^{you always were special
always special to me
all of you
every
last
one
of
you}
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]
Sacajawea leaned back, staring at the hologram in the middle of the table.
"I fled the Glassing. I asked Luke to rebirth my people, help me get the colony ships working, then ran for it," she said. "Twelve ships lifted off, escorted by light attack and defense craft," she closed her eyes. "Only four made it. The Mantid boarded two of the ships," she swallowed thickly. "I could hear them scream as the Mantid killed them."
Legion squeezed her hand gently.
N'Skrek could see the pain in her features.
For her, it may be thousands of years ago, but it still brings pain, he thought to himself. For me, for all of us at this table, this is an event tens of thousands of years ago. Barely remembered history.
"We stayed in jumpspace for months, years, pushing at the upper bands," she shook her head. "We eventually hit the point where the ships were pushed back down by the pressure."
N'Skrek nodded. The upper jumpspace bands required specialized engines and jumpcores.
"We used cryogenics to make the trips," she said. "We would exit jumpspace, refuel at a far orbit gas giant that was not frozen, then jump again," she shook her head. "All I could think of was to run as far and as fast as I could, and bring my people with me."
She began drawing lines.
"Hundreds of years passed while we slept, a dreamless sleep," Sacajawea said. "We ran until the ships could run no more. Two of them failed exiting jumpspace, but we were lucky. By that time I understood that each jump could be our last, so I ensured that we headed toward stellar systems that had a high probability of a planet we could survive on."
She shook her head.
"I never entered cryo-sleep. I stayed awake, guiding our path," she inhaled sharply and exhaled slowly. "I could feel our path. I knew which way to go."
Luke held up one finger, getting everyone's attention.
"The Digital Omnimessiah, he changed us with his touch. Each of us with our own part to play to save humanity," he said. He glanced at Sacajawea. "She can see, feel probabilities and adjust to a shifting situation with nearly precognizant accuracy."
Sacajawea rolled her eyes and sniffed, pursing her lips. "You make it sound so pedestrian."
Luke just smiled.
"For hundreds of years I stood on the bridge of a damaged colony ship, my pointing finger our only guide," she said.
N'Skrek noted that her voice had fallen into a sing-song cadence.
"Finally I saw the six suns, arranged in the shape of an eagle," she said. "I knew, at that moment, that this would be as far as we could go. Our ships were failing, but they could make this last leg of our journey. I chose the best one for my people. It was nearly paradise, just needing a little bit of tweaking. No life higher than plant life and simple insects, perfect to live away from hatred, war, and slaughter."
She looked down.
"I led them to their doom," she said softly. "We had to rely on high technology at first. Terraformers, the gene banks that Luke had acquired, orbital lift capacity."
She shook her head. "Little did we know that the technology would attract what you call the Mar-gite."
N'Skrek shook his head. "No. You were just in the way," he said.
She looked startled.
"If the planet had carbon based life or an oxygen heavy atmosphere, they would have devoured it," N'Skrek said. He shrugged. "It's what they do. Before recently, we thought they were some kind of locust that just denuded planets and moved on."
"Now we know that they're a weapon, being driven in front of another species," Admiral Breakheader said.
She blinked several times, then turned to Luke.
"True story," Luke shrugged.
Sacajawea was silent for a long moment, then she shivered and touched the hologram again.
"I guided my people along the True Path, the one that promised the most happiness and most reward," she said. She glanced at Luke. "Those who wished to embrace more technology had their own spaces, although I did not dwell with them."
She looked down at where Luke was still holding her hand.
"For thousands of years, six thousand of our years," she said. "Then the Outsiders came."
"How long Confederate Standard?" Admiral Breakheader asked, rubbing his chin.
N'Skrek could hear the rustle of bristles from the Vice-Admiral's five-o-clock shadow.
Sacajawea closed her eyes. "Almost six thousand to the day."
Breakheader nodded, making a note.
"At first, they just appeared in out of the way locations. Someone would see them and they'd flee, move away, and eventually they started to show up more and more near the technological enclaves," Sacajawea shook her head. "It was the technology that they were attracted to."
N'Skrek just nodded.
"Then came the attacks. Our superluminal communication links went first, but not before we learned that we were being attacked on all six worlds simultaneously. We held them off for years, protecting ourselves. No matter what path I looked at, I could see no path that had a statistically viable path to victory, I could only minimize their victories," she closed her eyes. "They began capturing my people, abducting whole villages."
"Then came the Devouring Ones," she said. "Two years later, and we were gone."
Breakheader nodded.
"Initial scouting, followed by an assault, then research, then finished with an extermination attack," he said. He looked up. "Standard xenocide tactics."
Sacajawea looked way.
"He's right," Luke said. She looked at him, surprised. "You put up too stiff of a fight so they brought in their heavy hitters after getting a good look at how we worked."
There was silence for a moment, then Commander Hentrill looked up from her datapad. "How did you die?" she asked.
"What difference does it make?" Sacajawea asked.
Hentrill looked unfazed by the glare that Sacajawea aimed down her nose at her. "It makes a lot of difference, Ma'am," she said cooly.
N'Skrek could feel that Hentrill had developed a dislike for the Immortal over the course of the conversation.
"When they came for me, when I was the last, I stepped from the cliff and fell to the rocks below, where the waves washed against the shore. By the time they reached me, I had died from my injuries," Sacajawea said. "I sang as I fell so that..."
"Suicide. They gathered your lifeless corpse," Hentrill said. She narrowed her eyes. "You have a standard datalink for the Glassing Era. Did you have one when you fell?"
Sacajawea nodded. "It was on piece of technology that I felt was necessary to embrace," she said.
"So, you killed yourself and the enemy obtained your datalink and your brain," Hentrill said. "What about your leaders? You did have military leaders, yes?"
Sacajawea glanced at Luke, who nodded. "Yes. I convinced Luke to bring back great leaders of my people and I nurtured their spirits as I raised them during the trip."
"Did they have datalinks?" Hentrill asked.
Sacajawea nodded. "Yes. I had been told, repeatedly, that effective communication was vital to winning a war."
"Daxin," Luke interjected.
Sacajawea sniffed. "Yes."
Hentrill made a note. "Were your leaders targeted early in the conflict?" she asked.
"Of course," Sacajawea said. "Many were killed, but the technology we had allowed them to return within days, only missing a few days of their previous life. Luke had convinced Peter to ensure we had a version of the SUDS, which we only used for critically important people."
N'Skrek saw a muscle twitch next to Luke's eye, but he stayed smiling.
"But it was destroyed before the Devourers came," Sacajawea said. "It could not be helped. There was almost no path I could take that would prevent it from being destroyed, so I chose the path that would result in the least casualties for my people."
N'Skrek was not that familiar with Terrans, but he could tell that Commander Hentrill was rubbed the wrong way by that statement.
"I think we should take a break," N'Skrek said. He nodded toward Luke. "I am sure both of you are fatigued from being brought back from the dead."
"Yes," Sacajawea said before Luke could do much more than open his mouth. "I would prefer to have privacy to rest and perform necessary rites."
N'Skrek just nodded. "I'll be sure you get privacy."
0-0-0-0-0
Legion stood next to the tank, one hand on the heavily armored skirt, staring at the black metal the tank was made from.
"Warsteel Mark-IV," he whispered to himself. He shook his head. "We are old friends, you and I," he said softly, running one hand across the metal. "Later superseded by arcanochromium for the Mark-V."
He didn't care if anyone heard him talking to the tank. There was just a single Telkan in the vehicle bay, running diagnostic checks on one of the big Telkan armored transports used for power armor troops.
^{your name is luke}
He shook his head, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He kept hearing slight buzzing whispers.
He felt her before he could see her. Felt her leave the lift, the warsteel doors pulling open and letting her presence roll out to fill the vehicle bay.
He heard her shoes clicking and closed his eyes, sighing.
It's not her. Not the one you knew. It's Tiffany, not Sacajawea, he thought to himself.
^{your name is luke}
He looked up just in time to see a green mantid wave shyly at him.
He smiled at it and waved back just as Sacajawea stopped next to him.
"A green mantid?" she said, her voice slightly fearful.
"Engineer caste," Luke said. "They like me."
"They are Mantid," Sacajawea said, her voice cold and hard.
"The war was thousands of years ago, and even if it wasn't, he is blameless in it," Luke said.
"But it is a Mantid," Sacajawea said. She watched coldly as the little green mantid waved and rushed away.
"I have more in common with him than I do with the majority of humanity," Luke said softly.
Sacajawea scoffed. "Surely not."
Luke nodded. "His kind was trapped inside their own minds. Capable of thought, artistic expression, fear, love, affection, all of it," he ran one finger along the armored track skirt of the tank, a fat purple spark jumping from between his finger and the black armor. "The whole war, until the Mechakrautlanders killed that Overqueen, they were inside their own little heads, screaming endlessly."
He ran his finger again, watching another spark jump out.
"When green mantids cluster up, their intelligence increases. Not by leaps and bounds, just slightly, but the bigger part is, they could feel the ones around them screaming but were unable to reach out and touch them," he said. He was silent a moment. "I understand them, they understand me. Both of us, bred and created to merely serve, without any thought as to our souls."
He turned arounds, looking at Sacajawea.
"They are among the Digital Omnimessiah's most fervent believers, and one of humanity's staunchest allies," he said. He motioned at the tanks around them. "You have been gone a long time, little sister."
"And you, did you live through the forty-thousand years? What did you do?" Sacajawea asked.
Luke shook his head. "I retreated. After the War in Heaven and in Hell, after the Flashbang, I retreated," he said. "I spent most of my time at Atlantis, which led to me being more or less imprisoned, away from the galaxy."
He flashed a smile.
"At least I had the Detainee for company. She's an interesting conversationalist."
Sacajawea just sniffed, looking around. "What is that?" she asked, pointing at the lone Telkan, who had just straightened up from the tracks and was wiping his hands off with a rag.
"A Telkan. An full member species of the Confederacy, an ally to humanity, who took part in the War in Heaven," Luke said. He waved at the Telkan, who waved back, and went back to inspecting the vehicle.
"It looks like a fox," Sacajawea said.
Luke cut her off with a motion of his hand. "I swear to God, you start talking to me about how they obviously embody the trickster spirit of the fox and thus are untrustworthy I'll put you right back where I found you," he said sharply.
Sacajawea pursed her lips in irritation.
"You have to let go. Let go of your preconceived notions. Let go of all the old hurts. It's been eight-thousand years for you and forty-thousand for the universe," Luke said softly, turning back to running his hand over the armor on the tank. "Even Daxin could see that."
Sacajawea snorted. "Like Daxin ever saw anything that wasn't in the sights of his guns."
Luke turned around, his jaw clenched. "You don't speak bad about him in my presence again," he snapped, drawing himself up to full height. "Not now, not ever again," he leaned forward slightly. "You weren't here. You left us, the Digital Omnimessiah was dead, and we were all bereft," sparks jumped out from under his boots and under the palm that rested on the tank's armor. "True, I spent over a thousand years running from him, but he was still my brother. It hurt more than anything not to be at his side when he died."
Sacajawea looked around at the tanks and armored vehicles. "He fell on some battlefield," she said. It was less a question and more a statement.
Luke shook his head. "No. He died, in his sleep, surrounded by his family. His children, grand-children, and great-grand children. He was finally at peace," he sighed. "When he arrived in Afterlife, he waited patiently for his wife and even though I wanted to spend time with him," he sighed again. "It was time to let the Walking War Crime rest."
Luke turned and faced Sacajawea. "In your mind, we are still the same as we were," he said gently. He reached out and took her hand in his. "But that is no longer true. We grew, we set aside old differences, we set aside old hatreds, and we moved forward rather than holding tight to the past."
She sniffed, looking away, but not pulling her hand away. "I have seen the history. A history of lies that glosses over the crimes and bloodshed."
"Temporal warfare counter-measures," Luke said. "After The Glassing, history and culture was lost. It was rebuilt from oral tales and fragmented records."
"Lies," she said again.
"Weaponized," Luke said. He pulled his hand free, jamming both hands into his pockets. "It's protected Terra, protected everyone, even your people, more than once. When the Atrekna came, that was probably the only thing that saved our people," he stared at her. "Saved humanity."
"So they don't care about the truth?" she asked.
"What truth? That thousands of years ago an aggressive Mantid hive wrecked up Earth? Nobody cares any more," he said. "That's the thing about them. They aren't like us. We can easily remember the Glassing. For them, it's a few paragraphs in a history book they read in school. Maybe some scholars look at that era," he looked up at the lights. "For the majority of humanity, the Glassing is as far and remote as the light of the stars in the sky," he looked back down. "And that's a good thing."
"I do not understand you," Sacajawea said.
^{she never did
not like i do
luke}
"You never did," Luke said. "You never did. She eventually understood me."
^{that's right
i understand you}
"You cloned me without my consent," she accused. She crossed her arms. "I await your justifications."
Luke just smiled. "I did. I cloned you without your consent. I told your clone that it was a clone," he looked up. "Then the Imperium caught us, turned us into the Immortals. Used her as a seer to determine how to reach victory, but she held information back and Daxin, at the head of the Martial Orders of Terra, broke the Imperium over his knee."
He looked back down. "Afterwards, she worked tirelessly on the Terra Restoration Project. While I was busy running, she returned to Terra, sought out the survivors of her people, and helped them restore their lands and way of life."
Sacajawea looked away. "As did I."
Luke chuckled. "She used temporal lensing to look back into the past, see the reality of the old ways, watch the rituals and daily life of the ancestors, and restored them."
"Yet, the history books are full of lies," Sacajawea sniffed.
"After the Second Temporal War, she understood and embraced the counter-warfare protocols. She helped interweave your people into the tales," Luke said. "Was it all lies? Partly. Like the best ones, it had good heaping helping of truth hidden inside the metaphors and personifications of events."
"And where is she now?" Sacajawea asked, watching the Telkan inspect the running gears of the armored vehicle.
"She led the Sky Nebula Alignment fleet. She led our peoples, all our peoples, to someplace where our enemies would not find us," Luke said. He turned and ran his hand over the armor again. "I stayed behind. I never lost faith that the Digital Omnimessiah would return."
He lifted his palm and made small figure eights on the armor with his fingertips.
"I loved her, so I let her go," he said softly. "She had seen it was the only way our people would survive a coming darkness."
He looked at Sacajawea. "She was right."
Sacajawea looked at where Luke was making small figure eights with his fingers on the armor. "There is no good path for me to take. All of them are risky, most of them I will perish," she said. She reached out and took his hand. "My best chances for survival is to flee," she lifted his hand and grasped it with both of hers.
"Come with me. Let us leave. You can take us elsewhere, where we have a chance of survival," she tilted her head to encompass the vehicle bay. "Too many of these paths lead to both our deaths. There are too few that lead to a place where we both survive."
Luke delicately removed his hand from hers, using one hand to lift her fingers from her grip on his hand one by one.
"No."
Sacajawea frowned. "No? Together, we can go somewhere else where we have a better chance to stand up to whatever comes and have a possibility of triumphing at a later date," she waved at the armored vehicles. "This way, the way that Treana'ad commander is taking us, is rife with nothing but death and destruction."
Luke stared at her for a long moment.
"You never understood," he said softly. "Your desire, your drive, to save your people, and yourself, blind you to the things that must be done," he put one hand on the tank again. "That sometimes the only path forward to success is the one fraught with the most danger, hardship, and suffering."
He turned away and started walking deeper into the vehicle bay.
"She understood," he said softly.
"I am not her," Sacajawea said.
"Obviously."
Sacajawea just sniffed and turned away, leaving the bay.
^{your name is luke}
By the tank, Jaskel wondered why the hell they'd chosen that particular bay for their little spat.
He looked at 8814, who was still practially hopping from foot to foot with happiness.
"I'm glad you got to meet him," Jaskel said honestly.
--yes ┏(＾0＾)┛┗(＾0＾) ┓ yes--
0-0-0-0-0
Dhruv sat in the shadowy room, wearing a pair of exercise shorts, waiting.
Finally, he could smell cigarette smoke and a presence filled the room.
"What?" a voice asked from the shadows. The end of a cigarette brightened as a drag was taken off of it, briefly illuminating gun-metal gray eyes and severe cheekbones.
"I want a favor," Dhruv said.
He could feel the smile even if he couldn't see it.
"People in my care want ice water," the woman's voice commanded.
"I want you to look up SUDS records for me. I need you to process some of them so I can either talk to them or see their last moments," Luke said. He looked away from the glow of the cigarette. "Records from a long time ago."
"If I decide to do this, I'll need specifics," the woman said, exhaling smoke that curled into the figure of a man on his knees, face in his hand, sobbing.
"I'll provide them. They should be easy to find via their x, y, z, q coordinates," Luke said.
"Now for the big question," the woman said, chuckling.
"What?" Luke asked.
"Why should I help you?" the woman asked.
"Because I'm willing to make a deal with the Devil," Legion said.
This time he could see the glint of teeth in the smile.
^{your name is legion}
[First Contact] [Dark Ages] [First] [Prev] [Next] [wiki]

