I’m looking to get a new printer. My budget is $200-$300. I keep going back and forth between whether a laser or ink printer is better for what I need, and I’m definitely lost on brand.
I need a printer for 2 main purposes:
A. printing out curriculum. This is 200-300 pages at a time and needs to be able to be colored. B. Book binding - so large quantities of black and white. This requires duplex printing.
Any suggestions? I’m happy to clarify needs or answer any questions.
To add: if I have to spend up to $500 I’ll save up for it, but no higher than $500 and if possible $200-$300.

Taken from: https://www.theringer.com/movies/2024/5/21/24161120/greatest-movie-car-chase-scenes-ranked-furiosa-mad-max-saga
In honor of the imminent ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,’ we’re shifting into high gear to determine the best chase scene in cinema history
By Miles Surrey May 21, 2024, 6:30am EDTGetty Images/Ringer illustration
After wowing audiences with Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller returns to the franchise’s post-apocalyptic wastelands for Furiosa, the epic origin story of the eponymous heroine (now played by Anya Taylor-Joy), premiering on Friday. As the follow-up to one of the greatest action films ever made, it’s hard to overstate the hype for Furiosa, and that was before word got out about a showstopping 15-minute sequence that required nearly 200 stuntpeople and took 78 days to shoot. While Furiosa will have its own distinct flavor, as is true of every Mad Max movie, there’s one thing that unites these projects: intense, jaw-dropping scenes of vehicular mayhem. And what better way to honor the franchise than by celebrating what it does best?
Ahead of Furiosa’s release, we’ve put together our definitive ranking of the best car chases in cinema. There weren’t any strict rules in place, other than capping the list at 20—mostly for my own sanity—and limiting every franchise to one entry. (Apologies to Fury Road’s kickass predecessor The Road Warrior.) We also won’t discriminate against scenes that feature motorbikes, so long as cars (and/or trucks) remain part of the equation. As for what, exactly, constitutes a good car chase? Like list making, it’s bound to be subjective, but I tend to gravitate toward two key elements: the skill of the stuntwork on display and the ways in which a filmmaker conveys the action in relation to the story. (Also, the less CGI, the better.) Buckle up, ’cause we’re not wasting any time shifting into high gear.

20. Quantum of Solace (2008)

There have been some memorable car chases in the James Bond franchise: the first sequence featuring the iconic Aston Martin DB5 in Goldfinger, the corkscrew jump in The Man With the Golden Gun, the Lotus Esprit submarine in The Spy Who Loved Me. But I’m going with a somewhat controversial pick here: Quantum of Solace. There are many issues with Quantum of Solace—namely, it was one of the most high-profile blockbusters affected by the 2007-08 writers strike—but its opening scene isn’t one of them. Picking up right where Casino Royale left off, we find Bond (Daniel Craig) evading henchmen through the narrow roads around Italy’s Lake Garda. The frenetic, furious chase mirrors Bond’s sense of anguish after losing Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), the woman he opened his heart to, and his relentless quest for answers. It’s a thrilling tone-setter for Quantum of Solace and one that doesn’t overstay its welcome, capped off by Bond sending his final pursuers flying off a cliff:
If we’re being honest, though, it feels like James Bond has yet to create a franchise-defining car chase. Perhaps that’s a mission the newest 007, whoever it ends up being, can undertake.

19. Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation (2015)

The Mission: Impossible franchise is no stranger to electrifying chase scenes, the best of which find Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt working up his heart rate. When it comes to action behind the wheel, though, Fallout tends to dominate the discussion—even on this very website. But I think the vehicular chase in Rogue Nation is being slept on. What we have is effectively two sequences for the price of one: The first finds Hunt pursuing Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) by car through the narrow streets of Casablanca alongside some nefarious henchmen; the second sees him continue the chase outside the city on motorbike. (Adding to the chaos: Hunt had only just been resuscitated, and he’s clearly not all there.) In terms of death-defying stunts for the audience’s entertainment, a helmetless Cruise taking corners like a MotoGP racer is child’s play compared to his other exploits, but the actor’s authentic reaction to scraping his knee on the road underlines that there’s no one else in Hollywood doing it like him:
We’ll be sure to update this ranking if and when Cruise does something even more dangerous down the road, pun unintended.

18. Vanishing Point (1971)

A movie that counts the likes of Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino among its biggest fans, Vanishing Point is the first of a few entries on this ranking that’s essentially one extended car chase. The film stars Barry Newman as Kowalski, a man tasked with delivering a Dodge Challenger T 440 Magnum from Colorado to California while eluding police across four states. One of Kowalski’s most memorable run-ins comes when a guy driving a Jaguar E-Type convertible challenges him to an impromptu race. Incredibly, we’re expected to believe the man in the Jag comes out of this crash in one piece:
Vanishing Point might not boast the impressive production values of other movies on this list, but considering Tarantino would go on to feature a white Challenger in Death Proof, its influence in the car cinema canon is undeniable.

17. Fast Five (2011)

Let’s face it, Fast & Furious has seen better days. Some believe the franchise’s dip in quality coincided with the death of Paul Walker; others are dismayed by the pivot from street racing to absurd feats of superherodom—emphasis on the Dom. Perhaps it’s a bit of both, but the very best movie in the series, Fast Five, manages to strike the perfect balance: It’s a relatively grounded heist thriller that nevertheless takes the franchise to ridiculous new heights. After Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew steal $100 million from a Brazilian kingpin, they drag the entire bank vault holding the money through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, all while being pursued by authorities. It’s a delightfully destructive sequence that does untold damage to Rio’s infrastructure and features some of the most bone-crunching crashes committed to film:
If the Fast franchise is going to break out of its recent slump, it would do well to remember that there’s nothing better than letting its heroes live their lives a quarter mile at a time—no detours to outer space required.

16. The Blues Brothers (1980)

A good car chase isn’t reserved just for action flicks: Comedies can get in on the act, too. In The Blues Brothers, starring the recurring Saturday Night Live characters played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, the beloved bandmates must prevent the foreclosure of the orphanage where they were raised by scrounging together $5,000. Naturally, that’s easier said than done: Along the way, the Blues Brothers draw the attention of neo-Nazis, a country-and-western band, and local police. While The Blues Brothers has amusing gags and musical numbers, its chase sequences with the Brothers behind the wheel of a 1974 Dodge Monaco are what really steal the show—and none are better than a climactic pursuit across Chicago. More than 60 old police cars were used in the film, some of which are wrecked in a comically over-the-top pileup:
The sheer scale of The Blues Brothers’ final set piece is commendable in and of itself—as is the movie’s commitment to treating real-life cars like a bunch of Hot Wheels.

15. Baby Driver (2017)

For good and for ill, Edgar Wright’s movies exude an abundance of style, and Baby Driver is no exception. Baby Driver is centered on a clever gimmick: The action works in tandem with its soundtrack because the film’s protagonist, Baby (Ansel Elgort), suffers from tinnitus and constantly plays music to drown out the ringing. When everything’s clicking into place, Baby Driver feels like a supersized series of music videos, and nothing hits quite like its opening sequence. Baby acts as the getaway driver for a bank robbery while listening to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms.” The ensuing chase works around rhythms of the song, as if Baby’s Subaru WRX were the star of its own dance number. Take nothing away from the actual driving, either, which puts the rally car to good use:
Baby Driver’s gimmick stretches a little thin by the end, but it’s hard to deny the crowd-pleasing power of Wright’s film when it’s firing on all cylinders.

14. The Raid 2 (2014)

With a trio of kickass Indonesian martial arts films under his belt, Gareth Evans has established himself as one of the most exciting action directors on the planet—someone who seems most in his element staging positively brutal hand-to-hand combat. In The Raid 2, however, Evans also brought his signature brand of carnage to the road. While there’s some cleverly executed close-quarters fighting within the confines of an SUV, courtesy of Iko Uwais’s hard-hitting protagonist, what really cements this sequence’s greatness are the moments when Evans turns the cars into an extension of the characters’ fists:
This belongs in an entirely new category of combat: car fights. There are so many action scenes in The Raid 2 worth writing home about—the kitchen showdown is an all-timer—but the fact that Evans casually tossed in an unforgettable car chase shows why he’s one of one.

13. The Driver (1978)

I’ll say this for Walter Hill’s The Driver: It sure lives up to its title. In this stripped-down thriller—one where none of the characters have a name—we follow the Driver (Ryan O’Neal), a getaway driver who has become a thorn in the side of the LAPD. In the film’s best scene, we see its taciturn protagonist living up to his reputation. With the Driver behind the wheel of a 1974 Ford Galaxie, a cat-and-mouse game unfolds when a handful of police cars are hot on his tail. What I love about this sequence is the pared-down nature of it all: The Driver outwits the cops as much as he outraces them. (Though, ironically, that wasn’t entirely by design: As Hill later explained, an accident on the last night of shooting meant they had to cobble together what had already been filmed.) Frankly, you’d never know the difference from the finished article:
If the general vibes of The Driver seem familiar, that’s because it was a major inspiration for Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive, which just so happened to feature an unnamed protagonist (Ryan Gosling) evading police through the streets of Los Angeles.

12. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

The shaky-cam style of the Bourne franchise isn’t for everyone—just ask John Woo—but credit where it’s due: These movies know how to deliver a good chase scene. (A friendly reminder that The Bourne Legacy is an underrated gem with an awesome motorbike sequence to boot.) But there’s one Bourne chase that stands above the rest: the Moscow getaway in The Bourne Supremacy. After being wounded by the Russian assassin Kirill (Karl Urban), Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) hijacks a taxi, with both the police and Kirill in hot pursuit. This isn’t the kind of sequence that lingers on any one shot; instead, what makes it work is the frenetic nature of the editing, which allows the viewer to feel like they’re in Bourne’s fight-or-flight headspace:
If I’m being honest, I’m usually one of those people who doesn’t like the Bourne movies’ shaky-cam style, but when it’s executed with such craftsmanship, you can’t help but get caught up in its adrenaline-pumping power.

11. The Seven-Ups (1973)

Philip D’Antoni was the producer of two movies featuring Hall of Fame car chases, Bullitt and The French Connection, the latter of which won him an Oscar for Best Picture. And with his lone directorial feature, The Seven-Ups, D’Antoni sought to craft an iconic sequence of his own. The film stars Roy Scheider as NYPD detective Buddy Mannuci (elite Italian American name; I can practically smell the gabagool), who commands a unit handling major felony cases that lead to seven-plus-year prison sentences; that’s why they’re known as the Seven-Ups. Midway through the movie, when one of the team members is killed by two shooters who flee the scene, Buddy chases after them. The 10-minute sequence, which starts in the Upper West Side before moving out of the city, is thrillingly immersive, alternating between close-ups of the characters and wider shots of all the damage they’ve caused. But the chase’s defining moment comes right at the end, when Buddy narrowly avoids a grisly death:
The sequence isn’t quite at the level of Bullitt or The French Connection—very few are—but D’Antoni still manages to leave an unmistakable imprint on the car chase canon.

10. Death Proof (2007)

If you ask Quentin Tarantino, Death Proof, his knowingly trashy tribute to exploitation cinema, is the worst movie he’s ever made. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to admire about the film, which honors the unsung heroes of Hollywood: stunt performers. The first half of Death Proof follows three female friends who cross paths with Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), a misogynistic serial killer who takes them out in his “death-proof” Chevy Nova. Fourteen months later, a group that includes stuntwoman Zoë Bell, playing herself, also lands on Mike’s radar. As Bell and her friends test out a ’70s Challenger, she performs a “ship’s mast” stunt, clinging onto the hood of the car with fastening belts. Unfortunately, when Mike pursues the women, it puts Bell in a precarious situation. Most of the entries on this list celebrate some next-level driving skills, but Death Proof’s inclusion is all about Bell pulling off one of the wildest stunts you’ll ever see. She’s quite literally hanging on for dear life:
If the Academy handed out Oscars to stunt performers—and let’s hope it does happen one day—Bell would’ve won in a landslide.

9. To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)

William Friedkin was already responsible for an all-time great car chase in The French Connection (more on that later), but the filmmaker made a commendable bid to outdo himself with To Live and Die in L.A. In this neo-noir thriller, Secret Service agent Richard Chance (William L. Petersen) is hell-bent on arresting an expert counterfeiter, Rick Masters (Willem Dafoe), who kills Chance’s partner days before his retirement. To capture Masters, Chance and his new partner, John Vukovich (John Pankow), attempt to steal $50,000 from a jewelry buyer for an undercover operation. The sting goes bad when the buyer, who is later revealed to be an undercover FBI agent, is killed and a group of gunmen goes after Chance and Vukovich. It’s a clever inversion of the usual car chase formula—this time, it’s the lawmen running away from the criminals. The outside-the-box thinking extends to the film’s most astonishing stretch, in which Chance evades the gunmen by driving into oncoming traffic:
The fact that Friedkin shot the chase at the end of filming—in case anything disastrous happened to the actors—underscores just how risky the endeavor was. The pulse-pounding results speak for themselves.

8. The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

The Matrix sequels have never been held in high esteem, but I’m ready to live my truth: The Matrix Reloaded fucking rules. (If anyone’s got a problem with this take, file your complaints with the Architect.) What’s more, the film happens to boast the finest action set piece of the franchise: the highway chase. After Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) free the Keymaker (Randall Duk Kim), a program capable of creating shortcuts within the Matrix, they’re pursued by the Twins (Neil and Adrian Rayment). Morpheus once warned that going on the freeway was “suicide,” and it doesn’t take long to see why: The chase draws the attention of several Agents, who repeatedly take over the bodies of other drivers on the road. The scene is the best of both worlds: There’s some incredible stuntwork on display, including when Moss weaves around on a Ducati, and CGI augments some feats of superhuman strength. But the most jaw-dropping aspect of the sequence is how it came together, as the production spent $2.5 million to construct its own highway (!) on California’s Alameda Island. If that weren’t unique enough, I’m pretty sure Reloaded is also the only movie in existence in which a katana takes out an SUV:
The Matrix remains the Wachowskis’ masterpiece, but don’t get it twisted: The filmmakers were still cooking with gas in the sequel.

7. Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

Size isn’t everything, but for H. B. Halicki, who produced, wrote, directed, and starred in Gone in 60 Seconds, it’s certainly part of the package. The indie action flick follows Maindrian Pace (Halicki), a Los Angeles insurance investigator who has a lucrative side hustle jacking high-end cars. The plot kicks into motion when a South American drug lord enlists Pace to nab 48 cars within five days in exchange for $400,000. Of course, Gone in 60 Seconds is best known for what happens after Pace is caught stealing a 1973 Ford Mustang Mach 1, when he leads police on a chase that lasts a whopping 40 minutes. (More than 90 cars were destroyed in the process.) Halicki, for his part, did all the driving himself, including a spectacular jump off a makeshift ramp of crashed cars:
While Halicki wound up making a few more indies after Gone in 60 Seconds, he died in an accident on the set of its sequel. His legacy as a do-it-all daredevil, however, lives on.

6. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Long before James Cameron immersed himself in the world of Pandora, he was a pioneer of state-of-the-art visual effects. Case in point: Terminator 2: Judgment Day is credited for having the first CGI character in a blockbuster, the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), a killing machine composed of a futuristic liquid metal. But Cameron also understood that the CGI of that era shouldn’t be the main attraction: It worked best as a complement to the practical effects, as seen in Judgment Day’s epic viaduct chase. When the T-1000 tracks down a young John Connor (Edward Furlong) in a shopping mall, he’s saved at the last minute by the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), giving John a chance to escape on his dirt bike. As the T-1000 gives chase, the David and Goliath vibes between man and machine are further epitomized by the T-1000’s commandeering of a truck. The sequence already has a terrifying sense of urgency, but it hits another level when the T-1000 crashes through the viaduct like the Kool-Aid Man:
Big Jim is still revolutionizing what can be achieved with visual effects in the Avatar franchise, and while I cherish those movies, nothing beats his old-school showmanship.

5. Duel (1971)

The feature-length debut of Steven Spielberg—perhaps you’ve heard of him—the TV movie Duel is essentially one extended chase sequence between salesman David Mann (Dennis Weaver) and a sinister trucker determined to drive him off the road. I’ve attached a clip from the ending of the film, but that doesn’t do Duel justice. What cements this movie’s greatness is how it sustains an unbearable level of tension across its 90-minute running time—with a budget under $500,000, no less. Spielberg’s masterstroke is never once showing us the other driver, anthropomorphizing the truck itself as a monster. (You can see a lot of similarities with how he would build suspense in Jaws.) When Mann finally gets the upper hand, tricking his adversary into driving off a cliff, it feels like you can breathe again:
Spielberg would move on to bigger and better things after Duel, but considering how much the director accomplished with so little, you can’t help but wonder what else he could conjure up with limited resources.

4. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Like Duel, Fury Road is basically one long car chase—the difference is Miller got to work with a blockbuster budget, and made every cent of it count. It’s hard to pick a single standout sequence in Fury Road, but if I had to choose, I’d go with the first attack on the War Rig after Furiosa (Charlize Theron) flees with the wives of Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne). Here’s why: Think back to when you saw Fury Road for the first time, before you fully grasped the vehicular carnage that was in store. And then stuff like this kept happening:
To quote Steven Soderbergh’s thoughts on Fury Road: “I don’t understand how they’re not still shooting that film and I don’t understand how hundreds of people aren’t dead.” Whether or not Miller manages to one-up the action in Furiosa, the director is already in the pantheon.

3. The French Connection (1971)

We return to the Friedkin-verse for what may be his best film, The French Connection, the crime thriller based on Robin Moore’s 1969 nonfiction book of the same name. The story concerns two NYPD detectives, Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider), and their tireless pursuit of a French heroin smuggler. But while there’s plenty to admire about how The French Connection illustrates the thin line between police and criminals, its greatest claim to fame is its car chase. After Popeye narrowly survives a sniper attack, he goes after the shooter, who escapes on an elevated train. The ensuing sequence is true daredevil filmmaking that Friedkin shot without permits, leading to real crashes with New Yorkers that made the final cut. But Friedkin’s finest touch was mounting a camera to the front of the car, making the audience feel like they’re part of the action:
My Ringer colleague Justin Sayles believes The French Connection’s chase should’ve landed at no. 1, and I’m sure many folks will agree with him. Being the only film on this list to win Best Picture, however, is a solid consolation prize.

2. Bullitt (1968)

When it comes to modern car chases, all roads lead back to Bullitt. A Dad Cinema classic, the film stars Steve McQueen as Frank Bullitt, a San Francisco detective who pursues a group of mobsters after a key witness is killed in protective custody. In his search for answers, Bullitt realizes he’s being tailed by a couple of hitmen, and then turns the tables on them. From there, the chase is on. Aside from McQueen doing most of his own stunts behind the wheel of a Ford Mustang GT 390 Fastback, what’s so impressive about the sequence is how timeless it is. Even the little imperfections, like hubcaps repeatedly coming off the wheels, work to the film’s advantage, stressing just how much these drivers are living on a razor’s edge. It’s been more than 50 years since Bullitt revolutionized the car chase, and yet few movies since have felt like they’re pushing the envelope to such an exhilarating degree:
That the car driven by McQueen was recently sold at auction for $3.74 million, a then-record price for a Mustang, underlines Bullitt’s enduring legacy.

