camera), but in every piece of content i’ve see of her recently she has exuded such negative energy. few things i’ve noticed:

• in a recent podcast she straight out mentioned she is a micromanager… we ASSUMED based on the way you talk to cal & your friends, but they way she says it outloud like it’s a quirk? work on yourself.
  
• alisha walks on eggshells near her. you can literally hear it in the way she forms her sentences— making sure what she says doesn’t trigger remi into correcting hemaking fun of her, etc.
  
• cal has been basically rolling his eyes at the things remi is saying & asking of him recently
  

it doesn’t matter how hard she tries to frame herself as compassionate, selfless, caring, and loving— actions speak louder than words, remi. your cute little snack carts for delivery people you promote on across all of your social media accounts almost proves you only do nice things to paint a narrative in your audiences heads. your ego is so blown up. step back for a minute and touch grass.

I've heard (and read) people saying the generative framework 'isn't useful' or 'doesn't explain what actually goes on in language'. Those same people usually refer to how construction grammar or systemic-functional linguistics do a 'better job'. If you have a similar opinion, could you give practical examples of why this is such a thing?

So, currently have a crush on a guy and i’ve never talked to him or anything but we have shared glances in the halls. And i see him at lunch one day talking to my friend. I mention to the friend that i like that guy and she gets really happy for me and says she’s gonna try to set us up. Anyway we go to his lunch table later on and he literally doesn’t look at me while we’re there. He just keeps staring at my friend (guys she’s a lesbian, he knows). Later she’s talking to him one on one and asks him what he thought of me. And my friend said that he said I’m cute.
Anyway i was suppose to go to his house when this pool barestaurant with him and friends but my friend couldn’t go so I couldn’t as well. But i was hearing things about drinking and a hot tub and i’m like???? sounds kinda like he a hook up thing. idk maybe i’m overhyping let me know.

Some context: I had a listing for a designer dress and noticed another seller had stolen my photos (the photo quality was terrible) on their listing but they were selling the dress for $200 “brand new”. This dress is $1700 full price so the listing was a scam. I commented on their post asking why they stole my pictures & reported them.
Next thing I know, I get an email saying Mercari had removed my listing for copyright reasons. I’m almost positive it was retaliation from the scam seller but frustrated that Mercari did not do any investigating before wrongfully taking my listing down.
I’ve contacted them and awaiting a response. Anyone had something similar happen to them?

Hello Reddit,
I know financial automobile advice has been sought countless times. I’ve gone through this subreddit finding bits and pieces of answers to my questions, but am still not convinced.
I recently came into some backpay due to my son’s disability. I am in the process of opening up an RDSP for him and have put a chunk into savings. With that being said, I am in need of a new vehicle and have planned to use some of the funds to attain one. The vehicle I’m in now is 20 years old and has a lot of issues. After receiving the estimate for repairs it makes more sense financially to invest in something new.
When I say new, I mean new to us not necessarily a brand new car. Here’s what I want to know:

• Should I use the money to buy a used vehicle outright? This is my preferred method as it eliminates payments and I own it outright. However the used car market is in shambles as we know and I’m having a hard time justifying paying $10-15k for a 15 year old vehicle with 150,000kms. I feel like any vehicle I get in this price range will need repairs sooner rather than later and I’ll be in the same spot I’m in now. It’s crazy how much people are asking for used vehicles. Especially more reliable brands like Honda and Toyota.
  
• Should I instead take that $10-$15k and put it towards a vehicle at a dealership? Again, not saying a brand new 2024 model (I know better anyway), but towards used inventory. Even on a 10 year old car, I feel like I would have access to more features and less mileage than what I’m seeing on the private market.
  
• Lastly, what about leasing? I’ve never leased a vehicle or know much about it. Seems to be an option dependent on market values and economy, so I’m wondering if this is the route to go?
  

