Ayon sa Anti-Poverty Czar ni President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr na si Secretary Larry Gadon, haka-haka o kathang-isip lang daw ang kahirapan sa bansa. Batay sa kanyang teorya, mataas raw ang “purchasing power” ng mga Pilipino dahil puno ang mga malls at food chains at napakaraming mga bagong sasakyan sa daan.
Ngunit ito nga ba ang indicators ng poverty incidence sa bansa?According to poverty statistics released during the first semester of 2023:A family of five needs P9,550 per month in 2023 to provide for their basic food needs or 320/dayPagdating naman sa income, a family of five will therefore require P13,797 per month o 460/day para sa ibang non-food needs tulad ng tubig, kuryente, damit, matrikula, atbp.
Kung susumahin, nasa estimated P800/daily ang gasto ng isang Pilipino in order to survive.Subalit, ang minimum wage ng isang trabahante ay nasa P610/day.
Short pa ito ng almost P200 para masuplayan ang pangangailangan araw-araw. When it comes to unemployment, nag-release rin ang Philippine Statistics Authority ng data saying that:
The number of jobless Filipinos increased in March 2024, posting an unemployment rate of 3.9%, that means, the number of jobless individuals increased by 205,000. From 1.8 million in February 2024, nag-increase to 3.9% sa March ang mga unemployed na Pilipino from the age range of 15 years old and above.
So, kahit pa punong-puno ang mga mall at kainan, di pa rin natin makakaila ang tunay na problema ng bansa. Gutom at naghihirap ang Pilipino, kumakayod araw-araw, habang umaasa ng komportableng pamumuhay sa gobyerno. Mula ito sa reliable source, backed by data at hindi lang haka-haka. #JustFacts

I'm a caregiver to my mother who has short term memory issues. She's got a huge heart but isn't widely known for remembering things shall we say. I've got two dogs in the home, a Blue Heeler mutt that might have a bit of Chow-chow in him, and a Pit-Lab who is very protective of her property (read: her family's property) both rather young, I think the Pit is maybe 3 years old and the Heeler is 2 years old. The Heeler listens and obeys.. to a limited extent, he's got separation issues. The Pit rarely listens to anyone except me (Dad) and even then, to get her back inside, I have to go physically grab her collar or w/e and redirect her at times, depending on the people walking past (I unfortunately live in a shady area, some people seem to have a fascination with upsetting the dogs when they're chained to use the toilet - I wish I lived in an area with a fenced yard so they could run a bit more)
Grandma has mobility issues so she's unable to be physical with either one - the Heeler, not much of an issue but the Pit? She's another story. I'm usually at work when issues arise, so am unable to deal with them immediately, as one should with dogs. From what I've read, the Pit doesn't respect Grandma, unless the dog is in the right mood.
Any advice on how to get the Pit to listen when Grandma calls her back inside, or anything else? (Idk if this might help but the Pit seems to be kind of food motivated, although that isn't reliable)

Hi,
I want my Questcape back on my HC. I finally finished getting all the requirements for Desert Treasure 2 on a second account. My HC is my main and always was (for OSRS at least). The account I leveld up now is actually my old RS3 main.
I'm planning to do the quest on both accounts parallel. First doing each boss/fight on the second account and once i'm comfortable and gained enough muscle memory switching to the main. The second account is only cb 95, so it's going to be a lot harder compared to the HC but that's a good thing imo.
I already looked into a lot of guides and stuff. But do you know of any tips or niche strategies specifically for Hardcores to minimize risk of death? Also any warnings about some dangerous stuff during the quest that maybe is overlooked or not even mentioned in guides?
E.g. im kinda scared about the Mysterious Stranger. I fear that i get into a situation where i don't have food on me and getting instantly teleblocked not being able to defend myself or escaping her. Any tips on how to be always on the safe side here?
Apart from the 4 bosses, do any of fights have a high chance of stacking me out from above >80 hp? Part of my strategy (i also used in other quest like Dragon Slayer 2) is to basically stay above 100 hp all the time if possible and tele out early if my hp gets uncomfortable.
My Internet is very stable, though i also have emergency internet via bluetooth-tethering from my phone. I will always be wearing an Escape Crystal with timer activated, probably going to set it to 4 seconds (Should be enough for PC or client crash?).
Stats and Gear
CB 122 Melee 95+, Ranged 92, Magic 95, Prayer 84. No Rigour, no Augury.
Gear:

• Most Barrows Gear, Fighter Torso
• Faceguard
• Blowpipe (with Amnestys Darts)
• Trident of the Seas
• Tentacle Whip
• Blood Fury
• Zombie Axe / Arclight - Which one is safer for Duke?
• No bofa and sadly no Dragon Warhammer (cries)
• Brews, Anglers, Super Combat Potions

I would be glad to hear anything that comes to your mind. Also links to any guides/videos you think are helpful and maybe not so well known or easy to find are welcome. I for example can't find any video of HCIMs doing DT2 on YouTube. YouTube search sucks sadly (or i am just bad at choosing the correct search terms) and only shows me low budget midlevel iron DT2 videos, which are also very helpful of course.

Human rights: Food for a 2024-relevant thought ‘HR and injustices in 2024’

HRR 724


[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about the galloping inequalities behind HR violations. It lets facts speak for themselves. No comments added. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducitraduire los/les Readers; usautiliser deepl.com

[Every now and then, I thought we have to reflect on ‘the totality’ of the indeed depressing seemingly unrelated realities; nobody does it better than OXFAM].

1.0. Since 2020, and the beginning of this decade of division, the five richest
men have seen their fortunes more than double, while almost five billion
people have seen their wealth fall.

1.1. 791 million workers have seen their wages fail to keep up with inflation
and have lost US$1.5 trillion over the last two years, equivalent to nearly a
month (25 days) of lost wages for each worker.

1.2. Billionaires are US$3.3 trillion or 34% richer than they were at the
beginning of this decade of crisis, with their wealth growing three times as
fast as the rate of inflation.

1.3. Despite representing only 21% of the world population, countries in the
Global North own 69% of global wealth and are home to 74% of the world’s
billionaire wealth.

1.4. Globally, men own US$105 trillion more wealth than women --equivalent to
four times the size of the US economy.

1.5. If the current trend continues, we will see the first trillionaire in 10 years,
but we will not eliminate poverty for 230 years.

1.6. If each of the five wealthiest men were to spend a million dollars daily,
it would take them 476 years to exhaust their combined wealth.

1.7. It would take 1,200 years for a female worker in the health and social
sector to earn what a CEO in the biggest Fortune 100 companies earns on
average in one year.

1.8. The richest 1% own 43% of all global financial assets.

1.9. A wealth tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires could generate
US$1.8 trillion dollars each year.

2.0. According to new data covering the first six months of 2023, 2023 is set to
shatter all records as the most profitable year yet for big corporations. 148 of
the world’s biggest corporations (where data is available) made nearly US$1.8
trillion in profits in the 12 months leading up to June 2023, which is 52.5%
higher than their average for 2018–21. Their windfall profits --defined as
profits exceeding the 2018–21 average by more than 20% -- are nearly
US$700bn. Taxing these windfall profits at 90% would generate nearly
US$628bn in revenue.

2.1. The biggest winners in terms of windfall profits have been 14 oil and gas
companies whose profits in 2023 were 278% above the 2018–21 average,
representing US$190bn in windfall profits in 2023 and US$144bn in 2022.

2.2. For every US$100 of profit generated by 96 major companies between July
2022 and June 2023, US$82 was returned to shareholders in the form of stock
buybacks and dividends.

2.3. New Oxfam analysis of the World Benchmarking Alliance’s data on over
1,600 of the largest and most influential companies worldwide shows that
0.4% of companies are publicly committed to paying their workers a living
wage and support payment of a living wage in their value chains partners.

2.4. Oxfam’s analysis of the World Benchmarking Alliance’s data of over 1,600
of the world’s largest companies finds that only 0.7% fully meet a global bar
for collective bargaining --by disclosing collective bargaining coverage in their
workforce and their approach to supporting collective bargaining through their
business relationships (e.g., their suppliers).

2.5. New data on over 1,600 of the largest and most influential companies
reveals that only 24% have a public commitment to gender equality. Just 2.6%
of companies disclose information on the ratio of pay of women to men.

2.6. Just 4% of the over 1,600 largest and most influential companies sampled
worldwide fully meet the World Benchmarking Alliance’s social indicator on
responsible tax, by having a public global tax strategy and publicly disclosing
corporate income taxes paid in all countries of residency.

2.7. Shell made US$29.2bn in profits between July 2022 and June 2023, an
increase of 222% compared to its average profits from 2018–21. Of those
profits, 87.7% were handed back to shareholders in the form of stock
buybacks and dividends.

2.8. Between July 2022 and June 2023, Brazil’s Petrobras made US$30.3bn in
profits --almost four times more than its average annual profits from 2019–2021.
It paid out 118% of those profits to shareholders in the form of dividends --
more than three times what Petrobras invested in capital expenditure.

2.9. If the amount companies spent on dividends and shareholder buybacks
for the richest 10% in 2022 was redistributed to the bottom 40% of the income
distribution, global income inequality as measured by the Palma ratio could
decrease by 21.5% --equivalent to the actual drop in the Palma ratio observed
over 41 years.

2.10. Just half of the amount from payouts to the top 10% in 2022 could
reduce global poverty (defined as US$6.85 a day, 2017 PPP), and a mere 1.6%
of the payouts could eliminate extreme poverty as defined by the World Bank
(US$2.15 a day, 2017 PPP).

2.11. The world’s five largest corporations combined are valued at more than
all the GDP of economies in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean combined.

3.0. Of the 10 largest listed companies in the world, seven have a billionaire as
either a principal shareholder or CEO. The total value (market capitalization) of
these companies is $10.2 trillion.

3.1. Of the 50 largest listed companies in the world, 17 (34%) have a billionaire
as either a principal shareholder or CEO. The total value (market capitalization)
of these companies is $13.3 trillion.

Bottom line: Phew!

Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at [schuftan@gmail.com](mailto:schuftan@gmail.com)
All Readers are available at www.claudioschuftan.com

If you do not want to receive these Readers anymore, do send me a message with ‘unsubscribe’ in the subject line.