1. Ronin (1998)

“If I’m going to do a car chase,” filmmaker John Frankenheimer said in an interview with the American Society of Cinematographers, “I’m going to do a car chase that’s going to make somebody think about whether or not they want to do another one!” Boy, did he ever. In Frankenheimer’s late-career masterpiece, Ronin, the director actually incorporated several chases, but it’s the climactic sequence that stands alone as the greatest ever filmed. The movie concerns an international group of mercenaries who are hired to steal a mysterious briefcase; a series of double-crosses and double-bluffs ensue. But for the final chase, all you need to know is that Sam (Robert De Niro), a mercenary with ties to the CIA, is in pursuit of Deirdre (Natascha McElhone), an IRA operative in possession of the case. Winding through the streets and tunnels of Paris, what’s most striking is just how fluid it all feels. You’re completely engrossed in the chase’s forward momentum, captured from every conceivable angle; a symphony of controlled chaos. The driving styles even reflect the characters: Deirdre is reckless and impulsive, while Sam remains calm and controlled.
There are many worthy car chases in this ranking, but in my view, Ronin takes pole position. And while I can’t imagine a movie ever topping what Frankenheimer achieved, I’d love nothing more than to be proved wrong.

"Why Did Jesus Die on the Cross?"

The main reason Jesus died on the cross was to defeat Satan and set us free from his oppressive rule. Everything else that Jesus accomplished was to be understood as an aspect and consequence of this victory (e.g., Recapitulation, Moral Influence, etc.).
This understanding of why Jesus had to die is called the Christus Victor (Latin for “Christ is Victorious”) view of the atonement. But, what exactly was Christ victorious from, and why? To find out the answers to these questions, we have to turn to the Old Testament, as that's what the apostles would often allude to in order to properly teach their audience the message they were trying to convey (Rom. 15:4).
The OT is full of conflict between the Father (YHVH) and false gods, between YHVH and cosmic forces of chaos. The Psalms speak of this conflict between YHVH and water monsters of the deeps (an ancient image for chaos) (Psa. 29:3-4; 74:10-14; 77:16, 19; 89:9-10; 104:2-9, etc).
The liberation of Israel from Egypt wasn’t just a conflict between Pharaoh and Moses. It was really between YHVH and the false gods of Egypt.
Regardless of whether you think the aforementioned descriptions are literal or metaphorical, the reality that the Old Testament describes is that humanity lived in a “cosmic war zone.”
The Christus Victor motif is about Christ reigning victorious over wicked principalities and Satan's kingdom, and is strongly emphasized throughout the New Testament. Scripture declares that Jesus came to drive out "the prince of this world” (John 12:31), to “destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8), to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14) and to “put all enemies under his feet” (1 Cor 15:25). Jesus came to overpower the “strong man” (Satan) who held the world in bondage and worked with his Church to plunder his "palace" (Luke 11:21-22). He came to end the reign of the cosmic “thief” who seized the world to “steal, and to kill, and to destroy” the life YHVH intended for us (John 10:10). Jesus came and died on the cross to disarm “the principalities and powers” and make a “shew of them openly [i.e., public spectacle]” by “triumphing over them in [the cross]” (Col. 2:15).
Beyond these explicit statements, there are many other passages that express the Christus Victor motif as well. For example, the first prophecy in the Bible foretells that a descendent of Eve (Jesus) would crush the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The first Christian sermon ever preached proclaimed that Jesus in principle conquered all YHVH's enemies (Acts 2:32-36). And the single most frequently quoted Old Testament passage by New Testament authors is Psalm 110:1 which predicts that Christ would conquer all YHVH’s opponents. (Psalm 110 is quoted or alluded to in Matthew 22:41-45; 26:64, Mark 12:35-37; 14:62, Luke 20:41-44; 22:69, Acts 5:31; 7:55-56, Romans 8:34, 1st Corinthians 15:22-25, Ephesians 1:20, Hebrews 1:3; 1:13; 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:11, 15, 17, 21; 8:1; 10:12-13, 1st Peter 3:22, and Revelation 3:21.) According to New Testament scholar Oscar Cullman, the frequency with which New Testament authors cite this Psalm is the greatest proof that Christ’s “victory over the angel powers stands at the very center of early Christian thought.”
Because of man's rebellion, the Messiah's coming involved a rescue mission that included a strategy for vanquishing the powers of darkness.
Since YHVH is a God of love who gives genuine “say-so” to both angels and humans, YHVH rarely accomplishes His providential plans through coercion. YHVH relies on His infinite wisdom to achieve His goals. Nowhere is YHVH's wisdom put more on display than in the manner in which He outsmarted Satan and the powers of evil, using their own evil to bring about their defeat.
Most readers probably know the famous story from ancient Greece about the Trojan Horse. To recap the story, Troy and Greece had been locked in a ten-year-long vicious war when, according to Homer and Virgil, the Greeks came up with a brilliant idea. They built an enormous wooden horse, hid soldiers inside and offered it to the Trojans as a gift, claiming they were conceding defeat and going home. The delighted Trojans accepted the gift and proceeded to celebrate by drinking themselves into a drunken stupor. When night came and the Trojan warriors were too wasted to fight, the Greeks exited the horse, unlocked the city gates to quietly let all their compatriots in, and easily conquered the city, thus winning the war.
Historians debate whether any of this actually happened. But either way, as military strategies go, it’s brilliant.
Now, there are five clues in the New Testament that suggest YHVH was using something like this Trojan Horse strategy against the powers when he sent Jesus into the world:
1) The Bible tells us that YHVH's victory over the powers of darkness was achieved by the employment of YHVH’s wisdom, and was centered on that wisdom having become reality in Jesus Christ (Rom. 16:25, 1 Cor. 2:7, Eph. 3:9-10, Col. 1:26). It also tells us that, for some reason, this Christ-centered wisdom was kept “secret and hidden” throughout the ages. It’s clear from this that YHVH's strategy was to outsmart and surprise the powers by sending Jesus.
2) While humans don’t generally know Jesus’ true identity during his ministry, demons do. They recognize Jesus as the Son of God, the Messiah, but, interestingly enough, they have no idea what he’s doing (Mark 1:24; 3:11; 5:7, Luke 8:21). Again, the wisdom of YHVH in sending Jesus was hidden from them.
3) We’re told that, while humans certainly share in the responsibility for the crucifixion, Satan and the powers were working behind the scenes to bring it about (John 13:27 cf. 1 Cor. 2:6-8). These forces of evil helped orchestrate the crucifixion.
4) We’re taught that if the “princes of this world [age]” had understood the secret wisdom of YHVH, “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8 cf. vss 6-7). Apparently, Satan and the powers regretted orchestrating Christ’s crucifixion once they learned of the wisdom of YHVH that was behind it.
5) Finally, we can begin to understand why the powers came to regret crucifying “the Lord of glory” when we read that it was by means of the crucifixion that the “handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us [i.e., the charge of our legal indebtedness]” was “[taken] out of the way [i.e., canceled]” as the powers were disarmed. In this way Christ “triumph[ed] over” the powers by "his cross” and even “made a shew of them openly” (Col. 2:14-15). Through Christ’s death and resurrection YHVH's enemies were vanquished and placed under his Messiah's feet, and ultimately His own in the end (1 Cor. 15:23-28).
Putting these five clues together, we can discern YHVH's Trojan Horse strategy in sending Jesus.
The powers couldn’t discern why Jesus came because YHVH's wisdom was hidden from them. YHVH's wisdom was motivated by unfathomable love, and since Satan and the other powers were evil, they lacked the capacity to understand it. Their evil hearts prevented them from suspecting what YHVH was up to.
What the powers did understand was that Jesus was mortal. This meant he was killable. Lacking the capacity to understand that this was the means by which YHVH would ultimately bring about the defeat of death (and thus, pave the road for the resurrection itself), they never suspected that making Jesus vulnerable to their evil might actually be part of YHVH's infinitely wise plan.
And so they took the bait (or "ransom"; Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45, 1 Tim. 2:5-6). Utilizing Judas and other willing human agents, the powers played right into YHVH’s secret plan and orchestrated the crucifixion of the Messiah (Acts 2:22-23; 4:28). YHVH thus brilliantly used the self-inflicted incapacity of evil to understand love against itself. And, like light dispelling darkness, the unfathomably beautiful act of YHVH's love in sending the willing Messiah as a "ransom" to these blood-thirsty powers defeated them. The whole creation was in principle freed and reconciled to YHVH, while everything written against us humans was nailed to the cross, thus robbing the powers of the only legal claim they had on us. They were “spoiled [i.e., disempowered]” (Col. 2:14-15).
As happened to the Trojans in accepting the gift from the Greeks, in seizing on Christ’s vulnerability and orchestrating his crucifixion, the powers unwittingly cooperated with YHVH to unleash the one power in the world that dispels all evil and sets captives free. It’s the power of self-sacrificial love.

Why Penal Substitution Is Unbiblical

For the sake of keeping this already lengthy post as short as possible I'm not going to spend too much time on why exactly PSA (Penal Substitutionary Atonement) is inconsistent with Scripture, but I'll go ahead and point out the main reasons why I believe this is so, and let the reader look further into this subject by themselves, being that there are many resources out there which have devoted much more time than I ever could here in supporting this premise.

"Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:"-1 Corinthians 5:7

The Passover is one of the two most prominent images in the New Testament given as a comparison to Christ's atonement and what it accomplished, (the other most common image being the Day of Atonement sacrifice).
In the Passover, the blood of the lamb on the door posts of the Hebrews in the book of Exodus was meant to mark out those who were YHVH's, not be a symbol of PSA, as the lamb itself was not being punished by God in place of the Hebrews, but rather the kingdom of Egypt (and thus, allegorically speaking, the kingdom of darkness which opposed YHVH) was what was being judged and punished, because those who were not "covered" by the blood of the lamb could be easily identified as not part of God's kingdom/covenant and liberated people.
Looking at the Day of Atonement sacrifice (which, again, Christ's death is repeatedly compared to throughout the New Testament), this ritual required a ram, a bull, and two goats (Lev. 16:3-5). The ram was for a burnt offering intended to please God (Lev. 16:3-4). The bull served as a sin offering for Aaron, the high priest, and his family. In this case, the sin offering restored the priest to ritual purity, allowing him to occupy sacred space and be near YHVH’s presence. Two goats taken from "the congregation” were needed for the single sin offering for the people (Lev. 16:5). So why two goats?
The high priest would cast lots over the two goats, with one chosen as a sacrifice “for the Lord” (Lev. 16:8). The blood of that goat would purify the people. The second goat was not sacrificed or designated “for the Lord.” On the contrary, this goat—the one that symbolically carried the sins away from the camp of Israel into the wilderness—was “for Azazel” (Lev. 16:8-10).
What—or who—is Azazel?
The Hebrew term azazel (עזאזל) occurs four times in Leviticus 16 but nowhere else in most people's canon of the Bible, (and I say "most people's canon," because some people do include 1 Enoch in their canon of Scripture, which of course goes into great detail about this "Azazel" figure). Many translations prefer to translate the term as a phrase, “the goat that goes away,” which is the same idea conveyed in the King James Version’s “scapegoat.” Other translations treat the word as a name: Azazel. The “scapegoat” option is possible, but since the phrase “for Azazel” parallels the phrase “for YHVH” (“for the Lord”), the wording suggests that two divine figures are being contrasted by the two goats.
A strong case can be made for translating the term as the name Azazel. Ancient Jewish texts show that Azazel was understood as a demonic figure associated with the wilderness. The Mishnah (ca. AD 200; Yoma 6:6) records that the goat for Azazel was led to a cliff and pushed over, ensuring it would not return with its death. This association of the wilderness with evil is also evident in the New Testament, as this was where Jesus met the devil (Matt. 4:1). Also, in Leviticus 17:1-7 we learn that some Israelites had been accustomed to sacrificing offerings to "devils" (alternatively translated as “goat demons”). The Day of Atonement replaced this illegitimate practice.
The second goat was not sent into the wilderness as a sacrifice to a foreign god or demon. The act of sending the live goat out into the wilderness, which was unholy ground, was to send the sins of the people where they belonged—to the demonic domain. With one goat sacrificed to bring purification and access to YHVH and one goat sent to carry the people’s sins to the demonic domain, this annual ritual reinforced the identity of the true God and His mercy and holiness.
When Jesus died on the cross for all of humanity’s sins, he was crucified outside the city, paralleling the sins of the people being cast to the wilderness via the goat to Azazel. Jesus died once for all sinners, negating the need for this ritual.
As previously stated, the goat which had all the sin put on it was sent alive off to the wilderness, while the blood of the goat which was blameless was used to purify the temple and the people. Penal substitution would necessitate the killing of the goat which had the sin put on it.
Mind you, this is the only sacrificial ritual of any kind in the Torah in which sins are placed on an animal. The only time it happens is this, and that animal is not sacrificed. Most PSA proponents unwittingly point to this ritual as evidence of their view, despite it actually serving as evidence to the contrary, because most people don't read their Old Testament and don't familiarize themselves with the "boring parts" like Leviticus (when it's actually rather important to do so, since that book explains how exactly animal offerings were to be carried out and why they were done in the first place).
In the New Testament, Christ's blood was not only meant to mark out those who were his, but also expel the presence of sin and ritual uncleanness so as to make the presence of YHVH manifest in the believer's life. Notice how God's wrath isn't poured out on Christ in our stead on this view, but rather His wrath was poured out on those who weren't covered, and the presence of sin and evil were merely removed by that which is pure and blameless (Christ's blood) for the believer.
All this is the difference between expiation and propitiation.

The Content of Paul's Gospel Message

When the New Testament writers talked about “the gospel,” they referred not to the Protestant doctrine of justification sola fide–the proposition that if we will stop trying to win God’s favor and only just believe that God has exchanged our sin for Christ’s perfect righteousness, then in God’s eyes we will have the perfect righteousness required both for salvation and for assuaging our guilty consciences–but rather they referred to the simple but explosive proposition Kyrios Christos, “Christ is Lord.” That is to say, the gospel was, properly speaking, the royal announcement that Jesus of Nazareth was the God of Israel’s promised Messiah, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The New Testament writers were not writing in a cultural or linguistic vacuum and their language of euangelion (good news) and euangelizomai would have been understood by their audience in fairly specific ways. Namely, in the Greco-Roman world for which the New Testament authors wrote, euangelion/euangelizomai language typically had to do with either A) the announcement of the accession of a ruler, or B) the announcement of a victory in battle, and would probably have been understood along those lines.
Let’s take the announcements of a new ruler first. The classic example of such a language is the Priene Calendar Inscription, dating to circa 9 BC, which celebrates the rule (and birthday) of Caesar Augustus as follows:
"It was seeming to the Greeks in Asia, in the opinion of the high priest Apollonius of Menophilus Azanitus: Since Providence, which has ordered all things of our life and is very much interested in our life, has ordered things in sending Augustus, whom she filled with virtue for the benefit of men, sending him as a savior [soter] both for us and for those after us, him who would end war and order all things, and since Caesar by his appearance [epiphanein] surpassed the hopes of all those who received the good tidings [euangelia], not only those who were benefactors before him, but even the hope among those who will be left afterward, and the birthday of the god [he genethlios tou theou] was for the world the beginning of the good tidings [euangelion] through him; and Asia resolved it in Smyrna."
The association of the term euangelion with the announcement of Augustus’ rule is clear enough and is typical of how this language is used elsewhere. To give another example, Josephus records that at the news of the accession of the new emperor Vespasian (69 AD) “every city kept festival for the good news (euangelia) and offered sacrifices on his behalf.” (The Jewish War, IV.618). Finally, a papyrus dating to ca. 498 AD begins:
"Since I have become aware of the good news (euangeliou) about the proclamation as Caesar (of Gaius Julius Verus Maximus Augustus)…"
This usage occurs also in the Septuagint, the Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures. For instance LXX Isaiah 52:7 reads, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news (euangelizomenou), who publishes peace, who brings good news (euangelizomenos) of salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns.'" Similarly, LXX Isaiah 40:9-10 reads:

"…Go up on a high mountain, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos) to Sion; lift up your voice with strength, you who bring good tidings (ho euangelizomenos); lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Ioudas, “See your God!” Behold, the Lord comes with strength, and his arm with authority (kyrieias)…."-NETS, Esaias 40:9-10

This consistent close connection between euangelion/euangelizomai language and announcements of rule strongly suggests that many of the initial hearers/readers of the early Christians’ evangelical language would likely have understood that language as the announcement of a new ruler (see, e.g., Acts 17:7), and, unless there is strong NT evidence to the contrary, we should presume that the NT writers probably intended their language to be so understood.
However, the other main way in which euangelion/euangelizomai language was used in the Greco-Roman world was with reference to battle reports, announcements of victory in war. A classic example of this sort of usage can be found in LXX 2 Samuel 18:19ff, where David receives word that his traitorous son, Absalom, has been defeated in battle. Euangelion/euangelizomai is used throughout the passage for the communications from the front.
As already shown throughout this post, the NT speaks of Jesus’s death and resurrection as a great victory over the powers that existed at that time and, most importantly, over death itself. Jesus’ conquest of the principalities and powers was the establishment of his rule and comprehensive authority over heaven and earth, that is, of his Lordship over all things (again, at that time).
This was the content of Paul's gospel message...

Justification, and the "New" Perspective on Paul

The following quotation is from The Gospel Coalition, and I believe it to be a decently accurate summary of the NPP (New Perspective on Paul), despite it being from a source which is in opposition to it:

The New Perspective on Paul, a major scholarly shift that began in the 1980s, argues that the Jewish context of the New Testament has been wrongly understood and that this misunderstand[ing] has led to errors in the traditional-Protestant understanding of justification. According to the New Perspective, the Jewish systems of salvation were not based on works-righteousness but rather on covenantal nomism, the belief that one enters the people of God by grace and stays in through obedience to the covenant. This means that Paul could not have been referring to works-righteousness by his phrase “works of the law”; instead, he was referring to Jewish boundary markers that made clear who was or was not within the people of God. For the New Perspective, this is the issue that Paul opposes in the NT. Thus, justification takes on two aspects for the New Perspective rather than one; initial justification is by faith (grace) and recognizes covenant status (ecclesiology), while final justification is partially by works, albeit works produced by the Spirit.

