My very old Hyundai Tucson is just about dead and its time for me to bite the bullet and get a new (used) car. My plan regardless is to put 10,000 down and finance the rest. I’ve looked around and one test drives and there are two options I’m really considering. Both have clean car fax and have all the features I want. This my first car I am buying myself and I am trying to make a decisiom that both is sensible and will make my inner child happy.
1) Certified Pre-Owned 2021 Hyundai Sonata SEL in Red. Listed for around 20K
Pros: Cheaper by 5kish, Certified and still has a lot of the original warranty left, only 30,000 miles on it, marginally better fuel efficiency, different temperature settings for different sides of the car, my favorite vehicle that I tried and a very good looking vehicle in my opinion.
Cons: I live in Northeast Ohio and spend a decent amount of time in Cleveland. I am worried that this car could become a victim of the “Kia boys” trend. It has a push start and wasn’t effected by the original issues that Hyundai’s faced. Its no easier to steal than a normal car, but still I am worried thiefs won’t know that and will damage my car attempting to steal it anyways. This is the only real con I have so I need to know how much this should matter. I was able to get a quote from progressive for comprehensive insurance on this vehicle.
2) 2023 Used Subaru Crosstrek in Plasma Yellow Pearl. Listed at 25,800
Pros: Not as likely to be broken into, slightly bigger interior, leather seats, all weather floor liners, only 32k miles on it, sunroof, upgraded stereo, remote start, bigger trunk
Cons: 5.5k(25%) more expensive which would come out to $110/month, not certified as its not at a Subaru dealer and doesn’t have as much of a manufacterer warranty left, currently smells like it was smoked in and not sure if we can get that smell out, no area based temperatures, previously a corporate fleet vehicle(not sure if it matters)

So I earn about 80k a year, have 70k saved up (want to put all towards down for a house- HCOL). I have a 2006 Toyota hybrid with 230k miles on it. Don’t know how long it’ll last but want to get some opinions before it starts to break down.
I’m not much of a car person but I really liked a friends Lexus (RX 2024 iirc). My parents have always been a buy and use until car is completely done, and used is OK.
Climate has long winter so as much as I want a fully electric vehicle it doesn’t make sense…
Desired features:
Safety features like lights for blind spots, back up cameras and 4WD
Remote startup would be really nice… but not necessary.
Bluetooth radio, seat warmers.
At least partially electric if possible
Ideally a Japanese brand? As they seem to be better lasting than their western counterparts?
SUV- easy for moving purposes
Questions: should I wait a few years to buy used? Or should I get a new car? Also considering budget, I can get an older car- but don’t know if they have all the features I would want.
Also should I just go to dealership, test a couple of cars and leave so I have an idea for what I want in the future?
How much can I bargain down when it’s new? And if it’s used? (I’m aware car depreciation is brutal lol)

I've tried wheat tortillas, flour tortillas, store-bought, and other restaurants, and they all make me a little nauseous about halfway through my burrito. But I can eat an entire burrito from Chipotle and feel fine. Any idea what makes theirs so different?
I usually settle for eating hard shell tacos when I go out as they never bother me, but I sure would like to be able to enjoy burritos I make at home. But I have no clue how to replicate their tortillas or where to buy them.

Hi germany!
TLDR: recommendations for a decent DE- (or EU-) made work-from-home office chair in the €500-750ish bracket (incl refurbished) that ships to Italy. To suit: 186cm tall, 70kg.
I moved to Italy this year, leaving behind in the US my beloved Steelcase Gesture. I'm not really willing to pay what they cost here for the same, nor €750ish for their Series 2. A refurbished Aeron Remastered at €875 seems like a lot, and not having tried one I worry that they're overhyped. A refurbished Mirra (all options, but prob v1 not v2) is more reasonable at around €600, but ... I'm in the EU now and feel like it's a good opportunity to give something different a go.
Anyways, I found some posts here about LoeffleLöffler and Dauphin, and a few other brands mentioned, but not a lot in the way of longer term testimonials. I'm leaning towards Loeffler since they can ship to Italy and don't make me set up an online appointment to discuss a configuration that doesn't even have a price. (Honestly, Dauphin, worst of both worlds -- upsell me as if I were in a show room, but I can't even test anything.)
Unfortunately, Loeffler have half a dozen different models in about the same price range without any obvious ergo/office chair differences.
Does anyone have any first-hand experience or thoughts on Loeffler or similar brands that can ship to Italy? I would prefer to buy EU-made for environmental and economic reasons, along with straight up curiosity. Any recommendations welcomed -- I work from home at a desk most of most days, and then there's gaming when I get the chance. I'm not interested in 'gaming' chairs, thanks.
Thanks for reading!

I have an 8 week old kitten. I have had them for a month. If I let them stay out, I don't sleep at all. And the nights I didn't put them to bed (a backpack carrier with a towel in it), I don't sleep. Last night around 9 pm, we went to the bedroom. I tried making a papaya smoothie and was struggling to drink it (I am still struggling to drink it for breakfast. It is thick, with the seeds for the medicinal effect.). I was on my phone and they were jumping in and out of their carrier and then jumped back in. I then fell asleep and woke up at 6 am to my alarm. Kitty normally stirs the second there is signs of life, but I turned off my alarm, plugged my phone in, and slept some more. When I stirred, Kitty then came out if the cat carrier. She didn't leave the bedroom to eat until I got up. She has learned about bedtime! 😭
Now we can start having bedtime together without her being zipped up in her carrier! Only thing is she pees on the end in my room even though I have 2 kitten litter boxes. I have been staying over at someone else's place with 1 litter box, and she peed on a piece of paper they swept in a pile (It was a conversion of baking soda and baking powder because of a gf matzo ball baking mixup from passover with potato starch), and a paper bag on its side. She has learned to pee on plastic a paper grocery bag on its side, or paper when she doesn't like the litter box.
Now how do I get her to stop peeing on the bed? I am in a shelter hotel with no laundry (Inside Safe) And the hotel is contracted with to provide laundry and replace linens and the social workers (St. Joseph's Center) are contracted with the city to provide laundry services, but they won't. My coverlet are now blood and other stained for about a year due to lack of laundry, so no peeing the coverlets or the one blanket (Yes, my room has 2 beds, but exactly one stained blanket full of holes even though the hotel is contractually obligated to wash AND replace linens. I don't even have TOWELS while the hotel gets paid $160 per night over my head, and St. Joseph's gets paid $320 per night without offering services. They even do wrongfully kickouts while keeping us in the system. A heavily pregnant womyn was thrown out with no notice, and had to give birth living on the street only to find that they never formally exited her and both the hotel and St. Joseph's which wrongfully threw her out continued to get paid for her for each day. And this is happening across hotels foe the program. One person just found out the day before a comprehensive sweep a month ago that they are still in the program a year after they were thrown out of their room at 10 pm. St. Joseph's and the hotel has been getting nightly pay on her with the hotel making $60k and St. Joseph's getting over $100k for her "being in the program" while she slept in a maintenance road along s fucking creek because they threw her out! To be formally exited, there are 2 required notices plus you are supposed to be able to file a grievance and appeal. These peolle got neither, and grievance forms are withheld from us with 30 day time limits to file from incidents so workers get away with everything. Including only buying 1 day of food every 3 days despite getting money from the city to provide 3 meals a day. 250 million was earmarked from the city to us with only a 60 million cut due to the budget crisis, and we cannot even speak out because of a media blackout to negative attention with even Nick from CNN saying he couldn't publish on the ground interviews because it "went against Karen Bass's Narrative".).
If I have no way to wash the pee smell out of my blanket, how do I get her to stop peeing on the bed. Do I just keep an eye out for every time she goes to that corner and makes the pee squat and say "no", and move her to the litter box?
I try to put her in the litter box 4 times in a row before bed, and I have seen her fake pee several times where she digs and sits and acts like she is peeing but no pee. So that means she is learning that I want her to try and she is trying but has nothing to pee out, correct?