First time posting. Looking for advice and opinions regarding phone monitoring and trust in a relationship after it's been broken. I'm not interested in any advice on wether or not I should end the relationship. TL:DR at the bottom.
I met my boyfriend at work. (I know, dating coworkers isn’t a great idea, but here we are). I developed a crush on him, and after several months I eventually asked him if he’d be interested in going out/hooking up He hadn’t been in a relationship in over 10 years, and was a bit of a loner. His previous girlfriend was his first. They were together 7 years. She constantly cheated on him and left him, before they finally split for good. My boyfriend still suffers some PTSD from it, and has developed a bit of an avoidant attachment style.
We began seeing each other early last year and became intimate quickly. I felt myself falling for him rapidly, but one thing that began to bother me after several months of seeing each other is that he didn’t seem to be very interested in making our relationship official. I had asked him several times if we could be exclusive/boyfriend and girlfriend, but he always seemed to dodge the question.
A few times during my visits to his apartment, he had let slip that he’s still talking to his ex, and he still has feelings for her. This made me worried. I asked him many times to clarify where I stand with him, but he was never able to answer. During one of my visits, he told me that his ex had sent him nudes. I asked if he had sent any back. He said he didn’t. I asked him if we’ve been exclusive since we started seeing each other. He said we had been, and we agreed to continue being exclusive, even if we weren’t official yet.
After about 5 months of seeing each other, he still would not commit to me. I felt like he was hiding something about his ex. While he was at my place sleeping one night, I decided to go through his phone. I discovered that he had been sexting and flirting with his ex the entire time I had been dating him, and she had no idea he was also seeing me. I found messages saying how much he still loved her. It crushed me.
I sent his ex a message on Facebook to ask if he had told her that he has been seeing me. She said he mentioned me once, but she didn’t know we were still dating. She said she made it clear to him that she doesn’t want a relationship with him, but entertained his advances out of loneliness. I confronted him about this, and asked if they had hooked up since I had started seeing him. He said no. I later found out that was a lie. They had hooked up several times when he was supposedly at his parent's house. He got upset with me for invading his privacy, and we didn’t talk for a few days.
After a few days, we worked things out. I decided that he didn’t technically cheat on me since we weren’t officially a couple yet, but he did lie to me about his ex and about us being exclusive. After his ex made it clear to him again that she isn’t interested in dating him, he finally decided to make me his girlfriend. I was happy that we were finally an official couple, but still heartbroken over how we got there.
My trust in him was broken at this point. He lied about his ex to me several times before I discovered his big secret. Even when I had the evidence in my hand that he had been lying, he minimized it, and only gave me trickle truths to the things I could directly prove. So, in order to rebuild trust, I asked him to give me his Facebook password, so I could make sure his conversations with his ex remain Platonic. At first, he declined, but after about a week he finally gave it to me. At the same time, however, he changed the lock code on his phone.
He stopped seeing/flirting with his ex, but the fact that he changed the passcode to his phone made me feel like he was still hiding something. He insisted that he wasn’t hiding anything. He said that he felt it was needed after I went through his phone without permission, because he uses his phone to access his bank online sometimes, and is worried that I would try to steal from him. (I’ve never asked him for money, I make the same amount of money he does, I’m completely financially independent, and I pay for most of the meals when we order food). I told him I understand his concern, but his banking account/apps should already be password protected, so there wouldn’t be anything to worry about. This went on for several months until I was finally able to convince him to change his passcode back in order for me to trust him again.
A few weeks after he gave me access to his phone again, I decided to check it. He goes out of his way to cover his digital footprint. He has a habit of deleting emails, messages, and call logs as soon as they’re no longer needed. He also exclusively uses an incognito private browser. This is all fine, but it’s an important detail. While checking his phone, I decided to also check cached website data in his browser. I found cached data for a hookup website. I made a burner account on the website and found his profile. I was able to log into his account, since he used the same password for Facebook. I discovered that he signed up for the website using an email address that I had never seen him use before. I found several messages he exchanged with other people on the site asking them to meetup.
I confronted him about my findings, and he dismissed my concerns, telling me that he never actually intended to meet with anyone, he just likes to chat as an alternative to porn (I don’t mind porn.) I didn’t believe him, though. He quickly deleted his profile. Shortly after confronting him, I decided to try accessing the secret email account he used to check if he had anything else he was hiding. Unfortunately, he had already scrubbed the emails and deleted his account.
After a few days of arguing, we eventually reconciled. I told him that I can’t trust him anymore unless he allows me to install monitoring software on his phone/computer. He said no. This didn’t sit right with me. He kept insisting that what he did wasn’t a big deal, that he loved me, and that he wasn’t hiding anything else. I had my doubts. So, without his knowledge, I decided to install hidden tracking software on his phone and computer. I kept an eye on him for about 3 weeks. However, while I was checking the logs, I became increasingly disturbed by the porn he was choosing to view. This wasn’t anything illegal, but it was definitely not normal and a bit disturbing. I finally broke and admitted to him that I had bugged his devices. He flew off the handle and broke up with me because I betrayed him, and he couldn’t trust me anymore.
We eventually reconciled again after ~a week. I felt very hurt by the betrayal, but decided that I wanted to try to work things out. However, we couldn’t agree on what level of access to his devices/accounts is appropriate. He told me that monitoring his devices was never okay in any situation, no matter what he has done, and that my actions were creepy and cyberstalking. I told him I’m sorry for going behind his back, I felt like I needed to know the truth. (During my time monitoring him, I didn’t find any evidence of him cheating, but I will also note that I was not able to monitor everything he did, so he still could have cheated without me knowing.)
I told him that I would like for him to give me his blessing to monitor his devices so that we can rebuild the trust he broke. He refused, so I broke up with him again, but we ended up getting back together a few days later.
*Side note: I moved to this town a few years ago from out of state, I don’t have any friends or family out here, and don’t really have any friends in general.
I still had access to his Facebook account, and still checked it every few days. I found some messages to an attractive female friend of his where he had gone to her house the day after we broke up. The wording of his messages implied that something sexual may have happened when he was there. I asked him if anything sexual happened when he visited his friend. I told him that since we were broken up during this time, I wouldn’t hold it against him if they slept together, but for the sake of rebuilding trust, I felt like it was important that he at least be honest with me about it. He said nothing sexual happened.
A few days later I was reading the messages again and noticed that some of them were deleted. I asked him again, and he admitted that they made out a little bit, but nothing sexual happened. I still felt like he was holding back more detail, and kept pressing the issue, but he insisted that nothing more happened. (I found out a month later that he did in fact sleep with her.)
About a month later, I was doing my usual check of his accounts that I had access to. I found an email exchange he had been having for a couple of days with someone he found on a Craigslist type site. He had posted on the website soliciting hookups. In his email, he talked to this other person and made plans to meet up. There was no date set in stone, but they agreed he would go over to the other person’s house.
I confronted him about this. Asked him several times if he has anything he’s hiding from me. He insisted he wasn’t hiding anything. I told him I found his post/email chain. He got upset and said I shouldn’t have been snooping. Shortly afterward, he changed his passwords to all of his accounts that I had access to, and enabled 2FA. I broke up with him after that, and told him that I would only consider reconciliation if he agreed to let me install monitoring software on his devices. He is very careful to delete his history and cookies, never saves passwords, only logs into websites with incognito mode. He’s used secret email accounts in the past, which is why I believe that simple access to his devices and accounts isn’t enough to earn my trust back.
He refused my conditions for reconciliation, but insists he still wants to be together. We got back together after I broke down and walked back on my requirement.
TL:DR - My boyfriend has cheated, lied, and broken my trust several times. He and I both want to remain together and work things out. The only way I feel I would be able to trust him is if he allowed me to install tracking software on his phone since he keeps everything deleted. He refuses. What should I do?

Measures, as deterministic and effective as possible, to re-peg DUSD and re-collateralize the dToken system with healthy loans sold against crypto, without permanent expropriation

TL;DR

This proposal offers a structured and maximally deterministic approach to stabilize DUSD immediately and consistently, aims to reward long-term supporters, and to enable projects in the long run. It does not rely on influencing market behavior and does not indefinitely expropriate holders. The primary goal of this approach is to re-collateralize the dToken system with healthy loans sold against crypto, the backbone of our dToken system, everything else builds on top. It involves locking nearly all circulating DUSD and dTokens in tranches and releasing them successively based on predefined conditions.

Goals

• Achieve the peg as deterministically and effectively as possible.
• Enable fair market price leverage trades on crypto, which is necessary for re-collateralizing the system.
• Repay those who supported the system.
• Enable projects to execute their mission and work with real liquidity.

Problem Statement

Current measures to stabilize DUSD rely heavily on influencing market participants' behavior, making the peg too probabilistic. Even if we reach the peg, the assumption that enough collateralized loans are sold against crypto for the dynamic interest rates to maintain this peg is too probabilistic. Relying on assumptions for a peg is problematic, because market participant behavior cannot be controlled and predicted, even if incentivized. While I believe dynamic interest rates can consistently maintain a peg effectively once we reach healthy collateralization levels, the implemented fees are not an effective tool to overcome the massive liquidity of algo dTokens and DUSD circulating today.

Proposed Solution

A new approach: instead of relying on voluntary actions of market participants, force-lock-up all DUSD and dToken liquidity, whilst providing opportunities and clear rules for paybacks based on system health.

1. Locking all liquidity away and releasing it successively as needed

• The defined percentage* of DUSD are locked/removed from each owning addresses and are in equal parts allocated in 50 tranches (1-50). Those are freed/returned to the owning addresses based on predefined factors.
• The defined percentage* of dTokens and relevant LP tokens are locked/removed from each owning addresses and are in equal parts allocated in 50 tranches (51-100). Those are freed/returned to the owning addresses based on predefined factors.
• Locked LP tokens do not receive rewards, those are used to reward new liquidity providers. Exiting at peg is reward enough for those currently invested, no need to make it more expensive.
• As liquidity is then minimal, ongoing measures will buy the DUSD up immediately and incentivize the creation of backed DUSD loans sold against crypto. Those are the backbone of the peg, they are the priority of the proposed measures. All other decisions are secondary and all rely on reaching this.

2. Releasing Tranches

• Tranches with the same number are released together, this means all DUSD tranches are released first, all dToken and LP tranches are released later.
• The following system health conditions for releasing tranches are checked on oracle blocks to avoid high computational load:

One tranche at a time: - DFI market cap 2 times than dToken System market cap - An algo ratio below 30% - Consistent 1% DUSD premium over the period between two futureswap blocks.
Two tranches at a time: - DFI market cap 4 times greater than dToken System market cap - An algo ratio below 25% - Consistent 5% DUSD premium over the period between two futureswap blocks.
Three tranches at a time: - DFI market cap 6 times greater than dToken System market cap - An algo ratio below 20% - Consistent 10% DUSD premium over the period between two futureswap blocks.
Four tranches at a time: - DFI market cap 8 times greater than dToken System market cap - An algo ratio below 15% - Consistent 15% DUSD premium over the period between two futureswap blocks.
Five tranches at a time: - DFI market cap 10 times greater than dToken System market cap - An algo ratio below 10% - Consistent 20% DUSD premium over the period between two futureswap blocks.
This way, 2-10 million DUSD worth of dToken-system liquidity can be reintroduced into the system per week, given a healthy system state.

3. Measures to be Eliminated

• All additional pool swap fees are lifted, allowing for healthy leverage trades on DFI that can later support the DUSD peg. This part is crucial for a healthy restart. A collateralization ratio makes no difference if the DUSD are not sold against DFI as those need to be bought back when the dynamic interest rises due to a discount to support a peg.
• Reward allocations to DUSD bonds are removed; those will be redirected to the community fund until we find a better use for them. All existing DUSD bonds are released, and the freed-up DUSD are counted to the DUSD that may be locked in the tranches together with all other DUSD.
• All negative interest mechanisms are lifted. DUSD loops are unwound, and the freed-up DUSD are counted to the DUSD that may be locked in the tranches together with all other DUSD.

4. Measures to be Retained

• The futureswap mechanism will be retained. It is advised to analyze the futureswap behavior while we are at peg over an extended period. If the futureswap creates unnecessarily high amounts of algo tokens even when at peg, the following adjustment is suggested: making the futureswap spread variable and increasing it if an asset shows higher implied volatility over two consecutive futureswap blocks. This way, the chain gains a bigger trade advantage for stocks that tend to surpass the current 5% limit more often. This will burn more tokens and mint less.
• The buy and burn bot will be retained.
• The rebalancing of the community fund will be retained.
• Dynamic interests will be retained.

5. Introduction of a new dToken-system-wide fee that consistently burns DUSD and dTokens

• A dToken-system-base-fee is implemented on DVM and DMC. This fee applies to all dToken and DUSD transfers from account to account and pool swaps on the DVM side and all token transactions on the DMC side. The fee is initially set to 10 basis points (0.1%). This fee is necessary to account for rising stock prices and reduce the algo ratio.

Percentage Locked

The percentage of liquidity to be locked is crucial as this is a one-time approach. Locking too much liquidity is not problematic, as it can be reintroduced if system health allows. However, locking too little is problematic because maintaining the peg and enabling re-collateralization through backed loans sold against crypto will not be possible. I argue for minimal liquidity leading to a peg allowing for healthy collateralization to support the peg via dynamic interest rates rather than excessive liquidity that the system cannot support. Therefore, I propose locking away 90% of all dToken-system liquidity, leaving about 20 million DUSD in liquidity for the restart. If the system is healthy, up to 10 million DUSD in liquidity can be reintroduced per week. If not, we will wait until the system is healthy enough to support the liquidity.

Further Details

• Loans are all paid back before the dTokens and DUSD are locked in tranches. If insufficient assets are available on the address, they are purchased on the market via the cheapest route.
• Relevant pools are emptied before the dTokens and DUSD are locked in tranches. Trading counterparts are credited to the owning addresses.

Requirements

A hard fork will be necessary to implement these changes. Furthermore, cooperation is needed from relevant projects to handle the balances in smart contracts on the DMC. If they do not cooperate, this proposal cannot be implemented. Addressing smart contracts on the metachain is crucial to treat everyone fairly and ensure the success of the proposed measures.

Measure Until Implementation and Proposal Kill Switch

The implementation of the proposed measures is challenging and time-consuming, it will probably take months. Until implementation, we implement a 50 basis points fee on all dToken pools to burn algo tokens, in hope to be able to activate the following proposal kill switch: If, during implementation, DUSD consistently trades around $1, this proposal is not to be implemented.

Further Food for Thought

Measures targeted at changing voluntary market behavior have had insufficient success, forced locking with conditional payouts ensures fairness and effectiveness. Measures based on voluntary lockups are unfair because those who do not participate unjustly gain a bigger advantage, despite the cash flow offered as recompensation to those who support the system. Additionally, cash flows are costly to the system, either the dToken system or DFI itself. No solution will make everyone happy. However, a deterministic forced approach treats everyone fairly and equally, does not rely on probabilities and ensures success.

Optional

I would argue for future swapping all dTokens at the oracle price to DUSD, making the locking and releasing much easier. Additionally, the upside from here is 10x after fee on a repeg. Assets being worth times 10 should be enough to compensate the owners for the forced sale of their preferred dTokens. If not, we must release DUSD before dTokens, as dTokens might rise in value and the greater liquidity they provide would mean a slower payout for everybody, which is not fair to the people holding DUSD instead of dTokens.

Q&A

Q: If we have little liquidity, users will be angry that the system cannot be used. A: Liquidity is a secondary issue for me, the more important question is if we can afford the liquidity. The liquidity we have in the system right now is a cost that, if we can't afford, should not be maintained. If we can afford it, the liquidity will be reintroduced; we have it on the backburner. Additionally, the goal is to attract real liquidity through backed loans, which we will achieve if the product is valuable.
Q: If we have a 10 bps fee on all transactions, there will be less usage. A: I also pay 10 bps on every exchange, usually much more, especially in traditional finance. I pay 2% on every card payment and substantial fees on asset management. For example, at Relai, you pay at least 50 basis points, usually 1%. Fees are charged everywhere; things cost money. I believe a usage fee on RWA is justifiable. RWAs rise in price, so even if the futureswap burns more dTokens than it mints, it may create algo DUSD balances. We have many algo tokens. This fee is a necessary cost that users must pay for an effective synthetic RWA spot system.
Q: Why include the fee system-wide on all transactions? A: New users will probably use the DMC. If DFC is successful, we will likely find most usage there. We want many projects using our dTokens. We need to charge the usage fee where the usage will occur; otherwise, users will flee to DMC where no fees are charged.
Q: But we have the stabilization fee. Can’t we just keep that instead of the base fee on all transactions? A: The stabilization fee makes healthy re-collateralization (sold against crypto) more challenging when the algo ratio is high because the user gets less crypto for his DUSD. When we have high algo ratios, we want more collateralization-based loans sold against crypto. It is the "collateralized loans sold against crypto" that maintain the peg if dynamic interests are raised. A loan left in the dToken system brings a low algo ratio but does nothing if I pay back a loan without buying the DUSD beforehand. Dynamic interest rates stabilize nothing in this case. By first eliminating most algo tokens and implementing a base fee, we can remove this fee and allow for healthy leverage trades supporting the system to occur in the first place.
Q: Why lock so much liquidity? A: This approach is a one-time silver bullet. It must be as deterministic as possible; I do not want to rely on probabilistic assumptions about how market participants will behave based on incentives and public information. In the past, single addresses hindered re-peg efforts, and we cannot predict which addresses will act against the peg efforts in the future. Therefore, we must lock substantial portions of everyone's liquidity. Liquidity is the cost in our current situation, and we aren’t at the peg because none of the measures or whales can afford it. If the chain were a person, it would be flat broke. We cannot afford the liquidity at this point. Let's gradually ramp up the expenses when and if we can afford it, but not before.