I believe what's called the "new perspective" is actually rather old, and that the Reformers' view of Paul is what is truly new, being that the Lutheran understanding of Paul is simply not Biblical.
The Reformation perspective understands Paul to be arguing against a legalistic Jewish culture that seeks to earn their salvation through works. However, supporters of the NPP argue that Paul has been misread. We contend he was actually combating Jews who were boasting because they were God's people, the "elect" or the "chosen ones." Their "works," so to speak, were done to show they were God's covenant people and not to earn their salvation.
The key questions involve Paul’s view(s) of the law and the meaning of the controversy in which Paul was engaged. Paul strongly argued that we are “justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law” (Gal. 2:16b). Since the time of Martin Luther, this has been understood as an indictment of legalistic efforts to merit favor before God. Judaism was cast in the role of the medieval "church," and so Paul’s protests became very Lutheran, with traditional-Protestant theology reinforced in all its particulars (along with its limitations) as a result. In hermeneutical terms, then, the historical context of Paul’s debate will answer the questions we have about what exactly the apostle meant by the phrase "works of the law," along with other phrases often used as support by the Reformers for their doctrine of Sola Fide (justification by faith alone), like when Paul mentions "the righteousness of God."
Obviously an in-depth analysis of the Pauline corpus and its place in the context of first-century Judaism would take us far beyond the scope of this brief post. We can, however, quickly survey the topography of Paul’s thought in context, particularly as it has emerged through the efforts of recent scholarship, and note some salient points which may be used as the basis of a refurbished soteriology.
[Note: The more popular scholars associated with the NPP are E.P. Sanders, James Dunn, and N.T. Wright. Dunn was the first to coin the term "The New Perspective" in a 1983 Manson Memorial Lecture, The New Perspective on Paul and the Law.]
Varying authors since the early 1900's have brought up the charge that Paul was misread by those in the tradition of Martin Luther and other Protestant Reformers. Yet, it wasn't until E.P. Sanders' 1977 book, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, that scholars began to pay much attention to the issue. In his book, Sanders argues that the Judaism of Paul's day has been wrongly criticized as a religion of "works-salvation" by those in the Protestant tradition.
A fundamental premise in the NPP is that Judaism was actually a religion of grace. Sander's puts it clearly:
"On the point at which many have found the decisive contrast between Paul and Judaism - grace and works - Paul is in agreement with Palestinian Judaism... Salvation is by grace but judgment is according to works'...God saves by grace, but... within the framework established by grace he rewards good deeds and punishes transgression." (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, p. 543)
N.T. Wright adds that, "we have misjudged early Judaism, especially Pharisaism, if we have thought of it as an early version of Pelagianism," (Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said, p. 32).
Sanders has coined a now well-known phrase to describe the character of first-century Palestinian Judaism: “covenantal nomism.” The meaning of “covenantal nomism” is that human obedience is not construed as the means of entering into God’s covenant. That cannot be earned; inclusion within the covenant body is by the grace of God. Rather, obedience is the means of maintaining one’s status within the covenant. And with its emphasis on divine grace and forgiveness, Judaism was never a religion of legalism.
If covenantal nomism was operating as the primary category under which Jews understood the Law, then when Jews spoke of obeying commandments, or when they required strict obedience of themselves and fellow Jews, it was because they were "keeping the covenant," rather than out of legalism.
More recently, N.T. Wright has made a significant contribution in his little book, What Saint Paul Really Said. Wright’s focus is the gospel and the doctrine of justification. With incisive clarity he demonstrates that the core of Paul’s gospel was not justification by faith, but the death and resurrection of Christ and his exaltation as Lord. The proclamation of the gospel was the proclamation of Jesus as Lord, the Messiah who fulfilled Israel’s expectations. Romans 1:3-4, not 1:16-17, is the gospel, contrary to traditional thinking. Justification is not the center of Paul’s thought, but an outworking of it:
"[T]he doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by ‘the gospel’. It is implied by the gospel; when the gospel is proclaimed, people come to faith and so are regarded by God as members of his people. But ‘the gospel’ is not an account of how people get saved. It is, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ….Let us be quite clear. ‘The gospel’ is the announcement of Jesus’ lordship, which works with power to bring people into the family of Abraham, now redefined around Jesus Christ and characterized solely by faith in him. ‘Justification’ is the doctrine which insists that all those who have this faith belong as full members of this family, on this basis and no other." (pp. 132, 133)
Wright brings us to this point by showing what “justification” would have meant in Paul’s Jewish context, bound up as it was in law-court terminology, eschatology, and God’s faithfulness to God’s covenant.
Specifically, Wright explodes the myth that the pre-Christian Saul was a pious, proto-Pelagian moralist seeking to earn his individual passage into heaven. Wright capitalizes on Paul’s autobiographical confessions to paint rather a picture of a zealous Jewish nationalist whose driving concern was to cleanse Israel of Gentiles as well as Jews who had lax attitudes toward the Torah. Running the risk of anachronism, Wright points to a contemporary version of the pre-Christian Saul: Yigal Amir, the zealous Torah-loyal Jew who assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin for exchanging Israel’s land for peace. Wright writes:
"Jews like Saul of Tarsus were not interested in an abstract, ahistorical system of salvation... They were interested in the salvation which, they believed, the one true God had promised to his people Israel." (pp. 32, 33)
Wright maintains that as a Christian, Paul continued to challenge paganism by taking the moral high ground of the creational monotheist. The doctrine of justification was not what Paul preached to the Gentiles as the main thrust of his gospel message; it was rather “the thing his converts most needed to know in order to be assured that they really were part of God’s people” after they had responded to the gospel message.
Even while taking the gospel to the Gentiles, however, Paul continued to criticize Judaism “from within” even as he had as a zealous Pharisee. But whereas his mission before was to root out those with lax attitudes toward the Torah, now his mission was to demonstrate that God’s covenant faithfulness (righteousness) has already been revealed in Jesus Christ.
At this point Wright carefully documents Paul’s use of the controversial phrase “God’s righteousness” and draws out the implications of his meaning against the background of a Jewish concept of justification. The righteousness of God and the righteousness of the party who is “justified” cannot be confused because the term bears different connotations for the judge than for the plaintiff or defendant. The judge is “righteous” if his or her judgment is fair and impartial; the plaintiff or defendant is “righteous” if the judge rules in his or her favor. Hence:
"If we use the language of the law court, it makes no sense whatsoever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom. For the judge to be righteous does not mean that the court has found in his favor. For the plaintiff or defendant to be righteous does not mean that he or she has tried the case properly or impartially. To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge’s righteousness is simply a category mistake. That is not how the language works." (p. 98)
However, Wright makes the important observation that even with the forensic metaphor, Paul’s theology is not so much about the courtroom as it is about God’s love.
Righteousness is not an impersonal, abstract standard, a measuring-stick or a balancing scale. That was, and still is, a Greek view. Righteousness, Biblically speaking, grows out of covenant relationship. We forgive because we have been forgiven (Matt. 18:21-35); “we love" because God “first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:8, 10, Gal 5:14, Jam. 2:8). Paul even looked forward to a day when “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10), and he acknowledged that his clear conscience did not necessarily ensure this verdict (1 Cor. 4:4), but he was confident nevertheless. Paul did in fact testify of his clear conscience: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation [i.e., behavior] in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward” (2 Cor. 1:12). He was aware that he had not yet “attained” (Phil. 3:12-14), that he still struggled with the flesh, yet he was confident of the value of his performance (1 Cor. 9:27). These are hardly the convictions of someone who intends to rest entirely on the merits of an alien righteousness imputed to his or her account.
Wright went on to flesh out the doctrine of justification in Galatians, Philippians, and Romans. The “works of the law” are not proto-Pelagian efforts to earn salvation, but rather “sabbath [keeping], food-laws, circumcision” (p. 132). Considering the controversy in Galatia, Wright writes:
"Despite a long tradition to the contrary, the problem Paul addresses in Galatians is not the question of how precisely someone becomes a Christian, or attains to a relationship with God….The problem he addresses is: should his ex-pagan converts be circumcised or not? Now this question is by no means obviously to do with the questions faced by Augustine and Pelagius, or by Luther and Erasmus. On anyone’s reading, but especially within its first-century context, it has to do quite obviously with the question of how you define the people of God: are they to be defined by the badges of Jewish race, or in some other way? Circumcision is not a ‘moral’ issue; it does not have to do with moral effort, or earning salvation by good deeds. Nor can we simply treat it as a religious ritual, then designate all religious ritual as crypto-Pelagian good works, and so smuggle Pelagius into Galatia as the arch-opponent after all. First-century thought, both Jewish and Christian, simply doesn’t work like that…. [T]he polemic against the Torah in Galatians simply will not work if we ‘translate’ it into polemic either against straightforward self-help moralism or against the more subtle snare of ‘legalism’, as some have suggested. The passages about the law only work — and by ‘work’ I mean they will only make full sense in their contexts, which is what counts in the last analysis — when we take them as references to the Jewish law, the Torah, seen as the national charter of the Jewish race." (pp. 120-122)
The debate about justification, then, “wasn’t so much about soteriology as about ecclesiology; not so much about salvation as about the church.” (p. 119)
To summarize the theology of Paul in his epistles, the apostle mainly spent time arguing to those whom he were sending letters that salvation in Christ was available to all men without distinction. Jews and Gentiles alike may accept the free gift; it was not limited to any one group. Paul was vehement about this, especially in his letter to the Romans. As such, I will finish this post off by summarizing the letter itself, so as to provide Biblical support for the premises of the NPP and for what the scholars I referenced have thus far argued.
After his introduction in the epistle to an already believing and mostly Gentile audience (who would've already been familiar with the gospel proclaimed in verses 3-4), Paul makes a thematic statement in 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” This statement is just one of many key statements littered throughout the book of Romans that give us proper understanding of the point Paul wished to make to the interlocutors of his day, namely, salvation is available to all, whether Jew or Gentile.
In 1:16 Paul sets out a basic theme of his message in the letter to the Romans. All who believed, whether they be Jew or Gentile, were saved by the power of the gospel. The universal nature of salvation was explicitly stated. The gospel saved all without distinction, whether Jew or Greek; salvation was through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Immediately after this thematic declaration, Paul undertakes to show the universal nature of sin and guilt. In 1:18-32 Paul shows how the Gentile is guilty before God. Despite evidence of God and his attributes, which is readily available to all, they have failed to honor YHVH as God and have exchanged His glory for idolatrous worship and self-promotion. As a consequence, God handed them over in judgment (1:18-32). Paul moves to denunciation of those who would judge others while themselves being guilty of the very same offenses (2:1-5) and argues that all will be judged according to their deeds (2:6). This judgment applies to all, namely, Jew and Greek (2:9-10). This section serves as somewhat of a transition in Paul’s argument. He has highlighted the guilt of the Gentiles (1:18ff) and will shortly outline the guilt of the Jew (2:17-24). The universal statement of 2:1-11 sets the stage for Paul’s rebuke of Jewish presumption. It was not possession of the Law which delivered; it was faithful obedience. It is better to have no Law and yet to obey the essence of the Law (2:12-16) than to have the Law and not obey (2:17-3:4). Paul then defends the justice of God’s judgment (3:5-8), which leads to the conclusion that all (Jew and Gentile) are guilty before God (3:9).
Paul argues that it was a mistaken notion to think that salvation was the prerogative of the Jew only. This presumption is wrong for two reasons. First, it leads to the mistaken assumption that only Jews were eligible for this vindication (Paul deals with this misunderstanding in chapter 4 where he demonstrates that Abraham was justified by faith independently of the Law and is therefore the father of all who believe, Jew and Gentile alike). Second, it leads to the equally mistaken conclusion that all who were Jews are guaranteed of vindication. Paul demonstrates how this perspective, which would call God’s integrity into question since Paul was assuming many Jews would not experience this vindication, was misguided. He did this by demonstrating that it was never the case that all physical descendants of Israel (Jacob) were likewise recipients of the promise. In the past (9:6-33) as in the present (at that time; 11:1-10), only a remnant was preserved and only a remnant would experience vindication. Paul also argued that the unbelief of national Israel (the non-remnant) had the purpose of extending the compass of salvation. The unbelief of one group made the universal scope of the gospel possible. This universalism was itself intended to bring about the vindication of the unbelieving group (11:11-16). As a result of faith, all (Jew and Gentile) could be branches of the olive tree (11:17-24). Since faith in Christ was necessary to remain grafted into the tree, no one could boast of his position. All, Jew and Gentile alike, were dependent upon the mercy and grace of God. As a result of God’s mysterious plan, He would bring about the vindication of His people (11:25-27). [Note: It is this author's belief that this vindication occurred around 66-70 AD, with the Parousia of Christ's Church; this author is Full-Preterist in their Eschatology.]

One of the hardest questions to answer on this subreddit is when people ask what their itinerary should be, followed by questions on what an appropriate budget would be, and then suggestions on hidden gems.
The TL;DR is that all three questions need more details if you want them to be answered.
"But kmrbtravel!" you say, "I need an itinerary if I want a budget, and a budget if I want to make an itinerary! It's all so overwhelming, and I don't know where to start! Oh but I also want to find places that have little to no tourists and are your secret hidden gems, just for that variety!"
I'm hoping this post will be a good starting point for the people above but also to let people know that for the vast majority of us, the 'basic' things recommended on Google and YouTube will be perfect! Travelling Japan is fun because there are so many things to be distracted by, and you will be spending a lot of your time wandering and trying things out, even without a detailed itinerary.

About Me

I write this spiel every time, but I'm a 25F solo traveller with friends I stay with in Japan. Played a Japanese martial art for years, and I visit Japan 3-4x every year (usually 1-2 weeks in April, 1 week in September, 1-2 weeks in late Oct/early Nov, and 1 month in December).
I'm currently on a mission to visit all 47 prefectures across Japan, and I'm at 9 right now (Kyoto, Osaka, Tokyo, Shimane, Mie, Hiroshima, Okayama, Hyogo, and most recently Nagoya). You can read about my biggest and craziest trip here (especially if you're looking for suggestions outside of Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka!)
I speak and understand very basic and noob Japanese. Enough for me to get around, barely enough for me to talk to random obaasans in the onsen who are curious about my travels. I can read hiragana/katakana, and kanji still eludes me (but we'll get there!)
One thing to note about me is that I'm mostly temple/shrine oriented when I travel Japan, so I personally cannot answer questions regarding things like museums/amusement parks/etc.

What Makes Planning a Japan Trip So Hard? (And why is it harder for us to answer your questions?)

Out of any other country that I've visited, I genuinely believe that Japan has the most variety in terms of what you can do and see and can cater wildly to different kinds of people, which sometimes makes it very difficult for us to give you detailed answers. While we all have the same goal of 'exploring Japan,' I personally want to give the best answers possible. I will have different suggestions (and routes!) depending on if you can walk 30,000 steps/day, if you have young kids, if you like anime, if you like martial arts, if you like nature and hiking, if you like shrines/temples, if you don't mind crowds, if you want to just do what everyone else is doing, if you want to do more traditional things, etc. etc. This is why general questions on 'what should my itinerary be' can never fully be answered. We are not mind readers, but we're happy to help with more information.
'They all sound good to me though, and that's why I can't choose!'
Unfortunately, the reality is that you will have to choose by some point. Japan is so much fun because there is an endless amount of things to do, and you have to pick what sounds the most entertaining to you. After 9 prefectures and multiple visits to Japan, I have very, very little things that I personally didn't enjoy. We do not know who you are, and we do not know your preferences. You need to either pick for us, or give us that guidance so we can suggest appropriate itineraries for you.
In harsher terms, for the vast majority of us, an AI-made itinerary, or suggestions from Google or YouTube will satisfy your trip. What us humans can do on Reddit, is to give you specific suggestions, but we cannot give specific suggestions if you do not provide us with (somewhat) specific questions.

1. The Budget Question

I have travelled Japan with less than ¥2000/day, and have travelled with more than ¥20,000/day. The great thing about Japan is that you have the option to do both. Are you broke after plane tickets + hotels? No worries, there are tons of free sightseeing options and you can konbini or street food breakfast/lunch/dinner for very little. Do you want to splurge because this is your 'once-in-a-lifetime-trip?' Don't worry! There are tons of ways for you to sink your money in.
But to be more helpful, I'll break it down just a bit further. After hotels/planes, these are the biggest money sinks:

• Transportation: while transit isn't groundbreakingly expensive, if you're moving a lot and jumping around stations, it can add up. I usually charge around ¥10,000-20,000 per trip (for day-to-day transportation)
  • The big bank-breaking transportation though is of course, the Shinkansen. If you are moving between cities via the bullet train, you need to keep this in mind and weave it into your budget.
  • Other options include:
    • Night bus: pros (usually cheap), cons (you basically waste a day because you're EXHAUSTED the next day)
    • Local subway lines: pros (faster than the bus), cons (do not come on with big luggage and there is a very real chance you may have to stand 3+ hours if it's a busy line—which happened to me in Hiroshima)
    • Day bus: pros (cheap and you don't have to force yourself to sleep), cons (you literally waste a day travelling to get to your location)
• Food: while I'm personally not a fan of Japanese food myself, I still find all sorts of ways to open my wallet with cool cafes, street food, AYCE BBQ, and just general meals.
  • I've found most meals cost between ¥500-2500, though you can do cheaper with konbini-only or street stall foods. Japan is great because even their cheapest options tend to be pretty high quality.
• Tickets/experiences: renting kimonos, Ghibli museums or parks, TeamLabs, amusement parks, Shibuya Sky/Tokyo ToweSkyTree, (some) temples/shrines, gardens, castles, etc. all cost money. We have no idea what you want to do, so you'd need to provide this sort of information for us.
• Ryokans: I know I said 'excluding hotels,' but if you want a traditional ryokan experience, these tend to be much costlier than most other cheap hotel options. I personally still travel like a broke university student and rarely pay over ¥5000/night for a hotel, unless it's peak travel season, so a ryokan is out of my budget. But if you want to experience one, put it in your estimate!
• Souvenirs: if you're bad with money like me, you will be purchasing a lot of souvenirs. As a Canadian, I cannot fathom what on earth people would even want from Canada minus a bucket of maple syrup, but there are tons of options in Japan, all of which adds up quite quickly.
  • Goshuin: I am writing a massive post on goshuin/goshuincho, but Himekat has some great guides if you're not sure what they are.
  • Snacks: great, cheap gifts to get for friends and family. You're lying to yourself if you say you're not going to blitz through a Donki (Don Quijote—a chain of budget/discount stores across Japan that has everything you can possible want) for souvenirs. (It is a scarring but necessary experience for all those visiting Japan).
  • Omamori/omikuji/ema: omamori are those charms (I'm personally wearing a beaaaautiful one from Asagaya Shinmeigu) that are sold at temples and shrines, omikuji are the luck/fortune draws, and ema are those wooden tablets where you can write down a wish. I personally always write one at Meiji Jingu (Tokyo) and Itsukushima Jinja (Hiroshima)!
  • I've personally never shopped at Uniqlo, but I heard it's cheaper in Japan(?). Stationery fans will also be headed towards Loft and Tokyu Hands, I'm sure.
• Arcades: In North America, arcades are those money-wasting things you take your kids to every once in a while and a sure way to lose $1-2 each time. In Japan, arcades are everywhere and you can actually win prizes (a lot of them!) I usually average around ¥2000-4000 per prize. I know some people are totally turned off by anime and don't want any figures or prizes of the sort, but many of us will find ourselves plastered between a cute plushie and the windows inside of a blinding GIGO. Plan some wiggle room, because I find this to usually be an unexpected money sink!
• Gacha: you will be spending money on some gacha machines. You've been warned.

I'm probably forgetting things (and will update as I remember them), but Japan is REALLY good at chipping away at your wallet little bits at a time. It's not like Europe or North America where your cost is just expensive food + an expensive experience. Japan is a lot of cheap, little things that adds up quickly.
Some prices are baked in/unchanging (e.g. TeamLabs tickets or Shinkansen tickets), but many of those 'smaller things that adds up' can be quite random. I always add up my expected costs, subtract it from my total budget, and divide the remainder with the days I will be in Japan for.

• E.g.: 10 day trip to Japan, total budget left: $1000 CAD (after Shinkansen, plane, hotel, Ghibli museum, USJ, SkyTree, etc.) = $100 CAD/day. I also give myself a $200 'emergency shopping fund' for something I REALLY want that's outside of my budget.

2. The Itinerary Question

There are tons of great itineraries on YouTube and Google and I promise you, most of them are good enough for you to just copy/paste and experience. Use us for specific questions you may have in regards to them (e.g. I'm planning on going to xyz on abc dates, is there anything to keep in mind?) (and then we can inform you of any closures, tips, tricks, etc.).
As someone who travels a lot, I want to point out that hotspots are hot for a reason and the ones in Japan are all worth going to unless you can somehow tell it's not going to be your thing (and that's ok!) or you have a serious aversion to crowds.
How one makes an itinerary is always varied, but as someone who's good at going with the flow when travelling (and often plans very last minute), this is how I usually rumble:
0. BRING AN EMPTY SUITCASE: I usually have a slightly smaller suitcase inside of my big suitcase, and the smaller suitcase has all of my clothes + shoes. If you do this, please cover or cushion the wheels of your smaller suitcase inside. I have no idea what happens in the cargo, but I've smashed the wheels of two small suitcases (even though they were fine when they're not inside the larger suitcase). I usually just put some shoes/scarves/dark hoodies for cushioning.

