TL;DR - Several months ago, apartment mice began in my NYC apartment kitchen but were kept under control by excessive cleaning and food removal, with one or two traps set up. 10 days ago, my roommate and our dog left for a few days and I spotted mice in other rooms of the apartment for the first time. Long story short they got BOLD and kept coming near me. Landlord/Super is not in the building half the time and when he finally came to check it out for the third time in 2 months, he gave me more traps and denied that there are any holes in my apartment (due to the fact he caulked up some a few years ago) even though I 100% have mice (it's not rats I got a VERY good up-close look) and virtually every neighbor in my wall line reported them and my landlord admitted there is an infestation in the basement and 1st floor. Also, the mice have avoided every single type of trap set while still eating the bait from spring traps.
THINGS I'VE TRIED: *NOTE* All traps were cleaned first with no harsh chemicals only sweet-smelling dish soap and traps were exclusively handled with gloves.
Baits used- Rotated and/or combined foods for bait; peanut butter; whole wheat bread; white bread; dog food; dog treats; powdered liver dog food topper; bagels; grease from cooked ground beef.
Traps used- Voltage kill-traps; snap traps; simple no-kill bait traps; poison kill-traps; bucket flip-trap for field mice (dog-proof that's why)
Misc. Measures used - physical barriers and reinforced edges with many layers of duct tape to isolate them to the rooms they enter and exit from. Poison pellets behind appliances, or anywhere the dog cannot reach.
Measures that HELPED a tiny bit (not eradicated) - Poison pellets (reports of dead mice in the basement level, didn't really help my apartment though), the physical barriers I sealed up w duct tape, and my dog simply existing in the living room.
Long story version of the above.
So, I live in a 1 bedroom apartment in NYC with a roommate and a dog. We've been dealing with a mice infestation in the building for months, with a few sightings in the kitchen and some eaten food. Luckily, until about a week ago, we had zero sightings or signs of mice in any other rooms. When this began about 2 months ago, we alerted our landlord and told him where we thought they were coming from to which he responded "Well I closed that off two years ago so they can't be coming from there," *Fun Fact* They are coming from there. And other places in the apartment too. The method we've used to curb mice for the last few months was obsessively cleaning our kitchen with vinegar and peppermint oil each time we cook and wiping surfaces after EVERY possible food contact. They did not leave but they stayed just in the kitchen and since we cut off access to our food, got more explorative in the kitchen, but less spotting altogether. In retrospect, what kept them isolated to the kitchen after the food removal was the fact that my large dog stays out of there usually.
Fast forward to about 10 days ago, my roommate went out of town, and our dog stayed with their friend after the first day or two. Once I was the only person left in the apartment, the horrors started. I saw my first mouse run from the bathroom to my roommate's bedroom (I sleep in the living room) and I then started hearing mice in the living room (my room), behind a large armoire that acts as a fake fireplace. I immediately cleared out the entryway room to become the only truly mouse-proofed room in the entire apartment, double-bagged all food and put it in there, triple-bagged all dog food + treats, and sealed sealed sealed the room up. Not a single piece of accessible food was left in any part of the apartment. The less accessible the food got, the bolder the mice became. Eventually, after grabbing a single cookie and holding it IN MY HAND, the only food in the house outside the mouse-proof room, within 2 minutes of sitting on the couch a mouse climbs on and comes face-to-face with me. I had been sleeping on the couch at this point due to a mouse having run across my bed a few days prior. After this I deep cleaned virtually every single spot in the living room I could reach using a mixture of vinegar, peppermint oil, and anti-bacterial cleaning spray and sealed up any places I could conceive of even a roach being able to fit through. The kitchen is not possible to seal without the help of my landlord since the oven, sink, and refrigerator are immovable (kitchen walkway is about 2 feet wide at most from edge of counter to opposing wall trapping my appliances to their position).
On the 5th day of leaving message after message to my super (who is only in the building about half the time anyways) he finally came back to check it out, and stated the entire wall line of the building and the whole 1st floor + basement was having mice infestations, and promptly told me the same thing he did last time without pulling out any appliances to check behind them or even bothering to offer any alternative possibilities to where they might be coming from. My interpretation of my Super's stance on the problem is "You have mice. The entire building and especially the lower floors also have mice. I mice-proofed your apartment years ago so I needn't check to make sure it's still sealed. I believe you have no entrances or exits for mice although I won't check. Here are some traps and poison pellets just in case you have mice. But you definitely have mice though." He's visited three times in 2 months for this and says this every single time.
Before the landlord arrived, I had several no-kill mouse traps baited with peanut butter that the mice seemed to avoid like the plague. The landlord simply put up a bunch of snap-traps for mice and I went on Amazon to order a few chemical kill traps and a bucket-trap for field mice (it's dog-proof that's why). My super also sprinkled a bunch of mouse poison anywhere my dog can't get to.
It's been about 4 days since my landlord came and I set up every new trap. I made sure to wear gloves, thoroughly clean each trap, and rubbed a lil bread (that they'd already eaten a portion of previously) on the outside of the trap because why not make it smell nicer and more inviting? My dog is back in the house, my roommate is home, and while mice are now back in just the kitchen mainly (likely because of the dog) they are still super active and avoiding every single trap I've set and managing to eat the bait from every snap-trap without setting it off. They avoid altogether the voltage traps, simple bait traps, chemical traps, and bucket-trap. As bait, I've tried using peanut butter, dog food, dog treats, whole wheat + white bread, and even a bagel. I also did the thing where I tried to make them enter the trap by giving them no other alternative and then they suddenly begin finding new ways to climb walls or find another access point to come in and out of.
I'm so tired, my roommate is even more scared of mice than I am, and the dog is helpful, but won't drive them out completely. My super sucks, wtf do I do now? I don't want to have to report the building as having "Unsanitary conditions: Pests: Mice" to the NYC311 (NYC govt-run non-emergency city services) but after months of this and the last few weeks of intense mice-battling I am really struggling.

How Clumsy you are, Miss Ueno!!

Extra Info and Links

ANN MAL Anilist Wikipedia Crunchyroll

Schedule

Episode	Title	Date	Episode	Title	Date
EP 01	["ROCKER-KUN / KUMATANDER NO. 2"]()	June 13th	EP 8	["COITSU NATE LUNA D/Pero-Lilion"]()	June 20th
EP 02	["DASH-TAN / 1-7-6 PROTECTIVE GEAR"]()	June 14th	EP 9	["JIGATIGHTS / SQ-WATER"]()	June 21st
EP 03	["THE KILT HIDE / GARAKUTAN"]()	June 15th	EP 10	["KANCHIKAN / REPARA-TE"]()	June 22nd
EP 04	["UENO NO. 13 / The SummonStat"]()	June 16th	EP 11	["INVISI-BLOOMER / THE REAR-SKIRT"]()	June 23rd
EP 05	["THE P-SPECTER / THE PE RESERVER"]()	June 17th	EP 12	["GAN-Q / BALLET-TAN"]()	June 24th
EP 06	["II UMBRELLA / E-Q BOOSTER"]()	June 18th	Completed	["Series Discussion"]()	June 25th
EP 07	["PANTY ROTI / THE GATCHA-PORTER"]()	June 19th

Synopsis:
"Ueno-san, you're cringe"
As the head of her middle school's science club, it's only fitting that Ueno is also a brilliant inventor. With devices that can convert any liquid into drinkable water, deodorize the most foul smells, or even generate dark matter to be used as a means of concealment, it seems like nothing is beyond Ueno's capabilities. However, she doesn't invent these devices for the advancement of mankind. Rather, the one force that motivates her is love, the only phenomenon she can't quite figure out.
Ueno is head over heels for Tanaka, her nonchalant fellow club member. Yet, because she is too nervous to confess her love and he is too oblivious to notice her affection, her love life is completely stagnant. In Ueno's mind, if she could just expose him to perverted situations, then surely he'd get flustered and fall for her, right? Assisted by her stone-faced classmate and dedicated wingwoman Yamashita, Ueno employs her many inventions on Tanaka in a lewd manner in hopes that he may one day understand how she feels.

Why should you watch it?

I mean, isn't the answer obvious? How Clumsy you are, Miss Ueno is a ten volume manga from Tugeneko, a 4koma specialist who has a history of slice of life comedies in Care to Caret and Swim Team, the slice of life about girls going about their day to day lives in swimsuits. Anyway, the bloke has a history of questionably lewd comedies and that's right up our Rewatch Group's tastes! This one is even heavily inspired by Doraemon. We all grew up with Doraemon right?
Ueno itself ran from 2015 to 2022 and got itself a neat little 15 minute comedy skit anime in 2019, which is what we'll be watching this month. It's not long, pretty comfy, and will be loaded with more questionable content than you can shake a phallic looking stick at. The anime came from our friends as Lesprit, famous for some weird capybara anime? and the director, Tomohiro Tsukimisato, did... rockman? He worked on one of the Battle Network anime and on Kirakira Kirari. And Tanuki to Kitsune.
It stars Yu Serizawa who everyone here loves as Shera from Demon Lord, as Ueno and features Miku Ito singing our banger op! There is also an English dub available but I'm sure my rewatchers are too cultured to watch a dub, RIGHT!? It has a nice cast tho. Hillary Haig as Ueno, Monika Rial as Yamashita. It also has "Patty Cakes" playing Mizuna. There's no way that's right? XD
So, if I haven't convinced you to watch Ueno yet then please sample a couple extra cultured clips that will explain the show better than looking at its iffy cast history~ We have a highlight clip from Nekomanscer lovingly referring to Ueno as The Pee Drinking Anime. The phone charging scene~ And of course the tights smelling scene. We've got so much more! Aaand this is my birthday rewatch so you're all obligated to come~ 12 episodes, 15 minute runtime, lifetime of trauma! Let's fucking gooo!
The series is available to steam on HiDive, Crunchyroll, and I think a lot of them are on YouTube right now too!

Fun Stuff

Simple and clean!! We've got our normal Questions of the Day, although I may cut down the number depending on how much actually happens each episode. We will have Comments of the Day!! I'll be stealing highlights from whoever leaves the most interesting insights day to day. I only accept comments coming from watchers who have replied to three other rewatchers however!! Don't be shy, we're all in the same boat here. I also have one final section... that will more than likely flop again but I'm gonna beat this dead horse until it works!
Abyssbringer's "What is the thematic purpose of this scene corner!!"
In this section I will be posting a preview pic of the following episode. Your challenge is to dedicate a small write up about the "thematic" purpose of said scene~ The best submission will get a dedicated spot in our patented Abyssbringer's "What is the thematic purpose of this scene winner's corner!!"
So to be clear, check the preview that I will be posting each day, be sure to write an extra addidum or quip filled monologue about that particular scene/screenshot, and include it in your post! For examples please check out Ichigo Mashimaro and Kodomo no Jikan or Kunoichi Tsubaki! Just to be clear this section is made for a bit of fun. If you don't understand it, please check with me and I'll explain it further. I'm gonna make this a thing if its the last thing I do!!
[Weekly reminder]() [24H Reminder]()

Dates, times and plans

I plan for the rewatch to begin on Tuesday the 13th of June at 22:00 UTC, 17:00 EST 16:00 CST, 15:00 MST, 14:00 PST So 10pm UK time. We will be doing one episode per day with a series discussion to wrap up.
And so! You must drink my urine, HelioA!!

First persona game. I'm going in semi-blind just cheating on class answers and confidant responses. I just beat the 4th palace and saw the results with Medjed. Things are starting to come into focus and the dots are starting to connect. Still waiting for the plot twist.
I tried to keep it short (I failed) but this what I have so far. Some things contradict each other or would introduce huge plot holes if both were true but I'm just throwing every Idea I have out there. There are some opinions and random facts that I think are important but not sure where to fit them yet.
Please no spoilers for any Persona games as I plan on picking up 3 and 4 later on.
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palace one predictions : https://www.reddit.com/Persona5/comments/13odesi/first_time_playing_going_in_blind_my_horribly/
palace two predictions : https://www.reddit.com/Persona5/comments/13q3q9j/first_time_playing_going_in_blind_just_beat_the/
palace three predictions : https://www.reddit.com/Persona5/comments/13sl0vp/first_time_playing_going_in_blind_just_beat_the/
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Futaba /Alibaba and somehow Morgana

• The squid girl from the movie finally gets a name.
• Futaba's mom is the curry lady!
• The phone call Sojiro had about a printer makes so much sense now. When I thought he was taking care of an old lady I was like what is she printing out pictures of snowball or something.
• 2nd person to get the metaverse nav before awakening their persona. How does Igor know?
• the images that Futaba sees are the metaverse bleeding in or ... shes just plain nuts.
• translated some of the binary on the walls of her palace in to ASCII looking for a secret message but they were just the same odd symbols that were on the doors and such.
• Futaba picked Alibaba as her hacker alias. before we get to see the whole Egypt /pyramid theme of her palace it seemed like a really odd choice.
• It could be just a cool name that the writers picked but "Chekhov's gun" states that every element introduced in a story should be necessary to the plot. If the gun isn't going to be fired then the audience doesn't need to see it being loaded - or something like that.
• It got me thinking and for sure I remembered the name Alibaba but had forgotten the details of the story. I did a quick search and was able to find the story pretty easily.
• Short version: Alibaba was a dude who stole a bunch of riches from some thieves. Alibaba is living the good life when the thieves track him down and make plans to kill him. The plans are stopped by Alibaba's slave who kills the thieves.
• Also Alibaba's slave was named...... Wait for it....... Morgiana! Mind effing blown! If I'm not reading too much into that then its a friggin huge easter egg. It's way too similar not to be important.
• Morgana is a slave of the big bad. Slaves can be freed.
• Since I haven't seen the relationship between Futaba and Morgana develop yet it could just be she treats Morgana like a slave.
• this one is a bit of a stretch but the creature Alibaba uses in chat kind of looked like a "dark Morgana" it could just be the style that the artist uses for all creatures.
• Morgiana was female. Early in the game Ann ask Morgana if it's a boy or a girl. It says of course it's a boy, but it also says that it is human. (it's def still not). Morgana might be the Male version of Morgiana but this throws it's gender into question too. It's not like anyone had checked between it's legs as far as I can tell. (also where does it do it's business I haven't seen a litter box).
• Morgiana killed the thieves going after Alibaba. The big bad will take control of Morgana at one point and we will have to fight Shade / Evil / Controlled Morgana (not a shadow this will be different) to get the cat back.
• Was almost thinking Morgana could be the one who betrays us but no one can understand him and even Akechi would have trouble selling the whole "my informant is a cat" thing to Sae.