I'm so sick of my brother's ex's anger that's affecting my nephew's time with his father and the time we get to see him.
Here's the thing, she has every right to hate my brother. He didn't treat her well in that relationship, cheated on her constantly and was an alcoholic. He never put his hands on her thankfully.
Throughout the entire relationship, we were on her side and was her main support when her family decided they were so embarrassed she had a child with a Black man that they moved across the country while she was pregnant. But this rant isn't about all of what we did for her. Nor the fact she still tried to make things work despite my brother's shitty behavior in the past and us saying she can dump him and we would still support her 100%
This rant is about years after them finally breaking up and her bitterness. Like I said, she has every right to be angry at my brother. But since he got into a relationship, she does everything she can to take my nephew from my brother. She went scorched earth when she found out my brother was dating again. When the courts sided with both, giving 50/50 custody, she still refused to let him see him. Then it became you get him on the weekends for a few hours, while I get him the rest of the time, the holidays, and so forth. And he's matured and feels bad for how he treated her and now wants to play the "good guy" and allow her to break custody agreements.
She throws away any toys, clothing, etc. that we, not my brother, but the rest of the family buys him. Especially things my mother buys because she's angry my mother, despite supporting her, didn't support her enough to allow her to run off to another state with my nephew. (Helping my brother with his parental rights because she was a lawyer before retiring.)
She chooses to let him wear clothing too small for him, holey and wornout, or barely anything at all, because she "doesn't want to owe us anything." But it's like, it's not about you owing us, it's about my nephew and his happiness. Mind you, we never told her she owes us for helping her. That was because we cared about her and my nephew.
If he takes anything from my brother's house to hers, it goes right into the trash or she'll nag my brother about not bringing it to her place and give him a time limit to retrieve it, if she's in a good mood. What my nephew tells us.
If my nephew wants to come over to our place, and my brother asks her if she's willing to go here, because it's close to their drop off, she'll become belligerent and refuse and will take him home.
She and I used to be friends, before she dated my brother, and even know it's hard to really speak badly about her. But it's just exhausting.
My nephew when he's playing online games with me or does come over, is constantly saying he wished he could live with us again. Not her or my brother. And I don't blame him. I don't know what's happening over there, but it's definitely making him depressed and there's nothing we can do about it. He says this every time he's with me or with my mom. It's just so freaking heartbreaking. I wish I could do something, but I can't. And I don't know what she situation is like. She refuses to let my brother or any of us know where she lives, we don't talk to her, so it's like what's happening to make him say this every, single, time?
TLDR: Brother's ex is angry over their relationship. Throws away anything we buy him no matter the cost or if he really needs it. She breaks custody agreements. My nephew whenever I speak to him, always brings us that he wished he could live with us again. And it's heartbreaking.

Have you seen the performance of Pay Money To My Pain with Taka performing Voice on Blare Fest 2020, the only time it is performed live?
If not, I don't know if you know Pay Money to My Pain, but you may buy the documentary DVD that just got out recently, titled "Sunrise to Sunset From Here to Somewhere".
Man, I never thought that it will be released after 4 years, and it is the saddest and most heart-wrenching performance that I see Taka do. Not even the Nobody's Home in Budokan 2010 can match the concentration of emotions there. Most especially that "We're not alone" belt at the end of the bridge and beyond. I cried.

My headphones broke a few weeks ago. I'm typically a guy who has to listen to podcasts or music or an audiobook while I work. I can focus on that and just work all day while living in my head. So when they broke I was bummed because Ive come to NEED it to get through my day.
So I said I'd buy new ones when I get paid. But over the course of the last couple weeks, combined with the changes I've made to my life so far this year, I've come to appreciate silence. I work in a semi-officw setting now so it's pretty quiet on it's own. And I don't know what clicked for me recently but I don't feel the need to drown anything or anyone out anymore.
That's not to say I don't like music I absolutely do. But I think I've been using it to shut myself out of the world for a long time, and all of a sudden I don't need it anymore. I brought headphones from home in today to use until I bought new ones, but I took them off. At least for right now I'd rather be present.
I don't know if this counts as Minimalism to anyone but it's something that kinda makes me happy. If you knew the way I struggled with this in the past you'd know this is a big step forward for me. I dunno. Im just really enjoying the path I'm on