• 1. Pin your itinerary on Google Maps or My Maps: this is my #1 tip for all travellers!
  • This allows you to visualize which areas you will be staying at the most. It allows for you to group your days based on distance (excluding ticket-oriented events with specific dates), find a suitable place for accommodation, and allows you to estimate the distance for your travels.
  • Google Maps: sign into your account, go to Google Maps, and click on the location of your itinerary → Save → New List (if you want) → make a list for your trip! The points will be visible next time you open a map.
  • My Maps: I use this more for archival purposes, but can be useful too :)
• 2. Pick a hotel: your home base. I prefer accommodations that are close to a station. While I never go back to the hotel to drop things off/refresh, I've found that I really didn't enjoy walking the 10-15 minutes back 'home' after 20-30k steps. On the flip side, there are genuinely really nice and more affordable hotels if you don't mind walking that distance.
  • Architecturally, Japan's buildings tend to be much smaller (narrower) compared to North American structures. For Tokyo especially, many budget hotels have very little floor space, which can make opening your luggage and packing really difficult. I've found hotels near popular stations to be smaller and more expensive, but convenient. Hotels some 10-15 minute walk away (which may not sound like much, but I promise you will feel after travelling Japan) tend to be slightly larger and slightly cheaper, but I've also been to a few that did not have any konbinis nearby (a very first world problem, but I live and breathe konbinis)
  • Outside of Tokyo though (even in Osaka/Kyoto), I've had less issues with hotel floor sizes.
  • You should also choose a place that is close to your itinerar(ies), if possible. This is more a 'winter travel tip' than a spring/summer one, but when daylight is tight and you want to get as many things done with limited sunlight, you do not want to waste daylight commuting if you can help it. Obviously some limitations.

My itinerary recommendations are nothing special as I literally pick things off Google. But hotspots are hot for a reason, and these were some of my favourites for Tokyo and Kyoto!

• Tokyo:
  • Nippon Budokan (for my martial arts fans!), Akihabara (for my weebs!)
  • I usually lap Meiji Jingu, Takeshita-dori, Yoyogi Park, and sometimes Omotesando (for shopping) togetheon the same day as they are all right next to each other! Going from the bustling streets of Harajuku/Takeshitadori to the peaceful forest of Meiji Jingu will always give me whiplash.
  • Shibuya, Shibuya Sky, Shibuya 109, Hachiko Statue, I personally didn't find Shibuya Crossing too special but whatever, along with the Nintendo Store + Pokemon Centre + Jump Store + Capcom Store. There's also Loft/Tokyo Hands for my stationery fanatics. Shibuya is massive and can take more than a day to explore if you really enjoy shopping.
  • I also usually walk from Sensoji to SkyTree, but your feet may hate you. You'll also be able to pass by the Asahi Beer Hall (affectionately called 'The Golden Poo' by my Japanese friends).
  • TeamLab Planets was probably the one non-sightseeing touristy thing I did, and I loved it!
  • Ikebukuro: I personally don't think you need to go out of your way for Ikebukuro but if you develop a gambling addiction from the gacha machines there, Sunshine City has the most gacha capsule machines in the world! (They also have tons of other stores like a Mugiwara Store, Crayon Shin-Chan, Pokemon stores, etc.)
• Kyoto:
  • MY HOME BASE (as it is where my best friend lives) and also my favourite city as I am a shrine enthusiast!
  • Fushimi Inari: I climb this place every trip to Japan without fail. There is nothing view-worthy at the top so feel free to turn around at the viewpoint/halfway point! If you hate yourself like me, you can reach the top and pray for safe passages :)
    • This is my biggest pet peeve: PLEASE DO NOT BLOCK THE PATH TO TAKE PICTURES. I PROMISE you, it looks exactly the same at the bottom as it does in the middle and the top. Unless you have some sort of physical ailment that only lets you explore the bottom, PLEASE KEEP MOVING AND STOP BLOCKING THE PATH.
  • Kiyomizudera: along with Ninnenzaka and Sannenzaka is always busy and chaotic, but I still very much enjoy it and you'll definitely get the feeling of 'wow, I'm in a really traditional part of Japan!'
    • Two suggestions that I don't see as much love as Kiyomizudera, but is still close is Yasaka Jinja and Chionin. I personally think Yasaka Jinja looks stunning at night with all its lanterns. At Chionin, everything looks sarcastically large (the gate, the steps, the temple) but I still really love it!
  • Kinkakuji: I will never understand why people say it's not that great when I've seen it 3+ times and I still think the gold looks incredible. Where else are you going to see a fully gold temple?! Sure it's a little out of the way, but I still think it's worth it. The gold is beautiful on a clear blue day. I know there's 'not much else to do and the loop is short' but the gold is still amazing to me (more below)
  • Ginkakuji: a really peaceful, beautifully designed pavilion. It was actually my first time visiting in my last trip and I thoroughly enjoyed it! The path leading up feels like a mini-sannenzaka, with smaller stores and eateries.
  • Arashiyama: one of my favourite places of all time in Kyoto although I do not recommend the bamboo forest and it is ironically my least favourite part of Arashiyama. Instead, I recommend:
    • Kyoto Arashiyama Orgel Museum: cute music boxes, I personally have one of Yonezu Kenshi's Lemon!
    • Nisonin Temple and Seiryoji: you may not appreciate it as much as I do if you don't love temples, but if you're not a fan of crowds I find these two way less busy (but also much more walking to get to). If you visit Seiryoji, there is a garden at the back of the temple (take the slippers and open the door). Nice cool breeze there always!
    • Monkey Park: monkeys! A bit of a hike.
    • Tenryuji: honestly not my favourite place in the world but people seem to like it
    • I usually do not have food recommendations for Japan, BUT I personally believe Arashiyama has some of the best eats!
  • Kinkakuji / Ryoanji / Ninnaji: okay I know I already mentioned Kinkakuji, but the complaint I hear the most is 'it's so far out of the way and there's nothing else there!' WRONG, if you want be stuffed full of awesome temples, I highly suggest the Kinkakuji → Ryoanji → Ninnaji route!
    • Ryoanji: is famous for its stone garden. One of my favourite gardens to study architecturally and design-wise (search up why before you go, and test it out!)
    • Ninnaji: definitely not visited as much by foreign tourists BUT I personally think it has one of the best indoor loops with long walkways and a gorgeous garden that it loops around. If I had a 'hidden gem' for foreign tourists, this would be the one I'm willing to share! (Also a 3 min bus ride from Ryoanji).
  • One place I do NOT recommend minus sakura season is Philosopher's Walk. I passed through it multiple times until someone pointed out it's actually a popular tourist attraction (??) I would not go out of my way for this at all. It looks like any other road in Japan. I don't even know if I'd recommend it during sakura season because there are so many beautiful streets for them everywhere.
  • Other places to check out are Kyoto Station (sick architecture), Tofukuji (especially during fall), Shijo-Kawaramachi (the downtown area of Kyoto), Shimogamo Jinja (another one of my 'hidden gems'—it's an extremely famous and popular shrine, but I rarely see foreign tourists for some reason), and Kitano Tenmangu (if you're a student—this is the studying god!)

3. The 'Hidden Gem' Question

If this is your first trip to Japan, you don't need hidden gems (unless they're food-specific). The major sightseeing attractions are popular for a reason and will be more than enough unless you're literally here for months.
Secondly, and more importantly, I've realized that 'hidden gems' are pretty personal to an individual's tastes. For example, I revealed a few of my hidden gem shrines and temples a few months ago, and immediately got immediately told that it's not actually very great. Well yeah, but that's why it was a hidden gem for me, because I loved it. We will not know what a 'hidden gem' means for you unless you specify the type. Are we looking for hidden gems that are about food? Temples? Specific anime references?
I can promise you that 99% of places worth going to are already spread across social media, and they're popular for good reasons. I personally don't think it's worth travelling far or trying spend so much time and effort looking for that 1%, especially on a first trip.
Lastly, I personally do not reveal my hidden gems unless I know you in person or it's a small business that may appreciate more support. While you may disagree, I think overtourism/overcrowding is pretty real in Japan right now, and I'm hesitant to put smaller places up on public platforms.
With that being said though, for tourists who have already been to Japan and want 'hidden gems' beyond Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka, I highly recommend the Kyushu/Chugoku region trip that I did back in January. I don't have specific itinerary 'hidden gems' but I definitely have 'hidden prefectures' that I loved (and even preferred) to Tokyo/Kyoto/Osaka! (They're not actually hidden, just less visited compared to the trifecta).
Full itinerary/trip report here.
My itinerary for these prefectures are nothing special and none of them are 'hidden gems' as they're literally the most popular attractions for each place. But a. I think this proves that the 'top search' on Google is perfectly fine (because that's what I did, and I had an amazing time), and b. the popular attractions are very much worth going to.
There is a special promotion for foreign tourists that lets you take the bus to and from Shimane to Hiroshima for only 1000 yen, and the bus is only around 3 hrs from Izumo to Hiroshima! You can either start in Kyoto and move down, or start in Hiroshima and move up. I did all in 6 days which I do NOT recommend because I had to rush / clocked 30k+ steps in every day / thought I was going to die by the last day / was in a new prefecture every day.

1. Kyoto → Osaka → Kobe → Himeji → Okayama → Izumo → Hiroshima
2. Hiroshima → Izumo → Okayama → Himeji → Kobe → Osaka → Kyoto

Other prefectures nearby that are worth checking out are Nara and Mie.

Thanks for reading!

If you made it to the end, thanks for reading and I hope this was helpful. I definitely don't know everything about Japan and tons of people have amazing tips (that I still learn from every day). This was hopefully to help address some of the more common issues / repeated questions that people had. The TLDR is really just that we need specifics on who YOU are for us to answer your questions better, especially if you're looking for 'hidden gems' that are specific to your interests.
Have an amazing trip, everyone!

Hey all, thanks for your patience. Had some personal things going on this weekend. That said: I tried out my new option, and it didn't work quite as expected. Let me explain.
The technology being used in the video is called DisplayLink. Basically, it takes the work of video output and offloads it to an external device that captures what's on the screen via software using the DisplayLink Presenter app (which needs to be installed on the RG405m). What's being used in the video is a D3100 dock from Dell. These things go for about $100. I happened to have an extra at work, and low and behold, it worked. But... there's a caveat.
I also tried a D6000 dock from Dell (even more expensive), and it was no go... until I went into the developer settings on the RG405m and changed the default USB mode to "file transfer". This seems to prioritize data over power. The issue with the DisplayLink option is that it can't do data and power at the same time, as confirmed by the company here. So the D3100 works because it doesn't do power distribution, and the D6000 only works if you A) Turn on File Transfer mode in the developer options, or B) Go from the built-in USB-C connector to a USB-A adapter and then back to a USB-C connector, as this kills off power distribution as well.
Over the weekend, I got another device that's much cheaper: a WAVLINK USB3.0-to-HDMI adapter from Amazon. It's the cheapest USB-Anything to HDMI that uses DisplayLink that I could find. I got it in, connected it to a USB-A/USB-C adapter, tried it, and... no go. Based on the fact that there's a light on the adapter that never comes on, it seems it needs power supplied by the attached USB port... something the RG405m can't do. Now, I've also purchased a cheap POWERED USB-C hub with USB-A 3.0 ports on it. It arrived today, and this evening I'll try plugging the adapter into the hub, hub into power, and then RG405m into the hub. Theoretically, it should work. about $50 for a solution, but it still won't deliver power and display mirroring at the same time. Not the end of the world, but limiting.
The final thing I've ordered, which will be here tomorrow, is an MHL cable that has external power built-in. That's the base tech used in the LD39 video everyone's seen here. Looking up the LD39, however, there's no external power, so it likely doesn't work for folks because there's no power delivery from the device itself, meaning the little CPU inside can't power up. Gamma OS uses Lineage OS as its base, and for the RG405m its using the Google Pixel 3a version as its base, which you can see under Settings > About Device > Model. I highly doubt that the base board is an actual Google Pixel 3a board, but I can't confirm that yet as I haven't torn this thing apart. The Pixel 3a itself doesn't support MHL, but I can't figure out if that's a hardware limitation or a software limitation; Lineage OS, however, DOES support it. You can read more about it here on Android Stack Exchange. I'm not super hopeful on this one, but if it does work, that'll bring the total cost to get this running down to about $18.
Just wanted everyone to know what's gone into this. I'm not going to offer up a $100-200 solution as a final answer, and I'm also not going to just throw a bunch of random money at this while crossing my fingers until I get something that works. This has been a lot of research, a ton of deep diving, XDA/GitHub/Forum/Changelog reading, and tinkering with different connections and figuring out reliability. Now that I've got a couple solutions on the way, I hope to know by end of day tomorrow what price point we can expect a workable solution that'll work for everyone... because that's what this community is about! Stick with me folks... it's been a ride thus far!

Edited 5.21.2024 to include additional breakdown on my schedule and organization on topics. Additional edit to my Smart Sheets entry.
I passed the Bar in February 2024 in a UBE jurisdiction after failing multiple times. I told myself that if I ever passed (which to me me seemed like an unlikely miracle), I would pass on the resources that I used as a multi repeater working full time at a fairly demanding job. This post is to explain what resources I used, why they were helpful, and what changed from my failing tests to my passing test. I am just hoping this is helpful to someone.
I took the Bar in a non-UBE jx several times and failed, and once in a UBE jx for F24, where I passed with a 302. I was not a good law student, I work full time, I graduated 6 years ago. I understand there are people with more stuff going on than me (all the kudos to parents taking this test - you are amazing and you got this!), but I do genuinely believe I am nothing special for the purpose of passing this test. I did a few points better on the MEE/MPT's than I did on the MBE, but I got passing scores on both. My jx does not give the full breakdown, so I don't know induvial essay scores, just the MBE vs writing component scores.
Resources: The study resources I used in F24.
Note: I found this post from u/SingAndDrive that really made an impression on me. I used Barbri on my failing tests and it NEVER resonated with me. I also used AdaptiBar (more on this below). I knew I needed to figure out a non-traditional Bar prep that was budget friendly and worked with my 9-5 corporate job. The linked post was a great starting point for me, and I did end up using a few of the resources they used. P.S. shout out to u/SingAndDrive for that post, and for still responding to people asking follow up questions about their experience.
1. NCBE BarNow "Everything Pack" - This is for MEE and MPT's. I did over 70 essays total - 4-6 essays per topic (I recommend at least 5 per topic) tested on the MEE and then 5 MPT's (I always did ok on these so I was not worried. If you are, do more. This was invaluable and very budget friendly (maybe $130). It includes hundreds of real essays and MPT's and all of the corresponding grader's point sheets. At first I would read the essay, outline my answer a bit, and then literally copy the graders point sheet exactly. I did this for 4-5 essays before I felt I could actually try on my own. I timed my essays (30 min per essay in my jx) and treated it like a real test to the best of my ability. Sometimes I checked the grader sheet as I was writing.
2. SmartBarPrep UBE Smart Sheets - This is the only thing I used for remembering rules for the MEE's. What I like about it is that it focuses on the main things that are tested and tells you the highly and moderately tested rules. Does it cover literally everything ever test? No, but you do not need to know everything. The goal is not perfection - it's a passing score. I also love that it was $130. It has some resources about MPT's I found useful for formatting different types of MPT's. Edit - I forgot to add I made like 1000 flash cards on index cards from the Smart Sheets. I thought it would be helpful to write them out for memorization. It probably did help some but making flashcards is a passive activity and I felt like I really memorized the rules by writing essays. I used the flash cards a bit to study, but I could have done that with the Smart Sheets themselves. I feel I can justify the time spent on this because I started studying November 5 and completed these flashcards by mid December. I burned all my flash cards in a bon fire a few weeks ago. Very cathartic.
3. NY sample essays for MEE essays - Free and helpful for a few reasons. First, if you look at the real essays by passing test-takers and refer back to the corresponding NCBE graders sheet you will see that great scores don't hit on every little point on the graders sheet. Sometimes passing scores come to the wrong conclusion. There is room for human error and perception in your responses. Second, it was so s helpful to me to see the format of passing essays. The MEE is all patterns (types of essays), do enough and you will begin to see patterns and patterns of how to format your response. I am very much a learn by watching person, and really needed the correct format laid out in front of me.
4. AdaptiBar - I used AdaptiBar during my failing tests, but the way I used it on my passing F24 test was very different. The big difference between my failing test and by passing test - a) I did wayyyy more questions on my passing test. In total, for F24 I completed around 1,600 questions. I'm sure I did like 600 on my failing tests. b) I reviewed every question I got wrong. For me this was reading the question again and then reading the full explanation of each answer. For one of the two tests you can take on AdaptiBar, I created an Excel sheet where I copied the question I got wrong in column A, the correct answer in column B, and the explanation in column C. I wish I did this for both tests. I don't know if I personally had time to do this for literally every question. I generally did 30 questions a day, all on one topic (more on my study schedule below). I reserved two Saturdays for a full 200 question test. MBE's are repetitive - they ask you a lot of the same base rules in different ways, and then stick these random niche exceptions/tiny rules in there. I highly recommend AtaptiBar or some other databank of NCBE questions with explanation. Do the licensed questions. It was the most expensive study aid I used by far, but I personally needed this resource to pass.
5. Goat Bar Prep - GoatBarPrep I wish I had found this subreddit sooner, but for the month I knew about it before the exam it was great. I read through the free megaposts for topics I needed help on. For example, I did not take Secured Transactions in law school and was starting from scratch. u/SnooGoats8671 is a wonderful teacher - he knows how to distill down complicated topics, and is an interesting and entertaining writer. Do not be fooled by the memes and silliness - this is the real deal. I did feel a bit like Alice falling down the rabbit hole and into insanity, but maybe that is part of the process. I personally bought a few additional resources from this tutor that specifically target tips and tricks on the MBE that gave me great results. For example, I saw a 10% increase in my Civil Procedure questions on AtaptiBar after using Goat Bar Prep MBE for Civ Pro resources. This was huge for me because I was basically hovering around 50% on Civ Pro (my worst MBE topic). I never directly reached out to u/SnooGoats8671, but others have stated he is very responsive and great to work with if you need a 1:1 tutor.
Failure vs Success: AKA, what changed?
While I did use (mostly) different resources, the biggest change was me - my attitude, my approach, and my effectiveness.
1. Passive vs Active Studying - I know you have heard this before, but it's the gospel truth - you NEED to practice active studying. Author Jessica Klein has some excellent thoughts on this in her book "Fck the Bar". Basically, you need to do the hard stuff. The extra un-fun stuff. Reading your rules is boring, but also passive. You need to write essays. Honestly, I didn't feel like I knew/started to memorize the rules for real until I starting writing essays. I started writing essays three months before test day, but didn't kick it in gear until January.
2. My Study Schedule - I am someone who loves a schedule, so I made one in Excel that detailed what I was studying from December 2023 through the end of February 2024. I scheduled two wiggle-room days each month, but in December life and holidays happened and I missed a few days. In January and February my schedule would change a bit, but I never missed a day because I had scheduled two wiggle-room/life happens days. No topic left behind. I worked on a 14-day cycle, where each work day had one topic assigned to them and weekend days had two topics assigned to them. I generally stuck to the same 14-day loop of topics over and over again, so each topic was covered two times each month. I combined Agency and Partnership because they are best friends, and never studied Conflict of laws outside when it was on a combo MEE practice essay. I am not sure if this was unwise or a good move over all, but it gave me 13 topics for 13 days, and on the 14th day I worked on MPTs or full on MBE tests or I devoted that 14th day to a topic I was having trouble with. I did not do two-a-day topics until the last two weeks before the Bar. Again, I was studying full time and I didn't really have time to fully devote my day to two topics. Honestly, it was for the best because I always start of strong when studying and dwindle off and it gets later. Speaking of - I studied maybe 2-4 hours a day during the work week and 5-7 hours on the weekend. I was not nose-to-book the whole time I was studying, but I tried my best. It helps that my then boyfriend now fiancé looming over me playing FIFA in the same room I studied in. Every time I picked up my phone he would turn to me and ask, "What are you studying now?”
Edit - additional info on my study schedule In January and February I typically did 2-3 essays a day On my 14 day/14 topic schedule that means that each MEE topic was covered twice a month. After I completed an essay I read through the graders sheet for the question. If needed I drilled down on any rule I didn’t get close enough to be accurate. For MBEs I was in a 7 day schedule (for all of February and part of January). I did 30 MBE questions for the MBE topic of the day and then reviewed all the ones I got long. On this schedule I covered each MBE topic four times a month. Each day had an assigned MEE topic and an assigned MBE topic. For MEE topics that are also tested in the MBE, I did not always cover them on the same day in February (eg. Civ pro MEE and civ pro MBE). In January I was able to because my MEE topic says did not always have any assigned MBE questions. I was able to do this because I did so much work on MBEs in November and December.
3. I Slept - No seriously. I went to sleep before 12AM. I never slept while studying for my failing tests. It sucked and I was a stressed mess. I was still a stressed mess this time, but I had way more brain function, wasn't burnt out, and felt physically better. For the record, I said "physically better", not "good". I did not feel "good". It was a lot of really hard, exhausting work and I never wan to do it again. It took me a month to gather myself up to even write all this. Anyways, get some sleep.
4. I was real with myself about why I kept failing - My multiple failures were a result of a few things. First, I was totally burnt out. Not sleeping, non-stop stress, and law school really sucked for me. I was just not in a good place. Before studying for F24, I had not studied for the Bar in at least two years. I was working full time, playing rec sports, had a boyfriend, and friends. I was in a good place. Second, I was studying ALL WRONG. All passive studying, nearly no active studying (see above). I FULLY believe I could have passed in the non-UBE jx I failed so many times in if I just did then what I did on F24. Finally, I acknowledged I was the problem, and decided to break the cycle. Better habits, new approach, worked within my schedule, and focused on discipline and consistency (Not my strong suite. Again, high recommend acquiring a FIFA playing study overlord - or an accountability buddy).
5. Test Day Mentality - I don't know if this is advice, but I walked into that testing center PUMPED UP. I was in a great mood - it was game day and I was ready to ball. A security person asked me how I was doing on Day 1, and I said, "GREAT!" and she said, "You are the only one." That is a true story. In retrospect I may have been losing my mind a bit, but hey, fake it until you make it, right? I tried my best to carry that mentality to Day 2. I also made a friend to hang with before, during lunch, and as we were leaving the test center - we still text! I am sure plenty of people need to be silent and alone to focus up, but for me, talking to someone (about work, life, whatever isn't test related) helped to keep my brain dynamic and awake. My friend was also a retaker who passed on F24, and I like to think having a friend helped them too.