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Wakaba, Shido and the Owls

• The curry lady finally gets a name.
• The bald glasses man gets a name .
• In ancient Egypt owls were associated with death and mourning. Will be referring to the Agents as Owls for now on because I think it makes a great name for a secret organization.
• Wakaba discovered the metaverse independent from the government.
• She was working on a way to enter the metaverse without the use of the metaverse nav.
• The Owls that killed her work for Shido and Sae's boss.
• Not only did the owls deliver the news to Fatuba (mourning) but they also were the people who killed her (death)
• The owls killed Wakaba to keep her silent and then stole her research which they hoped would let them make a metaverse nav of their own
• The black mask user is an owl.
• Do owls eat butterflies ?

Medjed

• We learn medjed it's not so much of an international organization but rather was started by Futaba and then a bunch of posers co-opted the name.
• One of the owls came up with the medjed plan. They had leverage on a member or had a mole, informant etc.
• Sae's boss has a conversation about it where he mentions he didn't think *he* could come up with the plan on their own. he = Akechi
• Igor came up with the plan and told Akechi.
• The Owls couldn't expose the PT without exposing the metaverse. Sae's boss says something like if they (PT) keep this up then the public may find out about the metaverse.
• He called it the metaverse and not the cognitive world. Could be the writers didn't want to confuse the player by introducing a new term with no context. Could be that the Owls initially learned about the metaverse from an otherworldly being.
• The plan was to use the threat of an economic crash to get the PT crew to expose themselves and using misdirection to make them think it was medjed.
• additional benefit was to cause social unrest allowing Shido to make his power grab.
• They were going about the metal shutdowns slowly at first (Sae mentioned it has been going on for 2-3 years) messing things up so that certain government officials would resign in shame. After the PT crew became active they had to accelerate their plans to stay ahead of the curve or such.

Akechi

• Akechi says hes a psychic. He comes off as joking but in the same convo you can strait up tell him that Ryuji is a PT. Could be he is telling the truth and just expects no one to believe it. this would be his special "gift" that allowed him to hear Morgana. +1 for Akechi is good
• Akechi clearly puts the idea that the PT are involved in the mental shutdowns in Sae's head. +1 for Akechi being bad.
• Actually starting to trust him after spending some time with him. +5 Akechi is bad.
• At this point Akechi knows who the PT are. not 100% but hes like 95% sure. He's playing the long con and trying to get on Jokers good side.
• He got super pissed when he saw the PT made the 3rd change of heart happen. We already know he doesn't like them but he was PISSED.
• He cares too much about fame and the PT crew are stealing his thunder.
• I was told I can't sit on the fence with Akechi lol. My gut says he's bad but the cynic in me says the writers are setting him up for a plot twist.
• If I'm forced to pick one then Akechi is bad. I thought they were setting Sae's boss (really with I knew his name) up to look bad but be really good, but every palace there is another scene with him scheming. I don't think the writers are going to go for such a cheap plot twist with Akechi.
• Akechi being bad also is also now needed for one of my Kasumi theories to work so I'm firmly planting my feet in the Akechi is bad camp.

Kasumi

• Knows Akechi because her dad works at a TV station. Could be a lie. Every owl needs a cover story.
• Said she had a sister that was killed.
• Never had a sister it was her other personality.
• At the casino heist when she says My weak self depended on you that all ends today line that was the "sister" talking and Kasumi is the weak self she mentions.
• At some point it will be mentioned that she has no pictures of her sister.
• Her sister was an owl but had a change of mind (would say change of heart but that would be confusing ). regarding the agency and was going to leave / rebel / expose them / take them down etc. so they owls had her "killed"
• When her sister "died" it was actually Maruki suppressing her other personality.
• Her sister was the gymnast. Being an agent for the owls would require tons of training Gymnastics would be easy for someone like that. Her slump only started when her sister "died".
• Only has 5 star confidant rank. The other 5 will be with her sister.
• Kasumi started off as an owl but joined a group that opposes them. She was captured and then brainwashed by Maruki

Maruki

• should have been a red flag earlier. new girl transfers and a month later her doctor gets assigned to her high school. Given what we know about the principle and his connection to Sae's boss this is more then just a happy coincidence.
• after the incident with Kamoshida the owls were worried that the personality suppression didn't take so they sent him to keep a close eye on Kasumi.
• After the 2nd exam he calls you into his office for a little chat. the whole feel of this was different than the others I've had with him.
• It was like there was a sense of desperation under his statements. He was like how do you think people will react when someone fails to meet expectations after being given special treatment desperate people to crazy things. There's some misdirection here since the two girls in the hall were talking about Kasumi's exams being moved up a week. The writers want you to think he's talking about Kasumi and all the expectations the school put on her. but that makes no sense why would he be asking about what two random girls were talking about in the hall. He was actually talking about himself and the expectations the Owls put on him .
• The owls are putting pressure on him to complete some project and hes going to make a mistake when he rushes to meet the deadline they set for him.
• someone he knows is really depressed or has some other crippling emotional trauma. this was his original motivation but has since warped.
• wants to save people by fixing their hearts in a scientific way. want to go above counseling and actually remove/repair bad emotions.
• cognitive psience will be involved. he already knows about it and is almost done with his device/gizmo/doodad that will allow him to fix hearts. The conversations he's had with joker so far is his way of asking for "permission" to set his plan in action. He even says he wished he had the powers that the PT have.
• is it better to feel nothing than to feel pain? could see this being his "I really think I'm still a good guy" logic
• plan is to use his gizmo to turn every into emotional zombies where no one feels anything. This is what Shido meant when he was talking about his ideal society.

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Twins / Butterfly Lady
The number of new confidants that unlock after the 3rd palace was a bit overwhelming but It did give me plenty of chances to watch the new confidant unlock scenes. I was a little too hung up with her voice to really pay attention.

• I am thou, thou art I" - we are one and the same
• thou hast acquired a new vow. - you just unlocked a new confidant. to quote Jose "Good Job!"
• It shall become the wings of rebellion that breaketh thy chains of captivity. - butterflies have wings also still talking about Joker "thy chains of captivity". Joker is like a caterpillar and when he obtains his true power he will become a butterfly (not literally). the chains could be a the cocoon that the butterfly breaks out of.
• With the birth of the Fortune Persona I have obtained the winds of blessing that shall lead to freedom and new power - creatures with wings (like a butterfly) ride the wind. She is now referring to herself in this line "I have obtained..."

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• The butterfly lady is our persona or at the very least out power levels are connected.
• Part of the butterfly lady's power is sealed in joker. Was not intentional but will be the key to rejoining the twins.
• When there is a fusion alarm the twins do this adorable back stretch where one kicks her legs. They then do this weird like side stretch that looks like the fusion dance from Dragon Ball Z.
• the recarm ability has a blue butterfly reviving the party member. butterfly = rebirth ?

Limo Girl.

• Is in the opening movie both the heist scene and the smash the city part. Will be joining up.
• Ran in to her in the hall at the star of the game she was labled as a senior
• Riding in a limo. daddy is loaded.
• At the park cleanup she asked Mishima for the bottle cap so they can be used for medicine. What we should take away from this scene is she's a really good person.
• We need to know see that she's super duper good because her dad is bad like really bad.
• daddy's money is dirty money and she knows it or at least suspects.
• We will change daddy's heart and make him admit his evil ways.
• Shido is her dad.
• We don't know when she's going to join up or if the casino heist is her first. Stealing her dad's heart will prob be her first mission so the fact that shes on the comms at the start of the game isn't too much of a problem.

Opening Casino Heist

• on 7/29 Morgana says "But it's true that an observant criminal could have a true to reality city in their Palace."
• The opening casino heist wasn't in the real world but was the Shido's heart. His palace just included a 1:1 of the city in it. He also says in the scene at the start of the game where joker has a flashback that he owns the cops. Would make sense that the shadows in his cognition would take the form of the police and security guards. The 2nd palace had two types of shadows (male and female) and the 3rd/4th had people/dogs. Multiple types of shadows is not unheard of
• Also looks like we did manage to steal his treasure but not sure if they were able to get it out.
• We don't actually see joker get taken in by the cops. It's possible that the traitor grabbed us after the shadow cops took us down and turned us in to the real world cops. Doesn't mean the world's can't be merging but my reasoning for it is off.
• One thing that bothers me is when they ask if everyone remembers where they have to meet up. Why was joker separate from the rest of the PT? The PT all leave the metaverse together so far. Could just mean where they're going to meet up near the exit (if there is an exit with the palace being the whole city). Hoping for more clues to clarify this.

The Metaverse, Velvet Room and the nature of things.

• at the meeting for the 2nd palace Ryuji says something like I never even thought there were other worlds besides ours. Morgana responds with eh don't worry too much about it.
• Igor says the Velvet room exist between mind and matter dream and reality
• If the real world is the matter and the metaverse is the mind then the velvet room exist in the place between them
• If there is more than one prison (everyone Igor recruits gets there own) then it's possible that there are other "rooms" in the space between the two worlds
• the big bad is trapped in one of these other rooms. the key and or entrance is located in mementos.
• on 7/19 Igor says "After all, you must hone your powers.... and become a magnificent thief..."
• he is being literal as he needs is to steal the key to the big bad's room.
• before the big bad was imprisoned the metaverse was formless. His presence started the corruption and gave it form. this is the sea of souls that the personas mention then you capture them.
• They are getting pulled out of the collective and twisted into shadows.

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Sae and Sajiro conversation
was going to have a huge section here but most of my questions got answered after the 4th palace I typed up my initial thoughts right after the convo took place I'll leave it here since it was part of my thought process but this can be mostly ignored.

• "as long as there's a possibility that cognitive psience can be linked to psychotic breakdowns."
• what is cognitive psience ? did the curry lady make it ?
• Psi as in Psionics ? Mental powers are always cool.
• Curry lady was trying to fix her maternity neurosis but some how created her own metaverse nav.
• Or she never had maternity neurosis and that was just part of the coverup. (Tried to search if maternity neurosis is an actual thing. most links came back to this subreddit so I didn't go any deeper to avoid spoilers) --- got this one right lol
• The tech was stolen by Sae's boss and he had her killed her by doing something in the metaverse that made her jump in front of the car. -- half right (i think)
• The black mask person doesn't work for Igor but used the Curry Lady's device to enter the metaverse.
• Igor not bad or is bad but not affiliated with black mask.

Best Girl current rankings - Nothing is set yet no decisions have been made just the current rankings.

1. Makoto - the scene where the lights go out and she grabs jokers leg just made her more endearing. Amazing driving skills the PT would have died after the 4th palace if not for her. She asked joker to be her "fake" boyfriend. she may have had pure intentions but on some level she wanted to gauge his reaction to the idea.
2. Futba - who doesn't like a quirky redhead. Her being Boss's adopted daughter is a good thing as he seems to like Joker at this point in the story so he wouldn't have to give him the whole "let me show you my gun collection" talk. Although I'm thinking shes more like the quirky best friend type then best girl material (so sorry Fatuba Fans plesedonthateme)
3. Dr.Death - shes a doctor who really cares about her work. Cares more about helping the little girl then getting the credit for it. She basically broke down when she thought the girl was dead. Also SP Adhesives are amazing.
4. Kasumi - 100% little sister vibe. The batting cage scene just oozed I want my big bro to be proud of me. Maybe her "sister" is more likeable.
5. Chihaya - nice lady with a super power. A bit too gullible. Could totally see her sending all of Joker's savings to a Nigerian prince.
6. Chess girl (I know it's not chess) - mid maybe she will get more interesting. If she does I might remember her name.
7. Ann - Not even in the running really because She's going to end up with Ryuji. If Ryuji wasn't around I would say shes not the brightest bulb in the pack. shes not dumb and seems to at least have passed her exams but we have honor student Makoto and super nerd Futaba to compare her to. she is empathetic and has a high emotional intelligence. No way shes going to make it as an Actress with her (lack of) skills I cringe every time she tries. She would make a great councilor though with how she relates to people and to seems to be able to get along with everyone. Alternatively she could end up in professional sports with her throwing arm. She launched Morgan like she was shooting off a rocket after the 4th palace.
8. Kawakami - Yes she's ranked lower than someone who's not even in the running. First off she lied about her sister WTF! She just seems like a mess. Her clothes don't fit and her hair is never brushed. Shes going to end up as a cat lady. She is forever in "the help" tier doing my laundry and making me coffee.

Best Bro current rankings.

1. Ryuji - dude is our bro 100% He's the bad influence with a heart of gold and will stick with Joker to the end. He's the Ron Weasley to Joker's Harry Potter. He would be the most fun to go drinking with.
2. Yusuke - you will only ever be his 2nd best friend. His true loyalty lies with art. If Joker was hanging off the side of a cliff and Yusuke had to make the decision to save Joker or paint the perfect sunset it would be a real nail biter to see what he decides
3. Sojiro - Ok so not our bro but the Boss-Chief is the man. He took us in feeds us and is teaching us how to pick up chicks with coffee. He took in Fatuba because he felt guilty about not preventing her mother's death (even though chances are if he tried to help the owls would have killed him too). Would take a bullet for Joker and his friends and would die with a smile knowing he saved someone (may this never happen). Would not be surprised if he is the get away driver when the PT crew breaks Joker out.
4. Akechi - he's too full of himself and his sweater is dumb. Hanging out with him you would only ever be "Akechi's friend"
5. Mishima - such a wimp physically and emotionally. We just chilled at the park after he got picked on at the Diner. Unless he can fix his issues without the help of the PT crew then he's bottom tier for sure.

Best Kitty current rankings.

1. Snowball - he didn't deserve to go out like that.
2. Morgana - is a spy and slave of the big bad. Also needs stop hitting on Ryuji's girl or it's desires are gonna get all warped and it won't be able to summon it's persona.

If you made it here your a champ!

• LPL 2023 Summer Split
• Websites: Website; Wiki
• Date: 29th May - 17th July
• Streams: Twitch.tv
• Format: Group Stage: Single round robin, all matches are Bo3, top 10 advanced to playoffs; Phase 1 (Round 1 to Round 3) Two King of the Hill single elimination brackets (seeds 4/5/8/9 in one bracket and seeds 3/6/7/10 in the other), Winners of each bracket advance to Phase 2, Phase 2 (Round 4 to Finals), Double elimination bracket (seed 1 faces 4/5/8/9 bracket winner and seed 2 faces 3/6/7/10 bracket winner in Round 4 Winners' Bracket), Matches are best of five, Winner qualifies for the 2023 Season World Championship
• Teams: Anyone's Legend - AL ; Bilibili Gaming - BLG ; EDward Gaming - EDG ; FunPlus Phoenix - FPX ; Invictus Gaming - iG ; JD Gaming - JDG ; LGD Gaming - LGD ; LNG Gaming - LNG ; Ninjas in Pyjamas - NiP ; Oh My God - OMG ; Rare Atom - RA ; Royal Never Give Up - RNG ; Team WE - WE ; Top Esports - TES ; TT Gaming - TTG ; Ultra Prime - UP ; Weibo Gaming - WBG

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Week 1, Day 1, Monday - May 29th

#	Team 1	vs.	Team 2	Twitch	YouTube	YouTube	Highlights	Discussion
A1	UP	vs	AL	Picks & Bans	Picks & Bans	Game Start	Highlights
A2	UP	vs	AL	Picks & Bans	Picks & Bans	Game Start	Highlights
A3	UP	vs	AL	Picks & Bans	Picks & Bans	Game Start	Highlights	Spoilers!
B1	TTG	vs	FPX	Picks & Bans	Picks & Bans	Game Start	Highlights
B2	TTG	vs	FPX	Picks & Bans	Picks & Bans	Game Start	Highlights
B3	TTG	vs	FPX	Picks & Bans	Picks & Bans	Game Start	Highlights	Spoilers!