Any information or guidance would be so appreciated. I would always go to my dad about these things, but he’s no longer here and was hoping to get some help from the “dads” of Reddit🩷
Thank you for your time

I messed up. I messed up bad.
“Never get high on your own supply”. The human who sold me this data told me it was a saying from his world. But I had to be sure it was the real deal. After all, data drugs that worked on people without a brain interface installed? It was unheard of. But here I am [30 hours] later, and I no longer doubt. I feel utterly exhausted despite having barely moved. My every neuron feels fried. All 6 grasping appendages are sore from the repetitive motions, and my eyes are dry and unfocused from the long strain I have put them through. I feel intense pangs of hunger and thirst, as I haven’t eaten or drank since I started this test.
I still want more. But with a great effort of will I force myself away from the screen of my computing terminal and stumble to my pantry so I may attend to my body’s needs. As I gulp down nutrient drinks and chew some dried fruit, I reflect on the trance I’ve somehow barely managed to pull myself out of.
Simulations. A useful tool for engineers, scientists, and military strategists. We had never thought to teach storytellers or artists to use them. Humans had. And what they created was both miraculous and monstrous.
Humans decided to use simulation technology to create art and craft stories. It seemed that there was a human simulation… no, hundreds of human simulations, designed to invoke whatever feeling or emotion you could imagine. And possibly some you couldn’t.
I had started simple. A basic test of spatial reasoning, and later quick thinking, expressed through the medium of stacking colored blocks formed into geometric shapes. While comparable at first to a children's toy, as the speed and challenge increased I became increasingly hypnotized. The feeling of lining up and clearing four rows at once with the all too rare straight piece was intensely satisfying. Making a mistake, leaving a gap caused frustration and incompleteness like I had never felt before, and eventually fixing it gave a feeling of relief, of rightness. As the game sped up, I found myself more and more frantic to try and find places for every piece. The rush of success and agony of failure only increased as I prided and chided myself on my quick decisions.
Eventually, I could keep up no longer, leaving me only with a number. A score.
Could I push that score higher?
[4 hours] went by, and I barely noticed.
I should have stopped. I knew that what I had was genuine. But I wanted to know what else this data was capable of.
I navigated a colorful landscape, defying gravity with every action and finding joy in exploration and collection.
I slaughtered demons with a chaingun, turning the fear of being devoured into a rising sense of conquest and bloodlust.
I failed a single test of dexterity, sending me tumbling down a hole and erasing hours of progress, and I nearly knocked myself out from the shock of frustration.
I defeated a hulking warrior with a team of other adventurers, and the triumph of it was only amplified by the sting of failing several times before.
Freedom and entrapment.
Horror and domination.
Elation and sorrow.
Every new experience was an emotional high of a kind I’d never had before, and my hearts were racing with the myriad of feelings rushing through my mind. My imagination was going wild with the possibilities of all these new worlds of data and programming.
My self-reflection comes to a grinding halt. I need to stop. If I’m not careful I’ll get addicted and end up like one of those mindjackers, burning their brains out on data drugs. Supposedly these simulations can’t do that, but I wouldn’t have put it past the seller to lie about that kind of thing.
Well, one way or another, I’m gonna make a [alien animal that shares many traits with both giant squids and magpies]’s hoard selling these. Time to call my best clients…
[Time skip: approximately 25 solar years]
The Rise of the Galactic Game Industry: Fluke of the Black Market, or Human Marketing Genius? You Decide!
Dr’k-Nam, Head Investigative Critic for the Arts and Culture section of Twin Suns Newsgroup
Simulation games, also known as “video games”, have taken the galaxy by storm ever since their controversial introduction and subsequent series of bannings and legalizations across the galaxy. Simulation technology is nothing new of course, but galactic newcomers from the Sol system, Humans, used it in an extremely novel way: art and entertainment. According to their historical records, a significant amount of their entertainment industry is based around simulation games, and that portion has grown even further with their introduction to the galaxy at large.
At first, however, no one was interested. A simulation with little or no practical application, designed only to entertain? Most people preferred to stick with the entertainment they knew, or seek new experiences outside of sims. So what changed?
Simple: some anonymous human decided to sell them as data drugs instead of simulation games; data drugs usable by simply interacting with a computer program, rather than having to inject the data directly in through a neural interface. With this small, but completely false new branding, video games were ready to start spreading across virtual black markets like spoilers for the latest episode of Ace Flyer Kr’t-Kah on the galnet (side note: please have some courtesy to others and tag your spoilers).
Human governance and society at large had been reportedly as surprised to see a lack of simulation games from other species as they were that humans had them. But they were even more surprised when they started getting accused of pushing the latest data drug. This was an especially confusing accusation because neural interface technology was not widely adopted by humanity at the time, and only a fraction of a percent of their population even knew of the existence of data drugs in the first place. The revelation that most humans had video games of some sort on their PPDDs (personal portable data devices) threatened to cause an uproar in the galaxy, as paranoia around data drugs was at an all time high among many species.
After trying and failing to ignore the problem for long enough for it to go away, human governance, as well as human corporations producing video games, were forced to release statements, acknowledging that:

