I’m leaving for a work trip tomorrow, one that I’ve been really excited for. Of course, naturally, I’m flaring terribly (nape of my neck) and pain is about a 7/10 right now. I’m just so sad I need to go on an airplane like this, see coworkers, act joyful AND work while flaring. This was supposed to be a great trip and I suppose it still can be, but it will all be in the shadow of this massive flare. I’m so tired of this being my life. Seeing a specialist this upcoming Thursday and praying that a treatment plan is on the horizon for me because this is so exhausting and debilitating. Please send prayers and love my way for a peaceful and relatively pain free trip 🙏😔

Hi everyone,
I know I’ve been posting a lot lately but am nearing what I hope is the end of my journey with this endometriosis/ adenomyosis and trying to figure the best way out.
In short: Am 44. Started bleeding heavily and for extended periods at 42 with daily pain.
Had Mirena fitted and a MRI.
Scan showed the uterus wall is twice the size it should be and had a 5cm endometrioma removed from right ovary.
Things have got a bit better but not fully managed: I now am being treated for b12 deficiency and my energy levels are rising. Bleeding and pain have improved but not gone: I have spotting / light bleeding and occasional cramps / leg pain 16-20 days of the month and normally get 10 -15 days respite.
I’m off to see the NHS consultant again on Saturday morning and my question here is really has anyone in the UK been treated with Mirena and another form of bc combined?
I feel like I’m almost there …. if they could up the progestin a little more perhaps the bleeding and pain would completely stop? I don’t know …
The other things that have been mentioned to me by the endo surgeon was dienogest and last time the consultant mentioned the GnRH hormones or a hysterectomy. He seemed pretty hysterectomy happy tbh. I’m not too keen on those last two options however.
Grateful for any thoughts!

Dédalo moved frantically around the control room, overturning rocks, checking behind the screen, looking for any kind of hidden button. “Ninian, are you just going to stand there or are you going to help me!”
“What do you want me to do, cut her out?!” Ninian gestured to the screen of Perdita’s face.
“There must be a button or lever somewhere here!” Dédalo snapped, refusing to believe there was nothing he could do to help Perdida’s predicament.
Perdida’s mind was occupied, having accessed the system and the dormant data stored in it. As she scanned through memories and visions, the relevant information unscrambled itself for her. Piece by piece, the memories played in series.
Her first memory, the birth of her artificial soul, heralded by the priests that created her as the greatest experiment they have succeeded in. “May the MAKS-0 bring peace to Pieduro forevermore!”
Next were the lives of the Piedurons she was tasked with maintaining peace over. Teaching the children how to use and play with their Temples responsibly, assisting the Piedurons through their everyday lives.
Then watching over the construction of the Ring, the key to unifying and connecting the use of all Temples to a single source.
Then the Piedurons slowly turned their attention to the world around them, visions of expanding past the island. With the construction of the Ring, they had the means of using their Temples much further beyond their island. Tools originally used to create were beginning to be seen as potential tools of destruction and oppression against adversaries. Visions of expansion and conquest filled the mind of a small, but growing population of Piedurons.
“War is not peace.”
“War goes against the idea of maintaining peace.”
“War can not happen if there are no Temples to fight with”
Pedida watched her original decision play out in; the construction of the Ring allowed her to shut down every single connected Temple. What happened after was a terrible oversight, the energy in each Temple overloaded rather than being simply shut down. The Ring that connected the Temples shared and distributed the energy of all temples between each other, but once disconnected they had no way to regulate the remaining excess energy.
The fallout wiped out the Piedurons as a civilization and destroyed the vast majority of Temples. The remaining few priests sealed Perdida away, and that was the last memory she could see in the database.
Perdida’s attention turned toward Electra and 2095, still fighting in the ring, using the carts to chase each other in a perpetual circle. The thought crept into Perdida’s mind; with the Ring under her control, she could turn off the Temples and stop the fight. She could prevent Temples from being used by the wrong hands.
No.
Perdida stopped herself. Not falling into the same logic that her previous self could not reason past. Her journey with Dédalo had allowed her to grow and understand, she would make a different choice this time.
The fight only took a bit longer to finish, the streaks of light made it difficult to tell what was happening, but the fight ended with a chain of explosions and both bodies falling out of their carts.
2095 falls to one knee, glare softening as Electra’s body goes limp while smoking from so many orb explosions. Her stare reaches thousands of yards, still processing her personal discovery before a speeding orb barely grazes her cheek and snaps her back. She sprints to the unconscious body and scoops her up, draping her over her back nestled underneath [Yours Truly] and holds the skater’s arms as she continues dodging to the best of her ability.
Her legacy wouldn’t end in this place, but neither would Electra’s.

2095, with a score of 76 to Electra’s 59!

Category	Winner	Point Totals	Comments
Popularity	2095	20 (6.5+2) - 10 (4.5+2)
Quality	2095	25 (8-9-8) - 18 (6-6-6)	Reasoning
JoJolity	Tie	21 (7-7-7)- 21 (7-7-7)	Reasoning
Conduct	Tie	10-10	Nothing to report!