Race Information

• Name: Cleveland Marathon
• Date: May 19, 2024
• Distance: 26.2 miles
• Location: Cleveland, Ohio
• Website: https://www.clevelandmarathon.com/
• Time: 3:39:xx

Goals

Goal	Description	Completed?
A	3:05:00	No
B	3:10:00	No
C	3:30:00	No

Splits (roughly)

Mile	Time
1	7:02
2	7:01
3	7:09
4	7:10
5	7:04
6	7:10
7	7:48
8	7:35
9	7:22
10	7:30
11	7:17
12	7:22
13	7:47
14	7:56
15	8:17
16	8:15
17	9:09
18	8:39
19	8:49
20	9:47
21	10:09
22	9:46
23	10:05
24	10:11
25	11:23
26	9:46

Training

29 M Pfitz 18/55 This was my first road marathon and my first planned training block I have ever done. My ultimate goal this year is to qualify for Boston so I can cross it off my bucket list and go back to trail running. I finally got a spot in the Chicago marathon this fall so I was planning on using this block/race as a stepping stone to get me ready for a 2:55 or below in Chicago. I had figured I could get into 3:10 shape for Cleveland, so that’s the goal time I set back in Jan of this year. I used that goal time for my pfitz training paces for the entire block. The training went well, and I adjusted the plan slightly to meet my needs. I work from home and can get most of my runs in during my lunch hour. With small kids at home, I did everything I could to not take away any family weekend fun. My schedule roughly turned into:
Monday – Workout
Tuesday - General aerobic
Wednesday – Med Long Run
Thursday – Recovery/Easy
Friday – Long run (don’t tell my boss)
We are usually very active on the weekends, but I would try to get an extra run on the treadmill for 30 minutes every Sunday as a “shake-out” for my Monday workout and a way to get a couple extra miles in. I was able to get into a groove and hit almost every workout on mileage and pace. I ran a half marathon week 12 at 1:31. A 10k time trial week 14 – 41m and then another 10k time trail week 16 where I managed a 39:45. My 18 mile LR with 14 mile MP was smashed. Really just felt like I nailed everything. Loved the plan, 10/10 would recommend. The book has so much great info in it as well.

Pre-race

My taper went well, Pfitz has a 3 week taper and based on some research (reading reddit threads, letsrun pages, talked to my crazy uncles, etc.) I decided to keep that 16th week at 50 miles instead of the 44 he recommends. Based on my races/time trials I was hoping I could manage a 3:05 but would still be happy with a 3:10. It being my first race, I knew that I could blow up and figured a 3:30 would be a “everything went horribly wrong” scenario. lol
So I live in Cleveland and as you might assume, our weather is total garbage from October til March. I had been watching the weather like a hawk, and saw it was going to be in the 60s w/90% humidity at the start line and would rise in the the 70s. I have run outside in 60+ degree weather maybe 5 times since Thanksgiving. At this point, I should have adjusted my target to a 3:15/3:20. I also tried to carb load. 750g of carbs Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Featherstone nutrition has a great and easy guide on it. However, it sucked. Not sure if it helped at all, will probably just eat more but not kill myself trying to get to the carb levels. Went to the convention center Friday afternoon to pick up my bib.

Race

Morning of, woke up at 330. Coffee, bagel, Maurten 320. Gear check and packed my bags. Popped an Imodium on my way out the door as I typically do with my trail races. I got a parking spot in a garage 2 minutes from the start line. Got downtown around 530. Dropped off my bag at gear check and I found a nice place to sit and warm up. Got to meet Harvey Lewis and Sage Canaday, both really nice so that’s cool. I put 3:10 estimated finish time on the registration page, that’s good enough for Corral A at the CLE marathon so Corral A it is.
0-12
Went out with the 3:10 pace group and my plan was to stick with them until mile 18-20 then assess how I felt. The first three miles were about 10-15 seconds too quick. I knew in my head that it was not a great idea and that I should slow down, but I felt fine. I felt good. I felt strong. Everyone was chatting that it was probably a little too fast but the pacers didn’t yield. There is a pretty big hill at mile 7/8ish and I crushed it. Around mile 10 I started to feel a little warm, so I pulled off to the side, removed my bib from my tank top, put it on my tights, and took off my tank top. Every aid station I took a sip of water and dumped a cup on my head. I was running with a group of 5-10 people who really turned it on from miles 10-12. I loved their energy, so I stuck with them. We came to a split where half marathon runners went right, and marathon runners went left. They all went right. I went left. Uh-oh.
12-20
As I peel off left, I start to realize my mistake. These people I had been running with were kicking to their finish line. “Its okay, you are almost halfway and you are feeling strong. A little warm, but its flat from here until mile 20. Get to 20” Not 10 seconds later and I make a left turn onto a “flat bridge” that might as well have been Mt Denali. I laughed out loud, I knew I was screwed, and a wave of regrets flooded over me. I crossed 13.1 at ABOUT 1:31. I told myself that 3:20 was my new goal and I allowed myself to slow down and wanted to maintain about an 8min/mile the rest of the way. At mile 4,8, 12 I took a gel. I was planning on taking more at 15, 18, and 21. My gel at mile 15 didn’t go down well, and I developed an insane cramp below my rib cage. I had never dealt with that before so I was unsure if I was about to have a heart attack or if it was just GI distress. (That would be my last gel of the day.) I then passed a strong looking runner (he had a tracksmith tank and new alphaflys on) who had passed out on the ground and the crowd ran over to make sure he was ok. “oh shit, that would be me if I push it too much” As you could imagine, my mental strength was chipping away rapidly. I knew my family was at mile 17 so I held it together. Made it to them, dropped off my tank top, gave all the kids a kiss and high fived a couple dogs. I completed my trip thru Clevelands cute western neighborhoods and headed to the Shoreway.
20-finish
As I ran down the highway ramp to the Shoreway, this is where the wheels started to really fall off. It was hot. It was humid. I knew there was a huge hill ahead of me without an ounce of shade and the breeze was no where to be found. I said goodbye to 3:20 and just wanted to finish in one piece. This was an out and back portion of the race so I could see the strong runners at mile 24 coming back and they looked like they were melting. I took the shoreway out to lakewood, ran/walked between all the aid stations, had people doing yard work spray me with their hose, and focused on keeping my HR down so I could finish and not be one of the many people passed out on the Shoreway awaiting to be rescued by the EMS crew. It was only 70-75 degrees during the last 6 miles but I know everyone struggled immensely, it was really a suffer fest out there. Leg cramps, knee pain, and plantar fasciitis accompanied me for the last couple miles back into town but the crowd support was amazing and kept me going. Was ready to bust ass thru the finish line when I had to pull over to make way for an ambulance, how poetic. I hustled over the finish line with a smile on my face because you know what Andy glaze says. Smile or you are doing it wrong.

Post-race

Grabbed my medal, grabbed my checked bag, and found a shady bit of grass behind a tent and crashed. After a few minutes I was able to get up, find my family, and head home. Lessons learned.

1. Should have adjusted my goal time. I knew it was going to be hot. I was literally complaining to my wife every day for 10 days about how hot it was going to be. I let the EGO win. Went out too fast for what it was and blew up. How many times have I read this exact scenario online and vowed it would never happen to me?
   
2. I think I ate too much food in the morning which led to GI distress. The stomach cramp was debilitating.
   
3. Road marathons are a totally different beast, and I need more practice with all the nuances.
   

Next steps:

1. As upset as I am about the results, I am extremely fired up to get back to training. I am taking 3 weeks “off” and then going to start Pfitz 18/70. I will start the plan with workout paces around a 2:55 marathon pace but assess the training more closely as I go thru. I believe I am in 3:05-3:10 shape right now but need to be realistic on what I can accomplish in 20 weeks. A 2:50 is probably a safe BQ time but I would need a miracle.
   
2. I have thought about getting a coach, but I am not sold on the idea yet. I think my key is bumping up mileage, which I feel ready for.
   
3. Hoping to run a handful of races (10k-halfs) this summer to practice my Racing mindset. I am signed up for the River Run half in September, shooting for a 1:22. Cleveland has a ton of great stuff going on running wise.
   
4. Plan on incorporating more weightlifting for my lower body and core. Currently at around 200 lbs. Would love to run Chicago at 195 or lower but not trying to crash diet.
   

Geatraining tool notes:

• I am a sneakerhead. I ran in Asics metaspeed Edge Paris and generally liked them. My main training shoes were Boston 12s, superblasts, peg 39s, and some older race shoes (vaporflys, endorphin pro 2, etc). Will be looking for something new for this fall.
  
• Used a google sheet from Floberg Runs that I tweaked, really nice to have a clear calendar with my personal schedule laid out.
  

There are not a lot of race reports for the Cleveland Marathon, it is a great race and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a spring marathon. I am happy to answer anyone’s questions about the race.
"Never regret thy fall, O Icarus of the fearless flight, For the greatest tragedy of them all, Is never to feel the burning light."
Made with a new race report generator created by herumph.

