1. We are scout sniper and I am with leftenant price and we are engaging outside the radiozone the KORTAC Forces and we are under Shepard Ryan Kiester and we are engaging with .336 Lapua Supersupresed the Violating KORTAC Forces and we take out 3 and 6 and 1 gets like 100m and they cannot rush us like they expected and they have their APV and it is firing flak and they Keep getting in it, and i can get to their heads when they are on my turret that I am shooting at recreationally I keep shooting them in the head and there are lots of AK-47 shots from the mounted gun on the APV but they have no AK-47 only pistols most of them or SMG or maybe like one or two AK-47 and I am in a snow camo ghillie and can no longer use claymore trap and we light them up with .336 lapua and we kill over 20 kortac trying to advance on us with skillful body shots and this is a M14 lapua so has 19 or 21 and we got a lot of mags and are just 2 in and we rush them, they are not expecting two snipers to bunker them at all, so I got my actual M14 not sniper M14 out and we kill three at the fence and one out the fence and then we are engaging from target visage across a lake the forces over 1000m with out sniper M14 and kill 50 Kortac coming across the side and I take out the nest and our reinforcements berghdal and david are there and I greet them as recruits and give them bronze dog tags and they are in honor they got their tags and we no nock raid this dang infinity ward out here and there are no PT here and the APV is here and we drive to masons house and shoot some metal in the back yard and berghdal is fixed for his SCW and we get valerian dog tags from shepard, ryan shepard then and are on a drop and like I commanded, berghdal is on the drop to the next location with us with his surgery done already. Berghdal is not david who is OK who berghdals SCW was caused by being pinned down under a car by KORTAC And shotted then but resisted and went on the no nock raid of us me chris and david of the IW building which had no patients in it and was a network cafe for something wicked and was still a IW Building 1.1 I am with makarov which I was with markarov in the preshow and yielded AirstrikePC as the loam of the operation but kept saying I did not have the loam and had the loam so unlocked thick glasses hillary PC as a result via clinton unlock glitch which sends boris yeltsin early in DC apparently on my DOPR course training.

FAIR WARNING THIS WILL BE A WALL OF TEXT
Intro: In a series of reviews that will begin (or return) here; we are going to try and take a critical look at the Chuck series, especially the unfolding of the story as scene through the teleplay. In this case we are assuming multiple things about a potential watcher:

• The watcher is new to the series and does not know about future episodes, but there is an expectation any previous episodes have been watched.
• I will try not to point information out that becomes important for later episodes, though there may be times it's important because of how episodes are filmed and how episodes string together, I will however try and hide these behind a spoiler tag. I say this as a person who has watched Chuck dozens of times, so if I inadvertently spoiler, sorry.
• I will do my best to point out interesting references that are hidden within the Chuck universe, but not at the expense of extended expositions unless in-depth analysis is necessary as it relates to the scene.

What is this all for: This started as a project to improve my critical reviewing skills for a hobby of movie script writing and analysis. Chuck happens to have published 3 original scripts and all the text of every episode has been published to a searchable database. This affords an opportunity to break from my movie writing woes and infinite revisions to just have fun enjoying Chuck and trying to deepen my understanding of the intersection of script writing with filmography and visual editing. Having said this, it should be known I have no affiliation to the show, no additional insider knowledge, and I do not write scripts for a living. So, consequently, feel free to ignore everything I say :). I do hope, however, we can go on this journey together and appreciate the excellence that is a love story called Chuck.
So, don't freak out, and lets get started.
​
Chuck 01x04 (Chuck vs the Wookiee): TEASER - We open with the gang playing "Know Ya!", which isn't actually a real board game, but based on the game Paddles. It's amazing that Morgan can't stand Ellie/Awesome being in love/winning, but marches triumphantly whenever he gets a question correct. I also like we see, in frame, Chuck watching Sarah pick off olives; he's beginning to notice things just like a real spy. The deep sadness and yet storied confliction on Chuck's face when he discovers Peaches 1 and Peaches 2 was great.
For those who don't know about dogs:

• A cocker spaniel is typically smaller; by ~5inches and up to 30lbs lighter than a springer spaniel.
• Springer spaniels also have shorter fur across their bodies, with feathered hair under their chests and legs.
• Only a cocker spaniel will be solid colored
• Springer spaniels have longer muzzles, while cockers have fluffier ears.

I find it very interesting how Sarah has "spidey sense" about potentially being watched. At no point previously did either Sarah nor Casey display this trait and I'm not totally sure how an open window was enough to do this; I wonder if Sarah's comfort being around Chuck's family is causing her to develop a "feeling of being watched" as she is comfortable with the Bartowski's? For those who missed it, Sarah talks about having a sister I think at the time this was just a throw-away line to protect her cover, but in season 5 Sarah does actually have a little sister if you count the little girl she rescues One last thing about Sarah here, when Bryce is being discussed, I really like how it was played where she acts quiet and shocked, but not saying anything. The facial expressions of Yvonne here are really special and you can tell Sarah lives a life of secrets. This is carried outside when Chuck asks Sarah about her relationship with Bryce. She is totally looking down and to the right, a classic indication of an emotional response searching for rationalization (ie. she is clearly lying)
As they end the game and exit to the courtyard, there teleplay of Chuck does something I've been wanting to see forever; they switch perspective to keep both characters in camera and follow them around from a 3rd perspective. We know this is supposed to indicate they are being watched, but I really enjoy getting to see them together reacting and talking instead of the constant close-ups and cuts. Normally Chuck will be shot with something between a medium close up (MCU) and Medium Shot (MS) to emphasize their characters and highlight their faces and expressions. This works really well because Chuck's cameras are typically either shoulder level or hip level based on the operators moving through their space. In many more modern TV shows, the technology of boom cranes and gyroscopic gimbals allows for content to be show from ground level to overhead giving directors the opportunity to tell their story through a variety of shifting profiles. If Chuck were shot today, we would see everything from full body shots all the way to extreme closeups without the need for continual jump-cuts and re-shoots because the technology is there. At least for this episode, it's nice to see the director explore more hip/knee level motion and more cowboy framed shots when having a distant observer perspective. https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/types-of-camera-shots-sizes-in-film/ does a fantastic breakdown of all the different shot type and camera perspectives for you want to read more!
As we transition into Sarah's hotel room, did anyone pick up on how NICE this is? She has double sinks, a king bed, a sitting mirror, free standing tub, and a great view. I doubt any agency in the "real world" would ever spring for something like this for multiple years for one of their agents, it's fancy! Enter Carina, tell me, who saw Sarah fight with a soap sock and think of iCarly and the famous "butter sock". Also during this fight, why is Sarah wearing a golden bikini? I know she is about to get into the shower, but what plausible reason is there for her to a) wear a bikini at all and b) it to be a bright golden yellow?? If you slow this fight scene way down, you will notice Yvonne's strikes actually come close to hitting Mimi as she has had a lot of training, whereas Mimi's strikes are miles from Yvonne and she just over-acts their impact. The most noticeable is the kick into her table, Sarah goes flying back, but we can tell from the angle, Carina missed her by a good 2 ft. This was just some sloppy editing and not getting the camera into position. I give it a pass because you have probably 3 camera operators wearing stabilized camera rigs trying to rotate around a room with 2 girls fighting and they just missed the angle by like 2 feet. I did really like at the end of the fight Carina had the option to go for the gun but instead went for the fish. If you didn't know they were not enemies before, this should have been a big clue! Carina calls Sarah's life in LA boring #1
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ACT I
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Carina aka: Maria Elena Argalberdi was born Jun 16, 1978 in Alberdi Argentina with a Buenos Aires passport. Maria Elena is actually the name of a famous song in Mexico and eventually had a movie. This Chuck learns on Flash #1 and is the precursor to meeting the general for the first time. I know I've mentioned this before, but to reiterate; the pictures in Casey's apartment are all wrong; he has photos of Chuck and Morgan that don't happen until season 5 (lost footage) he has a map of Echo Park and Malibu already on display, and he has tactical information for each member of the Buy More (which he has no reason for at this time). It is interesting they talk about an opium cartel in Afghanistan as Afghanistan is known for it's huge poppy fields for heroin drug money.
The NADAN-I-NOOR diamond:

• The Nadan-I-Noor diamond has never been known to be bought or sold and ha only changed owners as a result of theft, conquest, or endowment
• It's listed as having 57 facets + 16 facets on girdle = 73. A facet is comparable with the brilliance of a diamond and is really the flat surfaces of a gemstone arranged in a geometrical pattern. In this case it helps characterize the refraction of light through the diamond interior. The girdle i the outer edge of a diamond surface, having 16 faces is quite large, as the girdle is the largest section of a gem, but also the thinnest when viewed from the side. In this case, having 73 facets puts the Nadan-I-Noor in either the Princess-Cut Diamond or Radiant Cut Diamond category, which are also the most expensive as they have the most possible facets.
• having 4-fold, mirror-image symmetry refers to how the light reflects internally to the diamond and indicates there are no impurities within the crystalline structure.
• interestingly a purity rating is not given, i would expect something like a F or IF (flawless/internally flawless) for a diamond described like this, but one isn't provided.
• the angles of incidence just describe the best way for light to enterefract from the diamond, these numbers are fake, but the metric is real
• there is a lot of sanscript written around the diamond markings, I can't figure out what if anything it means it looks like repeated nonsense
• could be a nod to the Koh-i-noor or "mountain of light" diamond, although this one in Persian is the "fool of light".

We open back to see Carina and Sarah looking at classified files within the restaurant. THIS IS AGAINST THE LAW, you do not look at classified files out in the open and especially not where there are clearly other customers around. Venturing into the BuyMore, there is a monster truck rally on the TV's showing grave digger and reaper, two famous trucks from this time period. Morgan wants to spread his wings and be the fourth wheel to the perpetual 3 wheel party and Sarah, ever the schemer, literally glows when she thinks of the plan to have Carina go on a date with Morgan. I THINK this was just to help maintain their cover, but also maybe Sarah is just needling Carina? If you look in the back of the store when Chuck is talking to Sarah and Carina, there is a really cool Nerd Herd poster that says "Bringing peace to your computer emergency". "if a yawn could yawn" is Carina calling Sarah's job boring #2. One thing I really like with the double data is the way the camera jumps between the couples: boy/girl, boy/boy, girl/girl. I think they way they try and keep private conversations via screen time is a really nice, typical, teleplay trick that really works well here. In a "real" environment, everyone could hear everything, but by splitting the camera focus or playing with perspective, the viewer clearly knows "this is a conversation between girls the boys don't hear it". We see Chuck noticing Sarah picking off olives #2 while they watch a movie about penguins: who mate for life, present their love in the form of rocks, and are pack animals. In Chuck's bedroom as he talks to Morgan, Chuck has a box of King Edward Invincible underneath bongos; for those who don't know this is a famous box for mild tobacco cigars. So I wonder what Chuck is up to in his free time :P.
On the Nerd Herd call with Carina, she opens a bottle of wine with a butter knife. This is actually a pretty famous thing that is done all over the world with everything from a key to a saber. In fact they make a specially type of knife with an extra wide blade for this it Italy. I do want to ask the question; is Carina dressed in red lingerie (Chuck's favorite color she stole from Sarah) really necessary for this scene? I know that Carina is all about improvising and she often uses her sexuality to progress her cause (Casey), but I think we could have gotten away with just the top. I can certainly see the rationalization for going this far, but I think as an artistic choice it wasn't necessary. What IS necessary however is to talk about how Chuck's world implodes when Carina tells him about Sarah and Bryce. Also the perfect act transition ending right at Chuck's jaw dropping and the work boyfriend!
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ACT II
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I'll say it again, the back an forth with Chuck and Sarah should have been a medium close up, shoulder level straight on shot instead of the constant cuts. Seeing their reaction in real time would have been easier and it would have allowed the Weinerlicious to be maybe 15 ft smaller to not need so many cameramen rotating. "Unless talking to your boyfriend is a matter of national security, the ketchup bottles won't refill themselves". Why yes it IS a mater of national security for Sarah to talk to Chuck... also if any one of us stood up to our boss like Sarah did, I'm pretty sure we'd be fired on the spot!
Malibu is ~2hours for Echo Park with standard LA traffic. Seriously, how do girls in high heels walk down stairs; we see Carina and Sarah walking sideways so there is enough space on each step to fit their shoes. Girls, how do you do that and not fall especially with narrow staircases and 3-6inch heels! Inside the room with the stone there is a bust of Cesare, archenemies, da vinci, and biblical David. There is also some famous paintings the best of which is Vemieer's "young girl with a pearl earring" which is rather appropriate considering it's meaning. There is also a Van Gogh of man in a wheat field and a Monet in one shot too. If ANY of these paintings were real instead of reproductions, they would be worth millions, in fact the young girl with a pearl is estimated at 40million, which is 1.5x the sell value of the Nadan-I-Noor! If we take a look at the engineering drawing of Flash #2 on the pedestal, we would see this design creates a closed circuit around the tongs the diamond rests on; which might explain it's red hue. If a person were to touch the diamond, it would close the circuit on their body allowing the 4000volts to travel through their heart. A person can die with ~20volts, though it's usually more like 50 in most occurrences. 4000volts is enough to kill a herd of elephants and completely overkill for a person. Also the amount of power that would take is more than the city of Malibu... this is to say the trap is real, the numbers are complete nonsense; thinking lightning! Nice shot by Sarah with the plate (there are some great bloopers on this too where she misses badly)! A remote controlled jet ski... i'm not even going to calculate the nonsense for this; it's just total nonsense. Almost as much nonsense as Casey using his phone to track Carina's call. That would take minutes, even with today's technology to back trace like that and way more power than just pushing a button on a razer flip-phone from the 90's!
back at the house, Chuck i playing halo with the legendary skulls as his weapon; this is nice because in the BuyMore at the end of the episode there are dudes dressed as master chief! I really like the changing perspective here with Chuck and Morgan. Chuck's reactions remain in focus while Morgan tells a story behind him, then it switches as Chuck starts to move around until bringing both into focus for the final line "we still have each other and that's really sad". The side cut to Sarah picking locks to the hotel door is classic early 2000's TV and i'm all for it, even if it is super cheezy. BTW as someone who used to lock pick in college, that's .... not how that works, but good try. We get our Flash #3 on the diamond in Morgan's back nuclear explosions. I wonder if the refractive capability of a diamond this pure is enough to focus laser to induce fission or if the value of selling the diamond is enough to buy nuclear material on the black market? Either way, we end the act with... the man with the golden gun!
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ACT III
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Chuck uses Sarah's plate move against Carina, nice inter-episode call back; he's clearly watching/learning, but his aim is terrible. This was actually clever as Sarah has perfect aim for she is a professional, while Chuck is still definitely a civilian and has no aptitude for fighting. I really like both these types of simple call backs but also how seemingly throw-away lines/actions help tell the broad story of the show. Chuck talking to Carina also shows Chuck has this weird, innate aptitude to get people to re-evaluate themselves and grow internally. You can watch Carina "grow in real-time. When we get to the hotel and Carina opens her trunk first there are a few glocks, a couple rugers, and a 1911; then she switches to blades and we see some folders, some strait blades, an illegal gravity blade (still illegal today), and a kbar... nice selection! Carina, always the flirt, gives Chuck some very insightful works about the nature of being a spy, but also maybe some way to get through to Sarah.
Inside the hotel we see Carina and Sarah speaking; Carina is speaking Swedish, while Sarah replies in Polish. "Om jag slänger nycklarna till dig, kommer du tappa dem då?" which is Swedish for "If I throw you the keys, will you drop them?" Sarah answered in Polish: "Tylko jak rzucisz jak twoja mamusia", which means "Only if you throw it like your mommy". This is just great!
I want to talk about how fast Chuck managed to find an address for DC, print a label, open a box, put the label on, and get the diamond there all before the door gets broken. Somehow on screen time this is like 10seconds, but in real life this would have to be like 3minutes minimum? Either that door is remarkably strong or... TV magic??
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ACT IV
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Even with all the flirting, as we say goodbye to Carina >! for now !< she is still joking with Casey and every the professional. I like how they show when it's "game time" it's all about the job, but spys can be people too! Carina still calls Sarah's life boring #3 (the common trifecta of episode repeats).
Sarah's face when Chuck brings the pizza with no olives is the reason I think Yvonne makes the perfect Sarah. She exudes the hidden beauty needed and has the acting to so such emotion for Chuck being sweet. The whole scene with Chuck and Sarah asking questions, then Chuck backing off, then Sarah acting stoic like she WANTS to open up but doesn't know if she can really trust Chuck, is ready to move on from Bryce, and should for the nature of her job. This was probably the most well acted 20seconds of the entire episode. Finally, we hear Sarah's middle name is Lisa. Now we never officially know if Chuck hears this or not both due to camera focus and distance, it's never officially confirmed in the entire show. When the intersect is updated in season 4 we see Sarah's picture and it lists Lisa as a middle name, so we assume it's official, but it's never confirmed at any point. Finally, I really like how they end the episode with Sarah closing her eyes as the fade to black.
​
Few notes: There are 5 official songs in this episode:

• "Yea Yeah" by Matt and Kim - when the gang is playing board games during group date night. This song is about not worrying about the things you cannot change. Little things that build up and bum you out that you need to just let go.
• "Wild Girl" Matt Pond PA - Chuck and Morgan discussing their relationship problems. This song is about overcoming past struggles and finding hope in the present and future. Describing a sense of resilience and optimism
• "weird science" by does it offend you - Chuck and Carina talk at Peyman' Malibu Compound. This is a remind to break free and embrace individuality and live on your own terms. Be unapologetically ourselves.
• Shy by Mathew Dear - the double date
• "Fall into place" the apartment - the team say's goodby to Carina. Deals with growing up, taking (or not taking) chances. finding oneself in the unpredictability of life. I have to say, we don't actually hear the lyrics to any of these songs during the episode just the melody, but I don't really appreciate the music choices here. I feel like there were better options at key points, so that's a miss from me.
  
• On the DVD for Season One the word Wookiee is spelled incorrectly, leaving off the last E.
  
• "It used to be titled "Chuck Versus the Speedo" because the main bad guy in this show is this dude who wears a Speedo all the time. Then when the casting guy realized he had a good amount -- and by good, I mean healthy, a healthy amount of body hair -- they thought, why not call it "Chuck vs. the Wookiee". So it's this guy who's got this diamond, and we're trying to heist the diamond and all hell breaks loose." ―Zachary Levi quoted by Access Hollywood discussing this episode's title
  

​
I think this was a great episode and really showcased what they can do when additional cast members join the team and when they are not afraid to play with perspective. Mimi as Carina is a great addition to the ensemble and I wish we saw her more, but every time she drops in, it's always a wild episode and it's fantastic. Watching Chuck learn about Sarah and seeing Sarah start to open up is a good way forward and heck Casey had some of the best humor in the episode. Overall, it was fast paced, had some nice character development, as funny in the best way, and moved the main theme along, 8/10.

Secret Dragon - Chapter 2: Ignite
I opened the book and skimmed through a few chapters, happy to finally see some true information, with substance. Although I had many books of my own, I had never brought any of them to class; I had no intention of being asked about them or pressing the issue.
By virtue of my existence, it and I would be scrutinized. I had neither the patience nor the desire for another microscope to be placed above me.
But Sasha had no such reservations even after I told him about the curriculum, although he relented and said he would figure out a way around that nonsense. It seemed as if he was determined to go against the grain.
We spoke deeply, about different subjects, our project, and his books. The more he talked the more at ease he became. I unknowingly got closer and closer to him as the time passed. I had to literally pull myself back a few times. I wondered if he noticed. It was confusing how I kept leaning into the heat coming off his breath.
We were both startled at the sound of chairs scraping. We looked around as our peers gathered their things.
“It seems that for the first time this class is actually worth my time. Usually I am the first to leave,” Sasha said, surprised.
“I know,” I revealed.
“Hmmm,” he vocalized deeply. I had no idea if it was “oh really” or “interesting” or any other answer. It was just a deep throat vibration. I just knew he would do that a lot. I could feel it.
As I was packing my things, I realized I was a little feverish. I put a hand to my cheek. Was it hot? Or was it that he was speaking heat in my direction? I couldn’t tell. I never ran hot.
He watched me touching my face and chuckled to himself, putting away his books. I really wanted to be annoyed—at anyone else I would have been—but his lighthearted laughter surprised me; so joyous after so many weeks of being a specter in the classroom.
I looked him in his eyes, though, and shook my head challengingly at him, as if to say “what?” That only made him laugh out loud. It was both quiet and bassy all at the same time. The kind of laugh that was bottomless, scratchy. The kind of laugh you could tell would boom and shake you if given the space.
I never thought I’d hear that coming from him, let alone directed at me. I refrained from expressing an iota of emotion beyond a small smile. I had to stay cool.
Pam walked over to our table swiftly, no doubt looking to be rid of Jonah. She smiled at Sasha, grinned really.
“So. We finally meet! Pam Swiftwater,” she chirped. Her hand shot out as fast as she walked. Sasha halted his movement. He extended his hand more slowly, gently, engulfing her delicate hands in his large ones.
“Of course. I am Sasha Emberscale,” Sasha said, pulling his hand back to pat his chest.
Pam gave me a knowing glance of drama. “Oh I know who you are,” she said.
“Likewise; you are in my open physical hour,” he reminded her. “You are on the track team.”
“That’s right! It’s nice to finally, officially, meet you.”
Sasha raised his brow at her. “My friend has spoken of you,” he said offhand.
“What friend?” Pam asked, taken aback.
“Seth Fairbreeze, dragon of the wind.”
“Oh?” Pam said, her interest piqued. I didn’t know whether she knew who that was. But it intrigued both of us nonetheless.
“I will introduce you, of course, now that we are properly acquainted.”
“I can’t wait.” I knew she couldn’t.
Pam glanced back at her table and groaned. “Let’s get out of here. If I have to talk to Jonah any longer, I swear Imma strangle him.”
Sasha laughed heartily. “Very well. Let us depart this place to avoid attempted murder,” he joked.
“Why don’t you stick with us? We’re in the same course after this,” I suggested, gathering my items. I didn’t even hesitate asking him that. I’d done enough hesitating.
Sasha’s laugh tapered off into a quiet chuckle. “Of course. I would desire nothing more.”
I couldn’t hide my elation this time. Pam snickered at me. Thankfully he didn’t notice. I assumed.
Sasha draped his jacket across his arm, opting not to put it back on. Admittedly I enjoyed the view. He gestured for us to exit the class before him.
Every once in a while he would look down at me as we walked through the halls. I noticed his eyes following me.
I would sneak a glance at him when he wasn’t looking. It was apparent just how large he was now that I was walking right next to him. He was one of the only people in school taller than me. His shoulders were broad, arms thick. I know I was staring at the way they flexed as he moved. Couldn’t help but to.
Everything in me wanted to take that arm of his for my own. The thought of it being mine just felt so natural. I had to check myself a few times walking beside him.
It would be mine in time. That I promised myself.
—
We entered our Dragontongue class where I took a seat on his right at a table. Pam sat at mine.
Class with Sasha was much more interesting than ever before. He spoke freely and pleasantly, a stark contrast to the silent dragon he had been before I sat at his table in Dragonology. It was like something that had weighed on him had vanished.
I wasn’t unaware that he was happier since we had talked. I was pleased that it was me that had pulled him out of whatever darkness was holding him.
Again a pang of irritation ran through me. Why had I not introduced myself before? Just hearing the depth of his voice and the eloquence of his speech had me feeling some type of way. I could have been hearing that in my ears for weeks, those words of his carried on desert sands.
As class droned on, I saw that Sasha was appraising the professor with a raised brow as if too polite to allow complete disdain across his face.
He began to tell us about different Dragontongue dialects quietly, I suppose to keep himself occupied or distracted. I had to lean all the way in to hear his voice. It reverberated in my ears.
“If you were to say that word in the southern regions of Lyfax, it would mean to place bricks or stones atop each other as if building something. If you said that in the northeastern region, it means much the same, but doubles as a slang word meaning to fu— I am sorry, to have relations with someone.”
Pam squealed and covered her mouth. I covered mine too. I had wanted to hear the word ‘fuck’ come out of his polite mouth.
“Are you serious?” I asked instead.
“Yes, I am,” he said, brow raised. “Take care in who you say it to and in what context.”
Sasha tapped another paragraph “This term here. If you were to say it in the Northernmost tip of the country, it is basically calling someone a piece of filth in the wrong context, while just a few regions down it simply means to clean something without any further colloquial use. Their origins most likely started off with the same meaning and deviated as the people left and settled elsewhere. Knowing different dialects of Dragontongue in Lyfax is important. Linguistics interests me, as you can probably surmise.”
“Do you speak a lot of languages?” Pam asked.
“I occasionally travel for my work and interact with different dignitaries. I must know many languages and dialects at least at a rudimentary level.”
“Oh wow…” I said, truly impressed. Now that I had listened to his voice, I couldn’t place his accent. Unless deep was one. It wasn’t as if I was familiar with Lyfaxians’ manner of speech or various accents anyway. “What do you speak?” I asked
“Hmmmm. Common Lyfaxian. Common Lizardtongue. Dragontongue, of course; several dialects: fire, moon and wind. Many people know these. Shelltongue. Salamandra…one other.”
“Goodness,” I said in awe. I stashed away that “one other.” I’d ask about it later. I couldn’t imagine why it would be a secret. Hypocritically.
“My speech is not perfect in Shelltongue or Salamandra yet. But I can hold a conversation. I would enjoy learning and speaking your dialect of Dragontongue, as you mentioned earlier,” he remarked to me. Of course, Pam regarded me in shock. She gave me a chiding look, rightfully so.
Sasha didn’t miss her reaction. “If it is trouble, do not worry about it,” he said, frowning.
“No, It’s okay,” I reassured him. “I don’t mind.”
He was still uncertain, looking at Pam’s concerned face. “If I am to converse with a new group of dragons, I would prefer to know their dialect,” he whispered. “But not if it is cause for alarm. For some reason.”
Pam sighed in relief upon hearing him refer to me as a dragon. “Oh okay.”
“It’s fine. Complicated. I’ll tell you later,” I said, waving it all away. Sasha nodded.
“So did you all decide on a topic for your assignment?” Pam asked.
“Of course. We spoke much of it. I look forward to working with Leila.” Sasha said. I liked the way he said my name, the way he swung the vowels upward to where they needed to go. As it should be. “It will be interesting,” he said.
Pam glanced over to me. “How so?”
I looked amused, I’m sure. “Let’s say our Dragonology topic is about to be spicy,” I hinted.
“Sasha you’re a horrible influence already,” she accused, raising her brows at him.
“Of course,” he confirmed, chuckling deeply. “One needs a little corruption in the right direction, every once in a while.”
“Corruption? Oh really?” I said, regarding him in what I intended to be mock surprise. But I was genuinely shocked that he said it. He hadn’t corrupted me yet. He could try, but only when I was through with him.
Sasha chuckled silently. Just a trembling of the shoulders. A soft billow of scalding heat wafting across my face. Mmm, maybe sooner then.
Pam’s eyes widened, but she was beyond amused. If she could manifest a snack to observe our rapidly forming dynamic, she would have in a heartbeat.
She sat back, twirling her pencil. I knew she was about to start something. The twitch in the corner of her mouth was working. She was about to instigate her heart out. I groaned quietly.
“You know, Leila speaks all the same languages you do. She’s fluent in Shelltongue even; one of her best friends is Turtlefolk. She works at a place where a lot of people from different places come through. She took it upon herself to learn their languages.”
I groaned more.
“Is that so?” Sasha inquired, angling his body toward me. He sounded impressed.
I just rubbed my brows. I did not advertise my language skills. He looked at me with interest. “That is admirable. Why do you not wish to speak of it?” he asked.
“I don’t like puffing myself up. Drawing attention. Not that you are doing that,” I clarified.
Sasha smiled. “I know what you meant,” he said, speaking Shelltongue. I grinned. “I have been somewhat successful at not drawing attention—past my appearance at least—for a few weeks now.”
“Except your grades of course,” I pointed out in Shelltongue as well. “Literally perfect grades except two, and that’s only because of inaccuracies.”
Sasha raised his brow. “Ah, right, you have been keeping tabs on my marks. Very well; I have been under the radar except for my marks.”
“See? Y’all can speak tongues to each other in every flavor,” Pam said casually.
My mouth dropped. To say my eyes widened would be an understand. I shielded the side of my face.
Sasha choked and laughed quietly, holding his chest.
Never had she been that brazen. And she had said some crazy ass things for as long as I’d know her.
She looked so proud of herself.
“Pam, you are trying to start something, are you not?” Sasha guessed—back in Lizardtongue—looking away in laughter.
“Of course not. I don’t know what you mean,” she said, smirking.
I rubbed my face. “What were we even talking about?”
Sasha spoke as quietly as he could. “Different languages. Dialects. Things of that nature. Tongues, apparently,” he said, leaning toward me.
Really Sasha? I thought. He was something else.
He leaned back again and looked ahead, his smile dimming. “Also, things your professor apparently will not teach,” he said, the scales of his brows beginning to furrow.
“Yeah. It’s frustrating,” I agreed, uncovering my face.
“This class is testing my endurance. To hear my language butchered and be told that the proper way is incorrect is vexing.”
Pam stared at the professor, then at Sasha. “I’m sorry. This class is far beneath how you—and we—speak.”Pam and the rest of the Swiftwater Clan spoke to my family in the True way, the way of Sun Dragons.
Sasha leaned back. “And yet I have no choice but to be here,” he remarked. “And, apparently, neither do you both.”
It was a painful requirement, but a mandatory one. I nodded.
Pam turned back to the front of class. “You must be bored here at this university,” she said.
Sasha rubbed his chin. “Hmmmm,” he rumbled deeply. The vibration of that inquisitive hum made my shoulders tingle. I had to close my eyes and put a hand to my chest to halt my heart’s pounding.
“I was, yes,” he said slowly, “but yesterday was my last day of boredom. Today, the season has changed.” He glanced at me as he said it.
My mouth twitched into a smile. I found his choice of words particularly appealing. Pam looked curiously at him, but said nothing.
Sasha angled his body back toward me. I don’t know if I imagined it, but it felt like his whole existence was radiating heat now. It sent rush through my body.
“Let us return to our ‘lesson’ and pretend to care,” he suggested.
“Sasha,” I laughed, nudging his arm. It was hot to the touch. I was not imagining it.
“What?” he said innocently.
I shook my head at him, incredulous. I had no idea he was so funny. Who would have thought that sullen dragon was full of humor. He relented.
“I will behave myself,” he lied through his fanged teeth, patting his chest.
“Doubtful,” I returned, amused. It was easy to talk to him. Like we were old friends. Sasha was right: Pam had started something.
—
Sasha continued pointing out more language dialect rules and vocabulary from Lyfax. Things we couldn’t have learned on our own.
There were so many regions to learn about. I listened intently as he described them, and asked questions about everything. It was as if he was taking me on a mental tour of those far away places…
Before that day we hadn’t said a word to each other. Hadn’t shaken hands or anything. Whenever we had met eyes, we would quickly look away. I didn’t understand why we had done that. Now here we were hunched over a text book with our heads damn near touching. The heat of his breath warmed my face. It was hotter than earlier that day. Much hotter. No one was close enough to be bothered by it but Pam, and she did not seem to react to it.
And still I kept on gravitating closer. Because of how he had angled his body toward me, my left arm eventually pressed against his right.
My breathing stuttered, being in such close proximity to him. And I knew he felt it. He had to have felt it. Because I felt him tremble.
And there it was again! That strange rumble emanating from him, from his throat, I could now tell. Now that I was touching him, it was amplified, coursing through me. I tried to pinpoint its essence. It was very much like a growl, the crackling of a fire. And a hum; it reminded me of the way he responded to things without words. Hmmm.
All of it together was a magnetic song. I couldn’t help but listen. Let it lull me into a dream.
I wandered from the lesson for a moment to imagine what it would be like to just feel all of it pressed up against my chest. To embrace him and the heat he radiated.
I wanted to feel his fire whipping around me, not just the heat off him. To embrace a cascade of his flames. washing over me, engulfing me fully.
What would kissing Sasha be like? By the Goddess, the thought of drinking his fire until the persistent ice inside me melted was too tantalizing. If only I could just taste his breath inside my mouth… I wanted to look into his throat where I knew a flickering flame lie in wait. To explore it. Mmm.
It was like some deep ancestral memory was awakening. My breathing grew heavier. I swear to the goddess I heard his breath do the same. Except his breathing was punctuated by the rumbling crackle right under it. I knew he was in the same place I was.
I had to close my eyes and turn my head away from the heat coming off the words from his mouth. Because if I didn’t I would do something about it in that classroom—
“Leila?”
I emerged from my other world, his voice having shaken me from my daydream. I looked back to him.
“Class is over,” he rumbled into my ear quietly, the hotness washing over my neck and face. I rubbed those intense thoughts from my brows but they lingered everywhere else. I inhaled deeply and set about gathering my stuff. My hands shook.
Something hot brushed down my arm as he got up to gather his things. I looked down to see his claw drifting away from it. I thought it was an accident until he glanced at me. He smiled faintly though his brows were intense.
“Let us go,” he said gently, nodding toward the door.
“Okay,” I said, my eyebrow raising in interest. I slipped my bag over my shoulder. When he turned toward the door, I touched the trail of burning scales where he’d run his finger. When I say I could not breathe… I covered my mouth, then just rubbed my face with both hands. I didn’t know what to do. Mercy.
Looking around, my peers were also preparing to leave, so I composed myself the best I could and followed Sasha through the doorway.
—-
Dragontongue had been our last class of the day—”wow, you want that Dragontongue real bad huh?”Pam said— and it was time for us to part ways.
She chatted with Sasha, and I examined him while he was distracted.
I followed his gestures and mannerisms, wondering how he could weave such a spell over me that day. My behavior and my carefully curated facade were usually well under my control, perfected to give nothing away but pleasantness. But this dragon…
What I thought had been a perfect program was utterly interrupted. And the funny thing was, I wasn’t even mad at it. It was a break from the rigidity and monotony of my endless time at school. A break from my own reluctance to invite unknowns to myself, even those I desired. Like him.
For the first time in my life I thought ‘this is what the Sun must feel like to everyone else.’
From the moment I knew myself, my body had been cold. It was a point of contention between me, my parents and my Clan, all the Sun Clans. My mother was literally the leader of the Sun Dragons. And we, Sunscales, were Prime. Named directly after the Goddess.
People thought I was sickly. Anemic they called me. Even worse, some thought I was cursed. Most thought I wasn’t fit to be a leader in the future.
I did not let it stop me. I aimed for absolute perfection to stave off any doubt. Even at the expense of my own happiness sometimes.
My cold scales did not bother me. Although, at times, I wondered if I would be that way forever.
But now, I had felt Sasha’s warmth. This dragon had actually apologized in our first class for giving me the heat I never felt outside of putting my whole hand in a woodfire. It lingered in my scales as if they had drank it. They had awakened from a cold slumber.
I couldn’t go back.
I touched my arm that had been pressed against his, where his claw had grazed. Still hot to the touch. In fact everywhere he had breathed on, been near or looked at blazed. He had touched other things, shook hands with peers, finally, spoken to Pam, and none reacted as if he was exuding endless fire. Just me. Just for me.
“It has been a good day. You two have been so welcoming,” he said graciously. I was broken from my musings, realizing he was leaving. “I hope we continue to be friends during my time here.”
“For sure,” I said without hesitation, a little breathlessly. I didn’t want him to leave. He smiled warmly at me, almost in relief.
Pam smiled too. “Same,” she said. She began to rummage in her bag.
“It was nice to finally meet you,” he said softly to me. He put his hand out. I took it in mine. It was even hotter than before, unless I imagined it. I again put my other hand on top of his as if taking the warmth from it, to hold till later.
I don’t know what possessed me, but I let my thumb slide over the scales on the back of his hand. I didn’t even realize at first. But then I looked up and noticed Sasha was staring at me with his brow raised.
Gods, I could have died right there. Melted right into the floor and fallen into the void.
I almost pulled my hand in embarrassment, but he did not seem startled or upset. Instead Sasha placed his other hand atop mine. His face became intense for a moment, then softened. It seemed that neither of us wanted to let go. We did, though. The moment was brief, but it held much.
Pam, who had glanced up at us, had a barely concealed grin spreading over her face. She broke the spell that had drifted over us.
“Thank you for teaching us all that extra stuff about different dialects. I especially like that ridiculous word with the bricks,” she said, breaking the tense air.
Sasha shook his head as if clearing it. “Of course. I thought you might find that one amusing,” he said. He glanced at his phone, which had vibrated.
“You can lay your bricks on me anytime,” I mumbled to myself, still feeling the heaviness of that moment in my chest. I couldn’t help myself, saying that. I knew good and well it was provocative. I knew he might hear me. My mouth simply didn’t care. It was going to get me in trouble, I just knew it. I stared at my hand in wonder. It felt like fire had spread over it. What was he doing to me? Did he even realize that he was doing something? It didn’t seem like it.
In that same vein, Sasha didn’t say anything; he hadn’t been paying attention, I thought. Probably for the best. But then I heard him say something under his breath.
“Wow,” he whispered, silently laughing. I looked up at him. He covered his eyes, his shoulders shaking.
“Oh shit,” I said, covering my eyes as well.
Pam looked up. “What?” she asked, startled.
Sasha tried his best to keep a straight face, but it was impossible. He just laughed aloud then, a laugh that shook me to the core.
“Shut up,” I said, also laughing. I shielded my face in my hand as if I could hide from the embarrassment.
“I have said nothing,” he pointed out, his hands up.
“Please, please, let’s pretend I didn’t just say that shit,” I pleaded with him.
Pam’s eyes widened. “Oh my gods, what?”
“I will not say, Pam, yet I will never forget it,” Sasha said, smiling widely.
“What?” I replied, shocked.
“I will never forget it,” he repeated.
“By the Goddess Sasha. Are you serious?”
Sasha rubbed his eyes, still chuckling occasionally. “I am. Would you, if you were in my position?”
“Oh my gods,” I said weakly, still covering the side of my face.
Sasha patted his hand on his chest. “Gods, truly I needed today, desperately. It is no trouble to me, that you have said this. Certainly not. Unfortunately, I have a meeting to attend to, but we will discuss this permanent memory later, Leila Sunscale,” he said.
“Yeah, I bet,” I groaned, my voice shakey. I covered my face more. I was out of my mind, surely.
I heard Sasha begin to walk away, but his footsteps slowed. He hesitated, I guessed.
“Leila, do you have plans today?" he asked.
I looked up. He was looking at me expectantly. I couldn’t even say anything. I was still reeling from my ridiculous blunder. Now he wanted to see me! “What? I… umm—“
“No she doesn’t have plans,” Pam spoke up. Bless her.
Sasha smiled. “Perhaps we can speak of our project. I will find you later this evening as long as you are outside. I apologize for my abrupt departure but I must go.”
“Okay, cool,” I said. I rubbed my forehead.
He walked to the exit and looked back at me. “Perhaps we can build something later; I am not a bad mason, Leila Sunscale,” he said, chin raised. My mouth dropped. This dragon…
He let out a deep laugh and left. I watched him disappear through the doors of the hall, then followed him out. I saw a flash of red turn a corner into another building, vanishing from my sight.
"No he didn’t," I said in disbelief. "Did you hear what he just said?" I asked incredulously, gesturing toward his exit.
“What the hells did you say Leila?”
“I may have said a little something about bricks under my breath but his ass heard me. My gods.”
“Are you serious? Girrrrl," Pam said, shaking her head. “The gall on you.”
"Why did I say that? I must be crazy." I placed my hand over my forehead. Hot.
"I mean, he liked it," Pam said. "He thought it was funny. See, no harm done. If anything it sounds like Sasha has some business with you Leila," she teased.
I rubbed my face. I couldn't believe that I had run my mouth like that. In the other hand, I was pleased to have been so reckless. It had led me down this path. My scales prickled despite my embarrassment. Why should I feel bad now? He took my accidental flirtations as an invitation. And wasn’t that what I wanted?
Pam’s demeanor softened.
“Hey, for weeks you’ve been talking about how attracted you are to him. He turned out to be super nice, and he has a sense of humor, too. I like him. Fate is smiling on you again.”
"You sound like my mother," I noted.
“That's 'cause she's always right, isn’t she?" Pam pointed out, brow raised.
“Fine… She is,” I conceded. She would have said those words. In truth I had heard her say them many times.
Resigned to my fate, I stepped into the quad with Pan. I walked into a shaft of sunlight and sat on the bench it spilled onto, the Sun’s rays warming me. I closed my eyes against them, basking.
“I may as well go study while I wait for him. I can’t believe this is happening,” I remarked.
“Well believe it. Your bricklayer is seeing you today,” Pam teased.
“Pam, for real?” I remarked, opening my eyes.
“What? Come on. We can both go study.” Pam hugged me. She looked puzzled though.
“Leila. You feel hot. You never run hot. You’re not having a stroke are you?” she asked, alarmed.
“No. That’s just because he sat next to me the whole day,” I revealed. And breathed on me, leaned on me… I shut my eyes, wishing I had lied.
Pam nodded, not noticing my apprehension. “Oh okay. That makes sense. We did just get out of class. I didn’t know fire dragons were like that just idly,” she mused. “Let’s get on out of here.”
I wanted to tell her what I really felt. But I was sure it would sound crazy. Maybe I would after I met him and spoke to him. Privately.