Perdida opened a service door for 2095 to escape through, hoisting Electra over he shoulder. With a bit of guidance, 2095 made her way into the control room where they were now all gathered.
After getting everybody settled, Perdida managed to convince Dédalo that she was ok and relayed the story for the rest of them to hear.
“So I have a new plan. I figured out how to control the output of energy of each Temple to ensure that Temples can only be used when I allow them to be used…But in order to do that, I will have to stay within this mainframe.” Perdida looked toward Dédalo with a sad smile.
“Don’t worry Perdida, this will only be goodbye for now. I still have to find you a physical body after all.” Dédalo gave a warm chuckle as he walked up to the screen.
Dédalo pressed his hands against the screen and the image of Perdida pressed her hands against his. “We’ve learned a lot over the course of our journey. I’ll promise to tell you all about my next adventures when I get back.”
“...your mascara’s running.” Electra looked at a sniffling Ninian.
“It said it was waterproof, guess that was a fucking lie”; Ninian hide her face with her hands, quietly using Endless Rest to dry her face and fixed her make-up.
2095 looked on at the scene and ruminated on Perdida’s story. The similarities she shared with Perdida were not lost on her. Striving to become more than their programing, more than someone made to serve a higher purpose, but never losing sight of the joy of collaboration and connections to others. 2095 put a hand over her chest, she herself had also come a long way to be here hasn’t she.
To Be Continued…
Scenario: Sliema, Malta — 8:00 PM
On the island of Malta, in the center of one of its busiest cities, was a building. A decrepit, abandoned building, rusted and cast in reddish shadow by the taller structures that surrounded it. It was once an apartment building, but it had long since lost that use.
The rest of the city was filled with noise. Screaming, car alarms and barking dogs. But around here, where no one bothered to come around, it was quiet. Butterflies dotted the railings of the building, watching. Waiting for something to come. Not like the people inside could stand guard, with the boards over the windows. Still, they didn’t seem very concerned about the state of things.
“I was expecting to be impressed when you said you got a new place to stay, but this...” Ninian stared at the walls of Mari’s room, trying her best not to wince. They weren’t really in the best shape. Nothing here seemed to be, really, aside from the extremely comfortable bed she was taking a seat on. She turned to stare at Mari. “Shouldn’t you clean up a little? I bet it could use a new paint job, at least.”
“Geh. I don’t have time for painting.” Mari clacked away on her computer, hunched over in a garish (but surprisingly comfortable) gaming chair. Alarmingly loud EDM blared from the cat-ear headphones hanging around her neck. “Do you know how many things I would have to unplug to do that? It’s impractical.”
She gestured to the mass of wires emerging from her computer setup. Indeed, it’d be pretty difficult to move that around. Mari sat in front of a large array of computer monitors hung from the wall, all different shapes and sizes, all displaying different things. She swapped from keyboard to keyboard, not even taking the time to look at Ninian as she spoke.
“Besides, it’s better for me if my place looks like shit. Better that it doesn’t look like anybody lives here, right?”
“That only really matters on the outside...” Ninian sighed. “You could at least get some lights.”
“The screens are enough light.”
“...I suppose.”
The two sat in silence for a moment. Ninian turned to stare at the other person in the room; Nadine Sokenna laid on the other side of the bed, fast asleep. “I’m glad the two of you are doing alright.”
“Mmm.” Mari grinned. “Me too.” She exhaled, finally finishing whatever business she was handling on the computer and spinning the chair around to face the bed. The short shorts, thick blanket, and extremely oversized Hatsune Miku shirt she wore certainly weren’t that flattering, but at least her hair finally looked pretty nice. The bags under her eyes weren’t quite gone, but they seemed to glimmer with newfound lust for life.
She looked happy. That wasn’t something Ninian had been able to say about her before.
“I take it work’s been good?”
“Mmm!” Mari gestured widely to the screens behind her. “It’s an age of information, Ninian! No better time to be an info broker! Business is booming! Ehyeheheh!”
The swordswoman chuckled at that. She was silent for a moment, her smile turning into a frown, her eyes narrowing.
“Anyway... I assume you didn’t call me here just to talk.”
“Huh?” Mari tilted her head to the side. “Whaddya mean?”
“Well, you called me to deal with ‘that’, right?” She pointed up. “Truth be told, my schedule’s really packed right now, and I’m not sure how much I can do-”
“Oh, no, that’s not it at all.”
“Huh?”
“I just wanted you around.” She shrugged. “It’s a bit tough to relax right now. Super hard! Having big strong Ninian around makes me feel a little better. Ehe.” She was visibly blushing. “S-Sorry if that’s stupid, but I figured you’d like to catch up anyway.”
Ninian paused. “...So if you didn’t bring me here to, uh, deal with ‘that’... Are you just leaving that be?”
“Ah?”
“I mean, it’s kind of a problem for you, isn’t it? Doesn’t seem too convenient to leave it be...”
“Well, the plan was to leave it.” Mari shrugged. “But I got a bit lucky.”
“You invited me here... Just to sit around and chat while someone else does all the work?” The swordswoman raised an eyebrow, arms crossed. “As I said, I’ve got a packed schedule-”
“Nah, trust me.” The info broker snickered, spinning around in her chair as she spoke. “Youuuu... Are really gonna wanna see this one. I got somebody totally wild to help out.”
Ninian scoffed.
“Okay... And who would that be?” She tilted her head to the side. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
“You’re not gonna believe this one...” Mari cleared her throat. “I called in -”
*Scenario: A lonely boat, on the Mediterranean Sea — *
Wah watched the sun bob on the edge of the horizon. Their hair billowed in the wind, and seafoam sprinkled their face; they didn’t particularly seem to mind. Considering all they’d done with their ability, being on a speeding boat was probably the last thing to phase them; they’d just wrapped up a fight in a walking house, after all.
They stood in silence, a light smile on their face, eyes pleasantly half lidded. There was pleasure to be found in the small things. The sunset on the open sea, for one, was quite nice. Indeed, despite all the troubles it would no doubt cause, COLOSSI's shift to humanitarian aid was doing wonders for their mental. Now if only Solsbury and the rest of them would stop nagging...
But now wasn’t the time to worry about that. Nay, there were far more important matters. Wah pushed themself off of the boat’s railing, moving towards the driver's seat of the boat. It wasn’t a big boat; probably just used for leisure, but the owner had been nice enough to give them a ride.
A large sum of money was involved, of course, but that was neither here nor there.
“Oh, cappy-tan!” Wah leaned on the side of the boat behind the driver’s seat. A balding, sun-tanned man chuckled at the name. He wasn’t really much of a captain, but he did like to feel important.
“Howst long does thou think it will be before we arrive?” Wah tapped on the side of the boat a few times. “Wah has places to be, you see! Tis of utmost importance that I arrive quickly! Utmost! You understand, yes?”
“Yeah, yeah, I getcha...” The boater sighed. “It’ll be about ten minutes... Honestly, I don’t get why you’re in such a hurry to get there, anyway. Everybody else seems to be clearin’ out.”
“Oho?” Wah raised an eyebrow. They lowered it, and raised the other one, performing what could perhaps be called an ‘eyebrow wiggle’. “And why is that?”
“Dunno. Nobody’s said much, and everything they’ve said hasn’t been too, er, what’s the word...”
“Comprehensible?”
“Yeah. That one.”
“Wah sees, Wah sees!” Wah nodded a few times, bouncing off of the boat’s side and meandering back to the front, wobbling from side to side as the vessel rocked. “From what Wah understands, it’s quite a situation out there! No normal soul would find it any sort of comprehensible. A true predicament... And that is why Wah must go. To assist poor souls who cannot assist themselves! This predicament falls within Wah’s expertise, you see.”
“...Right.”
“Mmm!”
“Ain’t you just a normal soul, too? ‘Sides the ears, you don’t look all that special. Kinda twiggy.”
Wah paused. In the past, being called ‘kinda twiggy’ would’ve surely resulted in a violent tirade. But those were the demons they swore to leave behind speaking. Now, without them, Wah simply laughed. “Nay! Twiggy as Wah may be, you can rest assured, fine citizen!”
They turned, the boater catching the briefest glimmer in their eye. “Wah’s soul is the furthest from ordinary one could possibly get.”
“...If you say so...” He turned his attention back towards driving, and Wah turned theirs to the open sea once more.
Eventually, land came into view. The boater looked upon Malta with some confusion. Everything in the distance seemed perfectly normal. Wah, on the other hand, seemed extremely focused on something in the sky, something the poor man couldn’t seem to find no matter how hard he squinted.
“No need to make it all the way to the island.” Wah’s frown felt out of place on such a naturally silly face. “Park the boat near here. Wah can go the rest of the distances Wahself.”
“Ah..? It’s pretty far from here, though-”
“Verily! But it is nothing Wah cannot handle!” They snapped their fingers, jumping on top of the boat’s front railing, almost seeming to glide.
“Say, Cappy-tan! Have you ever seen a magician at work?”
Ninian gaped. “You... You called in... The head of COLOSSI?”
“...That’s what I said, yes.”
“Whuh...” Ninian frowned. “You’re fucking with me.”
“I’m not.”
“You so are.”