Previous
So, if you’re just joining us, I work at a haunted zoo now. Since I’ve gotten some rest, it feels like I’ve got my head on straight, at least, so I’d like to continue where I left off.
I sat on the floor in the office after meeting the ghost until I’d settled my rattled mind (and realized I’d forgotten to ask her name, how rude is that?). I took a deep breath and got up off the floor. Walking over and falling into the rolling chair in front of the large screen of camera views, when I brought up the camera that covered the area in which I’d spotted her, she was still there, and it seemed she hadn’t moved an inch.
Sitting there, at a loss, I continued to watch her. The ghost hung around for another five minutes or so, appearing to look at a few things off-screen, though I’m not sure what. Then she walked off into the forest and left the view of the cameras. I wasn’t sure if she vanished into the ether or if she’d gone looking into the trees to look for something.
But that wasn’t the end of the job interview, so let me jump back there. It continued into what kind of animals the zoo had, with Andrew asking me how much experience I had with dangerous animals.
I took a moment to consider the question. “So, ah…I’ve been going hunting and fishing with a neighbor since I was sixteen,” I told him. “We always have to keep an eye out for gators, bears, and hogs. Then there’s snakes, of course…snapping turtles… Since I’ve lived here my whole life and been aiming for a job with wildlife for a long time, I know a lot about the animals in Arkansas in general. But good advice for all of the above is avoid them, so I’ve had encounters, but I don’t know if you’d say I have experience with them.”
“That’s fine,” Andrew said, nodding. “That’s an answer I’m satisfied with. Now, the ghost was the appetizer, Ripley; here’s the main course. To start with, the pay isn’t twenty-five an hour. It’s fifty.”
Staring in shock for a moment, I asked, “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. But that’d be weird to post online considering what applicants think we need, so I halved it.”
“That’s… Okay, why?”
“The animals are already here. You just can’t see them.”
I stared at him for a long moment, some disbelief worming its way into my expression, before saying, “Sorry, what?”
“There’s a chance you’d naturally never see them, or at least some of them,” he continued casually. “It depends on both your genetics and how long you stay on the job. I can naturally see six of them, but that’s it. Suzanne can see all of them, and more. Some are what people would label demons or ghosts. Or magic. Mostly you’d call them cryptids. The ghost was just a warm-up; I mentioned her first because it never takes more than a week to see her if you work the night shift. If you manage to handle her okay, soon you’ll be able to see the animals too. The more time you spend on the grounds, for weird reasons,” he said, wiggling his fingers in the direction of the back door, “the more you’ll be able to see.”
“So, this…this is a zoo for cryptids,” I echoed slowly. He nodded once, waiting to find out what kind of reaction I would have. I gestured vaguely around the room. “If this is a hidden camera show, will you cut me a check for showing up and participating?”
Andrew coughed out a chuckle and shook his head. “No joke. There are a ton of stories out there that have been written to death, pulverized until they’re not the Grimm stories of old and instead they’re Disney films. A lot of those stories come from what some humans have seen. There are dozens of other worlds pressed up against ours, and occasionally things come through by accident. If they’re smart, they’ll lay low and then make their way back when they can. If not, they become local folklore until someone helps them back. I’m just from London, but Suzanne is from somewhere else. She hires people like us for this zoo. Humans.”
Sighing, I shook my head. “That makes no sense. Why would she hire a muggle for a magic zoo?”
Andrew burst out laughing at that, and then waited to gather himself before he continued. “Fair point, but this is less about magic and more about animals, and you’re missing some information that will explain it. First of all, if I misjudge an employee, and they think they can make bank by outing the endangered and valuable animals we have, it’s easy to relocate the zoo.”
“Because magic?” I asked.
“Exactly,” he replied, ignoring the thread of skepticism in my tone. “That means it isn’t the end of the world if that happened, though it is a pain in the arse. But second…let me ask you a question. Speaking of reality shows, say the Discovery Channel put out a call to replace Steve Irwin when he passed. Imagine they had a line out the door,” he said with a gesture, “of people who thought they had the skill and natural talent to replace him, to take on everything he’d been doing his whole life. How many do you reckon would lose an arm, a leg, or their life, by the end of the day?”
My lips parted in surprise and I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re saying people from…wherever…they’re just as dumb as humans, but they’re worse, because they actually think they can handle these things.”
Andrew pointed the pen at me. “Things. Exactly. You called them things. Suzanne and her friends grew up with them and would call them animals. These animals have dispositions and temperaments that we’ve studied for as long as there have been scientists. Where Suzanne’s from, they know the weaknesses of these animals, and also they’re in enclosures here, even if you and I can’t see the walls because they’re invisible things called ‘wards’. If I hire someone who’s got magic on top of all that, they’ll have almost no instinctive fear.
“Everything here is nocturnal, and every one of them is a hunter. Some of these things? Humans see them and they pass out. Not that I want you passing out, but I need someone who is scared of these things, who knows to stay out of the enclosures no matter what. Not someone who thinks they can train them to do tricks, who gets close enough for them to grab a mouthful of hair and drown them. Once, we had a night shift manager injured, and once killed, because they didn’t take these animals seriously enough.”
Thinking back to the Sea World orca incident I knew he’d been referencing, I remembered wondering how someone at that level of her profession could be so careless as I watched the video on YouTube. It made sense when he explained it like that. I hesitated before mentally throwing my hands up and going all in. “So, why put this place here, then? If they’re endangered and also dangerous, why have a zoo at all instead of just a small reserve?”
He pursed his lips, looking disappointed in me. “Ripley. You know that already. You already said as much.”
Thinking back through our conversation, I said, “The rich humans who pay top dollar to see supernatural animals.”
“Not humans,” he told me. “But people, yes, and they are rich, and they’re making donations and spending their money on a ticket here because everything we have is endangered.”
“So…”
I just let my voice trail off and my mind started to drift. Andrew remained silent, letting me do so. There’s that thing people say, ‘I believe that you believe it,’ which is just a kinder way of saying, ‘Bullshit.’ Parents say it about closet monsters. Psychologists say it to people who say they’ve been abducted and probed by aliens. I wanted to say it to Andrew.
But I also wanted a job. If it meant working overnight at an empty zoo, that was fine. When it came down to it, especially when I took the tone of our conversation into account, this was a zoo specifically focused on preserving endangered ‘animals’, and it was allegedly doing important work. Also, if this turned out to be the real deal and I started seeing the animals, I would deal with it, just like I would deal with an enclosure that had a lion or tiger or gorilla. If it came with a ghost and invisible creatures, I really didn’t see what the difference was, if I couldn’t go in the enclosures either way.
On that note, I’d like you to imagine a kid who looks at a roller coaster, watching everyone screaming and grinning as they go up and down and all around and they’re like, ‘Heck, I could do that! That looks like a blast!’
Then they get on, the first drop hits, and they realize they’ve made a terrible mistake.
“All right,” I sighed. “I can’t say I’m going to turn down a job just because it’s going to be scary. Especially not one with this paycheck.”
Andrew smiled. “Awesome. There’s an adjustment process for anyone working here, similar to a dog that gets adopted, actually. I know the general guidelines of, ‘three days, three weeks, three months’ in terms of milestones, until they finally feel they’re where they’re supposed to be,” he told me, “and you can think of your time here along those lines. I really think you’re a great fit, and once you reach the milestone of working here for three months, I’ll officially consider you our new night shift guard. And I hope you’ll stay with us for many years.”
I nodded and smiled at the flattery of an employer wanting me to work a great job for them for a long time. I’d never had a dog, but those milestones were well-known among anyone who knew animals, especially dogs. The first three days, the dog is getting to know its new digs, exploring, and decompressing. At three weeks, they’ve gotten used to their environment and are starting to get comfortable with their surroundings and the routines of the humans they live with. By three months, they know the rules and follow them, they trust you, and they feel they are where they’re meant to be. I could only hope to be so lucky.
I saw the ghost two days ago and she has yet to make another appearance (for those who are curious, I asked, and her name is Leila), and I still hadn’t seen any animals. I did hear one, though, I feel compelled to note. A growling roar sounded from the lake on occasion, echoing across the vast zoo, sending a shiver down my spine. Whatever that animal was, it sounded gigantic.
Andrew said there was apparently a group that wanted to visit for a birthday and they were offering a huge donation, so he let me know they were making an exception and that this group would be walking through the park that night. That meant I’d be watching people watching animals that, as far as I could tell, weren’t there.
It was anticlimactic. Even the three people who came for the tour just looked like people, not like aliens or something eldritch from another dimension, and I stayed in the security office the whole time. Andrew was the one giving the tour. I watched them spend about five minutes at each enclosure, the hour or so that they were there passing without incident. It was clear that they were able to see all the animals, though, since they motioned excitedly at each enclosure and spoke to Andrew, who presumably answered any questions they had.
If they could see the animals, that was that. There was still that niggle in the back of my head, from my twenty-three years of life never encountering anything like ghosts or cryptids, telling me that this was ridiculous. Waiting for someone to knock on the door, a camera mounted on their shoulder, to tell me that it was a big joke and they wanted to see how long I’d play along. But from all I saw, this was a real place with real, invisible animals.
I do carry a taser and pepper spray in my capacity as a security guard. Though it isn’t for the animals, since they’re in the enclosures; they’re actually for the rare instance of a break-in. Andrew mentioned that it had happened several times it the past, someone trying to steal an animal in the hopes of selling it on the black market. They’d been successful before, but apparently my predecessor Roger was good at his job, and mostly they left in handcuffs.
I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of confrontation, but my job was to call Andrew and then confront the person, not kick their ass. That’s what the police were for, or rather, the people Andrew would call in lieu of police in certain situations.
Fifty bucks an hour. That’s the key here.
Andrew hadn’t set up direct deposit, since he was sticking with a strategy of waiting to see if I’d continue to work there once I found out myself dealing with the animals (I’ve decided I am going to just call them animals). Instead, I got an old-fashioned check after my shift every Friday. The number on the first check was delightful. I went out that evening and had a big dinner at the local diner, order my most expensive favorites on the menu and a big slice of pie for dessert.
When it came to the paychecks in general, though, I had this weird feeling of not wanting to tell my dad and brother about the fact that it was actually $50/hr. I previously mentioned that my dad, his name’s Nathan if you’re curious, works at a local grocery store. Our town has a couple food franchises, but I think its size is just short of whatever threshold Walmart uses to decide where to open. He earns $14/hr. and that’s after the tiny raises he’s gotten over the past thirteen years.
That’s not to say he’d feel bad about not making as much as me. On the contrary, he would be ecstatic for me and really proud. But, like me, he’d be suspicious. That hourly rate was the biggest hint that this was more than just a private zoo for cryptids. And as soon as that fat check cleared without problems, my dad wouldn’t be satisfied with reassurances; he’d want to come visit the zoo and look around.
I’d told him it’s a private preservation with scheduled (expensive) visits only and that it had only eleven animals, so he’d been appeased by me brushing off the idea of a visit. Also, I took a few photos of my workplace; one of the security room, one of me sitting in my chair, one photo of the many screens I watched, and a selfie where I was feigning sleep out of boredom, slouched in my chair with my mouth open in a faux snore. That let him feel like he knew where I was and what I was doing, and that I was safe.
But if I told him I was making double what he thought, my father would practically order me to quit. No job was worth my safety, he’d tell me. I was quite of the opposite opinion, however, considering how crucial any and all conservation efforts were these days. Especially with the steep extinction levels due to humans competing with other animals for space, not to mention climate change. Working in any job that helped preserve species and keep ecosystems in balance, or put them back in balance, was so important.
Then again, my father would also point out something I had realized right away: the fact was that I was working with endangered species that were not from Earth. I wasn’t helping my planet. To be honest, though…that didn’t matter to me. Especially after that talk with Andrew about why he hired a human for this job, I figured whichever dimension these animals came from had the equivalent of us, razing forests to the ground, clouding the planet with pollution, and leaving the animals with no avenue of recourse when yet more land was taken from them.
I really do hope to keep working here for a long time, though, and not just because of the money. I can’t help it; I want to know what these things were, and I want to work with them, to do the job of a zookeeper. The same way you go up to the chain-link fence to get close to a carnivore on the other side who thinks you’d make a nice afternoon snack. You just want to be closer to them, to experience that incredible, daunting feeling of being in their presence.
Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before I got what I wanted.
The day after we had the tour go through, I was doing my sweep when I saw the ghost again. She was sitting on a small boulder in the same area I’d seen her the first time, looking identical, blood covering the front of her slashed shirt, the wounds visible underneath. I stopped and stood there for a moment before I decided to raise my hand in a small wave.
The young woman cocked her head at me and raised a hand in the air in an imitation of my gesture, her expression showing a bit of curiosity.
She was low-key, seemingly not concerned with my presence, looking at me as a novel phenomenon in her world. I wondered what that world consisted of. Was she always here, sometimes visible and sometimes not? Or did she have another world next to ours, in the ether, where she left everything in this world behind and floated in her disembodied form? Did she still feel emotions? Was that really curiosity on her face, or was I projecting? Did she feel happiness? Fear? Did she have the option of moving on, or was she stuck here?
Many questions that I might never get the answers to. And that was assuming Andrew knew the answers, since I’d never met Suzanne Cooper and he hadn’t even mentioned that possibility. This place was clearly her baby, but I’m sure running it was a lot of work. Plus, if she was rich enough to own it, she was rich enough to have other businesses and charities to run.
When it comes to the enclosures, they’re all wrapped by a barrier of some kind, though never one that seems adequate. There was not a single place with the ugly metal weavings of a chain-link fence, and no stretches of circular razor wire. Instead, there are nice fences. Black iron, or wrought steel fencing in a similar style to the one circling the perimeter of the zoo, just shorter and with different patterns. Or a spaced picket fence, the wood stained in some tone of brown, or a split two-rail fence. As if to say, ‘This is the border of your enclosure, but we’re just letting you know out of courtesy.’
When I started to pass enclosure number seven last night, a young woman’s voice spoke, “Hello.”
I startled, unaware that I hadn’t been alone. “Oh. Hi,” I said, staring at her standing a few yards in.
She had been next to a large tree and I hadn’t seen her. This enclosure was behind a picket fence, and she walked through the large area of wild grasses and flowers that stretched across the other side of the fence. There were fewer tall grasses closer to the fence, which I guessed was because it had been tromped down by her regular pacing along it when there were visitors, or if she wanted to see the various enclosures of the zoo. Her sudden appearance was a bit weird, considering I had been expecting to see a cryptid and instead I was looking at, it seemed, an attractive Asian woman.
She wore a black kimono, the soft silk robe draped gently over her body, with beautiful patterns of cherry blossoms, more so over her left side, and red and blue birds with their wings spread. A sash wrapped around her abdomen, she wore socks and sandals on her feet, and her hair was up in those rolls that gave volume to the style.
I was no expert on any fashion, much less that of another country, so I just assumed it was all traditional Japanese clothing. Most likely, the visitors who came liked to see a certain time-honored style and that’s what she stuck with. Or maybe she played on stereotypes. That would be amusing.
“I’m Yui. It’s nice to meet you,” she spoke, arriving at the border of the fence and holding out a hand for me to shake.
I’d been standing about three yards away from her, and I’ll be honest, muscle memory tried to kick in. But I only made it two steps, my hand starting to rise, before I froze, the hand falling limply at my side. “Nice to meet you, too,” I answered, my voice quiet.
Damn. I wonder how many times that honey trap works back where she comes from.
The pleasant look on her face faded, and she lowered her hand. “You won’t shake hands with me? Isn’t that rude?”
“I mean, I kind of like my hand where it is. You know, attached to me.”
Her demure smile widened into something more amused. “I would never do something so revolting.”
Looking her up and down, as if more visual information would give me more knowledge of what she was, I asked her, “What would you do?”
“I would be less wasteful,” she said softly.
A finger of ice trailed down my spine, and I had the sudden image in my head of her grabbing my outstretched hand in an iron grip and yanking me over the fence, leaving me to sprawl on the ground. Then killing and consuming me efficiently, without a single careless step, the same way humans slaughtered pigs, using everything from the hog but the squeal. I was struck with a shiver at the idea of her consuming everything from me but my screams.
Slowly, I took one step further down the path, then another. Just as I got to a walking pace, though, I realized the woman had started walking too, in the same direction. I’d have eventually gotten to the end of her enclosure and keep going, leaving her behind, but she spoke up. “Are you leaving?”
I came to a stop, meeting her gaze again. “My job is to walk the zoo every hour. Then I’ll get back to the security room and stay there until my next walk.”
“Have you met the others yet?”
I hesitated before saying, “Just Leila.”
She blinked languidly. “That means nobody welcomed you here.”
“Andrew did.”
She didn’t reply to that. Instead, she slowly started to lean forward, and I flinched backward a few steps further as I saw insect legs start curling out from her back.
No. Not insect. Arachnid.
The eight legs ended in small ‘paws’ with tiny claws, a layer of hairs covering the leg from top to bottom, like any typical tarantula. I took two more slow steps back and my mouth went dry as the jointed legs just kept lengthening, until they were large enough to lever her off the ground.
My gaze had been on the spider legs, but my heart skipped a beat as I realized her human legs had melded together and turned into a bulging abdomen. Her skin was shifting to a carapace, eventually all the way up to her shoulders and down her arms, her fingers elongating and her nails stretching to claws. From there down, her body was that of a pale tarantula with pedipalps the size of my arms and piercing fangs in her jaws that looked like they could take my head off.
There was a moment, my vision blurring, where I was worried that I might piss myself. The part of my brain that still had its humor intact in that moment told me that I should keep an emergency set of clothes in my car, or at the very least, start wearing Depends to work.
“I show you my true form,” she said softly, her voice now raspy like an eighty-year-old after a lifelong smoking habit. “Welcome to Suzanne Cooper’s zoo. The night shift guard for many years was Roger, before he retired and the zoo moved, and I miss him dearly. What should I call you?”
I choked on my words. There was no way my throat was going to cooperate enough for me to clearly get a sentence out. Instead, I realized my legs had taken control of the situation themselves, unsatisfied with my conscious brain’s decision to stand and stare, taking steps backward. I backed up a yard, then five yards, then ten.
My mind focused on the fact that spiders don’t waste anything, and pictured my demise. I’d be wrapped in a cocoon, killed, and made nice and mushy before she had me for dinner.
The whole time, my brain was a frenzied mess, my pupils were probably the size of dimes, and I was staring at that tiny, pathetic fence between her and me. There was so much adrenaline pumping through my body that I felt like my bones were vibrating. The fence was, to my eyes, the only thing between us. The only thing keeping her from tackling and killing me. My only hope was that she’d do it quickly.
But she didn’t move. As I absorbed her innocent, polite words, the look on her face was calm, and I wondered if this was typically the way a conversation went before she devoured her prey. I wondered how many people she’d eaten. Not humans, not people from Earth, but the ones from where she came from. The fact that she doesn’t scare the shit out of those people means they’re staggeringly dumber than humans.
Finally, I rounded a corner, both relieved at having her out of my sight and worried that she would take that moment to come find me. When she’d been within eyeshot, I had at least known where she was and could run in the other direction. But I didn’t hear the sound of faint footsteps moving rapidly toward me. All was quiet, in that deep, smothering way that only an empty business in the middle of the night in small town America could be.
My hands trembling, I barely paid attention to anything but the confirmation that my surroundings were free of the colossal spider as I finally got back to the door. Grabbing the handle and letting my eyes dart around for about ten seconds and my ears prick for the slightest sound, I finally swiped my key card across the pad and went inside, shutting the door behind me and engaging the backup deadbolt.
Maybe that was why they had decided on keycards. If I was running from something and panicking, using an actual key or inserting the card like at a hotel would keep me from getting to safety considering my hands were shaking enough to mix a margarita.
Walking over to my chair, I fell into it, letting my body flush itself of terror as I looked up at the cameras. There she was, still in arachnid form, exactly where I’d left her behind that rinky-dink fence, casually looking around and slowly pacing back and forth. I stared at her as my racing heart gradually slowed, and a minute or so later she turned on her eight legs and walked back into the trees.
Whatever invisible fences the enclosures have apparently work, which is nice, because I wasn’t keen on getting killed by one of the creatures here. And that’s what brings me here, spilling out everything that’s happened so far. Because nearly passing out from terror isn’t something I wanted to deal with at work, obviously, but I keep going over what she did in my head again and again, and I feel like I reacted like a child who spotted a wolf spider on their bed. I started to worry for my overactive sense of self-preservation, at least in my capacity as an employee here.
The spider didn’t even try to hurt me, and so I was feeling a bit foolish. Even annoyed, actually, at the fact that I’d freaked out so hard and took off instead of trying to engage in at least basic conversation. I got the sense that she wasn’t at human-level intelligence, but I was never going to be able to hold any level of conversation with an alligator.
Sure, she did mention that she wouldn’t be so crass as to yank off my hand because she’d rather just have my entire corpse, but wouldn’t a wolf do the same if it was hungry? Wouldn’t any carnivore? Actually, they probably would’ve been satisfied with one of my hands. The fear here was from the fact that she turned into a giant spider. If she’d turned into Clifford, I would’ve reacted the same way, if not better than, meeting Leila.
With that, I decided I’m staying on the job. Considering how frustrated I can get with foolish people, it’s a bit hypocritical, and I’m being a bit of an idiot. But…there are definitely wards keeping them in their enclosures. Also, I signed up for creatures for another dimension, whether or not I believed in them at the time, and I will not let encountering my first one in an objectively boring way be the reason I quit.
The money is a factor, I’ll grant you. Of course it is. And I can’t spend it if I’m dead, but all signs point to surviving as long as I don’t do anything dumb. Also, yes, I’ll admit there’s a not-so-little voice in the back of my head that’s desperate to know what else is here. I never thought I’d do something like this, but finding out these things are real, I honestly do want to learn more about them.
Still, though, I decided to call Andrew at the end of my shift to ask if the pepper spray and taser I carried worked on a certain spider, as well as the other animals I’d yet to meet.
Previous