Everything in my inventory is up for trade. The most valuable items are listed here, the rest you can find in My Inventory

Feel free to Add Me or even better send a Trade Offer. Open for any suggestions: upgrades, downgrades / knives, gloves, skins / stickers, patterns, floats.

All Buyouts are listed in cash value.

KNIVES

★ Butterfly Knife Lore (Factory New), B/O: $7194.77

★ Butterfly Knife Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2025.74

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★ M9 Bayonet Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $557.87

★ M9 Bayonet Stained (Well-Worn), B/O: $529.41

★ M9 Bayonet Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $465.39

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★ Talon Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $1295.27

★ Bayonet Tiger Tooth (Minimal Wear), B/O: $746.28

★ Karambit Bright Water (Field-Tested), B/O: $688.15

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★ Flip Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $547.93

★ Flip Knife Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $476.69

★ Flip Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $278.18

★ Flip Knife Black Laminate (Well-Worn), B/O: $258.83

★ Flip Knife Urban Masked (Field-Tested), B/O: $181.64

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★ Stiletto Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $686.04

★ Stiletto Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $665.41

★ Stiletto Knife, B/O: $601.39

★ Stiletto Knife Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $418.25

★ Stiletto Knife Night Stripe (Field-Tested), B/O: $227.80

★ Stiletto Knife Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $194.96

★ Stiletto Knife Safari Mesh (Field-Tested), B/O: $192.79

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★ Nomad Knife Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $518.11

★ Nomad Knife Scorched (Field-Tested), B/O: $169.78

★ Nomad Knife Forest DDPAT (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $166.88

★ StatTrak™ Nomad Knife Blue Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $335.79

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★ Skeleton Knife Stained (Well-Worn), B/O: $442.05

★ Skeleton Knife Urban Masked (Minimal Wear), B/O: $426.24

★ Skeleton Knife Boreal Forest (Field-Tested), B/O: $314.03

★ StatTrak™ Skeleton Knife Fade (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2361.28

★ StatTrak™ Skeleton Knife Urban Masked (Field-Tested), B/O: $376.53

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★ Ursus Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $557.12

★ Ursus Knife, B/O: $471.42

★ Ursus Knife Blue Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $212.37

★ Ursus Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $187.66

★ Ursus Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $178.18

★ Ursus Knife Ultraviolet (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $155.13

★ Ursus Knife Boreal Forest (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $124.26

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★ Huntsman Knife Black Laminate (Minimal Wear), B/O: $204.83

★ Huntsman Knife Black Laminate (Field-Tested), B/O: $184.50

★ StatTrak™ Huntsman Knife Lore (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $224.11

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★ Bowie Knife Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $2142.02

★ Bowie Knife, B/O: $230.44

★ Bowie Knife Damascus Steel (Factory New), B/O: $209.20

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet (Minimal Wear), B/O: $180.51

★ Bowie Knife Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $131.03

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★ Falchion Knife Night (Field-Tested), B/O: $132.54

★ Falchion Knife Urban Masked (Well-Worn), B/O: $112.81

★ Falchion Knife Scorched (Field-Tested), B/O: $108.81

★ Falchion Knife Forest DDPAT (Field-Tested), B/O: $107.82

★ Falchion Knife Safari Mesh (Field-Tested), B/O: $107.46

★ StatTrak™ Falchion Knife Ultraviolet (Field-Tested), B/O: $143.08

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★ Paracord Knife Crimson Web (Minimal Wear), B/O: $486.48

★ Paracord Knife Blue Steel (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $163.12

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★ Survival Knife Blue Steel (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $138.26

★ Survival Knife Night Stripe (Field-Tested), B/O: $131.03

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★ Gut Knife Sapphire (Minimal Wear), B/O: $1127.79

★ Gut Knife Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $286.17

★ Gut Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $246.55

★ Gut Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $240.77

★ Gut Knife, B/O: $210.49

★ Gut Knife Lore (Field-Tested), B/O: $194.22

★ Gut Knife Case Hardened (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $151.51

★ Gut Knife Blue Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $124.94

★ Gut Knife Rust Coat (Well-Worn), B/O: $118.99

★ Gut Knife Boreal Forest (Minimal Wear), B/O: $109.80

★ StatTrak™ Gut Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $237.96

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★ Shadow Daggers Gamma Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $264.92

★ Shadow Daggers Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $253.03

★ Shadow Daggers Tiger Tooth (Factory New), B/O: $237.22

★ Shadow Daggers Crimson Web (Field-Tested), B/O: $153.40

★ Shadow Daggers Autotronic (Minimal Wear), B/O: $144.42

★ Shadow Daggers Blue Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $105.20

★ StatTrak™ Shadow Daggers Damascus Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $150.46

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★ Navaja Knife Fade (Factory New), B/O: $365.99

★ Navaja Knife Doppler (Factory New), B/O: $228.93

★ Navaja Knife Marble Fade (Factory New), B/O: $227.43

★ Navaja Knife Slaughter (Factory New), B/O: $209.06

★ Navaja Knife, B/O: $203.16

★ Navaja Knife Case Hardened (Well-Worn), B/O: $132.57

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Factory New), B/O: $121.69

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Minimal Wear), B/O: $109.95

★ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $100.41

★ StatTrak™ Navaja Knife Fade (Factory New), B/O: $369.01

★ StatTrak™ Navaja Knife Damascus Steel (Field-Tested), B/O: $109.95

GLOVES

★ Sport Gloves Amphibious (Minimal Wear), B/O: $2394.67

★ Sport Gloves Omega (Well-Worn), B/O: $572.33

★ Sport Gloves Bronze Morph (Minimal Wear), B/O: $338.88

★ Sport Gloves Big Game (Field-Tested), B/O: $323.66

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★ Specialist Gloves Marble Fade (Minimal Wear), B/O: $1652.07

★ Specialist Gloves Tiger Strike (Field-Tested), B/O: $599.14

★ Specialist Gloves Crimson Web (Well-Worn), B/O: $231.57

★ Specialist Gloves Buckshot (Minimal Wear), B/O: $126.21

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★ Moto Gloves POW! (Minimal Wear), B/O: $996.99

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Field-Tested), B/O: $383.31

★ Moto Gloves POW! (Well-Worn), B/O: $276.00

★ Moto Gloves Turtle (Field-Tested), B/O: $180.28

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★ Hand Wraps CAUTION! (Minimal Wear), B/O: $502.29

★ Hand Wraps Giraffe (Minimal Wear), B/O: $180.73

★ Hand Wraps CAUTION! (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $178.32

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★ Driver Gloves Queen Jaguar (Minimal Wear), B/O: $181.01

★ Driver Gloves Rezan the Red (Field-Tested), B/O: $101.66

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★ Broken Fang Gloves Jade (Field-Tested), B/O: $127.88

★ Broken Fang Gloves Needle Point (Minimal Wear), B/O: $124.55

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★ Bloodhound Gloves Guerrilla (Minimal Wear), B/O: $127.94

★ Hydra Gloves Case Hardened (Field-Tested), B/O: $102.55

WEAPONS

AK-47 X-Ray (Well-Worn), B/O: $478.95

AUG Hot Rod (Factory New), B/O: $425.83

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Hyper Beast (Factory New), B/O: $413.95