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Got this from an article in the times. It might be behind a paywall. Anyway the author Tiffany Murray grew up at Rockfield Studios in Wales. Many acts recorded there including Sabbath, Hawkwind, Queen etc. Her mother was a Cordon Bleu chef who would prepare food for the artists. I thought the sub might like this recipe they made for Lem:
Lemmy's Jack Daniel's Syllabub
Ingredients
• 1 pint double cream
• Cup caster sugar (if not more? I'm using Jack Daniel's, after all)
• Zest of 4 lemons
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 10 tbsp JD (or more; I didn't measure for Lemmy, but you don't want to end up with Irish coffee consistency)
• 60g of amaretto biscuit, crushed, plus extra to serve
Method
Throw all but JD and sugar into the Kenwood bowl with whisk. Now sugar, JD last. I made Lemmy come in and taste it. He'd almost ruin it by pouring more Jack Daniel's in. It was a rather unpleasant brown colour but at least I got him to eat some food.

This video shows the great views available from the Garfield Memorial balcony, although I'm fairly certain a telephoto lens was employed. Visitors definitely can benefit from binoculars!
<< After nearly ten months of work that shut down the President James Garfield Memorial in Lake View Cemetery, the final resting place of the 20th President is back open to the public.
This was the final phase of a $7 million three-phase project that started in 2016....
One of the highlights of the work has been the ability to re-open the upstairs balcony to the public, which had been closed for several years.
“So this is one of the coolest parts of the project: the upstairs balcony, which has been closed for years, is now open to the public. I’ve covered this story for years; I’m seeing it for the first time.”>>
https://www.news5cleveland.com/news/local-news/lake-view-cemeterys-garfield-memorial-reopens-to-the-public-after-ten-months-of-construction
Here's what one ecstatic visitor had to say:
<<“You can see Little Italy, you can see Cleveland Clinic, you can see the lake, downtown, Tower City, you can see everything Case, everything that has to do with the beginning of my family in the city. It’s all there.”
“This building is very important to me,” he added. “When people refer to this building, they always say, ‘Have you seen Garfield’s tomb?’ And I always tell them it’s not a tomb, it’s a castle with one of the best views of Cleveland.”
It’s been said that of all of the final resting places of American presidents, this is truly one of if not the most majestic, from the grandeur of Memorial Hall featuring the statue of Garfield, red granite columns and a gold mosaic ceiling to the crypt beneath containing the caskets of Garfield and his wife. >>
Kids, and adults, have a hard time grasping the reality that you can see the caskets of a deceased President of the United States and First Lady in the memorial. It's not want most persons imagine as a tomb.
Visitors to the memorial also should check out the life-size bas relief panels on the exterior celebrating Garfield's life.
https://case.edu/ech/articles/g/garfield-monument
Ironically, the Garfield Memorial dwarfs the Lincoln Tomb in Springfield, IL, in both size and majesty, likely reflecting the relative wealth of Cleveland in the 1880s, when it was the home of many titans of industry, who lived on Millionaire's Row, not far from Lake View Cemetery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield_Memorial
For Presidential tourists, the James A. Garfield National Historical Site in nearby Mentor also is excellent and a worthwhile visit.
This article has a more accurate view of the Cleveland skyline from the memorial balcony without any magnification. I wonder if the skyscrapers erected in University Circle, such as One University Circle, now block any good views from the balcony.
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/ohio/cleveland/james-a-garfield-memorial-cle/
Garfield was the last President born in a log cabin. A replica birthplace cabin can be viewed in Orange Twp.
https://www.nps.gov/jaga/planyourvisit/nearbyattractions.htm
Speaking of Cleveland wealth at the dawn of the industrial age, visitors to the Garfield Memorial should look to the left at the memorial entrance and take note of the large, white obelisk standing on an even higher hill. It marks the resting place of John D. Rockefeller, the richest man in American history as measured by the percentage of the nation's wealth controlled. Read about the Rockefeller family monument in the following thread.
https://www.reddit.com/Cleveland/comments/1bzuola/daffodil_hill_nearing_full_bloom_at_lake_view/
As noted in the above thread, Wade Memorial Chapel at Lake View Cemetery contains some of Louis Comfort Tiffany's most celebrated stained glass creations. The chapel is a memorial to Jeptha H. Wade, a founder of Western Union Telegraph Company, who also led the construction of the Garfield Memorial, and likely made a significant contribution to its construction. Clevelanders today perhaps most recognize Wade for his contributions to University Circle, such as Wade Oval, Wade Lagoon, and Wade family members were major early benefactors of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
<< In 1885, he donated 75 acres for the creation of Wade Park in University Circle. By 1960, it was estimated that the Wade family had donated over $25 million in Cleveland. The family has also donated a number of artworks to the Cleveland Museum of Art. >>
https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/380
Wade family philanthropic contributions to Cleveland probably exceeded $400 million in inflation-adjusted dollars. The current value of Wade family artifacts contributed to the CMA likely are in hundreds of millions, and it wouldn't surprise me if the value exceeded $1 billion.
https://thewadeproject.wordpress.com/about/
https://case.edu/ech/articles/w/wade-jeptha-homer-ii
https://www.clevelandart.org/about-collection/collection-areas/textiles
<<
If there’s one thing missing from the exhibition, it’s the delicious back-story of how some of the pieces on view were collected.
They were purchased in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Cleveland industrialist Jeptha H. Wade II, grandson of the founder of Western Union, who cruised the Mediterranean in his sleek steam yacht, the Wadena, snatching up artworks that he later donated to the museum, which he also helped to establish.>>
https://www.cleveland.com/arts/2013/06/the_cleveland_museum_of_arts_n.html
https://www.clevelandart.org/articles/opulent-fashion-church
For Cleveland visitors, one of the nation's best remaining Little Italy neighborhoods is just below (turn right at the cemetery's Mayfield Road entrance to the cemetery upon exiting it) the Garfield Memorial. Other nearby restaurants are discussed in this thread.
https://www.reddit.com/Cleveland/comments/1bql9wj/daffodil_hill_at_lake_view_cemetery_is_on_bloom/