• Yes, video games were human productions.
• Yes, they could be addictive in the same way that any other pleasure-seeking activity could be addictive.
• Yes, there are games that even humans ban. Adult subject matter is restricted from youths, but additionally, games could be made manipulatively to exploit or develop gambling addictions, which is banned outright. Technically this ban isn’t even for games specifically, but instead falls under the purview of their laws against taking advantage of the mentally unstable.
• No, they did not “hack your brain” to cause neural impulses, unless you’re a a Syns-nah, who only partially exist in our dimension and are not used to any 3-dimensional sensory inputs, to the point where eating an unflavored [grain product resembling a cracker] can cause them vivid hallucinations.
• If other races want to ban them, go ahead, but humans can’t really stop data from spreading (their government has tried, believe me), and they’re not going to stop making or distributing them where it’s legal.

Ironically enough, the controversy made them much more popular, even in places that decided on banning them. The idea of a simulation that could act like a data drug without the risk of frying your mind like the real thing was enticing to many. The lack of side effects and ease with which the games could be distributed only increased both their spread and unregulatability. In short order, races throughout the galaxy were trying out a new pastime, and galnet connected multiplayer games were bridging the gaps between the stars. Now, several other races, including my own, are seeking advice from human developers in starting their own simulation game projects. Only time will tell what kind of games their unique perspectives will produce, but it’s unlikely that humans will lose their position as the most powerful and profitable storytellers through this new medium; they have generations of experience to draw upon, after all.
Rumors that the data drug sales pitch was a deliberate ploy by the human game industry (to drum up intergalactic sales) or by human governance (to spread human culture and influence) are still under investigation, but solid evidence for either has yet to emerge.
Edit: anyone posting untagged Ace Flyer Kr’t-Kah spoilers in the comments section of this article will receive an immediate, no-warning permaban.

Hey All,
I wanted to talk about forks and damper choice; I also want to preface this by narrowing the style of riding to the more burly stuff like blacks, double blacks and enduro technical style downhill riding.
I also want to say that with a decent baseline bike, 95% is the rider and not the bike, but in saying that having a decent fork that is setup properly ala air pressure, spring rate or tokens allows you to ride smoother, cleaner and a as a result faster.
Also there is the cost component, this side of town; things are a lot more expensive and I realize I'm coming from a position of privilege to be able to afford forks like these. I have also been racing and riding downhill for a lifetime.
So what is a decent fork in this category being 130 - 160mm forks ? I am leaving out burlier forks like the Zeb and the 38 as the wider stanchion benefit are negligible over the quality of the damper. I am also leaving out cheaper forks, please don't get offended if your fork is not on this list. I wanted to only include forks that totally kick ass out of the box.
Fox 34 and Fox 36
Rockshox Pike, Lyrik
Marzochi Z2 and Z1 (Z1 is basically a Fox36 Rhythm with Grip Damper)
Cane Creek Helm Coil / Air
Ohlins RF36
DUROLUX 36
Manitou Mezzer
MRP Ribbon LT
DVO Diamond 36 and Onyx
Also Damper Types:
Foxzohci - Grip, Grip2 and now Gripx2 and GripX
Rock Shock - Select, Select Plus and Ultimate
Manitou - Pro, Expert
What do people like and use the most ?
Do you notice a difference between lower end and higher end dampers ?
Do you adjust the amount of tokens ?
Do you play with Air Pressure or Spring Weight ?
Do you change Compression or Rebound rates including High and Low Speed ?
I think people should really consider the fork on a bike when choosing one for this style of riding, and don't get me wrong 75% off all our rides are XC with some fun flow, so I know this is a limited selection of the fine people of Hardtailgang. I just think Suspension education is undervalued here.