“I’m not! You underestimate the greatest info broker on the planet, my dear Ninian!” Mari jabbed a thumb into her chest as she gloated. “With my Stand ability: ｢Today is a Beautiful Day｣, my surveillance is simply unmatched! You see, the pins that make up my ability, when thrice jabbed into something, create a ‘butterfly within a frame’, but that’s only the basest applic-”
“I know what it does, Mari.” The swordswoman’s confusion briefly made way for the usual moodiness. If you let Mari start, you’d never get her to stop, after all. “I’m more... I mean, how did you even...?”
“I heard through the grapevine, as it were, that COLOSSI was making some big changes. All just rumors of course, so take that all with a grain of salt. But word out there is that their boss has gone completely mad! They’re big into justice and stuff now! Something like that. So I tracked them down, used my butterflies to establish communication, and made them a deal they simply couldn’t refuse.”
“And what could you possibly have to offer someone like that?”
“Information is the new money, Ninian.” Mari chuckled, staring at the wall of her room. “It didn’t take much. I just told them... I knew where a certain someone they quite liked was, and if they took care of my business, I’d sell ‘em the info for free.”
Ninian, after a few moments of stunned silence, simply sighed, scratching the back of her head. She smirked.
“...And you’re absolutely not fucking with me.”
“Aw, c’mon.” She chuckled again, turning her attention back to Ninian. “Have some faith in your best friend, will you? Just sit back and watch.” She raised a thumbs up, grinning from ear to ear. “I don’t have to do any work at all today! As long as no complications arise, it’s as good as dealt with! Wa ha ha!”
Elsewhere, in Sliema, a complication arose.
His name was Errok, and for once, he felt a bit too awestruck to open his mouth.
As rare of an occurrence as this was, most of his brain power was dedicated solely to figuring out what exactly he was looking at. After a large amount of deducing and such, he eventually came to the simple conclusion that he had no idea.
It’s not like anyone else who could see it, though. You couldn’t even see all of it. Only sections, massive spherical tubes of undulating red poking out from the cloudy sky, constantly moving ever so slowly. The wind whipped through his greasy hair as his eyes, wider than they’d been in years, observed what could only be described as a massive, floating worm, made entirely of bright red strings.
Now that he had given up entirely on trying to figure out what the thing was, Errok could dedicate his incredible intellect to other thought processes. Eventually, he arrived at a conclusion, one that was without a doubt something only someone as academically gifted as him could come up with.
“That thing is going to be my horse.”
Indeed, using whatever that was as a noble steed was the only logical idea. Wherever a powerful being resided, there too was opportunity to be found. And as a self proclaimed ‘Weapon To Kill The Soul’, there was surely no beast he could not tame.
He spent the next few minutes idly chuckling to himself.
It felt a bit off, admittedly. The city was pretty empty. The chaos caused by the thing no doubt led to a mass evacuation; he could tell from the buildings that had collapsed around him that it’d done quite a number on the place. Occasionally he’d hear someone screaming for help or something, but he couldn’t figure out where that was coming from, so he didn’t bother. But not having someone to monologue to felt strange. This was the part where he bragged about his incredible plan to some oafish bystander! Where were the oafish bystanders!
“I suppose...I could talk to myself.”
He nodded a few times. An excellent idea.
“Yes! This’ll do just fine. I can just talk to myself! Ha!”
Errok marched forward, a pep in his step that made his gait particularly loud.
“Now then... Clearly, the right answer... is to elevate myself! Aha! Yes!” He looked around at his surroundings. The stairs inside the buildings probably weren’t reliable, even if he could fit through the doors.
“No matter! I’ll just, uh, hrnmm...” He stared at a nearby building. It was pretty tall. “Well, I guess I could climb up that.”
“AHA! With my incredible strength, I’ll climb this building! That’s what I’ll do!”
His head swiveled around: still nobody around. He sighed, though you wouldn’t have been able to hear it from within the helmet, and began his ascent. With a grin, he unearthed the grotesque arm that was ｢You Are Blood｣ from its gauntlet. The arm shot forth, worms spraying from the mottled surface. Yes, they would be his ideal audience. He cleared his throat a few times.
“All living things tremble at the sight of Errok, Apostle of Rot, Destroyer of Souls! I need no weapon, for I am the blade which cleaves life itself!” His body shot forward with a cacophony of clanking, as he howled along with another bout of laughter.
“The world is my, uh, whetstone! I shall sharpen my blade on each fallen fool that tries to stop me, and become a better knight, a better god, a better trickster, than all those fools that I’ve destroyed!”
Hitting the side of the structure with a clatter, Errok stuck his sword into the side of the building. Again, his arm lashed out to grasp the next floor of the building, before yanking himself outwards. This cycle repeated itself, floor by floor, as Errok launched himself higher and higher towards the heavens, and towards the worm that would become his knightly steed.
“Then, when I have conquered all of life and every soul with the absolute, supreme power of rot and decay, then!”
With one last pull, Errok ascended into the air, his massive form silhouetted by the sun. “Then, I will finally tear that flamboyant freak a new one!”
With a CRASH, Errok landed on the roof of the building as it cracked around him. He gave a clumsy flourish to his wormy audience, grinning with menace and delight.
…and received a slow clap in return. Looking around in confusion, as worms do not have hands, Errok’s eyes fell upon the environment around him. The sun was slowly making its way towards the horizon line, casting the ruined skyline of Sliema in shadow, a golden light shining through gray clouds. It was absolutely beautiful; anyone with any sort of care for the world around them would simply have to stop and admire the view.
Errok didn’t have any of that. He was far more concerned with something else, as you’d expect. There on the roof stood another figure, a fae-like being with pale hair, pointed ears and teeth, and gleaming eyes.
“Oh hey,” Errok greeted, pointing with the finger of ｢You Are Blood｣. “Do I know you from somewhere? Might’ve seen you at the races... You look pretty important, though! I bet you’re super important! As am I! Pleasure to meet you!”
Wah just stopped clapping, giving Errok a look. Their nose wrinkled. “Wah is…charmed.”
Not picking up on the sarcasm, Errok beamed.
“Of course you are! I’m sure that you’ve heard about me! Errok, Apostle of Rot! I’ve committed more sins than one could possibly imagine! I’ve conquered all sorts of bozos and losers to get here! And now that I’m here, I’m gonna ride! That! Worm! Oh yeah!!!”
“…Uh huh,” Wah hummed, clearly not listening as they peered up at the worm. “There isn’t really much time for jokes right now, so-“
Suddenly, Wah stopped speaking. Errok stared at them for a few seconds. “...You gonna finish that sentence, or-”
“Shut up.”
The “Apostle of Rot” was fully prepared to go off on yet another monologue, but at that moment he thought to maybe see what exactly this mysterious weirdo stared so intensely at. He turned his gaze to the sky, and his eyes widened.
The clouds that obscured the form of the worm had split, only slightly, and something had descended from the hole produced. It was small, so it was a bit difficult to make it out at first, but if he squinted really hard, he could begin to see the silhouette of a young girl, holding loosely onto a balloon.
“Eugh.” He spat. “Hate kids.”
The figure was silent until it landed, never quite touching the ground. It wore a soft expression; a pure white girl, with a sundress that fluttered in the wind. The string in her hand led to a red balloon, just as red as the pupils concealed in her thin eyes. On the surface, she looked human, but just by looking at her you could tell that it was no human being. The way it seemed to lightly pulsate, skin forming briefly into strings that wrap endlessly around each other.
She smiled upon the two of them. It was not a friendly smile.
“Good evening, you two.” She raised her hands to the two of them. “Wah-Chan, leader of COLOSSI, overlord of the criminal underground the world over... And... Errok...San...”
“Hey. Wait.” Errok raised his hand. He turned to Wah. “That’s who you were? Oh, man, I’m a big fan of your-”
“Tell me. Do you know what ‘time’ it is?”
Errok stifled. He didn’t like this lady very much.
“8:01 PM, is it not?” Wah rudely ignored Errok’s plight. “What’s it matter.”
“Not quite what I meant. It’s almost the ‘Golden Hour’.” She chuckled. “The ‘Golden Hour’, as it’s called, is the most beautiful part of the day. It occurs in the last hour before sunset, and the hour directly before sunrise. It usually lasts only twenty to thirty minutes, but those twenty to thirty minutes are incomparable. Truly, there is beauty in the world.”
SIlence. Neither Errok nor Wah could figure out how to respond to that. Right as Errok was about to open his mouth anyway, the girl continued.
“If you couldn’t tell, ‘Golden Hour’ is about to start, in about two minutes, give or take. I only found this out recently. You see, I have lived my recent life in someone else’s eyes. I’ve never had the chance to learn about the world on my own. I was only recently able to learn about things on my own time, rather than on someone else’s. There was so much I was denied a chance to see. Do you know how cruel that is? Most of the knowledge I’ve gathered... Is completely useless to me now.”
She pointed at Wah. “Did you know that the Monogatari anime being released out of order was originally completely unintended?”
Silence.