Updated May 2023
After changing reddit accounts and about a year since posting it, it seemed prudent to throw this up for visibility. :)
Few things are worse than not knowing what happened to a loved one. Which is what convinced Robin Ayou to get into a drop shuttle with a lifepod with basically nothing, then fire herself down onto an ocean planet where the only place that she could investigate was a tiny little patch of barely-even-land and pray she can survive long enough to find a way to get off the planet.
Nobody ever told Robin she was great at forward planning.
https://subnauticamap.io/belowzero - This map will provide direction/orientation for this guide, but BEWARE! It marks spoilers if you turn those on!

Touchdown

Once you've landed, you'll find some food and water to start you off scattered around the ship. You won't have to worry about getting cold, since standing next to your now-burning ship will warm you up and the meteors coming down don't actually paste you, they're mostly to stress you out.
Note that may not be the case later. The weather in this game is a serious thing.
Once you have your stuff, you'll find the drop pod on your HUD. Don't go straight to it, though. As soon as you hit the water, look for an indentation in the ground. You'll find some copper in there. Then, follow the northern glacial wall (That's to your right when you're looking at your lifepod) until you find a small cave, which will have some silver and gold. That'll get you started off nicely. Get to your lifepod, take a look at your fabricator. You'll find that the items you have blueprints for can be pinned to the top-right in your PDA by clicking on them in the blueprints tab, a useful feature when hunting for materials.
Your goals right now are your basic survival tools. Note that the kelp forest is a bad place to hold your stuff in your hand. The sea monkeys are kleptomaniacs and will gank your stuff. You can totally get it back though, it just means chasing after them a bit, which is annoying and wastes time. However, if you pull out a flare and hold it in front of them, they freak out and run away from you for a little bit.

Time To Get Rolling

Your first task, as indicated by the PDA, is to find Delta Island. This becomes relatively easy once you find a compass. If you've gone to the emergency cache you'll have the beacon blueprint so stock up on them before traveling so you can mark things. You're going to be making a lot of these but since you can toggle them it's not so bad, you'll just need a lot of beacons. Its south of where the drop pod lands. As you spread out your searching range you'll find that the sea floor drops down among twisty coral structures.
This area is called Twisty Bridges. It's the main go-to for coral samples and you'll want those. There's small bits of Alterra stuff scattered around the area. It's here you'll find mobile vehicle bay, sea truck and seaglide fragments. When you've been in the area for a bit, you'll hear what sounds like an SOS. It's worth checking that out and you'll find that this spot goes deeper than you might suspect. Makes you wonder what's down there, doesn't it?
Beyond Twisty Bridges lies the thermal spires, an area of volcanic activity and thermal smokers. Many sea truck fragments are here. The wildlife here is noisy and menacing sounding but if you don't hang out next to them they're easy to avoid. Smacking one with a blade will made it instantly turn and get the hell away from you. They don't like being hit. On the border between thermal spires and twisty bridges someplace is a small foundation platform with external grow beds for you to scan, but you can get these at Omega Station later if you're not sweating on it. There are large crevices and a few volcanic fissures out here. Beware the heat vents, but exploring those areas can pay off, later.
On the island, you'll find blueprints you need, as well as some materials like sulfur and horseshoe nuts. The latter are very useful to plant in the seabase you'll be wanting. Take care to look around thoroughly for blueprints you'll find useful, as not all of them are inside the buildings. Also, keep a sharp eye out for music disks which you'll find scattered throughout the game, especially in bases.
On the south-west corner of the island is a precursor artifact you can scan. Look for the beach with all the pengwings on it. The habitat builder can be found on a box outside Delta Station. Make sure to scan the map inside the sea base. There's also a PDA up by the comms tower.

Let's Go Explorin'

So, by now you've visited Delta Island, have had a good look around Twisty Bridges and you've probably discovered the sea monkey caves in Kelp Forest. If you haven't gone exploring in those, you really ought to. You'll find more MVB fragments there but that's also where the propulsion cannon blueprint can be found, the laser cutter, as well as a fair amount of gold and some precursor artifacts as well. Once that's all done with and taken care of, you've probably got at least a tiny seabase, but if you don't... what are you doing?
Go on, shoo. Go make a base.
...
Okay, got one now? Good! Hopefully it's someplace nice. Your basic sea truck can't get down to where you want to be going next but a depth module will take care of that. A MkII depth module will let you get to the very bottom of where you want to go. Where do you want to go? Koppa Mine. You'll find it on the western side of the island. Take care to look around when you find the door eventually, since there is a databox just inside the main doors, before you head down. It has the moonpool and will allow you to get that much earlier than you would through scanning it.
To drive the seatruck inside the mine, drive north from the entrance of Koppa mine, you'll come across a volcanic fissure in the seafloor nearby which has JUST enough space for you to fit your seatruck through it. The fissure leads right into Koppa Mine, allowing you to drive the seatruck inside!
The other alternative is actually spare air tanks. Totally a viable solution so long as you remember to refill them by equipping them once you're out of the water. You can swap them out mid-dive and extend your breathing time, which is handy since the prawn fragment blueprints you require are kinda far down there. If you're free diving in this way, note that the bottom chamber of the mine has a hole in the ceiling leading to a small cave system which will lead you back to the surface, as well as having a number of oxygen plants to keep you from choking on the way. The entrance to that is almost right next to the Delta Station docks.
Also note that Site Zero, which has useful blueprints, can be found by hugging the northern glacial wall and heading east along it. You can find it by checking breaks in the ice, one of them leads up to a small hidden cave where the base lies. But if you don't find it, you'll be directed here later. It just has some useful things to scan and a lantern fruit tree. There is a music disk here.

Way Down South

By now you've probably answered the SoS. If not, go do that. As you hang out with Al-An, he'll give you prompts to artifacts that you haven't found yet, if you dawdle in looking for the required number. At this point you should have the following:

• A sea base, even a basic one. The databox in Koppa Mine's entrance will grant you the moon pool but if you missed it, you can get the blueprint later following the storyline.
  
• Seaglide, knife, propulsion cannon, beacons, repair tool, scanner, flashlight, builder tool
  
• Seatruck with at least one depth module
  
• Prawn blueprints
  

Building the Prawn is surprisingly easy, but requires lithium, a material you probably haven't seen a lot of yet. There's a little scattered around in thermal spires, but only a little. You can find a lot at purple vents, but be careful to avoid the doom shrimp. A chelicarate hangs out here. There are other things in this area which are relevant to you which you'll want to mark out for later. There is a small seatruck crash site with a variety of fragments out here, if you find it, look around carefully for the music disk that's here.
Following the marker for the unknown pilots last position, you will find a green area rich in confusing cave systems. This area is the lilypads zone. Old girl can be found down near the signal, just look for the shimmering things on the wall, the hive minds. She's near them. Grab the seatruck defense module she has in there. Be sure to pick up the databox directly outside her base to get the stillsuit as well and if you follow the caves down where they turn blue you'll stumble on an old thermal plant of hers, where another databox lies. There's fragments scattered all over this zone as well as The mercury II stern, which lays on the border between lilypads and purple vents, as well as the bow, which is a little further in on the western side of lilypads. Be sure to explore the area thoroughly and take note of the massive crevasse near the middle of the zone. Inside the chunk of land here is Omega Lab, which will net you the external grow beds, nuclear plant, nuclear disposal as well as a couple new beds and the antenna plants. It's in this area you'll need to search for nickel later, so building a scanner station here is a good idea. Deep Lilypads holds an Al-An body part you'll require. Deep Lilypads is also the only place you can acquire the materials to manufacture benzene.
Don't go too close to the Lily Paddlers, unless you like being off your face, in which case go say hi, it's hilarious. Trust me. ;D
In order to disable the satellite for Dances-With-Reapers, you're going to need to wreck dive the Mercury II. Two of its sections can be found in purple vents, while the bow - the largest - can be found in Lilypads, west of Omega Labs floating island. You'll need the laser cutter for this. Your goal is to scan the parallel processors in the wreck, but there's all kinds of really useful stuff in there too, not to mention all the titanium. ALL the titanium. So be sure to drop beacons on these things, bring a spare air tank and bring your pathfinder tool. If you don't have the pathfinder tool, go look around in the caves full of emeralds between Phi Robotics docks and Phi Robotics itself. There is one up on a small ridge in one of those caves. If you can't find it, don't worry though, just bring flares and use them as breadcrumbs while diving to prevent yourself from getting too lost. The alien containment tank, reinforced dive suit, parallel processor can be found in these. A music disk is in the bow section on a bridge console.

LAND HO!

Aaah, glacial basin. How I hate thee. The basin is split into four sections, two for each part of the basin, north and south. South is where you'll probably end up first. You can find the docks to access this area by tracking along the northern glacial wall and continuing west until you come to the eye jellyfish. Check the radio tower next to the docks, there is a music disk there. The upper southern area is where Phi Robotics lays, as well as frost vase plants and spicy peppers. Both of those are excellent crops to grow, as they net you useful things. The spicy peppers scattered throughout the entirety of glacial basin essentially means that you'll not starve while out here so long as you're paying attention to what you're doing. Note that snow stalkers REALLY HATE FLARES. They'll make your trips out here annoying, even in the prawn, which is the best way to ensure the weather isn't a factor for you. Sometimes they're in the caves. Flares will make exploring these much safer.
You can get to lower glacial basin through the upper part, but it's a bit confusing and I prefer to access it via the glacial tunnel. Head south along the western glacial wall from the glacial basin docks and you'll find a tunnel which eye jellyfish are hanging out near. This tunnel leads directly to lower glacial basin and provides a convenient way to access the area without needing to travel through upper GB every time.
Northern Glacial Basin can be accessed by scanning the hydraulic fluid on the bridge, then repairing the bridge to cross it. DO NOT GO HERE WITHOUT THE PRAWN. SERIOUSLY. The grip arm is very handy to have out here and if you haven't found it, use a scanner room in Lilypads to find the sea monkey nests but it's not necessary so don't stress if you don't have it. Just don't use the snow fox. It's useless and handles like crap.
The iceworms here are dangerous if you stay still too long. Take your time, explore thoroughly and mark out any Alterra sites you find with beacons. A couple of these have the blueprints for the Thumper and this is your ticket to working in this area safely. A thumper will keep the iceworms away within a radius, ensuring you don't get whacked while picking stuff up outside the prawn.
Along the western wall of this zone is a small cave with three large ion cube deposits. Keep a sharp eye out for it, you definitely want those. At the north-east tip of the zone you'll find ice worm corpses you can scan that don't put you in mortal danger during the attempt.
Really funny seeing them pop up and chow down on snow stalkers, though. Pay back sucks, don't it? Al-An's body part is out here. Keep an eye out for the precursor cables and make sure to check all the caves, because the master gateway leading to Phi Robotics is here as well. The room containing the gateway leads to a small docks and tunnel with an ice wall you can cut through to easily access the middle of northern glacial basin from the docks. There is a music disk at those docks as well.

Going Down?

By now you're probably wondering where to go. Remember purple vents? The engine part of the mercury II has a crevasse leading down to where you need to go next. Once you've found the crystal caves, you better hope you picked up the defense module at Marg's base. It's sitting inside her room and sometimes gets knocked to the floor when Preston jumps you. You'll be wanting it for what's down here.
The Shadow Leviathan.
Ohhhh boy are they ever aggressive. Good news for you though, they patrol around on a set route and they don't go through the whole of crystal caves. You'll be looking for fragments here, as well as materials. Lots of gold, silver and kyanite in the crevasses in the floor of these caves. An Al-An body part, the final one, can be found at the bottom of a tunnel which is mouthed by a circular formation of crystals. Once you have it, you'll want to go even deeper to find the fabrication facility, forcing you to wander crystal caves until you find the blood crystal caves.

Oh Yeah, It's All Comin' Together

So, you now have everything you need to build your home boy a body. Once that's done, you'll be wanting to wrap up the bit with Sam. If you've explored lower southern glacial basin, you'll have found the cave with the frozen leviathan. Oh, and grab the music disk in the security bunker. Exploring this cave gets you some useful stuff. You know the little caves here with the blinking markers? Explore these with spy penglings! There's some useful stuff in some of them, actually. Including the antidote Sam hid. You can use that on the loader located on the upper part of the leviathan in the cave.
And... that's that! That's the whole game.

Tips and Tricks

• The air bladder can pull a tiny amount of air into your tank. It's not very much but those 10 seconds of extra air can save your life in a deep pinch.
  
• You can find lots of quartz if you hug the northern ice wall and roam east of west, but be careful of the brinewings. They'll freeze your ass, which can be inconvenient if you're low on air.
  
• Frost Anemone Hearts are actually a really great food source and should be picked up any time you can get them. They'll last forever in the fridge.
  
• Made your base with some helpful sea monkey neighbours? After awhile they stop stealing from you and begin trying to help you - but they don't know what you want! If you mark blueprints in your PDA, they'll try and bring you materials for that if they can.
  
• Most predators will back off if you feed them a fish before they bite you. This includes leviathans. You might still get hurt from them slamming into you or something but feeding them a fish will usually cause them to stop attacking you. This doesn't work against the shadow leviathan, it hates you and everything you hold dear. It doesn't know what those things are, but it doesn't care either. It just does.
  
• Spare air tanks are great and can be kept stocked in your sea truck, but remember to put them on to refill them.
  
• Animals will react to your behavior in some instances. Feel tree to try new things with them like feeding fish. You can even ride on glow whales! Some of them really hate flares too, like sea monkeys and snow stalkers.
  
• Surface bases are a completely viable thing in this game and some of the ice sheets have holes in them, allowing you to have a surface base with a dropped section for moonpools and water filters. Water filters will work outside of the water, but you don't get salt and they're much slower.
  
• Get the cold suit as soon as you can. It's in Phi Robotics. It changes your outside time from 2 minutes to 7 minutes, which is a huge difference. Without it, the prawn is the only way to explore the surface without constantly stressing about freezing to death. You can find the tufts of fur in snow stalker caves where the pups are, make sure you have a flare if you don't like getting nommed on.
  