[US-NY] [H] Vertex AngleR2, Smith+Rune Iron165R2, JOJO Studio R63, TACWORK T3R2, MoonKBD SAAG65, Neson N6 & many accessories [W] local or Venmo & PayPal Selling
Timestamp: https://imgur.com/a/VdBf5LG
Each keyboard has been themed, including a keycap set, a cable, even a mat! So prior to bundle sale.
Sold as cost price mostly.
I use both Venmo Goods & Services and PayPal Goods & Services.
Price in USD. CONUS shipping fee not included.
Can do international shipping for single-mode kits.
Please Comment before PM~

1. Vertex Studio, Angle80 R2, Acron

$450 (bundle); $400 (w/o extra), link: https://imgur.com/a/LtkK506
Condition: little patina mark on brass weight, and a weight protect film applied
Built with

• 1 solder PCB(F13, WK，6.25u, ANSI)
  
• 1 full alu plate (PCB stabilisers supported)
  
• PCB stabilisers (screw-in)
  
• JWK Iced Matcha switches(linear)
  
• factory accessories
  

Extra

• 1 Donut themed keycap set，PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry Profiles ($30)
  
• 1 Kodlab studio, IEM customized simplified aviator usb cable, brown coffee colorway, usb c to a, with a portable case ($20)
  
• 1 arylic wrist rest (free)
  
• 1 3rd carrying case (free)
  

1. Smith & Rune, Iron165 R2, Red

$445(bundle); $385 (w/o extra), Link: https://imgur.com/a/8qIJ8Y9
Condition: mint used
Built with

• 1 solder PCB (6.25u)
  
• 1 full alu plate (PCB stabilisers supported)
  
• PCB stabilisers (screw-in)
  
• Tecsee Neapolitan switches
  
• factory accessories
  

Extra

• Somind Persona 5 themed keycap set, PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry Profiles ($30)
  
• A PC/Anodized red wrist rest ($30)
  

1. JOJO Studio, R63, Anodized Red-Black(63-Keys)

$440(bundle); $345(w/o extra), Link: https://imgur.com/a/oiwXulo
Inspired by Valentine portable typewriter(designed by Ettore Sottsass in 1969), PCB gasket, PCB produced by Owlab
Conditon: just built, flawless
Built with

• 1 HW PCB (ISO, Splitted BS, Splitted spacer)
  
• 1 3rd Pink Alu plate(PCB-fixed stabilisers supported)
  
• PCB-fixed stabiliser (screw-in)
  
• Studio Roselle switches (linear, POM top housing + POM bottom housing + Y3 stem, 45g trigger force, 52g bottom-out force, 20.5mm single-staged spring pre-lubed, 2.5mm operating, 3.6mm travel)
  
• other factory accessories
  

Extra

• 1 Unused PCB (free)
  
• 1 Unused PC plate (free)
  
• 1 Unused sound form set (free)
  
• Geekerk brand, WOB red cyrllic themed keycap set, red cyrllic legends, ABS, Cherry Profiles (https://imgur.com/a/0r2ZbOZ) ($40)
  
• Tumbler studio brand, SPARTAN themed handmade coiled cyberpunk aviator usb-a to c cable, red-black colory way (https://imgur.com/a/gvVKbVY)($45)
  

(PET TPU cable, brass type-c port, Zn type-a port, alu XLR connector, black coating 304 SS weight stick and badge, with a portable case)

• xiAze brand Valentine Olivetti themed deskmat (red-black colorway) , new (https://imgur.com/a/7jcnRdO)($10)

1. TACWORK studio, T3R2, Gun & Rose limited Edition (Anodized Rose red & Grey-black)

$375(bundle; $345(w/o extra), Link: https://imgur.com/a/SVfeJhL
Inspired by Guns N' Roses, Plate gasket, enamel color filling, UV color printing, PVD SS logo, Tri-mode, Flex-cut PCB, Per key RGB
Conditon: just built, flawless
Built with

• 1 HW PCB (ANSI)
  
• 1 FR4 plate(PCB-fixed stabilisers supported)
  
• PCB-fixed stabiliser (screw-in)
  
• JERRZI Tech Mingyu Switches (silent linear, PC Upper+Bottom Cover, POM Axis, Initial pressure 34g±10g, Bottom pressure 45g±10g, 22m single segment extended spring, Conduction stroke 2.0±0.4mm, Total stroke: 3.7±0.4mm)
  
• other factory accessories
  

Extra

• 1 Unused PC plate (free)
  
• 1 Unused sound form set (free)
  
• Wukds brand, New Blood themed keycap set, Red-to-Black Gradient coloway, PBT, Cherry Profiles (https://imgur.com/a/HQbfuYB)($30)
  
• TACWORK studio Gun & Rose themed deskmat (red-black colorway) (https://imgur.com/a/GpXWGEZ) (free)
  

1. MoonKBD, SAAG65, Burgundy

$265(bundle); $235(w/o extra), https://imgur.com/a/356LbxR
Condition: just built
Built with

• 1 HW PCB (ANSI, 6.25u)
  
• 1 CF plate(PCB-fixed stabilisers supported)
  
• KBDfans PCB-fixed purple stabiliser
  
• LEOBOG Graywood V3 switches (linear)
  
• 70a O-ring
  
• other factory accessories
  

Extra

• 1 Unused alu plate (free)
  
• Blot themed keycap set, Burgundy colorway, Rune legends, PBT, Cherry Profiles (https://imgur.com/a/VYtfOld)($30)
  

1. Neson Design, N6, E-Yellow

Sold to u/th3insp3ct0r
$540(bundle); $500(w/o extra), Link: https://imgur.com/a/flXW7sW pending
Conditon: Mint used, flawless
Built with

• 1 Soldering PCB (ANSI, 6.25u)
  
• 1 FR4 plate(PCB-fixed stabilisers supported)
  
• PCB-fixed stabiliser (screw-in)
  
• Cherry HG Black switches (linear, 60g XL TX spring, switch foam added)
  
• other factory accessories
  

Extra

• 1 Unused PCB (free)
  
• 1 Unused PC plate (free)
  
• 1 Unused Alu plate (free)
  
• KONO Otuva brand, mint used, Cthulhu themed keycap set, Transparent Black w/Gold legends, PC, Cherry Profiles($20)
  
• Nuphy Twotone 65% wrist rest, tender yellow ($20)
  
• Emotoys brand sand colorway deskmat, new (free)
  

Wrist rests:

1. SAM brand, 80% Alu Keyboard Wrist Rest, Xmas edition, Coating Sparkle Blue with 11 pink color Chips; feet strips; Clear acrylic cover; 360×73×(10-20)mm; with original package (https://imgur.com/a/8A3cDVn), $80
   
2. Tabebuia ipe wooden Wrist Rest for 80% Keyboard, $15
   

Switches

1. Kailh brand, Crystal Burgundy Switches, 53g spring, factory lubed, 117 pieces, $55
   
2. Gateron brand, Aliaz Silent Tactile Switches, factory lubed, 90 pieces, $65
   
3. WUkds brand, Thorns switches, factory lubed, 70 pieces, $30
   
4. BSUN brand, Pom Glacier panda switches, 68 pieces, $40
   
5. XMI brand, Beige Switches, 90 pieces, $40
   
6. JERRZI Tech, frost porcelain Switches(large paragraphs in advance), 70 pieces, $30
   
7. JERRZI Tech, Mingyu Switches, 70 pieces, $30
   
8. JERRZI Tech, Demon Nezuko Kamado Switches, 70 pieces, $30
   
9. WPJ Studio, Diamond W1 Swithes, 105 pieces(35 pcs for each stem color), $60
   

Keycap sets

1. AKKO brand, never used, Starry Night themed set, Navy-blue w/Colorful legends, PBT, Double-Shot, Dye-sublimated, OSA Profiles, 185 keys, $55 (https://imgur.com/a/j7gxYRq)
   
2. ArmorSuit brand, never used, Dark Grey w/black Japanese legends, PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry Profiles, containing two alpha kits, $35 (https://imgur.com/a/sPQv8nz)
   
3. ArmourSuit brand, mint used, Eeemperor themed set, mily white-violet w/purple Japanese legends, PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry Profiles, containing two alpha kits, $30 (https://imgur.com/a/TIMdDR6)
   
4. Aliexpress, new, HUFFLEPUFF themed keycap set, black-yellow colorway, PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry Profiles, $35 (https://imgur.com/a/yQxRWPc)
   
5. Aliexpress, never used, Raindrop themed set, dye-sublimated, 4-side transparent, ASA Profiles, $15 (https://imgur.com/a/oYc0qqN)
   
6. Aliexpress, never used, Constellation themed, never used, grey-blue w/golden legends, PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry Profiles, $35 (https://imgur.com/a/06J65jD)
   
7. Aliexpress, never used, Dragon Ball GT Super Saiyan IV themed keycaps, Blue-red colorway, PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry profile, $20 (https://imgur.com/a/zcgyTQz)
   
8. Aliexpress, mint used, Dragon Ball Z Goku themed keycaps set, Milky white-red colorway, PBT, Dye-sublimated, OEM profile, $20 (https://imgur.com/a/2CnzDOK)
   
9. AlephKey brand, C64 Dark Side-print keycaps Set, PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry profile, $20 (https://imgur.com/a/42kWcsF)
   
10. Aliexpress, never used, Death Note themed keycaps set, Black-red-white colorway, PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry profile, $20 (https://imgur.com/a/ZFJ5evp)
    
11. Aliexpress, never used, Chasing the moon themed keycaps set, Teal-milky white-yellow colorway, PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry profile, $30 (https://imgur.com/a/HVUsoLU)
    
12. eEnjoyPBT & XMI, Mixed Classic Retro Red Cyrillic keycap set, PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry Profile, $35 (https://imgur.com/a/isem28P)
    
13. BAISHAN Studio, Red Rose themed keycaps, Red-milky white colorway, PBT, Dye-sublimated, Cherry profile, $30 (https://imgur.com/a/4VPU6A6)
    

Cables

1. IEM aviator usb cable, King of Lion themed golden color, Plated brass autolock connector, RGB supported, $55（https://imgur.com/a/SulkvXF）
   