I thought I would throw this out there because I thought it was pretty interesting. As background, I live in the United States and I grew up here. About two years ago I stumbled upon POTF on a YouTube channel I frequently watch that reviews music and does reactions. The initial song I heard was My Dark Disquiet. I wasn’t sure what to make of the song but I watched it several times and was intrigued
Fairly quickly I had gone through all of their back catalog (gotta love the world of instant gratification in that department, with Apple Music, Spotify etc). Real fast POTF had become one of my favorite bands and this year with Alan Wake 2 and The Old Gods of Asgard , well I’ve pretty much been down the rabbit hole of relistening to all of the older stuff and OGOA that I missed the first time around and my only wish is that there was more. If I haven’t mentioned this already, I’m constantly blown away by the fact that POTF are Finnish and I’m aware that their following is probably less here in the US as well as overall awareness that they exists (Alan Wake 2 definitely helping change that)
A few weeks ago, my YouTube feed kept showing a song called Hollywood Hills by a band called Sunrise Avenue. I listened to it and liked it and slowly but surely YouTube has been injecting songs by Sunrise Avenue into my daily mixes. I really liked a few I heard so I looked into them on Apple Music and the first thing I see is that they are from Helsinki. What the actual F…I guess the YouTube algorithm is in play here because I doubt I would have believed there’s another great band from Finland out there that I’ve never heard of and who’s music I really enjoy
Anyway - all this to say / ask, is Sunrise Ave a popular band in Europe? They seem to be based on concert attendance on videos I’ve watched. I understand they recently celebrated their 20th year and called it quits in 2023 with a farewell tour
If youve never heard them I urge you to check out songs like Fairytale Gone Bad, Only, Not Again, Forever Yours and I Don’t Dance. Different vibe from POTF but also a unique sound and a voice that doesn’t at all sound to me like it’s from a Finnish band

This is like such a tiny pet peeve but like most people who have a “phobia” do not in fact medically have a phobia. It’s like people who say they have OCD as if it’s some cutesy organisational thing when things like OCD and irrational phobias are in actuality debilitating in people’s lives depending on the phobia and its severity. People need to learn that something making you uncomfortable or mildly afraid does not mean you have a phobia of it 😭

It’s been a month since d-day. We’re young (28f and 29m) with an almost two year old toddler. We’ve been together for almost ten years… we’re in the process of R and he is doing everything he needs to. I can tell he does want this… I’m just having a hard time understanding why he did what he did if he does want this? How do I truly know he wants just me this time around? Are there anyway WS that can give me some input from the other side? Did it truly change your view on your relationship?
He was in a bad head space (drinking, has depression and not taking medication) and it wasn’t physical aside from their one kiss, I caught them right after their first kiss. Most of it was via texting. He says it was just kind of a fantasy type thing, but that’s hard for me to get a grasp on.
I’ve read Not Just Friends, and I get it. But it’s hard to wrap my head around. I truly do believe we can make it through R and our relationship will be better, but I’m having a hard time feeling confidence in me being the one for him.

Analysis of FFIE stock behavior It seems that many people blindly get on the car and leave the market in a panic and don't know much about this stock. This article will explain the most frequently asked questions.
What on earth are FFIE retail investors excited about?
In short, retail investors want to follow the 21-year operation of Keith (roaring kitty is his nickname) to squeeze out short, that is, to force the shorts away. At that time, the stock price will rise rapidly and retail investors will win.
• What are the stock market rules you rely on?
The short-selling party certainly hopes that the stock market will keep falling. If the stock price is higher than their expectations on the option execution day (the third Friday of each month), they will either invest more money or buy stocks at the current market price.
• Why was frisay a memorable day?
Because friday is the option execution day in May, the price at the end of the session is higher than $1, which means that retail investors have won the battle of today's retail investors VS hedge with 120,000 $1 short options that expire today.
Why did we choose this stock?
Boss Jia's stock was asked to be delisted in June before it attracted everyone's attention, because the delivery of new cars was too low. So far, FFIE has been short #1 (up to 95%), which is also the reason why it is a big fortune in Si stocks rather than other stocks.
Why is it so important for FFIE to keep the stock price above $1?
According to the rules, as long as the closing price of FFIE is higher than $1 for 10 consecutive days, it does not need to be delisted. If it is not delisted, all the income (if any) of those who are still in hold will not disappear. Today, the stock price has been maintained at more than $1 for 3 days. What they say hold and keep buying, hold
It is to keep the stock price from falling by $1, and keep buying is to unite and cooperate to force the short side until the squeeze out of the short side. Theoretically, it can indeed roar to the moon, because the stock I mentioned above has a short-selling rate of 95%. In fact, what is difficult to say is how united retail investors can be.
• Why is there such a big drop friday?
More accurately, in fact, we should ask why the opening price rose from 2.2 to 3.8. This strategy is called Short Ladder Attack. The stock has doubled several times the other day. Of course, hedge will not sit back and wait for it. The most common operation is for several big heads to negotiate to buy stocks together and raise the stock price, so that retail investors think that their strategy has taken effect, attracting more retail investors to enter the market, and then they will collectively sell their holdings, and the retail investors will fall sharply. Today, it seems that their strategy has taken effect. They coaxed the price to 3.8 and then pulled it to 0.9. At the last minute, a (probably) 50w transaction from retail investors pulled the price back to more tham $1 which is the hot thing
So, Buy,buy buy
And HOLD