M4A4 Daybreak (Factory New), B/O: $309.51

StatTrak™ AK-47 Aquamarine Revenge (Factory New), B/O: $305.43

AK-47 Case Hardened (Well-Worn), B/O: $196.38

StatTrak™ M4A4 Temukau (Minimal Wear), B/O: $174.64

P90 Run and Hide (Field-Tested), B/O: $167.03

AWP Asiimov (Field-Tested), B/O: $153.33

Souvenir SSG 08 Death Strike (Minimal Wear), B/O: $140.00

M4A1-S Printstream (Battle-Scarred), B/O: $124.70

StatTrak™ M4A1-S Golden Coil (Field-Tested), B/O: $117.48

AWP Asiimov (Well-Worn), B/O: $115.97

StatTrak™ Desert Eagle Printstream (Minimal Wear), B/O: $112.96

StatTrak™ AK-47 Asiimov (Minimal Wear), B/O: $110.85

Souvenir M4A1-S Master Piece (Well-Worn), B/O: $102.42

AK-47 Bloodsport (Minimal Wear), B/O: $100.53

Trade Offer Link - Steam Profile Link - My Inventory

Knives - Bowie Knife, Butterfly Knife, Falchion Knife, Flip Knife, Gut Knife, Huntsman Knife, M9 Bayonet, Bayonet, Karambit, Shadow Daggers, Stiletto Knife, Ursus Knife, Navaja Knife, Talon Knife, Classic Knife, Paracord Knife, Survival Knife, Nomad Knife, Skeleton Knife, Patterns - Gamma Doppler, Doppler (Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, Phase 4, Black Pearl, Sapphire, Ruby, Emerald), Crimson Web, Lore, Fade, Ultraviolet, Night, Marble Fade (Fire & Ice, Fake FI), Case Hardened (Blue Gem), Autotronic, Slaughter, Black Laminate, Tiger Tooth, Boreal Forest, Scorched, Blue Steel, Vanilla, Damascus Steel, Forest DDPAT, Urban Masked, Freehand, Stained, Bright Water, Safari Mesh, Rust Coat, Gloves - Bloodhound Gloves (Charred, Snakebite, Guerrilla, Bronzed), Driver Gloves (Snow Leopard, King Snake, Crimson Weave, Imperial Plaid, Black Tie, Lunar Weave, Diamondback, Rezan the Red, Overtake, Queen Jaguar, Convoy, Racing Green), Hand Wraps (Cobalt Skulls, CAUTION!, Overprint, Slaughter, Leather, Giraffe, Badlands, Spruce DDPAT, Arboreal, Constrictor, Desert Shamagh, Duct Tape), Moto Gloves (Spearmint, POW!, Cool Mint, Smoke Out, Finish Line, Polygon, Blood Pressure, Turtle, Boom!, Eclipse, 3rd Commando Company, Transport), Specialist Gloves (Crimson Kimono, Tiger Strike, Emerald Web, Field Agent, Marble Fade, Fade, Foundation, Lt. Commander, Crimson Web, Mogul, Forest DDPAT, Buckshot), Sport Gloves (Pandora's Box, Superconductor, Hedge Maze, Vice, Amphibious, Slingshot, Omega, Arid, Big Game, Nocts, Scarlet Shamagh, Bronze Morph), Hydra Gloves (Case Hardened, Emerald, Rattler, Mangrove), Broken Fang Gloves (Jade, Yellow-banded, Unhinged, Needle Point), Pistols - P2000 (Wicked Sick, Ocean Foam, Fire Element, Amber Fade, Corticera, Chainmail, Imperial Dragon, Obsidian, Scorpion, Handgun, Acid Etched), USP-S (Printstream, Kill Confirmed, Whiteout, Road Rash, Owergrowth, The Traitor, Neo-Noir, Dark Water, Orion, Blueprint, Stainless, Caiman, Serum, Monster Mashup, Royal Blue, Ancient Visions, Cortex, Orange Anolis, Ticket To Hell, Black Lotus, Cyrex, Check Engine, Guardian, Purple DDPAT, Torque, Blood Tiger, Flashback, Business Class, Pathfinder, Para Green), Lead Conduit, Glock-18 (Ramese's Reach, Umbral Rabbit, Fade, Candy Apple, Bullet Queen, Synth Leaf, Neo-Noir, Nuclear Garden, Dragon Tatto, Reactor, Pink DDPAT, Twilight Galaxy, Sand Dune, Groundwater, Blue Fissure, Snack Attack, Water Elemental, Brass, Wasteland Rebel, Vogue, Franklin, Royal Legion, Gamma Doppler, Weasel, Steel Disruption, Ironwork, Grinder, High Beam, Moonrise, Oxide Blaze, Bunsen Burner, Clear Polymer, Bunsen Burner, Night), P250 (Apep's Curse, Re.built, Nuclear Threat, Modern Hunter, Splash, Whiteout, Vino Primo, Mehndi, Asiimov, Visions, Undertow, Cartel, See Ya Later, Gunsmoke, Splash, Digital Architect, Muertos, Red Rock, Bengal Tiger, Crimson Kimono, Wingshot, Metallic DDPAT, Hive, Dark Filigree, Mint Kimono), Five-Seven (Neon Kimono, Berries And Cherries, Fall Hazard, Crimson Blossom, Hyper Beast, Nitro, Fairy Tale, Case Hardened, Copper Galaxy, Angry Mob, Monkey Business, Fowl Play, Anodized Gunmetal, Hot Shot, Retrobution, Boost Protocol), CZ75-Auto (Chalice, Crimson Web, Emerald Quartz, The Fuschia is Now, Nitro, Xiangliu, Yellow Jacket, Victoria, Poison Dart, Syndicate, Eco, Hexane, Pole, Tigris), Tec-9 (Mummy's Rot, Rebel, Terrace, Nuclear Threat, Hades, Rust Leaf, Decimator, Blast From, Orange Murano, Toxic, Fuel Injector, Remote Control, Bamboo Forest, Isaac, Avalanche, Brother, Re-Entry, Blue Titanium, Bamboozle), R8 Revolver (Banana Cannon, Fade, Blaze, Crimson Web, Liama Cannon, Crazy 8, Reboot, Canal Spray, Night, Amber Fade), Desert Eagle (Blaze, Hand Cannon, Fennec Fox, Sunset Storm, Emerald Jörmungandr, Pilot, Hypnotic, Golden Koi, Printstream, Cobalt Disruption, Code Red, Ocean Drive, Midnight Storm, Kumicho Dragon, Crimson Web, Heirloom, Night Heist, Mecha Industries, Night, Conspiracy, Trigger Discipline, Naga, Directive, Light Rail), Dual Berettas (Flora Carnivora, Duelist, Cobra Strike, Black Limba, Emerald, Hemoglobin, Twin Turbo, Marina, Melondrama, Pyre, Retribution, Briar, Dezastre, Royal Consorts, Urban Shock, Dualing Dragons, Panther, Balance), Rifles - Galil (Aqua Terrace, Winter Forest, Chatterbox, Sugar Rush, Pheonix Blacklight, CAUTION!, Orange DDPAT, Cerberus, Dusk Ruins, Eco, Chromatic Aberration, Stone Cold, Tuxedo, Sandstorm, Shattered, Urban Rubble, Rocket Pop, Kami, Crimson Tsunami, Connexion), SCAR-20 (Fragments, Brass, Cyrex, Palm, Splash Jam, Cardiac, Emerald, Crimson Web, Magna Carta, Stone Mosaico, Bloodsport, Enforcer), AWP (Black Nile, Duality, Gungnir, Dragon Lore, Prince, Medusa, Desert Hydra, Fade, Lightning Strike, Oni Taiji, Silk Tiger, Graphite, Chromatic Aberration, Asiimov, Snake Camo, Boom, Containment Breach, Wildfire, Redline, Electric Hive, Hyper Beast, Neo-Noir, Man-o'-war, Pink DDPAT, Corticera, Sun in Leo, Elite Build, Fever Dream, Atheris, Mortis, PAW, Exoskeleton, Worm God, POP AWP, Phobos, Acheron, Pit Viper, Capillary, Safari Mesh), AK-47 (Steel Delta, Head Shot, Wild Lotus, Gold Arabesque, X-Ray, Fire Serpent, Hydroponic, Panthera Onca, Case Hardened, Vulcan, Jet Set, Fuel Injector, Bloodsport, Nightwish, First Class, Neon Rider, Asiimov, Red Laminate, Aquamarine Revenge, The Empress, Wasteland Rebel, Jaguar, Black Laminate, Leet Museo, Neon Revolution, Redline, Frontside Misty, Predator, Legion of Anubis, Point Disarray, Orbit Mk01, Blue Laminate, Green Laminate, Emerald Pinstripe, Cartel, Phantom Disruptor, Jungle Spray, Safety Net, Rat Rod, Baroque Purple, Slate, Elite Build, Uncharted, Safari Mesh), FAMAS (Waters of Nephthys, Sundown, Prime Conspiracy, Afterimage, Commemoration, Dark Water, Spitfire, Pulse, Eye of Athena, Meltdown, Rapid Eye Move, Roll Cage, Styx, Mecha Industrie, Djinn, ZX Spectron, Valence, Neural Net, Night Borre, Hexne), M4A4 (Eye of Horus, Temukau, Howl, Poseidon, Asiimov, Daybreak, Hellfire, Zirka, Red DDPAT, Radiation Hazard, Modern Hunter, The Emperor, The Coalition, Bullet Rain, Cyber Security, X-Ray, Dark Blossom, Buzz Kill, In Living Color, Neo-Noir, Desolate Space, 龍王 (Dragon King), Royal Paladin, The Battlestar, Global Offensive, Tooth Fairy, Desert-Strike, Griffin, Evil Daimyo, Spider Lily, Converter), M4A1-S (Emphorosaur-S, Welcome to the Jungle, Imminent Danger, Knight, Hot Rod, Icarus Fell, Blue Phosphor, Printstream, Master Piece, Dark Water, Golden Coil, Bright Water, Player Two, Atomic Alloy, Guardian, Chantico's Fire, Hyper Beast, Mecha Industries, Cyrex, Control Panel, Moss Quartz, Nightmare, Decimator, Leaded Glass, Basilisk, Blood Tiger, Briefing, Night Terror, Nitro, VariCamo, Flashback), SG 553 (Cyberforce, Hazard Pay, Bulldozer, Integrale, Dragon Tech, Ultraviolet, Colony IV, Hypnotic, Cyrex, Candy Apple, Barricade, Pulse), SSG 08 (Death Strike, Sea Calico, Blood in the Water, Orange Filigree, Dragonfire, Big Iron, Bloodshot, Detour, Turbo Peek, Red Stone), AUG (Akihabara Accept, Flame Jörmungandr, Hot Rod, Midnight Lily, Sand Storm, Carved Jade, Wings, Anodized Navy, Death by Puppy, Torque, Bengal Tiger, Chameleon, Fleet Flock, Random Access, Momentum, Syd Mead, Stymphalian, Arctic Wolf, Aristocrat, Navy Murano), G3SG1 (Chronos, Violet Murano, Flux, Demeter, Orange Kimono, The Executioner, Green Apple, Arctic Polar Camo, Contractor), SMGs - P90 (ScaraB Rush, Neoqueen, Astral Jörmungandr, Run and Hide, Emerald Dragon, Cold Blooded, Death by Kitty, Baroque Red, Vent Rush, Blind Spot, Asiimov, Trigon, Sunset Lily, Death Grip, Leather, Nostalgia, Fallout Warning, Tiger Pit, Schermatic, Virus, Shapewood, Glacier Mesh, Shallow Grave, Chopper, Desert Warfare), MAC-10 (Sakkaku, Hot Snakes, Copper Borre, Red Filigree, Gold Brick, Graven, Case Hardened, Stalker, Amber Fade, Neon Rider, Tatter, Curse, Propaganda, Nuclear Garden, Disco Tech, Toybox, Heat, Indigo), UMP-45 (Wild Child, Fade, Blaze, Day Lily, Minotaur's Labyrinth, Crime Scene, Caramel, Bone Pile, Momentum, Primal Saber), MP7 (Teal Blossom, Fade, Nemesis, Whiteout, Asterion, Bloosport, Abyssal Apparition, Full Stop, Special Delivery, Neon Ply, Asterion, Ocean Foam, Powercore, Scorched, Impire), PP-Bizon (Modern Hunter, Rust Coat, Forest Leaves, Antique, High Roller, Blue Streak, Seabird, Judgement of Anubis, Bamboo Print, Embargo, Chemical Green, Coblat Halftone, Fuel Rod, Photic Zone, Irradiated Alert, Carbon Fiber), MP9 (Featherweight, Wild Lily, Pandora's Box, Stained Glass, Bulldozer, Dark Age, Hot Rod, Hypnotic, Hydra, Rose Iron, Music Box, Setting Sun, Food Chain, Airlock, Mount Fuji, Starlight Protector, Ruby Poison Dart, Deadly Poison), MP5-SD (Liquidation, Oxide Oasis, Phosphor, Nitro, Agent, Autumn Twilly), Shotguns, Machineguns - Sawed-Off (Kiss♥Love, First Class, Orange DDPAT, Rust Coat, The Kraken, Devourer, Mosaico, Wasteland Princess, Bamboo Shadow, Copper, Serenity, Limelight, Apocalypto), XM1014 (Frost Borre, Ancient Lore, Red Leather, Elegant Vines, Banana Leaf, Jungle, Urban Perforated, Grassland, Blaze Orange, Heaven Guard, VariCamo Blue, Entombed, XOXO, Seasons, Tranquility, Bone Machine, Incinegator, Teclu Burner, Black Tie, Zombie Offensive, Watchdog), Nova (Sobek's Bite, Baroque Orange, Hyper Beast, Green Apple, Antique, Modern Hunter, Walnut, Forest Leaves, Graphite, Blaze Orange, Rising Skull, Tempest, Bloomstick, Interlock, Quick Sand, Moon in Libra, Clean Polymer, Red Quartz, Toy Soldier), MAG-7 (Copper Coated, Insomnia, Cinqueda, Counter Terrace, Prism Terrace, Memento, Chainmail, Hazard, Justice, Bulldozer, Silver, Core Breach, Firestarter, Praetorian, Heat, Hard Water, Monster Call, BI83 Spectrum, SWAG-7), M249 (Humidor, Shipping Forecast, Blizzard Marbleized, Downtown, Jungle DDPAT, Nebula Crusader, Impact Drill, Emerald Poison Dart), Negev (Mjölnir, Anodized Navy, Palm, Power Loader, Bratatat, CaliCamo, Phoenix Stencil, Infrastructure, Boroque Sand), Wear - Factory New (FN), Minimal Wear (MW), Field-Tested (FT), Well-Worn (WW), Battle-Scarred (BS), Stickers Holo/Foil/Gold - Katowice 2014, Krakow 2017, Howling Dawn, Katowice 2015, Crown, London 2018, Cologne 2014, Boston 2018, Atlanta 2017, Cluj-Napoca 2015, DreamHack 2014, King on the Field, Harp of War, Winged Difuser, Cologne 2016, Cologne 2015, MLG Columbus 2016, Katowice 2019, Berlin 2019, RMR 2020, Stockholm 2021, Antwerp 2022, Paris 2023, Swag Foil, Flammable foil, Others - Souvenirs, Agents, Pins, Passes, Gifts, Music Kits, Cases, Keys, Capsules, Packages, Patches

Some items on the list may no longer be available or are still locked, visit My Inventory for more details.

Send a Trade Offer for fastest response. I consider all offers.

Add me for discuss if there is a serious offer that needs to be discussed.

In 5 Million years, Earth goes through the last Ice Age. The Dry and Cold Climate in North America creates a large ice-age desert. life has to adapt to these cold, and dry climates. Grasses adapted to this climate perfectly, but don't fully cover the desert.
Desert Armorback
Ancestor: Armadillo
Length: 1,1 meters
Armorbacks are very successful in the Amazon plains. Some even decided to take a journey up to North America. In this new Ice Age Desert Armorbacks grew larger, and their scales became smaller. they also grew more fur. No desert Predator can eat them
Spink
Ancestor: Quails
Length: 20 cm
Quails dropped the flight completely. they become a ground species, that lays eggs in the holes of Desert Armorbacks. They Feed on Grass Seeds, Tubers, and even some insects. A diet similar to the Desert Armorbacks. These 2 species have a partnership, with spinks alerting the Armorbacks, and helping them find food, while Armorbacks protect the Spinks from predators
Deathgleaner
Ancestor: Vampire Bat
Wing Span: 1,5 meters
Some Birds Migrated to warmer regions, and some went locally extinct in this cold desert. this was used by the Vampire bats, that migrated here. they grew, replaced being a blood drinker with an active predatory niche, and became diurnal, and that's how Deathgleaners came to this desert. They feed on smaller animals, like spinks, and rarely young of larger animals like Desert Wildcats and Desert Armorbacks.
Desert Wildcat
Ancestor: European Wild Cat
Length: 1 Meter, Height: 45 cm
Not all Cats went extinct. European Wild Cats had a long journey to North America. They grew larger and warmer fur, to protect them from the cold. They are predators, which mainly hunt spinks. they do eat rats sometimes, but they still eat spinks. Their cubs can get eaten by Deathgleaners
Mega-Horned Bison
Ancestor: American Bison
Length: 4 Meters, Height: 2 meters, Horn length: 1 Meter
This Giant is the largest living animal of this Ice Desert. Its Ancestors are American Bisons, who adapted a size similar to bison latifrons of the former ice age. they feed on grass. they adapted giant horns, to defend their young from predators. they usually live in herds.
Desert Mole
Ancestor: Moles
Length: 10 cm
The large Eusocial colonies are dug through the desert. they aren't made by ants but by mammals. Desert Moles have a hierarchy similar to insects. Workers dig the tunnels In search of food. Queen mainly lives in the largest part of the tunnel. If Deathgleaners could dig, they would feed on these, but mainly single Moles are eaten by Desert Wildcats