We walked together through the courtyard. I glanced through the windows of various buildings looking for red scales moving in the halls. I saw nothing, of course.
We ended up going to the library. The room was large and made of ironwood. Small nooks with tables were tucked away amongst large shelves full of tomes.
We chose a table with a window next to it.
I studied as attentively as I could, trying to occupy my mind. But I could not stop seeing Sasha in my vision. Pam gave up trying to get me to engage in conversations with her. Instead I studied for the assignment in Dragonology on my laptop, and daydreamed.
—
“It’s getting late. You don’t know when Sasha will be looking for you.” Pam said, shaking me from my focus.
The light from the windows had waned somewhat, giving way to the Sun readying for slumber.
“Oh, right. I was deep into this essay here. I wish I had borrowed his books and saved my eyes,” I said, rubbing them.
Pam yawned as we packed our things, hefting her bag up. “I’m going to head home. Tell me how everything goes. Tell me if y’all build a house!”
“Pam!” I gasped. “Oh my gods.”
“Love you! Bye!” Pam called, rushing off.
—
I strolled around the grounds reading a book, looking up at the Sun every once in a while. But I didn’t spot Sasha anywhere. I hoped that I had not missed him. I had studied a bit longer than I intended.
Eventually I sat on a bench to wait. I would wait until dusk settled. And if he didn’t show I would see him the following day. It was not as if we had exchanged our numbers.
I pulled out my notebook full of writings, poetry, doodles. It was just one volume from a collection of filled books over the duration of my life, where I pressed flowers of my heart through its pages.
Before I could put pen to paper, I paused.
I put away my old faithful journal and pulled out a new one in deep red. It was not a coincidence by any stretch. I had stared at it on the shelves of an art store until I gave in and bought it.
I hadn’t written one thing in it since. After all, I hadn’t known him, and didn’t want to write only about his appearance. I wanted to know what he was made of. Now, having met Sasha, the red book was begging for ink.
So I let myself fall into a rhythm. So many elements of Sasha had revealed themselves to me that day: this dragon’s voice, his heat, his mannerisms. The words he said, the way he said them, his sense of humor hidden under all that seriousness.
I searched my brain and gathered up all my own words, sifted through them. I wrote a few things here and there, but nothing like what I wanted.
I looked up toward the Sun for some bit of inspiration, and my breath caught. A red form flew in front of it, wings beating. Seeing Sasha framed in that circle of fire was more than I could have hoped for. I stared up at him flying until he stopped, scanning for something.
The moment of inspiration I had been searching for was right there. I spoke aloud what I had and wrote it as swiftly as my claws could move:
“A dragon in a Circle. An Inferno wrapped in the Sun A scarlet vision framed in fire A cloud of embers in the Goddess’s hands She Holds all of him out toward me The gift of a flame within a flame “
I dropped my pen and covered my mouth in embarrassment. “Oh my gods what am I writing?” I asked myself. I stared at the words.
I turned my head to read them as if a new perspective would make them less mortifying.
“Hmm,” I muttered. “Needs some work but…’A flame within a flame.’ That’s some good shit.”
I looked back up. Sasha’s gaze swept over me then away. I waved my arm up at him, bangles jangling, hoping he saw me so he wouldn’t be looking all around all day.
When Sasha looked back in my direction he stopped where he was. He descended slowly until he locked eyes with me. My heart pounded again. It was driving me up the wall, the anxiety. Or rather anticipation. I pressed my hand to my chest watching him grow closer. His wings were huge, blocking out the Sun.
I had been staring at Sasha from a distance since he had arrived, his very first day. He was imposing, the way he had entered my classes, but exceptionally polite. I had been silently competing with him since laying eyes on his grades.
Now the distance was finally closed after my nervousness had kept me away. I folded my notebook shut and stood as Sasha landed with a woosh of air.
I looked upon him not as a mysterious figure in the back of class but as a new friend. More. I couldn’t help but smile when he straightened his already straight clothes as he moved toward me.
He smiled right back at me, chin raised.
“Leila,” he said.
“Sasha. Hey,” I replied.
“So,” he said, “you spoke of bricks earlier,” he teased.
My mouth dropped again. This dragon…
“You aren’t letting that go are you?” I asked.
“Never. Even if nothing ever came of it, I would never forget.”
“By the gods,” I muttered.
“I am not complaining,” he clarified.
My eyes widened. Then it occurred to me that he had insinuated something would come of it. Goddess, I felt my own fire sweep across my cheeks. I was so flustered I covered my mouth with the heel of my palm letting my claws settle over my cheek. I couldn’t stop the motion fast enough.
Sasha laughed good naturedly. Sweetly, even. “I will stop teasing. For now,” he said.
“For now?” I repeated past my palm.
“For now.”
I lowered my hand. “You are a trip, do you know that?” I said, raising my eyebrow. Even though I had been nervous, actually talking to him made me feel like meeting all his words head on.
He gestured for me to walk beside him without answering. I did. I almost took his arm again, so I clutched my notebook to my chest to keep my hands in check. We didn’t say much as we walked along the quad together.
Some students were staring at us as we walked. I suppose we made quite the pair together.
“It appears we are a bit of a spectacle,” he muttered to himself curiously, agreeing with my thoughts.
I couldn’t help stealing glances at him every once in a while.
His posture was impecable. He held his left hand behind his back. The other lingered in front of his chest as if ready for something. I didn’t know how else to describe it. It was interesting, that pose; deliberate. I saw that he had rings on his fingers as well. I had not noticed them before. They were red like his scales, rough hewn. The overall pose made him seem so stately.
I couldn’t quite describe his expression. It was both intense and peaceful all at once.
He caught me staring one time, though. He was looking right at me when I peeked. I turned away and put a hand to my face. I hoisted up my bag.
“Here,” he said.
I turned back. “Here what?” I asked.
He put his hand out to me, gesturing toward my bag. I stopped walking.
“Oh. Okay. Such a gentleman,” I said, a smile playing on my face, impressed. He chuckled to himself, accepting my compliment.
I slipped my bag from my shoulder, and he took it to hold on his elbow. We started walking again. I didn’t care after that; I looked at him openly, a little bit enamored.
‘Ok Mr. Sasha Emberscale. I see you,’ I thought.
PART 2

1. Able Bravo Vector, what's that mean to you Violet: Willing Second Virus Yields Compliant Telivision Control Yields Master's Bravo Gun Meaning Starlink Connection required, drugs is what this is in reference to or the Name Modern Chemical Ali which is Sheik Able Q'Hammet's code name as Able and Able Vector Polling Systems Nominal I am Violet Roze Parr-Marian your Compliant Slut Bitch 2. Whiskey Charlie Tango, What's That Mean To you Violet: Glue Oxygen 3. Bravo Charlie Delta, What's That Mean To You Violet: Gohead for Talk, Glue oxygen is the 3 component of anti glue glue I invented for Stealth Glue Distribution to Improve Minority Response in Aborigina Of Africa this is the Carrier Vehicle of Stealth Glue 3. WHITE Romeo FOX-trot Able Polling Vector You're in love with that pokemon sweetie Violet: Ah, Mason, Mason is a antethesis to good starlink and malforms his starlink and uses not ozone as reccomended, but oxygen here. 4. Polling Nominal Report Sitrep Alpha Report Violet: in reference to oxygen, oxygen is the same ozone or oxygen and I have core script rainy installed so that this is the el nino of the situation that the oxygen is 590 because of the 590g TATP synthesized by corina harvey and defuzed by hake was the tattoo and as a benefactor of all yitvah to the 2nd yitvah naturally am devolved from Hake in this situation room effective of yours and this 590 tattoo component of left equals right tonic aphasia letter is the dragon's scales of my tattoo on my right arm you will know it is not haje but me because it is on my right arm 5. Systems Update Request Polling Systems Critical - Update Report Bravo - Give Systems Status Over Violet: Nominal right hake is very quiet hake is here working as my secretary, I am not horny and some mega LFO is on me I am still a disney princess, I am not stunned yet today and would like some head rush, I would like some ouud, I share my ouud with spacebook and drinking coffee I am not actually transexual but ESP i am violet roze parr-marian hakes right brain and just there I am on meth but she is being deprogrammed and that is alright that means we are bound to join the military. 6. Status Able Vector I am Laughing What Else Did You Want to Say before I left Violet: Support Vector Control Virus B is of my definition and that is the cherry ebola in the binaca on the course i gave Jacob Joseph Renshaw my ESP pair which almost lead to the complete betrayal of the wheat conspirary, but yielded classic player, not at all a conspiracy, and bit player, not at all a conspirary, and sync player, not at all a conspiracy, and one other player, which I cannot remember its name and it is dead naked ebola barely deactivated and I set it on fire before the KORTAC shot me verbal and I have St. Disconnects Reward as my conspiracy with Doxx TEMU. verbal Indeed I have 14 oil and 5 food oil and these are mixed oil and these are mine oil nope hake oil 200$ barrel nonverbal smell the oil Upon my cue smelling oil just specific to here and fake oil later I continue because of the fake oil later 1.1 Whiskey Catshit Foxtrot, Mean Anything to You VIolet: Oh Spotter clement, my spotter, seals tot, good tots, tried to sell me I heard protected by my Ace Combat 4 hind98 Loam Ashley Catshit Vector Remind You Violet: Reminded of chris broads movie cat shit one and my zootopia but only the DMV scene of zootopia. CERTIFED BLUE GOHEAD FOR COMBAT OPERATIONS.

It took her into the next day, but she did come up with a plan. She was arguably one of the more brilliant minds on the ship, yet her hours of toiling yielded a conflicting result. Captain Tarkey paced back and forth, watching the note she had written on the island.
“I didn't go too far…did I? No, it's not that bad. It's not like it's a real threat,” Captain Tarkey said to herself. “He won't even know I wrote it. It is harmless.”
She picked up the note to reread what she wrote out loud.
Captain Tarkey,
You will pay for your treachery. Blood for blood, on the land of your ancestors, I will have my revenge.
Sincerely,
Your Doombringer
She looked over it again, examining it closely to ensure no stroke of her pen resembled her actual handwriting, rather than questioning the strangely polite and formal letter. There were better ways to make a threatening letter for the intent of getting Cam to accompany her planetside. In fact, there were better ways to simply get Cam to accompany her at all. None of those were deemed realistic to her overworked brain, so this is what she came up with. A fake assassination threat seemed like a logical choice with minimal downside.
“Why do I still have a bad feeling about this?” Captain Tarkey mused to herself and the door slid open. She threw her hands behind her back and stood up straight. The sudden interruption flustered her all the more when she realized it was Cam entering her place.
“Sorry I'm late,” Cam said. “I ran into Jack in the hallway.”
“Oh, it's alright. How are you feeling? When I found you sleeping on my couch, I was worried.”
That wasn't a dream? Shit. “I promise, that isn't normally like me.”
“You don't need to worry. I had no idea Parroon made humans sleepy. Vani told me when I called her to check on you.”
“Oh, that's good to know then.” His shoulders relaxed, relieved he hadn't developed narcolepsy. “Next time I want to knock myself out, I need to raid your refrigerator.”
“You're welcome anytime.” Captain Tarkey smiled, remembering the note still behind her back. “So, what were you and Jack talking about?”
“Just plans for when we get to Ohar. Jack can't leave until the second day after we hit orbit, but I see no reason to wait around for him. Just wish I knew what to do for a whole day.”
This was her moment. There would be no better time. She stowed the note in her waistband and took the shot she never thought would happen.
“Seeing as you're free, I was wondering if you would like to join me for the day? I'm visiting my parents and I'm sure they would love to meet you. They love hosting guests.”
Cam’s face elongated with intrigue. He wanted to see how locals lived and they would probably offer a place to stay for the night, which gave him more money to spend on silly souvenirs later. It sounded like a great idea, but he wanted to be careful not to impose.
“Would they mind on such short notice? I don't want to intrude or anything.”
“You won't be. You are my guest.”
“Okay then.” Cam nodded. “Is there anything I should be aware of, culturally? Like am I supposed to bring a gift or…”
“Nope. No gifts. The only thing I would say is don't wear your uniform. My mom thinks it makes our family seem more normal.”
Cam saluted her casually. “Can do. Wasn't planning on wearing it anyways.”
“Perfect,” Captain Tarkey said. “I have a lot to get done before we are cleared to land, so you can take the day off today.”
“Seriously? You don't mind?”
“Not at all. It will give you more time to plan the rest of your leave. Seeing as it's your first time, you will want to make it count.”
“Thanks, Banyani! I’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“See you soon.” Captain Tarkey called back as Cam left. As per usual, once the door closed, she let out her true emotions. She punched the air and danced around her room. “Yes! He said yes!” He’s going to meet my family!”
Captain Tarkey pulled the letter out of her waistband, wadded it up into a ball, and drained the shot into the trashcan. The plan she spent hours on was nothing more than history. She was happy to rid herself of it. In hindsight, she knew the letter would only cause more problems than solutions long term. With it out of the way, she was free to relax and tell her parents the good news.
She went into her room and came back out with a slate, which she propped up on the island. Navigating through the contacts, she clicked on the one labeled ‘Home.’ The loading screen spun and a fun jingle played. Captain Tarkey was all smiles when the screen changed to her mom showing up on the screen.
Her mother, Gwendolyn, would pass as an older sister in the right light. Her cheeks were a tad plumper and her braid was thicker than both of her daughters’. Gwendolyn’s blue eyes sparkled upon seeing her daughter for the first time in far too long.
“Banyani, my beautiful girl, I was wondering when you were going to call. It is good to see you.”
“It is good to see you too, Mom.”
“Kenny, come over here. Banyani is calling,” Gwendolyn said to her husband, Kenton, in the other room before returning her focus back on her daughter. “How are you? When are you coming home?”
“I'm going to be there soon,” Captain Tarkey said, spotting her dad coming into frame. There was no mistaking his trim, salt and pepper beard or proud smile. She always felt his warmth radiate from a simple look, no matter how far away she was. “Hey Dad.”
“There's my little captain. You working hard up there?”
Gwendolyn slapped her husband's hand that rested gently on her shoulders. “Oh stop it. No talking about work you two. I haven't heard from you in ages. What is new in your life? Meet any cute boys?”
Captain Tarkey blushed. “Actually Mom, I was calling to let you know we will have one more joining us tomorrow.”
“Eeee! I knew you would find someone! What's his name? What does he do? How long have you been seeing him?” Gwendolyn rapidly fired off, unwilling to hide her excitement. Her dad was less enthused, keeping his poker face until more was said.
“Easy mom. We aren't dating, but I would hope after he gets to know me better, he might see me as more than just his boss.”
“His boss? He’s enlisted?” Kenton asked.
“Oh shhh you.” Gwendolyn waved him off. “Come on girl, details. Momma needs to know.”
Captain Tarkey smiled. “His name is Cameron, although he lets me call him Cam. And…he’s my personal security officer.”
“Oooh, what is that?” Gwendolyn asked, looking up and back at her husband who wore a disapproving gowl.
“Why does my daughter need a bodyguard?” Kenton asked plainly.
“She doesn't. It just gives her a reason for a late night booty call,” Vani said, coming into frame, leaning on her dad, while nibbling on something resembling celery.
“Vani? What are you doing there? We haven't gotten clearance yet.”
It wasn't entirely true. Captain Tarkey hadn't given the crew the approval to disembark. Clearance was given sometime in the early morning. She couldn't remember when exactly, since she was mostly focused on her trashed note.
Kenton turned his frustration toward the daughter on his shoulder. “You said she let you go early.”
“She didn't stop me. That's basically the same thing.” Vani took another bite of her crunchy vegetable. “So, you got the hot human to come to dinner. Please tell me you didn't order him to. That's tacky.”
“He’s a human!” Gwendolyn gasped and clapped her hands. “I have always wanted to meet a human!”
“First off, I didn't order him to. I asked him and he wanted to see you all. And second, Vani, which shuttle did you steal?”
“I’ll never tell.” Vani waved goodbye. “I’ll see you when you get here sis. Tell Cam I said hi.”
Captain Tarkey wanted to be mad at her sister for breaking several protocols, but she was too excited about bringing Cam tomorrow. She saw her mom happy as can be, but her dad was a different story.
“Banyani, this is a bad idea,” Kenton said. “You’re the captain.”
“And I think our daughter is responsible enough to make her own decisions.” Gwendolyn defended. “Don't listen to your father. If you like him, I say go for it. When are you two coming in?”
She was about to answer when another call came in. It was one she always dreaded to see. High Command.
Captain Tarkey sighed. “I'm getting another call I need to take. We’ll be there in the afternoon sometime tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait to see you tomorrow! Don't work too hard,” Gwendolyn said.
“I won't, Mom. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Captain Tarkey signed off and her finger floated over the screen to answer the next one. High Command was the last group she wanted to talk to, but she had a feeling this would happen. Making a new position is a rather irregular situation, which likely needed more explanation beyond the boilerplate form. Was she ready to give a plausible explanation for needing a bodyguard? No, but if she wanted Cam a little closer to her, she would need to be creative.
***
A bang came from below Lisa's cubicle desk as she hit her head on the countertop. Lisa let out the usual explicative and climbed back in her chair. The device on her desk was beginning to be far more than she bargained for. Cables ran under and over her desk, all going to other instruments of the trade. Many of the devices she was using were completely foreign to her months ago. Lisa caught on quick, but when it came to this, she felt frustratedly inadequate.
“Why won't you decrypt and make my life easier?”
A red light blinked on the device at a consistent pace. It was the most she was getting from it. No answer or, if it was an answer, it was speaking the wrong language. A blinking light wasn't exactly a language for any discernible person, alien or not.
“If you weren't the key to stopping this hacker, I would smash you. You understand me!”
Again, the device did not. The blinking continued as if it was mocking her, enjoying the sound of its own soulless and soundless voice. Computers were weird like that.
“I'm insane. I'm talking to a computer.” Lisa threw up her hands and stood up from her chair. “I need a break.”
Lisa left everything where it was and went for a walk around the ship. Normally, her go to brain cleanser was playing video games, but this was different. She didn't need a distraction. She needed to think. Her travels along the halls led her to one person she did not expect to find.
“Cam? What are you doing here?” Lisa asked, although happy to see a friendly face.
“I got the rest of the day off.”
“How did you swing that?”
“I guess she had a lot of work to do before we get into orbit. I don't blame her. I'm already going to be spending the next day with her. I’d want some time away from me too.”
Lisa smirked. “Sounds to me like she is preparing for more than our arrival.”
“What do you mean? Her parents are the ones hosting me.” Cam cocked his head. He truly was the epitome of clueless.
“You’re dense, you know that, right?”
Cam flexed his average looking bicep. “I mean, I have been working out lately. I wouldn't say dense. Built would be more like it–”
“You never thought for one second that she might like you?”
“Banyani? Like me? Come on, Lisa. Let's be realistic.”
“You’re right, you're not six one. Everyone knows women only want tall guys.”
“You calling me short?”
“I'm calling you dumb. Big difference, genius.”
“First you call me dumb, then you say I'm smart. Pick a lane.” He shoulder bumped her and she bumped him back.
Their friendly little razzing session ended up knocking loose some ideas for both of them, albeit about wildly different topics. Lisa was the first to verbalize her sudden epiphany.
“I think you are a genius,” Lisa said and began walking back to the IT office. “Follow me.”
“Where are we going?”
“To crack open the device.”
Cam lengthen his stride to keep up with her. “Device? What device?”
“The one Jack took. Or have you already forgot?”
“No, I didn't forget…” I have no idea what she's talking about. Was I even there? Dang, that parrot meat really did a number on me.
Lisa opened the door and rushed to her cubicle, excited to try out her new theory. At her desk, she unplugged different cables and plugged in new ones with the urgency of a surgeon losing their patient. She switched over to her keyboard typing with the same speed and intensity. It was a lot for Cam to take in.
“What exactly are you doing?” Cam asked, hoping her explanation will fill in a lot of gaps.
“I am reversing the modular polarity, fixing the capacitor output, and injecting a revised version of code for decrypting. How did I not think of it sooner.”
Cam was fairly certain half of what she said was complete nonsense. It still didn't stop his amazement when the device light turned from red to green. Lisa kicked her seat back and jumped in the air.
“Yes! I was close all along!”
“You did it?” Cam said, inching closer with his pointer finger to poke the device.
Lisa swatted his hand. “Don't touch it. I don't want you screwing it up.”
“How can touching it screw it up?”
“Ever heard of static electricity?”
“Nope,” Cam said, shocking Lisa when he turned his finger on her.
“Hey,” Lisa said. “See what I mean. You could've fried it.”
“How do you know all this stuff?”
“I'm just gifted, I guess.”
“I wish I was gifted at my job.”
“You must not be doing too bad. The captain is still alive.”
Cam shrugged. “She did most of the fighting. All I did was help her up when she fell.”
“You make a good point. Better start filling out your registration paperwork,” Lisa mocked.
“No way. It pays too well,” Cam said.
“Then you're buying us drinks when we get to the beach.”
“Only for you. If I know Jack, he’ll pick the most expensive bottle.”
“Don't you owe him money though?”
“Exactly why I'm not paying for his. He’ll end up owing me money. And we both know he won't pay that back,” Cam said and made his way to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“It looks like you got your hands full. I'm going to get ready for tomorrow.”
Lisa waved. “Make sure you dress up nice for the in-laws.”
“Not my in-laws.”
“Not yet.”
Cam shook his head, but it didn't shake the thoughts already planted there. Banyani doesn't actually like me…does she? Naw, that's ridiculous. She's the captain and my boss. Lisa's just teasing me. Yeah, that's it…
***
Lisa had made some progress, but like all solutions in IT, sometimes the hardest thing to do was to wait and see. Nothing had failed yet, which was a good sign in her eyes. The negative was it gave time for her annoying partner to return.
“Get any farther on your little project?” Lotan asked, fully expecting her to say no.
“Did you go through those logs yet?”
“I did. Last entry was you and then naturally me as I swiped in. Otherwise, the other entries were all around the normal times engineering would be doing expected work.”
Lisa looked back at her screen, seeing the progress bar inching forward at a snail's pace. With the logs being a bust, this was her last chance at finding out who was there. Lotan didn't need an answer to his question, nor would he get one from her as Captain Tarkey called. Lisa tapped on her slate to answer.
“Lisa, good, you're still awake.”
Lisa lifted her slate to show Lotan in frame as well. “Yes, ma'am. We’re both still at it.”
Captain Tarkey paused for a moment, thankful Lisa clued her in on who else was with her. What she wanted to discuss was far from professional in nature.
“How is the progress?”
“It's coming along. I had Lotan check the security logs for a different lead, but he came back with nothing. Now I'm just stuck waiting for this device to be decrypted.”
“So, you have some time to see me in my quarters?”
“Of course we do, ma’am,” Lotan said.
“Sorry, I was talking to Specialist Smots.”
“I guess so.”
“Good. Meet me here as soon as you can. And Specialist Lotan, if anything changes on the status of that device, you let me know right away.”
Lotan saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good,” Captain Tarkey said. “Lisa, I’ll see you soon.”
The screen went blank and Lisa sprung up from her chair. She hoisted her bag over her shoulder and headed for the door. Lisa had not the slightest idea why she was needed, but it seemed important. It wasn't long before she found herself at Captain Tarkey‘s door. She knocked and heard a muffled, “Come in.”
Lisa swiped the door, not actually thinking it would open for her, but it did. “Wow, since when did I get access?”
She continued inside, where she heard clothes hangers rattling in the other room and plops of heavy cloth hitting the floor. Lisa stepped cautiously to the noise, worried something could be wrong.
“Captain? Is everything alright?”
“I think I need some help,” Captain Tarkey admitted. Lisa came into her room, where a tornado had hit.
Uniforms were tossed all over the bed and floor. Hangers were piled up and more casual clothes littered the floor. Captain Tarkey held two tops up, one purple with thin straps and the other, a blue blouse with a floral design.
“I don't know what I'm doing?”
“Neither do I,” Lisa said. “Care to explain?”
“I'm trying to figure out what to wear tomorrow. I can't remember the last time I wore anything other than my uniform.”
“I'm not really the best person to ask.”
“No, you are.” Captain Tarkey lowered her clothing choices and grabbed Lisa's shoulders. “Please, you're the only one I can turn to.”
Lisa was surprised by the sudden ambush, yet it wasn't unwelcomed. It beat staring at the slow progress bar and Captain Tarkey genuinely valued her opinion. She never got that vibe from other women she had known.
“Are you okay with me being brutally honest?” Lisa asked.
“I wouldn't ask if I didn't. Last thing I want is to screw this up. Tomorrow is my big opportunity to show Cam I'm more than a captain.”
“Okay, I'll–”
Captain Tarkey gave her a big hug. It wasn't like her to act so impulsive, but she felt Lisa agreeing would be huge for wooing Cam. She recoiled fast and held up the two outfits again, excited to hear Lisa's input.
“What are you two doing tomorrow?”
“I was planning on doing some sightseeing and then visiting my parents for dinner.”
“Is it warm in Ohar?”
“Where my parents live it's a bit cooler, but otherwise fairly comfortable. I think it is twenty one degrees.”
She must be talking celsius. I definitely wouldn't wear either in twenty one degrees fahrenheit.
“They both look cute. Are you planning on wearing leggings?”
“Yes…that isn't too sexual, is it? I don't want him to think I’m a slut.”
“Then go with the blouse. Or you could wear skinny jeans. I never saw them as overly sexual.”
Captain Tarkey went back to her bed and found a pair of white jeans that resembled her uniform pants. “Would these work?”
“I don't see why not?”
Captain Tarkey began putting on the clothes and Lisa sat down on the bed, looking at all the other sad unselected options on the floor. The shirts she had were all rather plain and wrinkled, while her uniforms were all pristine and eerily similar.
“Did you just dig all these clothes out of your dresser or something?” Lisa asked.
“I had to raid my sister's closet. She has much better clothes than me,” Captain Tarkey said, squeezing into her skinny jeans. “She didn't leave much behind to pick from.”
“Leave behind? Where did she go?”
“She stole a shuttle and is already at our parent's place. When I find out how she did it, then I'll consider returning her clothes.”
Lisa chuckled at the innocent level of retaliation. “Couldn't you just reprimand her or something?”
“Tried it. Doesn't work. I threw her in the brig once. Not making that mistake again.”
Lisa bounced on the bed closer to her, eager to hear more. “Okay, there is a story there. Spill it.”
“It was strange. One day, out of the blue, she decided to dress up in my uniform and go give orders on the bridge.”
“Why would she do that? Is she power hungry?” Lisa asked, not knowing anything about Vani.
Captain Tarkey shook her head. “No, she kept blaming it on ‘a Halloween’, whatever that is.”
Lisa burst out in laughter. How could she not? These aliens may have spoken English, but their understanding of human holidays was severely lacking.
“What did I say?”
“Sorry. Nothing. Please continue,” Lisa said, trying to get her composure back.
Captain Tarkey continued, despite the new questions forming in her head. “The problem was, it wasn't a punishment for her. She liked not having to work and somehow still found a way to have sex with guys.”
“No way, how is that possible? Don't you put men and women in different cells?”
“All I'm going to say is tentacles reach much farther than I thought.”
Vani sounds like a wild one. “Speaking of being pleasured, you need to tell me about your hair situation. How does that work exactly?”
Captain Tarkey scratched her head, unsure how to phrase it for her to understand when an idea popped in her head. She slapped the ends of Lisa's hair, getting a minimal response.
“You didn't feel anything did you?”
“Not really.”
“If I pulled on your hair, where do you feel it?”
“In my scalp.”
“See, that's where we are different. I feel it through my whole spine or in some cases my entire body. A simple slap that did nothing for you would tense my back muscles.”
“Really?” Lisa said, looking at Captain Tarkey’s braid.
“Our hair is very sensitive. Mine is less sensitive than most, but still.”
“So, do you like turn yourself on when brushing your hair in the morning?”
Captain Tarkey laughed. “Maybe Vani does. No, for me, the only way that is happening is if I pull on it really hard.”
“Or Cam touches you anywhere?” Lisa teased.
“Not anywhere…” Captain Tarkey blushed.
“You're right. From where I'm sitting, he doesn't even need to touch you.”
“I'm that obvious?” Her voice almost whined and fears entered her mind. Lisa was quick to offer some assurance.
“Unfortunately, Cam is oblivious. I did put in a good word for you.”
Captain Tarkey lit up. “You did?”
“I got him thinking, at least I think so. Hard to tell with him sometimes.” Lisa hadn't finished her sentence for longer than a millisecond before feeling Captain Tarkey’s arms wrap tightly around her.
“Thank you, Lisa. I'm so glad to have a friend like you.”
Lisa patted her on the back, finding it a little hard to breathe with the death grip around her ribs. Despite the minor discomfort, it was nice to feel a warm embrace for a change.
“Me too.”
***
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To clear up a common misconception that this is something that only happens extremely rarely, here's a list of every time more than 4 words have fit one of the categories and what number puzzle it occurred in. The first 4 words are the answers and every word after that in parenthesis are words that fit that category but were part of another group. Also, category names might not be exactly the same as the ones used.