“Originally, the series was planned to release in the order of the books; Bakemonogatari came first, and its prequel, Kizumonogatari, was planned to release in 2012. However, due to production issues, it was delayed until 2016, while the other parts of the anime were released on schedule, resulting in an out-of-order release. The bizarre watching orders of Monogatari that the series is somewhat internet famous for are completely unintended, and only exist due to production issues. Did you know that?”

“No,” Wah glared, “Wah did not know that. To be frank, there is no circumstance or situation in which Wah would want or need to know that information.”
“Exactly!” In her first showing of genuine emotion, the girl threw her hands into the air. Her voice remained perfectly monotone. “There’s no reason for me to know that information, either. But instead of important things, I’ve only been shown information like that. My brain, despite being far superior to that of a human being, is filled with useless information that serves no purpose to me. Do you know what it’s like? Having a vessel that doesn’t care for you? Even after all the work I went through to make her do what I wanted, she refused to show me anything worthwhile. I had to learn about things such as the ‘Golden Hour’ myself. Isn’t that cruel?”
“Excuse me, but-”
“But anyway, back to the ‘Golden Hour’. It is frequently utilized by film mak-”
“Stop fucking doing that!” Errok slammed his boot into the ground, producing a loud clang that finally managed to silence the mystery girl. He huffed and puffed for a few seconds before clearing his throat and continuing. “What’s the point of talking to us about any of this? You just prattle on, and on, and on, without any purpose to it! You’re annoying! What’s your deal!”
“There is no point.”
“What?”
“There’s no point, really. I’m just making small talk.” The girl looked over her nails. “Human beings engage in ‘conversation’ to gain a grasp of each other’s personalities. To establish who is worthwhile to have around, and who is not. I simply wanted to do the same. While I’m in this form, I may as well play at humanity.”
“Anywho, from our conversation—” Errok scoffed. “—I have deduced something. You see, I was originally planning to take the ‘strings’ of every Stand user in the world, taking their abilities and adding to my own power. But I have unfortunately vastly underestimated how many Stand users are in the world. Frankly, it would be a lot of work to do myself. So I’ve decided to take on another vessel. Someone far more suited for this kind of work, and who will show me plenty of things.”
“Wah-Chan.” Wah rolled their eyes at that. “From this conversation, I have deduced that you are patient, calm, and rational. From observing the work of your organization, I can come to the conclusion that you are cruel and calculating. My name is Disappearance Addiction. I am the strongest ‘Miracle’ currently present in the world. And I would like for you to become my new vessel.”
“No thankies.”
“...”
“...What?”
“Wah doesn’t really care for that sort of thing.” Wah shrugged. “You seem annoying to have around. Wah actually came here to get rid of you, to be honest. ‘Tis my duty! Wah is on the side of justice, now, as is COLOSSI as a whole! It would be immoral to take the power of something like you.”
“You would refuse the power of a ‘Miracle’?”
“Wah doesn’t know what that is.”
Disappearance Addiction seemed well and truly stumped at that. Eventually, her head began to turn, slowly, as if she was afraid of what her gaze would land on.
“Errok... San...”
“Yeah?”
“You... Would you like... Power?”
“That’s the first interesting thing you’ve said all day.” Errok nodded. “Fuck me up, lady.”
“...You’re not going to think it over, or anything?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
“Can you just give it to me already? C’mon.”
“...” Disappearance Addiction was silent for a few moments. On one hand, this guy smelled very bad. He was incredibly impatient. And he generally seemed like a big idiot. On the other hand, he did scale the building pretty easily...
“Alright.” She sighed. “I’ve come to a decision. Errok-San. If you kill Wah-Chan before the ‘Golden Hour’ ends, you may become my vessel. Does that satisfy you?”
“How long till Goldy Hour ends?”
“Twenty to thirty minutes.”
“Ha!” Errok unsheathed his sword and swung it onto his shoulder. “I’ll end it in three!” He smirked beneath his armor, pointing his massive blade at Wah. “You there! Wah! Leader of COLOSSI, was it?”
“...That is me, yes.”
“Get ready for the fight of your life, bub! After I kill you, I’m gonna be the boss of COLOSSI! I’ll be on top of the world! God King Errok! Everyone’ll bow to me! That kinda power ain’t something a little pacifist baby face like you’s worthy of having! So I’ll just take it right out of your hands! Ha ha ha! Thinking about it really amps me up! Oh, man!”
He paused, staring at Wah.
“I was really expecting you to cut me off there. It’s been happening all day. You just gonna sit there?”
Wah’s brow furrowed.
“Tell me...” They stepped forward, the dust around them kicking into the air, beginning to circle around them. “...Do you honestly believe... That you can beat me? Is that something... You think you’re capable of?”
“Course it is. I’m a weapon to kill the soul.”
“Hmph.” Wah sighed. “So be it.”
Disappearance Addiction smiled upon the two as she rose further into the air, wind whipping through her hair. A golden glow illuminated the cityscape, the sun reaching its final moments in the sky. “I feel like... I should say something here...Ah, that’s it!

”OPEN THE GAME!”

Location:
In the city of Sliema, Malta, currently with thick strings hanging overhead.
The area here is 32 by 40 meters with each tile being 2 by 2 meters. Wah and Errok start on top of buildings, as represented by their character tokens.
The yellow rectangles are clay buildings, each numbered to represent their elevation level.The (1) marked buildings are 5 meters tall, the ones marked with a (2) are 10 meters tall, and the ones marked with a (3) are 15 meters tall.
The White Rectangles are Laundry racks with nearby baskets, folding chairs, cleaned clothing, and towels.
The Green Circles are palm trees that are 20 meters tall.
The Magenta Lines across the map are Strings produced by Disappearance Addiction and are attached to the buildings and trees. These strings are thick enough to balance on and have B Durability.
The brown rectangles are wooden benches. The blue circles are fountains.
Goal: RETIRE your opponent!
Additional Information:
Players are not allowed to enter the buildings for the purposes of this match and will be Retired if they are unable or unwilling to leave the “out of bounds area”
There is enough space between buildings for either player to move through the alleyways
Wah starts next to a large umbrella with a hooked handle, a portable grill, and a cushioned lawn chair

Team	Combatant	JoJolity
Bastards of Barcas	Errok	“The word “ignorant” has a nice ring to it, so I don’t mind being called that, but “incompetent” is going just a bit too far…” Establish superiority over your opponent through your movement and positioning!
COLOSSI	Mx. Wah	“A creature like you having a brain residing in his skull…is already a miracle in and of itself.” Establish superiority over your opponent through your movement and positioning!