"You gotta know that there's an art to it, Ezra," Hitch said, cutting another piece of duct tape.
The sleeves of his weather-beaten coat were shoved all the way up his arms, to stop the fabric from falling over his knuckles while he was working, and goosebumps lined his skin. He was strapping a rubber chicken to the back of his truck, over the lens of the shattered backup camera, with the legs pointing down so that they hung a couple inches above the ground. There were dents in the hood from the crash last week, and scratches along the door from scraping into a curb. The chicken, hopefully, would keep him from breaking anything else.
"You can't go cheap," Hitch said. "The cheap rubber chickens only make noise when pressure lets go. That's no good. As soon as I back up into something, I want this chicken to be screaming like it’s in the depths of hell."
“Sure thing,” I said in a monotone, leaning against the side of the truck.
There were scrambled electronic parts piled in the back of the truck, the innards of a radio, a broken computer, tangled wires, a couple loose pairs of earbuds. He found the parts in alleyways or bummed them off his friends for a couple bucks or stole them from the vacation homes that were left empty for most of the year. Then he sold them for a profit at the scrapyard. Hitch had bounced between minimum-wage jobs for a while after high school, spending a couple months as a bagger at the grocery store or as a seasonal worker at the farm two hours down the highway. He'd never stuck with it. At the very least, the scrapyard got him enough money to eat and occasionally spend a night in a motel when he got tired of sleeping in his car.
Hitch pressed the last piece of tape in place and grinned up at me. "I've got something for you, duck."
The nickname came from when I’d broken my leg as a child and waddled around in a cast until it was healed. I hated it with a burning passion, and I glared at Hitch with the ease of twenty-one years of practice. He had a duck tattoo at the base of his thumb that he’d gotten in a back-alley shop as a teenager. He said that he’d gotten it to remind him of me, and the fact that I hated the nickname was just a bonus. It was shaky-lined, with an uneven face, but he loved it anyway.
The handle stuck when Hitch tried to open the door, a consequence of the rust collecting in the crevices of the car and running down the sides like blood from a cut. The car groaned when the door finally popped open, a metal against metal screech that had me flinching away. Hitch dug through the cluttered fast food containers in the passenger-side footwell, eventually coming up with a crinkly paper bag. He waved away the flies buzzing around the opening of the bag and held it out to me.
The last time Hitch had brought me food, I’d gotten food poisoning because he’d left it out in the midday sun for two days. The donut was squished slightly, and the icing was stuck to the bag. I still ate it, grimacing at the harsh citrus flavor. Taking Hitch’s food was an instinct engraved from the days when Dad had given us a can of kidney beans for dinner and Hitch had drank the juice, leaving the beans for me.
I rarely went hungry anymore, three mostly square meals a day and granola in my pockets just in case, but habits didn’t die easy.
These days, Hitch only brought me food when he wanted my help, like when he saw a place he wanted to hit but was worried about doing it alone.
I got in the car, like I always did.
We drove past the cluster of seafood-themed restaurants with chipped paint decks, the beachfront park where there were always shifty-eyed men sitting under the slide, the single room library where all the books had been water damaged in the flood last year. The change was quick as we drove across Main Street, heading closer to the beach. The roads were freshly paved, the concrete a smooth black except where the sun had already started to pick away at it. The three-story homes lining the sides of the street were crouched on elegant stilts, with space underneath for a car or three. Most of the garages were empty, with the lights off and curtains drawn in the house. Come summer, the streets would be swarming with tourists and vacationers, but until then, most of the buildings nearest to the beach were unoccupied.
Hitch stopped as the sun started to go down at a house that was leaning precariously out towards the beach, tilted ever so slightly, the edge of its foundation buried in the shifting sand of the beach. It certainly looked deserted, with an overgrown yard and blue paint peeling off the door in sheets.
Hitch took his hammer out of the backseat, hoisting it over his shoulder. It was two feet of solid metal with rags wrapped around the head to muffle the sound of the hits. Hitch squared up, bending his knees and holding the hammer like a baseball bat. Before he could swing, though, the door creaked open on its own, the hinges squeaking. The house beyond was dark enough that I could only make out general shapes, glimpsing the curve of a sofa to the left, what was maybe the shimmer of a chandelier on the other side.
Hitch lowered his hammer, looking vaguely disappointed that he didn’t get to use it. “That’s…weird as hell.”
“Maybe the deadbolt broke, maybe they forgot to lock it, it doesn’t matter,” I hissed, checking our surroundings for other people again. “Just hurry up and get inside before someone calls the cops.”
Hitch flicked the lightswitch on the wall, and the lights flickered on. They were dim, buzzing audibly and blinking off occasionally. The walls were plastered with contrasting swatches of wallpaper and splattered with random colors. There was neon orange behind the dining table, a galaxy swirl in the kitchen, and on the ceiling there was a repeating floral pattern covered in nametag stickers. Each of the stickers was filled out with The Erlking. Chandeliers hung in every room, three or four for each, and rubber ducks sat on every table. A miniature carousel sat in the corner along with a towering model rocket.
Sand was heaped on every surface, at least a couple inches everywhere. It was piled in the corners and stuck to the walls, and it covered the floor in a thick blanket. Our hesitant steps into the house left footprints clearly outlined in the sand.
Hitch took a cursory look around and headed immediately for the TV mounted on the wall. “Look out the windows and tell me if anyone is coming.”
I shook the sand out of the blinds and pulled them open, then had to brush sand off of the window before I could see anything.
Hitch was quick, practiced at finding and appropriating the things that were worth taking. He came back to me with an armful of electronics and chandeliers, dumping it at my feet before turning to head deeper into the house again.
There was a thump, somewhere upstairs, and then footsteps, slow and deliberate. Hitch froze at the threshold of the room, then ran for the door with me just ahead of him, sand flying out from under our feet.
My hand was almost brushing the doorknob, close enough that I could see the light from the streetlamp outside streaming in through the cracks in the door. My fingers touched the wood and it gave under my touch, becoming malleable and warm. I yelped, stumbling backwards, and the door started to melt. The paint ran down in thick drops, pooling at the bottom of the door, and the wood warped like metal being welded. The soft edges of the door ran into the walls until there was no sign of an exit ever being there.
“Well, well, well,” said a cultured voice with just an edge of snooty elitism. “What do we have here?”
The man was well over eight feet tall, with long black hair covering his eyes. He was wearing a yellow raincoat with holes cut out of the hood to accommodate the deer antlers jutting upwards from his head. There was sand settled on his shoulders and hovering around his head like a halo.
“Who the fuck are you?” Hitch said, inching towards a window.
He smiled, just a little bit, and his teeth shone in the dim light. “I am the Erlking.”
Hitch nodded, and seemed about to respond. I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him towards the window. I could feel sand in the wind roaring against my back as the Erlking growled in anger, the grains scraping harshly against my cheeks.
We were almost to the window when Hitch was ripped away from me, and I came to a startled halt. The sand had formed long grasping arms that pressed Hitch against the floral wallpaper. His wrists were held tight, and as I watched, a sandy hand wrapped around his mouth and forced its way between his teeth. He gagged, and sand trickled out of the corners of his mouth.
The Erlking strolled towards him, not seeming to be in any sort of rush. “You know, I’m not very fond of your yapping.”
He made an idle gesture and the sand wrapped around my ankles, tethering me in place.
“I yap all the time,” Hitch said. “Three-time olympic yapper, that’s me. Best to just let me go now and save yourself some trouble.”
The Erlking tapped a manicured nail against Hitch’s mouth, hard enough to hurt, judging by the way he flinched away. “But why would I ever let you go when I’ve gone to this much trouble to catch you and your sister? It’s so hard, these days, to find people that no one will miss.”
Hitch struggled against the sand, trying to escape and failing. “What do you want with us, then? You just said it, we’re nobody.”
“I’m fae, dear one,” the Erlking said. “I get my power from my followers. And I think that you two will make lovely additions to my flock.”

He flicked Hitch's nose and Hitch gasped. Feathers started to form on his arms, popping out from under his skin in a spray of blood.
Hitch pushed off the wall, using his bound hands as a fulcrum, and his knees crashed into the Erlking’s stomach. The Erlking fell backwards, wheezing, and the sand around my ankles loosened.
Hitch made desperate eye contact with me as feathers shot up his neck and jerked his head towards the window. The message was obvious. Run.
The last thing I saw before crashing out the window and into freedom was Hitch’s body twisting, his arms wrenching into wings and feathers covering every inch of his skin. By the time I landed on the concrete outside, he was a small black bird, held tightly in the Erlking’s hands. The whole building was sinking into the ground, burnished-gold sand piling up over top and streaming from the windows.
Thirty years later, I saw Sam’s Supernatural Consultation and Neutralization written in neat, looping handwriting on a piece of paper taped to the door. The tape was peeling at the corners and the paper was yellowed with age, but there was obviously care put into the sign, in its perfectly centered text and looping floral designs drawn over the edges in gold marker.
I knocked, hesitantly, drawing my woolen coat closer around my shoulders. I’d bought it as a fiftieth birthday gift for myself, and I took comfort in the heavy weight of it over my shoulders.
“Coming!” someone called from within the depths of the office.
There were a couple crashes, and the sound of paper shuffling. Eventually, the door was opened by a young woman with ketchup stains on her shirt and pencils stuck through her hair.
“Hi, I’m Sam, I specialize in supernatural consultation and hunting, how may I help you today?” Sam said, customer-service pep in her voice. She stood in the doorway, solidly blocking entry into the office.
“My name is Ezra, I’m for a consultation. I emailed you but you didn’t respond?” I shifted in place, suddenly feeling awkward.
“Oh! Yeah, I lost the password for the email ages ago. Sorry for the bad welcome, I get lots of people thinking I’m crazy or pulling a prank and harassing me.”
She ushered me into the office, clearing papers off one of the chairs to make room for me to sit down. There was a collection of swords along one wall, all of them polished to perfection, several with deep knicks in the metal which indicated that they’d been used heavily.
“So what can I help you with?” Sam asked again, more sincere this time.
“Thirty years ago, my brother was turned into a bird,” I started. I’d told this story so many times that it barely felt ridiculous to say anymore. I was used to the disbelieving looks, the careful pity. But Sam just nodded along, face open and welcoming.
“I’ve almost given up on finding him, at this point,” I said. “But I saw your ad in the newspaper, and…here I am, I suppose.”
“Here you are,” Sam echoed, smiling. She pulled one of the pencils out of her hair and took a bit of paperwork off of one of her stacks, turning it over so that the blank side sat neatly in front of her. “Tell me everything.”
I told Sam everything, and she wrote it all down, pencil scratching along the paper.
The last part of the story was always the hardest to tell. “I left him there. I ran and I didn’t look back.”
I had been to dozens of detectives and investigators over the years, once the police had dropped Hitch’s case. I’d been to professional offices with smartly-dressed secretaries and met scraggly men in coffee shops. All of them had given me the same look, pity and annoyance all mixed up into a humor-the-crazy-lady soup. Sam, though, just seemed thoughtful.
Sam leaned forward and put a hand over mine, carefully, like she thought that I would pull away. “Sometimes you have to leave people behind.”
I tightened her hold on Sam’s hand and drew it towards me, like I could make Sam listen if only I squeezed tight enough. “But that’s why I’m here. I don’t want to leave him behind.”
“Okay then. I’ll do my best to help you.” Sam agreed, finally. Then she paused, and said softly, “You know…I think I met your brother once. He might have saved my life. He’s certainly why I started in this business.”
“Really? What happened?” I asked.
This is the story that Sam told me, related to the best of my abilities:
It was a new moon, so the only illumination came from the stars gazing idly down and distant porch lights shining across the scraggly brush of the dunes. Sam’s neighbors were decent people who cared about baby turtles, so the lights were a low, unobtrusive red, and the ocean sloshed like blood. Sam walked on the beach almost every night, drawing back the gauzy pink curtains and clambering out her bedroom window. She didn’t often bother to be quiet; her mama worked the late shift and came home exhausted. As long as Sam got home before the sun, her mama would never find out that she paced the shoreline and dreamed of inhaling sand until her lungs became their own beach.
The sky was lightening. The sun would come up soon, and that meant Sam’s time on the beach was over. She needed to get back to her real life, go to her fifth grade class and stop that nonsense, as her mother would say. Her mother loved to say things like that, pushing Sam into her proper place by implication alone.
“She’s a good kid, of course, but she’s a bit…” Her mother would trail off there, usually getting a commiserating expression from whoever she was talking to. Sam always wondered how that sentence would have finished. She’s a bit strange, maybe. She’s a bit intense. She’s a bit abrasive. She’s quiet enough but when Jason tried to steal her pencil in math class, she stabbed him in the hand so hard that the lead tattooed him.
Her mother was better, for the most part. The days of her stocking up the fridge, and leaving a post-it note on the counter, and leaving for days at a time were gone. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen tile where her mother had collapsed and caved her head in, even though the bloodstains had been replaced with new tile.
“Your auntie got an abortion, you know,” her mother had said from her place on the couch, slurring her words. “Pill in the mail and then bam, no more baby.”
She had clapped her hands together to illustrate her point. Her mother jerked forward and grabbed Sam by the wrist, then, staring up at her until Sam met her eyes.
“I love you, you know? But sometimes I wonder…” She settled back onto the couch. “Yeah. I wonder.”
She’d gotten up, then, back to the kitchen. She’d been stumbling, a shambling zombie of a woman. The ground in the entryway of the kitchen was raised, ever so slightly, and her mother went down hard. Her head cracked against the tile, chin first, and she didn’t move.
Sam had been the one to call the ambulance. She had stared at the scattering of loose teeth on the ground while she waited, and considered what her life would be like with a dead mom. Not so bad, she thought, and immediately felt guilty for it.
Her mom was better, now, for the most part. But Sam still stepped around the place on the kitchen floor where she had collapsed. There was still a matchbox hidden under her bed with the gleaming shine of her mother’s lost teeth, two canines and a molar. It was nice, having a piece of her mom to keep. Even if she left again, Sam would still have part of her.
Sam sighed, and turned away from the ocean. As she faced towards the low dunes further up the beach, she saw a sandcastle sitting nestled among them. It was such a strange sight that her eyes skipped over it at first, almost automatically, disregarding it because it was so out of place.
Sam found sandcastles out on the beach sometimes, usually half-collapsed and on the verge of being washed away by the waves, but she had never seen anything like the sandcastle in front of her. It was life-sized, something that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Scottish highlands, with spires shooting up above her head and carefully etched out bricks lining each side. The front wall was dominated by an arched set of double doors, twice her height, with a portcullis nestled at the top, ready to be dropped. All of it was lovingly detailed, down to the rust on the tips of the towers and the wood grain of the door. It was made out of wet, densely-packed sand, held together impossibly. It had not been there two hours ago, when she had come to the beach.
There was a bird sitting on the overhang of the door, small and black.
As soon as she took a step towards the sandcastle, the bird shook out its feathers and swooped down towards Sam, landing at her feet with a little stumble.
“Hey, kid, get out of here,” said the bird.
Sam closed her eyes, very deliberately. When she opened them, the bird was still there. Sam considered herself a very reasonable person, so she immediately drew the most logical conclusion. The bird was, she was almost certain, a demon.
“Trust me, you don’t want to run into Mr. Salty, the queen bitch himself,” the bird said.
“Mr. Salty?” Sam inquired, polite as she knew how to be. She edged to the side, trying to get a good angle to kick the bird like a soccer ball.
The bird did something similar to a wince, all its feathers fluffing up then settling back down. “Ah, don’t call him that. He’d turn you into a toad.”
The bird gestured with its head, towards the looming sand structure. “That’s his castle. He’s in there, probably scuttling along the ceiling or some shit because that’s the sort of weirdo he is.”
Sam nodded, encouraging. She pulled back her foot and lined up her shot, the way she’d seen athletes do on TV. She aimed right for its sharp beak and let loose. The bird saw it coming, its beady eyes widening, and it cawed in distress. It flapped away, avoiding her kick only to fall backward into the sand in a scramble of wings.
“What’s your fucking problem?” it squawked. “I was trying to help you!”
“I don’t need the help of a demon,” Sam yelled, trying to remember the exorcism that her mama had taught her once, because her mama believed in being prepared for anything.
“I’m not a demon,” the bird said indignantly.
It was at about that moment that Sam gave up and just decided to roll with it.
“What are you, then?” Sam asked.
The bird shuffled its clawed feet, looking about as awkward as it could, given that it didn’t really have recognizable facial expressions. “Technically I’m a familiar of the Erlking, prince of the fae, but I prefer to be called Hitch.”
“You can’t blame me for assuming, though,” Sam said. “Ravens do tend to be associated with murder.”
“Hey, excuse you,” Hitch said. “I’m a rook, not a raven. Ravens are way bigger.”
“Sure,” Sam said, not really paying attention. Her eyes had caught on the details of the sandcastle, and she was transfixed by the slow spirals of the sand, the strange beauty of it. She found herself stepping towards the great doors, lifting a hand to knock, and as she did, the sand warped in front of her eyes, heaving itself towards her with bulging slowness. The door creaked open before her, revealing a vast, empty room. Just before she stepped inside, she felt a piercing pain in her foot, and she yelped, leaping backwards.
Hitch pecked her again, really digging his beak in. “Don’t be an idiot.”
Sam glared at him, rubbing her foot. About to retort, she finally really took in the room inside the sandcastle, and her words died in her throat.
There was a body just past the threshold of the door, face down and limbs hanging limp at its sides. Long hair splayed out in a halo around its head.
“Don’t,” Hitch warned, suddenly serious. “Just leave, kid, I mean it. I’ve seen too many people go down this road and you don’t want to be one of them.”
Sam ignored him. She made her way across the beach, slipping with every step. The sand felt deeper, piling up around her feet in silent drifts. She picked up the nearest stick and poked the body with it through the door, ready to leap back if anything went wrong, staying firmly outside of the sandcastle.
This close, Sam could tell that it used to be a woman. Her head wasn’t attached to her body. It hadn’t been a clean amputation, either. Her upper body was bruised, with chunks taken out of it, and the bones in her neck hung mangled, not connected to anything.
“Well, I warned you,” Hitch said, defeated. “I did warn you.”
Sam nudged the head with the end of the stick, nudging it over so that she could see the face. Her mother stared back at her, torn to pieces, breath still wheezing from her lungs. She wasn’t blinking, just gazing forward with glazed eyes. Sweat dripped down from her hairline.
Sam screamed and dropped the stick, tripping over herself in her haste to get away.
Her mother’s eyes were wide and pleading, and she was mouthing desperate words at Sam. Her vocal cords were broken to bits, and the only sound that came out was a strained groan.
The head rolled, inching closer to Sam like a grotesque caterpillar.
Her mother gasped for air, torn lips fluttering. Finally, comprehensible words came out. “Help. Help me, daughter.”
“That’s not your mother,” Hitch said, quiet.
Sam knew that. Her mother was sleeping back at home, and anyways her mom had never asked for her help. She had an aversion to accepting charity, as she put it.
“Okay,” Sam said, shaking all over. “Okay.”
She backed away from the sandcastle, not looking away.
“Failure,” her mother hissed as she stepped away. “I never wanted a daughter like you.”
The sun came up over the horizon. The sandcastle, Hitch, and her mom all disintegrated into sand as the light hit them.
The beach, the next night, was almost exactly how I remembered it. The beams of our flashlights sent light bouncing across the dunes, illuminating the waves, and I imagined faces in the foam of the waves.
“I’ve been back here a hundred times. There’s nothing left,” I said.
Sam took the car key out of her purse and pointed it at the sand, adjusting the sword slung over her shoulder in order to do it. The key had belonged to Hitch; Sam had requested an item of his, and it was the only thing I had left. She rested the key on the sand and drew a circle around it, inscribing symbols around the borders.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Sam shrugged. “Not much, really. I’m…I guess you could say that I’m knocking.”
The key laid inert on the sand for long enough that I was just about to give up and go home, admit to myself that Hitch was dead and that I was a fool to believe that Sam could actually help me. Then a building started to take shape, flickering in and out like it was struggling to get away. With a pop of displaced air, the sandcastle settled into existence.
Sam banged on the entryway. Nothing happened. She did it again, harder, and scowled when the door still didn’t open.
“We demand entrance, under your honor,” Sam yelled. There was a hard rush of wind, and I gripped Sam’s arm to keep my balance, but the doors cracked open reluctantly.
The inside of the sandcastle consisted of one enormous hall, the roof arching up out of sight. Rafters crisscrossed from wall to wall, and a cobbled path led further into the building, but other than that, it was completely empty, except for the birds. There were thousands of them, perched on the rafters or hopping along the ground. They parted in front of Sam and I, and reformed behind us, leaving us in a small pocket of open space. They were all black-feathered, with sharp beaks and beady eyes.
The Erlking sat on a throne at the end of the hall, lounging across it with his feet up on the armrest. He watched them as they came forward, the soft caw of the birds the only sound.
“I am here to bargain for the life of my brother,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, before the Erlking could say anything.
The Erlking ignored her, tilting his head to look at Sam. “I remember you. I almost got you, once.”