• Can't figure out how to get on top of the ice sheet, but you want a base up there? Swim down deep and use the air bladder to get some height. You can build a hallway up there, then drop a ladder down into the water to make a surface base with an underwater docking section. Alternatively, you can probably get up there with the prawn and the grip arm.
  
• Speaking of the prawn and grip arm, you can totally launch yourself with it. Attaching the grip to the ground and using it to pull yourself into a jump will get you some serious air time, which is helpful for getting up small ridges on the surface. If you break the map and managed to get above it in the prawn, return to the player area. Being up there breaks progression completely and the only interesting thing is a leftover animation testbed east of glacial basin. The collision on terrain is also patchy here and it's possible to fall through the ground into the void. In your prawn. So don't screw around up there too much.
  
• Spicy peppers and coffee will both warm you up while on the surface, which makes the spicy peppers scattered all over the place pretty valuable.
  
• The greenhouse you get sent to can be found in Lilypads on an iceberg. The three large icebergs here all have things to find so be sure to search thoroughly.
  
• The crashed ship is a great place to get a lot of metal very quickly and will basically hand you a free sea base so long as you're willing to go keep picking it up. If you've already looted it all, give it awhile and check back later, sometimes new scrap shows up as the wrecks continue their eventual rot.
  
• Drop emergency caches of food, water, medpacks, batteries, power cells and flares along with a beacon and never be caught short on supplies because you went out looking for stuff and forgot to bring rations. D'oh!
  
• A small base specifically for replacing vehicles is very helpful when you lose one. Have the materials gathered beforehand and you won't have to spend a long time struggling to get them together after the bad feeling of having your stuff crunched.
  
• Be sure to look for creature eggs out in glacial basin
  
• Rock punchers are jerks and will kill stuff in your containment tank, so now you know, and knowing is half the battle. And the lives of your fish.
  
• There is no good way to scan the leviathans, but your scan progress gets saved if you don't scan other things, so letting it chow down on your seatruck and scanning it while it's distracted, then repairing your vehicle after, will allow you to get the whole scan after a couple rounds.
  
• Make scanner rooms everywhere. Solar panels and bio reactors are your friend. Nuclear power is better but not viable in early game. If you need magnetite, go to the glacial tunnel and look at the ice walls just where the tunnel curves upwards, you'll find ore fissures there with magnetite inside.
  
• Beacons, beacons, beacons. I can't stress this enough, litter them EVERYWHERE. You can toggle them on and off in your PDA, so having a bajillion around the map isn't really a problem and they're really useful.
  
• There are more precursor artifacts than Al-An mentions to you. Keep a sharp eye out, look everywhere and scan for ion cubes. Check icebergs for moulins, AKA hollow chambers inside. You'll need a laser cutter to access the ones you find.
  
• Tree Spires has a hell of a lot of uraninite in its cave systems, it's a good spot to stock up on it. Beware the chelicarate in the zone.
  
• The crystal caves are roughly the shape of a spiral. Knowing this makes navigating them a lot less mystifying. Mind you, it's still difficult. As usual, use beacons a lot. Also make sure to explore the cracks in the floor of the cave!
  
• Penglins/Pengwings drown if you leave them in the alien containment tank after hatching :( They have to hold their breaths. If you breed them, make sure to set them free.
  
• There are no large nodes for lead. You must search for galena outcrops with the scanner room. It's pretty much the only way to stock up on the stuff. The other one people have a lot of trouble with is Magnetite, which can only be found in lower glacial basin. You'll want a scanner room to find it. Upper glacial basin has a TON of lithium if you can handle the ice worms... as well as three large mining nodes for ion cubes hidden in a cave.
  
• Keep exploring Upper Glacial Basin even if you find the precursor body part. There are ice worm corpses and a slipgate out here for you to find. The slipgate links to the Phi Robotics slipgate and has a tunnel which leads directly back out to the docks that you can only cut open from the inside. There's also a music disk down there on a crate so keep a sharp eye out when you find it.
  

Good luck, Robin!

From Bolivia with Love
Not since the days of the dictatorships into the early 1980s have we seen government opponents (internal and external) die in mysterious circumstances with such frequency. Four decades have since those dark days, and in the last 6 months we have not 1, not 2, but 3 strange deaths, that rival the demise of Putin's contrarians in Russia. If true, who knows how long this apparent purge of government enemies (internal and external) might last.
The latest victim is Carlos Colodro, who had been charged distributing the assets of Bank Fassil. Fassil went bankrupt recently, Colodro was charged with taking its assets to return the bank’s customers their money, transfer their accounts to other banks, pay back the salaries of Fassil employees and so on. Saturday night he turned up death after allegedly falling down from the 14th floor of a building. As per his family the corpse shows strange bruises not explained by a suicide, and he was missing an eye and a testicle. Unconfirmed reports say the government actors had money in Fassil of unknown and potentially illegal origins, and Colodro was perhaps getting too close to this information. As per his family’s lawyer Colodro had been receiving threats recently. Curiously the next day the Minister of Government Eduardo Del Castillo had a press release with an apparent suicide letter. This came as a surprise to the family as a search with the police at 11pm Saturday night did not find this letter. According to Del Castillo the letter was found (conveniently) during a second search at 2am Sunday morning. However neither the handwriting or writing style fit Colodro’s. Take that as what you will.
Colodro’s death is eerily similar to the recent death “by suicide” of Christopher Balcázar, who happens to be the defense lawyer for political prisoner and opposition leader Luis Fernando Camacho. On the night of May 1 Balcazar “jumped” to his dead from his 11th floor apartment. At the time the police said they were collecting footage from the building’s security cameras, but almost a month later these haven’t been released to the public yet. Why?
In 2022 attorney Felipe Sandy Rivero came out as a whistleblower exposing corruption within the ABC government agency (Administradora Boliviana de Carreteras – Bolivian Administration of Roads) with Chinse company CHEC. At the time of the allegations this was seen as the latest battle of the MAS civil war (Evo Vs. Arce) as Sandy Rivero was receiving help from a hardcore member of the “Evista” wing of the party, and the accusations were against the “Arcista” wing as allegedly President Arce has his people and family member working in the ABC. Sandy Rivero ended up receiving death threats and fearing for his life escaped to Miami. In March 2023 the Minister of Justice Ivan Lima (an “Arcista”) disclosed that Sandy Rivero had died the previous January in a car accident. The press was able to independently obtain a list of transit deaths in Miami and Sandy Rivero’s name was nowhere to be found. The press then produced US forensic results indicating that Sandy Rivero “had assaulted his own body” and he had “attempted against his life”, some convoluted language to describe an apparent suicide, there was nothing about a car accident in the document. The Evistas then pointed the finger to Lima as responsible for Sandy Rivero’s death. Before dying Sandy Rivero made a video in which he stated that he feared for his life from Bolivian and Chinese actors and wanted to explain the corruption details (fake documents, money laundering, front documents, etc).
Here Comes Johnny
State congressman Federico Moron recently went to the police to make corruption allegations against Santa Cruz Mayor Johnny Fernandez. During his term Hernandez has been reluctant to construct new roads in his city, but has decided to make an exception by ordering the construction of an avenue linking Tundi with Las Peñas. Moron alleges that Hernandez conveniently bought all the land around the road (currently under construction), once the road is complete the value of this land will increase and Fernandez will make a killing by selling it.
Now Moron is under arrest. You read that right, immediately after hearing his testimony the police arrested Moron on charges of his own corruption. The details are not clear to me yet, but are these charges true? Or is this a way to silence Moron? Or a bit of both? Your guess is as good as mines. In the meantime Johnny keeps creating content for his REAL TikTok account “UncleJohnnyFernandez”. His most common content revolves around him just giving money away while his own theme song “Johnny Cash” plays in the background. Selected lyrics:
Jhonny Cash, with Uncle Jhonny Cash
The Land Cruiser waiting in the garage
I am Johnny, pure money
I am boss, I am Fernandez
MVP with only Mansions grandes [big]
I am Jhonny, they call me Don Dinero [money]
In the yellow Ferrari I arrived primero [first]
The Congressional Battle Royale: A Fight for Signs and Glory
This week congress came together to debate on whether to censure or not Minister of Government Eduado Del Castillo, who is a member of the MAS party. As part of the process Del Castillo had to answer 11 questions regarding the violent “arrest” of opposition leader Luis Fernando Camacho last year. A kidnapping might be a better way to describe it. Rather than answering them Del Castillo instead made a long partisan speech. Congresswoman Maria Renee Alvarez tried to voice her protest with a sign, but MAS congresswoman Tania Paniagua had other plans, grabbing and tearing signs from opposition congresswomen. More opposition congresswomen then brought their own signs, which Paniagua also proceeded to grab and tear. Not happy with that Paniagua then proceeded to assault her fellow congresswomen and a battle royal ensued.
The fun also takes place outside of Congress
The Guarayo Province in Santa Cruz is home to the indigenous Guarayo people. A large part of the province is protected and Guarayo hold collective title for it. However for over a decade the central government created an “intercultural” program in which government supporters from the highlands are allowed to use the land of the Guarayo (and others) for their own. This has resulted in mass deforestation and has severely weakened the Guarayo way of life. The “interculturals” simply take their land and do whatever they want with it. Finally a local district attorney was taking steps to remove these squatters, in return a mob of them went into his office an assaulted him. The police were able to rescue him fortunately. This is not the first time the squatting interculturals have resorted to violence. It seems the interculturals have taken the term "culture clash" to a whole new level.