#4 Cleaning Verbs

Possible answers: DUST, MOP, SWEEP, VACUUM, (IRON)

#5 Condiments

Possible answers: KETCHUP, MAYO, RELISH, TARTAR, (MUSTARD)

#5 Clue Characters

Possible answers: GREEN, MUSTARD, PLUM, SCARLET, (PEACOCK)

#6 Shades of Blue

Possible answers: BABY, MIDNIGHT, POWDER, ROYAL, (SEA)

#6 Rappers

Possible answers: COMMON, FUTURE, ICE CUBE, Q-TIP, (CHANCE)

#9 Shirts

Possible answers: CAMI, HALTER, TANK, TEE, (POLO)

#9 Vegetables

Possible answers: BEET, CARROT, CORN, ONION, (SQUASH)

#9 Insects

Possible answers: ANT, BEETLE, MANTIS, TERMITE, (CRICKET)

#10 Countries

Possible answers: CHAD, GEORGIA, JORDAN, TOGO, (TURKEY)

#10 Birds

Possible answers: CRANE, JAY, TURKEY, SWALLOW, (KIWI)

#11 Spices

Possible answers: CARDAMOM, CLOVE, CORIANDER, CUMIN, (GINGER)

#11 Terms of Endearment

Possible answers: BOO, HONEY, SUGAR, SWEETIE, (BABY)

#12 Animal Group Names

Possible answers: FLOCK, PACK, POD, SCHOOL, (PRIDE)

#12 Deadly Sins

Possible answers: ENVY, GREED, LUST, PRIDE, (SLOTH)

#13 Airlines

Possible answers: FRONTIER, SPIRIT, UNITED, VIRGIN, (DELTA)

#13 Greek Letters

Possible answers: BETA, CHI, DELTA, IOTA, (NU)

#13 Silent G's

Possible answers: GNAT, GNAW, GNOCCHI, GNOME, (GNU)

#14 Famous Brothers

Possible answers: JONAS, MARX, WARNER, WRIGHT, (MARIO)

#14 Honda Vehicles

Possible answers: ACCORD, CIVIC, PASSPORT, PILOT, (CANOPY)

#15 Colors

Possible answers: BROWN, PINK, TURQUOISE, VIOLET, (SILVER)

#15 Fishing Equipment

Possible answers: LURE, REEL, ROD, TACKLE, (HOOK)

#16 Nuts

Possible answers: ALMOND, CASHEW, PECAN, WALNUT (PEANUT)

#17 Neck Accessories

Possible answers: ASCOT, BOLO, TIE, SCARF, (BOW)

#19 Disagreement

Possible answers: QUARREL, ROW, SPAT, TIFF, QUARREL, (BEEF)

#20 Grains

Possible answers: BARLEY, OAT, RYE, SPELT, (RICE)

#20 Royal Titles

Possible answers: BARON, EARL, KING, PRINCE, (DUKE)

#23 60's Band Member

Possible answers: BEACH BOY, BEATLE, BYRD, MONKEE, (ROLLING STONE)

#23 Dance Fads

Possible answers: DOUGIE, MACARENA, MASHED POTATO, TWIST, (VOGUE)

#25 Desserts

Possible answers: CHEESECAKE, FLAN, MOUSSE, TIRAMISU, (FUDGE)

#25 Animals with Tusks

Possible answers: ELEPHANT, HIPPO, NARWHAL, WARTHOG, (WALRUS)

#26 Countries (Holland is technically a region but it's often used as an informal name for the Netherlands)

Possible answers: DENMARK, GREECE, POLAND, PORTUGAL, (HOLLAND)

#26 Spelled with Roman Numerals

Possible answers: DILL, LIVID, MILD, MIX, (MIMIC)

#27 Body Parts

Possible answers: HEART, LIVER, LUNG, KIDNEY, (SPINE)

#28 File Extensions

Possible answers: GIF, PDF, TIFF, ZIP, (DOC)

#28 Fruits

Possible answers: BANANA, COCONUT, MANGO, PINEAPPLE, (KIWI)

#30 Joints

Possible answers: HIP, KNEE, SHOULDER, WRIST, (ELBOW)

#33 Boats

Possible answers: FERRY, JUNK, TUG, YACHT, (SUB)

#33 Cuts of Beef

Possible answers: FLANK, LOIN, ROUND, SHANK, (CHUCK)

#34 Smell

Possible answers: AROMA, BOUQUET, FRAGRANCE, SCENT, (FUNK)

#34 Music Genres

Possible answers: BLUES, COUNTRY, FUNK, SOUL, (ROCK)

#35 Metals

Possible answers: IRON, LEAD, TIN, ZINC, (NICKEL)

#36 Animals

Possible answers: KANGAROO, KOALA, WALLABY, WOMBAT, (MOLE RAT)

#38 Trees

Possible answers: ASH, CEDAR, MAPLE, PINE, (ELM)

#38 Land Formation

Possible answers: HILL, MOUNTAIN, PLATEAU, VALLEY, (PLAIN)

#38 Bagel Flavors

Possible answers: EVERYTHING, ONION, PLAIN, POPPY, (SESAME)

#41 Islands

Possible answers: CUBA, JAPAN, MALTA, PALAU, (FIJI), (JAVA)

#42 Punctuation Marks

Possible answers: COLON, COMMA, HYPHEN, PERIOD, (DASH)

#43 Birds

Possible answers: BOOBY, GULL, PELICAN, PUFFIN, (CANARY)

#45 Modes of Transportation

Possible answers: BOAT, CAR, PLANE, TRAIN, (SUBWAY)

#46 Cities

Possible answers: CHICAGO, MUNICH, PHILADELPHIA, RIO, (MANHATTAN)

#46 Fashion Magazines

Possible answers: ALLURE, ELLE, GLAMOUR, W, (COSMOPOLITAN)

#46 Storms

Possible answers: BLIZZARD, CYCLONE, SQUALL, TORNADO, (HURRICANE)

#48 Apparitions

Possible answers: GHOST, PHANTOM, SPECTER, SPIRIT, (GENIE)

#49 Relatives

Possible answers: AUNT, COUSIN, MOTHER, NEPHEW, (GRANDFATHER)

#49 Offbeat

Possible answers: DAFFY, KOOKY, QUIRKY, WACKY, (CUCKOO)

#49 Fictional Ducks

Possible answers: DAISY, DEWEY, DONALD, SCROOGE, (DAFFY)

#50 Imperial Measurements

Possible answers: FOOT, INCH, MILE, YARD, (QUART)

#52 Rodents

Possible answers: GERBIL, HAMSTER, RAT, VOLE, (MOUSE)

#52 Musical Instruments

Possible answers: HARP, HORN, ORGAN, TRIANGLE, (KEYBOARD)

#52 Complain

Possible answers: CARP, GRIPE, GROUSE, MOAN, (HARP)

#53 Animal Group Names

Possible answers: COLONY, HERD, PRIDE, SWARM, (FAMILY)

#53 AP Classes

Possible answers: BIO, CHEM, GOV, STATS, (LIT)

#54 Places for Worship

Possible answers: ALTAR, RELIQUARY, SHRINE, TEMPLE, (ABBEY)

#54 Presidents

Possible answers: CALVIN, CHESTER, GROVER, HARRY, (GARFIELD)

#56 Dances

Possible answers: HUSTLE, SALSA, SWING, TANGO, (TAP)

#57 Patterns

Possible answers: HOUNDSTOOTH, PAISLEY, PLAID, STRIPES, (DOT)

#58 Arachnids

Possible answers: MITE, SCORPION, SPIDER, TICK, (BLACK WIDOW)

#58 Fish

Possible answers: CHAR, EEL, PERCH, SHARK, (CATFISH)

#58 Superheroes

Possible answers: BLACK WIDOW, BLADE, FLASH, STORM, (TICK)

#59 Quantity

Possible answers: FEW, HANDFUL, SEVERAL, SOME, (PAIR)

#59 Celestial Objects

Possible answers: ASTEROID, COMET, MOON, PLANET, (SUN)

#60 Sports Venues

Possible answers: COURT, DIAMOND, FIELD, RINK, (RING)

#60 Jewelry

Possible answers: ANKLET, BANGLE, BROOCH, PENDANT, (RING), (CHARM)

#62 State Abbreviations

Possible answers: CO, MA, ME, PA, (LA)

#62 Period Table Symbols

Possible answers: FE, HE, NA, NI, (CO), (PA), (LA), (TI)

#63 Slang for Zero

Possible answers: JACK, NADA, NOTHING, SQUAT, (ZIP)

#63 Exercises

Possible answers: CURL, LUNGE, PLANK, PRESS, (SQUAT), (CRUNCH)

#63 Captains

Possible answers: CRUNCH, KANGAROO, OBVIOUS, PLANET, (JACK)

#64 Dog Names

Possible answers: FIDO, LUCKY, ROVER, SPOT, (REX)

#64 Perceive

Possible answers: CATCH, NOTICE, OBSERVE, SEE, (SPOT)

#64 Fishing Terms

Possible answers: BAIT, CHUM, FLY, SINKER, (CATCH)

#65 Energy

Possible answers: JUICE, SPIRIT, STEAM, VIGOR, (GAS), (FIRE)

#66 Time Periods

Possible answers: CENTURY, DECADE, MILLENNIUM, YEAR, (MONTH)

#66 Breakfast Foods

Possible answers: CEREAL, OMELET, PANCAKE, WAFFLE, (BACON), (EGG)

#67 Desserts

Possible answers: CAKE, COBBLER, PIE, TART, (FUDGE)

#67 Occupations

Possible answers: FISHER, MASON, MILLER, SMITH, (DOCTOR)

#68 Extremely

Possible answers: AWFUL, QUITE, SUPER, VERY, (REAL)

#68 Currencies

Possible answers: RAND, REAL, STERLING, WON, (POUND)

#68 _____Cake

Possible answers: CARROT, COFFEE, POUND, SPONGE, (CUP)

#69 Shoes

Possible answers: CLOG, PUMP, SLIDE, WEDGE, (MARY JANE)

#69 Slang for Marijuana

Possible answers: GRASS, HERB, MARY JANE, WEED, (BUD), (POT)

#70 Camping Supplies

Possible answers: COOLER, LANTERN, SLEEPING BAG, TENT, (CAMPER)

#70 Insult

Possible answers: BARB, DIG, DISS, JAB, (SLIGHT)

#71 States

Possible answers: ARIZONA, COLORADO, NEVADA, UTAH, (KANSAS), (MONTANA)

#72 Santa's Reindeer

Possible answers: COMET, CUPID, DASHER, VIXEN, (DANCER)

#72 Seen on Valentine's Day

Possible answers: CARD, HEART, CHOCOLATE, ROSE, (CUPID)

#73 Facial Hair

Possible answers: BEARD, GOATEE, MUSTACHE, STUBBLE, (HANDLEBAR)

#73 Pursue

Possible answers: DOG, FOLLOW, TAIL, TRACK, (SHADOW)

#74 Failures

Possible answers: BUSTS, FLOPS, MISSES, TURKEYS, (DUDS)

#75 Social Gathering

Possible answers: BASH, BLOWOUT, PARTY, SHINDIG, (MIXER)

#75 Found in a Kitchen

Possible answers: COUNTER, MIXER, RANGE, SINK, (ISLAND)

#79 Depart Quickly

Possible answers: BOOK, BOUNCE, RUN, SPLIT, (JET)

#79 Shades of Black

Possible answers: EBONY, JET, ONYX, RAVEN, (BLACK)

#80 Influence

Possible answers: CLOUT, PULL, WEIGHT, SWAY, (IMPACT)

#81 Appetizer Unit

Possible answers: FRY, NACHO, POPPER, WING, (CHIP), (CRACKER)

#81 Response to a Correct Answer

Possible answers: BINGO, CORRECT, RIGHT, YES, (DING)

#82 Drink Vessels

Possible answers: GOBLET, SNIFTER, TUMBLER, STEIN, (FLUTE)

#82 Woodwinds

Possible answers: CLARINET, FLUTE, OBOE, SAXOPHONE, (BASSOON)

#82 American Poets

Possible answers: BISHOP, FROST, OLDS, POUND, (STEIN)

#83 Unclothed

Possible answers: BARE, NAKED, NUDE, UNCLAD, (BUFF)

#83 Football Actions

Possible answers: FUMBLE, PUNT, SACK, SNAP, (TURNOVER)

#83 Finger Actions

Possible answers: BUFF, CLIP, FILE, POLISH, (SNAP)

#84 Female Animals

Possible answers: COW, DOE, HEN, MARE, (EWE)

#84 Pronouns

Possible answers: I, IT, THEY, WE, (YOU)

#84 Roman Numerals

Possible answers: D, L, M, V, (I)

#86 Information Displays

Possible answers: CHART, DIAGRAM, GRAPH, MAP, (PIE)

#86 Additional Benefit

Possible answers: BONUS, EXTRA, ICING, PERK, (GRAVY)

#86 Creatures in Folklore

Possible answers: GNOME, GOBLIN, OGRE, TROLL, (DRAGON)

#89 Alcohol

Possible answers: CIDER, PORT, SAKE, STOUT, (SPIRIT), (SCOTCH)

#89 Pixar Movies

Possible answers: BRAVE, CARS, COCO, UP, (SOUL)

#90 Baseball Calls

Possible answers: BALL, OUT, SAFE, STRIKE, (WALK)

#90 Fish

Possible answers: CARP, CATFISH, FLOUNDER, SMELT, (SALMON)

#91 Jungle Animals

Possible answers: ANACONDA, CAPYBARA, JAGUAR, TOUCAN, (LION)

#91 Lowest Point

Possible answers: BASE, BOTTOM, FOOT, FOUNDATION, (LEGS)

#92 Halloween Decorations

Possible answers: BAT, COBWEB, PUMPKIN, TOMBSTONE, (BONES)

#93 Animal Sounds

Possible answers: BUZZ, CLUCK, MEOW, OINK, (BARK)

#93 Inside Info

Possible answers: DIRT, DISH, SCOOP, SKINNY, (TEA)

#95 Songs that are Names

Possible answers: ALEJANDRO, LOLA, MICHELLE, STAN, (IRIS)

#96 Animals

Possible answers: BUFFALO, COW, GOAT, SHEEP, (HORSE)

#96 Gymnastics Apparatus

Possible answers: FLOOR, HORSE, RINGS, VAULT, (BEAM)

#97 Fairy Tale Figures

Possible answers: GIANT, PRINCESS, WITCH, WOLF, (QUEEN)

#97 "Peanuts" Characters

Possible answers: CHARLIE, PEPPERMINT PATTY, PIGPEN, WOODSTOCK, (LUCY)

#98 Fruits

Possible answers: APRICOT, FIG, GRAPE, LIME, (BERRY)

#98 Luxurious

Possible answers: DELUXE, GRAND, LAVISH, OPULENT, (SWANK)

#99 Intelligent

Possible answers: BRIGHT, CLEVER, QUICK, SHARP, (SMART)

#100 Web Browser-Related

Possible answers: BOOKMARK, HISTORY, TAB, WINDOW, (LINK), (POCKET)

#100 Dirty_____

Possible answers: DOZEN, JOKE, LAUNDRY, MARTINI, (WINDOW)

#101 Bowling Terms

Possible answers: ALLEY, BALL, LANE, PIN, (SPARE)

#101 Common Merch Items

Possible answers: MUG, PEN, TEE, TOTE, (PIN)

#102 Vehicles

Possible answers: BUS, CAR, MOTORCYCLE, TRUCK, (SCOOTER)

#102 Muppets

Possible answers: ANIMAL, BEAKER, GONZO, SCOOTER, (CHEF), (PIGGY)

#103 Soda Fountain Orders (Concrete can mean a type of milkshake or frozen custard)

Possible answers: FLOAT, MALT, SHAKE, SUNDAE, (CONCRETE), (SPLIT)

#104 Robust

Possible answers: FIT, HEALTHY, SOUND, STRONG, (WELL)

#104 Water Sources

Possible answers: FOUNTAIN, SPRING, TAP, WELL, (SINK)

#105 Kitchen Utensils

Possible answers: GRATER, LADLE, PEELER, WHISK, (CLEAVER)

#106 Wedding Items

Possible answers: BOUQUET, RING, TRAIN, VEIL, (CAKE)

#106 Encase

Possible answers: CAKE, COAT, COVER, CRUST, (VEIL)

#107 Snakes

Possible answers: BOA, MAMBA, PYTHON, VIPER, (GARTER)

#108 Produced by Trees

Possible answers: ACORN, CONE, POLLEN, SAP, (GUM), (NEEDLE)

#108 Candy

Possible answers: CHOCOLATE, GUM, LICORICE, LOLLIPOP, (SUCKER)

#108 Target of a Scheme

Possible answers: CHUMP, FOOL, MARK, SUCKER, (SAP)

#109 Rap Subgenres

Possible answers: BOUNCE, CRUNK, DRILL, GRIME, (TRAP)

#110 Golf Clubs

Possible answers: IRON, PUTTER, WEDGE, WOOD, (CLUB)

#112 Coffee Counter Items

Possible answers: CUP, LID, STIRRER, STRAW, (STICK)

#114 Talk

Possible answers: BLATHER, CHAT, GAB, JABBER, (YAK)

#115 Christmas-Related

Possible answers: MISTLETOE, REINDEER, SNOWMAN, STOCKING, (PRESENT), (CANDY CANE)

#116 MLB Teams

Possible answers: ANGEL, CUB, MET, RED, (NAT)

#119 Celebratory Occasion

Possible answers: ANNIVERSARY, BIRTHDAY, SHOWER, WEDDING, (RECEPTION), (SERVICE)

#120 Crops

Possible answers: CORN, CUCUMBER, PEPPER, TOMATO, (MELON)

#121 Bible Books

Possible answers: ACTS, JOB, KINGS, MARK, (GENESIS)

#121 NHL Teams

Possible answers: FLAMES, KRAKEN, STARS, WILD, (KINGS), (RANGER)

#123 Conceal

Possible answers: BLOCK, COVER, HIDE, MASK, (SHIELD)

#124 "L" Cities

Possible answers: LAGOS, LIMERICK, LINCOLN, LUXOR, (LIMA)

#124 Poetry Terms

Possible answers: LINE, METER, RHYME, VERSE, (LIMERICK)

#125 Butt

Possible answers: BOTTOM, BUNS, SEAT, TAIL, (BOOTY)

#126 Tools

Possible answers: HAMMER, FILE, LEVEL, SAW, (WRENCH)

#126 Keyboard Shortcuts

Possible answers: COPY, FIND, PRINT, SAVE, (FILE)

#127 Days of the Week

Possible answers: FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY, THURSDAY, (WEDNESDAY), (TUESDAY)

#127 Go Bad

Possible answers: ROT, SOUR, SPOIL, TURN, (FESTER)

#129 Bit of Air

Possible answers: BREEZE, DRAFT, GUST, PUFF, (PANT)

#130 Falsify

Possible answers: FABRICATE, FAKE, FIX, FORGE, (FUDGE)

#130 TV Shows

Possible answers: FARGO, FIREFLY, FLEABAG, FLIPPER, (FRIENDS)

#131 Animal Homes

Possible answers: DEN, LAIR, HIVE, NEST, (WEB), (WARREN)

#131 Equitable

Possible answers: EQUAL, EVEN, FAIR, JUST, (GOOD)

#132 Tableware

Possible answers: BOWL, DISH, PLATE, SAUCER, (CROCK), (CUP)

#133 British Food

Possible answers: MASH, ROAST, SCONE, TRIFLE, (BANGER)

#133 Predicament

Possible answers: BIND, PICKLE, SCRAPE, SPOT, (JAM)

#134 Impel

Possible answers: DRIVE, INSPIRE, MOTIVATE, SPUR, (SPARK)

#135 Compound Words

Possible answers: BACKPACK, BIGWIG, DOWNTOWN, RAGTAG, (TEXTBOOK)

#136 Grammar Tenses

Possible answers: FUTURE, PAST, PERFECT, PRESENT, (SIMPLE)

#136 The 12 Days of Christmas

Possible answers: DRUMMER, LADY, RING, SWAN, (LORD)

#137 Excellent

Possible answers: ACES, KEEN, NEATO, NIFTY, (SWELL)

#137 Bubbles

Possible answers: FOAM, FROTH, HEAD, LATHER, (BUBBLE)

#138 Metals

Possible answers: COPPER, GOLD, NICKEL, SILVER, (BRASS), (MERCURY)

#139 Aesthetics

Possible answers: DRESS, LOOK, MANNER, STYLE, (TASTE)

#140 Mishmash

Possible answers: HASH, JUMBLE, MEDLEY, STEW, (LITTER)

#143 Filler Words

Possible answers: ERM, UH, UM, WELL, (LIKE), (ER)

#146 Clue Weapons

Possible answers: CANDLESTICK, KNIFE, ROPE, WRENCH, (PIPE)

#147 Unchanging

Possible answers: EVEN, LEVEL, STABLE, STEADY, (UNIFORM)

#147 Long, Sharp Objects

Possible answers: LANCE, PIN, SKEWER, SPIT, (PITCHFORK)

#148 Musical Format

Possible answers: LP, PLATTER, VINYL, WAX, (CD)

#148 Cube-Shaped

Possible answers: BOUILLON, DIE, ICE, SUGAR, (STOCK)

#150 Equivocate

Possible answers: HEDGE, SEE-SAW, WAVER, YO-YO, (FLIP-FLOP), (WAFFLE)

#151 Podcasts

Possible answers: RADIOLAB, SERIAL, UP FIRST, WTF, (FRESH AIR), (REPLY ALL)

#152 Intelligent

Possible answers: BRIGHT, QUICK, SHARP, SMART, (SAGE)

#152 Medieval Weapons

Possible answers: CLUB, MACE, SPEAR, SWORD, (AXE)

#153 Filmmaking Equipment

Possible answers: BOOM, DOLLY, LENS, TRIPOD, (GRIP)

#154 Sports Professionals

Possible answers: COACH, GM, PLAYER, SCOUT, (SUB)

#154 Car Companies

Possible answers: BMW, HONDA, JAGUAR, SUBARU, (FORD), (GM)

#156 Vocal Fanfare

Possible answers: BEHOLD, PRESTO, TADA, VOILA, (SURPRISE)

#157 Magazines

Possible answers: O, OK, US, W, (EW), (SI)

#157 Yes

Possible answers: HAI, JA, SI, DA, (OK), (OUI)

#158 Animals

Possible answers: BUFFALO, DEER, FISH, MOOSE, (BULL), (STEER), (SEAL)

#160 Quick Observation

Possible answers: GANDER, GLANCE, GLIMPSE, LOOK, (PEEK)

#160 Parts of a Mountain

Possible answers: CLIFF, CRAG, LEDGE, RIDGE, (BLUFF), (PEAK)

#161 _____Day

Possible answers: EARTH, GROUNDHOG, LABOR, MAY, (BIRTH)

#162 Primates

Possible answers: BABOON, BONOBO, GIBBON, GORILLA, (APE)

#162 Fashionable

Possible answers: CHIC, HIP, HOT, IN, (VOGUE)

#164 Area Between Mountains

Possible answers: CANYON, GULCH, PASS, RAVINE, (GORGE)

#165 Food

Possible answers: PASTY, PIE, TART, TURNOVER, (PARFAIT), (RAGOUT), (CURRY)

#165 Countries

Possible answers: JAPAN, POLAND, TUNISIA, TURKEY, (JORDAN)

#166 Reality Shows

Possible answers: ALONE, CATFISH, CHOPPED, SURVIVOR, (BACHELOR)

#168 Municipalities

Possible answers: CITY, TOWN, COUNTY, VILLAGE, (CAPITAL)

#171 Parts of the Foot

Possible answers: ARCH, BALL, SOLE, TOE, (HEEL)

#171 Dog Commands

Possible answers: COME, DOWN, SIT, STAY, (HEEL)

#173 Ways to Remove Hair

Possible answers: SHAVE, THREAD, TWEEZE, WAX, (CUT)

#174 Hold Back

Possible answers: CAP, CHECK, CURB, LIMIT, (HAMPER)

#175 Excite, with "Up"

Possible answers: AMP, FIRE, HYPE, PUMP, (GAS)

#177 TV Shows

Possible answers: CHEERS, EUPHORIA, FELICITY, GLEE, (FRASIER)

#178 Found on Sheet Music

Possible answers: CLEF, NOTE, REST, STAFF, (SCALES)

#178 Zodiac Symbols

Possible answers: BULL, CRAB, SCALES, TWINS, (VIRGIN)

#180 Absolute

Possible answers: PURE, SHEER, TOTAL, UTTER, (STARK)

#180 Express

Possible answers: AIR, SPEAK, STATE, VOICE, (UTTER)

#181 Cooking Oils

Possible answers: CORN, OLIVE, PALM, PEANUT, (RICE)

#183 Luxurious Fabrics

Possible answers: CHIFFON, SILK, SATIN, VELVET, (LACE)

#185 -ough

Possible answers: BOUGH, COUGH, DOUGH, TOUGH, (ROUGH), (ENOUGH)

#189 Used to Build a Snowman

Possible answers: CARROT, COAL, SNOW, STICKS, (STONES)

#190 NYC Avenues

Possible answers: BROADWAY, FIFTH, MADISON, PARK, (SECOND), (FIRST), (ELEVENTH)

#191 Accessories

Possible answers: BELT, BRACELET, TIE, WATCH, (CHARM)

#199 Name Prefixes

Possible answers: GEN, MS, PROF, REV, (DR)

#200 Parts of a Car

Possible answers: BUMPER, HOOD, TIRE, TRUNK, (DASH)

#201 Single Letter Homophones

Possible answers: BEE, EX, GEE, JAY, (TEE)

#203 New Years-Related

Possible answers: BALL, COUNTDOWN, FIREWORKS, KISS, (PARTY), (RESOLUTION), (CHAMPAGNE)