Hey everyone, just thought I'd share with you all things that I have been implementing and switching to my cooking and eating habits as someone that's lost 160lbs. Most importantly, things that I actually enjoy and that makes it easier to eat healthier.
Using protein bread instead of white bread. There's this brand of bread here in Canada that has a whole grains bread that's higher in proteins and I genuinely love it. It's my favourite and pretty much the only bread I buy. It keeps me full way longer and is actually more hardy. Can't hurt to get more proteins here and there.
Low fat sour cream in omelette instead of cream or milk. I really enjoy the taste of it and the texture it makes omelette. I add about 2 tbsp.
EGGS. I love eggs and eat them a lot. I think they're totally a super food. It'll often be my breakfast or my lunch. I started buying frozen spinach and add an absurd amount of spinach to omelette. A bit volume eating I assume and it can't hurt to get more green.
Italian seasoning. I put that shit everywhere!! In eggs, on chicken, on roasted veggies, in any type of homemade veggies dipping sauce/vinaigrette.
Baby carrots/pre cut carrots sticks ALWAYS available in the fridge. I really didn't like uncooked carrots for the longest time and now it's my fav. I kind of made it a point that a sandwich is a perfectly healthy breakfast/lunch but I'll always eat it with carrots on the side. Now, it feels like something is missing if I don't.
Butternut squash and other frozen veggies. I used to only eat fresh veggies and it's becoming a bit hard to do so. I'm often at my bf and they'll go bad or they're sooo expensive. Finding which vegetables and brands of frozen vegetables that I actually enjoy and ways of cooking them that I like is a game changer. My fav so far is butternut squash which is so much cheaper frozen and it's my new favourite veg, with pepper, a bit of garlic powder, honey and roasted onions. Delicious!! I really like frozen bell peppers, thin green beans, corn and spinach. I mainly get the Walmart great value ones. Affordable, good quality, doesn't taste watery.
Hummus. I buy pre portion hummus cups which is about 2-3tbsp of hummus. For some reason, a plate of hummus, carrots, cucumber, a few of my fav crackers or sesame sticks, an apple, maybe cheese, keeps me insanely full. It round up to pretty decent calories, the macros aren't bad, it keeps me full and sometimes I don't wanna cook and it's convenient.
Minute rice Basmati cups. Pre portion rice. It might be more expensive if you eat rice a lot but I don't that often. However, it's my fav rice, it's pre portion, takes 1min in the microwave and it's truly the perfect amount of rice for my meals. I think anything to make cooking faster and easier is always good. Sometimes, you just want rice as a side and heat up some leftovers and don't feel like making a whole pot of rice.
Meal preparing but more so making enough for 2 extra meals. I love cooking and making big batches of chili and soup. However, sometimes you don't feel like cooking that much but if I'm already making myself dinner, I will make extra for at least 2 meals. Just because it takes no more effort, if I have the extra ingredients, might as well double it. Why cook 1 chicken breast and one portion of roasted potatoes..if I can cook extra knowing I will most likely want to eat chicken again this week.
Canned tuna and Tuna salad. Here in Canada we have this brand of tuna named Rio Mare and it's very high quality tuna. They also have canned tuna salad with rice or couscous, veggies and tuna in olive oil. It's so good, it's convenient, good macros. I'll often have one as lunch.
Water. Pretty basic but I drink ALOT of water and the only hard rule I have when it comes to what I consume is to not drink my calories. I will buy Gatorade zero, diet iced tea, diet cranberry juice, sparkling water. Some of these have from 10-30cals but besides my occasional homemade iced coffee or cup of tea that has a bit of cream in, I do not drink my calories. Ever.
"Easy snacks." I do often have string cheese, these kids fruits gummies, pocky and such around. I can have those in the house for weeks/months and kind of semi forget about it but they do come in handy if I'm craving gummies or something sweet. They're also 50-70cals, can easily have one as a snack and make it fit. Besides that, I enjoy protein bars not on a regular but just to have when I don't feel like having breakfast or I'm in a rush. Oikos little grec yogourt, kind of healthy, macros aren't bad. I really like the protein oikos to drink as well, when they're on sale, I stock up.
Thought I'd also share progress pics. Pics