First
Memory transcription subject: Luke Schmidt, Human Businessman
Date [standardized human time]: December 18th, 2136
I was the only human in the bar. I chalked it up to timing and chance, as it wasn’t a hostile bar. Aside from a few glances and the fact that people passing by my table took great care not to touch me, I had no issues. I could barely keep my head off the table, but that was more a function of tiredness than anything. I had arrived on Venlil Prime only a few days ago, and the goofy sleep schedule messed with my brain. Barlethy Shipping did provide us with blackout curtains to set up over the windows of our bedrooms, but it was still challenging.
That wasn’t even mentioning all the work I’d been doing. I was a salesman for Barlethy Shipping, which had been established for about 50 years prior to First Contact. FTL ships were horrendously expensive, and usually only the government had access to them, but the Barlethy billionaire family cared quite a bit about expanding their business on this frontier, and were willing to pour millions into private FTL ships for their employees, as well as efforts to ensure that the Venlil legal system wasn’t a hassle. I was meant to set up business deals with aliens, using a variety of methods of varying moral standing, and although others had already done so, there was still a whole planet of opportunity.
As such, I had been talking to Venlil, viewing their wares, and traveling almost all the time I’d been here. When I wasn’t doing that, I was eating and sleeping. I really needed a break, so after fourteen hours of business, I arrived at the bar for a much-needed drink. I’d made a few successful deals thus far, so hopefully Barlethy Shipping wouldn’t mind the downtime too much.
I wasn’t really paying attention to the aliens around me, as I was rather exhausted, so I didn’t notice when the unfamiliar alien walked up to me. I did not recognize which species this was, which energized me. New things always did. The species was honestly rather ugly, which was weird because all the aliens I’d seen thus far were either cute or sleek, in my opinion. They had rough gray elephant skin with sparse thick, black hairs scattered around it, which made them look more like a hairy human than like an alien with fur. The top of their snout dangled down over their mouth, and they had short tusks and weird little giraffe horns. Their tail curled up like a squirrel’s, and their fingers were long, thin, and far too numerous. They looked like a squat, mammalian Arxur. And then, they sat down across from me.
“Hello there. You’re unique too! Isn’t that fun? Being the only one of your kind in sight really isn’t all that fun, but you get used to it,” she said, in a friendly, conversational tone that was apparently female, according to my translator.
I didn’t think that unfamiliar aliens were willing to get within an arm's length of unfamiliar humans. Maybe the Venlil or our other good allies, but I had never seen this race before. I said as much. “Pardon me, but who and what are you? I have never seen your species before, and I don’t think you’re allied with humanity.” I figured that she must be a regular here, since nobody gave her a second glance. Maybe she’d expressed wanting to meet a human for a while. I still had no idea what her deal was, though.
I think I came across a little harsher than I intended, but she didn’t seem to mind. She began, “Oh, pardon my manners. My name is Polkif, and I am a Zhetsian. You’re right, we’re not allied with humanity, and there aren’t a whole lot of us on Venlil Prime, so you probably haven’t heard of us. We don’t have a very large diaspora. I’ve been here a few years, and I’m used to being a novelty.”
I hummed, interested. Some part of me was always eager to talk to aliens, and I could indulge that now. Most of the time, my interactions with aliens were distinctly more… hostile, than I’d like, but that was unavoidable. Well, here was an opportunity to avoid hostilities! Though, I was still wondering why this wasn't shaping up to be hostile, so I asked, “Why are you comfortable walking up to random, unfamiliar humans? Even people who have been here since First Contact with us and who generally like humans aren’t often comfortable doing that. Especially since we have a reputation for being aggressive when drunk.”
Polkif snuffled, which my translator told me was laughter. After a few seconds, she said, “Well, we’re Zhetsians! We’re expected to be bold. We do have to be mindful of other species’ norms when offworld, but I don’t think they’ll kick my door down and drag me off to the predator disease facility just for being excited about talking to a human. I suppose you don’t know if they will until they do it, but I’ve gone this long without biased officers bagging me, so I figure my logic holds up. Besides, I don’t mind standing out and having to make an effort to fit in if it means I can avoid the current issues on my native planet, Miluja. Well, the issues are everywhere in Zhetsian space, but they’re especially strong there.”
I was intrigued, and thoughts of tiredness were out of my mind. Of course, there were a whole lot of aliens with all different cultures and histories, but this was new, even compared to other aliens I knew of, and was shaping up to be exciting. I would be especially tired later, but I didn’t mind the adrenaline that interest and excitement gave me right now. I prompted her, “What kind of issues?”
Polkif obliged me. “Civil unrest issues. All five Zhetsian planets are having issues with stampedes, mobs, protesting, and armed rebellion, but on Miluja it’s devolved into a civil war. Or Colony World 3, as it’s known offworld. They don’t like that we landed on naming it after Milu, since they say he had predator disease, but it’s tradition to call it that, and I like it better than the generic name, at least.
“Once the Cilany broadcast came out and reached us, it was pandemonium. Due to the anti-predator religion, a lot of people assumed that we were predators, so we split from the Federation. All the death cults and secret predator or predator-diseased sympathizers came out of the woodwork declaring this to be proof that they were right all along, and now everyone should join up with them and make a utopia, or something. Of course, all the elements that prevented those guys from making themselves known before were still there, so the government and the Federation-sympathizers cracked down on them. The rebellious elements were emboldened, though, and had quite a few guns and lots of repurposed farming equipment, so they fought back. This led to all the sympathizers still in the government to come out and support the rebellion too, except they were discovered, and you had tusk-fights in offices everywhere. It devolved from there, and now the whole planet is engulfed in civil war.
“The other planets are doing better, though not by much. Nitto is probably doing the best out of all of them, since the overwhelming majority of the government and populace was able to unite around the Nitre Rebellion’s legacy and kick the Federation out. Kipresa and Colony World 4 are undergoing low-level fighting and their share of unrest; their problems are mitigated by the fact that most of Kipresa just want to make money and aren’t up for fighting, and Colony World 4 knows that its denizens are mostly criminals, so they have a habit of not looking too closely as long as you don’t cause problems and there continue to be people willing to buy their ore. Mother Plains, our homeworld, has had more luck with the government cracking down on rebellion and dissent, but there are still decently sized patches that are held by rebel forces, and the Federation and government are growing more unpopular by the day.
“In short, there’s fighting and disruptions everywhere, though the last ship that came from Zhetsian space came a month ago, and I’m not sure how it’s progressed without me. The fact that no more ships have come is troubling enough. As for alliances, I can’t imagine that the UN wants to get involved in our civil wars, especially since most of the official governments would reject them anyway. So, we’re not allied with either the Federation or the UN, and I think we're best off focusing on getting ourselves to a stable position before helping anyone else with their problems.”
I sat back, stunned. Of course, in the back of my mind, I had figured that there might be intraspecies fighting somewhere in the Federation, but I’d started to discount that as a possibility, with how herd-focused and timid the Federation seemed. Species-wide civil wars and unrest was not what I expected. Though, if that’s what the situation back home was like, no wonder it seemed perfectly safe walking up to strange humans. I’ve known a few people from countries with civil unrest issues, and while some of them are intensely paranoid, some are fearless and barely blink at what normal people would consider notable dangers.
She continued after a few seconds. “I’m not quite sure where I stand on the issue. I am quite willing to call my home Miluja, and I have a lot of family who are farmers and on that side of the conflict, but you get leery of supporting such people after long enough away. The walls have ears when it comes to expressing dissent, you know. You’ve got to be on high alert if you want to do things the Federation government doesn’t approve of without them knocking on your door. It gets exhausting to hold such opinions after a while, in the face of all the opposition to them.”
She shook her head side-to-side slightly, and it occurred to me that she was probably looking for listeners in her blind spot. She had lowered her voice, too, so that I had to strain to hear her over the din of the bar. Even with how milquetoast that bit of opposition to the Federation ideology seemed, she didn’t seem like she wanted people to notice it. I’d had my share of paranoia, certain that the aggressive and somewhat underhanded negotiation tactics I’d used would be revealed, and I’d be fired and cause a huge diplomatic incident that would end in me being burned to a crisp. Well, her concerns couldn't have been that bad, since she seemed to settle down quickly enough. After she was done, she tipped her head back a bit to sip from her drink. Her snout prevented her from tilting the glass to her mouth all the way.
I decided to talk about myself a bit, since she seemed inclined to sit in silence, though she didn’t move away from my table. “Well, I’m sure you know about Earth. I’m here because I’m a representative of Barlethy Shipping, and I’m supposed to be negotiating deals with aliens, mostly Venlil. It doesn’t sound like we’ll be dealing with Zhetsians anytime soon, if it’s as bad as you say over there. I’ve been here for about a week on this trip, though I was here for a few weeks already during the Battle of Earth, and I’m already exhausted. Work and a weird sleep schedule will do that for you. After I’m done here, I’m going back to my hotel to sleep.”
Polkif responded, “Ah, I see. I’ve been an offworld business rep before, and it is not fun. Seeing other planets is enjoyable to a degree, but the schedule is grueling, other planets always have weird day/night cycles, and people tend to look down on Zhetsians as rebellious. I left for Venlil Prime about five years ago to help run a new branch of the farming equipment manufacturer I did sales for, though they try to hide their Zhetsian origins, and I exclusively work in non-public-facing roles. I was supposed to come back last month, but that didn’t pan out for obvious reasons. Oh well, I’ve got stable employment, since they’ve kept me on, and I think I can manage.”
I checked my holopad, and noted the time. It was 30 minutes until I wanted to go back to my apartment and sleep, since I’d scheduled an hour for this. A few thoughts flashed through my mind, most notably that getting back earlier would result in even more sleep, and that Polkif seemed nervous about discussing certain topics where others could hear. An idea sprang to mind, and I voiced it. “It’s been a pleasure talking with you, but I probably ought to start heading back to my hotel room. Do you want to discuss more things on the way? I’d love to hear more about you and your species, but it’s rather crowded in here.”
Something glinted in her eyes, and her fingers started twitching madly, bringing to mind images of sea anemones with bony tentacles. She responded, in a rather weird tone, “Oh, I’d love to do that. I don’t need to be anywhere for another three claws, so I’d be glad to discuss things on the way. Why don’t we finish our drinks and go?”
I’d almost finished my drink, so I downed the rest just as she chugged over half of her glass at once to finish it. As she hopped off the stool, I stopped leaning on the wall behind me, a poor substitute for a backrest, stretched my back a bit, and then grabbed my things and followed her.
It was rather empty outside, with only a few scattered and easily-avoidable groups of Venlil here and there on the street. I started towards my hotel, and Polkif followed. Once we’d gotten a decent ways away from anyone, Polkif started talking in a quiet but still conversational voice. “So what would you like to know?”
“Anything interesting,” I said. “Perhaps why you have a reputation for being rebellious, or why your government doesn’t like this Milu character, or why some of your planets are having it worse than others.”
“The walls have ears, but I have better vision and probably better hearing than you and most Venlil, so I’ll stop talking if there’s a chance of unwanted listeners. Do note that what I'm about to tell you is not the official history, and I could get in very serious trouble if people knew that I believed, or at least seriously considered, this stuff. I can drag you down with me if you start telling people about it. Capiche?”
This sounded serious, especially since her tone had gotten noticeably sharper. She seemed a lot more alert and less casual now, even considering the comments she made in the bar about the officials who handled predator disease, which reminded me of the old “knock on the door” of governments who took away people who opposed them, now that I thought about them. That was worrying, but it was probably something that required more context to understand. Also, it did not occur to me that aliens would have a word that translated to “capiche”, but I considered that it was context-appropriate and nodded. Polkif continued.
“Alright, so the first thing to know is that unwanted ideas and movements that spring up among us never quite manage to die, however much the Federation wants them to. We have quite a few dissident groups that are officially labeled “death cults”, as well as a lot of rebellious movements that the Federation has been working to stamp out. Many of these groups have survived centuries of opposition, and sometimes they preexist First Contact. The most notable of these groups are Linked Chains, the Steward Branch, the Inside, and the Nitre rebellion stuff on Nitto. Though, Linked Chains has spread offworld and has a pretty significant non-Zhetsian membership, so it isn’t near-exclusively Zhetsian like the others.
“What you should know is that, apart from a handful of bog-standard criminals and a few people looking for an excuse to cause harm, nobody dies or supports dying or misery in those groups. The Steward Branch is a religion that, especially now, is suspected to have been the original, true religion of Zhetsians, and which has as a core doctrine the idea that all life is precious and necessary for gaining true understanding. Including the predatory life. Linked Chains thinks that predators are necessary for the ecosystem to function properly, something that you humans seem to agree with. The Inside and the pro-Nitre stuff are the anti-Federation movements on Miluja and Nitto, respectively.
“The official accounts are pretty accurate as far as the origins of three of the movements, though Bilte is not evil, stupid, or manipulative like they portray him, the non-Steward branches are likely some combination of invented or blown way out of proportion by the Federation, and they like to underrepresent the amount of animosity that lingered after the Nitre rebellion’s resource issues were handled. Really, you need unofficial sources to get good histories for anything involving those movements. The thing they lie the most about, though, is the origins of the Inside on Miluja.
“A little over a century ago, Miluja, then only known as Colony World 3, started a program of reintroducing certain predators onto the planet in order to deal with pests. We’re a farming colony, you understand, so dealing with pests was a rather large priority, and sheer practicality overwhelmed the propaganda in this instance. The Exterminators Union threatened to withdraw over these changes, the planet called their bluff, and they left, only to realize that nobody wanted them back. A bounty system was implemented for unapproved wild predators, but a lot of other predators besides the original pest-killers started hanging around and coming out from the unannihilated parts of the wilderness that had been left when the Union left. People stopped minding, apparently. You can still access The Seven Sons of Aboulo TV show if you know where to look, it tells you something about what it was like back then. Much better than the contemporary first iteration of The Exterminators, which was a piece of over-the-top propaganda, though I digress.
“Of course, that wasn’t going to last forever. I can only imagine the reason we didn’t get shut down instantly was because we were, and remain, a bit of a backwater, and they all bought into their own lies enough that they thought we’d collapse on our own due to our changes. We didn’t, so they started helping the process along.
“The Farsul showed up to Zhetsian space and started poking around. The Farsul poking around in an unimportant, obscure species like ours can only mean trouble. They did some preliminary reconnaissance, then they threatened us if we didn’t disarm all of our civilian ships. We had the bright idea to retrofit all of our ships with guns, but apparently that encourages predator behavior, or something. Those made up almost all of our fleet! We really couldn’t afford the sanctions, scrutiny, accusations, and ostracization that would come from defying the Farsul, so we dutifully disarmed our ships, and shortly thereafter the Arxur showed up.”
At that, Polkif stopped talking, and a Venlil suddenly came out of a building that we had assumed was closed, almost hitting us with the door. The Venlil only heard the last part about the Arxur showing up, according to my calculations, and after a look of startlement that he shared with us, he turned around and headed the opposite direction. Polkif exhaled, and said, “The annoying thing about Venlil Prime is that there isn’t a night when everyone sleeps. There’s always a sizable portion of the population awake and active at any given moment, so you can’t avoid people staring at you nearly as much as you’d like.”
I bet a lot of people stared at Polkif. She seemed to be a regular in that bar, but elsewhere? Given that Polkif had stopped talking before I noticed the Venlil coming out of the building, I got the feeling that she was hyper-aware of scrutiny and always thinking about how people would perceive her every move. The walls have ears, after all. No wonder she was so noncommittal in the bar, compared to here. I figured that I should keep my observations to myself, though, and responded, “I can see that. On the bright side, not having a night means there’s nowhere you shouldn’t go at night. Wait, does the Federation even have street crime?”
Polkif snorted, which my translator told me indicated derision, same as for humans. “You’re more likely to get reported for predator disease for being out alone than to get mugged. But, yes, that will happen on occasion. Usually it takes the form of criminals running up, grabbing your bag, and running off again, no violence or confrontation involved. I know for a fact that there’s more violent crime than the Federation likes to admit to, though. Anyway, back to the story? Nobody’s watching.”
“Please.”
“Alright, so where were we? Farsul, ships, Arxur… Ah yes, the Arxur raid. After our fleet was significantly reduced, a fleet of more than a thousand Arxur ships showed up to Colony World 3. Normally this would be a death sentence, but a combination of tactics, guts, and on-the-ground resistance ended in us decimating the Arxur fleet, which then retreated with almost no cattle. Miluja hasn't had any Arxur problems since; they say we taste bad, and decimating their fleet probably put us firmly in the “don’t bother” camp. Fine by us! Anyway, during the battle, we’d asked around for help, but the other planets weren’t willing to divert resources, and I also suspect they wanted to avoid retaliation. They had to have known about the Farsul ship order. We also sent a few scouts further away to ask for help from other species, and that fleet did show up! Once the battle was already over and the Arxur were already retreating. Lazy cowards barely fired a single shot.
“As you might imagine, that fleet, known as the Assistance Fleet, stuck around. They offered to help us rebuild our bombed infrastructure and almost-annihilated fleet, for a hefty sum of cash and quite a lot of food. The other requirement was that we revert all of the changes we had made regarding predators and accept what was essentially an occupation. Our remaining pristine wilderness? Gone. Our new and unique ideas? Either well-hidden, taught away, or trapped in the minds of those stuck in facilities. Our wildlife? Mostly gone, although the original netry birds and jutalem are still around, despite the best efforts of the exterminators. Stubborn little bastards, they are. Some have taken them as a sort of symbol.
“The last important bit from that period is Milu. Things really sucked after the Assistance Fleet established themselves, as stated previously. Milu was a bureaucrat who schemed to smuggle out a whole bunch of information that the Outside occupiers wanted to destroy, subverted a great many efforts to diagnose people with predator disease and kill predators, and even worked to convince the physical fleet to head home instead of being threatening in our orbit. All around a stellar guy. He eventually got found out, diagnosed, and sent to a facility. The Outside tried to publicize it, for whichever reason, maybe to demoralize the Inside. It instead turned into a huge scandal, which ended in somebody blowing up the facility Milu was kept in, which resulted in several staff members dying and most of the inmates escaping, including Milu, who was never seen again. People started calling the colony Miluja around that time. Means something like “Milu’s Continuation” in the old Zhetsian language that people use to name things. As you can imagine, the Outside does not like that name, and while using it isn’t enough for a diagnosis, it will get you a whole lot of scrutiny that can easily lead to one.
“So, that’s that, mostly. Lots of fighting, lots of rebellion, lots of farmers telling their children all the things they don't teach in schools, and always the looming Federation ready to squash anything they don’t like. Personally, I’m quite surprised you lot managed to get a foothold. They go so hard on the propaganda.”
That was… a lot to take in. ‘Why does the Federation let them be like this?’ and ‘How horrible can the Federation be?’ were hardly original thoughts at this point, so I latched on to the one thing I understood well. “Well, Tarva was nice and nobody rushed us until we could handle it, and those were the lucky parts. Beyond that, it’s really a matter of time, as people see us not snapping and eating them. Personally, I suspect that the Federation going so hard on the propaganda was their undoing. They tell everyone that predators are pure evil, then predators who aren’t pure evil show up, so people figure the old framework no longer applies and they start judging things more rationally.”
Polkif hummed for a second, then responded, “That’s a decent theory. One would hope that some of that tolerance would extend to me, but I suppose you’re new, and old habits die hard. You know, there’s a few places on the planet I can’t go because of how riled up the populace is about predators, especially lately with you humans arriving. We’re the rebels, so I must be doing something horrible! Clowns, the lot of them.”
I imagine Polkif couldn’t get away with much, if what I took from her was accurate. Her race may have had some leeway with how deviant they were expected to be, but everything about her told me she was always under a lot of scrutiny. Though, this information didn’t seem like someone who perfectly obeyed every law and whim of the Federation would know about. So, I asked her, “If you’re under so much scrutiny, how do you know all this stuff? These unofficial histories don’t seem like something you could easily access.”
Polkif spoke again, but slower and with a weird cadence. “There’s more scrutiny for the Zhetsian diaspora than for Zhetsians on Zhetsian planets. That’s not to say that you aren’t always on high alert at all hours of the day because you never know who’s watching, who’s listening, who’ll report you, and what they’ll take as a sign that you have predator disease, or need your assets confiscated, or what have you. It just means that you have more trustworthy confidants and more leeway on Zhetsian planets. More people who can tell you stories and pass around contraband.
“As a relevant example of contraband, have you ever heard of The History of Non-Sapient Predators?”
I said, “No, I haven’t.”
She started twitching her fingers again, and the front of her snout flopped around a bit. I wasn’t aware she could move it. Then, she spoke. “The History of Non-Sapient Predators is one of the most well-known contraband books, at least amongst Zhetsians. It’s generally considered unsafe for us to get involved in movements offworld, and I’m not sure what contraband books exist elsewhere. Anyway, it’s up there with The Wild and Wondrous Deep, The Linked Chain, and The Social Strain. It’s an anthology of documents from the Galactic Archives, detailing the rise and fall of Colony World 3’s anti-Federation movement, as well as the context it takes place in.
“Most of the documents are publicly accessible in the Galactic Archives, just arranged in an unflattering manner. Some of them require special credentials to access, and a few are definitely not in the Archives, or reference documents that aren’t. It’s a common rumor that the Farsul Government Employee Registry doesn’t exist and is either completely hidden for some reason or a code for something else; also that many documents that used to be on the public network but classified were deleted or moved to a secret location or network after this book was created.
“It’s published under a pseudonym, and there are many theories on who made it. Whoever created it would have had to go to the Farsul homeworld, since the Archives are located there, and would have had to find a way to access non-public documents. It was definitely compiled before Milu, since neither he nor the name Miluja are mentioned. It cuts off after the Rebuilding starts. It was likely made by either a Zhetsian from Miluja or someone who greatly values Miluja, since it’s really only our history, despite the broad-sounding title. I’m sure there are other books detailing other species’ forgotten histories and interactions with non-sapient predators, but I don’t know about them. This is the history of our non-sapient predators.
“Anyway, that book is the defining source of the actual history of the Inside and Colony World 3. Copies are rare, but I used to know someone who had one back on Miluja.”
Wow. With every word that came out of Polkif’s mouth, a picture was being made of the side of the Federation that was so old and paranoid that it wouldn’t reveal itself, even now that Federation narratives were being questioned across the planet, or especially now that that was happening. Though, apparently Polkif wasn’t so paranoid as to hide it from me. I knew that my status as a human made people assume I was comfortable with predatory things, but I found that I did not take Polkif for the type to trust anyone she wasn’t extremely confident in. So I asked her, “Why are you telling me all this? I know I’m a human, but I could tell people. I’m a stranger to you.”
She snuffled again. “Remember when I said that I could drag you down with me? Well, I’ve actually been looking into you for a bit. You’re the only human I’ve seen out here, what can I say? I was interested. I’m quite good at navigating electronic things, and I happen to have discovered several dossiers of blackmail that your shipping company has provided you to help you make deals. Perhaps not as predatory as it could be, but I’m sure I could portray it properly if I needed to make this known to appropriate parties. I’m sure you know how illegal it is and how much of a diplomatic incident this would create.”
Wait.
She knew about that?
Sudden terror gripped me. I liked to think of my activities as aggressive business tactics, but her statement reminded me that it was still blackmail and would likely end in jail time and a diplomatic incident if I were caught. She also refueled the paranoia of getting reported for it that had been plaguing me ever since I arrived on Venlil Prime as a businessman. And, since this random alien who was simply interested in me could find it, that meant that I was in a very precarious position. Out of fear, and desperation, I shot back, “If I reported you, wouldn’t law enforcement just take you away before you could do anything, and wouldn’t they not listen to you if you’re a known predator? You seemed to imply that back at the bar.”
She replied just as quickly, “Exterminators. They deal with cases of predator disease, or really any crime involving the Zhetsian diaspora as they like to assume that we all have predator disease. Anyways, as you’re a human, they’re much less likely to believe anything you say, and that combined with experience and security measures means I will absolutely have time to send it off before they get me. I can be anonymous if need be. And don’t you try to delegate reporting to anyone or do it anonymously; if anyone comes knocking on my door, I’m blaming you, and out this goes.”
Well, damn. I stopped in the middle of the street to think, barely noticing Polkif’s eye glittering as she stopped next to me. I really should have known that someone like Polkif would only reveal anything to anyone if she was very sure that they wouldn’t reveal anything. Whether because she trusted them as people, or because she held something over them. I drastically misjudged her; she was intensely paranoid, but so good at masking that you never knew until she was already acting against you.
The aggressive negotiation tactics already stressed me out. When combined with Polkif’s knowledge of them, they made me feel far out of my depth. My mind was racing, but something did occur to me, and I asked her, “Do you do this frequently for the sake of it, or do you want something from me? You don’t seem the type to task unnecessary risks.”
More snuffling, of what I thought was a distinctly different character than previous snuffling. Probably a malicious laughter, if I had to guess. “I did have an idea that required a human. When I said that I had no copy of The History of Non-Sapient Predators on Venlil Prime, I lied. Had to see how you reacted, after all. I do indeed have a copy that I took with me from Miluja, and have made copies of it since. I was thinking that humanity having a copy would be useful. You guys can translate it, make copies, get famous and make boatloads of cash off of it, or whatever else you can think of. The Federation doesn't have eyes or tendrils on Earth, so the book, our history, won’t die, or at least it has a greater chance not to. I have no clue how many copies there are across the Federation, but I know it’s not that many. I was under the impression that humans quite liked the preservation of knowledge and history, based on what I’ve seen of humanity’s reaction to the Cilany and Yotul situations. So, you wouldn’t mind preserving important history that's been suppressed by the Federation.”
That was… surprisingly benign. I was about ready for her to demand I fork over all of my money, go rogue with my company ship, or commit crimes against exterminators and the government. A little bit of smuggling, especially of something this important, was nothing, especially compared to the activities I’d been engaging in. I already had to smuggle in some of the negotiation material, anyway.
She continued, “As I said, this book is very, very illegal, and even as a human you’re likely to get in a lot of trouble for having it. As you’ve already been able to hide all that blackmail, you shouldn’t have a problem hiding this, but do be careful, and do not get caught. Only look at it once you’re back on Earth, away from prying eyes, and don’t let your company find out until you don’t need their support. I'd recommend keeping your identity wholly separate from your ownership of that book. As for getting it to you, I happen to know that you’re going to be going to a certain library to do research on Venlil agricultural history tomorrow - you really shouldn’t use the DailyMemo112 app, it has poor security - so when you get there, look out for the book titled “History of Agricultural Exports of Venlil Prime: Volume 18” by “Bitsly” in the agriculture section. It’s a fake cover, obviously, with a few fake pages too, but it's what you're looking for, so take it and go. You should probably buy a few other books about Venlil Prime trade, for cover. Any questions?”
Aside from the fact that she casually mentioned that she knew about my daily schedule for the remaining 2 weeks of my trip, that was surprisingly straightforward. A few plans for what I'd do with the book were even percolating in my mind; I'd translate them to English, of course, and then I could post them anonymously online, maybe I could put a paywall or tip jar in there to make money off of it? I didn't need the money, since my job paid me well, but this could blow up, and I wouldn't be one of Barlethy Shipping's spacefaring employees if I didn't keep an eye out for opportunity. None of these ideas were something I needed Polkif for, though. So, I replied, “No. Uh, thank you for telling me all this? Fascinating stuff.”
“You’re welcome, and thank you, if you pull this off successfully. Oh, and don’t tell the UN. They care quite a bit about Venlil laws and sovereignty, you know. Them knowing will attract attention that neither of us want. Never tell anyone anything unless you absolutely have to, you know. Now, I believe that is your hotel right there?”
I looked away from Polkif, and noticed that we were indeed in front of the huge, gray hotel building I was staying in. I wasn't sure how Polkif knew it was mine, but I probably shouldn't have been surprised at that point. It spoke to how adrift and detached from all non-business endeavors I was on Venlil Prime that I didn’t recognize the area around the place I was staying until it was pointed out to me. With a sudden bout of melancholy washing out some of the paranoia, I said, “Indeed.”
She flopped her snout around a bit, twitching her fingers all the while. I assumed, or at least hoped, that this was the Zhetsian version of smiling. “See you never, probably. Further contact would only be suspicious. The walls have ears, so be careful. Goodbye.”
I watched her walk off, back towards the bar. I entered my hotel, feeling dazed now that everything had time to settle in. The adrenaline was wearing off, and with nothing new or exciting to occupy my attention, I crashed hard. Exhaustion, combined with the events and emotions of the past hour, made me incapable of having thoughts more complex than a sense of paranoia and a desire to go to bed.
I stumbled up to my room and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, without even pulling the blackout curtains over the window.
Previous