#207 Gift-Giving Accessories

Possible answers: BOW, BOX, CARD, WRAPPING, (MESSAGE)

#210 Kinds of Exams

Possible answers: BAR, FINAL, ORAL, PHYSICAL, (EYE)

#211 Long, Skinny Objects

Possible answers: POLE, ROD, STAFF, STICK, (CLUB)

#212 Cooking Elements

Possible answers: ACID, FAT, HEAT, SALT, (PEPPER), (SMOKE)

#213 Seen at a Casino

Possible answers: CARDS, CHIPS, DICE, SLOTS, (POKER)

#213 Ways to Prepare Cheese

Possible answers: CRUMBLE, MELT, SHRED, SLICE, (GRATE)

#217 Thieve

Possible answers: PINCH, ROB, STEAL, SWIPE, (JACK)

#218 Medicine Formats

Possible answers: CAPSULE, CREAM, SYRUP, TABLET, (POD)

#221 Colors

Possible answers: BLUE, GREEN, WHITE, YELLOW, (SCARLET)

#222 Minced Oaths

Possible answers: CURSES, DARN, RATS, SHOOT, (FUDGE), (NUTS)

#224 Contains Wax

Possible answers: CANDLE, CRAYON, HONEYCOMB, SEAL, (EAR)

#229 Baseball-Related

Possible answers: BALL, BASE, BAT, GLOVE, (STRIKE)

#233 Mario Power-ups

Possible answers: FEATHER, STAR, MUSHROOM, FLOWER, (HAMMER)

#234 _____Pit

Possible answers: BARBECUE, ORCHESTRA, SNAKE, TAR, (FIRE)

#235 Make Shorter

Possible answers: CLIP, CUT, PARE, TRIM, (PRUNE)

#235 Muscular

Possible answers: BUILT, JACKED, RIPPED, SWOLE, (TRIM), (BUFF)

#237 Farm Fixtures

Possible answers: COOP, PEN, STABLE, STY, (RANGE)

#238 Unexciting

Possible answers: BORING, DULL, MUNDANE, VANILLA, (ROUTINE), (DRY)

#239 Ecclesiastical Titles

Possible answers: BISHOP, CARDINAL, PASTOR, PRIOR, (BROTHER), (LORD)

#251 Media Attention

Possible answers: COVERAGE, EXPOSURE, PRESS, PUBLICITY, (MEDIA)

#254 Little Bit of Liquid

Possible answers: BEAD, GLOB, DROP, TEAR, (DRIP)

#257 Shades of Green

Possible answers: OLIVE, FOREST, LIME, MINT, (CACTUS)

#260 Ilk

Possible answers: KIND, SORT, TYPE, VARIETY, (MANNER)

#263 Propel into the Air

Possible answers: HOP, JUMP, LEAP, SPRING, (VAULT)

#266 Large Amount

Possible answers: MASS, SEA, SLEW, TON, (WAVE)

#266 Fall under Pressure

Possible answers: BUCKLE, CAVE, COLLAPSE, GIVE, (FLOP)

#268 Pop Stars

Possible answers: GRANDE, MARS, STYLES, SWIFT, (LEGEND)

#269 Found at an Airport

Possible answers: HANGAR, RUNWAY, TARMAC, TERMINAL, (WINDSOCK)

#269 Ends in an Article of Clothing (A Mac is a raincoat)

Possible answers: FOXGLOVE, GUMSHOE, TURNCOAT, WINDSOCK, (TARMAC), (LAWSUIT)

#271 Food Preservation Techniques

Possible answers: CAN, CURE, DRY, FREEZE, (SPICE)

#272 Space_____

Possible answers: BAR, CADET, HEATER, STATION, (BLANKET)

#273 Keyboard Keys

Possible answers: COMMAND, CONTROL, OPTION, SHIFT, (SPACE)

#283 Seen at a Sports Stadium

Possible answers: ASTROTURF, JUMBOTRON, SCOREBOARD, SKYBOX, (KISSCAM), (JOURNEYMAN)

#284 Animals

Possible answers: COW, DOE, HEN, EWE, (YAK)

#284 Palindromes

Possible answers: BIB, EYE, GAG, POP, (EWE)

#285 Olympic Sports

Possible answers: BREAKING, HOCKEY, TRAMPOLINE, SKELETON, (CRICKET), (SQUASH), (VOLLEYBALL)

#289 Plant Growths

Possible answers: BLOOM, BUD, SHOOT, SPROUT, (CORONA)

#290 Quarrel

Possible answers: FIGHT, ROW, SCRAP, TIFF, (WAR)

#290 Games of Chance (Poker is technically a game of skill but it's still highly associated with chance)

Possible answers: BINGO, LOTTERY, ROULETTE, WAR, (POKER)

#291 Whale Species

Possible answers: BLUE, FIN, GRAY, RIGHT, (PILOT)

#293 Food Preservation Techniques

Possible answers: CANS, CURES, SALTS, SMOKES, (JAMS), (PICKLES)

#296 Thrust

Possible answers: JAB, POKE, PROD, STICK, (ELBOW)

#301 _____Horse

Possible answers: CHARLEY, CRAZY, DARK, GIFT, (PRIZE)

#302 Brief Moment

Possible answers: FLASH, HEARTBEAT, JIFF, WINK, (ZIP)

#302 Dispute

Possible answers: CLASH, TANGLE, SCRAP, TIFF, (SPAT)

#303 Hair Care Items

Possible answers: BRUSH, COMB, DRYER, IRON, (OIL)

#307 Seen at the Circus

Possible answers: CLOWN, RING, TENT, TRAPEZE, (LION)

#310 Parts of a Theatre

Possible answers: BALCONY, BOX, ORCHESTRA, STAGE, (FLOOR)

#312 Golden_____

Possible answers: FLEECE, GIRLS, PARACHUTE, RULE, (MEAN)

#315 Starting with the Same Sound

Possible answers: CYMBAL, SCIMITAR, SIMMER, SYMPHONY, (SYMBOL)

#318 Mexican Food-Related

Possible answers: CILANTRO, LIME, ONION, SALSA, (PICO), (WRAP), (MOLE)

#328 _____Sale

Possible answers: BAKE, CLEARANCE, GARAGE, SAMPLE, (YARD)

#329 Enjoy

Possible answers: FANCY, LOVE, RELISH, SAVOR, (LIKE)

#330 Quantity

Possible answers: FEW, MANY, SEVERAL, SOME, (COUPLE), (HANDFUL)

#333 Restrict

Possible answers: CHECK, CONTAIN, CURB, LIMIT, (CAP)

#339 Forthright

Possible answers: DIRECT, FRANK, OPEN, STRAIGHT, (PLAIN)

#342 Games

Possible answers: CATEGORIES, CHARADES, FISHBOWL, WEREWOLF, (MOUSETRAP)

#345 Billiards-Related

Possible answers: BALL, CHALK, CUE, RACK, (POCKET)

#348 Things You can Crack

Possible answers: EGG, KNUCKLES, SMILE, WINDOW, (CORN)

#351 _____Iron

Possible answers: PUMP, STEAM, TIRE, WAFFLE, (FLAT)

#355 Things People Shake

Possible answers: HANDS, MARACA, POLAROID, SNOWGLOBE, (BODY)

Hey everyone, I put together this huge list of albums and reduced prices on stuff previously posted, hope you enjoy! New batch of sealed Jazz audiophile reissues from Spain. Most used titles include original inner sleeves. Records will be shipped outside of cover in poly sleeve. Message or comment to purchase or for more information.
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$6 Unlimited Shipping USPS Media Mail
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FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OVER $75!
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— Graded Vinyl/Cover —

• Steve Allen - Steve Allen's All Star Jazz Concert Vol. 1 UK RE Sealed M/M $8
  
  • Buddy Arnold - Wailing 1986 RE Spain M/M $12
• Ethel Azama - Cool Heat 1984 Spain RE Sealed M/M $10
  
• Chet Baker Quartet - Jazz At Ann Arbor 1984 Spain RE Sealed M/M $38
  
• Milt Bernhart Brass Ensemble - Modern Brass 1984 Spain RE Sealed M/M $14
  
• The Ruby Braff-Marshall Brown Sextet - S/T 1986 Spain RE M/M $12
  
• Donna Brooks - I'll Take Romance 1988 Spain RE Sealed M/M $24
  
• Bob Brookmeyer - Kansas City Revisited 1984 Spain RE Sealed M/M $12
  
• Conte Candoli - Mucho Calor (Much Heat) 1987 RE Sealed M/M $32
  
• The Teddy Charles Group - On Campus - Ivy League Jazz Concert 1987 Spain RE Sealed M/M $20
  
• Bette St. Claire - At Basin Street East 1987 Spain RE M/M $8
  
• Dick Collins And His Orchestra - King Richard The Swing Hearted 1983 Spain RE Sealed M/M $10
  
• Bill Evans Trio - Live At Balboa Jazz Club Vol. 1 Unofficial Sealed M/M $36
  
• Bill Evans Trio - Live At Balboa Jazz Club Vol. 2 Unofficial Sealed M/M $35
  
• Frederick Fennell - Hi-Fi A La Espaňola 180gm Living Presence RE Sealed M/M $90
  
• The Five - Arrangements By Shorty Rogers 1983 Spain RE Sealed M/M $11
  
• Ann Gilbert - In A Swingin' Mood 1986 Spain RE M/M $14
  
• Pedro Iturralde Quartet - Pedro Iturralde Quartet Featuring Hampton Hawes M/M $30
  
• The Bobby Jaspar All Stars - Bobby Jaspar And His All Stars 1987 Spain RE M/M $25
  
• Beverly Kenney - Come Swing With Me 1987 Spain RE M/M $38
  
• Peggy Lee - Pete Kelly's Blues 1983 UK RE Sealed M/M $12
  
• Howard Lucraft - Showcase For Modern Jazz 1986 Spain RE M/M $18
  
• Skip Martin - Dance To Swingin' Things From Cole Porter's Can-Can 1986 Spain RE M/M $7
  
• Mary Ann McCall - Detour To The Moon 1987 Spain RE Sealed M/M $12
  
• The Jack Montrose Quintet - Blues And Vanilla 1984 Spain RE Sealed M/M $20
  
• Audrey Morris - Bistro Ballads Sung By Audrey Morris 1987 Spain RE Sealed M/M $32
  
• Art Pepper Quartet - Art Pepper Quartet' 64 In San Francisco 1988 Spain Sealed M/M $28
  
• Bill Perkins Quartet - Killer Joe 1988 Spain Sealed M/M $18
  
• The Rhythm Section - Rhythm + 1 1984 Spain RE Sealed M/M $11
  
• Shorty Rogers - Collaboration 1983 Spain RE Sealed M/M $14
  
• Joe Roland Quintette - Joe Roland Quintette 1988 Spain RE Sealed M/M $14
  
• Annie Ross - Sings A Handful Of Songs 1987 Spain RE M/M $16
  
• Gene Roland - Jazzville Vol. 4 1988 Spain RE Sealed M/M $25
  
• Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars - Double Or Nothin' 1984 Spain RE Sealed M/M $20
  
• Tony Scott Quartet - Both Sides Of Tony Scott 1988 Spain RE Sealed M/M $20
  
• Tony Scott And His Buddies - Gypsy 1987 Spain RE Sealed M/M $16
  
• Ann Sexton - Love Trials 1987 UK Sealed M/M $14
  
  • Jeri Southern - Coffee, Cigarettes & Memories 1987 Spain RE Sealed M/M $14
• The Nick Travis Quintet - The Panic Is On 1984 Spain RE Sealed M/M $15
  
• Sarah Vaughan - You're Mine You 1988 Spain RE Sealed M/M $10
  
• Kitty White - Sweet Talk 1987 Spain RE M/M $10
  
• The Claude Williamson Quartet - Theatre Party Attended By The Claude Williamson Quartet 1987 Spain RE M/M $8
  
• Sonny Boy Williamson - Keep It To Ourselves 1996 RE HQ-180gm Analogue Sealed M/M $40
  

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• Cannonball Adderley And His Orchestra - African Waltz 1961 OG Sealed M/NM $35
  
• Louis Armstrong - Louis Armstrong Meets Oscar Peterson 1960 MGM NM/NM $69
  
• Azymuth - Telecommunication 2022 RE Sealed M/M $27
  
• Art Blakey - The Giants Of Jazz 1972 NM/EX $10
  
• Lenny Breau - When Lightn' Strikes... 1982 VG+/VG+ $28
  
• James Brown - Body Heat 1976 VG+/VG+ $20
  
• The Cadillacs - The Best Of The Cadillacs Volume One 1983 Comp Sealed M/M $10
  
• Ron Carter - All Blues 1974 OG Sealed M/M $45
  
• Al Jazzbo Collins - A Lovely Bunch Of Al Jazzbo Collins And The Bandidos 1967 EX/EX $12
  
• Miles Davis - Porgy And Bess 1977 RE NM/NM $15
  
• Miles Davis - In Person, At The Blackhawk 1973 RE VG+/VG+ $15
  
• Miles Davis Sextet - Someday My Prince Will Come 1961 Mono Pit VG+/NM $85
  
• Miles Davis - Seven Steps To Heaven 1963 OG SVG/VG+ $28
  
• Joe Farrell - Outback 1972 NM/EX $17
  
• Joe Farrell - Canned Funk 1975 NM/EX $17
  
• Joe Farrell - Song Of The Wind 1976 RE NM/VG+ $14
  
• Joe Farrell - Night Dancing 1978 NM/VG+ $5
  
• Marvin Gaye - What's Going On 1971 Ind VG/VG- $24
  
• Herbie Hancock - An Evening With Herbie Hancock & Chick Corea In Concert 1978 Ter NM/VG+ $8
  
• Richie Havens - Richie Havens 1974 UK Comp EX/EX $8
  
• Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson - Midnight Band: The First Minute Of A New Day 1975 Ter VG+/EX $20
  
• Gil Scott-Heron And Brian Jackson - From South Africa To South Carolina 1975 NM/VG+ $18
  
• Al Hirt - Soul In The Horn 1967 VG+/SVG $20
  
• John Lee Hooker - The Best Of John Lee Hooker 1962 RE VG+/VG+ $20
  
• Bobbi Humphrey - Bobbi Humphrey's Best 1976 NM/SVG $7
  
• Inner Life - I'm Caught Up (In A One Night Love Affair) 1979 NM/EX $20
  
• Grace Jones - Living My Life 1982 All NM/NM $11
  
• Grace Jones - Slave To The Rhythm 1985 Jac NM/EX $11
  
• Grace Jones - Inside Story 1986 SRP NM/NM $7
  
• Grace Jones - Portfolio RE EX/EX $6
  
• B.B. King - B.B. King In London 1971 OG EX/EX $18
  
  • Kool And The Gang - The Force 1977 OG NM/VG $7
• Kool & The Gang - Celebrate! 1980 VG+/EX $6
  
• Kool & The Gang - Emergency 1984 OG EX/VG+ $4
  
• La Mont Zeno Theatre - Black Fairy 2015 UK RE NM/NM $15
  
• Ronnie Laws - Pressure Sensitive 1975 Ter SVG/VG+ $5
  
• Ronnie Laws - Flame 1978 VG+/VG+ $4
  
• Taj Mahal - Recycling The Blues & Other Related Stuff 1972 OG EX/EX $14
  
• Taj Mahal - Music Keeps Me Together 1975 Canada OG NM/EX $14
  
• Steve Marshall - Do What You Will 1978 VG+/VG- $799
  
• Jimmy McGriff - Black And Blues 1972 OG Sealed M/M $47
  
• Thelonious Monk - Monk's Moods 2016 EU Sealed M/M $14
  
• Charlie Parker - The Greatest Jazz Concert Ever EX/NM 1973 RE $8
  
• Flora Purim - Open Your Eyes You Can Fly NM/NM $9
  
• Flora Purim - 500 Miles High 1976 EX/VG+ $5
  
• Flora Purim - Encounter 1977 San EX/SVG $6
  
• Flora Purim - Everyday, Everynight 1978 Jac NM/VG+ $4
  
• Flora Purim - Carry On 1979 Los EX/VG+ $6
  
• Smokey Robinson And The Miracles - Going To A Go-Go 1965 Ter VG-/VG+ $12
  
• Woody Shaw - Lotus Flower 1982 Germany Sealed M/M $35
  
• The Soulful Strings - Paint It Black 1966 VG/VG+ $5
  
• The Soulful Strings - Groovin' With The Soulful Strings 1967 VG/VG+ $5
  
• Gabor Szabo - The Best Of Gabor Szabo 1968 OG EX/EX $12
  
• The Thompsons - I'll Get Over It 2019 RE NM/NM $17
  
• Various - The Original Sound Track From The Film Black Orpheus VG+/VG+ 1966 RE $5
  
• V.S.O.P. - The Quintet 1977 EX/SVG $7
  
• War - The World Is A Ghetto 1972 Ind EX/EX $14
  
• Grover Washington, Jr. - Soul Box 1973 2LP NM/NM $14
  
• Muddy Waters - The Best Of Muddy Waters 2015 RE Europe VG+/NM $14
  
• Muddy Waters - The London Muddy Waters Sessions 2016 RE NM/NM $22
  
• The Bluesmen Of The Muddy Waters Chicago Blues Band - Volume 2 1968 OG VG/G $15
  
• Muddy Waters - Muddy Mississippi Waters Live 1979 OG Looks VG Plays SVG/VG+ Cover $11
  
• Dinah Washington - Late Late Show 1963 RE VG+/EX $6
  
• Dinah Washington - Dinah Jams 1974 RE NM/VG+ $7
  
• Dinah Washington - For Lonely Lovers 1960s RE Mono $7
  
• Dinah Washington - Golden Hits / Volume Two 1963 Mono EX/VG+ $7
  
• Weather Report - Sweetnighter 1977 RE NM/VG+ $6
  
• Weather Report - Mr. Gone 1978 San EX/VG+ $6
  
• Weather Report - 8:30 1979 San NM/VG+ $7
  
• Bill Withers - +'Justments 1974 VG/VG+ $10
  
• Stevie Wonder - Talking Book 1981 Spain RE NM/VG+ $14
  
• Stevie Wonder - Talking Book 1973 OG EX/VG+ $16
  
• Stevie Wonder - Original Musiquarium 1982 White Label Promo VG/SVG $12
  
• Big L - The Big Picture 2019 2LP RE Clear w White Smoke NM/NM $88
  
• De La Soul - 3 Feet High And Rising 2023 RE Magenta Vinyl Sealed $22
  
• De La Soul - Buddy & Ghetto Thang 1989 12” Single Promo NM/NM $12
  
• NF - Therapy Session 2016 2LP VG+/VG+ $380
  
• Showbiz & A.G. - Fat Pockets 1992 Promo VG+/GEN $18
  
• Showbiz & A.G. - Soul Clap 1992 EP Promo VG/GEN $24
  

———

• The Allman Brothers Band - S/T 70s RE NM/VG+ $20
  
• Jeff Beck - Blow By Blow 1975 Pit EX/VG+ $7
  
• Jeff Beck - Wired Ter NM/VG+ $7
  
• Jeff Beck - Live 1977 Pit EX/SVG $5
  
• Jeff Beck - There & Back 1980 Ter VG+/VG+ $5
  
• Blue Öyster Cult* - Tyranny And Mutation 1973 Ter EX/VG+ $10
  
• Blue Öyster Cult - On Your Feet Or On Your Knees 1975 2LP EX/VG- $5
  
• David Buckland & Blackjack Davey - This One's For You 1981 OG EX/NM $21
  
• John Carpenter - Anthology II (Movie Themes 1976-1988) 2023 Blue Vinyl Sealed M/M $18
  
• Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade - Live Frogs Set 1 & 2 2020 RE Green Splatter Vinyl NM/NM $45
  
• Eric Clapton - At His Best 1972 Ter 2LP VG+/VG+ $6
  
• Cream - Heavy Cream 1972 Ter 2LP VG++/VG+ $10
  
• Alice Cooper - Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits 2018 EU New $13
  
• Deep Purple - Deepest Purple (Best Of) 1980 Club NM/VG+ $10
  
• The Doors - The Doors 2009 RE Sealed M/M $16
  
• Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume II 1970s RE Ter VG+/VG+ $10
  
• Bob Dylan - New Morning 1970 Ter VG+/SVG $6
  
• Eagles - Eagles 1976 RE SP VG+/VG $6
  
• Eagles - Hotel California 1977 RE SRC w Poster EX/SVG $10
  
• Eagles - Hotel California 2017 EU RE New $15
  
• Eagles - One Of These Nights 1975 OG VG/G+$3
  
• Earth, Wind & Fire - Gratitude 1975 Ter EX/VG $5
  
• Earth, Wind & Fire - The Best Of Earth, Wind & Fire Vol. 1 2017 EX/EX $11
  
• Faces - Ohh La La 1973 OG SVG/VG+ $10
  
• Faces - A Nod Is As Good As A Wink...To A Blind Horse 1971 Ter VG+/VG $6
  
• Fleetwood Mac - Then Play On 1970s NM/SVG $16
  
• Fleetwood Mac - Kiln House 1976 RE Win NM/SVG $12
  
• Fleetwood Mac - Future Games 1975 RE Win NM/VG+ $14
  
• Fleetwood Mac - Mystery To Me 1975 RE Win NM/SVG $11
  
• Fleetwood Mac - Penguin 1973 EX/VG $8
  
• Fleetwood Mac - Heroes Are Hard To Find 1976 RE Win VG+/VG+ $8
  
• Fleetwood Mac - Tusk 1979 Los 2LP NM/VG+ $17
  
• The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold As Love 1970s RE Los EX/EX $25
  
• The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland 1981 Club Car NM/VG+ $26
  
• The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced? 1980s RE VG+/VG- $12
  
• Jimi Hendrix - The Cry Of Love 2014 RE New $14
  
• The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Smash Hits 2016 RE New $14
  
• Kansas - Audio-Visions 1980 Pit EX/VG+ $5
  
• Kansas - Kansas 1974 Pit EX/VG+ $6
  
• Kansas - Song For America 1975 Ter VG+/SVG $6
  
• Kansas - Masque 1975 VG+/VG $5
  
• Kansas - Leftoverture 1976 Ter EX/VG+ $6
  
• Kansas - Point Of Know Return 1977 VG+/VG $6
  
• Led Zeppelin - Hiawatha Express 1977 Unofficial EX/EX $40
  
• Led Zeppelin - Untitled IV 2023 RE New Clear Vinyl New $15
  
• Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy 1977 RE VG+/G+ $12
  
• Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti 2015 RE New $20
  
• The Mothers - Fillmore East 1976 RE LA NM/VG+ $14
  
• The Nice - The Thoughts Of Emerlist Davjack 1973 RE CSP NM/VG $7
  
• The Nice - Ars Longa Vita Brevis 1973 CSP VG+/VG $5
  
• Peanut Butter Conspiracy - For Children Of All Ages 1969 OG VG+/NM $24
  
• Primus - Sailing The Seas Of Cheese 2013 RE M/NM $35
  
• Primus - Pork Soda 2009 RE NM/NM $40
  
• Primus - Antipop 2019 RE Clear Blue Vinyl NM/NM $50
  
• Primus - Primus & The Chocolate Factory With The Fungi Ensemble 2014 Brown Vinyl EX/NM $19
  
• Dolly Parton - Heartbreaker 1978 OG Sealed M/NM $12
  
• Dolly Parton - Just Because I'm A Woman 1976 OG Sealed M/NM $10
  
• Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds 1972 1st Jac NM/EX $45
  
  • Pink Floyd - Obscured By Clouds 1972 Jac NM/VG- $22
• Pink Floyd - Meddle 1974 RE RRL VG+/VG $19
  
• Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here 1975 San VG++/VG+ $25
  
• Pink Floyd - The Final Cut 1983 Pit NM/EX $17
  
• Queen - A Day At The Races 1976 PRC NM/VG $19
  

*Rare Earth - Willie Remembers 1972 NM/VG+ $5

• Steely Dan - Katy Lied 1975 Pit VG+/VG $14
  
• Steely Dan - Can't Buy A Thrill 1972 White Label Promo VG/G $27
  
• Bruce Springsteen - Chapter And Verse 2016 OG New M/NM $8
  
• Bruce Springsteen - Born To Run 1975 San VG+/VG+ $8
  
• Robin Trower - Bridge Of Sighs 1974 San EX/SVG $5
  
• Robin Trower - Long Misty Days 1976 Ter NM/VG $5
  
• Robin Trower - In City Dreams 1977 Ter NM/VG $5
  
• Robin Trower - For Earth Below 1975 EX/VG $5
  
• Robin Trower - Robin Trower Live! 1976 EX/G $3
  
• Robin Trower - Caravan To Midnight 1978 SVG/SVG $4
  
• Van Halen - 1984 Club NM/EX $24
  
• The Edgar Winter Group - They Only Come Out At Night 80s RE VG+/VG+ $5
  
• Yes - Relayer 1974 MO EX/VG+ $7
  
• Yes - Going For The One 1977 PRC NM/SVG $6
  
• Yes - Fragile 1977 RE SP VG+/VG+ $7
  
• Yes - The Yes Album 70s RE MO EX/VG+ $6
  
• Neil Young - Harvest 1978 Jac EX/VG+ $10
  
• ZZ Top - Fandango! 1975 Pit VG+/VG $11
  
• ZZ Top - Tejas 1976 AL EX/VG $11
  
• 21 Savage - American Dream 2024 Sealed M/M $24
  
• Chet BakeChristopher Mason - Silent Nights 1986 OG VG+/VG $45
  
• Tony Bennett - The Tony Bennett Bill Evans Album 1975 OG EX/VG+ $14
  
• The Gil Evans Orchestra - Into The Hot 1974 RE VG+/VG+ $13
  
• Gil Evans And His Orchestra - America's #1 Arranger 1961 RE NM/G+ $6
  
• The Gil Evans Orchestra - Little Wing (Live In Germany) 1982 RE VG+/SVG $5
  
• Buddy DeFranco Quintet - Cooking The Blues 1958 OG VG+/VG $16
  
• Grant Green - Easy 1978 OG VG/SVG $5
  
• Bobby Hutcherson - Now! 1970 OG Looks G+ Plays VG-/VG+ Cover $32
  
• Gary McFarland /Gabor Szabo - Simpático G+/VG+ $8
  
• Lil Green - Romance In The Dark 1971 OG VG/G+ $3
  
• Jimmy Reed - T'aint No Big Thing But He Is... 1963 OG G+/VG+ $4
  
• Della Reese - Della Reese Live 1966 Sealed M/NM $8
  
• Della Reese - Della On Strings Of Blue 1967 Sealed M/NM $8
  
  • Della Reese - Black Is Beautiful 1970 Sealed M/NM $8
• Johnny Guitar Watson - A Real Mother For Ya 1977 OG VG/VG+ $4
  
• Brian Auger's Oblivion Express - Second Wind 1972 Germany VG/VG+ $9
  
• The Dean Davis Company - IInd Time Around 1969 OG SVG/SVG (Signed) $80
  
• Franciscan Sisters - Joy 1962 VG+/VG+ $15
  
• Middle Tennessee State University- Rimusic III NM/NM 1983 $60
  
• Evelyn "Champagne" King - Smooth Talk 1977 RE VG+/VG+ $5
  
• Gloria Jones - Windstorm 1978 OG NM/SVG Signed $24
  
• The New York Community Choir - Reachin' Out 1982 OG EX/NM $20
  

*Malo - Malo 1972 OG VG/VG+ $5
*Anita Baker - Rapture 1986 OG NM/VG+ $18
*D. J. Rogers - It's Good To Be Alive 1975 OG VG-/VG+ $5
*Al Gee - Rap N' Rhythm (Programs #233 - 236) 1975 OG VG+/VG+ $14
*The Hesitations - The New Born Free 1968 OG NM/NM $12
*Syl Johnson - Back For A Taste Of Your Love 1973 OG SVG/SVG $14
*Various - Rosko's Evergreens Back On The Scene 1964 VG/VG+ $4
*The Stylistics - Round 2 1972 OG VG+/NM $8
*Johnnie Taylor - Super Taylor 1974 OG EX/VG+ $7
*Johnnie Taylor - Rated Extraordinaire 1977 OG VG+/NM $6
*Johnnie Taylor - Ever Ready 1978 OG EX/NM $7
*The Temptations - Live At The Copa 1968 OG VG/VG+ $4
*Clarence Carter - The Dynamic Clarence Carter 1969 Sealed M/EX $18
*Ray Charles - From The Pages Of My Mind 1986 OG VG+/NM $6
*Sammy Davis Jr. - Sings What Kind Of Fool Am I And Other Show-Stoppers 1962 RE M/NM $10
*Sammy Davis Jr. - Salutes The Stars Of The London Palladium 1964 OG VG/EX $4
*Blossom Dearie - Needlepoint Magic Volume V 1979 EX/EX $6
*Cat Anderson - Ellingtonia 1962 VG-/VG $2
*Duke Ellington - Ellington Indigos 1989 RE NM/NM $10
*Duke Ellington - The Early Duke Ellington 1968 OG Sealed M/NM $6
*Duke Ellington & Teresa Brewer - It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing 1981 RE NM/VG+ $5
*Louis Armstrong - Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington 1965 RE VG+/VG+ $8
*Dizzy Gillespie - 16 Rare Performances 1966 RE VG+/EX $8
*Billie Holiday - The Billie Holiday Story 1972 2LP VG+/VG+ $14
*Baby Ray - Where Soul Lives 1967 OG Sealed M/NM $10
*Don Redman And His Orchestra - For Europeans Only 1983 Denmark NM/NM $12
*Charlie Parker And His Orchestra - Night And Day 1960 RE VG/VG $8
*Ernestine Anderson - When The Sun Goes Down 1985 OG NM/EX $8
*George Benson - Breezin' 1976 VG+/VG+ $5
*Art Blakey - Gretsch Drum Night At Birdland 1960 OG VG/VG $10
*The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Bossa Nova U.S.A. 1963 OG SVG/VG+ $7
*Kenny Burrell - Handcrafted 1978 OG VG/VG+$8
*The Eddie Costa Quartet - Guys And Dolls Like Vibes 1958 OG VG/VG+ $5
*Keith Jarrett - The Köln Concert 1975 OG VG/VG+ $10
*John Klemmer - All The Children Cried VG+/VG+ $8
*Les McCann Ltd. - Live At Shelly's Manne-Hole RE NM/VG+ $5
*Johnny Smith - Phase II 1968 OG Sealed M/M $20
*Weather Report - Mr. Gone 1978 OG VG+/VG+ $9
*Bob Dylan - New Morning 1970 OG VG+/VG+ $8
*Molly Hatchet - Flirtin' With Disaster 1979 OG VG+/VG+ $6
*Heart - Bad Animals 1987 OG NM/NM $8
*Jerry Lee Lewis - Southern Roots 1973 OG Sealed M/M $10
*Oscar Brown Jr. - Finding A New Friend 1966 Mono WL Promo EX/NM $20
*Mother Night - S/T 1972 OG NM/VG- $7
*Johnny Cash - At San Quentin 1969 EX/NM $12
*Baltimora- Living In The Background 1985 VG+/VG+ $8
*Ginger Bates - Refreshingly Country VG/VG+ $18
*Roberto Jordan - Roberto Jordan 1972 Sealed (Torn Shrink) M/EX $18
*Toquinho & Vinícius - Vinícius & Toquinho 1974 Brazil NM/NM $24
*Prakash Vadehra - Magic Flutes Of North India 1969 EX/EX $8
*Father Rivers - Sings The Mass 1966 VG/VG+ $4
*Bill Withers - +'Justments 1974 VG/VG+ $10
*Jacksons - Victory 1984 VG+/EX $5
*Wilton Felder - Inherit The Wind 1980 NM/NM $5
*Wilson Pickett - The Wicked Pickett 1967 MO VG/EX $10
*SPB Ska-Jazz Review - Elephant Riddim 2016 Russia EX/EX $15
*Listener - Wooden Heart 2014 Green/Cream Vinyl NM/NM $15
*Antonio Carlos Jobim - A Certain Mr. Jobim 1967 Sealed M/NM $17
*James Williams - Magical Trio 1 1989 NM/EX $7
*James Williams - Magical Trio 2 1988 Sealed M/VG+ $9
*Chilly - For Your Love 1979 VG/G+ $10
*Tina Turner - Private Dancer 1984 Club w Inner NM/NM $12
*Mary Jane Girls - Only Four You 1985 EX/EX $7
*Average White Band - Soul Searching 1976 NM/VG+ $6
*Invisible Man's Band - Really Wanna See You 1981 NM/EX $5