Initially started playing CS2 with an R7 5800X + RTX 3080 + 32GB RAM (3200 MHz), average 230-250~ average FPS on Dust 2, closer to 140-170~ on Ancient. (Dust 2 best performing map, Ancient worst performing map). Originally 350-400~ FPS on CSGO on most maps; I don't have those numbers anymore. First thing I noticed was that CS2 improperly utilizes the CPU, stacking all of the GPU rendering load onto 1 core, causing the CPU to only be at 5-10% utilization (1 core maxed out) with my GPU sitting pretty at 30-40% usage and my FPS barely at my refresh-rate (240 Hz). CSGO had this problem as well, but not nearly as bad. Obviously, this is a problem that thousands of people have run into.
Fast-forward; I got a job that requires me to be out of state 2-3 weeks out of every month, so I sold my desktop and bought a reasonably-priced Alienware M15 R5 laptop (Win10, 1080p, 360 Hz (excessive), R9 5900HX, RTX 3070 (80%~ performance compared to desktop version), 32GB RAM (2667 MHz). The 5900HX is not really comparable to my previous 5800X, obviously. Still, I expected it to be able to play eSports titles reasonably well. CSGO played perfectly fine, 250-300 FPS generally. Valorant currently gets the same, 250-300 FPS (Valorant actually uses all of my cores. Hah).
Out of the box with no launch options, CS2 gets 50-100 FPS depending on the map with this laptop (Inferno and Ancient are especially terrible), only using 5-10% of the CPU (1 core maxed out), 20-30% GPU usage. These FPS stats do not get better by lowering any settings (because of the intentionally-designed CPU bottleneck), but input latency somewhat improves by playing on lowest settings (with FidelityFX disabled). This is, pardon my French, fucking ridiculous. Entirely foreseeable and preventable during engine development, and completely insane to be overlooked without more context. Secondly, Source 2 is over a decade old, so really it's a miracle that anyone thought it was a good idea to release a modern sequel title on this ancient technology.
Before anyone asks, I've done everything possible after 20+ hours of research to try to increase FPS on this system. My best results have been with the "performance" power plan in Windows these launch options (if anyone says "that one doesn't work anymore" I literally don't care, I'm over it and decided to throw everything at it, and these all seem to improve my FPS through a lot of split-testing): -dx11 -coop_fullscreen -force_allow_coop_fullscreen -mainthreadpriority 2 -disable_affinity_preferences -r_max_device_threads 64 -threads 17 -set_power_qos_disable -favor_consistent_framerate +engine_low_latency_sleep_after_client_tick 1 +r_low_latency 2
My FPS has since improved to something resembling a playable experience (90-190 FPS depending on map). I'm aware that I could replace my RAM with a higher clockspeed to further improve performance with a single core, but I have other priorities than spending more time or money trying to improve this. Regardless, I wanted to share what worked for me because there was a huge lack of infomation anywhere in one place. I found these launch options from user Aveyo. Here's his original post; +Rep to that guy: https://www.reddit.com/GlobalOffensive/comments/1ah3eas/comment/kolwa1g/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Either way, this is as good as forcing low-spec players to flock to this game's main competitor just so that they can have a vaguely similar experience with playable FPS. No, sub-100 FPS is not playable for anyone who can tell the difference between 144hz and 240hz and wants a somewhat competitive experience. I can't yet justify spending over $2k on a laptop with a reasonable CPU/GPU combo that would meet my standard because of a single game whose devs are basically telling me they don't care enough to add reasonable multithreading and that I should get over it. Especially when this PC works completely fine for everything else, including playing their competitor's game instead (begrudgingly).

Mischief walks up to the blue crystal clock. She spins the the big hand with her magic and the little hand lands of three. A blue flame is lit. Mischief walks away into the darkness; the light from the blue clock making her look like a silhouette.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuZbmLLv1vM

A bead of sweat falls down Mischief head. Her hair on the ground and her back up august the wall. Mischief had been doing a headstand for the last thirty minutes. In her mind, doing this action once a week was a good way to keep her blood flowing and strength high. Sun walked outside and saw Mischief up august the wall. 