I'm a data science transfer for F/2023 and I'm so incredibly conflicted about studying abroad in the spring (2025) before I graduate.
I hear countless times about how it's a lifechanging experience and you can never do it again and that you make lifelong friends and it's the most regretted thing for college students to not have done and etc. etc.
But I only have 4 semesters at UC Berkeley, a university people would kill to get into, and it feels wrong to give up 1/4 of my available semesters to basically have fun in another country. I would also miss the spring commencement because the study abroad program ends in early June, and that's an experience I can't miss.
Can anyone give their thoughts or advice on my decision paralysis? Thank you.

To start I haven't played BotW since 2019 so if the questing was similar I apologize.
As someone who has played their fair share of video games over a lifetime, one thing that always bugged me was how "direct" quest information could sometimes be. For example, side quests that quite literally say "go here, do a task, and done". Maybe I've played too many games with very immediate "check list" style questing, but it really is a breath of fresh air in this game.
Now I'm not saying TotK isn't guilty of this because it definitely has some quests that do this, but generally I noticed that a quest will have some information to go off of, and it is up to the player to figure things out. Also, most quests don't just put an obvious marker on the map telling you where to go (emphasis on most quests). The main objectives and side adventures are VERY fun to go through and figure out because they give us information without pointing us in a specific laid out direction. Even then for the quests that do outright tell you where to go, it's because the context of the quest makes sense to do so.
For example (early spoilers for the springs side quest), the Mother Goddess Statue Quest has Link checking the big goddess statue at the Forgotten Temple, but initially interacting with a spring goddess statue tells us to go there specifically. So within the context of that quest, it makes sense that we're told where to go.
But I'm currently working my way around the phenomena happening in Zora's Domain (I've only done the Rito main quest before this) and alot of the necessary things to do before actually reaching the anti-gravity sky island portion are only vaguely presented to us and it is up to us, the player to take the information given and find the way forward, which I appreciate, an example being finding King Dorephan in an area behind a waterfall with clean water between Ploymus Mountain and Zora's Domain.
Another example are a bunch of the stable related quests like The Beast and Princess, where the only information we're given is a sighting of a beast in a subtropical region in the south. I actually haven't even done this quest yet, but for anyone who has played BotW we can immediately make a guess on where to go. Even then, the vague direction of "South" at least helps narrow things down immensely without telling the player directly where to go.
Too many games nowadays don't trust the player and litter us with obvious markers, but on the other side there definitely are games that can leave players completely in the dark (looking at you soulsborne/elden ring). As frustrating as it can be sometimes, I've always felt much more fulfillment with the latter style because at the very least it felt like I did the work to earn the respective quest progression.
I find the questing in this game to provide just enough info to get started but still allow for that fulfillment of actually piecing things together to finish these quests and I just love that.