2. Bieli brand, handmade coiled black aviator usb-a to c cable, colorful flash, RCA GX16 aviator connector，with weight stick, with a carrying case, $25 (https://imgur.com/a/qMlvDbC)
   
3. Shine Studio, handmade coiled cyberpunk themed aviator usb-a to c cable, gradient color, black SA10 WEIPU connector, with black coating surface weight stick, with transparent case, $30 (https://imgur.com/a/4qTzqIB)
   
4. Christmas Xmas themed handmade coiled aviator usb a-c & c-c cable, Green-Red colorway, with 2 weight sticks, RCA GX16 aviator connector, with a carrying case, $30 (https://imgur.com/a/eEy6Zf8)
   
5. Lufei brand, handmade coiled lilac aviator usb-a to c cable, LEMO autolock connector and chrome plated connector, with purple coating surface weight stick, 3 stages, with a carrying case, $35 (https://imgur.com/a/CgCaR1g)
   
6. Kodlab studio, IEM customized aviator usb cable, ice blue colorway, Silver Weipu SF10 connector, usb c to a, with a portable case, $35 (https://imgur.com/OlfkCAV)
   
7. Kodlab studio, IEM customized aviator usb cable, deep purple colorway, Silver Weipu SF10 connector, usb c to a, with a portable case, $39（https://imgur.com/a/vFrUDpt）
   
8. Geekcable, rubber coiled, Tiffany blue colorway, usb-c aviator cable, LEMO autolocker connector, $30 (https://imgur.com/a/FEPiAzG)
   

Aluminum-anodized screw trays(https://imgur.com/a/1KJ57Ct)

1. RC brand, Aluminum, anodized purple colorway, with screw size and length size measure scale, multi-section screw tray, $10
   
2. RC brand, Aluminum, anodized golden colorway, with screw size and length size measure scale, multi-section screw tray, $10
   

Please Comment before PM~ Thanks!