I met this guy and we have been talking for over a month, he lives in Florida and I live in California. He travels a lot for work which is how we originally matched because he was out here swiping in California. Since we have been talking over the past month conversations seem super surface level he gives me the vibe that he’s more so interested in face time sexy chats.
He recently has invited me out on a business trip kept telling me to come out and visit with no actual details etc etc. he said if I was serious he would buy the ticket for me to come out visit and then I called him out about him constantly mentioning he wanted me to get a ticket and would buy a ticket for me and then there would be no action. He admitted the trip he’s on this week was hectic and I wouldn’t be able to come out.
We’ll lat night he invites me out to the trip next week in NYC because it’s so last minute I mentioned how expensive it would be for me to book a ticket so last minute. He mentioned well I guess I could help you out with the ticket. I’m sitting here confused like you said last time you would purchase the ticket. This guy owns his own business and is much more successful than I am. Like I told him if he wants me to get my tickets I need more than a week to do so. Also he seems pretty flip floppy in the past and I don’t feel comfortable spending so much money for a two day trip as I’ve been burned in the past on long distance relationships.
My thing is is it too much to ask for him to purchase the ticket? Should he be the one to purchase the ticket since he’s inviting me out? He made it seem and even mentioned that he would buy the ticket in the past and now he’s telling me to book the ticket and he could “help out” with the ticket but I’m not getting a serious vibe about it. I think I’m at the point where I want to move own from this situation as it seems like I can’t trust him or what he says on so many different things.