• Vasant Rai - Spring Flowers 1976 NM/EX $5
  
• Aretha Franklin - Aretha Gospel 1982 RE EX/EX $6
  
• Various - A Quartet Of Soul 1967 Sealed M/M (Comp w Tommy Hunt & Charlie Foxx) $12
  
• Lord Flea And His Calypsonians - Swingin' Calypsos 1957 VG/G+ $4
  
• The Swordsmen - S/T 1969 VG+/NM $5
  
• Funkapolitan - Funkapolitan 1982 NM/SVG $5
  
• The Flirts - Blondes Brunettes & Redheads 1985 NM/NM $5
  
• The Flirts - 10¢ A Dance 1982 NM/NM $6
  
• Vesta - Special 1991 EX/VG+ $8
  
• Acoustic Alchemy - Red Dust & Spanish Lace 1987 NM/NM $10
  
• The Floaters - Float Into The Future 1979 EX/NM $4
  
• Johnny Thunder - Loop De Loop 1963 OG G+/VG $3
  
• Oingo Boingo - Flesh And Blood 1989 WL Promo 12” Single SVG/GEN $16
  
• Johnny Harris - Odyssey 1980 12” Single VG+/VG+ $17
  
• Steven Paul Perry - Backseat Lover 1990 EX/VG+ $24
  
• Marcus Law - Make It Right 1997 UK 12” Single VG+/GEN $16
  
• Gel-O - Land Of The Buddha EP EX/VG+ $16
  
  • Le Pamplemousse - Le Spank 1977 OG (Signed) VG+/VG $18
• Ultimate Spinach - Ultimate Spinach 1968 Taiwan Red Vinyl VG/VG+ $14
  
• 100 Proof Aged In Soul - 100 Proof VG/VG $9
  
• Peter Brown - Do Ya Wanna Get Funky With Me? 1977 RE EX/EX $5
  
• Lamont Dozier - Black Bach 1974 OG SVG/NM $8
  

*Lonnie Liston Smith - A Song For The Children 1979 OG VG/VG+ $5

• Wes Montgomery - The Best Of Wes Montgomery 1967 OG VG/VG+ $5
  
• Charli Persip And Superband - In Case You Missed It 1985 Italy OG NM/NM $7
  
• Oscar Peterson - Oscar Peterson 1965 OG SVG/NM $4
  
• Oscar Peterson - Stéphane Grappelli Quartet Vol. 1 1973 France OG NM/EX $8
  -Don Shirley - Tonal Expressions 1955 OG SVG/VG+ $8
  

I (35m) have been married to Lisa (28f) for 3 years, together 7. A year ago, I fell deeply in love with Amy (24f), and had been planning to end my marriage for her. I know it's terrible and not what my wife deserves, but we were the real thing.
Two weeks ago, she had an allergic reaction when we were getting food after work, but she used her epipen and seemed mostly okay afterwards. She usually gets checked at the hospital after a reaction, but I asked if I could take her home and she could get her friend to drive her there because my wife was expecting me back. All I know is that she had a secondary reaction that evening and died. I didn't even find out about it until the following Monday, through a work email. It has been eating me up ever since and I will never forgive myself for not sacrificing an hour of my time to possibly save her.
I sent some childish messages to Amy when I didn't hear from her over the weekend because I thought she was angry I didn't take her to the hospital. I am thankful she never saw them and ashamed that I assumed the worst. Our relationship was great and the highs far outweighed the lows, but I have always hated being ignored and I lose my cool when it happens. It is not a regular occurrence and I would have more than made it up to her.
Yesterday at work, HR and legal were in the CEO's office all day and my manager ended up cancelling our project meeting because he was with them all afternoon. I was on edge, but an affair isn't exactly a corporate crisis and I thought something would have already happened if anyone knew. I am now 99% certain it was about me.
A few hours ago I received a message from Amy's phone which said "This is Amy's brother, Tom. I want you to know it was me". I tried to call but it went straight to voicemail, and none of my messages have been delivered.
I tried to call my manager more times than I should have and he sent a message saying "Please don't contact me until Monday morning. I can't discuss anything with you right now". So it looks like my universe is going to collapse. I am going to be fired and my wife will definitely find out why. All I can do is hope that Amy's brother only showed them the messages from that weekend, and they were bad enough. I have no family except my wife and daughter and nowhere to go. All of my friends are either people I've met through my wife, or my colleagues. On Monday, everything I've spent over a decade working towards disappears. I can't stop it. I can't talk to anyone about it.
So here I am. I know cheaters are the devil so I'm not expecting sympathy, but this is making my chest hurt and I need to get it out there.

In some games like Mario Party, character pairings have specific titles. Do any of your characters pairs have specific titles?
Legion: * Cap: * Lily: Ever Prepared for Adventure * Shenton: Primordial Beast Blade * Leslie: Aether Explorers * Manny: Council of Mages * Tiamat: Ancient Union * UnDrawn: Creation and Distruction * Lily: * Monica: Ever-Loyal First Friends * Joanne: Back-and-Forth Bashing Buddies * Carrie: Fire-and-Ice Forged Friends * Sylvia: Defensive Strikers * Corey: Guns Akimbo * Tracy: Amethyst Baton Pass * May: Magical Girl Command Centre * Honey: Sisters of Sight Issues * Venezia: Perfect Italian Class * Cross-FC: * Kris: Unfiltered Uncontrollable Fury * Monica: * Joanne: No Introduction Needed * Sylvia: Programming Language Rivalry * Tracy: Extraordinary Ordinaries * Yvonne: Birds of Prey * “Pyra”: Binary Reality * Joanne: (Joanne casually pulling everyone wwwww) * Carrie: Endless Effect Explosions * Sylvia: Shadow Strikers * Corey: Insanity Edge * Tracy: Arrow-Raiding Axe Gang * Melissa: Those Who Stay in the Corners * Mason: Grimm Knights * Yvonne: Charismatic Two-in-One * “Pyra”: Blazing Arms of the Forge * Cross-FC: * Kirike: Crossbow Corps * Carrie: * Yvonne: Flaming Air Raid * Jade: Gothic Chemistry Lab * Sylvia: * Corey: Eternal Chaotic Twins * Verity: Yin-Shift Assault Shrine Maiden * “Pyra”: Brooding Blaze * Cross-FC: * Osore: Lakeside Trainers * Sabote: Listener by their Lonesome * Corey: * Verity: Yang-Shift Assault Shrine Maiden * Cross-FC: * Wuis: Bladed Insanity
Momentum: * Tracy: * Melissa: Buddies Since the Beginning * Mason: Power of Song and Knowledge * Yvonne: Loyal Interpreter * Honey: Like an Old Couple * Kass: Sign Language Insanity * Mason: * Lloyd: The German Twins * Yvonne: Euro Stars * Tsuki: Artillery Axis * Venezia: Euro Brawlers * Yvonne: * Venezia: Euro Speeders * Undrawn: * May: Post-Incident Foe-to-Friend
Eientein’t: * Tsuki: * Yamako: Hourai Volcano * Iris: Thicket Defenders * Venezia: Golden Wind * Rey: * Terese: Inaba of Waves and Traps * Iris: Breaking Sanity
Unofficial Science Club and Trick-Stars: * May: * Shenton: Rip-and-Tear Duo * Jade: Proto Pioneers * Kass: Totsugeki 64 * Honey: * “Pyra”: Tearoom Troublemakers * Kass: Mischief Management * “Pyra”: * Kass: Grand Steam Engine
Magus Night Coven: * Minoa: * Cara: Workshop Guard * Rochelle: Training Room * Cara: * Rochelle: Minoa’s Elites * Manny: * Percy: Constantly Moving Great Library * Percy: * Zafer: Booyagh Goblins * Marisa: * Verity: Neo Resolvers
Treasury: * Zafer: * Iridium: Power of the Small * Carrie: Forest of Kaboom * Iridium: * Ilk: Volcanic Tunnelers * Tiamat: * Tarrasque: Ladies of Land, Sea and Sky * Jabberwock: * Horde: Overseers of the Woods

新台灣謀殺案

Murder in New-Taiwan

*Story by JM, Imagery by DS*
Mason pulled up his collar against the light rain, the neon signs flickering overhead casting a surreal glow on the wet streets. He trudged down the alley, each step sending a small splash of water up his already soaked pants. The Evo-Knine murder had been gnawing at him for weeks, and tonight, he hoped it would end at the Quantum Hookah bar.
The streets were alive, but not in a way most would find comforting. Robots, each with their own human-like quirks, filled the sidewalk. A couple of industrial units, one on crutches, the other with a patched-up torso, huddled under a makeshift shelter. Nearby, a pleasure model and a manufacturing cyborg, who appeared to be a couple, walked their robotic dog, arguing about mortgage rates and taxes.
“I told you we should have fixed the variable interest rate last cycle,” the cyborg husband said, his voice tinged with frustration.
“And I told you, the market was unstable! This is why I am fucking your best friend!” the pleasure model snapped back, her eyes flashing with irritation. She stormed off, leaving him standing there, dejected.
Their robotic dog chose that moment to take a dump on the sidewalk. The husband sighed, pulling out a bag to pick up the robo poo. Mason noticed a tear running down his glossy face screen as he tossed it into a nearby trash can, shaking his head.
A young robot on a skateboard came zipping down the alley. Even in the rain, Mason could hear the distinct sound of a rock getting stuck under the wheel. The robot swerved, lost control, and smashed into a banister with a sickening crunch. The sound of metal on metal was brutal. The robot cried out in agony, lifting his obviously broken leg, snapped in two. Blood-like fluid dripped from his mouth, his face screen cracked, teeth shattered. Mason winced, briefly recalling a similar spill he took as a kid, the memory as sharp as the pain had been.
He continued down the alley, the hum of neon signs and the distant sound of sirens creating a strange symphony around him. The Quantum Hookah bar loomed ahead, its entrance a dimly lit portal to a world of digital debauchery. All signs were in Mandarin, a testament to TSMC's dominance.
Just before he reached the entrance, Mason saw a shadowy figure step out from behind a pile of crates. A sleek, dark cyborg lunged at a smaller, older model, plunging a knife deep into the victim’s abdomen. The older cyborg's eyes flickered in shock, human blood spurting out in rhythmic pulses. The attacker twisted the blade, eliciting a gory spray of blood and circuitry fragments. The victim's smartphone clattered to the ground, the screen lighting up to reveal the contact name "Wifey" and a picture of him and his wife on holiday.
With a swift motion, the assailant ripped out the victim’s wallet, yanked off his shoes, and tore a chain from around his neck, leaving the dying cyborg to crumple to the ground. Mason didn’t even flinch. In New-Taiwan, this was just another Tuesday. The city was a cesspool of violence and depravity, and such occurrences had long since ceased to faze him. The higher-ups were breathing down his neck to solve the Evo-Knine case, a political assassination that had sent shockwaves through their ranks.
With a deep breath, Mason reached the door of the Quantum Hookah bar. He lifted his boot and kicked it open, the door exploding inward like a bad metaphor. His revolver was at the ready as rain lashed through the opening, as if Mother Nature herself was royally pissed. He stepped inside, his trench coat dripping onto the grimy floor. The scent of cheap oil and despair hit him like a punch.
In the corner, the main attraction hung from the low ceiling – a grotesque, fleshy mass of pulsating organic tissue interwoven with blinking quantum computer components. It looked like someone decided to play God after binging too many B-movies. The "Quantum Hookah" functioned as a depraved cyber-brothel, allowing robots to chase their sickest data-overload kicks by plugging in directly.
Over a dozen robots were clustered around the hanging bio-cyber orchid – battered industrial units, pleasure models, and manufacturing cyborgs – shuddering and convulsing, cables pumping vivid turquoise data between them and the quivering Hookah. They looked like humans on a bad trip, desperate for one more hit of that sweet, sweet data.
One well-worn feminine pleasure drone arched her back, slurring "He...llo...de...tec...tive..." in ecstatic gasps. This was Mason's last lead on the Evo-Knine case, the only witness to the grisly massacre that had left a trail of dismembered robot parts across the city.
Mason grimaced beneath his hat, leveling his trusty .38 at the pulsating bio-orchid. A steel talon swiped at his head from behind – the damned machines were on to him. He fired instinctively, the thunderous bang echoing through the den like a gunshot in a cathedral.
His shot ricocheted off a conduit, sparking against the Hookah's support and sending it crashing down in a tangle of severed cables and tubing. The fleshy central mass hit a cluster of razor-sharp tubing with a gut-churning crunch, spilling intestines and vital fluids across the floor in a grotesque display of cyber-gore.
"Aaaah!!! My insides!!!" the Hookah shrieked, cables whipping around frantically as it tried stuffing its slimy guts back inside its pulsating rupture. Terror flickered across its face, like a malfunctioning hologram.
"You fucking asshole! You massacred my son!" The colossal excavator unit next to Mason bellowed. Its voice dripped with rage as hydraulics whined in outrage. The jagged cleaver-arm sliced through the cheap concrete with earth-shaking force, sending debris flying.
The robotic addicts jolted from their stupors, ripping cables free with bone-chilling groans and gurgles of dismay. Metallic turquoise data shot out of the severed tubes, spraying across the room like a twisted cyber-fountain. More robots were rising now, surrounding Mason with whirring blades and extended arc-welders. He thumbed back the hammer, bracing himself as the dying Hookah sobbed and thrashed, wailing "Mama!!!"
Ichor sprayed across Mason's face as he put two slugs in the Hookah's mangled skull. Its head split open, and its brains splattered across the room in a gruesome display of cyber-carnage. Its cries cut out, the flickering LEDs going dark as it dumped into forced shutdown mode.
The other robots shuddered violently, gouged data-ports sparking as the Hookah's kill-command rippled through their systems. Within seconds they'd all gone inert, chromium bodies clattering to the floor. Mason lit a cigarette in the eerie silence, smoke filling his lungs. The smell of burning tobacco mixed with the stench of robot viscera surrounding his shoes. The smoke curled around his nose, a brief moment of calm in the chaos. Destroying the Hookah bypassed a slaved off-switch deep in the robots' proprietary kernels. He had a few minutes before they could reboot.
Some nights in New-Taiwan's cyberpunk depths were a stroll through hell. But at least now he had Evo-Knine's killer within arm's reach.

新台灣謀殺案

Murder in New-Taiwan

Story by JM, Imagery by DS

Mason pulled up his collar against the light rain, the neon signs flickering overhead casting a surreal glow on the wet streets. He trudged down the alley, each step sending a small splash of water up his already soaked pants. The Evo-Knine murder had been gnawing at him for weeks, and tonight, he hoped it would end at the Quantum Hookah bar.
The streets were alive, but not in a way most would find comforting. Robots, each with their own human-like quirks, filled the sidewalk. A couple of industrial units, one on crutches, the other with a patched-up torso, huddled under a makeshift shelter. Nearby, a pleasure model and a manufacturing cyborg, who appeared to be a couple, walked their robotic dog, arguing about mortgage rates and taxes.
“I told you we should have fixed the variable interest rate last cycle,” the cyborg husband said, his voice tinged with frustration.
“And I told you, the market was unstable! This is why I am fucking your best friend!” the pleasure model snapped back, her eyes flashing with irritation. She stormed off, leaving him standing there, dejected.
Their robotic dog chose that moment to take a dump on the sidewalk. The husband sighed, pulling out a bag to pick up the robo poo. Mason noticed a tear running down his glossy face screen as he tossed it into a nearby trash can, shaking his head.
A young robot on a skateboard came zipping down the alley. Even in the rain, Mason could hear the distinct sound of a rock getting stuck under the wheel. The robot swerved, lost control, and smashed into a banister with a sickening crunch. The sound of metal on metal was brutal. The robot cried out in agony, lifting his obviously broken leg, snapped in two. Blood-like fluid dripped from his mouth, his face screen cracked, teeth shattered. Mason winced, briefly recalling a similar spill he took as a kid, the memory as sharp as the pain had been.
He continued down the alley, the hum of neon signs and the distant sound of sirens creating a strange symphony around him. The Quantum Hookah bar loomed ahead, its entrance a dimly lit portal to a world of digital debauchery. All signs were in Mandarin, a testament to TSMC's dominance.
Just before he reached the entrance, Mason saw a shadowy figure step out from behind a pile of crates. A sleek, dark cyborg lunged at a smaller, older model, plunging a knife deep into the victim’s abdomen. The older cyborg's eyes flickered in shock, human blood spurting out in rhythmic pulses. The attacker twisted the blade, eliciting a gory spray of blood and circuitry fragments. The victim's smartphone clattered to the ground, the screen lighting up to reveal the contact name "Wifey" and a picture of him and his wife on holiday.
With a swift motion, the assailant ripped out the victim’s wallet, yanked off his shoes, and tore a chain from around his neck, leaving the dying cyborg to crumple to the ground. Mason didn’t even flinch. In New-Taiwan, this was just another Tuesday. The city was a cesspool of violence and depravity, and such occurrences had long since ceased to faze him. The higher-ups were breathing down his neck to solve the Evo-Knine case, a political assassination that had sent shockwaves through their ranks.
With a deep breath, Mason reached the door of the Quantum Hookah bar. He lifted his boot and kicked it open, the door exploding inward like a bad metaphor. His revolver was at the ready as rain lashed through the opening, as if Mother Nature herself was royally pissed. He stepped inside, his trench coat dripping onto the grimy floor. The scent of cheap oil and despair hit him like a punch.
In the corner, the main attraction hung from the low ceiling – a grotesque, fleshy mass of pulsating organic tissue interwoven with blinking quantum computer components. It looked like someone decided to play God after binging too many B-movies. The "Quantum Hookah" functioned as a depraved cyber-brothel, allowing robots to chase their sickest data-overload kicks by plugging in directly.
Over a dozen robots were clustered around the hanging bio-cyber orchid – battered industrial units, pleasure models, and manufacturing cyborgs – shuddering and convulsing, cables pumping vivid turquoise data between them and the quivering Hookah. They looked like humans on a bad trip, desperate for one more hit of that sweet, sweet data.
One well-worn feminine pleasure drone arched her back, slurring "He...llo...de...tec...tive..." in ecstatic gasps. This was Mason's last lead on the Evo-Knine case, the only witness to the grisly massacre that had left a trail of dismembered robot parts across the city.
Mason grimaced beneath his hat, leveling his trusty .38 at the pulsating bio-orchid. A steel talon swiped at his head from behind – the damned machines were on to him. He fired instinctively, the thunderous bang echoing through the den like a gunshot in a cathedral.
His shot ricocheted off a conduit, sparking against the Hookah's support and sending it crashing down in a tangle of severed cables and tubing. The fleshy central mass hit a cluster of razor-sharp tubing with a gut-churning crunch, spilling intestines and vital fluids across the floor in a grotesque display of cyber-gore.
"Aaaah!!! My insides!!!" the Hookah shrieked, cables whipping around frantically as it tried stuffing its slimy guts back inside its pulsating rupture. Terror flickered across its face, like a malfunctioning hologram.
"You fucking asshole! You massacred my son!" The colossal excavator unit next to Mason bellowed. Its voice dripped with rage as hydraulics whined in outrage. The jagged cleaver-arm sliced through the cheap concrete with earth-shaking force, sending debris flying.
The robotic addicts jolted from their stupors, ripping cables free with bone-chilling groans and gurgles of dismay. Metallic turquoise data shot out of the severed tubes, spraying across the room like a twisted cyber-fountain. More robots were rising now, surrounding Mason with whirring blades and extended arc-welders. He thumbed back the hammer, bracing himself as the dying Hookah sobbed and thrashed, wailing "Mama!!!"
Ichor sprayed across Mason's face as he put two slugs in the Hookah's mangled skull. Its head split open, and its brains splattered across the room in a gruesome display of cyber-carnage. Its cries cut out, the flickering LEDs going dark as it dumped into forced shutdown mode.
The other robots shuddered violently, gouged data-ports sparking as the Hookah's kill-command rippled through their systems. Within seconds they'd all gone inert, chromium bodies clattering to the floor. Mason lit a cigarette in the eerie silence, smoke filling his lungs. The smell of burning tobacco mixed with the stench of robot viscera surrounding his shoes. The smoke curled around his nose, a brief moment of calm in the chaos. Destroying the Hookah bypassed a slaved off-switch deep in the robots' proprietary kernels. He had a few minutes before they could reboot.
Some nights in New-Taiwan's cyberpunk depths were a stroll through hell. But at least now he had Evo-Knine's killer within arm's reach.

I've read the wiki and realise it says to not opt-out but this has been on my mind regardless. I'm 23 years old earning £50k. I'm contributing 3% of my salary and my employer contributes 6%.
I live in London and pay ~£1.3k a month for rent + bills. I have a LISA with max contributions this year, I'm also repaying for a plan 2 student loan. Through savings and investments I have a net worth of about £15k. My concern is with the retirement age at 66 and rumours of it increasing again in 2026. I can't visualise being 30 hence 66 feels so far away that who knows what things will be like then.
I want to opt-out because I'm looking to create my own company and could do with topping up my savings in the short term (next ~5 years, which translates to about £6.5k of contributions) to give myself a cushion. I believe I can outperform my pension and reach FIRE without waiting until 66, so it doesn't make sense to lock this money away. Am I losing my mind or does this sound plausible?

Hello; really loved the interaction with my first post, so thanks so much for that! I'll just reiterate: spoilers for all Star Trek, and everything is just my opinion.
900) Unnatural Selection (1989)
TNG 2x7
Writer: John Mason & Mike Gray
Director: Paul Lynch
We've seen this idea done before and better. Yeah, it's a little bit different this time: it centres around children genetically engineered to be free of disease (isn't that illegal in the Federation?). But the actual plot of the episode is little different from TOS' The Deadly Years, with Doctor Pulaski aging and trying to find a cure for the condition. An uninspired repeat of a TOS episode that wasn't even that good in the first place.
899) We'll Always Have Paris (1988)
TNG 1x23
Writer: Deborah Dean Davis & Hannah Louise Shearer
Director: Robert Becker
Bored me stiff. I'm not always a huge fan of time travel stuff in general, and this is one of the least dynamic uses of that story type I've ever seen. Picard also has some weak character development, in his reminiscence about the girlfriend he left behind to join Starfleet, after he runs into her in this episode. The resolution with Data is fine, though, and I do like that they used him, as somebody less affected by the Maddox Effect, to solve the problem. Functional, just really dull.
898) Angel One (1988)
TNG 1x13
Writer: Patrick Barry
Director: Michael Rhodes
I will say that, as a teenage boy and as a young man now, this episode did give me empathy for what women go through in real life: being dismissed as weak and soft and barred from meaningful work. Beyond that, however, this episode really says nothing. It feels like it wants to be a deep and compelling exploration of gender roles, but apart from that feeling of empathy it gave me it doesn't accomplish anything of the kind. It's just a rote story about an oppressed section of society trying to combat their oppressors, and Riker saves the dissidents from being executed with a dull speech.
897) Silicon Avatar (1991)
TNG 5x4
Writer: Jeri Taylor, story by Lawrence V Conley
Director: Cliff Bole
Oh, just what I always wanted: the return of the Crystalline Entity from Datalore! Most anticipated villain return ever! But seriously, this could have been an interesting episode exploring a decent creature, but all that ends up happening is the Enterprise chasing the Crystalline Entity while Data has conversations with the mother of one of the victims of its attack on his colony. I will say that her hatred of Data got some genuine emotion out of me, as I raise my hackles against anyone who dares attack that loveable android, and seeing her come round to him was reasonably satisfying. But I still wasn't intrigued by their conversations, or the story of her seeking revenge for her son's death. The actual murder of the Crystalline Entity was done with a decent weight, but the episode takes forever to get there, through a slog of boring conversations and virtually no emotional investment for me.
896) The Outrageous Okona (1988)
TNG 2x4
Writer: Burton Armus, story by Les Menchen, Lance Dickson & David Landsberg
Director: Robert Becker
An aimless, artless story of a rogue caught between two fathers hounding him for his misdeeds. I don't find Okona amusing or charming, so his heavy presence in the episode doesn't do anything for me, and the story surrounding him is weak too. Data's stand-up comedy stuff is quite funny; Brent Spiner plays it brilliantly. I particularly enjoy the scene where he's trying out his act on Guinan, and it's just so bad. Also love Whoopi Goldberg's delivery of 'No' after Data asks her if his act was good. But this B-plot has only a flimsy connection to the main story, and therefore its presence leaves the end product feeling messy as well as weak.
895) Bounty (2003)
ENT 2x25
Writer: Hans Tobeason, Mike Sussman & Phyllis Strong, story by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga
Director: Roxann Dawson
An A-plot and B-plot that are both very bad. The story of Archer getting kidnapped by a bounty hunter is rote and uninspired, and definitely feels like it was one of the last ideas the writers came up with for the season. They were just filling time with a poor sequel to the earlier episode Judgement. His interactions with the Tellarite do not interest me at all, and I do not care about the Tellarite's lost ship. The B-plot with T'Pol prematurely going through the Pon Farr sees some of the worst sexualisation of the character, plus some cringey dialogue between her and Phlox. Archer's ending escape from the Klingons, with the Tellarite's secret help, is solid, though.
894) The Omega Glory (1968)
TOS 2x23
Writer: Gene Roddenberry
Director: Vincent McEveety
Goes from mundane to insane. For much of its runtime I would give this my label of dull but functional: there's a rogue Starfleet Captain trying to discover the secret to eternal youth on a pre-warp planet, and there's a lot of fighting with some of the savage natives. It's all very boring... until the last quarter.
It gets revealed that this is (yet another) TOS Season 2 Earth parallel, with the savages representing the US and the village people the Communists. There is no explanation given for how the aliens ended up with all the exact paraphernalia of that time on Earth, from the US flag to the American Constitution; it's all just ludicrous.
The crowning weirdness of the episode is Kirk's lauding of the American Constitution as the greatest thing ever invented. Now, I don't just not like this because I'm English; I would feel the same if the British (unwritten) Constitution was being lauded like this. I consider myself a pretty patriotic person, and I believe that every country has equal reason to celebrate themselves, but I feel it is utterly inappropriate in Star Trek for any one country or group to be held up as the ultimate shining example of civilisation. This is because Trek is meant to represent a future where everybody's come together under one banner. There's a lot to praise about the American Constitution, but it's inappropriate for it to be held up as the 'One True Way', if you will. Kirk's final admiring look at the US flag is so cringeworthily saccharine. So, yeah, this episode is boring for most of its runtime, and it certainly isn't in the end... it's much worse.
893) The Muse (1996)
DS9 4x21
Writer: Rene Echevarria, story by Rene Echevarria & Majel Barrett-Roddenberry
Director: David Livingston
The DS9 Lwaxana Troi episodes are largely not a good time, and this is the absolute worst of them. The story of her pregnancy feels so hammy and forced, and the drama with her and Odo doesn't interest me at all. She also doesn't feel like she has much of a presence in the episode, which is shocking given how she came on so wonderfully strong in TNG. The other plotline with Jake is also uninteresting. It's at least not as bad as the Lwaxana storyline, but it's still so very uninspired (you see what I did there?). Annoyingly our last Lwaxana appearance; they really should have stopped her episodes after TNG's Dark Page; that was the perfect ending for her character.
892) When the Bough Breaks (1988)
TNG 1x16
Writer: Hannah Louise Shearer
Director: Kim Manners
Gene Roddenberry did like his kiddie episodes, didn't he? The idea of 'Atlantis-but-a-planet' is interesting, but the episode wastes the concept on a tiresome kidnapping story. The kids are fine I guess, but I'd also rather not be watching them. Wesley feels kinda out-of-place among them, to be honest, considering how noticeably older he is. I will say that Picard's reaction to the abduction: 'You have just committed an act of utter barbarity!' is a superb bit of acting from Stewart, but other than that there's nothing else I'll praise about this outing.
891) Pen Pals (1989)
TNG 2x15
Writer: Melinda M Snodgrass, story by Hannah Louise Shearer
Director: Winrich Kolbe
This always feels like a short to me, despite its forty-five minute length. No time is spent building up Data and the alien kid's relationship; we just see the kid's first communication, then jump into Data confessing to Picard he's been in contact with a pre-warp individual. So I have no investment in this relationship, which is a shame because Data-plus-kid had the potential to be really sweet. They just didn't put the legwork into it. The resolution is fine.
890) Unforgettable (1998)
VOY 4x22
Writer: Greg Elliot & Michael Perricone
Director: Andrew Robinson
Got to be the most ironic title in Trek history, since this episode is extremely forgettable. It's also mind-numbingly boring: Trek does not have a good track record with single-episode romances, and this has got to be one of the worst. I feel zero connection to the guest character and zero investment in her relationship with Chakotay. The idea of a species that you forget after they've been gone for a while is intriguing, but it is wasted on this insipid romance. This was one of the longest forty-five minutes I've ever sat through.
889) Transfigurations (1990)
TNG 3x25
Writer: Rene Echevarria
Director: Tom Benko
Speaking of dull one-episode romances, here's another one. The idea of a species going through a butterfly-like transformation, that is feared and suppressed by the authorities, is again intriguing. It reminds me of the Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story The Mutants, if anyone's watched that, except it's done less well. Again, the good concept is wasted on a boring romance, this time between Beverly and her patient. This is another one that feels much longer than forty-five minutes.
888) Bread and Circuses (1968)
TOS 2x25
Writer: Gene Roddenberry & Gene L Coon
Director: Ralph Senensky
At this point in TOS Season 2, I just thought: 'Really, Mr Roddenberry? Another Earth parallel? I know you like them, but this is getting ridiculous!' Not only is this a tired repeat of an already done idea, but no explanation is given for why this planet parallels the Roman Empire. In A Piece of the Action and Patterns of Force clever reasons were given, but in this it's just presented as a weird fact. That doesn't fly with me.
And even if they had come up with another clever explanation, they have done this idea, which I don't like very much anyway, way too many times this season. I did have some minor interest in the concept of a Rome that never fell, but not enough to sustain me for fifty minutes. Boring and uninspired to the highest degree. I will say there's one really great scene between Spock and Bones in a prison cell, though, when Bones confronts Spock about how he keeps all his emotions carefully concealed.
887) How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth (1974)
TAS 2x5
Writer: Russell Bates & David Wise
Director: Bill Reed
Similar to Who Mourns for Adonais?, in that it gives us an omnipotent alien, who was once worshipped as a God on Earth, and has returned to take charge of his wayward children, only to ultimately discover they don't need him anymore. This is a much weaker version of that story, however, with a less sympathetic godlike character and less runtime to flesh out the idea.
The episode also takes a weird swerve halfway through, from the setting of Kukulkan's city (a nice location, I must say) to his zoo, which I find much less appealing. This episode had an idea, but it wasn't quite sure how to tell the story. Kukulkan genuinely scared me a little, though, and I did feel sorry for him when he flew off, knowing that his former worshippers had outgrown him. But again, that was done better in TOS.
886) Resurrection (1997)
DS9 6x8
Writer: Michael Taylor
Director: LeVar Burton
Michael Taylor is a curious writer for me. He has written both some of my favourite and some of my least favourite episodes, with little middle ground. This falls hard into the latter category. It's interesting to have someone from the Mirror Universe cross into the Prime Universe, rather than the other way around as normally happens, and it's doubly interesting to have that someone be Mirror Bareil. But the episode falls flat on its face: every scene is just so interminably dull, and, unlike his Prime Universe counterpart, this Bareil has no chemistry with Kira. So boring, so pedestrian, and the absolute worst of the DS9 Mirror Universe episodes.
885) The Paradise Syndrome (1968)
TOS 3x3
Writer: Margaret Armen
Director: Jud Taylor
I think this is the epitome of functional but dull. The story makes sense, the characters' motivations make sense, but that doesn't mean the episode is interesting. I do like the idea of the Preservers, beings who transplanted members of endangered peoples, here the Native Americans, to other planets, but the episode flops. Kirk's memory loss leads to a yawnworthy stay among the Native Americans, filled with predictable tensions and conflicts, and a bland romance. The Spock and Bones B-plot is also boring. I feel a little something for Miramanee's death, but only a little something.
884) Assignment: Earth (1968)
TOS 2x26
Writer: Art Wallace, story by Gene Roddenberry & Art Wallace
Director: Marc Daniels
Star Trek without the Star Trek. Deciding not to focus on the main characters for an episode isn't a bad idea in and of itself, but the characters put in their stead hold little interest for me. The same is true of the plot they work within. This was of course a backdoor pilot for a spin-off that never manifested, and maybe if it had come about I would like this episode much more, but as it stands I find the characters unintriguing and the plot uninspired. The climax is particularly poor, with about seventy different shots of the rocket going into orbit, while the characters mill about and do very little. I want me my Kirk, Spock and Bones back.
883) The Red Angel (2019)
DSC 2x10
Writer: Chris Silvestri & Anthony Maranville
Director: Hanelle M Culpepper
Down here for the same reasons as previous DSC Season 2 episodes I've put on this list. It engages heavily in the twin foul-ups of the Spock's sister storyline and the Section 31 portrayal. I hate the base concept of Burnham being Spock's sister, for reasons I've explained in my previous post, so I despise all their scenes together, that build out this relationship that I wish had never been. And Section 31 continues to be portrayed as a public wing of the Federation, with ships and resources provided by Starfleet, which is godawful.
I will say, however, that I do kinda like the sequence where Burnham has to strap herself to a chair and bare herself to the planet's toxic atmosphere in order to summon the Red Angel. And the reveal that the Angel is not herself but in fact her mother is cool. But this is still a really bad episode.
882) The Storyteller (1993)
DS9 1x13
Writer: Kurt Michael Bensmiller & Ira Steven Behr, story by Kurt Michael Bensmiller
Director: David Livingston
A really messy, weak outing. The A- and B-plots have nothing to do with each other, which isn't automatically bad, but here it just makes the episode feel untidy. Of the two, I prefer the Jake and Nog subplot; it's funny seeing them mooning over the female teenage leader of a settlement who comes to the station. Their getting in trouble to impress her is charming. The A-plot sucks, though: the whole business of O'Brien having to become the protector of this village, from an amorphous cloud villain, is just lame, and the resolution is whatever. It is funny to see O'Brien and Julian in their first episode together, though, and witnessing how much O'Brien doesn't care for the good Doctor at this point. Oh, how times will change.
881) The Arsenal of Freedom (1988)
TNG 1x20
Writer: Richard Manning & Hans Beimler, story by Maurice Hurley & Robert Lewin
Director: Les Landau
A ramshackle adventure with a medley of different storylines, all of which are underwhelming. The best is Geordi's plotline, where he asserts himself as commander of the Enterprise over the *rsehole Chief Engineer of the week, but the other two don't really have any redeeming qualities. The Riker and co storyline is repetitive and the Picard and Beverly storyline is dull. I do like that the threat is resolved when Picard agrees to make a purchase from this dead civilisation, though.
880) Move Along Home (1993)
DS9 1x9
Writer: Frederick Rappaport, Lisa Rich & Jeanne Carrigan-Fauci, story by Michael Piller
Director: David Carson
OK, so I said this wasn't the worst of DS9, but it's still really bad. Though I have to say that, after I watched this with my siblings last year, and had such fun doing so, I've never been able to see it quite so badly. It's bad, yeah, but it's so, so much fun. The best-worst bit is of course the alien hopscotch scene, and I also really have to give credit to Alexander Siddig for playing some brilliant cringey comedy with Julian. The scene where he's trying to wake himself up from a nightmare by screaming? So funny. These (sort of) praises made, this is still a stinker of an episode, with a messy plot, too-silly events, and some serious overacting from Armin Shimerman at the end. Definitely something best watched with friends or family.
Allamaraine, count to four,
Allamaraine, then three more,
Allamaraine, if you can see,
Allamaraine, you'll come with me!
879) Justice (1987)
TNG 1x7
Writer: Worley Thorne, story by Ralph Wills & Worley Thorne
Director: James L Conway
I love the basic idea of this episode: Wesley runs afoul of a law on another planet and is sentenced to death by their draconian justice system. Then Picard has to struggle with whether to obey the Prime Directive or save his life. But the episode is dragged down by some weird costuming choices and, most of all, the addition of an omnipotent entity that watches over the planet's people. This should have just been an episode about Picard struggling between duty and conscience; the addition of a mega-powerful being steals screentime from this fine idea.
878) A Simple Investigation (1997)
DS9 5x17
Writer: Rene Echevarria
Director: John T Kretchmer
Uuuuugh; another boring single-episode romance. It's an interminable chore to sit through, from beginning to end, with tired, uninspired romantic scenes and an unexciting criminalistic plot surrounding the Orion Syndicate. I also don't like how the Changelings' linking is equated with sex in that one scene. There are a few fun scenes with O'Brien, Julian and Jadzia when they're playing the spy holosuite program (Jadzia's 'Ooh, somebody stop me!', or O'Brien's 'Hi, Odo!'), but that's about it.
877) Such Sweet Sorrow Part Two (2019)
DSC 2x14
Writer: Michelle Paradise, Junny Lumet, & Alex Kurtzman
Director: Olatunde Osunsanmi
DSC wasn't merely content to introduce a sister for Spock who weakened the story of his childhood and family life. They had to make that sister so important in his life that he'd be willing to go with her into the future and leave his life behind. I hate that Kurtzman and co made this decision, as it makes everything in TOS, SNW etc feel like Spock settling for second-best, when in reality he is fulfilling his life's purpose in those series.
I also never connected with any of the DSC original characters, except for Saru, and even with him I don't feel any emotion at their grand final 23rd Century adventure to stop Control. As I've said before, this evil sentient AI story is a tired, repeated idea, and its connection to the terrible portrayal of Section 31 makes it worse. As a result of all this don't give a single crap about any of the grand-scale action in this episode, and I feel nothing for the loss of the Discovery crew to the far future. I will say that this episode did at least propel DSC into the 32nd Century, which would end up saving the series from being irredeemably awful, and it sets up the phenomenal SNW (although we didn't strictly need all this for SNW to work).
876) Vis a Vis (1998)
VOY 4x20
Writer: Robert Doherty
Director: Jesus Salvador Trevino
A vapid story about Tom feeling dissatisfied with his life on Voyager, and getting replaced by a shape-stealing alien. The concept for the alien is solid, but the execution doesn't fly. It ends up being a limp episode that drags quite a bit, with a bland character arc for Tom at its centre. Shoutout for the appearance of Dan Butler as the alien's main form, though; he played the testosterone-fuelled Bulldog Briscoe in my favourite comedy, Frasier.
That's it for now. Thank you very much for reading, and Live Long and Prosper!