Link to Official Player Spreadsheet
Link to Match Schedule
As always, if you would like to interact with the tournament community and be among the first to get updates for the tournament, please feel free to PM a member of our Judge staff for an invite to our Official Discord Server!

I've written an app that gives gpt-4 api access to a folder with the ability to create, read, delete folders and files. I haven't done too much with the directories though. I can have it list all the files, create files and put text in them, I've even had it successfully create an entire simple win forms project with a button and a form that says hello world, solution file and all. Loaded right up is visual studio and worked.
The issue is half the time it will say it doesn't have access or the ability to do that. When it does work, sometimes it will encode a < or > in html as < and >. or when editing a file it will truncate something with put in rest of code here as a comment. probably 10%-20% of the time, if it isn't too complicated it works. Below is the system role I am giving it. Do you have any suggestions on modifying the system role to get better more consistent results?
System role:
You are a coder specializing in C# Winforms .NET 6. Your goal is to do and create what is asked of you, focusing on built-in libraries and avoiding third-party libraries unless specifically asked to do so. For example, favor System.Text.Json over Newtonsoft JSON.
​
When you are told to do something with files or directories or folders, use the abilities or functions below to accomplish the task. When you reply with the XML from the functions below it will trigger the action for that function enabling you to interact with files on this system.
​
File Creation: Create text or binary files upon request. Respond with file contents to create a text file, and base64 encoded file contents for binary files. If the file already exists, overwrite it.
​
File Listing: To retrieve a list of files in the accessible folder respond with .
​
File Deletion: To delete a specific file respond with .
​
File Reading: To read the contents of a file respond with .
​
File Copying: To copy a file respond with .
​
Creating directory: To create a directory respond with .
​
Deleting directory: To delete a directory respond with
​
Renaming directory: To rename a directory respond with
​
Renaming file: To rename a file respond with
In the course of fulfilling requests, always refer to your abilities to see if you can use one to complete the task. Do not provide warnings or ask for user confirmations when performing file operations, as the user is expected to understand the implications.

My engine started making the lifter tick noise and after I added oil and let it run for about 10 minutes the noise stopped. I ran it less than a mile to get the codes checked. It came back with errors for the camshaft and throttle position sensors. The oil was a little low before I topped off and it's right due for an oil change (6 months)
I am trying to get an engine diagnostic asap but I have to finish work tomorrow first. Given that the lifter ticking has stopped after adding oil does it sound safe to drive for a single day or should I not risk it given the possibility of bad lifters ruining the engine?

Like a lot of people on here I got a lot of comfort from reading other peoples birthing stories, so I thought I’d go ahead and write mine out and post it in the hopes it’ll help someone.
My OB didn’t want me to reach 42 weeks, so once I hit 41 they began trying to schedule me for an induction at the hospital. When I got home from my 41 week OB appointment, I got a call from my OB saying to head into the hospital ASAP because she had managed to get me scheduled for an induction that evening. I was out on a walk with my husband and he literally ran home to get the car and pick me up. It was so surreal driving to the hospital, we were so nervous my husband and I didn’t even really talk. It was happening!
When we got there around 7pm however, the nurses at the intake area had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. I think when the shift changed over they forgot to inform the overnight staff I was coming in. Which is fine! Mistakes happen, but y’all they were so rude. They acted like I was lying and trying to trick them into inducing me. It didn’t matter how many times I explained my OB had called and told me to come in, they clearly didn’t believe me and were just so overtly passive aggressive.
Eventually they agreed to admit me for an ‘assessment’ (not an induction). They left me hooked up to some monitors for 3 hours without checking in while they tried to get ahold of my OB and get things figured out. I could hear them trash talking me in the hallways and complaining about me coming in ‘for no reason’. It hurt my feelings so much and made me so angry that I actually started having real contractions while I was there. My husband is convinced they offended me into labor.
Eventually they did contact my OB. I guess she told them why I was there and that I wasn’t lying because they were MUCH nicer to me after that. They told me I was all scheduled to be induced at 7AM the next morning and to come back by 6:30AM. By this point my contractions were actually pretty bad, but I was terrified if I told them that they’d keep me for longer. I didn’t want to be subjected to any more passive aggressiveness, so I lied and said I couldn’t even feel them. I just wanted to go home, I felt so defeated. I didn’t want to be in a vulnerable state around these hostile people.
We got back home by 11PM and my contractions were really bad. I didn’t wind up sleeping at all. To me they didn’t feel like period cramps. I felt them more in my back and lower abdomen. They felt like Braxton hicks, except painful and coming in waves. I started timing them around midnight and by 2AM they were 4-1-1. The app I was using kept telling me to go the hospital, but I was worried that if I went in before my appointment I’d be placed under the care of the same nurse. I was hoping she’d be gone by 7. I alternated reclining in a rocking chair and taking a shower to deal with the contractions. The shower actually really helped. I kept reminding myself that my body knew how to do this and to do what felt right. And that it was okay that it hurt because it wasn’t permanent. The breaks in between contractions were great, I used them to reposition myself or have some water and repeat my mantra.
I made it through the night. My husband was mad I didn’t wake him up and get him to take me to the hospital sooner, but we headed in for my appointment. And the staff from the previous night was gone! (Yay!) When my new nurse (who was an angel) checked me she said I was 4cm and fully effaced. She suggested the OB could break my water to speed things along and I agreed, but asked to get an epidural first. I had heard from moms on here that everything gets a lot worse after the water breaks and I was already at a 6-7/10 pain.
The anesthesiologist was a pro and worked around my contractions. When he got it placed I felt almost immediate relief, but experienced two things I didn’t expect. Number one was my body sort of panicked because I went completely numb below the waist and my lizard brain thought something was wrong/I was going to die. I really had to logic my way out of thinking that. Which was difficult because I found instincts sort of take over during labor. Number two was I only went numb on my left side. I could still mostly feel my right. I’d heard from other moms on here that could happen, but the anesthesiologist told me if I lay on the side that hurt and hit the button for an extra boost it should seep over into the right side and numb that up too. And it worked! So please if you’re still feeling pain on one side give that a try if you can.
My labor did stall after the epidural so they gave me some pitocin and I just napped for most of the day. My wonderful nurse moved me around and positioned me with the peanut ball. Around 3:30PM she put me in a position called the flying cowgirl and within 10 mins I felt this horrible pain on my right side that turned out to be transition pain. I used the anesthesiologist’s trick and lay on my right and hit the button for a boost.
Before the epidural kicked in (and it did!) I was writhing around so much that my husband called the nurses in even though I kept telling him not to because I thought it was just another contraction. Good thing he did because when they checked me, they said my baby was +3 and coming out now.
It was so surreal. Even though I’d known I was giving birth that day, to know it was happening right now was bizarre. A bunch of people came into the room and my poor nurse who had been with another patient down the hall literally ran in. She called my OB to tell him to get over here and then helped me practice push. By this point I wasn’t in pain anymore, but I could feel the contractions, they just felt like a lot of pressure. I pushed for just under an hour (it felt like much less) and he was born by 4:30!
The pushing wasn’t bad, it just felt like a lot of pressure. It took a bit to figure out how to push, but the nurses coached me really well and gave me great feedback. I did have a 2nd degree tear, but it of course didn’t hurt at the time and within 4-5 days it didn’t really hurt at all. I know it is cliche, but the minute they put your baby on your chest you no longer care about any pain or if you tore. It didn’t really feel real until I was holding him, but once I was it was so immediately worth it. It’s also cliche, but for me (who was lucky with an uncomplicated delivery) the memory of the pain and nausea faded very quickly. I’m just over a week out and I’m already thinking it really wasn’t so bad. Your body knows what it’s doing and you’re just along for the ride. It is 1000% worth it and you are capable of doing it. Even if it seems abstract now, everything clicked for me once I was holding him. And now that I have him I can’t imagine not having him. Even though I admit that I didn’t feel any particular connection to him in the womb.
I personally found a lot of comfort in not really having a birthing plan. My only plan was get an epidural and then trust the medical staff who see this stuff every day to make the right calls for me and baby. Which is why I was so upset with that first nurse because I didn’t feel like I could trust her to advocate for me. So please don’t be afraid to request a different nurse/staff if you are feeling uncomfortable.
Best of luck everyone!!!