Sam glared at him but didn’t respond.
“You want your brother,” The Erlking said to me, and he almost sounded amused. “Then go get him.”
As if by some sort of silent signal, every bird in the room took flight at once, and their cawing made me think of screams. I covered my head against the flapping of their wings, and my vision was quickly obscured by the chaotic movement of them. I found myself on my knees, just trying to escape them.
A hand met my shoulder. Sam urged me to my feet, and together we ran for the edge of the room, where the swarm was the thinnest. We pressed ourselves into the corner and the swarm spiraled tighter and tighter at the center of the room. It went on until there seemed to be no differentiation between the birds, all of them fused together into one creature.
When the chaos died down, the birds had become one mass, with wings and eyes and talons sticking out of its flesh, thrashing and chirping. Human body parts stuck out of it, bulging out from the feathers. It was hands, mostly, with a couple knees or staring eyes. The bird amalgamation had no recognizable facial features, but there was one long beak extending from the front of its head. Most of the body parts were concentrated around the beak, and they peeked out from where the beak connected with muscle, or grew from the tongue, nestled between the two crushing halves of the beak.
It turned its beak down and crawled forward, using the hands to balance. The fingers scrambled over the ground. I was afraid of centipedes as a child, and I felt that same crawling dread when it started moving.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispered, which was rather disappointing, because I had been hoping that at least one of us knew what to do.
The creature turned, a lurching movement that crushed some of the hands underneath it, and started heaving itself slowly towards our corner.
“Better hurry up!” the Erlking called from his throne.
It was blocking the exit, by then. The shifting body of it had moved to block us off. It ambled towards us and I tried to sink further into the corner.
As it approached, getting close enough that I could smell the stink of it, I saw a flash of a tattoo on one of the hands. I leaned in, trying to find it again, like looking for dolphins surfacing in the ocean. And again, I caught a glimpse of a duck tattoo, the tattoo that Hitch had gotten on his hand as a teenager.
I ripped away from Sam’s death grip and ran for the monster.
I fell to my knees in front of it, wincing as I impacted the ground, and reached into the nest of hands. I could feel them tearing at my forearms and ripping into me with their sharp nails, but I kept going. I pressed further in, up to my shoulder in a writhing mass of limbs, aiming for the spot where I had last seen that tattoo.
The hands were tugging at me, wrapping around my back and hair. They were pulling together, trying to draw me completely into the mass of them. I was aware of Sam at my side, anchoring me in place and bashing any hand that got too close with her sword or the sparks that leapt from her hands with muttered words. But I didn’t think it would be enough. They were too strong, and there were too many of them.
I was up to my waist in the hands when something grabbed my palm. I felt the way it clung to me, and the calluses on its palm, and I knew that I had found my brother.
I flung herself back. The hands didn’t want to let me go, and they fought the whole way, but slowly, I made progress. I kept hold of Hitch’s hand in mine the whole time, gripping it as hard as I could. I finally broke free, Hitch with me, and Sam was immediately charging the creature, able to use her sword with much greater strength without being worried about injuring Hitch. She swung it forward, and it sliced through the wrist of one of the hands. It fell without a sound, red sand flowing out of it. It deflated until it looked like dirty laundry, just a piece of limp flesh. The creature shrieked, scuttling away enough that the door was finally accessible. The three of us ran for it, Sam and I supporting Hitch between us.
I looked back as I left and found the Erlking staring right at me.
“Interesting,” he murmured, his voice carrying impossibly across the vast space between us.
The sandcastle collapsed behind us, the great walls falling in on themselves. We were out in the morning sun, the sandcastle disappearing as we watched. Hitch was on the ground in front of me, as young as he’d been thirty years ago, when he was captured. He started laughing, feathers puffing out of his mouth. He laughed until he cried and I hugged him in the way that he’d held me when I was young, in the times when my life had been defined by hunger and fear.
Hitch left, afterwards. He scratched at the pinhole scars covering his body, where feathers burst through his skin, and pulled his long sleeves down around his wrists. He didn’t know where he was going but he told me that he needed time
I had spent thirty years worth of time without him. I wanted to grab my brother by the shoulders and beg him to stay. But he flinched when I hugged him goodbye and he refused to go near sand and he stared distrustfully at the birds chirping in the trees. Hitch needed to go away and I loved him too much to stop him.
I sat out on the beach every morning. I felt the sun on my face and I waited for Hitch to come home.

Most prices are negotiable

for those who like picture like me:2019, 2020, 2020pt2, 2021, dead_reck, 2022, 2022pt2, 2023 ,2024
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add me so we can trade.need to be friends for 30 days. Steam rep
why trade with me ? i have a lot of giftables i want to sell and im not willing to risk my rep for a single trade. also check my steam profile for recent comments , those are people i traded cache sets with ,they all went first you can check their profile for my gifted items .
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newest 2023 cache

Item	Price
Snailfire (SnapFire)	20$
Brightfist (Marci)	20$
Dezun Viper (Dazzle)	5$
Primeval Abomination (Primal Beast)	5$
Astral Herald (Dawnbreaker)	5$
Spectral Shadow (Abaddon)	5$
Taur Rider (Alchemist)	5$
Crescent Huntress (Spectre)	5$
Tyrant of the Veil (Wraith King)	5$
Tomo'kan Footsoldier (Hoodwink)	5$
Darkwood Eulogy (Death Prophet)	2.5$
Sea Spirit (Kunkka)	5$
Triumph of the Imperatrix (Legion Commander)	5$
Beast of Thunder (Storm Spirit)	5$
Ancestral Heritage (Jakiro)	2.5$

Dead Reckoning Chest

item	price
Dead Heat (lina)	10$
Spectral Hunter (antimage)	10$
Dying Light (dawnbreaker)	10$
Expired Gun (sniper)	10$
Death Adder (medusa)	10$
Soul Serpent (viper)	10$

Diretide 2022 Collector's Cache

set name	hero	price
Shadowleaf Insurgent	hoodwink	15$
Chines of the Inquisitor	faceless void	12$
Spoils of the Shadowveil	Spectre	10$
Starlorn Adjudicator	dawnbreaker	10$
Trophies of the Hallowed Hunt	ursa	5$
Whippersnapper	snap fire	7.5$
Scarlet Subversion	riki	10$
Forgotten Station	terror blade	5$
Champion of the Fire Lotus	monkey king	5$
Hounds of Obsession	chen	5$
Crimson Dawn	pheonix	4$
Seadog's Stash	clockwerk	4$
Deathstitch Shaman	witch doctor	4$
Dirge Amplifier	undying	4$
Blue Horizons	marci	15$
Dark Behemoth	primal beast	30$

Diretide 2022 Collector's Cache 2

set name	hero	price
Freeboot Fortunes	ogre magi	4$
Darkbrew's Transgression	alchemist	5$
Acrimonies of Obsession	vengful spirit	7$
Withering Pain	clinkz	4$
Sacred Chamber Guardian	huskar	5$
Feasts of Forever	nightstalker	5$
The Wilding Tiger	brewmaster	5$
Dawn of a Darkness Foretold	doom	5$
War Rig Eradicators	techies	5$
Grand Suppressor	silencer	7$
Transcendent Path	oracle	5$
Cursed Cryptbreaker	pudge	7$
Bird of Prey	legion commander	10$
Darkfeather Factioneer	phantom assassin	10$
Grudges of the Gallows Tree	treant protector	12$
Brands of the Reaper	anti mage	15$
Sublime Equilibrium	void spirit	30$

Nemestice Collector's Cache 2021

set name	hero	price
Twilight Hex	dark willow	20$
Litany of the Damned	doom	25$
Astral Terminus	enigma	20$
Caerulean Star	enchantress	15$
Arcane Inverter	gyrocopter	25$
Creed of the Skullhound	lycan	30$
Desert Bloom	nature's prophet	25$
Eyriebound Imperator	skywrath mage	20$
Anthozoan Assault	tiny	35$
Defender of the Brumal Crest	winter wyvern	25$
Red Sands Marauder	shadow shaman	35$

2019 cache sets

set name	hero	price
Echoes of the Everblack	abaddon	20
The Arts of Mortal Deception	enigma	10
Adornments of the Jade Emissary	earth spirit	25
Poacher's Bane	tide	15
Appetites of the Lizard King	slark	20
Forbidden Medicine	dazzle	15
Curse of the Creeping Vine	undying	15
Priest of the Proudsilver Clan	chen	10
Soul of the Brightshroud	deathprophet	10
Pursuit of the Ember Demons	husker	15
Riddle of the Hierophant	oracle	10
Paean of the Ink Dragon	grimstroke	10
Allure of the Faeshade Flower	dark willow	20
Glimmer of the Sacred Hunt	drow ranger	30
Defender of Ruin	disruptor	15
gothic whisper	phantom assassin	69