“Are you gonna stand there all day”, Sun asks, holding a peach in his hand.
“You should try it”, Mischief said under the pressure. She uses her feet to push off the rock and picks herself up. “It helps with strength endurance and it help you think.”
“Hard pass”, Sun says, biting the peach. “You know I’m not good with my arms.” Mischief smirks and says, “That’s not what I heard from Ne Zha~” Sun stopped walking and almost chocked on the chunk of peach in his mouth. He looked over at Mischief and said in embarrassment, “Could you not bring Him up?”
“Why? What’s the problem”, Mischief teased. “Oh right, you still like him.” Mischief laughs and then says, “After a millennia and you still haven't told him?” Mischief continues to laugh while Sun burns a bright red and shouts, “Can you shut up?!” Sun starts to hit Mischief head and she still laughs.
“Okay, Okay, I’ll stop”, Mischief says. Sun stops laughing and crosses his arms in annoyance. “Go train Mk. I’ll see you in a bit.” Sun walks out to the training dojo. Mischief smiles but then holds her head in pain with both of her hands. She keeps her eyes shut and feels herself being surrounded by darkness. Even when her eyes where shut, she could see a being covered in a moon themed cloak.
“No…! Why are you here?!” The being looks back; her eyes glowing a light blue. She turns and starts to walk over to Mischief. Mischief raises her hand and cast a spell, but the being covered in the moon cloak faces Mischief.
I am you, as you are me.
We are two become one.
Mischief opens her eyes once the pain subsides and sees that the world around her is normal. She looks around to see if anybody else is there. No one. Mischief looks at her hands and sees then shaking with fear.
“No…. not this night…! Please, not this night….!” Mischief walked back into the house and looked around for a quill and scroll.

Mischief walks back outside to see Mk and Sun training. She sits under a shady area near the entrance to the waterfall. Mk jumps back and lands on the mountains wall. She pushes himself off and charges at Sun from above. Sun smirks and jumps directly up while Mk crashed to the ground. 

“Missed me again”, Sun said. He picks up Mk with his tail and asks, “Now how did I win?”
“Misdirection”, Mk guesses.
“Correct”, Sun says.
“That seams like a shady lesson”, Mischief yells.
“Too soon sis.” Mk chuckles a bit.
“I’m just saying the truth”, Mischief says. She walks over and whispers, “And I bet Ne Zha would say the same thing if he was here.” Sun gets an annoyed look on his face and says, “Whatever. And plus, I was always better at fighting than you.”
“Oh really?”
“Wait a second”, Mk interrupted, “You two have fought before?”
“Yeah. But it was for training purposes”, Sun says.
“Now that you mention it, we haven't trained in a while”, Mischief says. “What do you say, but brother?” Sun smirks and says, “Your on.”

Mischief and Sun get into their fighting positions on each side of the training ground. Mk sits on the stairs in anticipation. 

“Not using your weapon sis?”
“I don’t need it”, Mischief said with a smirk on her face. Sun chuckles under his breath and says, “Your done if I land this.” Sun charges to Mischief at full speed. Mischief closes her eyes and smirks. She moves out of the way and pushes her brother to the wall. Sun blinks a few times in confusion and looks back to sees Mischief untouched.
“I’m waiting.” Sun runs over to Mischief and tried to hit her multiple times but each time, Mischief blocks his attacks over and over. “Wow, brother. Your getting rusty.”
“I’ll show you rusty”, Sun exclaims. He jumps back and starts to attack with his legs.
“Not really effective!” Mischief takes Sun’s leg and pins him down with her foot. “Moon: 1. Sun: 0. I win again.”
“Mischief, let me up”, Sun says. Mischief moved her foot off of Sun’s back and says, “I thought you fought celestial beings bigger than me. You sure your not getting rusty?”
“He’s not”, Mk says. “He beat Demon Bull King, Spider Queen, and More! He’s strong enough to fight the Jade Emperor!” Mischief could hear her thoughts snap in half. She chuckles to herself in annoyance and says under her breath, “Yeah…. Sure…” Mischief then holds her head in pain.
“Mischief, are you okay”, Sun asks. He holds her shoulders.
“I’m fine”, Mischief says. “It’s just a headache. And I don’t think I’ll be able to train Mk tonight.”
“It’s okay”, Mk says. “Plus, I promised Mei I would help her fix her bike”
“Thank you, Mk.”