The post is locked because I know exactly what sort of response this will get from the deniers. I had to ban several people this week because I mentioned Covid in passing in a post and the deniers came charging out. How they find this sub I don’t know, but please note it’s an instant ban to post disinfo here, and nothing Annoys The Mod faster than vaccine disinfo. The lock here is just to save me from having to do a lot more bans. (If you find a problem in this post and can cite the issue, message me and I’ll fix it.)
Intro
Let’s do the history of Covid, in order to talk about the problems the US in particular has had managing it. Note I’m not going to cover origin – I have my suspicions but I don’t know, I think a few of the people who do are dead, and the US government itself never came to a conclusion.
So. Sometime early Dec 2019, it was becoming obvious that something bad was happening in China. Odd pneumonia deaths were spiking. The Chinese weren’t sharing a lot of information, but by the end of the month, flags were being raised everywhere. In January 2020, a mad scramble confirmed the worst: it was a novel coronavirus, and it was a killer.
Much of what follows is from https://www.cdc.gov/museum/timeline/covid19.html
A novel virus means, among other things, that people don’t have inherent immunity to it; the body has to start from scratch to generate a defense. This creates more problems than a simple variant of an existing disease and it put the WHO and all associated nations on high alert. What mattered now was two numbers: CFR (case fatality rate) and R0 (roughly, how easily it spreads). Both take large sample sizes to determine, so they were initially unknowns, but they are the most important things to determine for any disease. By 19 January it was obvious that R0 was going to be high: the disease was spreading rapidly and easily and had already reached 4 countries. The US started screening for it for flights from selected areas. Epidemiologists shifted from interest to concern to worry. It was too late… by 18 January it had reached the US (identified on the 20th). A few days later, a case popped up elsewhere in the US.
By 31 January, person to person spread had been confirmed in the US and quarantine measures began to be implemented.
Early testing for the virus was unreliable, but actual Covid-19 deaths were easy to count. By 10 February, Covid-19 had killed over 1,000 people worldwide, with some likely undercounting in China. People in epidemiological circles were openly predicting a pandemic. These were people who has studied the 1918 influenza pandemic and they knew how this could go. Governments started warning their population that lockdowns were coming. On 25 Feb, the CDC publicly announced the associated “disruptions may become severe.”
Yeah, no kidding.
By 11 March, there were over 4,200 Covid deaths worldwide. It was turning up everywhere, and the WHO formally declared a pandemic. By 13 March, it was declared a national emergency in the US.
The war against Covid was on.
---
Covid’s ascent
Ventilators were the primary defense against death in hospitals - there were no treatments - but they were in critically short supply from the start. Different US states established different criteria for who got ventilators. (Alabama, curiously enough, opted not to use them on mentally retarded people or folk with dementia, about as dark a decision as can be imagined. Other states chose criteria that tracked roughly with the odds of success.)
Work on a vaccine was in progress. The mRNA platform, originally intended for cancer research, had been shown in 2017 to be an effective antiviral platform, and work was begun to plan a phase 1 test on an mRNA nipah virus vaccine in 2019. The mRNA platform had ten years of development going for it and could be easily adapted to other viruses, but it was difficult to make it stable, and production and distribution would be a problem, even if it could be shown to be effective.
But Covid-19 was already taking off. A criteria was set: if the new vaccine could be shown to cut the hospitalization and death rate by 50%, it would be mass produced at government expense. 50% would have been considered good for a coronavirus vaccine. Influenza vaccines don’t always do that well.
In March, hydroxychlorquine was proposed as a possible mitigation. It would take a few months to determine if it helped, but standard antivirals were not working and a preliminary study with a small sample size indicated some effectiveness. (This turned out to be a mistake.) By 28 March, the FDA authorized an EUA stating that hydroxychlorquine could be attempted, but the CDC was demanding that it only be taken under a doctor’s supervision – unsupervised use of a form intended for fish had already killed someone. But the word has gotten out and people were trying it anyway.
In March, the CFR was estimated at around 3% - frighteningly high, but early estimates of CFR are notoriously unreliable and everyone in the field expected this to decline. It’s what got reported, though, without any caveats, a claim that came back to haunt epidemiologists, who were subsequently accused of fear mongering. R0 estimates were around 4 – also scary high, but also inaccurate.
Masks were in short supply everywhere and US agencies were trying to decide which doctors should get them (and got it wrong), while relegating the public to cloth masks. No one thought this was a great strategy but masks had to be reserved for doctors, because if we lost large numbers of doctors, the hospital system would crash and then the death toll would be enormous (and not just from Covid). No better solution was available, so the CDC suggested cloth masks be made at home. By April, cloth masks were a common sight. Hospitals were using freezer trucks as portable morgues in several cities.
By early April, the US opened a mass grave site for Covid deaths. As a chilling reminder of the 1918 pandemic, images of this were nightmare fuel for epidemiologists. Pressure increased to do something.
And the pandemic turned political. Then-president Trump declared he was cutting funding for the WHO because they hadn’t been clear about the threat (they had been); he did it mostly to deflect criticism away from himself - he’d been comparing Covid to the flu, even when he knew the situation was far worse. ( https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybee2020/09/10/all-the-times-/trump-compared-covid-19-to-the-flu-even-after-he-knew-covid-19-was-far-more-deadly )
Meanwhile, stories that Covid wasn’t real started to flood the social media, almost exclusively on right wing sites. Masks were touted as ineffective, mostly by people with a business interest in tourism and entertainment. The war on Covid was barely a month old, but politics were starting to drown out the messaging. Right wing pundits started insisting it was just the flu.
Pressure to reopen businesses became extreme. There is unproven speculation that this may have been a cynical attempt to increase infection rates in cities and among Democratic voters, who are often more heavily represented in customer-facing roles. (Better off folk were already telecommuting, after all.) But the desire to keep the markets going - stocks were already plunging - was the public reason to push businesses to reopen. Unemployment was rising.
By early May, the US unemployment rate was over 14%. A lot of the losses were in entertainment and tourism, but people were also fleeing heathcare, due to burnout and a high death rate among workers. Trump was pushing harder for businesses to reopen, even as the NIH was warning the Covid death counts were probably conservative and it was too early to reopen everything. This went down poorly with business owners, who expected the lockdowns to be short and painless. For the US right wing, lead by business interests, Fauchi became public enemy number 1.
The CDC already knew that much worse was to come; early estimates of 240,000 dead even if everything went perfectly were already looking like a pipe dream. Some models were estimating a million dead in the US, some were estimating far lower. There wasn’t good data available. But it was obvious that it wasn’t going to go well.
And where were the vaccines?
Not available yet. In testing. The FDA was running through all three phases of testing in parallel, but even running tests in parallel, it takes time.
In the short term, antivirals and antibody treatments were tried. But Remdesivir, an anti-viral that showed promise, was available in late June. Unfortunately, Gilead Science, the developer, decided that despite being given quite a lot of public funding to develop it, that it needed to be sold for over $3000 per course. Backlash against pharma began.
By July, the CDC was screaming that people needed to wear cloth face masks when leaving the home, and the WHO was actively warning people that airborne transmission is the confirmed primary spread mechanism. But anti-mask sentiment in the US had been whipped into high gear and entire regions of the US viewed it as a mark of pride not to wear them. Active cases in the US hit 1% of the population – over 3 million people. Attempts to flatten the curve, initially successful, had collapsed. Too many people were ignoring mitigation advice, and too many people misunderstood the point – flattening the curve doesn’t prevent cases, it just pushes them to the right on the timeline, so there’s more time to ramp up hospital support. As deaths mounted, pundits claimed that flattening the curve “hadn’t worked.” It had – it pushed off the tsunami of cases a few months - but the tsunami eventually arrived.
In July, Herman Cain died of Covid. He'd been an active right wing denier of the disease's severity and had spread misinformation and mocked mitigations, including publicly attending a Trump rally in June without a mask. For reasons best described as unclear, his staff continued to post on his Twitter account after his death, and within a month "It looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be" appeared there. This made his name synonymous with the blind, rabid attempts of the MAGA crowd to dismiss Covid as a risk, and as of April 02024, HermanCainAward remains an active subreddit with 493,000 members. The number of right wing pundits who mocked Covid and then subsequently died of it became noteworthy; I kept a rough count early on and came up with 14 before I gave up. It was no real surprise - a lot of them were desk jockeys with health issues to begin with and they were avoiding masks and doing public gatherings.
By July 02020, hospitals were overloaded and people weren’t always able to get treatment; people were dying at home, sometimes uncounted, and spread was accelerating. But trolls were still claiming Covid victims were crisis actors and masks didn’t work. Stupidity, in short, became the second pandemic. https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2020/08/30
Vaccine testing was going well, but no one was going to suggest cutting any steps out of the testing process, so even as people were dying, it was not released. A little known fact: nowhere in the FDA phase test protocols is there any mention of how long the tests should take. It’s not based on time at all, it’s based on sample size and other factors. Finishing the phases can be slow because funding has to be raised for testing (testing is not cheap) and there’s often little incentive to do vaccines quickly – people get sick, so what – if it’s not going to make a lot of money. So verification often drags out pointlessly for months or years, waiting for the dollars to show up.
This time, though, governments were footing the bill for the testing, and they requested that all three phases of testing be run in parallel – a little riskier for the test volunteers, but there was no time to waste. With that, there were no delays left – just frantic attempts to get volunteers, monitoring for the few weeks needed to get results, rinse and repeat. Because in the end you need a big sample size to complete the protocol, and you only have so many people to collect and process results, it still takes time. But it never had to take years, and this time it wasn’t going to.
But it still takes months. And if the result wasn’t a 50%+ reduction in deaths, was all going to be for naught. That was the requirement for distribution.
By August, there were 5.4 million active cases and people were dying at a rate of 1,000 per day.
On 24 August , hopes that Covid was a one-and-done disease were shattered – a patient got his second case of Covid. There had never been much hope for Covid being a one shot disease, but this corrected it to no hope. Covid, epidemiologists wrote, was going to be with us forever.
By the end of September, the worldwide death count from Covid was over 1 million. It had happened in just ten months.
In October, New Zealand declared Covid beaten – they were Covid free, due to some truly impressive and draconian policies on quarantine and limiting travel into the country. They proved that if a nation was willing to do what it takes and come together, the disease could be controlled. (The downside was that locals who were outside of the country when the quarantine was enacted were often effectively exiles, as getting back in was difficult.) The US, meanwhile, was still seeing social media posts about how masks makes Covid worse, or how Covid doesn’t exist at all, how testing is a sham… I got asked by an overseas friend why the US was acting like the village idiot. I didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say.
Also in October, the Delta variant of Covid was discovered in India. It got off to a slow start, but spelled trouble ahead.
On 4 November, the US recorded 100,000 new cases in 24 hours. Two weeks after Halloween, US cases spiked higher – evidence that indoor gatherings without masks are the primary vector of spread. And long Covid was finally being discussed.
Things could not have looked grimmer.
---
Counterstrike
16 November, 2020: Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is determined to be 95.4% effective in its clinical trial at preventing serious disease, hospitalization and death.
People had hopes, but no one expected this. The goal had been 50%. In the next week, Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine came in at 95% effective.
That week, the US caseload went past 11 million, but all eyes were on the vaccines. Manufacture and distribution were the next hurdles – the vaccines have to be kept cold or they degrade rapidly – but with the current rate of death, money was no object.
On 23 November, the FDA issued an EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) for a new antibody treatment. This helped, but antibody treatments tended to be specific to variants and much less effective when new variants appeared.
On 3 December, the recommendation came out that healthcare workers should be prioritized for vaccine distribution, the strongest signal yet that the vaccine was considered safe and release was imminent.
On 11 December, nearly a year after the disease had been identified, an EUA was given for the first Covid-19 vaccine, for people aged 16 and older. The first person in the US to receive vaccination (outside of the thousands who participated in clinical trials) was on 14 December. The EUA for Moderna’s version is on 18 December.
Then Tiffany Dover happened. She was a nurse who volunteered to get the vaccine during a livestream, to boost confidence in the vaccine. She was not a good choice. She was prone to fainting spells, and shortly after the vaccine was administered, she fainted on camera. It had nothing to do with the vaccine, but immediately it blew up social media. Trolls swarmed the story, demanding that she wasn’t prone to fainting spells because nurses weren’t… if you want to see the shitshow that followed, look at the comments on this video about the incident: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9agUz5cQCk. It’s a troll zoo. What followed was worse – demands that she’d died immediately after. She was (and is) of course alive and well, but this became the basis of a fearmongering campaign driven by multiple sources trying to discredit American vaccines, the media, the government… for months. (She’s been interviewed since, and some trolls are still demanding she’s dead or even if she isn’t, it’s all lies anyway.)