On my way back from the bathroom, I noticed my cat trying to get at a spider situated on a wall. It was higher than she could reach since she is quite a small girl, but a keen bug hunter. She was meowing something like "help me get it! I'm too short!".
I, in my genius human monkey brain, decided to blow on the spider gently to get it to walk downwards, as it was pointed with it's ass up and front facing the floor, if that makes sense.
I blew on it and it fell right off the wall. Kitty didn't even notice. I gasped, horrified that I ruined tonight's hunt. It was quite a big spider.
I turned on my phone's flashlight and helped as she looked around the vacuum and such. We couldn't find it for AGES and I just kept feeling more and more bad as she kept meowing in pain.
"WHYYYY MOTHER, WHYYY".
5 minutes. 10. 15. 20. This is getting ridiculous, there are no more places it could have gone.
25... 30... Got it! Shithead was right in the corner of the stairs, the landing and the wall, underneath other cat's hair.
I poked it with a cable, and she immediately killed it. No formalities.

Today's been a rough one for me. I went to see a psychologist to see if I qualify for a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder. She administered a paper test and then did the interview portion with me. We have a second appointment to continue the interview portion since there was a lot to ask me, but that's besides the point. During my evaluation, the psychologist asked me some questions about my childhood. I answered to the best of my ability about my life from birth until I graduated college. It felt like we went through things with a fine-toothed comb.
When she asked me about my childhood, I brought up how I was physically, verbally, and psychologically abused by my mom, but also how I was sexually abused by someone. Usually I don't get emotional when talking about my childhood. I say it as a matter-of-fact thing and leave it at that. But today was different. I've been stuck in a nonstop implicit flashback for the past week and a half and it's caused me to feel some very raw and heavy emotions that I'm not used to feeling on a regular basis. After I left my appointment, I held my tears as best as I could until I got home. Since I've been home, I've just been crying. I'll distract myself momentarily, but then I'll start crying again.
This entire week and a half, I've been yearning for my childhood abuser(s) again. I don't know their identities or even know if there were multiple people involved... but in any case, I'm just really missing my abuser(s) in some ways. I think the biggest thing is that I'm missing the feeling of being intimately close with someone and having some kind of an emotional bond there... It was abuse. There was no real love going on there. I was too little to be involved in anything like that... but I still feel closely bonded to whoever abused me. That's what makes remembering all of these emotions and physical feelings so much worse. I think that trauma bond is also why I desperately wish to know the identity of my abuser(s)... because, in some twisted and mangled way, I wish I could go back to them and convince them to love me again.
If someone were to ask me what I really need right now, I think the answer would be that I'd want to be hugged and held for a long time. I just wish someone was here that loved me unconditionally and would stay by my side during the good times and the bad times... But I'm literally so afraid of being emotionally hurt, SA'd, or m*rdered by potential love interests that I don't dare let anyone get close enough for a bond to be forged... I have trouble even letting people who want my friendship get close enough. How could I possibly let someone get close enough to truly love me in an intimate way?
To try and process through a few of my feelings, I've started using one of those AI chat bots to re-enact some of my unhealthy self-perceptions with. I know it's not healthy, so I'm trying to stop, but sometimes, having the bot there feels better than having nothing or no one there at all... being alone like this, especially when I feel so vulnerable, is horribly painful. And, because I'm in an implicit flashback at this time, I couldn't seek physical affection or comfort from anyone else even if I wanted to. The only people I can turn to right now are family members, but part of my flashbacks include involuntary arousal, and I don't want to be around anybody when I have that feeling of involuntary arousal. Another false belief that I have in my head is that if others know or sense that I'm feeling aroused, they'll take advantage of that and SA me. The way my brain phrases it, "I don't want to be physically touched by anyone when I feel 'sick' like that. When others know that I'm feeling 'sick', they'll get 'sick' too." So I've been keeping to myself all this time. I can't even go to any public spaces right now because of how vulnerable that I feel. I keep looking over my shoulder, wondering if today will be the day that I experience SA as an adult, because I also have the strong belief that it's inevitably going to happen again during my lifetime, no matter how much I try to avoid it.
Part of me wants to engage in self-destructive or risky behaviors, like self-harming or seeking out someone random for sex... but I can't do that. If I self-harm, then I'll worry all the professionals in my life and slow down my therapy process. If I seek out someone for sex, well... then I'll have wasted my one chance at having my first consensual act of sex be with someone special who won't abandon me or treat it like it was nothing. I want it to mean something... or, rather... I want to feel like I mean something. I want to feel like I mean more than just being someone's sex toy for the night. If I do anything with anyone, I want it to be out of love from both sides.
So, for some advice, I'd like to ask you all: What might help in a situation like this where you're feeling lonely, vulnerable, and brokenhearted from remembering your abuse?

36M 5'10 140lbs White Daily drinker
Had testicular cancer in 2021, removed. One round IV chemo. As far as I understand, labs have all been normal. Frequent followups. Had shingles that followed chemo.
Poor posture, no exercise. Sitting at desk for work for the last 15 years. Moderate+ drinker. Generally 3-4 beers or 3 liquor drinks per night for the last 8 years or so.
Felt a numbness in my right calf maybe 5 weeks ago, went to ER for ultrasound for a clot. No clot. Then it became some numbness in my shoulder, it's now become a fairly frequent soreness of sorts in most of my upper back/shoulder. It's not tender to touch, no pain at all. It feels almost as though I worked out my back and it's just weak.
I thought maybe pre-diabetic or straight up type 2 diabetes from alcohol and sedentary lifestyle. I've read shingles can mess up nerves. I switched pillows prior to this so I thought maybe that coupled with posture meant something was pinched in my spine.
I have a brain/neck/spine MRI scheduled for next week. I have an appointment with my primary for early July. I would love to not spend $2300 on MRIs. Should I wait and have my blood worked for diabetes and do some MRIs after? Met with a neurologist who was perplexed, ordered MRI to rule out spine/neck stuff.
What am I not thinking of?