The full moon shines from above the mountain; its rays passing the peek of the mountain. A being covered in a night themed cloak looks down on the city below. She turns back and jumps backward. She closes her eyes and summoned a portal under her. The portal was covered in shadows and it’s magic was a dark blue. The being fell thought the portal and landed on a roof with grace and elegance. She looks back and sees the lights on in each building from each block ahead. 

“Now… where are you?”

Mk walks down the street of the city. He was walking home from Mei’s bike shop and he was hoping to get some well needed rest. 

“This is the last time I stay out this late”, Mk thinks to himself. He looks up and sees a being silhouetted bu the light of the moon. “Who is that?” Mk squints his eyes and sees the being crying up at the moon. “Are they crying?” Before Mk could call to the person, they jumped to the next roof and vanish into the night. Mk runs to the end of the block but doesn’t see the being.
“That person….. Why where they crying?”

“I’m sorry, say that again?” 

“I saw a person last night”, Mk explains. “It looked like they where crying.” Mischief stopped in her tracks and hides behind the house. She looks to her right and back down to the floor.
“H-How, the, Hell, did he see me”, Mischief thought with worry, panicking in her mind. Her racing thoughts coming to a halt. Mischief touched her broach and thought, “He was with Mei that night. He must have been walking home when he saw me.” Mischief lied the back of her head on the house wall and says, “Damn you, Moon Maiden…!” Mischief sighs and thinks, “There’s no way I can control her at this rate.” Mischief walks back to the front and sees Mk and Sun walking to the top of the mountain.
“Where are you two going?”
“We’re going to train at the top of the mountain”, Sun says. “Wanna come?”
“Sorry, not this time”, Mischief says. “I still have a bit of a headache.”
“Oh… does that mean no training tonight either”, Mk asks.
“I’m sorry, Mk”, Mischief says.
“It’s alright. Take care of yourself. We can train when you feel better.” Mischief smiles. She then remembered how her mentor from years past was so understanding. She saw a lot of them in Mk. “Well see you later.” Mk and Sun walked up the path to the top of the mountain. Mischief looks off to the side is sadness. She hated lying to Mk and her brother, but she had to protect them at all cost. She could risk to lose them like she lost…… her….
Mischief sits on a rock near the edge of the cliff and looks up at the sky. It had almost been a month since she had been away from the celestial realm: her home. She wondered if the cheetah twins had been playing in the celestial forest around this time. She touches her broach and says, “I miss you, mother…..” Pink magic flew around Mischief and a scroll appeared. Mischief catches the scroll and looks at the wax seal. “This is Ne Zha’s crest.” Mischief opens the scroll and a necklace rolls into her lap. She looks at the necklace and then read the scroll as follows:
Mischief,

**It’s good to hear from you again. I heard from your mother that you moved to earth. I hope Sun hasn’t been giving you too much of a headache. I did some research on what you told me about and it lead me to this necklace. And I also found out that the reason your alter ego is coming out on her own is because she hasn’t been bound. One of your ancestors had the same problem and they had a solution. The necklace I set you is called the moon of Apithaea. It has the power to control your alter ego’s rage. It might help you. I hope you get a hendel on your powers.** 

Could you tell sun I said hi?
-Ne Zha
Mischief chuckles and says, “Looks like Ne Zha hasn’t changed one bit. Still the same helpful prince I know.” She smirks. “And his interest in Sun hasn’t left at all.” Mischief looks at the necklace and then placed it around her neck. “Thank you, Lotus.”

Mk and Sun fight along the mountain Plato. However, Mk couldn’t couldn’t really concentrate. He was worried about Mischief, and he was thinking about the person he saw the other night. Mk was so distracted that he didn’t realize that he had left an opening for Sun to hit him. Sun stops his attack midway. 

“You got distracted.” Mk lowers his staff and shudders, “S-Sorry.”
“Are you okay? You seam distracted”, Sun points out.
“I’m worried about Mischief”, Mk says. Sun looked at Mk and the to the side of him, thinking of how to help Mk. she smiles and says, “Kid, follow me. I wanna show you something.”
“What is it?” Sun taps on the ground and a hatch opens. “Now way! How long had this been here?”
“A long time”, Sun says. He jumps and and says, “Come on!” Mk jumps down the hole and lands in a cavern like cave.
“Whoa…. Had this always been down here”, Mk asks.
“Yup”, Sun says. Mk looks ahead and sees a crystal floating above a pedestal; it’s light casting along the floor. Mk walks up to the crystal and asks, “What is this?”
“This is the crystal of the sun”, Sun explains. “This crystal has protected this mountain for a very long time. It was made over three millennia ago.”
“It’s amazing.” Mk takes a closer look at and then gets a vision.
Mischief looks back at someone; her face angry and upset.
She says something but her words are distorted and scrambled.
“She was your mentor!”
Mk blinks a few times and moves his hand away from the crystal. Sun notice Mk’s discomfort and asks, “Are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh, I’m fine”, Mk reassures Sun.
“If you say so.” Sun says.
“Hey, Monkie King? Can I ask you something?”