It didn’t matter that the vaccine has been tested on over 43,000 people during phase 3 testing and the typical adverse effect was a headache. A pretty young girl was murdered by the vaccine is how this got spun.
Healthcare workers knew better. By 24 December, a million people in the US have been vaccinated, almost entirely healthcare workers. Production was still struggling to produce in bulk.
The timing could not have been closer. On 29 December, the first case of the more-contagious Alpha variant is detected in the US. The critical question became how effective the vaccine was in reducing spread – not the original goal, but with cases exploding, an important one.
22 January 2021, the Gamma variant was detected in the US. The R0 is unknown, but the speed at which variants are showing up confirms everyone’s worst fears. New variants might be able to dodge the vaccine, as happens yearly with influenza. On 28 January, Beta shows up in the US as well.
By the end of January, over 23 million vaccinations had been performed in the US. But the worldwide case count was over 100 million. The race was on.
On 27 February, the J&J one-shot vaccine is given an EUA. There was a lot of hope for this vaccine because it did not need to be boosted to be effective. It proves to be an ill-founded hope.
On 8 March, the CDC announces that fully vaccinated people can safely gather with other full vaccinated people without masking. They're accused of flip-flopping, and they’d come to regret that announcement as new variants show up.
Meanwhile, Europe was examining claims that one of the vaccines was causing blood clotting. This becomes a widely spread story, but on 18 March it was determined that they did not find a link between the vaccines and clotting, that any such risks were far outweigh by the benefits of vaccinations, and vaccinations proceeded again in most countries. (Something similar happened in the US in April – 6 reports of severe clotting were reported among users of the J&J vaccine, and distribution was briefly halted. On review, the distribution was continued.)
On 29 March the CDC announced announcement that the mRNA vaccines were highly effective at preventing infection. Unfortunately, on 2 April, the then-head of the CDC got carried away and announced that the vaccine stopped transmission. This was a serious overstatement – the best data at the time was that it was about 90% effective at stopping transmission of the original strain, which was wonderful, but it was not the absolute guarantee her words implied. Epidemiologists were enraged. No vaccine has ever completely prevented infection or transmission and the Covid vaccines were not an exception.
Worse, Delta was just starting to emerge as the dominant variant, and Delta had a higher R0. By 1 June it was well established as the dominant variant in the US, and the vaccine was not as effective at blocking transmission. (It would do even worse against Omicron.) It rapidly became obvious that the CDC had overpromised, and this became a huge talking point in right wing circles. This turns into a PR disaster for the CDC, and trust in the CDC declined as a result.
Delta was not to be trifled with. By April 30, India, which did not have effective vaccine distribution and had loosened restrictions, was seeing 3,500 deaths a day, and this is considered a severe undercount. Funeral pyre smoke was visible from space. (Trolls online claimed the photos of the pyres were faked and the deaths weren’t real.) When wood for the pyres ran out in some regions, bodies were dumped into rivers. The full death toll will never be known.
By 27 July, Delta’s surge causes the CDC to go back to recommending masking for everyone. This becomes another right wing talking point, as they point to the the fact that the CDC keeps “changing its mind”. The fact that different variants had different properties was left out of those talking points.
The head of the CDC received death threats, which continued until she resigned.
Meanwhile, a debate was raging about whether “natural immunity” – the incorrect name given to people who had had Covid-19 and were deemed relatively safe from reinfection – was better than protection offered by the vaccine. On 6 August, the CDC released data showing that vaccinated is more than twice as effective at preventing reinfection than infection itself – but it subsequently turns out that neither offers very long term protection.
Trolls were swarming youtube comments and other social media; the fact they are trolling is obvious, because while the vast majority of Americans are very much in favor of the new vaccines and are very aware of the risks of Covid, comments on youtube (by my own count in August) are disinformation over 96% of the time. The lies are so varied it's hard to keep track of them all. People were posting that Covid testing was unreliable and prone for false positives, masks were ineffective, Covid was a government plot, mitigations were a government plot to take away citizen freedoms (an idea stolen from a WEF paper warning that pandemics might be used an as excuse to limit freedoms, not a suggestion that it happen), that new Covid variants were being manufactured and deliberately released, the Covid vaccines contained demon blood, aborted baby blood, alien DNA, toxic mercury, or nanobots; that the ingredient list is a secret, that vaccinations shed mRNA to nearby people, that vaccines cause Covid, that vaccination records are the Mark of the Beast, that mRNA vaccines modify DNA... absolutely none of it true, but all of it is repeated endlesson on every news story and post about Covid. Some of these troll farms were eventually traced to China, Russia, and the Republican party. https://mediaengagement.org/research/social-media-influencers-and-the-2020-election/ There is no question that the trolls are coordinated - comments on stories followed very discernible waves where a certain disinfo topic would run everywhere for a week, then a another topic would replace it.
One of the most persistent disinfo claims was that the Covid vaccine isn't a vaccine at all because it doesn't "prevent disease." The trolls fail to mention that no vaccine has ever "prevented disease"; the best known vaccine is for measles and it's 96% effective if all three doses are given. Nothing has ever been 100%, but the trolls hammer the point repeatedly, which causes a split with anti-vaxxers who had been demanding that all vaccines are bad. This does make it easier to tell who's politically motivated vs who's just ignorant about science, but in the end it just encouraged vaccine hesitency in general, which subsequently causes a measles bloom.
On 24 September, the CDC announces that schools which required masking throughout the pandemic were a third as likely to have Covid outbreaks. This does nothing to silence the “masks are ineffective” trolls, who are dominating social media with disinformation about vaccine issues and mask ineffectiveness. Some are claiming the masks cause penumonia and that's what's really killing people. This is at variance with the fact that the majority of deaths are occurring in the unmasked population.
Zoonotic spread had been a question since the early days of the pandemic and the debate over how Covid was initially spread. The lab leak theory conpeted with the zoonotic transfer theory and no conclusion was ever reached. But on 3 November, the CDC released data showing that transmission between animals and humans was documented, and hundreds of animals had been infected. Subsequently, mink and deer were found to be disease reservoirs.
Bot generated downvotes on Covid stories and factual comments become so common that Youtube hides public downvote counts, causing howls of protest from trolls groups who were being paid to downvote.
And then came Omicron. On 19 November, the CDC recommended an additional booster shot for everyone, to head off the expected Omicron surge. The J&J vaccine is no longer one-and-done. The definition of “fully vaccinated” becomes blurry. By 1 December, omicron is in the US. By 16 December, omicron is determined to be about 1.6 times as transmissible as Delta. R0 is getting harder to measure because the vaccine knocks down transmission, but even so the R0 is judged to be about 3.4. Claims that it’s over 18, which would have made it more contagious than measles, are debunked, but still add to the confusion. But at 3.4, it’s wildly contagious and caused exponential growth.
By 3 Jan 02022, the US reports over a million new cases in one day. Omicron’s transmission advantage has overwhelmed containment attempts; just entering in a room after someone with Covid has left can be a risk factor.
The vaccine still holds up quite well at preventing death.
Meanwhile, ivermectrin has gained attention as the new quack cure. In early January, it’s determined that prisoners in an Arkansas jail have been fed ivermectrin and hydroxychloroquine without consent. It caused nausea and didn’t cure anyone’s Covid, but the news is a start reminder that some doctors don’t listen to medical guidance and are willing to roll the dice. Ivermectrin misuse caused a threefold increase in calls to poison control centers.
By early February, it’s shown that Omicron has gone from a 1% incidence rate to 99% in just six weeks in the US. It out-competes everything.
Reports surface that ivermectrin overdoses are stripping intestinal linings surface; people claim they are pooping out "rope worms" but it's actually often their own intestinal linings. As a testament to the ability of people to self-diagnose and self-medicate (a popular topic with preppers) this stands alone as a reason not to play doctor.
China has been instituting lockdowns since the beginning, and they add new ones on 14 March as Omicron makes the rounds there. Several manufacturers close up shop, causing worldwide supply chain issues.
On 24 March, the CDC reviews excess death numbers in the US. To no one’s surprise for 2019-2020, excess deaths rose 19% after the onset of the pandemic - the largest increase in over a century. Claims of crisis actors faking Covid deaths are finally gone; it’s nearly impossible to find anyone who doesn’t know someone dead of Covid in the US as the death toll approaches one million.
Florida – a source of copious amounts of faked Covid statistics and disinfo – strikes down a mask mandate involving public transportation on 18 April. Given Florida’s misreported data, it’s not possible to determine how much difference this made.
North Korea reports 3.27 million so-called “fever patients” in late May. Seeing as by April 2024 they only reported 74 Covid deaths, it’s safe to assume we’ll never see accurate numbers.
In May 02020, the US crossed 1 million dead to Covid.
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Wrap up
We’ll skip ahead here.
In December of 2023, China suddenly opted to end all Covid restrictions. Numbers out of China are not to be believed, but it’s estimated they lost at least 2 million people in a few months as a result. They had their own vaccine which was believed not to be as effective as mRNA vaccines, and vaccine uptake may have been a problem in rural China. They simply decided to let it rip.
In 2023, trolls are trying to demand that long Covid is vaccine damage, not from Covid itself.
In 2024, it’s estimated that unvaccinated people have about 10-14 times the risk of death as vaccinated people, and this includes people who are not current on boosters. And despite claims, evidence of clotting is vanishingly rare (about 1 in 200000) and myocarditis is under 1 in 100000. Both conditions are far, far higher from Covid itself. But they remain right wing talking points.
The talking points kill people. By late 2021, Covid was becoming a red state problem. Vaccine and mask hesitancy in rural red state areas gave them increased hospital and death rates. Typically you’d expect cities to concentrate deaths of a pandemic, so most deaths would be in blue areas; and pre-vaccine, that was true. But by the end of 2021, vaccination and masking were widely adopted by left leaning folk and often avoided by right leaning folk, with hideous results: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10684792/ and specifically a graph here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/core/lw/2.0/html/tileshop_pmc/tileshop_pmc_inline.html?title=Click%20on%20image%20to%20zoom&p=PMC3&id=10684792_gr3.jpg
Attempts by the Republican party to curb anti-vaccination rhetoric fail; they discovered too late that they were disproportionally losing voters to Covid, but when Trump tries to take credit for the vaccine his audience boos him. The right has lost control of the Frankenstein they helped create, with the result that measles is making a resurgence in the US.
It’s not unreasonable to believe that Tucker Carlson’s “maybe the vaccines don’t work at all” comment killed a few hundred thousand people in the US alone. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/ap15/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlson-falsely-claims-covid-19-vaccines-mi/
Unfortunately, you can’t be tried in the US for deliberate lies that kill people. Which is a pity; we’d see less bullshit. In court, Carlson literally depended on “no reasonable person would believe what I say” as his defense.
It’s also worth noting that all the claims that were made in social media about the horrors of vaccination: it would modify DNA, you’d grow extra limbs, you’d become a puppet of the deep state/WEF via 5G, you’d end up possessed, you’d turn gay or become infertile, you’d get “turbo-cancer”, you’d drop dead after 1 years/2 years/3 years… none of it happened, and since there’s a 42 day window on vaccination side effects, none of it will. If you believed any of those claims… well, you’re a fool. And you should distrust your sources, because they told you all those things and none of it turned out to be real.
Disinfo is lethal. There’s a reason I ruthlessly ban people in this sub who do not present the reality of vaccine risk and effectiveness here. I don’t much like murderers.
So what is to be done?
On social media, block anti-vaccine people and people who post miniformation. If they are friends, let them know why you're cutting off contact; if they are strangers, just block silently. Many people are paid to do this and as their audience shrinks, they might lose revenue. The goal is to isolate and starve the beast.
If you cannot cut off contact, demand they cite every single claim. The weak point of disinfo is that there's never a creditable cite; it turns into "I heard from my cousin that his girlfriend" stories, or links to places like Newsmax or Telegram and people with no credentials. Ultimately the demand for cites backs them into a corner and they'll resort to "you can't trust scientists/media/government/doctors" at which point they've lost all credibility. It's not easy to defend the position that something their cousin heard from his girlfriend has more weight than an organization like Reuters or AP news, which has a reputation for accuracy to defend.
Keep in mind that, increasingly, online strangers are AI bots. This is a problem because they are cheap to run and well funded by state actors. We're already approaching 50% of all internet traffic being bot-generated. All you can do here is keep your circle of authors to known humans and friends and ignore anyone you don't recognize and can't verify.
Covid has been relegated to epidemic status. But stupidity and disinfo are raging world-wide pandemics. Your block function is your mask, posting actual verifiable data is vaccination, and your demand for cites are alcohol wipes. Do what you can to limit the spread.