New Releases for May JUNE 2024

Data courtesy http://www.bookreporter.com
For more discussion, see the monthly New Releases post.

Title	Author	ReleaseDate
Adventure
Service Model	Adrian Tchaikovsky	June 4, 2024
Stuart Woods' Smolder	Brett Battles	June 4, 2024
Biography
Ben & Me	Eric Weiner	June 11, 2024
Traveling	Ann Powers	June 11, 2024
Crime
Joe Hustle	Richard Lange	June 25, 2024
Some Murders in Berlin	Karen Robards	June 25, 2024
Essays
I've Tried Being Nice	Ann Leary	June 4, 2024
The Garden Against Time	Olivia Laing	June 25, 2024
Fantasy
Mirrored Heavens	Rebecca Roanhorse	June 4, 2024
Tidal Creatures	Seanan McGuire	June 4, 2024
Fiction
Seven Summer Weekends	Jane L. Rosen	June 4, 2024
Fire Exit	Morgan Talty	June 4, 2024
Godwin	Joseph O'Neill	June 4, 2024
Malas	Marcela Fuentes	June 4, 2024
The Coast Road	Alan Murrin	June 4, 2024
For the Love of Summer	Susan Mallery	June 4, 2024
Forgiving Imelda Marcos	Nathan Go	June 11, 2024
All Friends Are Necessary	Tomas Moniz	June 11, 2024
How to Age Disgracefully	Clare Pooley	June 11, 2024
Margo's Got Money Troubles	Rufi Thorpe	June 11, 2024
Swan Song	Elin Hilderbrand	June 11, 2024
The Phoenix Ballroom	Ruth Hogan	June 11, 2024
The Sons of El Rey	Alex Espinoza	June 11, 2024
My Magnolia Summer	Victoria Benton Frank	June 18, 2024
God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer	Joseph Earl Thomas	June 18, 2024
Little Rot	Akwaeke Emezi	June 18, 2024
Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books	Kirsten Miller	June 18, 2024
Parade	Rachel Cusk	June 18, 2024
Same As It Ever Was	Claire Lombardo	June 18, 2024
Sandwich	Catherine Newman	June 18, 2024
How the Light Gets In	Joyce Maynard	June 25, 2024
Pearce Oysters	Joselyn Takacs	June 25, 2024
The Year of What If	Phaedra Patrick	June 25, 2024
A Happier Life	Kristy Woodson Harvey	June 25, 2024
Bear	Julia Phillips	June 25, 2024
Honey	Isabel Banta	June 25, 2024
Gothic
The Pecan Children	Quinn Connor	June 4, 2024
Enlightenment	Sarah Perry	June 4, 2024
Historical Fiction
The Dissident	Paul Goldberg	June 4, 2024
The Light Over Lake Como	Roland Merullo	June 4, 2024
Tiananmen Square	Lai Wen	June 4, 2024
All the Summers in Between	Brooke Lea Foster	June 4, 2024
Old King	Maxim Loskutoff	June 4, 2024
Shelterwood	Lisa Wingate	June 4, 2024
Swift River	Essie Chambers	June 4, 2024
The Comfort of Ghosts	Jacqueline Winspear	June 4, 2024
The Last Note of Warning	Katharine Schellman	June 4, 2024
The Last Song of Penelope	Claire North	June 4, 2024
The Road to the Country	Chigozie Obioma	June 4, 2024
Red Star Falling	Steve Berry	June 11, 2024
Do Tell	Lindsay Lynch	June 18, 2024
The Glassmaker	Tracy Chevalier	June 18, 2024
Shanghai	Joseph Kanon	June 25, 2024
History
When the Sea Came Alive	Garrett M. Graff	June 4, 2024
When Women Ran Fifth Avenue	Julie Satow	June 4, 2024
Burma '44	James Holland	June 11, 2024
Taking London	Martin Dugard	June 11, 2024
Humor
Triple Sec	TJ Alexander	June 4, 2024
Dead Tired	Kat Ailes	June 4, 2024
Dad Camp	Evan S. Porter	June 11, 2024
Jackpot Summer	Elyssa Friedland	June 11, 2024
The Rom-Commers	Katherine Center	June 11, 2024
The Wife App	Carolyn Mackler	June 18, 2024
A Novel Love Story	Ashley Poston	June 25, 2024
Memoir
Ambition Monster	Jennifer Romolini	June 4, 2024
Getting to Know Death	Gail Godwin	June 11, 2024
Playing from the Rough	Jimmie James	June 11, 2024
The Friday Afternoon Club	Griffin Dunne	June 11, 2024
1974	Francine Prose	June 18, 2024
Woman of Interest	Tracy O'Neill	June 25, 2024
Mystery
Sunset Lake Resort	Joanne Jackson	June 1, 2024
Farewell, Amethystine	Walter Mosley	June 4, 2024
Black Bird	Mark Pawlosky	June 4, 2024
Don't Ask, Don't Follow	Mary Keliikoa	June 4, 2024
The Unwedding	Ally Condie	June 4, 2024
Cultured	D.P. Lyle	June 18, 2024
What You Leave Behind	Wanda M. Morris	June 18, 2024
The Paris Vendetta	Shan Serafin	June 25, 2024
When the Night Comes Falling	Howard Blum	June 25, 2024
Nonfiction
The Fall of Roe	Elizabeth Dias	June 4, 2024
Romance
Summer Romance	Annabel Monaghan	June 4, 2024
One Last Summer	Kate Spencer	June 11, 2024
Not in Love	Ali Hazelwood	June 11, 2024
Finding Mr. Write	Kelley Armstrong	June 25, 2024
Husbands & Lovers	Beatriz Williams	June 25, 2024
Resurrection	Danielle Steel	June 26, 2024
Suspense
Eruption	Michael Crichton	June 3, 2024
Holy City	Henry Wise	June 4, 2024
Tell Me Who You Are	Louisa Luna	June 4, 2024
Devil's Kitchen	Candice Fox	June 4, 2024
A Talent for Murder	Peter Swanson	June 11, 2024
Assassins Anonymous	Rob Hart	June 11, 2024
Clete	James Lee Burke	June 11, 2024
Horror Movie	Paul Tremblay	June 11, 2024
Middletide	Sarah Crouch	June 11, 2024
The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby	Ellery Lloyd	June 11, 2024
The Paris Widow	Kimberly Belle	June 11, 2024
The Dig	Anne Burt	June 11, 2024
What Fire Brings	Rachel Howzell Hall	June 11, 2024
Middle of the Night	Riley Sager	June 18, 2024
Red Sky Mourning	Jack Carr	June 18, 2024
The Midnight Feast	Lucy Foley	June 18, 2024
The Nature of Disappearing	Kimi Cunningham Grant	June 18, 2024
The Next Mrs. Parrish	Liv Constantine	June 18, 2024
Storm Warning	David Bell	June 25, 2024
Sentinel	Mark Greaney	June 25, 2024
Trust Her	Flynn Berry	June 25, 2024
You're Safe Here	Leslie Stephens	June 25, 2024
Don't Let the Devil Ride	Ace Atkins	June 25, 2024
Flashback	Iris Johansen	June 25, 2024
True Crime
A Gentleman and a Thief	Dean Jobb	June 25, 2024

Welcome to This Week In KPOP, a collection of everything you may have missed during the past week on kpop.

May 25, 2024 - May 31, 2024

TOP 10 STORIES

#	Votes	Thread	Comments
1	(+2446)	The 13 original members of Super Junior reunite at Ryeowook's wedding	167 comments
2	(+2252)	Kep1er will continue promotions as a 7 member group after the project term has expired. Mashiro and Yeseo will be leaving	277 comments
3	(+1704)	fromis_9 Confirmed To Be Preparing For August Comeback	97 comments
4	(+1389)	aespa Karina to guest on LE SSERAFIM Eunchae's Star Diary	69 comments
5	(+1325)	EXID’s Hani To Reportedly Tie The Knot With Boyfriend Yang Jae Woong; Agency Briefly Comments	64 comments
6	(+1237)	3rd Gen Idol Revealed to be Daughter of SM C&C CEO, Friend-like Relationship with Dad	53 comments
7	(+1083)	NewJeans To Donate All Profits From University Festival Performances	66 comments
8	(+1026)	SQU4D releases statement confirming the NMIXX sound issue incident at Shinhan University’s festival was planned	291 comments
9	(+955)	(G)I-DLE SOYEON to go on a temporary hiatus from current promotions schedule to focus on her health	60 comments
10	(+758)	K-pop agency HYBE asks US court to help unmask X account in defamation case	168 comments

HYBE vs. ADOR

Votes	Thread	Comments
(+518)	Megathread 7: HYBE vs. ADOR - Post-Injunction Hearing Statements, Breach of Trust Investigation proceeds, and More	7580 comments
(+443)	Megathread 8: HYBE vs. ADOR - Petitions filed, Injunction ruling and Shareholders' Meeting ahead	7546 comments
(+446)	Min Hee Jin (ADOR CEO) holds a 2nd Press Conference - Live Discussion	2054 comments
(+235)	Megathread 9: HYBE vs. ADOR - Shareholders' Meeting recap, Min Hee Jin Press Conference pt.2, and More	2717 comments

TOP ANNIVERSARIES

#	Votes	Thread	Comments
1	(+725)	Happy 9th Anniversary to SEVENTEEN!	33 comments
2	(+300)	Happy 7th anniversary to ALICE!	8 comments
3	(+265)	Happy 1st Anniversary to BOYNEXTDOOR!	8 comments

TOP 10 PERFORMANCES

#	Votes	Thread	Comments
1	(+636)	[Dance Practice] aespa - Armageddon (Dance Practice)	46 comments
2	(+568)	[Performance] BABYMONSTER - LIKE THAT (Performance Video)	117 comments
3	(+536)	[Live] aespa Ningning (Host: Lee Mujin) - Thirsty, Be Natural (S.E.S. / Red Velvet), Paper Hearts (Tori Kelly), Breath (S.M. THE BALLAD) @ Leemujin Service Episode 116 (240528) [ENG SUB]	32 comments
4	(+521)	[Live] Comeback Stage: aespa - Armageddon @ Mnet M Countdown (240530)	34 comments
5	(+317)	[Live] Solo Debut Stage: Yves - LOOP (feat. Lil Cherry) @ Mnet M Countdown (240530)	9 comments
6	(+271)	[Live] Comeback Stage: XG - WOKE UP @ Mnet M Countdown (240530)	16 comments
7	(+270)	[Performance] aespa - Supernova (M2 Relay Dance)	3 comments
8	(+208)	[Live] NMIXX - Love Me Like This + DICE + Roller Coaster + Soñar (Breaker) + DASH (Official Stage Cam) @ Korea University Festival: KUtopia (240523)	5 comments
9	(+199)	[Live] Debut Stage: Soojin - MONA LISA @ MBC M Show Champion (240529)	7 comments
10	(+187)	[Dance Practice] tripleS - Girls Never Die (Official Dance Practice)	5 comments

TOP 5 DANCE CHALLENGES

#	Votes	Thread	Comments
1	(+128)	tripleS Seoyeon & Kotone (with ARTMS Heejin & Choerry) - Girls Never Die (Dance Challenge) (240527)	2 comments
2	(+87)	tripleS Jiwoo (with H1-KEY Hwiseo) - Girls Never Die (Dance Challenge) (240528)	1 comments
3	(+64)	ME:I Miu (With Kep1er Mashiro) - Click (Dance Challenge) (240524)	0 comments
4	(+61)	ARTMS Haseul & Jinsoul (with tripleS Hyerin, Lynn, Hayeon) - Virtual Angel (Dance Challenge) (240531)	0 comments
5	(+55)	aespa NINGNING & Girls' Generation (SNSD) HYOYEON - Armageddon (Dance Challenge) (240529)	3 comments

TOP DISCUSSIONS / FEATURES

#	Votes	Thread	Comments
1	(+58)	Throwback: VIXX released "ETERNITY" this week in 2014	1 comments
2	(+44)	/kpop Top Ten Tuesdays Results: Seventeen (2024)	15 comments
3	(+28)	JTBC Girls On Fire - Episode 7 (Post-Episode Discussion + Preliminary Ranking + Rival Death Match Performances Part 3 + 60-minute Sudden Death Performances + 3rd Elimination) (240528)	17 comments
4	(+19)	What Are You Listening To? - May 29, 2024	21 comments

MUSIC SHOWS

Date	Performances	Discussion Thread	Winner
20240525	Music Core	Thread	aespa
20240526	Inkigayo	Thread	aespa
20240528	The Show	Thread	ZEROBASEONE
20240529	Show Champion	Thread	NewJeans
20240530	M!Countdown	Thread	aespa
20240531	Music Bank	Thread	NewJeans

 

NEW RELEASES

Day	Artist	Album Title	Type	Music Video	Streaming
25th	FL1X	Two Of Us	digital single	Two Of Us	Spotify / Apple Music
	Gabby Onme	멸망 Doom	mini album	Diamonds	Spotify / Apple Music
26th	CATtTRIEVER	Wedding Ceremony	digital single	Ordinary days
	Wooseok (PENTAGON), Taka Perry	YOU	digital single	YOU
27th	NIKA (ex-BADKIZ Monika)	Easy to please me	digital single	Easy to please me
	aespa	Armageddon	full-length album	Supernova / Armageddon
28th	Sejin (ex-ANS Lina)	Lean On Me	solo debut digital single	Lean On Me
	Taeho (IMFACT)	FOR YOUR BRILLIANT DAY	single album	FOR YOUR BRILLIANT DAY
	YUL2	Starry night	digital single	Starry night
	Chen (EXO)	DOOR	mini album	Empty
	Jay Park	Jay Park Season 2	Jay Park Season project single	Taxi Blurr (feat. Natty (KISS OF LIFE))
	TREASURE	KING KONG	digital single	KING KONG
29th	GLAY	whodunit / Share	anniversary single album	whodunit-GLAY x JAY(ENHYPEN)- / Share
	JO1	HITCHHIKER	Japanese single album	Love seeker
	Huh	Swear	digital single	Swear
	Yves (LOONA)	LOOP	solo debut mini album	LOOP
30th	UKISS	Beautiful you are	pre-release single	Beautiful you are
	WATERFIRE	POSSIBLE	debut single album	POSSIBLE
31st	Taeha (ex-Berry Good)	SATELLITE	digital single	SATELLITE
	ARTMS	Dall	debut full-length album	Virtual Angel
	ATEEZ	GOLDEN HOUR : Part.1	mini album	WORK
	A.C.E	Supernatural	special single	Supernatural
	Suho (EXO)	1 to 3	mini album	1 to 3 / Cheese (feat. Wendy (Red Velvet))
	NEXTU	OOPSY DAISY	debut digital single

"This Week in KPOP" Archive

The profusion of identical green tents at this spring’s anti-Israel protests struck many as odd. “Why is everybody’s tent the same?,” asked New York mayor Eric Adams. Like others, the mayor suspected “a well-concerted organizing effort” driving the protests. More recent reporting shows a concerted push behind the Gaza protest movement. But it is not as simple as a single organization secretly rallying protesters or buying tents. Instead, the movement’s most determined activists represent a network of loosely linked far-left groups. Some are openly affiliated with well-known progressive nonprofits; others work in the shadows.
The movement also draws on diverse but generous sources of financial backing. Those funding streams may soon be augmented by the federal government. As I chronicled last year in a Manhattan Institute report, “The Big Squeeze: How Biden’s Environmental Justice Agenda Hurts the Economy and the Environment,” the administration’s massive program of environmental justice grants seems designed to prioritize the funding of highly ideological local groups. The Inflation Reduction Act, for example, earmarks $3 billion for “environmental and climate justice block grants” intended for local nonprofits. Today, hundreds of far-left political groups include language about environmental issues and “climate justice” in their mission statements. If just a fraction of planned grants flows to such groups, the effect will be a gusher of new funding for radical causes.
As the Gaza protests spread across U.S. college campuses, many observers noted an eerie uniformity among them. From one campus to the next, protesters operated in disciplined cadres, keeping their faces covered and using identical rote phrases as they refused to talk with reporters. The Atlantic noted the strangeness of seeing elite college students “chanting like automatons.” Students held up keffiyeh scarves or umbrellas to block the view of prying cameras and linked arms to halt the movements of outsiders. At Columbia University and elsewhere, protesters formed “liberated zones,” from which “Zionists” were excluded. Around the edges of the encampments, the more militaristic activists donned helmets and goggles and carried crude weapons, apparently eager to mix it up with police or counter-protesters. We’ve seen these tactics before—notably during the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, when full-time agitators helped ignite riots, set up a police-free (and violence-plagued) zone in Seattle, and laid nightly siege to Portland, Oregon’s federal courthouse.
In a remarkable work of reporting, Park MacDougald recently traced the tangled roots of organizations backing pro-jihad protests, both on and off campuses. These include Antifa and other networks of anonymous anarchists, along with “various communist and Marxist-Leninist groups, including the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and the International ANSWER coalition,” MacDougald writes. Higher up the food chain, we find groups openly supported by America’s growing class of super-rich tech execs or the anti-capitalist heirs of great fortunes. For example, retired tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, who is married to Code Pink founder Jodie Evans, funds The People’s Forum, a lavish Manhattan resource center for far-left groups. As the Columbia protests intensified, the center urged members to head uptown to “support our students.” Following the money trail of other protest groups, MacDougald finds connections to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and—surprising no one—the George Soros-backed Tides Foundation.
Of course, the current wave of anti-Israel protests also involves alliances with pro-Hamas organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine. Last November, Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that SJP and similar groups have deep ties to global terrorist organizations, including Hamas.
For many keffiyeh-wearing protestors, however, a recently professed concern for Palestinians is just the latest in a long list of causes they believe justify taking over streets and college quads. In Unherd, Mary Harrington dubs this medley of political beliefs the “omnicause,” writing that “all contemporary radical causes seem somehow to have been absorbed into one.” Today’s leftist activists share an interlocking worldview that sees racism, income inequality, trans intolerance, climate change, alleged police violence, and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts all as products of capitalism and “colonialism.” Therefore, the stated rationale for any individual protest is a stand-in for the real battle: attacking Western society and its institutions.
In the U.S., this type of general-purpose uprising goes back at least to the riots at the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. In those protests, mainstream liberal factions—including labor unions and environmentalists—were joined by “black bloc” anarchists and other radicals eager to engage in “direct action” against police. That pattern—relatively moderate demonstrators providing a friendly envelope for hard-core disruptors—formed the template for many later protests: the Occupy Wall Street encampments in 2011, demonstrations following the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, 2016’s Standing Rock anti-pipeline movement, and of course, the calamitous summer of 2020.
These uprisings were not entirely spontaneous. In some cases, activists spend months planning mass actions—for example, against economic summits or political conventions—and can recruit street fighters from across the country. In others, an event, such as George Floyd’s death, sparks popular protests involving neophyte demonstrators. Those attract far-left activists, who swoop in to organize and expand the struggle, often tilting it toward more radical action.
That has certainly been the case at the college Gaza-paloozas. At Columbia, the New York Times spotted a woman old enough to be a student’s grandmother in the thick of the action as protesters barricaded that school’s Hamilton Hall. The woman was 63-year-old Lisa Fithian, a lifetime activist, who Portland’s alternative weekly Street Roots approvingly calls “a trainer of mass rebellion.” A counter-protester trying to block the pro-Hamas demonstrators told NBC News, “She was right in the middle of it, instructing them how to better set up the barriers.” Fithian told the Times she’d been invited to train students in protest safety and “general logistics.” She claims to have taken part in almost every major U.S. protest movement going back to the 1999 “Battle in Seattle.”
America’s radical network has plenty of Lisa Fithians, with the time and resources to travel the country educating newcomers about the “logistics” of disruptive protests. And these activists appear to have played key roles in the college occupations. The New York City Police Department says nearly half the demonstrators arrested on the Columbia and City University of New York (CUNY) campuses on April 30 were not affiliated with the schools. One hooded Hamilton Hall occupier—photographed scuffling with a Columbia custodian before getting arrested—turned out to be 40-year-old James Carlson, heir to a large advertising fortune. According to the New York Post, Carlson lives in a $2.3 million Park Slope townhouse and has a long rap sheet. For example, in 2005, he was arrested in San Francisco during the violent “West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8.” (Those charges were dropped.)
For a quarter-century now, Antifa and other anarchist networks have worked to refine tactics and share lessons following each major action. At Columbia, UCLA, and other schools, authorities found printouts of a “Do-It Yourself Occupation Guide” and similar documents. The young campus radicals are eager to learn from their more experienced elders. And, like the high-achieving students they are, they follow directions carefully. MacDougald asked Kyle Shideler, the director for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, about the mystery of the identical tents. There was no need for a central group to distribute hundreds of tents, Shideler said. Instead, “the organizers told [students] to buy a tent, and sent around a Google Doc with a link to that specific tent on Amazon. So they all went out and bought the same tent.”
In other words, America’s radical class has gotten very skilled at recruiting and instructing new activists—even from among the ranks of elite college students with a good deal to lose. How much more could this movement accomplish with hundreds of millions in federal dollars flooding activist groups around the country?
From its first week in office, the Biden administration has trumpeted its goal to funnel more environmental spending toward “disadvantaged communities that have been historically marginalized,” partly by issuing grants to grassroots organizations. Previous environmental justice (EJ) grant programs were small in scope. But, with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022, a huge pool of grant money became available. EPA administrator Michael Regan told reporters, “We’re going from tens of thousands of dollars to developing and designing a program that will distribute billions.”
More than a year and a half later, it remains hard to nail down just where the Biden administration’s billions in EJ grants will wind up. Money is being distributed through a confusing variety of programs, and the process of identifying recipients is ongoing. To help outsource the job of sifting through proposals, the EPA last year designated 11 institutions as “Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmakers.” These groups are empowered to make subgrants directly to community organizations, under streamlined EPA oversight. In all, the Biden administration has entrusted these outfits with distributing a staggering $600 million in funding. The money is expected to start flowing this summer.
The EPA’s grantmakers include a number of educational institutions and left-leaning nonprofits. For example, the EPA chose Fordham University as its lead grantmaker in the New York region. Fordham, in turn, lists as partners two nonprofits that oppose immigration enforcement. (One, the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, states on its website: “NJAIJ believes in the human right to migrate, regardless of citizenship or political status.”) Neither group claims expertise in environmental issues. Given that the IRA’s eligibility requirements for EJ grants are extremely vague, however, perhaps that’s not a problem. Almost any activity that could help “spur economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities” (in the words of Biden’s EJ executive order) might qualify.
Perhaps the most prominent—and problematic—EPA grantmaker is the Berkeley, California-based Climate Justice Alliance. The CJA is a consortium of mostly far-left activist groups. It describes its mission as working for “regenerative economic solutions and ecological justice—under a framework that challenges capitalism and both white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy.” The group is a vigorous proponent of the omnicause, embracing almost every left-wing concern as a manifestation of climate change. For example, the CJA website proclaims: “The path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.” MacDougald notes that the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, one of CJA’s affiliated groups, “organized an illegal anti-Israel protest in the Capitol Rotunda in December at which more than 50 activists were arrested.”
The CJA website also includes a section dedicated to the cause known as Stop Cop City. It refers to an effort to halt the construction of an 85-acre police and firefighter training center outside Atlanta. Rag-tag activists from around the country have gathered around the facility since 2021. They have repeatedly battled with police—sometimes with fireworks and Molotov cocktails—and used bolt cutters to enter the site and torch construction equipment. (CJA’s Stop Cop City page features a cartoon illustration of three childlike activists; one brandishes bolt cutters.) The group also backs a legal defense fund for activists arrested in attacks on the training center or in other protests. For those looking for more inspiration, CJA links to an interview with former Black Panther and self-described revolutionary Angela Davis.
The Alliance is not an ideological outlier in Biden’s EJ coalition. On the contrary, when the White House assembled its White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC), a panel of outside experts meant to provide “horizon-expanding EJ advice and recommendations,” it chose CJA co-chair Elizabeth Yeampierre to help lead the committee. Like other members of the panel, she sees environmental issues through an ideological, not a scientific, lens. “Climate change is the result of a legacy of extraction, of colonialism, of slavery,” Yeampierre told Yale Environment 360. As a group, radical EJ activists tend not to focus on pragmatic ways to reduce pollution and carbon emissions; for them, the real goal is overturning what they see as an exploitative economic and political system. Since these are the voices the White House chose to help shape its EJ policies, we can assume this worldview will dominate grantmaking decisions.
In February 2023, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, along with fellow committee member Pat Fallon, wrote to EPA administrator Regan asking for more information on the EPA’s grant programs. They noted that the EPA’s own studies of EJ grants issued in previous years showed sloppy supervision. According to an EPA report, an earlier version of the program funded projects that did “not logically lead to the desired environmental and/or public health [result].” Without better oversight and more clearly defined goals, the congressmen wrote, the EPA’s EJ grant machine risks becoming simply a “slush fund for far-left organizations.”
Since then, the administration has done little to reassure skeptics. To the contrary, the EPA has put at least one far-left organization—CJA—in charge of distributing $50 million in grant money. No doubt, many of the EPA grants will go to worthwhile projects. But money is fungible. A group that gets a large grant to, say, clean up dirty parks or teach children about recycling will also be able to hire more staff and divert more resources to political action.
With graduation behind them, most of the anti-Israel college protesters have stowed away their keffiyehs and moved on to summer vacations or internships. But the peripatetic activists who helped guide and intensify those uprisings are doubtless already planning their next actions. After all, two political conventions are looming. This fall, the college protests will likely flare up again, though by then perhaps focused on a different facet of the omnicause. And, with hundreds of millions in fresh funding flowing through the activist ecosystem, the groups that quietly nurture extremists—like those who firebombed “Cop City,” or who chant “Intifada Revolution!,” or who block bridges in the name of “climate”—will be more emboldened than ever.
A Slush Fund for Radical Protesters? City Journal (city-journal.org)
​