The episode resumed on a shot of Zee and Jo, their skin tones back to normal, running up to a smiling Chris. "Welcome back," he told the camera. "Zee and helper Jo are the first to arrive here, at the world's largest mud puddle!" The camera pulled back, revealing that the trio was standing near the edge of a large lake of burbling mud, a measuring stick rising out of it at the nearest edge.
"It's eight feet deep," Chris explained over a close-up of the measuring stick showing the mud reaching up very nearly to the 8' mark, "and 200 yards across. And," the camera quick-panned to the far right side of the 'puddle', "since it's too thick to swim through," the shot cut back to the couple and Chris, "the only way to the other side is with one of you piggybacking the other."
"Umm...," Zee said hesitantly, sharing a wary look with Jo, "doesn't that mean the person on the bottom..."
"Will drown?" Chris finished. "Yes."
"What?!" Jo said in wide-eyed shock.
"Unless they use this garden hose!" Chris added, a light chime playing as he held up a length of green hose.
Zee let out a breath. "Okay then. Guess I'm on the bottom, then."
Jo's eyes widened a bit in a brief bit of surprise, and she looked at her partner. "I should be objecting to this since I'm supposed to be the helper, but hey. No heavy lifting from me."
"Yeah…" Zee agreed half heartedly.
Confessional: Zee
"I was able to hold Jo onto my back while we were skiing," Zee told the confessional. "I can still do the same while under mud."
Confessional Ends
"I know that I said you were weak in the past," Jo said, "but that was until I saw that you were able to make it this far in the game."
"You thought wrong about me," Zee replied. "I wasn’t active at first in challenges and finding food, but with Julia eliminated, I was able to grow and become a finalist."
Chris suddenly stepped between the two. "How touching. Now start the challenge."
The scene cut to Zee and Jo jumping into the mud, the former disappearing below its depths while the latter, on his shoulders, held up the length of the hose. They started moving forward, and the camera panned back to the left to show Harold, Scarlett, and Chris holding up another length of hose.
"Yeah, I'll be on top," Harold stated.
"Pardon me?" Scarlett countered, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't trust you not to let me drown," Harold told her. "Self-preservation comes first."
Scarlett groaned. "That's fair," she said, taking the hose from Chris, "but if you let me suffocate, I'm dragging you down into the mud with me."
"Crustal," Harold deadpanned, and as Scarlett crouched down, she jumped onto the brainiac's shoulders. Scarlett stood back up and put the end of the hose in her mouth, and she jumped into the mud.
The tense music faded away as the camera moved onto Chris, the host sighing as Chef walked up. "You think the mud was a bad idea?" Chris asked. "It's a little quiet… oh yeah," Chris said as if in sudden realization, "almost forgot about the Peanut Gallery. Bring 'em back in!" he said into a walkie talkie he only then pulled out.
Moments later, the wind kicked up around them, and the camera zoomed out to show the large helicopter flying in with the former contestants still hanging – and screaming as they swayed ominously – below it. "Would you let us down already?!" Leshawna shouted angrily. "It's freezin' up here!"
"Yeah, I want to cheer for Zee!" Julia chimed in.
"If I wasn't tied up right now, I'd have half a mind to pound you!" Duncan shouted at the host.
The camera focused on DJ. "Hey, Chris?" he looked forward and asked loudly. "Just bring us down before anybody else gets miffed at you!"
"No, and I don't care," Chris answered with a calm smile, until Chef whispered to him. A flat note played over a close-up of Chris staring blankly at him. "Huh...good point," he admitted. "Ooh!" he said with a sudden grin. "I just had an idea!"
A flash took the scene to Zee and Jo, the tense challenge music resuming at a low volume and slow pace in the background. They were still slogging through the mud, Zee out of sight but Jo only submerged up to her stomach. She looked back over her shoulder, smiled, then said "Keep going!" into the piece of hose she was holding. "They're way far behind!"
Confessional: Zee
"So as it turns out," Zee said, "being submerged in the mud is kinda like being trapped in the dark. But there aren't any animals below to scare me."
Confessional Ends
The music ramped up as Jo suddenly stopped moving, then seemed to turn around and start moving back towards the start. "Uh, Fruit Loop?" she asked into the hose. "We're going the wrong way!"
The camera cut to Harold, looking somewhat bored as he held the hose atop Scarlett's shoulders, before noticing the other team and frowning. "Why are they coming this way?"
"Ugh! They're too safe to sabotage each other!" came the sudden voice of Chris McLean, the camera cutting to him standing in the show's jeep with Chef at the wheel, speaking into the microphone of the jeep's loudspeaker. "Deploy the 2.0 model!"
The shot cut back to Harold and Jo as they looked around with strange expressions, the sound of something like a rocket taking off coming from somewhere in the distance. They looked up and to the left, and the camera shifted to their viewpoint to show a large object shooting up through the sky overhead...
...then abruptly diving towards them, revealing itself as a red-eyed robotic bear with small jet engines coming out of its back. Harold and Jo screamed as their respective partners continued in their previous directions, getting out of the way as the Bear landed in the mud. It hit with enough force to cause a wave of mud, which shot all the way across the puddle carrying the finalists and their helpers along for the ride. All four immediately began to cough upon landing in a muddy heap.
Confessional: Harold
"At least I have a better shot," Harold said. "We're tied right now, but who knows what other tricks Chris has up his sleeves."
Confessional Ends
A close-up of the nozzle of a fire hose in Chef's hands preceded him blasting the muddy finalists and helpers with water, all four screaming where they'd landed on the shore of the 'puddle'. Moments later, the water was shut off, leaving them drenched but clean.
"We're all tied up," Chris announced with a smile. "Perfect time for a little break. First, let's bring in the Peanut Gallery again." He took out his remote and pointed it at a patch of ground nearby, a hole opening up in it and a rather shoddy-looking set of stadium seats shooting up out of it with the ten former contestants seated – and still tied-up – in it.
"Sha-finally," Lightning said, the shot cutting to him sitting in the top row with B, DJ, Duncan, and Max and Leshawna, Ella, Julia, Sammy, and Amy in the bottom row. "Are we gonna get to watch the rest of the challenge now?"
"Yup!" Chris answered with a happy smile, pressing the button on his remote again so that a large widescreen television emerged from another hole in the ground near him and the finalists.
"Will you untie us too?" Ella chimed in.
Chris huffed. "Whine, whine, whine," he said in annoyance. "Don't I do enough for you kids as it is?"
"No," all fourteen of the season's cast members replied at the same time.
A flat note played over a close-up of the host pursing his lips. "Yeah, I owe Chef twenty bucks about that," Chris said, the camera zooming back out again to show the finalists and helpers. "Everyone, grab a seat," he instructed, and the four reluctantly sat down on the logs lying behind them. "I'm gonna show you some of my favorite clips from the show..." He pointed his remote at the TV, and the shot focused in as it switched on and started to play footage of a confessional...
"Dunderhead was already pretty useless," Jo complained. "But now he's making moves on one of the actually decent players on the team? Not on my watch!"
The camera cut in close to show Jo pausing and looking back. "Something on your mind, Anti-Squeakerbox?" she asked, the camera shifting to show B peering at her and shaking his head.
“It's not what you think it is," Jo told him. "As long as they are on this team, Julia and Zee will not date."
“Not exactly how I wanted the elimination to play, but hey. Julia’s gone and with Zee still in the game, I could manipulate him into doing whatever I say,” Jo grinned.
The footage paused, and Chris leaned out in front of the television with a wide and mischievous grin. "Seems like there isn't a shipper on deck…" he said impishly.
"So you were trying to keep me and Julia apart?" Zee said as the camera moved to him and Jo, his eyes wide with shock. "Does this mean that...,"
"Yup. I convinced Julia to quit," Jo replied. "I didn't expect her to fully go through with it since I was gonna vote you out!"
"I can't believe you'd try and do that!" Zee said with a glare!"
"If I didn't do what I did, then you two likely would've blown challenges for us like the dueling one!" Jo argued back.
The camera focused on Julia in the Peanut Gallery. "I was trying to defend my boyfriend, but sure," she said dryly.
"I'm just worried what Chris is gonna show from Scarlett," Sammy said. "It looks like he wants to mess up the finalists and their helpers..."
"Maybe he won't show anything?" Amy suggested. "I mean, it's not like Scarlett and Harold were that close to begin with."
The shot cut back to a smiling Chris. "Oh, don't worry, I have no intention of leaving those guys out of all this fun," he said happily.
"I don't see how," Scarlett said. "Harold already knows everything about me now. I’m practically an open book."
Chris laughed. "Seems you forgot that the cameras are always on. So here's some more juicy information that everybody gets to hear." The screen on the TV went from static to a scene from the fifth episode.
Scarlett herself grabbed the dueling stick Ella retrieved, fished an electric eel out of the water, and tossed it to Max. "Max!" she cried, and her teammates looked at her in confusion, prompting her to pretend that she had coughed. "Pardon me!"
“The plan was for Max to be the only one not in the trap, so the team would know he built it and vote him off!” Scarlett confessed.
"I overheard Leshawna and Harold's conversation when they were foraging together, and Leshawna being on to me is something that I refuse to let happen," Scarlett claimed. “Zee's really gullible enough to deceive, and I'll try to talk to Ella.”
A deep, dramatic note was struck over a shot of Harold in shock. "So it was you who got Leshawna eliminated!" he scowled in Scarlett's direction.
"I wasn't ready to come out just yet, and between the two of you, you were less likely to warn anyone about me!" Scarlett retorted.
"So all this time, Scarlett was aiming to usurp her master!" Max ranted.
"I don't blame her," Leshawna commented. “As much of a pain as she is, I would've done the same thing and sent your annoying behind home.”
"Okay," Chris said happily as the shot moved onto him, "I'm sensing some major hostility and I'm liking it. I'm out of popcorn, though, so we should probably get back to the challenge."
"Seriously?!" the finalists and helpers alike exclaimed.
"Obviously, the helpers aren't gonna be very helpful anymore," Chris replied. "So, instead of helpers, Jo and Scarlett will now be hinderers." As he spoke, Chef walked back into view with a pair of video game controllers, tossing one each to Scarlett and Jo. "The island is now back online," Chris continued, "and, with these controllers, they will be able to throw up obstacles to throw you down, or, completely crush you."
The shot cut to Scarlett as she looked at her controller and smirked. "Good to know."
"Looking forward to it," Jo said in determination.
Harold and Zee gulped, and Chris laughed. "That was the good part," he said. "Let me tell you the bad part. You have ten minutes to finish this challenge," he told Zee and Harold. "If neither of you do, Scarlett and Jo get to split the money."
"Dude, what?" Zee said in shock.
"You can't do that!" Harold protested.
"I can! I will! I am! GO!" Chris announced, blowing his airhorn right in Chef's face, earning an annoyed sigh from the man. Harold and Zee immediately ran off, but the camera cut to a close-up of a thoughtful Jo.
"Well...I want the money, but I'm not really comfortable with how this is set up," Jo said to herself. "But...I guess it wouldn't be too bad if I just made this a little more challenging for them..."
"Do what you want," Scarlett said, the camera panning over to show her grinning darkly with her controller in hand. "I'm getting my justice."
Confessional: Jo
“And I thought I was an underhanded person,” Jo mentioned to herself. “Velma has less morals than me and Gnome Master.”
Confessional: Scarlett
"I was snubbed in the last episode," Scarlett confessed. "And now that I've been given permission, I can stop the finalists from winning without getting electrocuted!" She pulled out the remote from the seventh episode. "I don't even need this device. I have a controller to do the job for it."
Confessionals End
A few quick drum taps opened up a deep and dangerous challenge theme, the scene returning to Zee and Harold sprinting across the open field only to gape in shock as the pine trees in the background starting launching like rockets.
"What the heck?" Harold said. "Rocket trees?"
One landed right behind them, forcing both finalists to roll forward out of the way. "This island is wild!" Zee cried as the two continued running, more and more trees landing behind them like massive spears.
The two were shown together in a brief close-up, raising their eyebrows in surprise. A quick-pan ahead revealed the landscape changing, trees and rock formations rising up out of the artificial ground to form a large, dense barrier.
Harold jumped ahead of Zee as they climbed over the first big rock formation.
Zee vaulted downward and dashing forward along a lower 'path' among the rocks. Just as he was about to jump down onto grass, however, a boulder shot upward – and he landed on it groin-first. A close-up showed him letting out a high-pitched squeal of pain.
Harold's wince drew the camera's attention back upward to show him leaping from a boulder and grabbing onto the branch of a tree, only for the tree to suddenly shoot back down into the ground – causing him to yell as it dragged him down and slammed him back-first onto a fallen log.
Zee gave him a quick concerned glance as he jumped onto the same log, then upwards onto a rock formation before climbing onward and to the right and out of sight.
The scene cut back to the hinderers, both still working their controllers with Scarlett still looking considerably happier about it. "No need to change what works," Jo said uncertainty.
"What happened to that cutthroat attitude you've been displaying?" Scarlett asked. "Don't throw it away when I can get something out of it. And lower some of those trees. They're giving them too much cover from this storm I'm whipping up."
The camera panned onto the monitor to show Zee and Harold struggling against a powerful wind as they walked through what looked like a dense forest as leaves, dust, branches, and various small woodland animals blew past them.
A focus on the monitor's screen transitioned the scene back to the challenge. "I think...I can see the finish line in the distance," Zee said, pausing for a moment as he struggled against the intense gale.
"They're not making this easy on us," Harold commented.
The pair briefly passed behind a thick and mossy pine tree, the camera zooming in slightly as they reappeared. "Would you?" Zee asked.
"...I guess not," Harold answered after a moment.
The shot cut back to the Peanut Gallery to show them watching with worry and anticipation. "C'mon, Harold," Leshawna spoke. "Just hang in there."
"I know you can win this, Zee," Julia said. "You deserve it after everything."
Then the camera cut back to the hinderers, Chris standing next to their monitor with his hands behind his back and a smile on his face. "Ooh! They're getting close!" he said excitedly, prompting Scarlett to scowl and Jo to frown.
Once more the scene moved back to the finalists, their arms raised to buffer themselves against the winds – snow beginning to fall and lightning beginning to crack in the background - with Harold in the lead. "Two minutes left!" Chris called out over the island's loudspeaker. "Two minutes!"
"I...," Harold said with glee. "I think I can make it!"
"Not if I can help it!" Zee shouted, speeding up as the dense trees around him and Harold began to recede into the ground – and the tense and dangerous challenge music resumed. "If I win, me and Julia can go out and change the world together."
"I have to win this," Harold told him. "I've been undervalued and looked down on by my peers, friends, and even my family. I need to prove my might."
The snowy ground below their feet began to crack. A hollow sound played, then all at once, the ground shot up under them, earning startled yells from both. The shot soon cut to the new peak they were standing on rising up into the sky, then stopping.
"Drats..." Zee muttered, both finalists looking down with wide eyes. his final word echoed as the camera zoomed out, revealing the snowy mountain they were now at the top of.
The Peanut Gallery was shown gasping, as were Jo, though Scarlett was smiling as their misfortune. "Twenty seconds left...!" Chris said as the camera moved on to him looking at his watch.
The shot cut back to Harold. "I guess it's over," he sighed. “Scarlett wins after all.”
Zee noticed a bulge in the snow beside him. The boy shoved his hand into it and pulled out the phone Duncan stole from Chris. "I don't know how this got here, but we have to get down. Start stomping the ground."
Harold nodded and stomped on the ground at his feet, and after a few cracks, Zee hurled the phone down, breaking the device apart. Their eyes widened as the mountain began to crumble under them, and the ground imploded in on itself.
"Six! Five!" Chris began to count off, the music cutting out save for a single plodding note to highlight each number. "Four!" The camera panned onto the television, showing both finalists tumbling through the snow and rock. "Three! Two! One!" The shot cut to the finish banner, then zoomed out to show the avalanche stopping just under it – with neither finalist in sight. "GAME OVER!" he announced, blowing on his airhorn as a subdued but triumphant riff played.
Jo stood up in surprise, and Scarlett started cheering.
"My mission was a success!" Scarlett said in victory. “Now hand over my well-deserved prize!”
"Congratulations Jo and Scarlett," Chris said with his usual smile. "Revenge is sweetest-" he glanced at the monitor- "ohhhhh, what have we here?" he said with a sudden look of shock, the music cutting out as he pointed at the television screen.
A sharp note played as a familiar hand stuck out of the snow lying just past the finish line and waved. Scarlett's jaw dropped in shock, and Jo let out a sigh of relief.
The scene cut to the finish line, the camera pulling back a little ways as Chef walked up with a stretcher, dressed as a female nurse. Leshawna ran onscreen and pushed him out of the way. Chef flew off frame with a shout, and Leshawna grabbed the arm and pulled, freeing a shocked and snowy Harold from the aftermath of the avalanche. "Oh," he groaned, looking around as Leshawna dropped him on the stretcher, "what happened?" he asked as the victorious music began to play again with much more enthusiasm.
"You won, Ginger Baby!" Leshawna answered with a smile, the camera pulling out even more to show Harold looking back at the finish banner.
"I did it!" Harold said excitedly. "Harold Norbert Cheever Doris McGrady V has claimed victory! Boo yah!" he raised his arms and cheered, the shot cutting away to show all of the Peanut Gallery cheering.
“We weren't able to talk to each other as much, and it's clear we like each other as more than just friends, but how about we hang out a little bit back home and see where things go?” Leshawna suggested.
“As long as we don't rush into a committed relationship, I'd like that,” Harold smiled back.
The camera panned to the left to show Julia frantically pulling a dazed and half-conscious Zee from the rest of the avalanche, and picking him up onto her back.
"Julia," Zee said weakly, "I'm sorry that I-"
"Be quiet," Julia said with a weak smile as she carried her boyfriend over to the stretcher and set him down next to Harold. "You need to rest."
"But-" Zee tried to say.
He was cut off by Julia grabbing his head and kissing him full on the lips. "You didn’t win the money, but we can still provide for the world in our own ways, and with the power of love," she said with a smile as she broke the kiss, leaving Zee looking dopey.
The capstone theme began to play as the footage skipped ahead to a shot of the open sky, the double-rotored helicopter soon flying up into view. "That's it for this very, very off season," Chris began, standing in the open doorway with Zee and Julia sitting on the edge letting their legs dangle freely with Julia leaning into Zee; Harold and Scarlett standing on either side of Chris, the latter annoyed and the former grinning while holding the suitcase full of money to his chest; and the rest of the cast, crouching down and peering over in the gaps between and behind the rest, constantly jockeying for position as they tried to get one last shot of themselves on camera.
"This is Chris McLean, saying if you can't stand the pain-" the handsome host continued, the shot cutting in closer- "stay off the Total! Drama! Paaaahkitew Island!"
"RE-VENGE!" Max suddenly yelled from behind Scarlett, shoving her out of the helicopter, and the brainiac screamed as she fell.
The camera lingered on the dumbfounded looks of Chris and the other ex-campers, all of them staring at Max in shock. "This is how a traitor should be rewarded," he said, crossing his arms and closing his eyes defiantly.
The ex-campers and host burst out laughing, and a fun and energetic tune started to play. The camera panned over to the windshield to show Chef laughing along with the rest of the cast from the pilot's seat, and the helicopter flew away.
The music soon faded away, though, and the scene quick-panned down to show a screaming Scarlett landing in the giant mud puddle. She quickly surfaced with a shocked splutter, and pulled herself out onto dry land. "How am I going to get home now because of those imbeciles?!"
A few ominous notes were struck, and a ferocious growl caught Scarlett's attention. She looked up, and the camera zoomed out to show Scuba Bear 2.0 standing over her, eyes red. "Heheh," the brainiac laughed nervously. "You're not going to hurt me are you?"
The scene abruptly cut outward to the full long-distance shot of the island, the ominous music ending as Scarlett's scream and Scuba Bear's snarl echoed across the lake.
(Roll the Credits)
Lightning - 14th
DJ - 13th
Amy - 12th
B - 11th
Julia - 10th
Max - 9th
Leshawna - 8th
MERGE
Jo - 7th
Duncan - 6th
Ella - 5th
Sammy - 4th
Scarlett - 3rd
Zee - 2nd
Harold - 1st

My hardest so far, I heard about the 80k shinobi plot hole.
But I will try to answer it. This took me a lot of research because I needed to have the right panels to justify my explanation.
First, let's talk about the number of graduates in Konoha for each year. The number is actually 54.
https://meo3.comick.pictures/17-8UB7tuixMkTbk.jpg
The first image of this panel shows that there are three rows of benches in the classroom and each bench has three students. 3x 3= 9 per row. Since there are three rows. 9 x 3 = 27. So 27 students or so in Iruka's classroom.
Here we can see that Iruka and Mizuki are both teachers in charge of the Academy. Implying that Mizuki also has a classroom of 27 students.
https://meo3.comick.pictures/18-23HJz8HscZo65.jpg
Since Naruto is the only student who failed this year, we can assume that all the kids in the academy generally pass the exam. Meaning each year Konoha train at least 54 genins. Also this is a low estimate.
The fandom misconception is that the konoha 9 are the only one who became genins. While the characteristic of the Konoha 9 is that they were among the few new graduates who tried to be chunins.
Read Chapter 1 again and you will find a lot of other students in the panels https://comick.io/comic/00-naruto-digital-colored-comics/wq4Zw-chapter-1-en You can also see a lot of chunins/jonins we never met later in this chapter.
I can make it high estimate by adding this panel when Sasuke was a kid, where we see the first enrollment of kids https://meo.comick.pictures/1-fb1HN_rforJNw.jpg
You can count 77 kids.
And three adult behind Hiruzen, probably their professors.
Chapter 221 https://comick.io/comic/00-naruto-digital-colored-comics/RJ40O-chapter-221-en
My assumption from all this, is that we have to go for a high estimate of at least three classrooms each having around 27 students, meaning Konoha have 81 graduates every year.
Now in Part 2 of Naruto, the oldest active Shinobis we know outside of Hiruzen and Danzo, are the three sanins who I assume still graduated at 12, so 42 + 12= 54, which is Jiraya's age in part two. So 42 years ago Jiraya's generation graduated
So low estimate means that Konoha had around 80 graduates every year for 42 years. 42 x 80 = 3.360 genins. Among this we could argue that half managed to become chunin in part two. And maybe 1/5 jonin.
Also I think there can be genins who might not go through the academy. Since we saw that Jiraya for example trained kids in Ame, I would assume that there could be more shinobis who were trained through a different path because they were needed or showed talents later.
Now people could argue that a lot of them died during the last wars, kyubi attack and alike. That is true but I assume that during wars and after them, there is likely a draft to fill in the ranks, and more shinobis are trained in an unconventional way that is not the academy.
And we don't see the death of many high ranking chunins and jonins in the wars we see. Seems like genins are the most likely to die. Chunin already survived very difficult test such as the death forest. We know that a lot of genins are sent like with the case of Obito and Rin. Jonins are top elite.
We can agree that the 5 shinobi villages have an equivalent man power.
So I simplify to 3400 x 5 = 17 k Shinobis trained by the 5 shinobi villages in the past 42 years. This is still a low estimate kinda.
We can Assume that the Samurai aligned the same number of men. Potentially leading the alliance to have 20k troops trained properly. With around 3k of them being samurai
I assume that a lot of Shinobis are sent in other villages and towns of the country in which their villages are. A lot of them are likely genins too, meaning they can deal with crimes not directly involving high level shinobis like dangerous criminals. Some of them might have retired already.
I will add to this a class that likely exist in which are group of non shinobis who are trained by shinobis. Like some sort of pseudo genins. Since ninjas training can still be useful for military purpose even if someone cannot mold chakra. What lead me to believe this, is this panel during the search for sasuke.
https://meo3.comick.pictures/4-EZqtmwNhCtW7g.jpg You can see two people in this panel who walk by sakura and who have the backpacks typical of Shinobis where they store their weapons. I would assume that hidden villages might train militias made up of normal people who don't know ninjutsu, but who are taught taijutsu and bukijutsu(weaponry). This could be a request from the Lord of the Land and people running villages or towns. I don't think any of those two are affiliated to Konoha. I won't assume the number of these hypothetical militias
https://comick.io/comic/00-naruto-digital-colored-comics/QG3LG-chapter-356-en
Decommissioned shinobi : https://meo.comick.pictures/11-_EWRAQYg6Fuab.jpg Met by Jiraya and Naruto when they were looking for Tsunade.
Also since this is a shinobi alliance, I would assume that the other smaller villages send their troops too. As you can read here they are affected by the war
https://meo.comick.pictures/16-bBV9JLmbx3iCB.jpg In this panel you can see that the Shinobi alliance share intel with other Hidden Villages. We can also count maybe around 10 of them on the map.
So I assume they could add 1/4 more men. Since they seems to be around 5times smaller than the five big nations. I assume that together they could draft up to 1/4 of the 5 nations military. So 5k
20k + 5k = 25k
25k is enough for the Shinobi world in its entirety. Since they were fighting zetsus, who are not even genin level, zetsus have no jutsus other than camouflage.
So a non shinobi trained in taijutsu and weaponry would be enough to fight zetsus.
The rest of the 55k are all drafted people from all the villages, who received a quick training. I assume this because we have some evidence of that, which is that Kabuto's brother who I think is not a shinobi was involved in the war. But he could be one tho. https://meo.comick.pictures/14-zd6L13LcyQKIb.jpg
https://meo3.comick.pictures/15-ISmPUfVO-LBfv.jpg
Maybe he is a shinobi but I don't think he is.
But it's important to understand that irl armies can have 10 times their size in times of war through drafts. Here the shinobi alliance only had to draft 3 times its size.
Half of these 40k died the first day. Knowing that Edo tensei where the only true shinobi on the enemy side and they were few of them, maybe 100 or 200 of them ?
Most of the fights where between drafted people with kunai and basic ninja training versus zetsus, explaining these high casualties, basically a full on war of the Kunai.
People say kunai's don't kill people !!! They likely killed 40k people + 50k zetsu !
The Kunai Strike !!!!
Here is my take