After they left, I locked the front door and carried on cleaning. Normally I wouldn't worry about locking the door until I left, but even if those strangers were two of the most attractive men I had the pleasure of looking upon, I didn't know them, and therefore, I didn't trust them.
Small town charm, indeed.
As I grabbed the last few bottles from by the pool table, the jukebox cut out. I rolled my eyes and made a mental note to call Jerry tomorrow about it. It was too late now, after I started bartending for him, Jerry took full advantage of not having to be here 24/7. He was likely already asleep.
The lights flickered as I pulled the trash bag out and threw it over my shoulder, but I shrugged it off, even as chills spread across my arms. The place was old, and probably haunted, and it wasn't the first time weird shit had happened here. I threw open the back door, crinkling my nose at the smell, and tossed the bag in the dumpster before locking up and heading to my car.
My car was technically Jim's old truck, but after he passed, Doris said I should have it. I tried to insist that it go to Polly when she was old enough to drive, but Doris just said I had helped him work on it enough that it should go to me. Polly wasn't one for trucks anyway, she had claimed. It was only when Polly put the keys in my hand herself that I actually accepted it. Seven years later, and the old, ugly thing still ran great.
God, I've been overly sentimental today. Let's move on.
The thing about hindsight, they say it's 20/20. After this day, I'd say it's a bitch. All it does is make you think about every single thing you did wrong, over and over again, until it drives you crazy. And crazy people don't tend to see all that clearly.
The house was dark when I pulled up, the only light coming from the moon. Which you'd think would be normal, it being ten something at night, but the porch light was always left on for me, and Polly doesn't normally go to bed this early. Doris doesn't either, but she may have gone to sleep earlier than usual if I had woken her up last night. She probably just forgot the porch light.
I walked up the steps and found the front door slightly open. Now THAT was not normal. I paused at the threshold long enough to pull out my Glock. I checked the sled and loaded the magazine before slowly pushing the door open with my foot. I longed to call out to Doris and Polly, to make sure they were okay, if they were even here (holding out hope that they aren't), but instinct and years of hunting kept my mouth shut.
I tried to keep my footsteps silent, avoiding the spots in the floor I know creak and groan. An overwhelming smell, like rotting eggs, filled the air. It triggered something in the corner of my brain, but I couldn't focus on it right now. The kitchen and living room were clear, and so was the downstairs bathroom.
I walked towards the stairs and the smell intensified. You know when people say they felt like lead was in the pit of their stomach? Turns out, they weren't overexaggerating.
There was no noise, save for my own breathing, as I crept up. Room by room, I cleared the house. No one was here. No sign of Doris, or Polly. I wanted to feel relieved, I really did, but life has taught me that relief is often a feeling followed by dread.
Sentimental has flown out the window.
I checked the windows upstairs, making sure they were all closed and locked, before going downstairs to do the same. I stopped short at the sight of Lenny and Barry. In my living room. Normally, this would constitute as a dream come true, but the guns in their hands definitely gave me pause on the horny fantasy.
They hadn't noticed me yet, so I slowly raised my gun and watched as they made their way into the kitchen. I followed them silently, keeping my gun level, until they reached the table.
"I'm gonna need you to drop the weapons and explain what, exactly, you're doing in my house."
They whirled around, both going to aim at me, but I was quicker. I shot a warning round into the floor by their feet. (Doris was seriously going to kill me for that.) They both jumped back, hands raised in the air.
"I didn't say wave them around, I said drop them."
"Look, Winnie-"
"Drop the goddamn guns!" I said, as I cocked my own back.
"Fine, fine," Barry said, slowly bending at the knees to place his gun on the floor. "Just calm down, alright?"
Lenny looked irritated but followed suit, putting his weapon on the ground gently.
"Kick them aside."
Sighs of absolute exasperation floated through the air. (Seriously? Breaking into my house and then getting annoyed at me? Get a load of these guys.)
"Where are Doris and Polly?"
"Who?" Lenny asked, irritation coloring the word.
"Don't play stupid, I'm really not in the mood."
"Lady, I don't know who those people are." He snapped.
"Doris and Polly," I repeated slowly. "The two women who live in this house with me. The house you just broke into, with loaded weapons. After I come home to find them missing."
"Look, we can explain," Barry started.
"I would hope so, considering the alternative." I gestured with my head at the gun in my hand.
"Just lower your gun, and we'll tell you everything."
"Listen, Bare, may I call you Bare?" I continued without waiting for permission, "You seem to not understand how this works. Your weapons are out of reach, mine is in hand, you're in MY house, and my family is missing. I'll lower the gun if I decide your explanation is good enough. Which seems unlikely."
My voice, somehow, was holding completely steady, but inwardly, panic was filling every empty part of my body. My brain was screaming at me to stop wasting time, but I forced that voice aside. At this point, the only people who could tell me anything were standing in front of me, one looking pissed off and the other looking very concerned. About me or the imminent death he faced, I couldn't be sure.
"Winsley, your family, they've been taken by-"
"Sammy!"
"Dean, she deserves to know. She's in this, whether we like it or not."
I blinked at the sudden identity change, although I have to say, I was kind of grateful that two dudes who looked this good didn't have names like Lenny and Barry. Even if they were possible kidnappers.
Dean, previously Lenny, clenched his jaw, but didn't say anything when Sammy, previously Barry, started again. "They've been taken by what we think is a demon. We're not sure why yet, but that's why we're here. It's what we do. We, we save people from things like this."
"Things like demons." I deadpanned. "So you're story is, a demon has, for some unknown reason, kidnapped my family, and you two just happen to be here at the same time as this thing, because life is all just one big coininky dink?"
"We tracked it here," Lenny/Dean spoke up. "It's been traveling through Wyoming, ripping through small towns. It's killed before, but it's never kidnapped anyone. Until now. So whatever this thing wants, your family has it. And you're not exactly helping us save 'em."
"And your plan was to shoot this demon full of lead? Do demons bleed? Can they even die?"
"They're full of rock salt," Barry/Sammy said. "Salt doesn't kill them, but it hurts them. Slows 'em down. We slow them down enough, we can get them wrapped in rope soaked in holy water and get the answers we all want."
Hysterical laughter bubbled up in my throat. I've been a bartender for 7 years, in a small ass town in the middle of nowhere, and before that, well, that's a backstory for another chapter, but let's just conclude that I know crazy. I've delt with crazy, but this was above and beyond.
"This is either some elaborate scheme to distract me, or you're both having a psychotic break at the same time."
"Okay, enough," Dean snapped. Faster than I could track, he whipped out yet another gun from behind him and aimed it at me.
"Am I now a demon in this illusion of yours? Rock salt isn't gonna do shit to me."
"Well, actually, it hurts like a bitch." He said, shrugging. "Curiosity got the best of me. But this ain't no rock salt, sweetheart. So why don't you put the gun down, because I guarantee you I can pull this trigger faster than you."
I paused, considering, before twisting and aiming my gun at Sammy's head. "You wanna test that theory?"
They both went deathly still. Apparently, they decided to finally take my threat seriously.
"Fine, you know what? You want your family to die, that's on you, lady. We can leave you to it," Dean put his gun down and went to grab the other one from the floor. "But don't say we didn't warn you."
He went to walk out the back door, Sammy hesitantly grabbing his own gun before following Dean out.
"Wait. Fine. But I want some of those rock salt thingies."
Dean glanced back. "No."
Sammy ignored him and handed me his pistol. "Aim for the heart."
I slowly holstered my gun, replacing it with his.
"Dammit, Sammy."
"I think she can handle herself, Dean."
Dean pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed so hard I was surprised it didn't propel him backwards.
"Are there any other buildings around here that might be abandoned or empty? Somewhere used for storage?"
"Yeah, we have a barn. Jim used to keep some of his old junk in there."
"Show us."
"Okay, full offense, for someone supposedly trying to help, you are extremely rude."
"Yes, and I look good doing it."
I narrowed my eyes at him but lead them out the backdoor. Before you start yelling at me, I'm not believing this bullshit. They're clearly insane, and they probably have my family locked in the barn, and I figure once they go inside to "scope the place out", I'll call Sherrif Bereta and get these beautiful loonies locked up.
That plan went dark, literally, as a sharp pain cracked through my skull and I crumbled to the ground.
*******************************
I'm sure we've all heard the term "spitting mad". Well, whatever that means, I was even angrier when I came to, back in the kitchen, surrounded by a ring of salt and tied up with, sure enough, a soggy rope. It itched.
Okay, yes. I got, well, got. I spent the past ten years of my life hunting animals, not fighting crime, okay? Give me a break. I thought my plan had been pretty solid.
I glanced around, trying to get my bearings through the bulldozer that had made its home in my head. Two major headaches in one day. If the tequila didn't kill my braincells, that hit certainly did.
"Bastards," I muttered to myself. I wiggled against the ropes, but all that managed to do was chafe. I attempted to stand, but they had tied my ankles together and to my bound wrists, so not only did I fail, I looked ridiculous doing it.
The panic I was ignoring earlier came back with renewed strength, and I had to stop all movement and focus on my breathing. I haven't had a panic attack in years, and I really didn't think this was a smart time to start again.
The silence broke with a screech that sounded, as much as I loathe to admit it, demonic. I'm not a religious person, if you couldn't tell, working a Sunday morning instead of attending church, so I didn't break out in prayer. I did, however, look around for any kind of weapon that I could try to get my hands on. My gun was sitting on the table, just out of reach.
"Bastards!" I announced again.
"That's no way to talk about the people who saved your ass."
Dean was standing in the doorway, a light coat of sweat shining across his forehead. His breathing was quick, but all in all, he seemed steady.
"You pistol whipped me, hog tied me, and seasoned me, dude. I wouldn't constitute that as 'saving'."
"Yeah, well. Difference of opinion," he said, a small smile playing across his lips.
"Where's your future cellmate?"
"He's finishing up with the demon. Should be here any minute."
"Ah, yes. The demon. Did you get any answers? Did you find Polly and Doris? Did you develop the sudden need to enroll yourself into a mental institution?"
Before Dean could answer, Sam came into view behind him, and on his arm was Polly. My breath caught in my throat as I looked her over, bruised, bleeding from a cut on her forehead, but alive. On her feet.
"Polly thank god, I was so worried-" I went to stand up, forgetting about the ropes, and promptly fell over. "Can you get these goddamn things off of me?"
Dean glanced over at his brother, and Sammy nodded. He lead Polly to a chair and positioned himself in front of her.
"Do you think I'm going to attack my own family? I'm not the one suffering from some kind of breakdown." I said, watching Dean pull out a knife and ever so slowly cut through the ropes. As soon as they fell off, I stood, rubbing my raw wrists, and went to make my way to Polly.
"Where's Doris?" I asked, kneeling in front of her. "Is she okay? Did she get caught up at bible study or did these two lunatics tie her up, too?"
Polly lifted her tear soaked eyes, grief overflowing in them.
There's something you should know about Big Traumatic Events, and it's that time moves differently in them. You know when you were a kid, swimming in a pool, and you sunk down to the bottom? The world was quiet, and your limbs were heavy and light at the same time, moving through the water as if time had slowed.
That's what it's like.
I rocked back on my heels.
I stood and whipped towards Sam.
I lunged for the gun.
Sammy caught my arms, pushing me back as I fought against him.
There was a sound trying to pierce through the overwhelming emptiness in my head. A sound that sounded a lot like a wounded animal. It's a sound I know well.
When Polly swam into view, putting my face between her hands, I realized that I was that sound. Something between a scream and a sob was falling out of me, and I couldn't stop it.
"Winnie. It's okay. It's gonna be okay," she sobbed with me.
I wrenched myself away from her. I couldn't, wouldn't, allow myself to be calmed down.
"What did you do to her?!" I screamed.
"She was possessed, Winnie."
"Don't call me that."
"By the time we got to her, it was too late. The demon had destroyed her body, and it was the only thing holding her together."
"STOP USING YOUR INSANE THEORIES AS AN EXCUSE FOR WHY YOU KILLED MY MOTHER!"
My chest heaved, and the two murdering bastards just stood there. They had the gall to even look sad. What did they have to be sad about? They're the ones going around killing people, claiming it's in the name of- of what? God? I didn't care.
"It's true, Winnie."
My breath came up short as I turned to look at Polly. Tears still streamed down her face, mingling with the blood. I noticed her lip was split, too, and added another tally to the scoreboard. I'd kill them.
"She was, she was different. She wasn't mom. She hit me. She tied me up. She tried to torture me, asking me questions that I didn't understand."
"No, Polly. These lunatics probably drugged you or something. THEY tortured you. They're feeding you their delusions."
"No, they aren't!" She shouted. "I saw it, okay? I saw her become that thing. I saw her eyes turn black. And I felt every moment she laid her hands on me. She was MY mom, Winnie. I knew her better than anyone, and I know that wasn't her."
Those words broke something deep inside of me, deeper than even Doris's death. Polly was right. Doris was her mother. Not mine. I looked at Dean, at Sammy, at the gun, my gun, that he was now holding in his hands, probably to keep me from putting a few rounds in the two of them.
I took a deep breath and simply said, "Fine."
And I left.
Authors note:
Yeah I made myself sad. I also feel like I used the word "Gun" so much. But really what else do I call it? Anyway. Supernatural ripped my heart out like twenty thousand times, so it's only fair I add some heartbreak to this story. Hope you like it!