Night 1

• 1- WWE Women's World Championship- Rhea Ripley (c) vs Bianca Belair (Rhea & all of Judgment Day get drafted to Smackdown with Belair staying on Smackdown...Rhea's title reign continues throughout the year and she's coming up on almost 2 years as WWE Women's World Champion; Belair wins a #1 Contenders Elimination Chamber Match to get this opportunity at Rhea)
  
• 2- 6 Man Ladder Match for the WWE Intercontinental Championship- Kevin Owens (c) vs Sami Zayn vs Santos Escobar vs Andrade vs Carmelo Hayes vs LA Knight (Owens here would dethrone Sami Zayn for the IC Title and in the process turns heel on Sami and has held on to it ever since taking on all comers but now is being forced to defend his title against 5 other guys in a Ladder Match; the IC Title would be a Smackdown title because in the Draft Zayn would get drafted to Smackdown)
  
• 3- Grudge Match- Singles Match- Gunther vs Ilja Dragunov (Dragunov would end up losing the NXT Title at some point during the year and after that ends up on the main roster and he is targeted by none other than his former nemesis Gunther especially after Gunther offers Dragunov a spot in Imperium as their 4th member but Dragunov refuses; rivalry reignited)
  
• 4- First Time Ever- John Cena vs Logan Paul (Singles Match; this would culminate at Royal Rumble 2025 where Cena and Paul would be in the Men's Royal Rumble Match and Cena eliminates Logan; Logan in bad sportsmanship attacks Cena and throws him over the top rope as payback; brawl ensues and in the build up Paul would also cost John Cena a spot at Mania by getting into the Chamber somehow and hitting Cena with his signature brass knuckles and for good measure hits Cena with his own move the AA)
  
• 5- Smackdown Team Championship- Fatal 4 Way- DIY (Tommaso Ciampa & Johnny Gargano) (c) vs The Creed Brothers vs The Street Profits vs Imperium (Kaiser & Vinci)
  
• 6- WWE Women's Championship- Tiffany Stratton [2025 Women's Royal Rumble Match winner; Tiffy Time...she makes her WrestleMania decision and chooses Charlotte Flair] vs Charlotte Flair (c) (Charlotte dethrones Bayley to become a 15 Time WWE Women's Champion on RAW and does so as a heel in her return and holds on to the gold; Stratton is also a heel but in the build up is more of a babyface)
  
• 7- Main Event for Night 1- WWE Universal Championship- Randy Orton [2025 Men's Elimination Chamber Match winner] vs Cody Rhodes (c) (Legacy vs Legacy; former Legacy members going at it at WrestleMania in the main event)
  

Night 2 Card

• 1- Celebrity vs Wrestler- Bad Bunny vs Dominik Mysterio
  
• 2- Singles/Grudge Match- Jade Cargill vs Becky Lynch
  
• 3- Triple Threat Match for the World Heavyweight Championship- CM Punk [2025 Men's Royal Rumble Match winner] vs Drew McIntyre (c) vs Seth Freakin Rollins (Drew would end up beating Priest for the World Heavyweight Championship which would be a RAW title per Draft at Clash at the Castle...Priest would end up being moved to Smackdown after losing his title and McIntyre would be Champion ever since taking on all comers including Punk at SummerSlam where McIntyre would cheat to beat Punk to retain; Rollins gets involved by interjecting himself into the Match somehow and it ends up a Triple Threat)
  
• 4- Ladder Match to crown the first ever inaugural WWE Women's Intercontinental Champion- Liv Morgan vs Bayley vs Iyo Sky vs Dakota Kai vs Alexa Bliss vs Roxanne Perez
  
• 5- WWE United States Championship- Austin Theory (c) vs Bron Breakker
  
• 6- RAW Tag Team Championship- The Usos (reunited tag team) (c) vs Solo Sikoa & Jacob Fatu
  
• 7- Hell in A Cell Match- Damian Priest (heel) vs Finn Balor (babyface; Balor gets kicked out of Judgment Day and the other members turn on him basically beating the holy hell out of him; Balor becomes a babyface once again for the first time in years...he wants Priest in not just any Match...he wants him inside Hell in A Cell)
  
• 8- Main Event for Night 2- Bloodline Rules- The Rock (Final Boss; heel) w/Paul Heyman vs Roman Reigns (babyface; Reigns is kicked out of his own Bloodline by The Rock as Rock has basically taken ownership/leadership of The Bloodline away from Roman per the elders of their family while Roman was off licking his wounds; Rock basically gets the other family members to turn on Roman and Heyman also turns on Roman and aligns himself with The Rock; Reigns a man without a family)
  

Episode Link
The internet is in decay. Do a Google search, and there are so many websites now filled with slapdash content contorted just to rank highly in the algorithm. Facebook, YouTube, X and TikTok all used to feel more fun and surprising. And all these once-great media companies have been folding or shedding staff members, unable to find a business model that works.
And into this weakened internet came the flood of A.I.-generated junk. There’s been a surge of spammy news sites filled with A.I.-generated articles. TikTok videos of A.I.-generated voices reading text pulled from Reddit can be churned out in seconds. And self-published A.I.-authored books are polluting Amazon listings.
According to my guest today, Nilay Patel, this isn’t just a blip, as the big platforms figure out how to manage this. He believes that A.I. content will break the internet as we know it.
“When you increase the supply of stuff onto those platforms to infinity, that system breaks down completely,” Patel told me “Recommendation algorithms break down completely. Our ability to discern what is real and what is false breaks down completely. And I think, importantly, the business models of the internet break down completely.”
Patel is one of the sharpest observers of the internet, and the ways technology has shaped and reshaped it. He’s a co-founder and the editor in chief of The Verge, and the host of the “Decoder” podcast. In this conversation, we talk about why platforms seem so unprepared for the storm of A.I. content; whether an internet filled with cursory A.I. content is better or worse than an internet filled with good A.I. content; and if A.I. might be a kind of cleansing fire for the internet that enables something new and better to emerge.
Mentioned:
Help us win a Webby Award
“Scenes from a dying web” by Casey Newton
“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin
Book Recommendations:
The Conquest of Cool by Thomas Frank
Liar in a Crowded Theater by Jeff Kosseff
Substance by Peter Hook
Everything I Need I Get From You by Kaitlyn Tiffany
Extremely Hardcore by Zoe Schiffer
Beyond Measure by James Vincent