2020 cache sets

set name	hero	price
Origin of the Dark Oath	night stalker	25
ravenous abyss	underlord	20
abocalypse unbound	ancient apparittion	10
beholden of the banished ones	warlock	20
fury of the righteous storm	distruptor	10
mindless slaughter	pudge	15
heartless hunt	bounty hunter	15
herald of the ember eye	grimstroke	10
fissured flight	jakiro	10
flashpoint proselyte	husker	15
signs of the allfather	nature's prophet	15
songs of starfall glen	enchantress	5
Glory of the Elderflame	lina	25
Lineage of the Stormlords	juggernaut	25
Silent Slayer	silencer	20
ancient inheritance	tiny	25
forsworn legacy	mars	35
Blaze of Oblivion	phoenix	10
Beast of the Crimson Ring	bristleback	15
Talons of the Endless Storm	chaos knight	15
Ire of the Ancient Gaoler	arc warden	30
Horror from the Deep	tide hunter	20
Evolution of the Infinite	enigma	10
Clearcut Cavalier	timber saw	10
The King Of Thieves	keeper of the light	10
Carousal of the Mystic Masquerade	rubick	10
Secrets of the Celestial	skywrath mage	10
Blacksail Cannoneer	sniper	10
Wrath of the Fallen	doom	10
Crown of Calaphas	shadowdemon	10
Master of the Searing Path	ember spirit	25
Steward of the Forbidden Chamber	templar assassin	20
Claszureme Incursion	faceless void	55

Aghanim's 2021 Collector's Cache

item name	hero	price
Silverwurm Sacrifice	dragon knight	30$
Scales Of The Shadow Walker	phantom lancer	10$
Perception of the First Light	dawnbreaker	10$
Apex Automated	clockwerk	10$
Test of the basilisk lord	Razor	15$
Secrets of the frost singularity	Ancient Apparition	5$
Perils of the red banks	Chen	5$
The chained scribe	Grimstroke	5$
Widow of the undermount gloom	Broodmother	10$
Forgotten fate	Mars	5$
March of the crackerjack mage	Rubick	10$
Stranger in the wandering isles	Drow Ranger	35$
Cosmic concoctioneers	Alchemist	10$
Days of the demons	Axe	25$
Blightfall	Abaddon	10$
Pyrexae polymorph perfected	ogre magi	15$
Wrath of the celestial sentinel	Chaos Knight	50$

old cache sets

set name	hero	price
Creeping Shadow	phantom assassin	around 90
Stormwrought Arbiter	sven	around 90
Submerged Hazard	tinker	around 90
Manta Marauder	bat rider	around 90

Weathers. buy 3 and get 4th for free

the lowest of them is the free one

weathers can be traded now!!

weather	price
Ash	15$ 9$
Aurora	2$
Harvest	3$ 1$
Moonbeam	5$ 2.5$
Pestilence	3$ 1$
Rain	9$ 5$
Sirocco	3$ 1$
Spring	2$
Snow	5$ 2.5$

PS: even if you don't see an item in my inventory feel free to add me and ask about whatever item you're looking for

Weird title, and weird story, but I have to get this off my chest and tell somebody about it because it upset me so so badly.
My grandpa is in the middle stages of dementia, and he likes to watch animals. Birds outside, the neighborhood cats outside of his window, squirrels, live cams of animals on TV, all that kind of stuff keeps his attention and make him less antsy for a long time. So for his birthday in early April, I got him a 20 gallon fish tank to keep on the table next to his recliner. Now, I did some research into fish, and found out it was best to run the tank for a while before putting fish in it. Ok, so I set it all up on his birthday, put some aquatic plants in it, and let it run until I got home from college, about a month later.
The other day I decided it was finally time to get some fish. Although I could have done this without my Papa, I decided it would be good to get him out and about, and get his say on what color of fish we were gonna get. We talked about what fish we wanted before this, and decided that wanted at least 4 Tetras, so we could name them after the Beatles.
We get to the big chain pet store, Papa picks out a little yellow submarine to put in his tank, all is well, until we get to the actually getting of the fish. A worker comes out and asks me what type of fish I want, I point out the exact fish, and ask my Papa what colors he would like. The worker stops me, and asks me who exactly the fish are for, and seeing no reason to lie, I tell the worker that they are for my Papa. Who, at this stage of dementia, it is quite obvious he is not at 100% mental capacity. Suddenly, the worker gets all strange, and begins interrogating me on my tank. What size it is, how long the filter has been running, etc. Again, I see no reason to lie to him, so I tell him everything already covered. The worker says that my tank is way to small, that I need at least 30 gallon tank to hold any fish, and that my filter hasn't been running for long enough, blabbers on for about 30 minutes about how irresponsible it would be for me to have this fish, an insists the only thing that can live in my tank is plants. He says he will not sell us fish, any fish. He then proceeds to practically force us to buy a plant (picked one off the shelf, put it in my hand, and walked us to the register). I buy the plant and my Papa's yellow submarine.
At this point, I am fuming. I kind of caught on to what this worker was about-he assumed my Papa couldn't take care of this fish. But I'm trying to keep my cool, not wanting my Papa to see that I was upset. Papa is of course confused when we get back to the car as to why we have no fish, I tell him that they just didn't have the ones we wanted (now usually I tell the truth but in this situation, I knew he would have stormed back in and demanded the fish if he knew what had happened)
I knew for a fact fish could live in the tank I set up, so I did what I should have done in the first place, go to the local fish store. The reason I didn't do this in the first place is because it is not disability accessible, like so many small business are, unfortunately.
I go to the local fish store, leaving Papa in the car with the Beatles playing (of course), explain to the fish man my situation. Asking him if there are any fish that could live in a 20 gallon tank
"Of course, I've got the perfect fish for you"
You know what they were? Tetras! The only warning the fish man gave me was to keep the food hidden from my Papa as him may over feed them, no problem was gonna do that anyways. Plan was for me to be the fish caretaker in the first place.
So now John, Paul, George, and Ringo are happily living next to my Papas chair with their yellow submarine. My Papa couldn't be happier watching his fish. I'm just so mad we were seemingly discriminated against by the worker at the big chain store, I assume he thought my Papa would be the sole caregiver of the fish, which is an unfair assumption, especially since he didn't ask me who would be caring for the fish-just who the fish were for.
Sorry for the long post, this whole story has had me fuming for days, I though writing it all out for you lovely internet people would help me calm down about it.
TLDR: Big chain store wouldn't sell me and my Papa fish because worker assumed my Papa wasn't capable of taking care of them, local business to the rescue. Paul, John, George and Ringo are now very happy fish.

This upcoming weekend, we’re going to a Memorial Day party (an American holiday). It’s a newish group of friends and it’s a potluck-style event, and being a home bartender, I suggested that I could bring a batched cocktail - which I have never done before. I’ve already started pitching the jungle bird, as I feel it’s great for non-cocktail enthusiasts in that it is a crowd pleaser, but the Campari adds a lot of complexity that might appeal to your more seasoned drinker too. I don’t think anyone else in this group would be considered a true cocktail enthusiast.
My plan is to make approximately 34 servings of the spec mentioned in the comments (the bottles that I’d purchase just work out that way)
I have a nice glass liquid dispenser in which I would have the entire undiluted batch, with the idea that people should pour it themselves into small plastic cups over ice. I live in an area where there are Sonics all around (the fast food chain), and would pick up a few bags of their pellet ice for people to scoop from and use. Since I wouldn’t be shaking the drinks individually for people, I wanted to use a smaller ice that would chill/dilute faster.
The only thing I’ll add is that I’ll be bringing the batch in gallon jugs which I plan to shake before putting in the dispenser - for one just to make sure the drink is as mixed as possible, but also potentially to give it that foaming affect that pineapple juice tends to have (even if it will dissipate relatively quickly).
So that’s it, thanks for coming to my TED talk. Any advice on what I could do better would be greatly appreciated!

Hello! I just moved to the Delaware area and I wanted to find some new food to try in the area (including Sunbury/North Lewis Center). I like local and coming from another part of the city, Im sick of chain restaurants that Columbus is very popular for lol
So far Ive tried Thurmans, Amatos Pizza, Gabbys Italian and Keystone Pub. All good (especially Thurmans), but I wanted to see from other people who have lived in the area where more places I need to visit are that are some must have local spots? Mexican, Italian, Taverns, Asian, Brunch, it doesnt matter. Thanks!

I've been here for 12 years and have gone to pretty much every restaurant through the years. It feels almost universal regardless of brand that the service will be nice/pleasant enough, but the food will be very slow, the food quality and presentation will be subpar, and if it ever gets to the point of needing a manager they absolutely do not care. It literally feels as if Woodbridge is every chain restaurant's purgatory where they send the managers and kitchen staff that failed everywhere else in the nation.
Again, I'm not knocking on the wait staff. I came from Miami so in comparison the wait staff here is lovely. But everything tastes forever and cones out mediocre at best. While if you go anywhere else in NoVA restaurants feel average compared to other places throughout the nation. But not Woodbridge. Definitely not Woodbridge.
Do you agree? Or do you have a different impression in your vicinity?

hello po, i am currently in a dilemma with which university i should go to for college. it would be vvv big help to hear your comments and suggestions kasi i've been super indecisive and it's been stressing me out na ever since the results came out. here is a detailed list of the pros and cons i have for each uni:

1. ADMU (Ateneo De Manila University)

Priority - BS Psych Offered - AB Pol Sci
PROS: - I've attended the Open House and I liked the curriculum they offered overall (including the abroad programs and such) as well as marami raw silang time nilalaan for orgs

• My parents (and I) like the idea of being an Atenista since it sounds rare and fresh sa family na may taga-Ateneo
  
• I like the idea with studying at the top university of the Philippines
  
• Friendly daw ang profs and they value your mental health which is v important to me
  
• The campus itself is amazing with the view and greenery
  

CONS: - Malayo siya from our home. It'll take me about 4 rides (2 LRT, 2 Jeepney rides) to get into campus so I have to leave my house for about 2 hours earlier than my sched.
-> My parents told me I could get a dorm naman, but I very much prefer going home where my family is (but ofc if I studied here and nahirapan na w transpo, I have no choice)
-> Also, I'm willing to take transpo as long as 'yung course ay gusto ko

• I don't like the course. Indecisive na'ko ever since the applications pa lang and chose AB POS as one of my choices (3rd choice) kasi law ang specialization daw ng ADMU.

-> I was planning to apply for change of degree program into my prio course before enrollment pero there's a slim chance na ma-grant 'yun especially quota course ang psych
-> I can also shift naman on my second year but I don't feel like travelling 4 rides everyday of the week for a course I don't like during the 1st year

• If I ever do enroll sa Ateneo, kaya naman ng family ko mag-pay for tuition but other costs such as transpo and food is a concern for me
  
• I feel like hindi ako fit sa community nila (during the Open House puro fluent sila sa English habang ako mostly tagalog ang naging HS environment ko so I feel like I'll be an outcast hahaha)
  

1. DLSU (De La Salle University)

Priority - Ab Psych Major in Accountancy Offered - Ab Psych Major in Accountancy
PROS: - Only one LRT ride away from my home - Top school (?) ang DLSU for Psychology courses
CONS: - Tuition lalo na tri-sem and double major. Like I said, kaya naman ng family ko although concerned pa rin ako sa gastos kasi among the 3, ito ang pinakamalaking gagastusin.

• Like ADMU, I'm concerned if I'd fit in with the community. I don't like to listen to stereotypes but I'm afraid if baka ma-outcast din ako huhu.
  
• My mom told me 'yung anak ng friend niya nag-drop ng double degree sa DLSU after her first year, I'm afraid baka ganun din ang mangyari sa'kin.
  

1. UST (University of Santo Tomas)

Priority - BS Psych Offered - Ab Behavioral Sci (WAITLISTED)
PROS: - I like their community the best. This is actually the uni that I think best fits for me kasi I feel like mas ka-league ko ang circle ng Thomasians and a lot of the people I know are there.

• It is the most convenient for me. The campus is the closest to my home and mas familiar ako sa lugar compared to taft and katipunan since pumupunta na rin kami ng friends ko near the campus para kumain and such.
  
• I like the campus and their events. The place is full of greenery din and is surrounded by a lot of places na p'wedeng mag-hang out with friends after school. I'm also interested sa events nila like paskuhan, as it feels homey and fun albeit the workload na ibibigay nila.
  
• Mas affordable and less of a burden sa gastusin. Among the 3, ito naman ang pinakamababa na tuition. I also like na maraming food chains/restaurants near the campus na p'wedeng tambayan and very much pasok sa weekly allowance ko.
  
• I like both the prio and alt program I chose here. But if papapiliin, of course BS Psych is still what I want. But I'd settle for my alt program for the first year and plan to shift na lang the second year, no matter how challenging it may be.
  

CONS: - Waitlisted. The news pained me, pero I keep waiting if may available slot for me. Ang kaso, walang assurance naman that I'll get in so I have to decide din which uni I should use as a plan B.

• My parents' view of UST. It seems as though parang least option nila na mag-study ako sa UST. Probably kasi may other universities na mas considered "higher" sa rankings. It's a bit of a concern for me too if I should settle here or dapat sa much "better" uni ako, kasi hindi lahat nabibigyan ng opportunity to go to the other two that I mentioned.

it's a long list, and siguro may maiinis kasi i've been indecisive. tbh, wala naman akong dream uni. but i blame myself for not thinking ahead during the applications. i have been reading sa reddit for opinions about this for god knows how long but i decided to write din here kung sakali na ma-enlighten pa ako huhu.
pero thank you so much in advance.