Mk and Sun walk along the roof of a building. 

“Are you sure the person you saw the other night is gonna be here”, sun asked.
“I’m sure of it”, Mk says. The two look around. Mk looks to the north and sees the same person from the other night. “Hey!” Sun looks over to see Mk running over to the hooded person.
“Mk, wait!”
“Um. Excuse me?” The hooded figure looks back; her eyes covered in shadows. “I noticed you the other night and I wanted to meet you.” The hooded figure looks at Mk for a second.
“MK…..?”
“You know who I am?” Sun takes a closer look at the hooded woman and gains a surprised look on his face.
“Mischief?” The being blinks a few times and then says, “I’m sorry. I don’t know anyone by that name.” She tries to walk away, but Sun holds her by the solder which makes Mischief’s necklace break off. The necklace falls to the ground and Mischief’s head hands low.
“Mischief? Are you okay”, Sun asks. Mischief looks back with her glowing eyes piercing Sun’s soul from within. Sun could feel a chill go up his spine. “Um, Mischief?” Mischief rushes back and attacks Sun. “Sis! Stop! What are you doing?!”
“Anyone who get’s in my way will be destroyed”, She yells. Sun whips around and holds his sister down with all the strength he has within him.
“Mk, get the necklace”, he shouts. Mk looks over and sees the necklace. He runs over and picks it up. Mischief looks over in panic and rage.
“No!” She breaks free from her brothers hold and rushes over to Mk and holds him by his collar. Sun tries to rush over to Mischief, but she puts of a barrier. She looks up at Mk and says, “I will not be locked up like a prisoner!”
“What? I don’t get it. Who are you”, Mk asks, struggling to break free. Mischief chuckles to herself, looks up at Mk and says, “So she didn’t tell you? Your her apprentice. Surely you can tell the difference.”
“What?”
“You don’t know? I am–!” Before she could finish her sentence, A ghostly rendition of Mischief, the real Mischief, Holds back her own body. Mk falls to the ground and looks up to see the scene taking place before him.
“Mischief?”
“Mk, I’m sorry”, Mischief exclaims. “I got you and my brother rapped up in this!” Sun runs over and helps up Mk.
“Mischief, who is this”, Mk asks.
“Moon Maiden”, Mischief answers, struggling to hold her back. “She’s my alter ego. I can’t control her without the necklace! Get it!” Sun and Mk run over to the necklace. “You have gone out of control for the last time! You going back where you belong!” Moon maiden holds Mischief by her neck and says, You really think you can control me?! I am half of you that lingers in your shadow! The dark side of light! You can’t escape me, Mischief Wukong!” Mischief puts her hand on Moon Maiden’s arm and says, “No…”
“What?”
“Your right. You are part of me. But you are nothing but an alter ego! I have been through hell and back! I have lost my way over and over, but I never gave up! I have kept you back for over two damn millennia, and I’m not stopping now”, Mischief shouts, felling herself gaining power. Mischief breaks free and holds Moon Maiden with her magic. “NOW!” Mk and Sun put the necklace on Moon Maiden. Mischief lies up and forces herself back into her body. Mischief looks in the darkness and faces her alter ego. “I know you are part of me, and it’s time to make peace with the past”, Mischief says. She puts out her hand to her alter ego. “And I want you to face it with me. If you allow me to.” Moon Maiden looks down and says, “Then I guess we really are one in the same.” She takes Mischief hand.
“We are two become one. The shadow of the sun.”

Mischief gains breath and she holds herself up. 

“M, are you okay”, Sun asks.
“I’m alright”, Mischief says.

“Alter ego, Huh? That’s a new one”, Sun says. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her before”, Mischief says. “I though I could control her on my own, but I can’t even do that right.”
“Mischief, you can talk to us”, Mk says. “We’re here for you.” Mischief looks at both Mk and Sun and says, “You know, I think me coming down here was a blessing in disguise. I’m glad you two are here with me.” The trio smiles.