TLDR; “Very average medical student, unimpressive standardized exam taker, no-higher than low 60s on NBME Forms, UWorld for only 3 weeks, no FA or Anking and minimal resources, 30 year old dad, passes Step 1, so there’s hope for everyone!”
Got my PASS this Wednesday, 05/15 and just figured I’d share my study experience with everyone as a very average medical student that barely made higher than 60 on the NBME. I really appreciated reading the reddit success stories from students with similar NBME scores as me, so I figured I’d pass that on to anyone who hasn’t taken it yet, or is a retake coming up, or for future cohorts.
For some extra context, I’m a “non-traditional” student, a 30 year old single dad with an old tired brain, US Marine Veteran, who also worked part-time all through med school just to afford it, and thus also couldn’t afford multiple study resources. Here’s a quick USMC joke just so you get an idea of my academic ability: “A Marine was shot through the head, no major vital organs were hit”..totally kidding but seriously, I’m no academic stud, I was a high C low B student in our med school exams and scored an unimpressive 505 on the MCAT.
Here are my practice test scores:
AMBOSS Free Practice Test – 37 (Abysmal I know, but we were midway through Heme-Onc and hadn’t done EBM yet in my school program and I had not reviewed any past modules yet)
NBME 25 – 48.. this was my baseline
NBME 31 – 54
NBME 26 – 60
NBME 29 – 60
NBMe 27 + 28 – 61
NBME 26 ( Retake) 74
New Free 120 – 61
Real thing - Pass
Study Strategy:
I started out doing 3 sets of 40 AMBOSS, any-topic Qs a day, I’d do 40, then review each section, making anki cards as needed. I quickly found out that I was consistently weak on certain topics, particularly: Cardiology (especially the “carditis’”, inborn/glycogen/lysosomal storage, PTH and Vitamin D arrow kinda stuff, and pulm V/Q, shunt etc physiology). My 2^nd NBME (Form 31) confirmed this, so I switched to doing focused questions on those topic areas, watching the B&B/Pathoma videos for those over and over until I knew them cold.
I tried to take an NBME each week and made anki cards for concepts I both missed or got correct, just in case that was a fluke. I ended up retaking my highest scoring one (form 26) without having reviewed it or doing my anki cards for it yet, just to see if my study efforts in my weak areas was helping and I ended up making a 74 on that.
2 weeks out I took NBME 27 and 28 pretty much back to back mainly to get exposed to the typical NBME content and make sure my results were consistent. I scored a 61 on both. I know that’s considered borderline and blah blah, but I felt ok with it because I saw I was getting a lot of the “HY” stuff right and missing the weird, abstract questions. Also, I had yet to do focused study on heme-onc, micro and EBM which I was saving for the last week. Since micro especially is highly testable and also very memorization heavy I wanted that to be freshest on my mind on test day. Lastly, my Physiology and Pathology sub-section scores, the biggest content areas of the exam, were 70 or so both times so that helped my confidence.
1 week out, I started to scale back on practice questions, shortening my blocks to 10 questions at a time, trying to save what few brain cells I had left. My strategy was still, 30-40 or so questions of focused content and a similar amount of comprehensive questions.
2 days out, I took just one section of the Old Free 120 (again to save brain power) and scored an 87 on it, I was also now consistently scoring above the median line, or 80s-90s on my UWorld all topics included question sets.
The night before, I read a pdf on USMLE ethics that some other med student made back in the day, which I found by googling, apparently, it’s better for Step 2 but the random scenarios it covered were helpful. I tried to find it to add the link to this post but couldn’t. If I do, I’ll add it to the comments.
Actual test day experience:
I was well rested and calm and honestly felt like it wasn’t too bad. 4 blocks went by and I wasn’t too drained yet. My 5^th and 6^th blocks were tougher as the fatigue hit. 7^th block was ok. I’d also look up content I remembered from the previous block that I was shaky on and it helped my confidence to see that I had gotten most of those correct. I took a break each block and then one long-is 30 min break after block 5.
I never had a problem with time with UWorld or NBME forms so I wasn’t stressed about that. Finished each block with 10 minutes or so to spare which added to my break time.
My main mindset in the exam was: “Ignore the exhaustion, ready every word closely, you cannot afford to give up or be tired and skim read and then make silly mistakes”.
I’ve heard lots of complaints about an ethics heavy exam but that was not my personal experience, so I guess I didn’t get that version. I thought mine was a pretty decent spread of topics, a real equal opportunity provider of misery.
I may catch flak for this but I can honestly say that I felt like the real thing was “easier” than the NBME forms.
Here's the resources I did/didn’t use:
Used: AMBOSS (especially the Top 200 Highly Tested Concepts and the Anatomy Illustrated Quizzes), B&B, some Pixorize, UWorld for the last 3 weeks (the basic version with no practice tests), Pathoma, Dirty Medicine YT for certain topics. B&B was basically my medical school teacher and a big part of my Step 1 success.
Did not use: First Aid (I tried so hard to use since so many swear by it, but I just can’t learn from reading), Anking decks, Sketchy (couldn’t afford it), and like I said earlier, only bought a 30 day subscription to UWorld.
Videos I found particularly helpful:

• B&B: Basically everything, but especially the vids on T Cell, Glycogen Synth, Inborn Errors of Metabolism, and Phenylalanine synthesis I think are very very good and helpful with learning these highly testable areas.

- Pathoma videos on 1-3 like everyone always says but also the liver pathology, PTH and nephritic/nephrotic syndrome stuff were great for me.
- AMBOSS has links to Physeo videos on lysosomal storage disorders which is excellent, (for some reason USMLE loves I Cell disease).
- Pixorize videos on vasculitides, nephrotic/nephritic syndromes
- Dirty Medicine for heme synth, CAH, and parasites is great.
Final thoughts:
I sat for the exam having scored no higher than a 61 on NBME forms which is supposedly a huge risk of failing because I was absolutely drained, over it, and I actually got randomly physically sick for 2 days or so toward the end of my dedicated study which I attribute to the stress of the whole thing. Also, at my school, any further delay would’ve pushed my clerkships back and I wasn’t about to do that. I felt like I was fully saturated with this content and couldn’t do more than I had already done.
I don’t know why Step 1 is such a toxic experience that puts people through so much stress and misery.
The wait was hell for 2 weeks or so, made worse by a week's delay in score release. I’m in my surgery clerkship now and that is bad enough so finally I just said fuck it, I’m going to focus on the clerkship and studying for the surgery shelf and forget about Step 1, and that helped me relax a little better.
I was scrubbed in on a case and knew that little email would be on my phone when we got done. I was very nervous pulling open that report but also weirdly confident that I’d see “PASS”..I saw PASS and was of course relieved. It’s very nice to have this awful exam over with and not have to re-study, re-pay the high resource/testing cost and just move on with clerkships and shelfs.
Thanks for reading, hope this helps someone. Good luck to you all, now go get this horrible exam over with, you got this! Happy to answer specific questions in comments or DMs.

If you're new to matched betting you can easily make up to £1000 fairly quickly, and regular matched-bettors often report earning £100+ per month regularly.
If you don't want to read this guide, a paid-for matched betting site will gives you all the tools and step-by-step guides you need to start making money.
____________________________________________
Q&A
What is matched betting? How does it work?

Matched betting takes advantage of betting website special offers in a way that locks in a profit. Very simply, bookmakers give out free bonuses and have special offers to attract customers (new and existing).
By using the matched betting technique, you can take advantage of these and lock in a profit. You will place a bet with the bookmaker and place a bet on the result ‘not to happen’ on an 'exchange' which covers all possibilities. You’ll lose a few pennies on this bet but you’ll become eligible for the bonus, which you lock in again and receive most of the value of that bonus – as pure profit.
Read the bottom section of this guide for an example.

How do I get started?

I made the mistake of wanting to read all the information I could find, on every website, before I got going. I never got around to doing that and therefore missed out on getting into this years ago.
____________________________________________
The simplest way to start is to sign up to a free trial with a service like Oddsmonkey.
____________________________________________
A similar site is Outplayed which also offers a free trial.
I'd recommend Oddsmonkey due to them having an exclusive 0% fee deal with Smarkets. This will save you some money for every bet you make and you won't get this with Outplayed!
They give you step by step instructions, explain how it all works, the terminology and everything else.
There are also free sites which aim to give you useful information but the above sites are comprehensive, easy to navigate and can answer all your questions.
A free trial will guide you to earning around £40 profit by showing you two offers. You can then decide to continue your subscription if you want.
Both sites cost £29.99/month for sports offers only (no casino offers), or £49.99 with access to casino offers.
You will cover the subscription cost after doing one or two sign up offers - I've found that the subscription pays for itself and is worthwhile.
____________________________________________
My advice – start with a free trial on Oddsmonkey by clicking on this link and take it from there.
____________________________________________
Another thing to look out for - there are often better sign up offers available elsewhere on the internet or through GPT sites, as u/TightAsF_ck likes to point out.

When is the best time to start?

There’s no time like the present.
The earlier you start, the quicker you’ll start making money, it’s as simple as that.

Is it too late to start? Is the party over?

You may hear people say the best time to do this has passed and there’s not as many offers as there used to be. This is somewhat true. Several years ago the offers were more lucrative, however the party is by no means over. I signed up at the end of 2020 when people were saying the same thing and there’s still hundreds of offers to do. I made £500-£600 a month when I started and I’ve made a few £k since starting.

How much money do I need to start with?

Roughly £100 will allow you to place the first qualifying bet (often £10 or £20) and lay the bet on the exchange (could also be around £20 depending on the odds) and will also leave you with enough to place the free bet and lay it on the exchange.
I started off with about £100, then when I saw how much money I was making, I committed about £300. The more you can put in, the quicker you will make money. You can start off with a very minimum of £50 but if you have £100-200 spare to use to begin with, you will make money a lot quicker.
Once you place a bet the money is tied up in that bet until the event is over, so with a smaller ‘bankroll’ it takes longer to do offers. If you can commit more money to the exchange, eg £100-200, that will allow you to place more bets simultaneously.

How much time do I need to commit?

In the first few months I did this, I spent about 3-4 hours a day. I was making about £500 a month at that time. Now I spend a few minutes a day, netting me about £100 a month. This may not sound like a lot of money but for the time and effort, I’m happy with it.
After a week or two you’ll be really familiar with placing bets and will be able to speed things up and crack through offers fast.

Can I lose money?

If you don’t follow instructions, there is that risk. But do it right, be careful to double check the numbers, and you’ll be fine. It is not free from risk.
Pay attention! You are using real money, so if you make a mistake you can lose it. Spend time checking your bets.

This sounds like gambling. Is it?

Matched betting is NOT gambling but don't try it if you have had problems with gambling before, as you may be tempted to gamble. Please read this warning post. You will be placing bets and using betting sites a lot, so the temptation could be there, but if you follow the instructions and the process, you will never be gambling as you will be locking in your bets and be covering all outcomes.

How much money will I make?

Doing all the welcome offers can net you more than £1000. Personally, having done pretty much all the welcome offers, I spend only a few minutes every day doing a few offers and have been averaging £100 a month. That’s really easy. If you spend a bit more time on it, you can easily make a few hundred pounds a month. It all depends on the offers you do and on how much time, money and effort you put in.

What free daily games are there?

There are also daily free games on many sites which will make a little extra easy free money.
Some of these are Betfair, Coral, Gamesys Group sites (Double Bubble Bingo, Jackpotjoy, Megaways Casino, Monopoly Casino, Rainbow Riches Casino, Virgin Games), Ladbrokes, Sky Vegas, Virgin Bet, Livescore Bet, William Hill.
If you don’t play the Gamesys Group games and don’t log in to the sites for a while, you may find a nice offer emailed to you to entice you back, which you can take advantage of and lock in a profit.

How can I keep track of so many bets?

Some of the websites like Oddsmonkey/Outplayed have tools to help you track your profits but the best spreadsheet I’ve found is this one. I’ve used it since I started to track every penny that I’ve put in, withdrawn or bet. It helps you see where all your money is and ensures you won’t forget about money in any account.

Should I create a separate bank account?

You don’t have to but I did and most people do. People find it easier to keep the transactions on a separate account. I use a Metro bank account that is dedicated to matched betting – it also helps with keeping track of profits. Lots of people use Monzo as it's a great app and is friendly towards gambling sites.

How do I keep making money?

Take every single offer you can. Even if the profit is a few pounds or less than a pound. Once you are proficient it takes a few seconds to place a bet and all the profit adds up quickly. If you skip offers because they’re not high value, you’re missing out on free money.
Spend time on the forums of Oddsmonkey or Outplayed and snap up offers when people post them.
Eventually you will get gubbed – this is part of life as a matched bettor. There’s no knowing when this will happen, different sites act differently. You could keep going for a few years and keep the best sites for all that time, or some could get gubbed quicker.
Join some of the many Facebook groups for more tips and to get answers to any of your questions.

What does ‘gubbed’ mean?

If the betting sites are not making money from you or you are taking too much value, they may limit the amount you can put on bets or they may exclude you from promotional offers. This happens to everyone eventually.
Oddsmonkey/Outplayed and other sites explain ways to try to prevent this, or slow it down. One way is not to take really highly matched bets (eg 99%) but there’s no science to it really.

Top tips for new starters:

1 - Log everything in a spreadsheet.
2 - Create a separate email address.
3 - Use a password manager (Lastpass, Bitwarden etc) to log all your login details.
4 - Don’t do accas (accumulator bets with multiple legs) until you’re confident in placing single bets.
5 - Read all instructions carefully.
6 - Go slow. If you rush you can make mistakes. Once you’ve got the hang of it, you’ll naturally speed up.
7 - Sign up to receive promotional emails and do the offers they send.
8 - Do every offer you can – but try not to get gubbed too quickly!

____________________________________________
My personal experience:
I started the journey in November 2020 and have made a few thousand pounds in total. When I started I committed a few hours a day in the beginning, doing every single sign up offer. I was making a few hundred pounds profit a month. Then I moved into reloads, making a similar amount of money. Eventually I couldn’t commit as much time and got gubbed from some key accounts that I abused too much. Now I spend a few minutes every few days, placing every bet I can for every offer I see and make around £100 a month which for me is a nice bit of extra beer money for not very much effort.
____________________________________________
How It Works:
A simple example – Bet £10, get a £10 free bet:

Let’s use a football match between Team A and Team B.
You place a bet on Team A to win with the bookmaker.
You then go to an exchange (eg Betfair Exchange, Smarkets or Matchbook) and place a bet against Team A winning (called a lay bet).
If Team A wins, you win at the bookmaker but lose at the exchange.
If Team A doesn’t win (draws or loses), you lose the bet at the bookmaker but win on the exchange.
Doing this for a £10 bet may lose you around £0.30.
Now you’ll have received a free bet as part of the offer. Place another bet in a similar fashion.
Once the event is over, you will get around £8 back from the free bet, because you’ve covered both scenarios (Team A wins or Team A doesn’t win). Either way you come out a winner and take the £8 as pure profit.

• Using sites like Oddsmonkey/Outplayed help you to find closely matched bets.
• The way an Exchange works is that effectively you act as the bookmaker. Use the free calculators on - Oddsmonkey/Outplayed which tell you exactly what to do, how much to bet and what your profit will be.
• Once you open accounts with the bookmakers they will start sending you offers. Some of these can be very profitable and they could be free bets or bet and get offers.
• Another type of offer is Refunds. An example is ‘money back as cash if your horse comes 2nd/3rd’ – for this you place a bet on a horse and get your money back if it loses. You lay this offer on the exchange as well to lock in profit whatever the result.
• Bookies also have lots of boosted odds. You can make a few pounds on these by laying the bet on the exchange at favourable odds to lock in a profit regardless of the outcome of the event. These ones are really simple.
• For the more advanced users there’s 2ups and extra places too.
• Casino offers are another good source of money making.

Types of offers – some examples:

Bet & Get – eg place a £5 bet, get a £5 free bet
Bet Boosts – enhanced odds that can be laid on an exchange to lock in profit
Money back if 2nd/3rd/4th– place a bet on a horse race and get your money refunded or a free bet if your horse comes in 2nd/3rd/4th place
Free spins – exactly as it sounds, free spins on casino games
Bet club – place X number of bets or X value of bets per week, receive a free bet
Deposit X, receive X – deposit funds (sometimes with entering a code) and get a bonus

That's it! If you've made it this far, thanks for reading and throw your questions below.
​
^{Oddsmonkey non-ref link
Outplayed non-ref link}

I’ve got infinite free practice questions! Here’s an example of the output from the AI:
Which type of investor must have a net worth of $1,000,000 excluding their primary residence or an annual income of $200,000 ($300,000 if married) in each of the last two years?
A. Institutional Investor B. Retail Investor C. Accredited Investor D. Qualified Institutional Buyer
Answer: C. Accredited Investor Explanation: Accredited investors are defined based on regulatory definitions. Individuals must have a net worth of at least $1,000,000, excluding their primary residence, or an annual income of $200,000 ($300,000 for married couples)
Want to learn more about PIPES? I asked for 10 practice questions from Section 1.1 of Kaplan book regarding PIPES. Here’s the output:
Here are 10 practice exam multiple-choice questions about PIPES (Private Investment in Public Equity) based on section 1.1 of the provided SIE Kaplan book:

1. What does the acronym PIPES stand for?
   
   • A. Public Investment in Private Equity
   • B. Private Investment in Public Equity
   • C. Primary Investment in Public Equity
   • D. Private Investment in Private Equity
   • Correct Answer: B. Private Investment in Public Equity
2. In a PIPES transaction, who typically invests in the company's publicly traded stock?
   
   • A. Retail investors
   • B. Accredited investors
   • C. Government entities
   • D. Institutional investors
   • Correct Answer: D. Institutional investors
3. Which document must companies file with the SEC when raising capital through a nonpublic offering under Regulation D?
   
   • A. Form S-1
   • B. Form 10-K
   • C. Form D
   • D. Form 8-K
   • Correct Answer: C. Form D
4. What is one key characteristic of private placement stock?
   
   • A. It is freely tradable on the open market.
   • B. It must be registered with the SEC.
   • C. It is restricted and often carries a legend.
   • D. It is exempt from all federal regulations.
   • Correct Answer: C. It is restricted and often carries a legend.
5. Under Regulation D, what is the maximum number of nonaccredited investors allowed in a private placement?
   
   • A. 10
   • B. 25
   • C. 35
   • D. 50
   • Correct Answer: C. 35
6. Which rule under Regulation D allows for general solicitation and advertising of private placements?
   
   • A. Rule 504
   • B. Rule 505
   • C. Rule 506(b)
   • D. Rule 506(c)
   • Correct Answer: D. Rule 506(c)
7. What is required for a business to solicit or advertise its private placement under Rule 506(c)?
   
   • A. All purchasers must be accredited investors.
   • B. The offering must be registered with the SEC.
   • C. There is no need to verify investor accreditation.
   • D. The offering must be limited to nonaccredited investors.
   • Correct Answer: A. All purchasers must be accredited investors.
8. Why might a company choose to use a PIPES transaction?
   
   • A. To raise capital quickly without public disclosure requirements.
   • B. To avoid SEC registration entirely.
   • C. To offer securities to retail investors.
   • D. To comply with all public offering regulations.
   • Correct Answer: A. To raise capital quickly without public disclosure requirements.
9. What type of investor typically participates in a PIPES offering?
   
   • A. Individual retail investors
   • B. High-net-worth individuals and institutional investors
   • C. Government bodies
   • D. Nonprofit organizations
   • Correct Answer: B. High-net-worth individuals and institutional investors
10. What term is used to describe the documentation that includes the terms and conditions of a private placement?
    
    • A. Prospectus
    • B. Offering Circular
    • C. Annual Report
    • D. SEC Filing
    • Correct Answer: B. Offering Circular

These questions cover the fundamental aspects of PIPES as mentioned in section 1.1 of the SIE Kaplan book .

Hello, everyone! It's been a while since I posted anything or even visited the sub. I do not visit the sub anymore as I collected all the information I needed long ago and staying on the sub only led to more thinking about flox. Focusing on other areas of life has been a great life hack for me! I have done a lot of positive things in the past half a year - I am starting my own business, been meeting new people and making a lot of new friends. Flox has changed me for the better.
I want to preface this by saying that I was probably the only person (or almost only as I've met maybe 1 or 2 other people on Reddit) who claimed flares from CoQ10. It actually flared me quite a lot — sometimes I could handle 100mg and sometimes even 30mg would lead to terrible pain. It was frightening to be one of the rarest cases in a pool of already rare cases, so, naturally, I tracked reactions to supplements extremely attentively (u/vadroqvertical won’t let me lie about that) and I have tried a lot (my cupboard is full of supplements — I spent around €3,500 on them in the span of 1.5 years). I will list reactions to supplements and the approximate timeline of when it happened:
— First of all, CoQ10/Ubiquinol flared me not so much 1 month out (tried 100mg ubiquinol multiple times) but it got worse as time went on to the point that April 2023 I could not even take 30mg without great pain. I tried it 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 16 months out all without luck with varying doses flaring me to different extents. I will outline the reasons for it below;
— Vitamin E flared me a lot 2, 4, 6 and 8 months out. Never tried again. Tried 200-400 IU at a time. Due to poor GSH regeneration through Glutathione Reductase dependent upon B2 and NADPH;
— Benfothiamine flared me as well (doses 150mg-300mg/day). This is due to high sulphite and blockage of complex IV of the Electron Transport Chain in the mitochondria the reason for I will explain further. Thiamine is easily broken down by sulphite in the body and it is broken down into sulphite as well, which causes a negative loop reaction in people with high sulphite levels. Benfothiamine also caused me a severe allergic reaction (extreme anxiety and itching) that gladly did not require hospitalisation but was extremely scary and scarred me psychologically (likely high sulfocysteine activated NMDA receptors);
— Vitamin B6 increased my neuropathy when I got it. Likely due to poor B2 functional status. The problem I was also deficient in B6 and its supplementation led to great improvements in sleep quality once I could tolerate it. Note B6 is easily destroyed by sulphite just like B1;
— Riboflavin flared me (tried at 100mg, doses under 10mg never flared me). This is likely due to unmatched NADPH supply due to high sulphite load in the body (speculative);
— Astaxanthin greatly improved my physical health at 5-6 months out (proving that the core of my issues was solely ROS) but it caused reductive stress (NADH accumulation), which also caused pain, albeit the pain was a different kind and asta caused worsening neuropathy and visual snow. It accumulates in fat tissue, so stopping it was nice with ROS coming to a balance at about 10-12 days after discontinuation (after a loading dose of 36mg/daily for 3.5 weeks) but ROS then came back after it went out of the body further. I did not retry astaxanthin as I realised it caused me reductive stress and neurological issues;
— NAC helped me a damn lot. It was the best antioxidant for me. The problem is it depleted my molybdenum and copper and started giving me allergic reactions (low molybdenum + copper as well as blocked complex IV will lead to way higher sulphite generated from NAC);
— Did not feel much from vitamin D. I live in a very sunny country and tested at 51 (ref. Range 30+) without any supplements;
— Magnesium helped me a lot. #1 supplement;
— Calcium did not help me much in the beginning, actually, caused me heart palpitations. Was fine taking it after a few months;
— Potassium was a good supplement. I took 800mg/day for a while and it supported my muscle health;
— Important: vitamin B5 made me feel a lot better. It took my ROS down like crazy — I could feel normal muscles again, it removed my oxalate pain completely, too but for only a short while like 3-4h.
I have tried many more supplements that were phyto-supplements and such and none of them really helped me beside maybe some placebo effects. Some made me feel worse and were not worth it at all. I did not try anything mood-changing as I was not interested in it. To note, GABA supplement made me feel a little euphoric at first.
It is very relevant that I have been oxalate dumping since 27 Dec. 2023. The description of the experience can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/floxies/comments/1by0uh0/comment/kyma718/
Now, to the real question: why did CoQ10 flare me even at high nutrient status (just after flox). I have to stress that flares from CoQ10 were much less at the beginning of flox likely due to better nutrient status (it went from extremely terrible to slightly more extremely terrible while 6 months out it went from ‘eh’ to terrible).