Double or Nothing has came and went. It had ups and downs, but overall, I liked the event a good amount. Back in March, I did a post ranking the fights of Revolution, the first wrestling PPV event I ever saw. So I figured I might as well make ranking posts for each PPV event I see from AEW. So, here's my rankings for the matches of Double or Nothing...kinda. There's one exception I'll be making.
Unranked. Jamie Hayter vs Toni Storm. Not really a match and more of a story moment, so I can't really feel like it's fair to rank it with the others, especially with how much they needed to work around Jamie Hayter's real life injury. Not much to this as a fight, but a decent way to show The Outcasts growing from petty bullies to full on brutal meances. And Jamie Hayter deciding to rip off her bandages and go out fighting was a cool moment. But by nature, the fight is pretty one-sided for Toni, ends pretty ani-climactically, and even taking Jamie's injury into account, there's some jank moments. Primarily, Toni giving Jamie a minor shove transitioning into Jamie full on sprinting to collide with the belt The Outcasts laid out. That was stupid.
#9. Jade Cargill vs Taya Valkyrie. Now we're getting to the fights I actually do count. This match was so goddamn boring. It almost solely consisted of basic kicks and tackles that rarely felt like there was much of an impact. It felt like there was delays to a lot of their moves, and the only part of the fight that got any emotion out of me was Taya jumping up to hit Jade as she was about to leap down on her. Other than that moment, and their finishers, I can't remember a single thing about the fight. There's some positives though. Jade Cargill's entrance with doing a dance number with her old sorority friends was cool, and Kris Statlander's return after the match to dethrone Jade, while rushed, was a nice way to cap off the segment. But it's not enough to pull this match out of the bottom spot.
#8. The Acclaimed vs the House of Black. This was a pretty fun match. The strategic mind of the House of Black is pretty noticeable, like them singling out and driving Anthony Bowens to his limit, even pulling out Max Caster and Billy Gunn right as he's about to tag them. It has a solid ending with Billy Gunn coming in at the very end and soloing the House of Black only to finally get taken down from a roundhouse kick by Malakai. And the opening rap from Max Caster is also legit one of the best ones he's ever did in his career. But the positive stuff I just mentioned? Yeah, that's kinda all there is that stands out about this fight. It's very basic without much to stand out from trios matches that either side did before. Even disregarding how the Acclaimed turned down the opportunity to include a rule of their own, I'd have a hard time telling you moments from this matchup specifically that make it special. Which for a PPV match, is very disappointing.
#7. FTR vs Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarret. As someone who's not a fan of either team, I was surprised with how much I liked the fight. There were really great moments of synergy from FTR, and solid tension in the fight, especially by the time Mark Briscoe gets knocked out. And some great heel work from Jeff Jarret and his wife Karen, Karen knocking out Aubrey Edwards as she was about to act as replacement referee, and Jeff's assault on Briscoe when he comes into consciousness. Also, Briscoe worked really well as a referee, legit seeing through and putting a stop to attempted cheats by Triple J. I feel like things dragged out a bit too long though, and the bit where Sonjay Dutt blocks Aubrey Edwards from reaching the ring for so long was stupid. Why couldn't she just shove him out of the way from the get go and THEN Karen knocks her out?
#6. The Hardys and Hook vs Ethan Page and The Gunns. This was a shockingly good match for a pre-show fight. There's some great synergy between both sides, special mention going to the back to back finishers the Hardys and Hook do to Page at the end or the Gunns simultaneously pinning down Matt Hardy together. And there's a ton of hype moments like Jeff Hardy leaping on the Gunns as they're about to pin Matt, Matt Hardy luring in the Gunns and Page into hitting the poles or going off the ropes, Hook judo flipping all three of his opponents back to back, or Page and the Gunns taking off Isiah's neck brace to brutalize him mid fight. I also feel like Jeff Hardy's rust worked to the fight's favor here, him falling off the ropes legit coming off as a result of the exhaustion he was facing during the fight. I will say, it seemed like Hook and the Hardy were pulling most of the weight for the fight to make it exciting since most of the memorable moments came specifically from their side, but all and all, it's a solid match.
#5. Wardlow vs Christian Cage. A pretty solid and fun fight that does a good job conveying Wardlow's strength, and Cage's strategic mind due to his experience with ladder matches. Luchasaurus and Arn Anderson' involvement was done well, and moments like Wardlow jumping off the ladder to crash onto Luchasaurus or tipping over the ladder while Cage was on top of it wwere pretty cool. The ladders were also used in pretty good ways, be it their use as weapons, to Wardlow falling off one laid our horizontally resulting in a shot to the groin, to one being worn down as Wardlow is about to use it while the more experienced Cage grabs a new one. And there's a nice subtle assist from Anderson at the very end, where he shakes Cage off the ladder allowing Wardlow to catch him and finish him off. Not much else to say. This was just fun.
#4. The Blackjack Battle Royale. This is just non-stop fun all the way. There's a lot of good moment of ringwork or emotion within the ring, and it feels really balanced for the most part. The tension of getting ring-outted is incredibly palpable, especially with Orange, and despite it being a battle royale, some nice individual moments to make people stand out amongst the chaos, like Kommander going on the ropes to dive into enemies outside of the ring without Kommander actually setting foot in the ring himself, aor Trent Beretta pushing Orange out of the way and taking the hit from Big Bill, getting himself eliminated. Also, the one on one between Orange and Strickland at the end was great that not only pushed Orange to his limits and shown great heel work from Strickland, but had a hillariously fitting fake out where instead of an Orange Punch, Cassidy gave a light kick to Strickland's hand while he was hanging from the ropes, eliminating him.
#3. The Elite vs The Blackpool Combat Club. There's one big flaw that stops this fight from being in ther Top 2. The camera cuts. It can be incredibly unfocused on what we're supposed to be following. I can kinda understand that due to the nature of it being full on chaos, but it results in stuff being missed like Kenny slamming Moxley onto nails (though at least that was shown in a replay even if we missed the initial impact), or Claudio throwing Matt Jackson down a flight of stairs. Other than that though? This was a pretty damn awesome. The tension and violence is at an all time high, and man, can it be uncomfortable to watch, but in a good way that adds intensity to the fight. The prime example coming with the BCC slamming Nick Jackson's foot on a bunch of thumb tacks and later forcing them in his mouth. Plus, "Wild Thing" playing in the background throughout the first half really makes it feel like a chaotic hectic party, and the Young Bucks knocking the singer out was just hilarious. The emotional moment with Kenny and Adam Page coming together near the end was strong, and there's some great synergy with simultaneous attacks done by both The Elite and the BCC. And there are some really great usage of props. Kenny Omega going all Captain America with a trash can lid, or Matt Jackson keeping fireworks in his legs to amplify the force of one of his kicks? Amazing stuff. And it has a pretty damn good Face–Heel Turn from Takeshita to end things off.
#2. Adam Cole vs Chris Jericho. What is without a doubt my most unpopular opinion on this post. But oh well. This fight was fucking awesome. Cole's hatred towards Jericho is palpable at all times, and the match makes some great usage of the props. The chair duel between Jericho and Sabu at the beginning where you can even notice the vibrations, Adam Cole seemingly going for a futile rope escape only to use it as an opportunity to grab the fire extinguisher and blow it on Jericho, Cole handcuffing Jericho with the chain Jericho used to just handcuff him, and the two using the chain to drag and choke out each other. And even without the props we get some great ringwork, like Cole kicking Jericho the split second Jericho is about to land a lionsault or Jericho catching Cole in the middle of his Panama Sunrise. Britt Baker coming back with a kendo stick to deliver some payback on Jericho was also cathartic. I see a lot of people who dislike the match being called off for an unsanctioned match, but I'm totally fine with it. When we see Cole beginning to cave in Jericho's eye by the very end, calling it off makes sense for the ref to do, and shows just how brutal Cole can be when he's angered.
#1. The Pillars Fatal Four-Way. Well, if it wasn't gonna be the BCC vs The Elite, what else would it be? The choreography is absolutely amazing, all of them bouncing off of and taking advantage of each other's moves near flawlessly, and the upper hand constantly changes from wrestler to wrestler. From Jungle Boy doing a spider suplex on both Darby Allin and Sammy Guevara at the same time which also ended up hitting MJF, Sammy Guevara's leaps to crash down on all Four Pillars at once, Darby Allin knocking MJF and Sammy over the barricade at the same time, MJF knocking Jungle Boy of the ring and confidently strutting in it as all the other Pillars are lying out of it exhausted, or the various times he gets into their heads during the fight to prey on their weaknesses. There's also some potent emotional moments like Sammy seemingly agreeing again to lay down for MJF only to use it as an opportunity to nearly pin him, Darby Allin using MJF's own signature hold against him as he promised, or Jungle Boy debating on whether he wants to use the belt as a weapon against Darby Allin only to decide to win it fair and sqaure. And the moment where all four of them hold each other simultaneously is simply legendary. The desperation from all Pillars to get a pin is incredibly powerful, and really adds to the suspense every time there's a count, or when one of the Pillars slips away from being pinned by another. Add on MJF winning through a really creative usage of cheating, him laying his belt on top of Jungle Boy as Darby Allin is about to crash down on him before taking down the weakened Darby, and it results in my favorite match of the PPV.

As we near the end of 9th edition, which will certainly go down as one of the editions of all time, I figured it'd be best to go out with a bang. To roll out the big guns. To really bring the biggest (and therefore best) models I have to the table. So I made a Word Bearers list with all 3 Khorne LoW Demon Engines, and showed it to my team. One of whom asked me if Angron would fit if it were World Eaters. I was obliged to answer yes, as there is technically a legal list there. So I made it. I told my teammate it might be the most ridiculous list I ever made. The team then strong-armed (slightly suggested) me into taking it to BAO. So let's actually see what we got going on here.
World Eaters Arks of Omen Detachment:

• 1 Master of Execution (-1 to be wounded relic)
  
• 2 x 1 spawn
  
• 5 berzerkers w/ icon and eviscerators
  
• Kytan Ravager
  
• Lord of Skulls (Skullhurler, Gorestorm Cannon)
  
• Greater Brass Scorpion
  
• Best Boi Primarch Angron
  

That there ladies and gentlemen, is 1 giant amount of 2k points. 4 LoWs, 84W at T8 5++, generating 16 total BTP possible. It is .... legally a list. So that's what we took to BAO. This amalgam of trying to get the least amount of drops possible I suppose. But we're not here to critique lists, we're here to talk about how BAO went. Once again my memory is a mess after a major and I forgot to take pictures to remind myself of how the games went so I apologize in advance for any mistakes and the TL;DR format.
Regarding deployment/reserves, every game had everyone on the board except the berzerkers which went into strategic reserves.
Round 1: Mission - 12 Tear Down Their Icons
Opponent: Dark Eldar w/10-man Court, Djin Blade Archon, Drazhar, 6 MSU kabalites kitted, 13 incubi in 3 units, 5 mandrakes, 2x3 Reavers, 3 raiders, 3 venoms, 2x5 wracks, Precision Blows Succubus
TL;DR: I went first and did some nice plink shooting, while return fire left Angron on 3. We popped some transports on 2, and in return Angron went down while the LoS got dropped to 1. Berzerkers take Drazhar out, most incubi go down to shooting, and the LoS is able to take out the succubus. Some back and forth trading ends with me edging my opponent out on primary, with both of us on fumes at the end.
Result: 81-55 Win for the WE
Round 2: Mission - 22 Conversion
Opponent: World Eaters w/ Invocatus WL, 2x Demon Princes, 10 jackals, 3x5 zerkers w/ Icon + Evi, 3x5 Eightbound, 2x3 Exalted Eightbound, 1x3 + 2x1 spawn, Rhino
TL;DR: I went first but most of my opponent stuff was in reserve or behind a wall, so I was able to pop a rhino and set myself up with the scorpion and LoS protecting Angron while the Kytan runs around my right. He does HI into the scorpion with 5 eightbound and loses 3 to do about half to it. The scorpion will barely hold out next turn when a demon prince joins the party. My LoS helps to hold down the middle while Angron waits to get involved and the Kytan holds run down my right to contest a mid objective. His reserves come in and do work, ripping my off my home and left objective. I will never regain my home objective, but Angron will hold down that left objective against 5 eightbound and 3 exalted eightbound. The LoS will hold down the center while the berzerkers and kytan will eventually make it to his backfield. An unfortunately low score on Bring It Down and Banners will bring my opponent down just below my own score.
Result: 85 -77 Win for the Primarch
Round 3: Mission - 23 Scouring
Opponent: Iron Hands (base) w/ Feirros, Primaris Libby, 3x10 Heavy Intercessors w/ Executors, 5 infiltrators, Character Contemptor w/volkite, Primaris Apothecary, 4 servitors, 6 TH/SS Termies, 6+5 Eradicators w/ Heavy Melta
TL;DR: Turns out a lot of D2 with rerolls hurts. Like a lot. I was just far enough back to not get eradicator'd T1, and some unfortunately aggressive infiltrators provide Angron and his 'No Fall Backsies' a route into 5 eradicators. Angron will be there, killing gravis marines, for THREE ROUNDS as more meat gets sent into the grinder with a 5++, 5+++. Meanwhile my scorpion gets blanked on T2 and my Kytan also falls that turn. A failed berzerker charge into the other eradicators puts me on the back foot, but my salvation arrives when his terminators fail their 4" counter-charge the next turn. The LoS get dropped low, but is able to stick around just long enough to be a massive annoyance. My berzerkers will help tip primary by living the rest of the game on my opponent's right objective. And once again winning primary tips the score in my favor.
Result: 96-68 victory for Angery Ron
Round 4: Mission - 31 Tide of Conviction
Opponent: Word Bearers w/ Ghollax Prince, Master of Possession, Dark Apostle, 2x8 Accursed Cultists, 1x10 melee cultists, Master of Executions, 2x10 Plague Marines w/ everything, 10 Possessed w/ Black Rune, 5 Possessed, 2x1 Venomcrawler, 2 Worthy Offering Brigands
TL;DR: My opponent went first and was able to position well, but only got 5 damage on the LoS with the brigands as they rolled 3 1s on the melta guns round 1. This will be a game-long theme, as none of my LoWs will take melta wounds at any point (except 2 bubonic axes on the scorpion in 4). I get forward to set up early, but the kytan gets ripped apart by 7 possessed with full wound rerolls. Angron and the scorpion will get into them, taking them down to 3 but also removing some accursed cultists while the LoS does its best to drive down the middle. Some berzerkers hold down my right long enough to fend off my opponent. He's able to get his reserved accursed cultists back into my home objective on 4 while the Scorpion eventually fell to plague marines and a Master of Execution doing 12 damage to it and I legitimately though I'd lost the game (sorry my opponent). However, a resurrected Angron made his charge and was able to swap it back to me. Angron was able to hold down my territory on 4 and 5 while the Lord of Skulls and lone spawn take 2 different objectives from my opponent, resulting in a primary score different of 18-4 in Round 5, a 14-point swing entirely dependent on who went 2nd (which is why I do not like this mission). That swing helps propel Angron to a win.
Result: 76-61 victory for best Traitors
(INTERMISSION) I'm in third place after 4 rounds which is quite fun. If you'd like to get off Angron's Wild Ride now and sleep contentedly in my definitely-3rd-place-finish, no one will begrudge you. Live in that dream world.
Round 5: Mission - 32 Death and Zeal
Opponent: Whirlwind Space Wolves w/ Guilliman, Primaris Chappy, 3x10 Wulfen, 2x1 Cyberwolves, 16 total skyclaws w/ the fixings, 10 Desolators I bitched too much about sorry Round 5 opponent
TL;DR: Wulfen hurt real bad and GW's baffling design space where anti-LoS AND double shooting should be nerfed to hell except for 1 datasheet which does both well lead to my demise. In all seriousness, I did get a little overly frisky with the wulfen who promptly ripped Angron limb from limb, and I did get out-maneuvered early on which led to me taking increasingly larger and larger risks as the game got progressively further away from me and my opponent played his role extremely well. Angron and the Kytan went down in 1, Scorpion in 2, LoS in 4, and my opponent lost everything but 9 wulfen and a cyberwolf, but all I had was Angron and 1 berzerker. He was able to just stretch me out and out-primary me by a lot (45-11) leading to my first loss.
Result: 53 - 84 loss to worst Primarch who avenges Nuceria
Round 6: Mission - 33 Secure Missing Artifacts
Opponent: Tau Sept w/ Longstrike, Coldstar, Ethereal, 10 breachers, 10 karnivores, 10 man Strike team, 2x4 Kroot Hounds, Kroot Shaper, Ghostkeel, Riptide, 10man Pathfinder, Piranha, 5 vespid, Sun Shark Bomber, Devilfish, Tidewall Gunrig
TL;DR: The Longstrike goes 'LMAO'. I did get first which was nice, but there was nothing to do other than position well. My opponent was great, played pretty much perfectly (except 1 tiny mistake which didn't end up mattering), and spiked some insane rolls on Longstrike which at that point were more humorous than annoying as the game was well out of hand by then. I'd been dodging the matchup all event, and it was time that fate finally caught up with me. If people want me to give more details on how this went turn-by-turn I can, but I think we all know how this'll turn out.
Result: 45 - 97 predictable (yet fun) result
That's it, I've once again 4-2 in a major for the 4th time IN A ROW (2022 LVO, BAO, SoCal, 2023 BAO), which is nice to get 4 wins but annoying I seemingly can't break through the meta ceiling. I did end up in 18th which is nice (and I was in 3rd at the end of Round 4), but I won't lie, a small part of me really wanted to go 5-1 to mess with Goonhammer's heads when they do their meta review.

I came across the post 2019 Fantasy Bingo Card Using Eurovision Songs (yes, seriously) by u/improperly_paranoid and as it is still Eurovision month, despite Eurovision 2023 ending 2 weeks ago I was curious to see if I could make this work for the Bingo 2023 card and Eurovision 2023 songs because it seemed like fun.
For those not in the know, Eurovision is an annual song contest where participating countries send an entry to compete for the opportunity to host the competition the following year and show off about their culture, it's a lot of fun, very camp and participating countries get to vote for the results. This year for the first time voting was expanded to non participating countries such as: the United States, Canada, Kosovo, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Mexico, Hungary, Slovakia, UAE, Turkey, and Chile. This interval performance of Love Love Peace Peace should give you a better idea of what it is all about. Eurovision often has fantastical elements, such as a woman floating in space above the Earth, an inflating lightning dress, not to mention funky video game inspired entries, and even a stick figure imaginary friend.
I think I've made my point, anyway if anyone doesn't know what Fantasy Bingo is then check it out! It's a yearly challenge to encourage diversifying your reading, I had a lot of fun with it last year and the community aspect is great for gathering ideas for themed cards, asking about if a book fits and seeing what everyone recommends.
Rule 1: Once a country has been used for a square it cannot be reused
Rule 2: Only songs and performers from Eurovision 2023 are eligible

Now, the Squares.