As a character, Britney is genuinely awful.
She has only been on the show for a few months and managed to tear Zack and Whitney apart even before he cheated on Whitney.
Britney was held by Whitney illegally for months without Zack knowing and no matter what arrangement Whitney had with Kayleigh, the social would never let it fly realistically. Couple that with Whitney's criminal record of killing a man (even if in self defence) and there's no way she'd ever be allowed to look after a kid.
The whole storyline of how Britney was taken and raised by Whitney was also immediately cast away and forgotten about on the night that it was revealed and Zack cheated. The day after, suddenly the social said it was okay for Whitney to keep Britney and apparently that's just how it works in real life (Its not).
Britney says she hates liars but was happy to lie to everyone except Whitney about the nature of how she was being kept by Whitney.
The only reason Zack discovered the truth was because Britney sarcastically joked about Whitney buying her off Kayleigh and never actually apologised to Zack or showed sympathy since then for how everything went down.
Now we know Zack is awful when it comes to adultery. He does it to seek immediate comfort and consoling from difficult situations.
But I hate how one-sided this storyline is framed.
Britney literally waited until Whitney was at the altar to decide to reveal the truth - and embarrass Whitney in front of all her friends and family. She literally had a conversation with Lily about how genuinely happy and settled Whitney and decided "Nah I'mma ruin this woman's whole life"
Yes, Zack should've told Whitney, and yes he was going to, until Bianca told him not to. Yes, Zack is a grown man and should've done it anyway, but didn't because he's a coward.
But this is what the writers always do when they want to break up a couple - have them go through hell for months and argue about problems where they are both in the wrong, then have one of the two act out of character and go cheat, then boom that's all is remembered about the breakup or why the couple fell apart.
The storyline of Phil and Kat breaking up over Alfie could've been interesting - the moral question of whether or not its right to let a man go through chemotherapy on his own and respect his choice because he doesn't want to upset his family, even if it means his family would rather know and not feel guilt of letting him go through it on his own. That could've made for a good story that would've gotten people thinking and looking at things differently.
But nope. Writers decided to have Phil cheat and broke up him and Kat. Now they're remembered for nearly nothing else and all the problems they had before Emma turned up are forgotten about.
And the same has happened with Zack and Whitney. Months of Whitney raising this kid she's met off the street illegally, nearly getting herself killed in a car accident over said kid, missing all her hospital scans and not preparing for the birth or making any plans, even not letting Zack know the gender of the child until she let slip - all of that has been whitewashed and forgotten because the writers wanted to break up Zack and Whitney immediately with a cheating storyline.
And at the centre of that storyline is Britney, the girl with bad acting that laughed and joked about lying to Zack for months and being involved in a crime and has endangered Whitney several times in just a few months.
I just can't with the show right now. This is without question the worst storyline in decades since Fake Michelle had an affair with a random young American student guy.
And still Whitney's gonna get some sort of a happy ending after everything that's happened and all the hurt she has caused and Britney has caused.
Its just a mess. An absolute mess. I just hope we can all agree that the handling of this storyline and introducing Britney is one of the worst decisions the show has ever made.