I've frequented Fuki hotpot near the global market several times. However, during my visit this evening, I was dismayed to find a few dead bugs in the dessert jar. It was very unfortunate that I didn’t notice them the first time and took a bowl of dessert. I realized the bugs the second time when I went back to get the sauce. After the meal, I felt nauseous, experienced diarrhea, and had the urge to vomit. When I reported the issue to the owner, their response was merely offering a free meal next time and showed carelessness about how important food health is. I got very frustrated and informed them that I won't return, with no need for a refund, and urged them to prioritize food safety regulations more diligently. I really hope people can be made aware of this issue, and if possible, please let me know if I can report this experience anywhere. Thanks a lot!

I know a lot of producers have talked about unsolicited feedback in the past but this post isn't about that. It's about feedback for various projects and feedback that gets requested and given. This also applies equally to original production in many cases.
A good number of mashup producers do not tend to master or don't apply limiters on tracks, or just make them softer compared to commercial levels. When albums get mastered, loudness will usually be adjusted through various plugins (EQ, multiband compressors, limiters, clippers, etc.) to shape masters so that one track is not significantly louder or softer than another especially back-to-back and groups of tracks follow a certain sound.
What this means is that once your softer mashup of -14 or -15 LUFS or softer is amplified to commercial levels in the -7 to -11 LUFS range or more depending on genre and how the overall track should sound given peaks and valleys with softer and louder parts (LUFS stands for loudness units full scale, look that up), small issues may stand out like thorns when amplified. Bottom line: Don't take the small or big issues personally; we're all human, we all miss things, and we can all improve. You may learn something new!
Think of it like how you ask to proofread writing to check for spelling or grammar and have it work for the audience.
All this to say, feedback I give or others give based on small details may come across as nit-picks at first. Don't completely discount them. You never know who will want to play your tracks, and this could range from personal playlists all the way up to DJ gigs and big festival stages.
In the case of a club DJ or performances on festival stages, volumes will be significantly louder than what you may have worked with when you created the track. I've given the restaurant food analogy before but I'll give it again: If something clearly doesn't taste good, people won't usually know why. But an experienced chef who knows how the ingredients interact sure will.
Just something to think about as you improve on mashup production and production in general.
Here are some issues below that experienced mashup producers could point out. Note that a lot of the "don't do this" stuff is really code for "don't do this unless you really know you're doing and it sounds good":

Big issues

• Out of key (OOK): This refers to wrong key signature (e.g. mixing A Minor with B Minor), not blue notes from modes or short moments of modulation. Key rule of thumb: If you're going to use key databases, verify by ear. Tunebat is the least accurate. If you must do so, use a reliable key database like the ones in this post. DJ software can work, but some automatic key detection performs better than others and are far from perfect. Above all, databases are not perfect and some will be far from it, so ears will be the final judge of whether a pairing sounds good.
• Out of tempo/time (OOT): this usually refers to wrong tempo (e.g. mixing a 116 BPM track with a 118 BPM track) or not constant tempo and going out of time. Key rule of thumb: Sync your tracks and if you need to use any form of warping (see Ableton), be prepared to do so.
• Too much going on (a.k.a. playing both songs at the same time): This happens when playing multiple main elements at the same time to the point where multiple elements or entire songs played together clash in key, progression, or other things to make the combination sound unpleasant and hard to listen to. Sometimes this can sound really good if the progressions are compatible, but generally, less is more.
• Incorrect/bad beat alignment: This is more for when a vocal or element is offbeat enough that it really sticks out as a trainwreck when mixed together
• Wrong beat/out of structure/off structure/bad phrasing: This is when a vocal or other element is placed on a beat that doesn't make sense for what it's combined with (e.g. placing the first word of a vocal over an instrumental on beat 2 when it was meant for beat 1). Mileage will vary, sometimes the vocal beat placement only makes sense for the original song and makes less sense on others.
• Distortion from going in the red: This is when the overall mix or elements sound distorted because the volume of each track channel is too loud and either alone or combined goes well above 0 dBFS (a.k.a. into the red). Key rule of thumb: Start your track volumes at -6 dB (not 0 dB) and then adjust to taste. Don't go into the red unless you absolutely know what you're doing.
• Elements way too soft or loud: This is more along the lines of not being able to hear the added vocals or elements at all or they're too loud that you can't hear the other elements in the mix.
• Big mood mismatch: This tends to be less egregious, but if sources don't cooperate at all to a point of completely ruining the vibe, the mashup could stick out like a sore thumb from the start. Mileage will vary, and sometimes your audience would appreciate this especially with genre clashes even to the point of creating memes. But it depends on what you're going for, and sometimes you want consistency for certain albums and groups of tracks.

Smaller issues

• Fifth traps/not picking the right keys to use: This is a specific version of another problem I'll touch on, but this happens when you mix keys fifths or fourths away (e.g. F Major and C Major) and the chord progressions don't cooperate. What makes this a trap is that the pairing might appear to sound good at first glance, but when you look back at what you made, you probably could have made a better sounding pairing if you had just picked sources in key, relative key (e.g. A Minor and C Major), or parallel to the mode type (i.e. A Minor with A Dorian since Dorian is a minor mode). This Berklee Online article is a really good starting point to modes. With modes, mileage will vary.
• Out of progression/blue notes: This can happen when there are short moments where the element clashes on top of other elements (e.g. modes or short moments of different modulation). Sometimes the tracks may not be compatible, but other times it's just a part with notes outside the scale. This can be fixed by doing small note changes, but be careful not to make it too obvious, otherwise it might sound like you're forcing the pairing to work. It may also follow the same theme as fifth traps, where you could have made a better sounding pairing if you had just picked sources in key, relative key (e.g. A Minor and C Major), or parallel to the mode type (i.e. A Minor with A Dorian since Dorian is a minor mode). This Berklee Online article is a really good starting point to modes. With modes, mileage will vary.
• Low quality sources: This happens with YouTube or other rips where the elements are lower quality due to a lower frequency cutoff (YouTube is usually 15.5 kHz for AAC, other platforms may be 15-16 kHz for 128 kbps MP3, etc.). Bottom line: Get the highest quality sources you can, and use Spek or another spectrum analysis software to check rips or record pool sources. Your ears and processing algorithms will thank you. Again, you never know who will listen to or play out your track, could even be a big sound system.
• Stem separation artifacts: This can take several different forms, but can happen when either the invert or stem separation algorithm being used adds noise or other unwanted high end artifacts like high hats that once amplified, will absolutely stand out in a mix. This also includes artifacts from stem separation algorithms like Utagoe which make vocals sound like they're underwater at default settings. Key rule of thumb: Remember that the instrumental and original could be mixed and mastered differently depending on the production environment and how masters spread. If an invert makes a vocal stand out more but just needs extra cleaning, don't be afraid to combine the invert technique (original + instrumental) with stem separation. When using multiple stem separation techniques or using different sources (like remix + remix instrumental), think about how they sound on parts of the instrumental and consider picking the best extraction for a given part; remember that this includes using the original song (this is called comping in the production world). If there are parts of vocals intended to be silent and there are artifacts, don't be afraid to replace the reverb + delay with your own. Keep up to date with stem separation algorithms by keeping up with developments on the Audio Separation Discord server: https://discord.gg/wY3AAaTvHT
• A little too much going on: This happens in many cases when looking at megamashups, megamixes, and even simpler overlap of vocals where too many elements are competing for space at some point (e.g. two vocals at the same time competing for mono or midrange). Key rule of thumb: In production just as in life, leave elbow room! With vocals, this can be done by overlapping a lead source that's more mono (e.g. lead vocal) with a background source that's more stereo (e.g. background vocals or vocal pad). When transitioning, it's also really useful to slightly pan or automate pan and volume of the vocal you're trying to brief in, which can include repeating the first word or few words of a phrase. Volume and EQ may also be useful here to properly convey space.
• Weird time-stretch and pitch-shift artifacts: This can happen when using a lower quality time-stretch or a time-stretch that can destroy transients/drum hits (Audacity or Elastique Efficient on vocals, older Elastique Pro on full instrumentals) or pitching too much and/or with too much/little formant preserve. The best way to reduce these effects on instrumental is to think about combining stem separation with ways to improve quality (pitch everything BUT the drums unless tonal, experiment with different time stretch methods on different elements, etc.). For too much pitch or formant preserve, either pick sources that are closer in key (+/- 2 semitones is a good rule of thumb) and try to control the amount of formant preservation and/or envelope (in Ableton) to make the vocals sound more natural. Formant preserve is usually a good idea for pitched vocals, but can sound bad for pitched instrumentals especially drums depending on the track.
• Pops or clicks while editing: This tends to happen when elements like vocals are cut off when not at zero volume. Key rule of thumb: Edit to zero crossing and/or use fades to cut off regions or when combining different regions together.
• Flanging, phasing, or flamming while editing: Sometimes these effects are on purpose, but oftentimes when crossfading between different parts of an instrumental, both parts of the edit don't align on beat. Flanging and phasing applies for sample level edits (ms or more), flamming for tenths or hundredths of seconds (e.g. 0.05 sec or 0.1 sec). Flamming is a drumming term for when the same part of the drum kit (usually the snare drum) is hit twice with different sticks at close to but not exactly the same time.
• Starting the first part of the mix you can hear too early or too late: This basically falls into starting immediately at 0:00 (0 seconds) or starting two seconds in, so you end up starting the mix you can hear in the overall track too early that it's hard to correctly rewind in a media player or starts way too suddenly, or too late that it feels like an eternity for the track to start. Basic rule of thumb: Always start your track with a little bit of silence (think about 0.2 seconds minimum but all depends on source material).
• Incorrect end of loop region/end of track marker too early or too late: This falls into one of two categories. One category is forgetting to listen for the reverb tail or tail end of one of the tracks and setting the end of track marker too early to the point of hearing the mix completely cut off. The other category is when you forget to set the end of track marker, so it defaults to the end of the project, which leaves a lot of silence (think tens of seconds instead of a few to fade out) at the end due to the end of track marker being far too late.
• Vocals or other elements end too suddenly in an edit: You may want to get different vocals to interact with each other or edit out of artifacts from vocal stem separation, but the other vocal (or elements) sound like they were cut off. Key rule of thumb: Have a reverb effect handy, and if you're working in a DAW, take advantage of wet/dry automation and combine the reverb with delay afterwards in the effect chain for vocals and other elements so when you crank up the wet the decay helps fade out the element gracefully.
• Vocals or other elements start too suddenly or out of place when connecting them or transitioning: This also considers getting different vocals or other elements to work together or going to a new part, but refers to a new part using vocals or other elements sounding out of place at the beginning of a region in a transition. Key rule of thumb: Watch your crossfades and when you're in a pinch and want to start the next part gracefully, don't be afraid to use reverse reverb or other effect like a riser to introduce a completely new element or different part in a pinch. Reverse reverb is exactly what it sounds: Adding reverb to a short snippet of an element like a cymbal, vocal note, or pad, and then applying reverse on it. Often this is done by choosing a tonal center to transition into, choosing a small snippet to add reverb to, choosing reverb with a long decay time and big space (usually I do a Cathedral reverb), reversing it, and then carefully aligning the reverse reverb so the end of it hits the beginning of the next region. Whew that was a lot! Tutorials will do this much more justice but this is the general idea.
• Vocals too dry or too wet for the instrumental: Usually this depends on the instrumental's genre. For genres like pop or EDM, vocals tend to have some reverb applied to make them shine. For others like alternative and some classic hip-hop, the reverb might be less or no wet or a completely different type. This issue usually refers to too little reverb (too dry) or too much reverb (too wet). Key rule of thumb: Don't forget to have reverb handy. You might need it. Keep your wet low in the middle of a vocal depending on what you're trying to do (think 3-5% wet or - on the low side
• Vocals or other elements slightly too loud or soft: Self-explanatory, this is usually an issue where elements should be the right volume for elements to work well together.
• Vocals or other elements drowned out/don't gel due to hypercompression: This usually happens when using a vocal not from an EDM, hyperpop, hard rock, or other genre where there is hypercompression but no matter how much volume amount you try elements like vocals don't gel and compete for space in the mid range. Two common techniques take the form of adding more compression to a vocal to stand up to an hypercompressed instrumental and/or reducing mid band EQ of the other source (which could come from sidechaining). For the added compression, it tends to be done with either multiple compressors in series (e.g. two compressors using low threshold + high ratio and high threshold + low ratio) or through various guitar distortion plugins on settings meant for vocals (e.g. Camelcrusher with British Clean or certain presets of OTT). Don't be afraid to experiment.
• Master too loud or soft for the genre: This usually takes the form of using limiters and other effects to make certain tracks too loud for the genre intended, or not using anything at all and the track is too soft for the genre/commercial sound. This can come down to taste, but how a track was produced can affect how loud you master. Mileage will vary; listen to how loud tracks are made and emulate your favorites assuming nothing too egregious.
• Stereo issues: This can happen if there are elements out of phase when trying to combine mono and stereo or applying other effects. It's a bit more difficult to diagnose, but one rule of thumb is to test your overall track on different playback systems (from headphones to big speakers and even your phone or small bluetooth speaker which will effectively test mono depending on the device).

Wow that was a lot and I know it's very overwhelming who don't produce a ton. There might be more issues I didn't mention here, so let me know if there's anything else that could be useful.
Update 1: Added "bad phrasing" under the off structure issue, this is the DJing term for it
Update 2: Added two variations of "too much going on" to the bigger and smaller issues
Update 3: Added "Starting the first part of the mix you can hear too early or too late" and "Incorrect end of loop region/end of track marker too late" as two additional small issues.
Update 4: Changed one bullet to "Incorrect end of loop region/end of track marker too early or too late"