First Row
Title with a Title: Future Lover - Brunette (Armenia), although Queen of Kings would also work here I need it for...
Superheroes: Queen of Kings - Alessandra (Norway), I mean look at that cape! If she isn't a superhero I don't know who is.
Bottom of the TBR: I Wrote A Song - Mae Muller (United Kingdom), Mae performed as the final act in the Grand Final so was literally the performance we'd been waiting for the longest. Alternatively Luxembourg, who are returning to the competition in 2024 after a 30 year absence.
Magical Realism: Bridges - Alika (Estonia), a piano that plays itself.
Young Adult: Breaking My Heart - Reiley (Denmark), very bright and feels like it has a younger target audience.
​
Second Row
Mundane Jobs: Who the Hell is Edgar? - Teyas & Salena (Austria), about singers and a dead writer ghostwriting.
Published in the 00s: What They Say - Victor Vernicos (Greece), okay obviously none of these songs are published in the 00s because that goes against Eurovision rules, however singer songwriter Victor is 16 years old...Yes this is an age joke, he's the youngest singer in the competition this year and he was born in the 00s. Plenty of other contestants for this year are born in the 2000s as well, including Brunette.
Angels and Demons: Blood & Glitter - Lord of the Lost (Germany), no blatant angel/demon iconography this year so I had to stretch the definition a bit, with this song embodying the notion that everyone has both angelic and demonic characteristics. Serbia's song does namedrop the Devil, but I need that song for later.
Five Short Stories: Flag Parade featuring short live performances from previous highly successful Ukrainian acts, showcasing the history of Ukraine in Eurovision interspersed with UK songs due to the UK hosting on behalf of Ukraine.
Horror: Like An Animal - Piqued Jacks (San Marino), this song might come the closest to straight up horror this year because of the lyrical content, alternatively this staging may qualify Romania's entry for this square.
​
Third Row
Self-Published: Carpe Diem - Joker Out (Slovenia), as far as I could tell only this song and Future Lover - Brunette (Armenia) are self-published this year.
Set in SWANA Country: Tell Me More - TuralTuranX (Azerbaijan), this source explicitly mentions Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Published in 2023: Promise - Voyager (Australia), this is a freebie since they are all published in 2023. Check it out, this band knows how to put on a show.
Multiverse/Alternate Realities: Eaea - Blanca Paloma (Spain), again I'm stretching a bit here, but this song does have a very otherworldly feel to it.
POC Author: Heart of Steel - TVORCHI (Ukraine), Jimoh Kehinde was born in Nigeria.
​
Fourth Row
Book Club or Readalong: Cha Cha Cha - Käärijä (Finland), the song everyone is watching on youtube, it currently has the most views of all the live performances of the 2023 show, with 15 million views.
Novella: Mama ŠČ! - Let 3 (Croatia), the shortest song this year according to youtube. Also Croatia did get to the Grand Final, but their semi-final performance video on youtube is shorter for some reason.
Mythical Beasts: Unicorn - Noa Kirel (Israel), it's even HM
Elemental Magic: Break A Broken Heart - Andrew Lambrou (Cyprus), the most elemental mage in Eurovision 2023, we get a waterfall, rain and fire. Shoutouts to Romania for their firey performance and Georgia and Estonia for their water iconography.
Myths and Retellings: Soarele şi Luna - Pasha Parfeni (Moldova), use of multiple folklore characters with the lyrics written by Pasha's wife Yuliana about a beautiful marriage, you could definitely argue this is a retelling of their own love story.
​
Fifth Row
Queernorm Setting: Because of You - Gustaph (Belgium), a camp song described by Gustaph as "an ode to the queer community".
Coastal or Island Setting: Solo - Blanka (Poland), features a coastal background.
Druids: Power - Diljá (Iceland), she's got plant powers.
Featuring Robots: Samo mi se spava - Luke Black (Serbia), a lot of video game iconography, very moody atmosphere and a big robot boss to fight. TVORCHI's Heart of Steel also fits here.
Sequel: Tattoo - Loreen (Sweden), a surprising amount of songs work for sequel, as we had 6 returning performers from previous Eurovisions/Junior Eurovision including Pasha Parfeni (Moldova), Marco Mengoni (Italy), Monika Linkytė (Lithuania), Gustaph (Belgium), Iru (Georgia). But Loreen fits best here, as she returns from winning Eurovision 2012 with Euphoria to win again in Eurovision 2023. Making her the second person to win Eurovision twice.
With a few stretches to make a Bingo challenge meant for books work for songs, it sort of worked. How about that.

I am NOT OP. Original post by u/lavenderlullabyes in TwoHotTakes
trigger warnings: racism, homophobia, talk of cheating, manipulation
mood spoilers: hopeful
I formatted this differently since OOP put the TLDR for the update at the top of the OP.

WIBTA if I break up with my boyfriend because he thinks it’s immoral to cheat on an abusive partner? - May 21, 2023
Original post:
To be clear, nobody in this situation is abusive and nobody is a cheater.
My boyfriend (26M) of two years and I (24F) got into an argument that started with the musical Waitress, which is about a woman who cheats on her abusive husband with her gynecologist (she’s also pregnant). The husband is physically and financially abusive and won’t let her leave him, though she is secretly saving up money to enter a pie baking competition, so she can hopefully use the prize money to leave him & find a better future for herself and her baby.
Here’s my take: I don’t condone cheating, but imo if your partner’s hitting you and trying to take all your money then you don’t owe them any loyalty. At that point you’re more of a prisoner than partner and you don’t have to feel bad for cheating. It’s better if you don’t, because you might be in a lot of danger if your abuser finds out, but I wouldn’t shame the cheater. However, in this case the doctor also has a wife, which the main character knows from the beginning but ignores until she meets said wife, at which point she ends the affair. So, I think she’s in the wrong for sleeping with a married man (the wife deserves better and has every right to hate both of them) but not wrong for cheating on her husband.
My boyfriend is a lot more religious than I am and says that there is never an excuse for cheating. He says adultery is always a sin and if she wanted to have a new relationship she should’ve waited until she could leave him. He says the husband is wrong for abusing her but she also made vows to be faithful to him & two wrongs don’t make a right. He says he doesn’t know if he could remain friends with someone who cheated on her husband, even if he was abusive.
Personally I think this take is batshit crazy (ofc i didn’t say that to his face) & I find his rigid definition of sin/immorality alarming. He says I don’t understand because I’m not religious. I said I don’t think religion validates not having empathy for an abuse victim & recognizing that the relationship dynamic changes once abuse starts. I also think the idea of cutting off a friend for cheating on her abuser is horrific. He says it shouldn’t matter bc neither of us plan on abusing or cheating on the other and he doesn’t want to keep going back and forth about it, but I can’t stop thinking about it and the longer I think the more disturbing I find it. He’s never been cheated on or abused so it’s not like some traumatic psychological thing, he just can’t wrap his mind around cheating being okay in any circumstance. Up till now religion has never been a reason for disagreement (and neither of us want kids so I didn’t think it would) but the whole “you don’t understand because you’re not religious” really got on my nerves.
Both of us agree that the doctor is unequivocally wrong both for cheating and for hooking up with a vulnerable patient. He deserves to get dumped and fired and have his medical license revoked, but that’s not really relevant.
It feels a little ridiculous to end a relationship because of an argument that started with a fictional musical about pie, but here I am. Am I overreacting?
Edit to clarify: I’m not trying to justify or condone actual cheating in any way. I would never encourage or support someone to cheat, no matter their circumstances. The point of disagreement is that I think the cheater being an abuse victim who can’t leave is reason to have compassion for why they did it, and it’s messed up to end a friendship over that.
Link to update: https://www.reddit.com/TwoHotTakes/comments/13p26ld/update_wibta_for_breaking_up_with_my_boyfriend/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
TLDR of Update: (Now-ex) bf lied (both outright and by omission) about most of his beliefs so I would date him, and thought I wouldn’t care when I found out bc he has nice abs and a rich family. Once I dumped him, he made up a new lie about me cheating on him, and his mom has condemned me to hell.

(Update): WIBTA for breaking up with my boyfriend because he thinks it’s immoral to cheat on an abusive partner? - May 22, 2023
First off, thanks for all the replies to the original post. The reason I turned to Reddit was because he was shutting down conversation while I wasn’t ready to let it go, and you guys helped me figure out why exactly it bothered me and how to organize my thoughts to better communicate them.
As most of you said, the core issue wasn’t really about the musical or hypothetical situation; it was about the implication of underlying principles that I didn’t agree with & the inconsistency in his religious beliefs, as well as the tone of religious superiority, that got to me.
So, I brought it up again last night (over FaceTime, we don’t live together, fortunately) and he was quite upset that I wouldn’t let it go because I’m “normally not argumentative like this.” It’s true that I usually try to find common ground/compromise, but I thought that was weird of him to say. At this point I felt pretty guilty about not letting it slide and I considered dropping it, but I’d spent too much time thinking about it to let it go, and boy am I glad I didn’t.
I started by asking about why this was a situation that could be dictated solely by religious doctrine, while he’s fine with things like premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, etc. He gave evasive answers for a ridiculously long time but eventually it all came out. He is uncomfortable with gay people and distances himself from them too. What about our gay friends? Apparently they’re my friends, not our friends. I guess we’ve only hung out with them in larger groups. Why has he never said anything about this before, even when I excitedly told him that two of our female friends were engaged? Apparently he thinks he shouldn’t have had to say anything, and I should’ve known he’s not okay with people who “live in sin.” Also this couple “won’t really be married.” Huh? I go to pride every year to support my LGBTQ+ friends. He never criticized me for doing that, so why would I think he had a problem with it? I’m a quiet person by nature, it’s not like I don’t give him a chance to share his opinion. At this point I start to get really suspicious.
I then ask him about abortion/being okay with not wanting kids. Turns out he does want kids. He tried to convince me that I misunderstood when he said he didn’t want kids, and he was just saying that he wasn’t ready for kids yet but would be in the future. This is an outright lie. I’ve known since I was about 14 that I never want kids and I have never wavered on that. I always bring this up within the first few dates and I distinctly remember him saying that he was looking forward to child-free adulthood, and how much freedom DINKs (double income no kids) have. This is when I start to get really upset because I know he’s lying to me. (Looking back now I realize I never went back to to asking him about abortion because I was so shaken by the kids revelation. I wouldn’t be surprised if he outright lied about being pro choice as well).
The conversation continued with us talking about religion in general. As I said, I’m not religious, and he’s never tried to get me to go to church with him or anything. I was raised by immigrant parents who practice a minority religion, but they are not devout/they favor scientific explanations and they raised me to be respectful of others’ beliefs. I thought he understood that; in the past he’s asked me about cultural and religious customs and seemed respectful and interested. Turns out he thinks their religion is “not real” (as opposed to his) and it’s “interesting to see their customs” but “we can’t expect them to know better” because “they weren’t well educated.” (Both of my parents not only went to reputable universities in their original country, but also went on to get masters’ degrees in the country we live in now). That’s when I realized he’s a bigot.
I also asked him about why he’s okay with premarital sex but not any of the other stuff, and he hemmed and hawed and didn’t have an answer, which is when I realized he’s a horny nincompoop.
At this point he’s still acting like I’m the bad guy for not automatically knowing all these things he’s either never said & not automatically knowing when he meant the opposite of what he said. By now I know that I’m done with this relationship, but I ask him why, if religion is so important to him, he’s okay with me not being religious. Long story short, he basically thought that by the time it all came out, I’d be so obsessed with him that I wouldn’t dare leave him, and I would become a follower of his religion because “let’s be honest, [he’s] out of [my] league and [I] won’t find anyone better now that [I’m] getting fat” (I’ve gone from a size 2 to a size 4 in two years, wtf?) and some frankly racist, elitist crap about how his (rich) family is better than mine.
This whole time he was acting like I was ridiculous for overreacting to all these revelations. Finally I told him it was over and he didn’t seem to believe me. Whatever, I know I’m done with him. I went to bed angry and upset but I woke up more relieved that I know the truth now. It’s going to take me a while to trust again after all those lies, but better that it happen now when I can make a clean break than if it happened after I’d moved in with him or after I’d gotten pregnant and he’d gotten me arrested for seeking an abortion.
Luckily I have the day off work today to process it all mentally. I didn’t have any texts or calls from him this morning, so I figured he’d either accepted it or was still in denial, I didn’t care much. THEN a few hours ago I got a very angry voicemail from his mom (a woman I’ve met twice & has my number because we exchanged a few recipes) telling me I’m going to hell for, among other things, cheating on her baby boy. That’s right, this guy must be a pathological liar or something, because his response to me dumping him for being a liar was to run to mommy with a new lie about me hooking up with some fictional man from work. Forget the fact I’m not a cheater, I don’t even work with any men who would fit this lie. I sent the mom a text spelling out the truth and told her I was blocking her, which I did.
[Continued in comments— I had to split this because it was too long]
OOP's continued update from the comments. Emphasis is OOP's.
Please upvote this to keep it at the top of the comments. I had to split up the post because it was to long, but it’s a continuation of the post, not a separate comment
Since then I’ve been reaching out to friends to tell them my side of the story before he feeds them a bunch of lies too. Fortunately the ones I’ve talked to so far believe me, bc I was kinda scared about the fact I don’t have any proof besides the voicemail, and he is the more charismatic and persuasive one. The friend group is pretty liberal minded though and it is bizarre that his opinions never came up before. But I guess he saw them as “my friends” while his church friends, who I never saw much of, were “his friends.”
Overall, I’m trying to stay optimistic, but it’s terrifying how smoothly he could lie to me for so long. It only came out because he let his guard down because we were talking about a fictional story. Initially I felt ridiculous for not letting it drop; THANK YOU to those who encouraged me to trust my instincts and get to the root of what bothered me.
Finally, though it didn’t come up again, I’ll say again for the record that Abuse victims whose partners won’t let them leave are prisoners, not partners. They do not owe their captors any loyalty. Infidelity in that context is not a healthy or safe or smart choice, but people make bad choices when they’re in survival mode. We don’t have to condemn them for it. The number of people on that thread who seem to consider abuse and cheating as equal transgressions is seriously disturbing.
Anyway… on to the rest of my life, I guess!
Reminder - I am not the original poster. Marking as Concluded since OOP has ended the relationship.