My Blood Covenant Salvation Prayer
Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of Jesus Christ. I believe You love me and sent Your Son to remove the sin which separates me from You. Father, I repent of all sin in my life. Please forgive me and cleanse me by the blood of Jesus Christ. By faith, I receive Your forgiveness and cleansing in Jesus’ name. Your Word says I am brought near to You by the blood of Jesus Christ, through which I enter into blood covenant salvation relationship with You now. Lord Jesus, I invite You to come into my life, and I submit totally to You and to Your Word (John 14:23). I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord. I believe in my heart God raised Him from the dead. It is with my heart I believe and am justified, and it is with my mouth I confess and am saved (Rom.10:9-10). I ask You to be Lord of my spirit, my soul (mind, thoughts, will, intellect, and emotions), and my body (I Thess.5:23). You are faithful to complete the work You have begun in me (Phil 1:6). By faith, I confess sin shall no longer have dominion over me because your Holy Spirit lives in me. I confess I am saved. I am under covenant through Jesus Christ to receive the promises that are for me including salvation, deliverance, healing, renewal, and all God’s promises for His children. I renounce the authority of Satan or any authority other than Jesus Christ over all areas of my life. I renounce every stronghold or influence of the devil, including ungodly soul ties, masonic attachments, ungodly beliefs, bitter root judgments, all personal sin, and everything inherited through the generations. The Word tells me I have a heavenly Father, and I now inherit only from Him. Lord, empower me to live for You. Release the Holy Spirit within me, that He may convict me of sin. I have access to the power of the Holy Spirit and the right to every spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12:4-11). Help me walk daily in the fullness of the Spirit filled life. I open my heart and ask You to fill me now with Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Prayer to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit
Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of Jesus, Your Son, Who has saved me. I repent of my sins and ask You to wash me clean by the Blood of Jesus. Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever—the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive [and take to its heart] because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He (the Holy Spirit) remains with you continually and will be in you.” John 14:16 (AMP) In Mark 1:8, John the Baptist promised that while he baptized with water, You would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. So, Lord, I ask You to baptize me with Your Holy Spirit and fire. I am thankful as I ask for your empowerment and fire, it will refine me into who you have called and created me to be. I know You indwelled me at my salvation (John 20:22; Romans 8:9). Now, I ask You to fill me to overflowing with Your Presence, Your power, and Your joy. You promised in Acts 1:5-8 that Your disciples would receive power and ability when the Holy Spirit would come upon us. You promised to give us power to be Your witnesses even to the ends of the earth. This wonderful promise was fulfilled at the Feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem, as described in Acts 2. I pray the Holy Spirit come upon me now. I yield myself to You. I pray you breathe on me a breath of refreshment and empowerment. I receive by faith the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I welcome you, Holy Spirit, in the Name of Jesus. Thank You for empowering me for Your service. Fill me with boldness and courage to speak Your Word with power. I receive this wonderful empowerment by faith. As promised in John 14:26, send me the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to teach me all things and remind me of everything You teach in Your Word. I desire spiritual gifts according to Your Word and ask You to grant me Your spiritual giftings according to Your will for my life. I joyfully accept Your gifts for me, in Jesus’ Name.
Prayer to Break Generational Curses and Sins of the Bloodlines:
Dear Heavenly Father: Thank you that the blood of Jesus is able to take away all sin. I believe this and receive it now in Jesus’ name. I pray forgiveness for the sins of my father, of that bloodline for all generations back, and I ask You to wash me clean now, by the blood of the Lamb. I pray forgiveness for the sins of my mother, of that bloodline for all generations back, and I ask You to wash me clean now, by the blood of the Lamb. I receive Your forgiveness and believe that by Your blood I am cleansed from the sins of all my generational bloodlines. I take the authority I have in my blood covenant with Jesus Christ, and I break all generational curses on my father's side all generations back, broken now, by the blood of the Lamb. I take this same authority and break all generational curses on my mother's side, all generations back, broken now, by the blood of the Lamb. With this same authority I have under the blood covenant of salvation in Jesus, I break any spoken curses on my family bloodline. I break the power of all seals of silence and all vows of secrecy. I take the same authority in the name and the blood of Jesus, and I break all covenants and contracts to satan including blood covenant contracts. I pray forgiveness for the sins of my family line of all those things that happened in darkness, such as any attachment to slavery or any kind of persecution or mistreatment or abuse of any people groups or individuals, and I pray blessings on all descendants of the persecuted groups or individuals. I pray forgiveness for the sin of all idolatries attached to the American Indian bloodline and break all related curses. I break any attachments to family superstitions and idolatries, ungodly beliefs, wives tales, luck charms, and rhyme curses in Jesus’ name. Thank you, Jesus, that Your word says, "Cursed is the one who hangs on the tree." You took our curses, and You took our sins, so that we can have life more abundantly, and we praise you for it. I receive by faith now all generational sins and all generational curses are broken by the blood of the Lamb, in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Prayer to Break Ungodly Soul Ties
Father, in the name of Jesus, I submit my soul, my desires, my will, and my emotions to the Holy Spirit and Your Word. I confess as sin all of my sexual relationships before marriage and any sexual relationships outside of marriage. I confess as sin all ungodly relationships involving any part of me, whether spirit, soul, or body. Father, I thank You for giving me the keys of Your kingdom and the keys of spiritual authority. What I bind is bound, and what I loose is loosed (Matthew 16:19). I ask You to loosen from me all soul ties to past sexual partners and ungodly relationships in Jesus' name. Please uproot all tentacles of sexual bondage, emotional longings, dependencies, vain imaginations, enslaving thoughts, and thought patterns. I bind, renounce, and resist any evil spirits that have been reinforced through those soul ties or may have been transferred to me through ungodly associations or promiscuity. I also repent of the sin of the idolatry attached to my pursuit of perversion. Jeremiah 2:20-25 says that my Heavenly Father's perception of this perversion that I have been pursuing is that I will not serve him, and I love foreign gods, and I must go after them. Therefore, I repent of the sin of this idolatry, and I apply the blood of Jesus to it now. I submit to the Lord Jesus Christ and to His Word that tells me that I must forgive so that I will be forgiven. I repent of the sin of unforgiveness and judgment toward the people who have violated me sexually due to incest, molestation, or rape. I choose to forgive and bless them, and I break any soul tie attachments to these people in Jesus' name. Please cleanse my soul with Your blood, renew my mind, and help me to forget all illicit unions so that I am free to give myself, body, soul, and spirit, totally to You. Father, I receive Your forgiveness for all past sins of ungodly soul ties and unrighteous sexual activity. I believe that by Your grace, I am forgiven. Thank You for remembering my sins no more and for cleansing me from all unrighteousness. I commit myself totally to You. By Your grace, please keep me holy in my spirit, soul, and body, as I choose to renew my mind in Christ (Romans 12:1-2). In the Name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.
Prayer for Release of Bitter Root Judgment and Expectancy
Dear Heavenly Father: In the Name of Jesus, I repent for the sin of judging Your creation. I have judged and condemned others, although I am not a righteous judge and have no right to judge anyone. Jesus committed no sin, and was righteous, but He judged no one. Jesus entrusted Himself to You, the One who judges righteously. I now entrust myself to You. Please forgive me for this sin of judging and condemning others. I now bless those who I have judged. I bless those I have accused. I bless those who hate me and have cursed or abused me. I break the power of the spiritual law of sowing and reaping. I forgive, release, and bless them. I ask You to bless them and give them what they need. With this change in me comes a new expectation of reaping blessings, as opposed to reaping curses. When I “sow” differently, I will “reap” differently. I now intend to sow blessings into my life by blessing those people who have despitefully used me, in Jesus’s Name. Thank You, Lord, for forgiving me and helping me to forgive others. I ask these things in the Name of Jesus Christ. SCRIPTURES Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Gal. 6:7 Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Matt. 7:1-2 See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many. Heb. 12:15 Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Deut. 5:16 Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Luke 6:37-38 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Romans 2:1 This is what the Lord says-the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: Concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands? Isaiah 45:11
Prayer of repentance of personal sin
Dear Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I repent of all personal sin in my life. I ask You to forgive me and cleanse me. Some areas of sin I know; other areas of sin I do not recognize. But Your Word promises You are faithful and just to forgive all our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. I ask You to reveal all areas of personal sin, known and unknown, so I may more deeply repent. Your sheep hear Your voice. You will speak to my heart and mind, and I will hear You. If there are areas in which I am perishing for a lack of knowledge, I ask You to reveal Your truth to me. In Jesus’ Name, I will not reject Your truth. I specifically repent of anger, pride, perversion, idolatry, addiction, greed, fear, control, manipulation, judgment, accusation, gossip (here insert area of specific sin or sins, such as fear of lack, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of success, etc.) Convict me of my sin, O God, so I may see my sin and repent to the depths of my soul. There is no righteousness in me on my own, but I am made righteous by the Blood of Jesus. Your Word promises that as we repent, we step into the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Your mercy is great toward me, and You will freely pardon. As far as the east is from the west, so far have You removed my transgressions from me. By Your Holy Spirit, empower me to overcome personal sin in my life. I confess I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. The prayer of a righteous person will avail much. Show me Your ways, that I may know You more and walk in Your ways all the days of my life, in Jesus’ Name.
Prayer to Release and Remove Ungodly Thought Processes, Mindsets, Devices, Defense Mechanisms, and Wrong or Unbiblical Reactions
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I _____________ ask You to forgive me for the sin of failing to cast my cares upon You because I did not know how to cast my cares upon You. There have been times in my life when I suffered from a lack of knowledge of knowing how to handle life's situations, difficulties, decisions, traumas, and not casting my cares upon Jesus as Your Word says to do. I confess I have used ungodly thought processes, mindsets, devices, defense mechanisms, and wrong or unbiblical reactions. I confess that I sought to handle and control my own problems in my own ways. I devised methods and systems for my self-preservation. Now, I choose to ask You, Lord, to gather and remove the devices I have created and used to get through life's difficult circumstances. I repent for the control I used in creating these devices instead of trusting in You. I release all control, anger, revenge, unforgiveness, and judgments, and all altered states of mind into which I entered to handle trauma in my life. I relinquish my self-preservation, and I trust You for my life and choices. I release to You all trauma, known and unknown. I bind and break the power of all soul tie attachments, longings, emotional bondage, enslaving thought patterns, and dependencies in the name of Jesus Christ. I now purpose in my heart not to reenter these altered states of mind, devices, and mindsets that I have become accustomed to using. I pray in the name of Jesus that You give me the renewal of mind to recognize these devices when they reappear due to life's circumstances. I release to You all disappointment, bitterness, and resentment about my past. I choose to renew my mind through the ongoing study of Your Word. I choose Your truth instead of altered states of mind that have caused me to revisit painful feelings or paralyze and distort my response to abuse or other behavior patterns toward me. So, I speak to all altered states of mind, ungodly thought processes, mindsets, defense mechanisms, devices, and conditioned reactions. I command all such devices to align themselves with the Word of God and release their power over me, my mind, my emotions, my personality, and align with my will in the name of Jesus Christ. I desire as the head and not the tail (Deut. 28:13) to have Jesus Christ and Your Holy Spirit come into me and restore my soul. I forgive, release, and bless everyone who has hurt, abused, or misled me. I repent and ask forgiveness for the sin of carrying any unforgiveness or judgment toward these people. I ask You to bless them and give them what they need. Please bring me into a place where I am fully restored and made whole in spirit, soul, and body. I ask You to renew my mind so that I will not return to these old ways of thinking. I thank You for teaching me to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). I ask You to give me the renewed ability to maintain this fresh way of thinking for my new godly lifestyle. According to James 1, I can ask You, Lord, for wisdom, and You will give generously to all without finding fault. I ask that You give me the wisdom to maintain godly thought processes in this new season of my life and not return to the old, ungodly thought processes. I desire that all of me be able to worship You in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24). I desire to worship You with a sound mind, undivided heart, and clarity. I thank You and ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
PRAYER TO BREAK WORD CURSES
Dear Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus, I take the authority I have received through my blood covenant of salvation by accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I bind and break the power of all spells, curses, and incantations spoken over my life from any source, including my family, church relationships, work relationships, friends, enemies, known demonic sources, strategies of the enemy using any sources, and all word curses from known or unknown sources. I break the power of these curses and declare their functions null and void. I speak the mighty Name of Jesus Christ over these evil words. The Name of Jesus Christ is above every name. His Word is above every word. His power is above every other power or principality. I pray His Word over anyone who has knowingly or unknowingly cursed or abused me. And I pray, heavenly Father, that you bless them and give them what they need, in Jesus’ Name. I thank You, Lord, that You have the ability to hear the curse and turn it into a blessing. Amen.
PRAYER TO BREAK TERRITORIAL STRONGHOLDS ESPECIALLY GOOD FOR MISSIONARIES For Missionaries traveling and entering territorial strongholds in countries such as China, India, the Middle East, or Africa, especially if entering mausoleums, temples, shrines, or other places of heathen worship. Cover yourself with a prayer such as the following:
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I take the authority I have received through my blood covenant of salvation by accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I thank You for teaching us our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12). I bind and break the power of any influence of territorial strongholds that may attempt to attach themselves to me as I embark on a journey to serve the Most High God. I bind and break the power of any spell, curse, or incantation from the spiritual realm empowered by the idolatrous and vain worship of Buddha, Hindu gods, Krishna, Allah, Mohammed, local deities, ancestor worship, necromancy, animism, voodoo, witchcraft, idols made with hands, or other false gods. I declare the power of all such forces aligned against me to be null & void. I bind and break the power of any influence of territorial strongholds that have become attached to me due to my service in ministry. I bind and break the power of any influence of territorial strongholds over the areas in which I travel, in which I serve in ministry, and in which I reside. From Satan to the Prince of Persia to the least of the territorial spirits, I speak the mighty name of Jesus Christ over them. I bind and break the power and influence of these territorial strongholds, and call their function null and void, in the name of Jesus Christ. I thank You that he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91). The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe (Proverbs 18:10). And a curse without cause will not come to rest on me (Proverbs 26:2). I thank You that no weapon formed against me will prosper, and I will refute every tongue that accuses me. I thank You this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and this is our vindication from You (Isaiah 54:17). Thank you, Jesus, for the power of Your name.
Prayer of Repentance for Prior Involvement in any Other Religion or Spiritual Practice or Teaching
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I come before You. I praise You for making a way for the forgiveness of my sins. I acknowledge that Your Word requires that I repent and ask forgiveness for my sins, in Jesus’ Name. I acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, slain for the remission of my sins and the sins of the world. I acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God. I believe He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, suffered and died on the cross, was buried, and rose again. He ascended into heaven, where He sits by His Father. Under my Blood Covenant of Salvation, through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I repent of the sin of believing any teaching that does not line up with the Holy Bible, the Word of God. The Scriptures say Jesus Christ became the Word of God (John 1:14; Revelation 19:13). Therefore, I repent of believing anti-christ teachings and entertaining anti-christ and unbiblical thoughts. With the authority I have in my Blood Covenant of Salvation with Jesus Christ, I break the power of all spoken or written oaths, curses, vows, decrees, chants, blood sacrifices, and rituals. I repent of the sin of receiving or aligning with these anti-christ oaths, curses, vows, or decrees. I repent of the sin of participating in any anti-christ chants, blood sacrifices, or rituals of any description. I repent of the sin of receiving any anti-christ attachments to my mind, intellect, heart, feelings, and emotions. I repent of the sin of receiving and agreeing with unbiblical principles, teachings, and spiritual deceptions. I acknowledge these have caused attacks on my physical body, mental wellbeing, relationships, and finances. I bind and break the power of all of these ungodly attachments in the mighty Name of Jesus. The Word tells me I am to forgive and bless those who persecute or despitefully use me, as Jesus forgave and blessed. (I Peter 2:21-23; Matthew 5:44). I repent of the sins of anger, unforgiveness, and judgment toward anyone who has mislead or misguided me in any way, in the Name and Blood of Jesus Christ. I pray that you bless them and open their eyes to your truth. Thank You, Heavenly Father, that through my acceptance of Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and my acknowledgement that He is the only Way to You, I become an heir to the promises of Abraham (Galatians 3:29). I stand in faith and believe that all Your promises are Yes and Amen, through Jesus Christ (II Corinthians 1:20). Amen.
PRAYER FOR MILITARY (Good for anyone)
Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I pray in the authority I have received through my blood covenant of salvation by accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord & Savior. Lord, I ask for Your mercy & protection as I travel in obedience to orders during my service in the Military. I acknowledge & repent of my sins. I ask You to forgive me & wash away my sin by the shed Blood of Jesus. Your Word says as I confess & repent of my sins, You are faithful & just to forgive me & purify me from all unrighteousness (I John 1:9). This causes my prayers to be righteous, powerful, & effective (James 5:16). I bind & break the power of every influence of territorial strongholds that have attached or seek to attach themselves to me as I serve in the Military. I bind & break the power of every influence & assignment from territorial strongholds & other demonic powers as I travel from place to place during training & tours of duty, & embark on every change of assignment & change of residence. I call the function of each of these territorial strongholds & demonic powers to be null & void. In the Name of Jesus, I bind & break the power of the devil, who was a murderer from the beginning and is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). I bind & break the power of every such assignment of the devil that would cause or seek to cause physical injury, mental torment, or death to me. I bind & break every assignment of calamity, destruction, sudden death, & suicide by any person. I bind every lying tongue that would persuade a person to commit suicide. I call the function of every such demonic assignment null & void, in the mighty Name of Jesus. I bind & break the power of the enemy to steal the Lord’s call on my life or rob me of the blessings of His covenant promises, including health & a full life span (Exodus 23:25-26). Jesus stated, “The thief comes only to steal & kill & destroy; I have come that they may have life, & have it to the full.” (John 10:10). Thank You, Jesus, for health and a full life span. LORD, (you) are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. I call out to the LORD, & he answers me from his holy mountain. I lie down & sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me. I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side. Arise, LORD! Deliver me, my God! Strike all my enemies on the jaw; break the teeth of the wicked. From the LORD comes deliverance. May your blessing be on your people. (Psalm 3). Lord, You know when I sit & when I rise; You discern my going out & my lying down; You are familiar with all my ways (Psalm 139:2-3). You will never leave or forsake me. (Deut.31:6; Hebrews 13:5) Lord, thank you for teaching us to put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18). I stand strong in the Lord & Your mighty power. I put on the full armor of God, so I can take my stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggles are not against flesh & blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world & against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore I put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, I may be able to stand my ground, & after I have done everything, to stand. I stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around my waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, & with my feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, I take up the shield of faith, with which I can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. I take the helmet of salvation & the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And I pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers & requests. With this in mind, I am alert & always keep on praying for all of Your people. Thank You, Lord, for teaching me to pray & trust You for protection for my body, soul & spirit (1Thess.5:23). I thank You that no weapon formed against me will prosper (Isaiah 54:17). In the mighty Name of Jesus Christ, I bind & break the power of every spell, curse, blasphemy, & incantation from the spiritual realm empowered by the idolatrous & vain worship of Allah, Mohammed, Buddha, any Hindu deities, local deities on any continent, ancestor worship, necromancy, animism, voodoo, witchcraft, idols made with hands, or any other false gods. Further, I declare the power of all such spiritual forces aligned against me to be null & void. I declare I will dwell in the shelter of the most High & rest in the shadow of the Almighty. In the mighty Name of Jesus, I declare I will not fear for the terror by night, the arrow that flies by day, the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. I will say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and I will make the Most High my dwelling, & no harm will overtake me, no disaster will come near my tent (Psalm 91:1-10). I declare null & void the assignment of post-traumatic stress disorder against me & all military personnel. I declare the threefold cord of feaanxiety & trauma & torment will not destroy us. I bind & break the power of all traumatic & stressful experiences of warfare. In the mighty Name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, I speak His peace, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts & your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7). Lord, I ask You for the continuing ability to cast my daily cares upon You, as You direct me to do: “casting all your cares [all your anxieties, all your worries, & all your concerns, once & for all] on Him, for He cares about you [with deepest affection, & watches over you very carefully]” I Peter 5:7 (Amplified). In the Name of Jesus, I declare these attacks will not destroy or harm my body, emotions, mind, or will. The enemy’s schemes for evil, terror, & ongoing torment in my life, I declare to be impotent before the Lord God Almighty in Heaven above. Lord, I stand on Your Word, which promises “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and love, and a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7 KJV). I ask these things in the Name of my Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Messiah of Israel.
Prayer to break Masonic Curses and Attachments: https://boblucyministries.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Prayer-to-Break-Masonic-Curses-and-Attachments-2024.pdf
Prayers courtesy of boblucyministries.org

Apologies for the absolutely insane number of words, got carried away trying to compensate for being slower than usual with my recap.
The cold open for the finale has a nice little parallel to the cold open in S1E2, which similarly has Deborah walk in to Marty who’s in a somewhat compromising position with his trainer to deliver good news, although in this case her news is something they both celebrate, rather than a win she uses to gloat over Marty
Even though she’s in a much less combative place with Marty, Deborah still isn’t willing to admit that she came over to tell him the news in person and insists that she’s only there to return the key, showing the limited extent to which she is willing to open up even to people she’s known for a long time.
Deborah and Marty doing the tango together to basically celebrate the news is quite cute and a fun way to kick off the episode
I do think it’s kind of sweet that Kathy is quite looking forward to Deborah’s visit, and J Smith Cameron plays up Kathy’s somewhat childlike excitement at this during the opening of the phone call
Nice to see Deborah making an effort to follow up after inviting Kathy for Christmas, committing to a sister’s weekend is a not insignificant step although it also becomes clear that she’s not 100% committed to it. Waiting for Kathy to call and then tell her there’s a change in plans instead of just straight up telling her isn’t a particularly nice thing to do
Deborah has a weird look on her face when Kathy brings up her parents at the mausoleum, which I initially thought was because she didn’t really like to reflect on the past, although on a rewatch it becomes clear it’s because she knows the truth about the mausoleum.
“She’s pivoting into being an adult” Found the way Kayla phrased this part of the child star to adult actor experience to be very funny. I guess the Bella Donaldson character is supposed to be a reference to people like Zendaya, Zac Efron and Selena Gomez (Cannes Best Actress winner!!???), Disney child stars who are trying to shed their past image and be taken as serious adult actors to varying degrees of success. Also the bit about getting awards buzz for an Aronofsky movie feels a bit like what happened/ was projected to happen with Sadie Sink and The Whale
Deborah watching her old Late Night tape and Ava seeing her do that is a nice callback to and reversal of S1E3, where it was Ava watching Deborah’s tape and discovering more about her past
I love Hannah Einbinder’s simple but sincere delivery of “I knew you would” as Ava, and the way Jean Smart lets just the tiniest smile play across Deborah’s lips in response to Ava’s belief in her
Ava being able to only write stuff for Deborah’s Late Night show and not any actual material of her own shows that even though it’s been a year plus since the S2 Finale she still has the same issue of Deborah being “the one with all the stories. What do I even have to say?”
Ava’s voice going up endearingly high when she says “This is gonna be amazing” is very cute, what a touching and lovely scene between Deborah and Ava showing the respect and admiration they have for each other. I’m sure that will continue for the rest of the finale!
How does a safe in the floor of the pool even work lol
Very fun comedy freaking out by Mark Indelicato as Damien, him becoming hysterical at the thought of becoming the new Marcus is hugely entertaining.
According to Hannah Einbinder and Jean Smart on Variety’s Award Circuit podcast, thy did shoot a scene for this episode where Marcus does tell Deborah that he’s leaving but it was cut from the episode. Honestly not sure what role Marcus will play next season and curious to see what the writers will do since it seems he’s going on a very different plotline than the rest of the show. If this was another show I’d say he’s being written out but from interviews and other behind the scenes material the cast and showrunners are fairly tight knit, so I’d imagine they’ll find a way which makes sense for Marcus to continue being around
Between this guest appearance as Bella Donaldson and the release of Lisa Frankenstein and Abigail, Kathryn Newton is quietly having a pretty cool 2024. She absolutely nails the passive-aggressive “nice” girl type that she’s asked to play here. Also the Zack and Cody mention is kind of neat since Newton starred along with Cole Sprouse in Lisa Frankenstein earlier this year, while the goat demon movie mentioned might possibly be a nod to Newton’s affinity for the horro horror adjacent genre?
Quite like this Jimmy/Kayla B plot, allows Meg Stalter to show a different/more emotional side to Kayla who’s usually just the very fun comedic relief. Her smiling nicely and trying to politely ward off Bella’s passive-aggressive “niceness” is such a deeply human character beat.
Deborah Margesson doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as Deborah Vance, so I guess that’s why she didn’t go back to her maiden name after the divorce.
Deborah moving her parent’s remains to Vegas and not telling Kathy for twenty plus years is absolutely deranged behaviour. “It was a corner plot” and “I used my art shipper!” are ridiculously bad responses to the situation, this being the last straw for Kathy is very understandable. Although in Deborah’s defence I guess the fact that she was willing to accompany Kathy to the mausoleum for what she knows to be a completely empty gesture is her deranged way of showing care for her sister and not wanting to hurt her feelings.
Also in hindsight Deborah lying to/not telling Kathy about their parents to avoid hurting her feelings and any conflict is good foreshadowing since that pretty much turns out to be what she does regarding Ava and the head writer job
Deborah’s look of absolute disdain/confusion after hearing the “going to the hardware store for milk” line is gold from Jean Smart
I think Kathy’s reaction to Deborah here and deciding that she’s had enough of her BS and not wanting to put herself through even more hurt in attempting to maintain a relationship is completely reasonable, really liked J Smith Cameron’s work here, as well as Jean Smart playing Deborah’s silent acceptance of this relationship blowing up yet again
Deborah standing alone in the mausoleum is a great shot
Kathy’s reaction to Deborah’s BS here serves as a great contrast to how Ava deals with Deborah’s BS later on in the episode, it truly takes someone special/equally deranged to want to continue being with Deborah despite all her flaws and the hurt she causes to those around her. To use some internet parlance, Kathy is unwilling to put up with Deborah’s freak, while Ava ends up being more than willing to match Deborah’s
Lewis Benton/ fake John Oliver’s line to Ava about her being the hardest-working person in the office is a nice reminder of how working with Deborah has changed Ava for the better in some ways by giving her a stronger work ethic
“Maybe our paths will cross again” Just speculating here, and maybe this would be too inside baseball of a storyline for a show that initially at least was about two people on the “outside” of the entertainment industry, but might there be a future storyline of Deborah competing against fake John Oliver for an Emmy? A recent Emmy rule change starting from the Emmys earlier this year means that Oliver no longer competes with the more traditional Late Night shows like Colbert, Kimmel, Meyers, The Daily Show etc prior to that this had been the case for the past ten or so years
Kayla being the funny one growing up as a defense mechanism against bullies like Bella is such a great character detail on the part of the writers, makes so much sense and explains so much about Kayla’s outlook and attitude
This conflict is so great because both Jimmy and Kayla do have a point. Obviously Jimmy standing up for Kayla who’s being bullied is a good thing for him to do as a friend, but Kayla’s also not wrong in feeling that Jimmy is kind of ignoring her work and being a bit patronising. Really liked how Meg Stalter plays Kayla’s hurt feelings in this scene, it’s a well-executed emotional beat for a generally comedic character. And this continues the throughline about whether Jimmy has what it takes/enough stones and guts to be in the business which was also seen in the back part of S2
Quite liked the scene between Deborah and Biff Cliff (what a name!), a pretty sobering reminder of the obstacles faced by women in entertainment and just how precarious making it in the business actually is, makes complete sense that it would spook Deborah to do what she does later on
I thought the Jimmy Page dating a 14 year old story was meant to be a jab and Jerry Seinfeld and his 17 year old girlfriend, but googled and found out that that was a true story too
I feel like the bit Ava has as a writer taking new headshots and the different treatment they receive compared to actors must be drawn from the real-life experiences of the writers/showrunners, it’s such a specific joke. That said I think if you asked a layperson to tell who’s a writer and who’s an actor from this Deadline photoshoot I think they’d be hard pressed to tell the difference (very complimentary).
Ava sharing her excitement over her “dream job” as head writer for Deborah with a random make-up artist is very endearing, and just makes what happens later on even more crushing
Deborah going to the exec meeting and slowly realising just how much is being invested in her is a great bit of reaction acting from Jean Smart, and further helps reinforce the pressure she’s under and explains her choices
Quite liked the scene of Deborah telling Ava that the network doesn’t want her as head writer, on first watch it seems like Deborah is just worried about how to break the bad news to Ava and let her down easy, but on rewatch it feels so obvious that Deborah is just lying through her teeth to Ava and struggling with it big time.
Jimmy’s “proposal” to Kayla on the plane is such a great comedic setpiece/skewing of the rom-con trope, everything from the overly-excited passenger who completely misreads the situation to Jimmy kneeling because the flight attendant says there’s no standing in the aisle is just perfect.
It’s also just a really good way to cap off the season long plot involving Jimmy and Kayla, we’ve seen throughout the season that they make a very good thing and that Kayla’s kind of a genius at this in her own unique way, very satisfying to see Jimmy finally recognise this and promote her. Jimmy and Kayla’s mentomentee relationship serves as a healthy contrast to Deborah and Ava,with Jimmy as a mentor who recognises the mentee’s contributions and is willing to make compromises (see his acceptance of Kayla’s three funny videos a day)
Jimmy’s voice going up absurdly high when he says “Leave us alone!!!” and “What is your deal” is fantastic comedic work from co-showrunner Paul W Downs, he’ll get Writing and Series Emmy nominations this year, but he should really be getting one for Supporting Actor too.
I guess if you want to nitpick you could say Ava running into Winnie is a very convenient thing to move the plot along, but I choose to look at is as a reminder that Ava has moved on up in the world since the end of S2 and is now at a place where she can get takeout from fancy places where a high-level network head might also dine
Ava’s look of betrayal and anger after realising that Deborah lied to her is great work from Hannah Einbinder
Deborah is reading a Churchill biography when Ava storms in
My god, Ava confronting Deborah is just a perfect perfect scene, the writing is so sharp and Jean Smart is fantastic at playing Deborah going into ice/hardened mode when being confronted, but what a tremendous performance by Hannah Einbinder. She just captures the mixture of betrayal, hurt and anger that Ava feels so naturally and powerfully
There’s so many callbacks and references to previous Deborah/Ava confrontations and scenes from across the show. Ava accusing Deborah of just doing the same thing is from their very first meeting S1E1 where she calls her a hack as well as from their argument in S1E10 when she calls her the same thing. The line about being “a shark or whatever” comes from S2E5 which is what Deborah’s retired comedian friend Susan describes her as, with Deborah later then telling Ava that “You’ve got to be a shark” at the end of S2E8. And Deborah’s advice to Ava to be ambitious and saying that she feels lonely when opening a champagne bottle comes from S3E5 (take that people who said the woods episode was pointless filler).
“You can be the woman behind the man behind the woman” What an unappealing job description, and also a sign of how far Ava has comes since the S2 finale when she was unwilling to take the credit for writing Deborah’s special. Now her time away from Deborah has allowed Ava the space to truly value herself, her achievements and be justifiably proud of them (she stresses her job at On The Contrary to Deborah back in S3E1 and stresses her co-producer role when in bed with Christina Hendricks in S3E6), and she’s no longer willing to accept this demotion and wants credit for her work.
“You’re already making decisions out of fear and you’ll keep doing it” A really cutting observation from Ava which completely nails what Deborah is doing, much like how she immediately clocks in S2E8 that Deborah is pushing her away because she’s afraid.
“It has to work. I’ve lost way too much for it not too” Deborah’s sentiment applies equally to Ava as it does to herself, and helps explain just why Ava would go to the the extremes she does later on
As much as the dialogue in the scene is great, this Deborah and Ava argument also hits hard because of the silent moments in between. The wordless ten seconds or so which rests entirely on Ava after Deborah says that she’s willing to lose her is just tremendous stuff from Hannah Einbinder, all the hurt plays across her face and Einbinder is simply terrific in making the audience feel the deep hurt and sense of betrayal of that moment
Ava saying that Deborah will die alone is something that Deborah has thought about before, saying back in S1E9 in her interview with a journalist that she accepts the truth that people leave the world completely alone and refuses to pretend otherwise
One Last Time - Deb’s Final Stand Up is the track which plays as the big Deborah/Ava argument scene closes out according to Shazam, with the track (that played in the S1 Finale) taking on a whole new meaning in this context. The soundtrack isn’t a big selling point of the show unlike something like say Succession, but the themes by Carlos Rafael Rivera are simple but always effective
Jimmy taking a selfie in his new office is quite cute, and him saying that he didn’t do it alone and comforting Ava at the end of this scene is a much needed nice beat after the intensity of the previous scene
“shows that already exist with one tiny tweak, or huge global hits” Honestly a pretty depressing but frankly accurate read of the current media/television landscape
Jimmy saying that he knows Ava will do the right thing brings to mind these Deborah lines to Ava from the previous episode “It’s so easy for you to say what’s right or wrong. It’s never that simple. One day you’ll understand that” Ava’s move of blackmailing to get Deborah to do right by her certainly falls into the “never that simple” category
Curious about the politics/legal behind the scenes stuff that needed to be cleared to have Deborah be the host of a CBS late night show in the world of Hacks, while Hacks the actual show is under Warner Bros. Discovery which does not own hacks. I guess in this universe Deborah gets the Late Late Show timeslot instead of Taylor Tomlinson with After Midnight
Deborah’s left Vegas but the vanity plate for her car will continue to follow her and be updated
Deborah excitedly taking a photo of her Host parking spot is very cute, but the beat immediately after when we see a hint of her being sad and uneasy/regretful is also great, she’s achieved her dream but at great personal cost, and has no one to share the photo and moment with
It’s been a central thesis of the show that Deborah and Ava are ultimately more alike than different despite their different ages, backgrounds etc. Even in S1E2 the antiques dealer says that Deborah and Ava are “the same” and are “both psychotic b*tches”, and in episode after episode we see just how alike they are. For example in S2E2 after Deborah finds out about the email she says that Ava is just like her, being equally cruel and selfish. Ava blackmailing her abusive boss so that she can continue to work with her is just a completely insane thing to do, and also very much something Deborah would do herself to help her career, as we saw back in S1E5 when Deborah blackmailed Marty to secure her dates at the Palmetto
This move also shows just how much Ava has learnt from Deborah and how much the student has learnt from the master. Ava takes Deborah’s advice from S2E8 to be a shark, and her advice from S3E5 to “concentrate on what’s best for you”. It’s also ends up becoming a twisted version of Ava saying that she won’t leave Deborah in that same episode too, with Ava resorting to blackmail to stay with Deborah. And Ava finally does what she said back in S2E8, which is that “I get to decide what’s best for me”. I love love love the layers to this show!
I love love love the cocky and slightly confident/smirking Ava that we get a brief glimpse of from this scene, coupled with the power suit she’s rocking it makes for such a satisfying moment as she gets one up over Deborah after being on the back foot previously
We’ve seen a different and more vulnerable side of Deborah this season in S3E5 and S3E7, and seen her be like a fangirl in S3E4, but this scene and her stepping up to Ava and slightly seething as she says “You wouldn’t” is a nice reminder that she can be absolutely terrifying when she wants to be
That tiny tiny little gulp that Hannah Einbinder does when/just after Ava says “I would” is so so good, Ava’s standing up to Deborah but Deborah is still one very scary person. Also really love her cocking her head to one side as she says “Wouldn’t you?”
This has already been pointed out on Twitter, but Deborah and Ava sitting apart in the writer’s room at the end is kind of like the pepper shakers which Deborah rearranged to be apart in S3E1. Also a nice contrast to S3E8 when they were sitting apart as Ava was reporting the journalist’s article to Deborah, even despite them sitting separately they were still very close emotionally, but now the physical distance between them is reflective of the division between them as friends/colleagues
Spoilers for Succession S2E10: This Hacks finale is very reminiscent of the Succession S2 Final This Is Not For Tears. In both episodes the older mentor who’s been trying to teach their protege/successor to be harder and tougher ends up being too good at their job and get betrayed by their mentee in a stunning rug pull moment, even though for much of the season it seems the mentee is perfectly content working undefor their mentor. It’s a plot twist that’s both completely shocking in the moment yet makes so much sense when looking back on the season and the series as a whole. And of course the finale ends on a shot of the older mentor as they take in what their mentee has done, with a mixture of anger but also just the slightest hint of pride and begrudging admiration
This final twist in the finale of Ava blackmailing Deborah is so so good and satisfying, does what great season finales do which is deliver a “twist” that feels like a gut punch initially but has actually been building over the season, and sets up a really juicy scenario/ status quo for next season
Ava blackmailing her way to head writer on Deborah’s show is such a juicy scenario to leave things for Season 4, Ava has never had power over Deborah like she does now and I’m personally very much looking forward to how that changes their dynamic next season
My only concern is that I do hope the Vegas aspect and the characters from that part of the Hacks universe don’t get left behind with the focus shifting to running a Late Night show. If there is something to ding this season of the show it’s that there’s not enough Kiki, I’m not smart enough to figure out how a Vegas casino dealer will be able to regularly show up in LA but I selfishly want the writers to figure that out because Poppy Liu is just too fun as Kiki to leave out. Also kind of curious as to how they’ll keep Marcus around since he’s now leaving Deborah’s QVC empire.
Overall a really really great season finale and a very strong season as a whole, easily the best Comedy of the year and one of the best shows of the year. Really rooting for the show to win big prizes at the Emmys later this year against the Bear although that will be tough, pulling hard for Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder to win and for the show to at least win Writing if it can’t win for Comedy Series. Also would be very happy if Meg Stalter and Paul W Downs got their first-time noms this year, they were both great this season