1. First, I have to say that NAC made me worse long-term. How? Over a long period of time I was taking it and was not watching my copper levels (NAC increases metallothionein and causes poor copper absorption) and molybdenum levels (NAC raises generation of sulfite and it needs molybdenum to be detoxified). Some NAC formulations have molybdenum in them but I was not lucky to get one of those and, due to lack of knowledge, did not supplement any molybdenum. The result was high sulphite and from that high ROS (with a combo of benfo which further increased sulphite it caused me peripheral neuropathy at 5 months). Sulphite causes Fenton reactions when complex IV gets blocked up. H2S (a signalling molecule and a vasodilator) also needs to be detoxified by a CoQ-10 dependent enzyme and turned later into sulphite and then sulphate by molybdenum and complex IV (dependent on copper) and if it is not detoxified, it causes a complex IV blockage and starts Fenton reactions as well as electron leakage during production of ATP, causing ROS. This causes a negative feedback loop that was described in the linked article as follows:

«This can be explained as follows:
1) hydrogen sulfide inhibition of complex IV generates superoxide in the respiratory chain, which becomes hydrogen peroxide,
2) hydrogen sulfide reduces ferric iron to ferrous iron, which makes it release from storage in ferritin,
3) this increases Fenton reactions between free iron and hydrogen peroxide, which generate more dangerous reactive oxygen species like the hydroxyl radical,
4) all of this deplete glutathione,
5) since a major purpose of the trans-sulfuration pathway is to provide enough cysteine to make glutathione, glutathione depletion hyperactivates the trans-sulfuration pathway, leading to more cysteine availability, the excess of which is catabolized to sulfite by alternative reactions that do not produce hydrogen sulfide and therefore do not require CoQ10.»

1. In the article linked below, you will see that CoQ-10 protects against reactive oxygen species mainly due to improving hydrogen sulphide clearance (H2S). Therefore, CoQ-10 deficiency did not cause much ROS in complexes I and II but mainly produced issues in Complex III (where sulphite detoxification starts) and complex IV (where the last electrons are delivered during the sulphite-sulphate reaction). Excerpt: «In human cells with CoQ10 synthesis defects from the same study, CoQ10 protected against reactive oxygen species, but suppressing the enzyme that uses CoQ10 to clear hydrogen sulfide abolished this effect. This shows that the reactive oxygen species were coming from poor hydrogen sulfide clearance.»

Considering this, and oh my god, finding this article was like god sent it to me: my CoQ10 flares were coming from poor hydrogen sulphide clearance. At that point there were multiple reasons this could be happening:

1. Cellular CoQ-10 deficiency;
   
2. Manganese toxicity;
   
3. Copper deficiency;
   
4. Molybdenum deficiency;
   
5. SUOX (enzyme which converts sulphite to sulphate) or another genetic impairment;
   
6. Blockage of complex IV by something else.
   

I checked my molybdenum and copper transporting genes, SUOX using DBSNP and my AncestryDNA.txt file, and they were all good (Yes, I know Ancestry does not do a full genomic profile but it still had the main SNPs for that.). I also checked my manganese transporter genes and seemed I was homozygous for an important one but fine with others. It is really hard to estimate how that might affect you IRL, perhaps that would require a real genetic counsellor (or lots of hours spent ruminating again). I also did not think I had any genetic issue since I was very very healthy all my life and had 0 pain or health issues before flox occurred (I have extremely healthy young looking parents that drink, smoke and do whatever they want and have 0 consequences to their health as well).
I took some tests, for example: Genova NutrEval at ~6 months out, full nutrient blood test panel at ~11 months out (abstained for 35 days from any supplements at all, even vitamins and tested literally everything, paid around €1,200) and my CoQ10 levels at both of those occurrences were at 1 & 1.07 in absence of supplementation with ref. Range 0.8-1.4, so it was definitely not low. That way I eliminated #1 and #5. While I was not entirely sure whether genetic issues had to do anything with it, I decided to pretend like they didn’t, since I had to try out other solutions before jumping to the most complex one. I took a lot of molybdenum, so molybdenum deficiency was not at the table for me. In this way I was left with #2, #3 and #6. In the full blood panel, my manganese was slightly high (20.1 with ref. Range <~18) and the SNP people were talking about that caused them manganese toxicity was homozygous for me, so I definitely considered it but manganese when supplemented made me a feel a lot better, actually (mentally, not physically), so I was also likely deficient in it. For now, I just avoid it in supplemental doses but I do not avoid foods containing it. Besides, I do not have iron overload genes that could contribute to manganese toxicity.
I could not take copper because it would lead to high ROS immediately (due to complex IV blockage the reasons for which I will outline further). Considering manganese was likely deficient and not superfluous, I discarded reason #2 and reason #3 could not be fixed by copper, so it was definitely not only copper deficiency but either another factor or another factor coupled with copper deficiency. I was stuck for a long time until I found another article from the same author about B12 and B9 helping to detoxify oxalate. As I said before all this explanation, I have been oxalate dumping throughout the whole process (already 4 months). I should note I was oxalate dumping even before I got floxed (I likely had oxalate overload to my appendix surgery — this is proven by inflamed mesenteric lymph nodes confirmed by 3 MRIs — Sally Norton has the same case of over-absorption in her book) and that is how I actually got the E. Coli they gave me Cipro for (oxalate crystals create a good environment for it in the urinary tract lol) and how I got floxed (I went full circle, lmao). When I was floxed, I was not oxalate dumping for at least a year likely because my body was not in the state to handle the dumping process but it was still affecting me as I will outline further. First of all, I want to say that biotin actually promoted dumping for me as said in the article and not relieved it like it is said in Sally Norton’s book (I am not sure if there is a genetic variation to this). The proposed mechanism of oxalate detoxification in the article is as follows:
«Recall my proposed two-step detoxification process:

1. Pyruvate carboxylase [biotin-dependent] converts oxalate to formate.
   
2. Formate is joined to tetrahydrofolate to enter the methylation cycle, be used for the synthesis of purines or DNA, or be converted to carbon dioxide and exhaled in the breath.»
   

This are also very important words: «There may be more regulation layered on top of this to prevent excessive formate accumulation. It would certainly be preferable to have oxalate crystals cause pain or disrupt the skin than to have formate accumulate beyond the capacity to clear it.» This is why I felt best when dumping. Could eat anything, drink beer, even smoked weed once without issue. Another time though I got too brave, smoked a lot of weed and got a very bad ‘relapse’ but recovered quickly from it. The next morning when using a towel after a shower I had the same pain I used to have 2.5 months out from Cipro (which was extremely bad and took me back 14 months in memories) while before I smoked weed that second time I had almost 0 tendon pain in my daily life apart from oxalate [Here I thought maybe I and DrHungry share similar issues then? He also had an extreme (same in intensity relatively to his flox journey) flare from weed and is also using a lot of sulphur-based antioxidants still. Could such weed flares be related to complex IV dysfunction and/or impaired sulphite clearance?]. In either case, I felt best when dumping, probably because my body was able to regulate formate accumulation and ROS production greatly reduced at those times.
I was sitting outside with my parents and their friends, researching my flox issue when I read these lines: «Formate accumulation is the principle mechanism of methanol toxicity. Part of its toxicity is driven by inhibiting cytochrome oxidase, complex IV of the mitochondrial respiratory chain, which would inhibit the clearance of sulfite and hydrogen sulfide and block the production of ATP.» It finally clicked. It was honestly one of the best moments in my life when I realised. I made the connection between great improvement from B5, formate accumulation, issues with copper supplementation, general ROS improvement and oxalate everything together. Suddenly, my whole flox journey became crystal clear to me.
B5 is mainly used in the body to create Coenzyme A. An intermediate molecule in the production of CoA is called 4’-phosphopantethine and is used in the enzyme 10-methyltetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase (high formate will pair with THF and form 10-MTHF in the attempt of the body to detoxify formate). This enzyme converts 10-MTHF back to THF and creates NADPH in the process which is used by Glutathione Reductase to regenerate Glutathione. Hence, high-dose B5 led to a lot of those reactions occurring and me feeling a big relief from ROS AND OXALATE, so oxalate is indeed detoxified into formate by biotin-dependent pyruvate carboxylase.
Okay, so theory is very interesting but what is theory if it has no proof? When I read it, I realised I finally cracked my flox but I had to get real proof.
Just a few weeks before this, I drank some wine and got nerve damage (likely from high sulphites in it, again, duh — while this was a terrible experience, it played a role in me getting closer to the solution of my issues). Beer caused me no issues, could drink 10 or more bottles in one sitting, eat a lot of rice with no issue. Before, I had only numb hands and top of feet. After the wine, I had burning up to the knee and burning in palms and behind my shoulders. I got fed up with this, I just decided to methylate the fuck out of my nerves and eat copper not in supplements but from calamari (very high in copper but low in vit A, so no toxicity risk like from liver). At that time, I was dumping and my ROS was not too high. I started consuming around 200g protein per day, eating a lot of copper 3-4mg/day and my nerves really healed a lot. To the point they even became normal after 3-4 days. My vision became brighter, it was absolutely crazy. I was also supplementing 150mg molybdenum/day. After a week of that, though, I started getting ROS back and it was very bad ROS, like almost a year ago when I had low molybdenum and copper from a lot of NAC use. That confirmed my suspicion that my issue was indeed sulphite. Eating almost anything caused ROS for me, dumping stopped since the body had no free reducing agents (NADPH) to support sulphate-producing enzymes (oxalate is transported on sulphate transporters, so it literally could not drive out of the cell because it had no car lol). As you understand, high ROS prevents a lot of enzymes from working and here it causes, as you have probably understood, a negative feedback loop.
So, back to the proof. Since I realised that my issue is probably formate, I just decided to take high-dose B5 again (did not add any high dose B2, B1 or other B vitamins, just took my usual B complex with food). It really helped me a lot, again. I felt almost normal. Then, it caused me some pain but I felt how I was getting better and the next day I took it in the day, then in the evening I ate around 80g carbs and took double the dose of B complex (my B complex has low doses: 10mg B1, 10mg B2, 25mg B3, 20mg B5, 5mg B6, 100mcg B7, 100mcg B9, 50mcg B12) instead of adding a lot of B5 and boom, no pain and oxalate dumping restarted quite more strongly than it even used to be before megadosing protein. So I was in pain for at least 2 weeks dying from ROS and then 2 days of B5 and suddenly I was normal again? It felt like paradise. The next day, I went out with my friends. I was a little nervous since we were going to eat out and we ordered 600g of carbonara (the portions here were huge there). I ate it all at once with 2x my light B complex and guess what happened? NO PAIN, just oxalate dumping. I finally realised that I was right and detoxified formate unloaded my complex IV, allowed sulphate transporters to be created, reduced ROS production from food and suddenly I felt like a normal human being (except the dumping part). I recently retried CoQ10 — no flare. Likely before formate got recreated a lot because I was dumping a lot (if you read my comment, you will understand).
I am not megadosing B5 right now but just stuck to 80-100mg B5 per day, so 4x my light B complex as my B6 tolerance improved a lot. Why I am not megadosing B5 is because oxalate likely blocks conversion of vitamin B2 into its active forms as I at ~11 months out when I did full-testing in the absence of supplementation 35 pre-testing had high molybdenum, iodine, (almost above the ref. Range (113 with ref. Range <120) selenium and very high B2 even though I was cellularly deficient according to Genova NutrEval (at 356 with ref. Range <295).
Hence, we can understand what happened to me from the beginning:

1. Oxalate overload led to formate overload as oxalate is converted to formate through the action of biotin-dependent pyruvate carboxylase;
   
2. Formate overload led to complex IV blockage, high ROS and high sulphite, which also leads to high ROS and also leads to complex IV blockage (negative feedback loop);
   
3. High sulphite destroys vitamins B1&B6 as said in the beginning, which caused endogenous production of oxalate to skyrocket (you can read about this if you google, this information is very available);
   
4. Hence sulphate transporters also got impaired, oxalate detoxification in the form of physical crystals also halted, which led to even higher overload;
   
5. This led to higher formate, this led to even more ROS.
   

Mega-dosing B vitamins and especially B5 and B9 led to formate detoxification and the ability of my body to detoxify oxalate. This improved me a lot and it definitely feels like it will inevitably lead to my recovery. I feel good now, I still have some remaining neuropathy but it’s minimal and I know what to avoid to not make it worse and how to improve it quickly if I need to. I have no OS from beer, coffee or food. Also, I am dumping a lot right now. You can ask me all kinds of questions that you want and I will try to answer them to my best ability since I know what it is like to be floxed and I will help anyone who is in the same situation. I am only 22 years old and this experience led to me rethinking my whole life. I plan to become an extremely rich person to be able to fund biochemical research in the future and will focus specifically on floxed individuals and I will help floxed people first. I will try to reach my goals as fast as possible, I promise.
I hope this post does not get removed by moderators. If there is anything to moderate, change, or add, I will be happy to do that. All I say here is very attentively selected and fact-checked either from external sources or personal experience. I do not lie and have no motivation to do so. I am only trying to share my knowledge and to help realise others flox is not unbeatable and can be understood and solved — it all depends on individual factors.
Linked articles:
Manganese Toxicity Is a CoQ10 Deficiency
https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/manganese-toxicity-is-a-coq10-deficiency
CoQ10 Deficiency Is Sulfur Toxicity
https://chrismasterjohnphd.substa2ck.com/p/coq10-deficiency-is-sulfur-toxicity?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader
10-Formyltetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase
https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/vitamins/pantothenic-acid#formyltetrahydrofolate-dehydrogenase
Can Biotin Help Detoxify Oxalate?
https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/can-biotin-help-detoxify-oxalate
Can B12 and Folate Help Detoxify Oxalate?
https://chrismasterjohnphd.substack.com/p/can-b12-and-folate-help-detoxify

So, my son plays on a AA 9U team. We have had some issues with the current coaching staff but we have addressed them and they seem to be getting better. To be fair, the staff is new and it is obvious they have tried several things that didn't work and have adjusted course as the year progressed. They are not perfect but my kid really loves the head coach. Anyway, he has played as a guest player several times for another AA team. I am pretty sure if he wants a spot on that team, he will have one.
Existing Team:
Pros:

• He knows the team and the coaches and is in a good spot for playing time and batting order. I don't see that changing next year.
  
• The team was an all new team with only a couple of players with travel experience. They struggled early but I can really tell they are getting better now.
  
• There is a good core of families. There are a couple of outliers but I think they will likely be gone next year.
  
• Even though we have had some coaching issues, I feel my son has progressed greatly over the last year
  
• This program has a nifty indoor facility, with an outdoor turf field and we can practice year-round. In our first year, we have averaged two practices a week for all but December and that was a break month for the team.
  
• We have minimal daddy ball.
  

Cons:

• This team is the third 9U team in the organization. The way I understand it after tryouts, the A team will send out offers and wait for answers, then the B team, then us. I'm not sure that the A and B teams will have many spots to fill and there is a chance that we will get second pick over the B team. I know we will have 2-3 spots to fill next year. Two of them are just not great players and I'm sure someone else will either not play next year or go somewhere else. I'm concerned as to who we will get having to wait on two other teams to pick.
  
• We have had some coaching issues where they have been too hard and negative on the kids. I had a talk with the coaching staff and it seems like things are getting better there.
  
• We don't hit in practice. I'm not a baseball guy but I find this odd. We will every now and then do a live hitting drill where the coach pitches and kids hit while the team fields but that is few and far between. The coaches have explained that we should be working on hitting away from the team on our own or in lessons. We do take weekly lessons but the team really struggles to hit. We have 3 players hitting over .300, 4 more hitting between .200 and .300 and the remaining 5 are below .200. I'm not sure if this is because we don't hit in practice or not.
  
• We normally don't do stations in practice. We have 2-3 coaches there and they have the whole team doing the same drill. I just don't think it's as efficient as it could be. Several dads have volunteered to help and they have been turned down.
  

Other Team:
Pros:

• He loves the kids on this team and they love him. Not sure why, but he really connects with these kids. I'm assuming some of it is because he is a "guest" player and I'm assuming it would likely change if he was full time on the team.
  
• Even though this is another AA team, it is more talented than his current team. They are also an all new team but they are the only 9U team in this organization. I'm assuming they have a deeper pool to choose from.
  
• This program is slightly cheaper. Money isn't a huge concern though
  
• This is a pro and a con. The team doesn't practice year-round. They have access to turf fields but I'm assuming they don't do much during the winter.
  
• Parents all seem really nice. I can't detect any drama.
  

Cons:

• Looks like there are 3-4 coaches (all dads) on this team. It doesn't really feel like daddy ball. The head coach's kid hit in the middle of the line up and splits time between 3rd, catcher and the outfield. I'm sure my kid will get plenty of playing time but it scares me having so many dads.
  
• I see that the coaches are easier and nicer to my kid (I'm assuming because he is a guest player). I know this will change if he joins their team.
  
• My son hits leadoff for his current team. He would probably be in the middle of the pack on this team.
  
• As I said above, they don't practice as much. Don't know if this is a pro or a con?
  
• This is the big one. My kid tried out for this team last year. They told me that they were having "workout" sessions before tryouts and invited him to come out. At this point, he had only had one Spring of baseball. He came to the workout and I thought he did pretty good. After, the coach told me that they would be having more workouts and he was welcome to come. I reached out to him several times to see if they would be having workouts and he kept telling me that they were trying to line one up and he would let me know. At the actual tryouts, it was obvious to me and my kid that they were not interested in him. They were not really watching him and were not writing anything down. I found out later that they had continued to have the workouts but I guess they had just written my kid off.
  

I think they were just trying to be nice and not offend me by saying they were not interested in him. To be fair, my son has progressed tremendously in the last year. He is a different player now.