I met this guy and we have been talking for over a month, he lives in Florida and I live in California. He travels a lot for work which is how we originally matched because he was out here swiping in California. Since we have been talking over the past month conversations seem super surface level he gives me the vibe that he’s more so interested in face time sexy chats.
He recently has invited me out on a business trip kept telling me to come out and visit with no actual details etc etc. he said if I was serious he would buy the ticket for me to come out visit and then I called him out about him constantly mentioning he wanted me to get a ticket and would buy a ticket for me and then there would be no action. He admitted the trip he’s on this week was hectic and I wouldn’t be able to come out.
We’ll lat night he invites me out to the trip next week in NYC because it’s so last minute I mentioned how expensive it would be for me to book a ticket so last minute. He mentioned well I guess I could help you out with the ticket. I’m sitting here confused like you said last time you would purchase the ticket. This guy owns his own business and is much more successful than I am. Like I told him if he wants me to get my tickets I need more than a week to do so. Also he seems pretty flip floppy in the past and I don’t feel comfortable spending so much money for a two day trip as I’ve been burned in the past on long distance relationships.
My thing is is it too much to ask for him to purchase the ticket? Should he be the one to purchase the ticket since he’s inviting me out? He made it seem and even mentioned that he would buy the ticket in the past and now he’s telling me to book the ticket and he could “help out” with the ticket but I’m not getting a serious vibe about it. I think I’m at the point where I want to move own from this situation as it seems like I can’t trust him or what he says on so many different things.

Hi there. I'm trying to raise awareness of a campaign kicked off by Ross Scott, better known as the man behind Accursed Farms with production & acting credits under his belt from the likes of Civil Protection and Freeman's Mind.
https://www.stopkillinggames.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w70Xc9CStoE (Explanation from Ross Scott)
Without going into things, Ubisoft recently shut down the game servers for 'The Crew', a 2014 racing MMO with a scaled down map of the US. Alongside delisting the game from storefronts, they have revoked it from game accounts where users own the game too, so there is no way to access the game install media anymore.
There are of course other games that have historically been shut down because of the game servers being shuttered. Two that come to mind being Battlefield 2 & 2142, but there are plenty others out there,
Now, this game isn't really anything to sing home about but it's a matter of a principle; people paid for access / license to the game and can no logner access it, and given the company behind it, Ubisoft, is French, it is probably one of the biggest openings for legal retaliation. Ross does a better job of explaining it, but he wants to attack this on all possible fronts: owners of the game filing complaints direct to the French trading/consumer authority, and people writing / petitioning in their own countries. What Ross wants is to stop companies from being able to just decommission games that players have paid for, and ideally force companies to either keep the services running, make provisions so that the games can still be played offline, or provide access / tooling so that player communities can keep the game operational just as is the case with some games today (like the Battlefield 2 Hub / Revive projects that stood up community servers)
In simple terms, if you buy a product, a company shouldn't be able to destroy it / remove your ability to use it. Ross is hoping that if we can get enforcement in at least one or two countries, this will just lead to publishers applying a similar policy globally like we have in the past with companies like Valve, Sony etc allowing refunds.
From a UK standpoint: a petition was raised and is up to 25k signatures at this point, just needs another 75k for it to be 'considered' for debate in parliament:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/659071
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVGZe-xXS68 (Ross' response)
The response was a bit lackluster (although it's been disputed) and kinda suggests that whoever wrote it doesn't really understand the subject matter, but Ross has kinda speculated that it opens the door to future discussion / precedent being set. A point being that companies could potentially be forced to set expecctations of when the game will be shut down like an expiration date. It wouldn't be appropriate, for instance, for a company to randomly issue an update that forces a phone to stop working, would it?
I for one will be writing to my MP about it, if for nothing else then because I don't see what this would actually cost the government to consider given it's not denting their pockets directly.
I guess what I'm hoping to get out of this is spreading some awareness, potentially finding some friendly people who might be able to offer a shred of support to this campaign and just speculating whether there is a legal precedent for enforcement to stop this. EG, if I owned a copy of 'The Crew', could I take a complaint to the ombudsman / trading standards if Ubisoft refused to refund the cost / value of the game to me?

Why? Cause "Ha! You still live with yo mama, you ain' got no car, you ain' got no house" so on and so forth which are all valid reasons IF YOU'RE NOT A FEMINIST.
You know who would date/marry someone who works at McDonald's and doesn't have a cahouse? Niggaz would. Niggas don't care, they wouldn't be like "THIS GIRL STILL LIVES WITH HER MAMA, THIS GIRL GOT NO CAR, SHE ONLY MAKES BLAH BLAH A MONTH" MEN DON'T CARE. MILLIONAIRE MEN WOULD PUT A RING ON A WAITRESS HE WOULDN'T CARE OR EVEN THINK ABOUT HER JOB OR EARNINGS.
But the fake Feminists do. Why is that?
Because deep down in her nature she knows the man is supposed to be the breadwinner and the leader of the household so she can't bring herself to be cuffed by a low income no promising future man who can't lead. SHE IS JUST NOT ATTRACTED TO A MAN WHO CAN'T PULL HIS WEIGHT.
WHAT HAPPENED TO GENDER ROLES BEING FAKE? WHAT HAPPENED TO "IT'S TOTALLY NORMAL FOR MEN TO STAY AT HOME AND WOMEN TO MAKE A LIVING"
SHOW ME ONE GOD DAMN FEMINIST WHO EARNS HIGH, WHO MARRIED A GUY WHO WORKS AT WALMART. I CAN SHOW YOU PLENTY OF RICH MEN WHO MARRY LOW INCOME WOMEN.
But nah, as with everything left wing and woke, Feminism too is self contradicting.
AS A MATTER OF FACT FEMINISM ISN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE REAL ACCORDING TO THE LEFT BECAUSE ANYONE WHO SAYS THEY'RE A WOMAN IS A WOMAN SO THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS INCOME INEQUALITY ANYWAY SO LONG AS HIGH EARNING MEN IDENTIFY AS WOMEN HAHAHAH PROBLEM SOLVED! Anyway that's another topic.