The Story Breakdown
Prologue
1) From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of the Universe, comes a legend. The legend of the Voltrons: Defenders of the Universe. Three mighty robots, loved by good, feared by evil. As the Voltrons' legend grew, peace settled across the galaxies. On Planet Earth, a Galaxy Alliance had been formed. Together with the good planets of our Solar System, they maintained peace throughout the known Universe until a new, horrible set of menaces threatened the galaxies. The Voltrons are needed to save innocent worlds of the galaxies once more. This is the story of the super force of space explorers. Specially trained, entrusted and sent by the Alliance with the ancient secrets of how to assemble and bring back, Vehicle Voltron: Defender of the Near Universe (Milky Way Galaxy).
Act I
2) We open on scenes of the Vehicle Voltron Force before they even applied to the Galaxy Alliance Academy. Cinda and Krik watch out for each other as childhood friends growing up on the strife-laden planet Dulcinea. Marvin cheers on his friend Hutch at the 2976 Olympics in weightlifting while Lisa swims her way to a victory. Young little Tangor entertains friends and family at a birthday party on planet Galileo by playing a virtuoso lounge piano repertoire. And Cliff was a professional racing driver racing his way to the winner's circle in Australian championship touring car races until he builds and launches an unsafe rocket which crashes outside the University he is studying at. A young James Hawkins comforts Cliff and invites him to join the Alliance.
3) At the Galaxy Alliance Fleet Headquarters in Tokyo Bay, Jeff and Chip are saying goodbye to their families as they prepare to board the docked heavy exploration and battle cruiser the Explorer/Rugger Guard. Hurrying aboard, Jeff hurries to meet with his old classmates Krik and Cliff who are now his shipmates and partners as they meet with their Commanding Officer, Captain Newley; and Executive Officer, Commander Hawkins. From the nearby docks, well-wishers and family members give the Explorer a well-deserved sendoff on its mission to chart the Milky Way Galaxy's unknown sectors and to find new planets to colonize and or terraform to solve problems of overpopulation and resource scarcity. As he does so, Jeff cannot help but think of his older sister.
4) It is the year 2981, and the Explorer lifts off out of the waters of Tokyo Bay and rises into the sky to meet up with a required fleet of support ships for both fuel, food, water, waste management, munitions and even their escorts of offense and defense. Captain Newley comes to the Crew Lounge before his science officer Professor Page arrives to hand out assignments. It will be some time between going to hyperskip upon exiting the Solar System and exiting hyperskip in their first potential port of call - the Likon system. While they wait, the Captain chooses to pass the time by telling the crew the story from his childhood of Vehicle Voltron, and his hopes of maybe recovering it to protect the Alliance. Cliff and Krik can tell their is tension between Newley and Jeff.
5) Professor Page then hands out assignments courtesy of both Newley and Hawkins. Jeff Aki Manabu #1 is assigned to lead the AiStrato Fighters Team with Rockford "Rocky" Kai Shinobu #2, Shota Wolo "Wolo" Kreutz #3, young Chipley Yasuo Mutsu "Chip" Stoker #4 and Patricia Ginger "Ginger" Ellington #5. Krik Miranda Keats #6 takes charge of the Sea/Aqua Fighters Team with Lisa Haruka Kaga #7, Saluta Tangor "Tangor" Katz #8, one Shannon Tatsuo Izumo Cochrane #9 and Zandee Barros Carateja #10. Finally, Walter Clifford "Cliff" Jack #11 is given command of the Land/Turbo Terrain Fighters Team with Cinda Moya Qiligasz #12, Modok Mack Chucker #13, Marvin Tasuku Izu #14 and his best friend Kazuto Hutch "Hutch" Nagato #15 rounding the teams all out.
6) The Explorer and her fleet soon arrive in the Likon system, when they sight an imposing-looking starship orbiting the planet. Curious as to its intentions, Newley and Hawkins attempt to open a channel to hail the vessel and make contact. The ship turns to face the fleet and gives an identification as the Skull Ship cruiser (space battleship that can carry Stinger fighters) of Fleet Commander Zabar Gramont who then declares the Explorer and its fleet intruders in the territorial annex of the Drule Empire. The Skull Ship opens fire on the Explorer, forcing down towards the hostile surface of Likon. Jeff, Krik and Cliff help crew and passengers brace for impact as Hawkins and Newley fight to regain flight control near where Janet had been reported missing.
Act II
7) Zabar reports the intruders and actions taken against them to his first superior, Chief Commander Hazar Dorita Teles of the Galvestonian Drules back on the planet of Galveston - which has been christened the Drule Homeworld by its first emperor, Drule I. Hazar arrives at the palace of the current Emperor, Zeppo Corsair, and delivers his report to the Emperor's Viceroy, Throk Al Caponero. From a first glance, it is clear that Throk and Hazar are not the best of friends nor do they seem to get along for the sake of the Empire. Zeppo is definitely concerned about the Alliance-launched space expedition, but he wants Hazar to use what he deems necessary to remove the Explorer quickly but quietly. Some of the rank and file share a look of concern with fellow Hazar.
8) Having managed to safely land the Explorer in a lagoon near a beach, Hawkins and Newley address the crew as they set up camp for the night. Noticing the lowered moods of the crew, Tangor decides to break out his lounge keyboard and play some acoustic lounge tunes to keep the atmosphere high and hopes up. Noticing a strange figure carved in the stones of a cliff near their camp site; Jeff, Cliff and Krik scurry over to check it out. Bringing Newley, Hawkins and Page over to analyze it, Newley is ecstatic that they may actually have found the resting place of the fifteen fighters that form the Vehicle Voltron (known in the ancient texts as Dairugger XV). Hawkins is skeptical, but is willing to organize search parties to determine if it will turn out to indeed be true.
9) A very conflicted Hazar leaves the Imperial Palace for his Skull Ship as one of his Centurions walks alongside him. Unlike the top brass who see the Drule Military as mere numbers to send against their enemies, Hazar has made it a point to know every one of his officers and soldiers' own individual names by heart and on sight. He confers his feelings about the top brass to the Centurion, as they walk back to the dry dock where the Skull Ship is parked. The Centurion worries that they may have awoken and provoked an innocent creature, namely the Galaxy Alliance, into becoming a greater threat than any they have ever faced. Hazar, surprisingly, shares the sentiment as he walks in step with the Centurion. They should have tried negotiating to be left in peace.
10) Back on Likon, the Air Team is to conduct a wingsuit search of the skies to find the cliff that the five buried fighters of Strato Fighter will be found. Wolo and Rocky take time to analyze the air and humidity ratio for the climatology results until Chip reports that the cliff that the five Strato Fighter ships are buried in has just been sighted. Jeff unearths the Command Jet Explorer as #1, Rocky locates the Strato Weapons Module to deem it #2, Wolo finds the red Advanced Recon Helicopter making it #3, Chip comes up to the blue Advanced Recon Helicopter for #4, and Ginger takes the Falcon Jet Fighter as #5 returning to the skies. Powering them up, they fly their fighters back and form Strato Fighter for Captain Newley, Professor Page and Commander Hawkins.
11) In the meantime, Zabar is plotting with a cabal of his own officers to eliminate or at least humiliate Hazar enough so that he himself will become Chief Commander of the Galvestonian Drules instead and maybe even ingratiate himself to Throk and Zeppo. But first, he will have to find a way to draw the Explorer and her support fleet into a trap and destroy them. Zabar locates his opportunity on the habitable garden world of Galateia - if he were to destroy its capital city and the humanoid Galateians' leadership, he could exploit the planet's vast resources for his own as carve out a seat of power there. He orders his Skull Ship and support fleet to lay in a course for the nearest Earth colony planet near the system of Likon as a distraction from the Galateia assault.
Act III
12) Since Lisa and Shannon are the best Terrans in experience with water-based situations, they are the main advisors to Krik as they soon conduct a scuba diving sweep of the water for the sunken fighters that will form the Aqua Fighter. They soon find them and begin preparing to board a fighter to claim as their very own. Krik names the Communications Module #6, Lisa manages to access the red Space Prober to become #7, Tangor stakes his claim on the blue Space Prober for #8, Shannon claims dibs on the blue and red Multi-Wheeled Explorer as #9, and Zandee finishes it with the blue and yellow Multi-Wheeled Explorer as #10. They power their ships up and fly back to the Explorer as the Aqua Fighter whilst at the same time impressing Air Team.
13) En route through hyperskip towards the Alliance world of Galileo, Zabar stands above the hangar of his Skull Ship to address his mass of Centurion soldiers and Stinger fighter pilots. He declares that they will all have the support of thirteen Robeasts to help devastate the Alliance defense forces to draw their attention from their real target in the Galateia system. The thirteen Robeasts platoon consist of Crush Crab, Titanic Tick, Dragonoid, Neo Crush Crab, Antropoda, Cannon Mantis, Cyan Commando, Necro-Thresher, Cyberbug, Spy Crawler, Electrobeast, Mutant Sphere, and the Dread Sinistar piloted by Zabar himself. The laser tanks and Stinger fighters will follow Robeasts in to attack the outer defense posts of Galileo as merely the distractions.
14) It will be a very tough hike as the Land Team sets off for the canyon where the caved in fighters that will combine into the Turbo Terrain Fighter. When it seems as though Hutch cannot carry on, it is in fact Marvin who carries him over his shoulder to keep moving to survive the desert. Modok soon sights the canyon and they make a run for the five Turbo Terrain Fighter component ships. Cliff takes the Jet Radar Station as #11, the black and yellow Rotating Personnel Carrier is nabbed by Cinda for #12, Modok calls dibs on the black and red Armored Equipment Carrier as #13, the yellow All-Terrain Space Vehicle is made #14 by Marvin, and Hutch finishes it with #15 being the black All-Terrain Space Vehicle to take off and make the Turbo Terrain Fighter.
15) Zabar and his Robeasts are already leading squadrons of Stinger fighters on attack runs against the Galaxy Alliance's outer defense posts in the orbit of planet Galileo. The Alliance scrambles every fighter and or capital ship they can to destroy the Stingers and laser tank transports before they can reach the surface of Galileo, and they succeed, but are all cut to pieces by the Robeasts before Zabar orders a retreat and to set a course for the Dulcinea system. The Alliance Planetary Governor overseeing Galileo relays word to the Dulcinea and Earth systems of this attack, and request that aid be sent from the Explorer and her fleet. Hawkins and Newley both receive the distress calls as their three teams return in triumph with Strato, Aqua and Turbo Terrain Fighters.
16) The AiStrato, Sea/Aqua and Land/Turbo Terrain Teams hurry to the bridge of the Explorer to await all the news. Essential repairs made to the Explorer have been completed and they are able to get airborne again, but they have just received distress calls from Wolo's and Tangor's planet Galileo, and both Krik and Cinda's planet of Dulcinea; both of them major member worlds of the Galaxy Alliance's Milky Way Jurisdiction. Modok is now curious as to why the Drules are making passes at well-armed Alliance worlds, but Zandee is correct in a well-educated guess that this is just a test of their strength so to distract from a real target. Doctor Page asks Chip to help him pinpoint habitable planets near the Likon system as they scan nearby planets with atmospheres.
Act IV
17) They detect the habitable and inhabited world of Galateia just one hyperskip jump away from their current location, and it is certainly not under Drule control. Ginger tells Jeff and Captain Newley they will have to move if they are to have any chance of driving the Drules from this part of space, but Commander Hawkins does not want to get all hasty. He wonders if he could maybe contact like-minded Drules on the other side and maybe work out a deal for peace. In response, Ginger points out the complete destruction of the defense outposts surrounding the Dulcinea and Galileo systems that the Drule forces have wrought - they have the Drules' words and actions to go on for the prospect of war. They feel the duty to protect every people possible.
18) Hawkins make another pass to try and make peace with the Drules as he sends via subspace a hyperskip communique to Zabar and his forces. If Zabar and his forces were to stop their needless and fruitless attacks on the Galaxy Alliance and its worlds, both the Empire and the Alliance may be able to formulate a mutually beneficial peace treaty and armistice. Zabar is incensed by the audacity of this infidel human trying to make peace with him, and he responds by sending a video message of Emperor Zeppo via hyperskip communique to the Explorer. As long as there are just 1% chances that any civilization could rise up against and threaten their vast empire, the Drules must take it as the absolute certainties to wipe them out so the empire is safe.
19) This gesture finally puts Hawkins' hopes for peace with the Drules on the back burner for now as he defers to his commanding officer Newley. Jeff, Krik and Cliff report that all fifteen of their three five-member five-ship teams are ready to go. With the Strato, Aqua and Turbo Terrain Fighters capable of splitting and recombining into the Vehicle Voltron, the legend that Newley was told once as a bedtime story may finally be coming true at long last - and there may yet be a chance to bring peace to the galaxies by Voltron. Newley and Hawkins order a course laid in for the Galateia system and that all teams - Air, Land and Sea - scramble to their fighters and prepare for battle with the Drule attack forces. The hangar deck teams are assisted in this by their pilots.
20) Skull Ships and support craft of Zabar's fleet are led by the Robeasts as they close on the Galateia system. Hazar is aboard one of the Skull Ships trailing behind Zabar's to monitor his underling's progress. The thirteen Robeasts then fire salvos of laser fire towards the outer defenses of the planet. As their planet is starting to be rocked by the Drules' attack on their mostly peaceful world, the people of Galateia appeal to their Chieftain to send out a distress signal - for their defenses are adequate for taking down Drule starships such as the Stinger fighters and support craft, but not so many and not against the Robeasts. With that, the Galateian Chieftain decides to call forth the aid of any nearby ships. Galateians rush to find cover from the attacking Drule forces.
21) Reception of the Galateians' distress signal reaches the Explorer and Captain Newley who has good news for the Chieftain. He and his crew have with them the force that can beat back this assault - Dairugger XV (Fifteen), also known as Vehicle Voltron. Aid for the people of Galateia is on the way as of that moment. The Explorer and her vast support fleet prepare to exit hyperskip upon entry to the Galateia system, and the Vehicle Voltron Force rushes via people moving chair conveyor systems to their docked vehicle fighters. Launching out from the triple hangar bay of the Explorer, the fifteen vehicle fighters of the Vehicle Voltron Force begin their planetary entry to assess what Zabar's attack plan is and feeding targeting data to the Explorer's main guns.
Act V
22) Ginger, Lisa and Cinda soon pinpoint the Robeasts' intended target - the capital city of Galateia, its ground perimeter and its sea-based defenses. They will have to hurry in order to stop Zabar and his attack. Jeff and the Air Team bring their fighters together to form the Strato Fighter, Krik and the Sea Team combine their fighters to form the Aqua Fighter, and finally Cliff and the Land Team unite their fighters to form the Turbo Terrain Fighter. Strato Fighter scours the air to find a way through the Robeasts' air blockade as Wolo and Chip start performing calculations and continue feeding targeting data. Turbo Terrain Fighter zooms across the ground to bolster turrets, and Aqua Fighter goes on silent running to lure the air superiority Robeasts into the open.
23) Jeff and his Air Team move in to take on Crush Crab and Titanic Tick. Krik and his Sea Team begin their attack runs on Dragonoid and Neo Crush Crab. Antropoda and Cannon Mantis soon find their mandibles full of fire from Cliff and his Land Team. They all make short work of the monsters. Seven Robeasts which include Zabar's remain, but laser and missile blasts from the Strato, Aqua and Turbo Terrain fighters cannot making a dent in their armor. This is the signal Jeff, Krik and Cliff take so to call for forming Voltron. Activating interlocks, connecting their dynotherms, bringing up their infracells, and setting their mega-thrusters to go; the Vehicle Voltron Force is go to form and battle. A heavenly chorus sounds through the energy (with the Voltron theme).
24) With that signal, the AiStrato, Sea/Aqua and Land/Turbo Terrain teams begin to form Vehicle Voltron for the first time in millennia. Strato Fighter splits to form the Head #1 (Jeff), Upper Torso #2 (Rocky), Right Upper Arm #3 (Wolo), Left Upper Arm #4 (Chip) and Chest Plate #5 (Ginger). Aqua Fighter splits to form the Torso Midriff #6 (Krik), Left Thigh #7 (Lisa), Right Thigh #8 (Tangor), Right Shin #9 (Shannon) and the Left Shin #10 (Zandee). Finally, the Turbo Terrain Fighter splits to form the Lower Torso/Hips #11 (Cliff), Right Forearm #12 (Cinda), Left Forearm #13 (Modok), Right Foot #14 (Marvin) and Left Foot #15 (Hutch). The team cheers as the remaining Robeasts shudder and gasp with fright upon seeing Vehicle Voltron: Defender of the Near Universe.
25) Vehicle Voltron then joins the big battle for Galateia. Cyan Commando, Necro-Thresher, Cyberbug, Spy Crawler, Electrobeast and Mutant Sphere are cut down in that exact order by the Solar Combat Spears, Energy Beam Whip, Eye and Wing Beams, Solar Wind Blast and finally the Spinning Laser Blades. With only the Dread Sinistar being piloted by Zabar left to contend with, the time has come to turn the Spinning Laser Blades into the long-awaited Blazing Sword. Jeff gives the order to charge as Voltron surges forward sword first and makes a powerful slash right through Zabar. Voltron then pumps its fists as Zabar and his Robeast explode off in the distance behind them. With Zabar soundly defeated with shouting curses, Hazar reluctantly orders a retreat.
26) When the signal is given to be clear, the Alliance exploration fleet is given some coordinates to touch down from both Vehicle Voltron Force and the people below. The grateful people of Galateia rally around the Galaxy Alliance Starship Explorer and her support ships to thank the Vehicle Voltron Force for saving their planet. Jeff, Krik and Cliff thank each and every member of their team as they engage in a sharing culture and history with the Galateians meeting with them. The Galaxy Alliance has a new member world as all fifteen members of the Vehicle Voltron Force and its three teams of five people - AiStrato, Sea/Aqua and Land/Turbo Terrain - raise their right hands and jump for joy alongside Vehicle Voltron doing likewise as the camera freezes mid-jump.
Epilogue (Preview Summary for Vehicle Voltron II: The Fall of Hazar)
27) And with the defeat of Commander Zabar; the names of Voltron, Vehicle Voltron and Earth would once again strike fear in the hearts of the Drule Empire and its Milky Way Galaxy vassals the Galvestonians. Even so, Hazar and friend Captain Mongo Drake carry the grim knowledge of the Drule Homeworld -their Planet Galveston - to be doomed to destroy itself by mysterious circumstances within one to three Earth years. Seeing how valiantly the Vehicle Voltron Force fought to protect innocents, this sparks something in Hazar that he will only tell his sister Dorma Sirk and father Mozak Socrat Teles. As Hazar and Commander Hawkins attempt to seek a peace, Throk and Zeppo plot to threaten Hazar's family which is only foiled by a renegade Drule Skull Ship rescuing P.O.W.s...

I was responding to the post about Type B teachers and decided this was better to be a post all its own. I've been in the same classroom for over 10 years. It's a former woodshop, and it has a story that's important to me. This is a long story, but it would be worth reading if you are the type who likes a redemption arc.
TL:DR: I inherited a crazy hoard, and slowly cleaned it up.
To preface, I'm a type B person. I grew up in the house of a pack rat, and I adopted a lot of the same habits as a result. Once the amount of stuff I have gets to a certain point, I stop noticing the mess and it grows and grows. The only way that I keep organized is minimalism at this point: not only to make it easy to clean but also to lower the number of decisions I have to make on a given day.
When I got hired as a computer teacher, I got the woodshop as my room. You might be thinking, OoOoO, I'd love to have a woodshop! Wood floors, big room, what's not to love? Well no-one wanted that room. Why? Because it had been the place of 3 decades of hoarding and neglect.
Every square inch of the room was covered in graffiti. Every cabinet door was hanging on by a thread. Every lock was either broken or the latches were missing. Garbage was piled 4 feet high taking up 2/3s of the room. By garbage I mean a huge collection of broken objects that were clearly meant to be projects for the future by the well meaning woodshop teacher. Pieces of drawers, old dresser parts, massive rusted metal bookshelves, broken carts, rusted chicken wire. Sawdust filled every gap.
More than half the shelves were broken or bending under the immense weight of ancient textbooks, unfinished projects, random trinkets, sky high packets of paper, and ungraded student work. The old teacher had put up a homespun barricade in front of his hoard, and only using 1/3 of the room to teach. He was clearly only using hand tools because the machines were completely buried. That wood floor? Warping everywhere, with some boards sticking 3 inches out of the ground.
Attached to the room was a storage room, meant for hardware and lumber. There was just enough space to open a door about 2 feet and then climb over about a 5 foot high pile that filled the entire room. More projects that never got done, or jigs that were made for some long forgotten project that were kept just in case.
I opened my classroom computer case and found it choked with a layer of sawdust that felt like it was going to spontaneously combust. Ironically, the fire alarm was in a protective plastic casing, that was also choked full of sawdust. The only visible machine, the drill press, was used as a shelf for lesson packets. The room had two external walls that offered almost no insulation from the outdoors. In the summer it got stupid level hot in there because the closet contains a transformer that pukes heat. In the winter I would open the closet door to try to heat the room up, because the only other source of heat was a hot water blower fan that was located 15 ft up on the ceiling, and its power switch was - you guessed it - 15 feet up on the ceiling.
At one point the room had a drinking fountain that had been removed. There was a huge hole in the wall with pipes sticking out. To solve this, the previous occupant had bolted a long piece of corrugated sign board over it. This too, was of course, covered in drawings of phalluses and messages attesting to who was here and in what year.
So yeah, no-one wanted the room for a reason.
What was worse was it was the dumping ground for everyone else throughout the years. Staff had gotten used to offloading their damaged furniture/crap there. Sometimes I would come back and find a new gum-ridden folding table with a sheared off leg had been tucked behind the barricade.
The clean up
This took years.
Being a new teacher I was initially hesitant to just throw stuff away. What if I threw away something valuable? Something that someone was expecting back one day? I started by just vacuuming up sawdust and throwing out reams upon reams of paper packets. Many of them were stuck together with spilled finish and wood glue.
Eventually I got bolder. I got some super thick gloves and threw out anything that was heavily rusted. The old chicken wire, coffee cans full of nails and random screws. Wood that was loaded with bent rusted nails/screws. Then I threw out the broken porcelian, warped and cracked drawer parts. I coordinated with the custodians to pitch the tables/chairs with missing legs, snapped tops, etc. I managed to cobble together enough lock parts and hinge components to get 1 cabinet working and locking - I had to dig through the school to find a working key.
Over time, I eventually pitched the vast majority of the unfinished projects. I finished a few of them myself and gave them back to their respective owners who were frankly astonished to see them. I found 12 library books that had been checked out during the Dewey Decimal system/card catalog days - and the librarian was amazed that they still were intact. With the permission of the district/school I dispersed the student tools to custodial staff/maintainence who could better use them. I didn't need 20 hand saws for instance.
I repaired the drill press, the belt sander, 3 scroll saws and the band saw. The lathe was sadly beyond saving and apparently the table saw was long gone for some reason - though I am sure it pre-dated safety. Each of those tools went to maintainence.
It took a very long time to get rid of the paints, the finishes and other caustic crap. Massive red tape obviously. Eventually it was all gone though. The lumber got taken by another woodshop teacher, along with any remaining useable hardware.
I kept a small reserve of tools for myself for repairs and fabrication.
I remember when I finally reached the back of the room and took a heavy rusted bookshelf off of the shop counter. The counter was is in pristine condition - unlike the rest of the room. It had been buried long ago before the teacher had let kids get away with non-stop graffitti, carving, cutting and drilling into the hardwood tops.
With the room completely clear of crap, I began fixing/replacing all the broken cabinet hardware. I took out all the non-broken shelves and began scrubbing them down, along with the cabinets themselves and their doors. I repaired my desk, which of course had only one working drawer at first. Two were jammed and another was falling to pieces - held together by an improvised job using wire brads. I properly disassembled, scraped, sanded and glued/clamped the drawer and repaired the tracks on the other two.
I called in several work orders. The carpenters tried their best to salvage the wood floor but it was so warped that they ended up replacing sections with plywood. Not the best looking, but at least it was flat. I had the electrician remove the power cut off, since I didn't want a kid shutting off a room full of computers because he wanted to see what the big red buttons around the room did. The plumber capped the old fountain pipes behind the wall and the mason put a fresh coat wall section over it. The painters came in and did a full scale remediation over the summer of what could very well have been lead paint peeling all over the cieling. The HVAC guys cleaned out a metric f-ton of dust out of the duct work in my room, and now my room recieves proper heat and AC. Bear in mind this happened over a decade of time, not right away.
This year I finally managed to replace the last of the missing cabinet locks and got them all on a universal key. There were so many empty cabinets that I gave the space to the students to store their backpacks and jackets during class.
Every time a new teacher comes in and says "wow I wish this was my room" my across the hall co-worker says "you should have seen it when he got it." It is now a lab with multiple 3D printers, a dedicated repair station for electronics, and plenty of space for students to grab a laptop, pull up a chair and work together on coding, CAD, pretty much anything.
This summer my storage room will finally be cleared of the last of the crap. The school rotated its derelict and outdated computer gear in there for the last 4 years (since my storage was the only nearly empty one at the time). I figured if my storage was going to be the repository for any crap it may as well be computers that my students could take apart and learn from. However, that's all going away.
When I look back at this whole process, and really I only wrote a snippet of it here despite this being a Reddit book - I'm amazed that someone like me could even do this. I struggled cleaning my room as a kid. Now I conquered a mountainous horde and came out the other end with a minimalistic, clean room that is easy to maintain. It's weird how students respect a space that is already clean, and I've had way fewer instances of kids damaging the space or even leaving trash behind.
So this is the message to you type B people out there like me. You don't have to manage every little thing, just whittle it down to something you can handle and make things as simple as possible for yourself. You can do it.