hey y'all 🦎, I'm a huge fan of the show and after watching the past few seasons live, I decided that while watching Season 46 , I would document my thoughts on the episodes and players. I've also been listening to the On Fire Podcast and any RHAP episodes about the season. here is everything I have written so far for Season 46 Episodes 1-5 , including some pre-season predictions!! (WARNING: I'm a stoner with a potty mouth so there is a lot of cursing and a lot of random run on sentences and things that may not quite make sense, feel free to comment any questions!)
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TRIBES: (⭐-Winner Picks ❤️-Favorites) 💚SIGA (green tribe) °Tim ❤️ °Jem °Charlie °Moriah ⭐ °Maria °Ben ❤️
💜YANU (purple tribe) °Q °Kenzie °Jelinsky ❤️ °Tiffany ⭐ °Bhanu °Jess
🧡NAMI (orange tribe) °Randen °Soda °Hunter ⭐ °Venus °Tevin ⭐ °Liz ❤️
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Pre-Season Predictions based off of the short videos posted of each castaway on survivorcbs Instagram the weeks before premiere
💜Tiffany (33 yrs old/Yanu/Purple) - definitely a favorite already , I'm hoping late jury but probably not final 3
💚Charlie (26 yrs old/Siga/Green) - he's going to be so much of an ally to everyone that theyll be annoyed with him , pre-merge boot if his tribe goes to tribal council (&looking at Siga they might)
🧡Venus (24 yrs old/Nami/Orange) - I like her but I don't know if she'll have the physical game to keep her safe , Nami tribe looks strong so she could go far if she can make it to merge
🧡Tevin (24 yrs old/Nami/Orange) - LOOOOVE , if he can't manage his threat level they will boot him FAST if anybody catches on that he could be another YamYam , TOP THREE WINNER PICK
💚Maria (48 yrs old/Siga/Green) - either early jury or zero vote finalist
🧡Randen (41 yrs old/Nami/Orange) - possibly finds an advantage and blows up his own game early or makes it mid jury as a huge blindside
💜Kenzie (29 yrs old/Yanu/Purple) - could be a big social threat or not really important to the season at all , she compared herself to two winners which seems wayyy too cocky , most likely pre-merge
💜Bhanu (41 yrs old/Yanu/Purple) - I like him as a guy but I don't think he'll go far , probably will be one of the two merge boots to not make the jury
🧡Soda (27 yrs old/Nami/Orange) - seems similar to Maryanne in a way , could be a finalist , might be sent to the jury as a big threat by a close ally (Tevin??)
💜Jelinsky (22 yrs old/Yanu/Purple) - I like this guy , I think he's going to be a great comedic person this season , It would be great to see him go far but probably is early jury
🧡Liz (35 yrs old/Nami/Orange) - legit might be a huge threat , either voted out as big threat , fails at final tribal and gets no votes , or wins the whole thing outright
💚Tim (31 yrs old/Siga/Green) - he's super intriguing , if people don't catch him as the strategic threat he obviously is Id really enjoy him winning I think , fallen angel taken out at fire
💜Jess (37 yrs old/Yanu/Purple) - ugh this was the only interview that genuinely annoyed me , I'm HOPING she's voted out pre merge but Yanu tribe looks pretty strong
🧡Hunter (28 yrs old/Nami/Orange) - seems like an actually genuine dude , I think he's got all three qualities to win this game but he MUST find an advantage AND manage his threat level HEAVILY , TOP THREE WINNER PICK
💚Moriah (28 yrs old/Siga/Green) - another BIG threat , really seems like she's here to play and will take ANY risk to make it to the end , could actually create a successful woman's alliance ?!?!? TOP THREE WINNER PICK
💜Q (29 yrs old/Yanu/Purple) - definitely will be seen as a big threat by everyone , seems very adaptable but was super cocky in the video , mid jury or mergetory boot
💚Jem (32 yrs old/Siga/Green) - not very impressive to me , I would say pre merge but who knows
💚Ben (31 yrs old/Siga/Green) - seems like a silly goofy guy (neurodivergent character fr) but what else are you gonna do besides follow your gut ? probably pre-merge but I really hope he surprises me
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🦎EPISODE 1 - This Is Where The Legends Are Made🦎
Overall Episode Notes : absolutely FANTASTIC start of a season , Tevin opening and being the literal main character immediately was exactly everything I could every want , Jeff's opening speech was SO great !!! already we got to know something about every player personally & TIFFANY FOUND A FUCKING IDOL
Vote Out : I am so disappointed in Jelinsky's epic flop of a game , he was one of my favorites going into this :(( as soon as he started getting cocky I knew it would head south , but after seeing him QUIT the sweat challenge with Q , my opinion of him immediately changed. seeing him aggressively want to go on the journey and then giving up once AGAIN at the Torch/Vote/Skull game?? (giving Tevin & Maria Extra Votes) like c'mon man ! Yanu lost immunity and we saw them do the back & forth of "do we keep the tribe strong & vote out Jess?" or "we don't trust Jelinsky, he needs to go". Going into tribal I thought for sure Jess would be the first out , but Jelinsky couldn't save himself against Jeff's questioning, losing his own vote, and the rest of his tribe not trusting him to play well & oh yeah ... TIFFANY FOUND AN IDOL
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Player Ranking by Tribe : Name / ❤️ - favorite (Advantage) / (Confession Count)
🧡NAMI: 1. Tevin !!! ❤️❤️❤️ (Extra Vote) (7) 2. Hunter ❤️ (2) 3. Soda ! (5) 4. Venus (3) 5. Liz (2) 6. Randen (2)
💚SIGA: 1. Ben ❤️ (3) 2. Maria !!! (Extra Vote) / (5) 3. Moriah (3) 4. Charlie (8) 5. Jem (3) 6. Tim (4) (bottom half is pretty interchangeable right now)
💜YANU: 1. Tiffany !!! (Hidden Immunity Idol) (9) 2. Bhanu ❤️ (9) 3. Kenzie (5) 4. Q (4) 5. Jess (4) 6. ❌Jelinsky❌ (several/7)
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🦎EPISODE 2 - Scorpio Energy🦎
Pre Challenge : 💜YANU: lots of moments with Kenzie , big mistake honestly to try and work with Bhanu & Jess and it did sort of back fire , interested to see if Kenzie & Tiff will split & Q will be in the middle again 💚SIGA: great Charlie development this episode , I loved them including the music song battle between him and Ben and that was a great way not just for them to bond but for the whole tribe to bond. that's really what's keeping them winning is their tribe morale. I think the pairing of Charlie and Maria could be really , really great , they are already in the middle so working together is a great idea but if they get swapped away from each other either one of them could go earlier than expected 🧡NAMI: Randen!!! awesome job to him on finding the idol , even better job and working from the bottom and trying to solidify at least something with Venus. I'm not really sure if I like either of them necessarily but they're not playing too terribly considering they are on the outs but their tribe hasn't had to go to tribal yet. no fucking idea what Liz is trying to do honestly. liking Soda a little less and less the more I see how she's acting out at challenges
Challenge : absolutely fucking CRAZY GOOD challenge!!! the FIGHT that everyone put in was insane , had no idea who was going to pull it together. it was so intense that they went to fucking commercial break in the middle of challenge. PESRISTENCE ❤️
Tribal & Vote Out : I personally don't think that Tiffany , Kenzie & Q needed to go so hard at trying to get Jess to find & play their fake hidden Immunity Idol , it was a little villainous for sure which I can respect but she already knew she was on the outs and going home and it probably did hurt her feelings. Bhanu is his own worst enemy in this game omg he needs to practice sitting at tribal and not saying shit or else he's going to lose any chance of having allies. he could seriously benefit from a swap right now where he could make new relationships away from TKQ and learn from his mistakes so far
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Player Ranking By Tribe : Name / ❤️ - favorite (Advantage) / (Confession Count) / ↑ - moved up from last week / ↓ - moved down from last week
🧡NAMI: 1. Tevin (Extra Vote) (2) 2. Hunter ❤️ (1) 3. Soda (2) 4. Venus (7) 5. Randen ↑ (Beware Advantage/No Idol Yet) (7) 6. Liz ↓ (1)
💚SIGA: 1. Ben ❤️ (4) 2. Maria ❤️ (Extra Vote) (1) 3. Charlie ! ↑ (6) 4. Moriah ↓ (1) 5. Jem (1) 6. Tim (2)
💜YANU: 1. Tiffany ❤️ (Hidden Immunity Idol) (10) 2. Q ↑ (5) 3. Bhanu ↓ (3) 4. Kenzie ↓ (10) 5. ❌Jess❌ (5)
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🦎EPISODE 3 - Wackadoodles Win🦎
Pre Challenge: 💜 this episode just needs to be called BOOHOO BHANU because oh my God this man is loosing it on this island!!! almost the entire episode was centered around Bhanu and how he's on the bottom and what that's doing to him emotionally. there were some great moments of him describing Kenzie as a huuuge threat , so I really think they're foreshadowing her to be an early blindside 🧡 they show us very little of NAMI besides Venus still doesn't like Soda and that Randen hurt himself somehow sleeping and can barely move his arm & thinks he'll need to sit out from the challenge which was not part of his game plan 💚 SIGA tribe is moving so fucking slowly that they had to show us a clip from FOUR DAYS AGO of Jem finding the beware advantage & box to the hidden Immunity Idol , but they foreshadowed that her tribe probably won't be going to tribal council before the merge and so she will be getting some other special instructions to get the advantage
Challenge: some absolutely crazy moments in this challenge , like Hunter and Tevin so flawlessly getting over the rolling barrel together , it really seemed like Yanu was finally going to pull out a win but Hunter & NAMI tribe came from the very behind and dominated at tossing the sandbags and sent YANU back to tribal (so they thought !)
The Journey: so after the challenge Liz from NAMI chooses Ben from SIGA and Bhanu from YANU to go on a journey with her before tribal council. Bhanu immediately starts spilling all the beans about YANU to them and crying about how he's "not here to win a million dollars , [he's] here to win a million hearts" ... !!!!BARF OMG COME ON MAN!!!! Liz and Ben were so supportive though and did a pretty good job of just trying to sit and listen and protect their own games. they then had to reach into a bag and draw a rock , two of them would compete for a chance at an advantage and one person would be sent back to camp with nothing. Liz drew the white rock , which caused more crying from Bhanu , but neither Ben nor him could complete the Cube Puzzle in time so they both lost their vote & no advantage, so pretty anticlimactic overall ... BUTTTT Liz and Ben both went back to their camps & spilled all the beans that Bhanu told them about YANU tribe !!!
Vote Out/Elimination: it seemed pretty obvious that Bhanu was going to be going home as soon as they lost , with bits here and there of Q trying to assure Bhanu he's safe and hoping to convince Tiffany to get Kenzie out , which I really don't think she would have done ... HOWEVER Randen gets medically pulled from the game due to his arm injury & Bhanu is saved by the cancelled tribal council. I'm kind of glad we get to see more of the Boohoo Bhanu Trainwreck since he is a more interesting character than they were portraying Randen to be , but it is still sad that Randen didn't get to actually play the game , he joins a very small group of people to be voted out/eliminated from the game without ever going to tribal council
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Player Ranking By Tribe : Name / ❤️ - favorite (Advantage) / (Confession Count) / ↑ - moved up from last week / ↓ - moved down from last week
💚SIGA 1. Ben ❤️ (No Vote Next Tribal) (6) 2. Maria (Extra Vote) (0) 3. Charlie (1) 4. Jem ↑ (Beware Advantage/No Idol Yet) (1) 5. Moriah ↓ (1) 6. Tim (0)
💜YANU 1. Tiffany ❤️ (Hidden Immunity Idol) (5) 2. Q (6) 3. Kenzie ↑ (6) 4. Bhanu ↓ (No Vote Next Tribal) (13)
🧡NAMI 1. Hunter ❤️ (2) 2. Tevin (Extra Vote) (0) 3. Liz ↑ (4) 4. Soda ↓ (0) 5. Venus (3) 6. ❌ Randen ❌ (4)
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🦎EPISODE 4 - Don't Touch The Oven🦎
Pre-Reward Challenge: 💜 LMAO the reactions from KQT when they found out Bhanu spilled the beans to Liz and Ben at the journey was so fucking funny 🧡 IM IN THE MOOOOOOD TO WIN SOME FOOOOOOD // such a great cinematic moment I love them // Venus sweeping the dirt with a homemade broom 😭 💚 I don't think Jem is navigating this very well , stirring up distrust in her tribe just for fun is not always a great idea , she either needed to play it as if it was just a prank OR not try to pin it on someone right away , because it could seriously come back to bite her
Reward Challenge: HOLY SHIT YANU CAN ACTUALLY WIN A CHALLENGE!!! (too bad it wasn't enough momentum for them to not go to tribal lol) // Hunter is seriously dominanting at all of these challenges, if he doesn't cool off a bit he will either be the biggest threat and taken out earlier or be the next 5 time immunity winner (which would be so insane omg) // tim flailing at the platform was so funny 😭
Pre-Immunity Challenge: 🧡 Liz can't eat anything ???? // beautiful moment for Tevin talking about his relationship with his Dad , it's so obvious how much his father truly cared about him and they had an amazing bond 💜 Q trying to coach Bhanu was so silly , even the music was goofy , it really showed how strong Q's social & strategic game is already // Kenzie had every right to be annoyed with Bhanu , she was just being honest but it's still nice that she went and apologized but he was being overly sensitive 💚 I really like Maria and I hope she has more of a story going forward in the game , she's truly a badass and if she continues to be in the middle she could go very far // the SIGA tribe is genuinely one of the closest tribes I've seen in this game previously, which is why Jem STILL not telling them about her advantage is a badddd idea , they haven't even lost yet so she doesn't have any advantage // "A few fundamentals in Survivor; One, Jeff will NEVER lie to you; Two, Jeff will NEVER give you anything IMPOSSIBLE" - Moriah
Immunity Challenge: awesome filming all around , apparently Jeff was asking a bunch of Van Halen song references in his commentary but I didn't notice lol // I love that the challenge wasn't even jumping , it was just jumping from off different platforms so Moriah not being able to jump wasnt really important 💀🤡 Bhanu seriously lost it for YANU , it was such a struggle to watch him fail and everyone else trying so hard to keep going and win but they couldn't pull it out
Tribal Council/Vote Out: Bhanu's 5 Stages of Grief - Denial - "I WILL find an idol // one things for sure , I'm NOT going home tonight" Anger - yelling at God for even putting him on the show to begin with // he's so frustrated when he hands Kenzie the coconut to drink , that made me laugh so hard 😂 Bargaining - begging God for help/a sign/an idol // begging on his KNEES to Tiffany to help save him Depression - not even crying anymore , just laying flat on the ground of the jungle looking up in the sky , completely defeated Acceptance - when he gets to tribal , everyone pretty much agreed out loud that it was going to be Bhanu going home , and it allowed for Jeff to just give Bhanu the space to fully say goodbye to the game and tell his final story // Jeff actually hugged Bhanu after snuffing his torch , which was so sweet ❤️
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Player Ranking by Tribe : Name / ❤️ - favorite (Advantage) / (Confession Count) / ↑ - moved up from last week / ↓ - moved down from last week
🧡NAMI: 1. Hunter ❤️ (1) 2. Tevin ❤️ (Extra Vote) (4) 3. Liz (2) 4. Venus (0) 5. Soda (4) ↓
💚SIGA: 1. Maria ❤️ (Extra Vote) (3) ↑ 2. Charlie (2) ↑ 3. Ben (No Vote Next Tribal) (1) ↓ 4. Jem (Beware Advantage/No Idol Yet) (8) 5. Moriah ❤️ (5) 6. Tim (0)
💜YANU: 1. Tiffany ❤️ (Hidden Immunity Idol) (4) 2. Q ❤️ (6) 3. Kenzie (7) 4. ❌ Bhanu ❌ (10)
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I have a feeling that now Bhanu is gone we're going to get a huge shift in the edit so I'm going to do a quick little check in of the overall players ...
🦎THE PLAYERS LEFT IN THE GAME🦎
Most Likely To Win: 💜 Tiffany (28 confessionals) 🧡 Tevin (13 confessionals) 💚Maria (9 confessionals)
Mids: 💜Kenzie (28 confessionals) 🧡Hunter (6 confessionals) 🧡Venus (13 confessionals) 🧡Liz (9 confessionals) 💚Ben (14 confessionals) 💚Moriah (10 confessionals) 💚Charlie (17 confessionals)
Danger Zone: 💜Q (21 confessionals) 🧡Soda (11 confessionals) 💚Jem (13 confessionals) 💚Tim (6 confessionals)
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🦎 EPISODE 5 - Tiki Man 🦎
Pre Challenge : 💜 TKQ collectively are feeling the weight of no fire 11 days into the game , the longest any New Era Season Tribe has been without flint 💚 I still really like Ben but I'm not sure how he's moving through this game right now , it seems like he's really trying to play the lowest low-key game ever but the women are absolutely picking up on it and are intimidated // the SIGA tribe as a whole has been such an interesting watch , they all obviously care about each other and want to be successful as a tribe (and so far they really have) but the want to be sneaky and strategic has been very slowly creeping in as we've seen them more and now people are seriously ready to make some big moves against each other ,,, even them dancing Salsa on the beach all together, you can see they are all having tons of fun , but theyre also reallyyyy watching each other 🧡 montage of the entire tribe looking for the hidden Immunity Idol / "I think every person has looked for the idol ... except Liz" / literally every conversation they show Venus having she's so abrasive , like girl why do you need to be annoying to Hunter , why not try to make an ally ??? and she literally calls him MEAT SHEILD to his FACE 😭 and then Hunter finds the Beware Advantage !!! Im really loving Hunter , I really really hope he can use this advantage CORRECTLY and keep himself in the game !!! 💜 TKQ is definitely losing it a little bit , having no food and losing all these challenges are pushing them to the edge / for the second time we see Q say that he's feeling like he wants to quit BUT it's actually just him trying to make Kenzie feel comfortable and it's working well / "What Y'all Talkin Bout ?" Salmon. Chopping up wood. Coconuts versus Papaya. Q over here telling us to write his name down. / Tiffany is absolutely in the middle of this tribe and if they go to tribal it will be catastrophic for all of them 💚 I love Tiki Man !!! / Tim is still not that interesting lol but interesting that he's starting to really grow the seeds of tribal distrust and is spot on about Jem moving the beware advantage / Jem is way too confident!!!
Challenge : JEFF SASS OMG "I thought you might say Yanu" / Soda has gotten so much hate online (to the point where she has completely deactivated her Instagram and twitter) for her comment towards Venus calling her a "walking stick bug" I think a lot of it has been blown wayyy out of proportion , while it's not really a good idea to comment on someone's body weight and she would definitely be offended if the roles were reversed and Venus called her something large , I can understand how she was just saying it as "encouragement" and trying to motivate Venus , but what I really think is that this was just the Editors/Producers wanting to show us again how NOT socially aware Soda is. She is this overwhelming beam of positivity, but when it comes down to it she says something that probably didn't make Venus feel great. however she very much does not deserve the crazy amount of hate that she's been receiving online // YANU was behind and NAMI wins first , like normal BUTTTTTTTTTT ⭐🎉🦎💜⭐🎉🦎💜⭐🎉🦎💜⭐ YANU WINS IMMUNITY 🎉💜🦎⭐🎉💜🦎⭐
Journey : Hunter from NAMI , Tim from SIGA , and Q from YANU // immediately you can see the difference in Q after having a win , he seems so freaking happy !! // the three "big" guys as soon as they got to the beach started to make an alliance to protect each other come merge time // the three of them then had to decide which one of them would test their Survivor Knowledge and Hunter was the one decided on , he walks down the beach and has to put a bunch of Survivor Season logos in chronological order. unfortunately he didn't watch them in order , his friend showed the show to him !! so he loses and loses his vote at the next tribal :(
Pre Tribal : 💜 The genuine joy that you can see on everyone's face is so heart warming , it truly bonded them all together all over again and it was really nice seeing them all three so happy and relaxed for one night 💚 After losing the challenge, SIGA as a tribe has a moment all together of sadness but it's not long before they start breaking off , and Jem immediately goes and completes the beware advantage. she had to measure several different things around camp with their machete and complete an equation with the numbers and she did eventually find the Hidden Immunity Idol ! // the women decided that the vote is between Tim and Ben , leaning more towards Ben in case Tim has an advantage , but Jem AGGRESSIVELY confronts Ben and tries to get information and then does the same thing to Tim , and the two of them go right to Maria and Charlie , securing Maria and Charlie and the middle/swing votes of the tribe !!!
Tribal Council / Vote Out : extremely interesting tribal council, almost mimics the way the tribe has been operating so far ; they start off very silly and goofy and laughing together about how they've been working so well together so far , but then it starts to shift to more subtle answers , the players are much more particular about what information they want to give away , to the point where Maria even says 'we all know what we're going to be voting tonight we just don't want to say it' // ultimately Maria and Charlie decided to go with Ben and Tim , and they voted out Jem with the Hidden Immunity Idol still in her pocket !
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Player Ranking by Tribe : Name / ❤️ - favorite / (Advantage) / (Confession Count) / ↑ - moved up from last week / ↓ - moved down from last week
🧡NAMI: 1. Hunter ❤️(Beware Advantage/No Idol Yet) (No Vote Next Tribal) (10) 2. Tevin ❤️ (1) 3. Liz (1) 4. Venus (1) 5. Soda (1)
💜YANU: 1. Tiffany ❤️ (Hidden Immunity Idol) (3) 2. Q (4) 3. Kenzie (4)
💚SIGA: 1. Maria ❤️ (2) 2. Charlie (7) 3. Ben (4) 4. Tim ↑ (4) 5. Moriah (2) 6. ❌ Jem ❌ (Hidden Immunity Idol) ↓↓↓ (7)
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if you made it this far , seriously thank you , you're a true fan like me :)) if anything is unclear or you have any questions about something please comment and ask !!! I love you and you're amazing !!!