Reduce Garrison Capacity to 10 (or maybe 15 depending) to bring it in line with other defensive landmarks
And/Or (depending on which one turns out better)
Reduce production bonus from +100% to +50%, or some other limitation.
Explanation for those interested in the extra reading:
I feel like all the hate this landmark gets isn't from the landmark itself, but how it slots into the English meta (that is, the meta for English players). It absolutely CAN be beaten and it isn't overpowered, however it makes the English obnoxiously safe if they play even moderately well, which isn't healthy in the long term.
Both of their landmarks produce military units on Feudal, with one of them being TWO military buildings, so you would be foolish to not invest in defenses and your own early military early on, but they can punish this by using saved resources to go 2nd TC while still having the means to make units and raid you. Yes, you can scout them, but there was a match not long ago where we both got early military, both fought each other, and he still got his 2nd TC faster than I did. They don't have to build zero military to still get one at a fair pace, they just don't all-in as hard with longbows.
If you play great, manage to beat their early military completely, then push them with your larger army, there is nothing more demoralizing than having that advantage evaporate because they saved enough gold to castle up even after skirmishing with their longbowmen, spears, and (possibly) early knight. No other CIV can go greedy fast castle and almost completely avoid punishment since unless you arrive at the moment their tower is going up, and they have no army on hand, the moment they go Age 3 an average of maybe 2/3 of their population is completely safe. You have no choice but to fall back until you can challenge the keep, which buys them time to recover from the battle and reverse any damage you did manage to deal them. And to top it off, it's ANOTHER source of double unit production, including siege engines.
Can it be beaten? Yes! Every match plays out differently, but it's disproportionately harder to punish an English player for booming than it is for an English player to punish you, that's something most should agree on.
So again, easy fix: if the White Tower were less safe and allowed players who manage to storm their base to get more villagers kills to punish greedy plays, I think there would be a lot less complaint. It would also be a good excuse to buff King's Palace since it's needed one for a long time and is the only landmark that has been basically untouched save for a health buff.

Hello everyone!
I'm thinking about buying a new guitar. I previously had a PRS SE Standard, which I loved, but a luthier ruined it, and I decided to sell it out of sadness.
I'm considering getting a used one, but I have a lot of doubts about the manufacturing years.
At the time, I tried some guitars made during COVID (2020-2022), and many of them were terrible!
Fender Player with the bridge misaligned, mediocre fretwork, loose pickguards, I even found one with the fretboard marked with a marker to make the cut for the fret slot!! All from 2021.
I tried some Jackson Pro Series from 2021 and 2022, and they were horrible! $1,000 guitars that came out of the box dirty and with very, very sharp frets.
Epiphones from 2021, specifically LP Custom and Standard, weren't that bad, but the electronics failed, and the frets didn't allow for very low action.
My PRS was from 2021, I didn't find many defects except for some imperfections in the finish and a nut that was too high.
My question is, was there really a decrease in the quality of guitars made that year? I noticed that prices increased, but is it justified? I'm looking at a 2021 Schecter, but these experiences have me a bit scared. Has anyone else noticed the same thing? Does anyone have guitars from 2020-2022 that they can confirm are of excellent quality?
Note: I'm using a translator, I apologize for any spelling mistakes.

I’m at the conclusion of one of the weirdest situations I’ve been in my life. I’m 34/M she is 25/F let’s call her Unique. We met in 2022. Had a very intense thing going on for about 2 months. We never left each other side during that time. Met each other parents and all. We claimed to be exclusively sexual with each other but wasn’t in a legitimate relationship. After a while I asked to for a full blown relationship. She was apprehensive stating she’s not ready. I really felt some way about this and after went out and dealt with another woman a few days later(e.i oral.) Later, Unique finds out from finding a condom in my car. I initially tried to lie about it but within 30 minutes came clean about the about thing. I just knew it was going to be over and I would never hear from her again.
This is where I feel it gets weird. I feel horrible for what I have done but she wants to continue. But now I can’t shake this feeling of an brokenness between us. Like our little bubble has been popped. Since we were never in a relationship I felt it was it was only a matter of time she would leave. She a beautiful girl. So, one day I told her we should take a break as I couldn’t shake this dark cloud. After about two weeks, I wanted her back but it was too late. She said she just wants to be friends. I tried to convince her otherwise but ultimately respected her decision. I told her I can’t be friends with because I still have feelings for her and it wouldn’t be a true friendship but if she ever changes her mind on us being together again to reach out.
After I go my separate way crushed but accepting my fate. Crushed because I’m a man of my word and I broke our agreement and her trust. Knowing she will forever look at me differently. But then she reaches out a few weeks later and I believe it’s to work it out but instead it to “check on me.” I chat for a little bit and then explain to her the same thing I did before and to reach out if she has a change of heart. So let’s just say this went on for more than a year and a half. There would be every 1-2 months she would “reach out” saying all different things from “I miss you” “I love you” so on and so on. I would foolishly lean in only for her to pull away shortly after. One time she even blocked me for 3 months after I told how can I get over you if you keep contacting me playing this game. I’ve ignored and blocked her, she would call me from different numbers. Because I foolishly had these feelings for her I would lean in time and time again. After enough of that emotional roller coaster I started to tell her straight up leave me alone. No more “reach out if you change your mind.” It would continue until I changed my phone number only for her to reach out on email months later. I debated but reached back out to her. This time I thought ok maybe if she went that far as to email me she wants to figure something out.
This time I figure okay we can be friends get to know each other more take it slow this time. Only for me to have all of these negative feelings the entire time because we because we were hanging out again but things were massively different. After a while I realized tis wasn’t good for my mental health and told her I can’t do this blocked her and walked away. I spent the next 3 months(longest we went without speaking) getting myself together. Then one day I started to miss her and after a week or 2 I reached out to her. This time I’m thinking I’m just going to be friends. We started hanging out again. But I’m noticing I’m paying for everything and she asking me for money for things and favors. So I was going along with it a little bit because I thought maybe she feeling me out and because in most cases I genuinely wanted to look out for her. When I realized that’s not the case I told her I can no longer pay for her every time we hangout. She did not like this one bit. Mind you, I’ve always paid for everything.
She says to me it’s crazy that I don’t think a friendship with a female doesn’t consist of doing things for her and paying for her. I said not if we’re just friends. Sure occasionally I can do favor I can buy some drinks as a friend. She never once offered to pay anything not one round nothing even if invites out. One time, even gave me a hard time I ask for a ride when she still had a car. Asking to pay for your nails and stuff I feel are things you ask the man you’re romantic with. Said it seems manipulative on her part to constantly ask me someone who just a friend for all this. She said I’ll never see her because I still have feelings for her.
I admit I played my role in this dragging as long as it did(2 years.) I feel we should’ve ended when I asked for a full blown relationship and she said she wasn’t ready. My mistake not communicating then clearly that that’s what I wanted and if she not with then it’s so long. There a lot of nuance that can’t be explained here.She is now blocked on everything. I like to think differences in ages contributed to this.
What do you all think?