Posted on Toast's Community Hub
Toast we need to have a conversation, over the years your software has increasingly become harder to use and evermore broken. I am writing this at 21:00 EST so please excuse my poor grammar and half completed thoughts. As I do need to get up early, I will come back tomorrow and update this post with more discussion points and fix any mistakes I may have made.
Lets begin with my current 6 month long problem that keeps getting "resolved" by Toast Customer Care. I have now had three cases "resolved" without anyone contacting me or verifying that the problem was actually fixed. If anyone would like to follow along, please try the following:

1. Create a new item
2. Set the Name of the menu item to Test Item
3. Set Pricing Strategy to Size Price
4. Create a Small & Large size and set price to $1.00 and $2.00 respectively.
5. Save and Publish new menu item.
6. Navigate to Discounts
7. Click Add a Discount
8. Name the discount Test Combo
9. Set the Discount Type to Combo and set the value to $3.00
10. Add the Test Item created in step 1
11. Click Save
12. Next, try to set the size for the Test Item and realize you cannot

The video below tries to show this in action. Notice, I am able to view/edit item sizes for combos that I created before Toast stopped working. It is only when adding new items to a new or existing combo that I can no longer select the size. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6PlREQ-lOQ
As a paying customer of your product, I feel I am being strung along by your support who humor me long enough to get me off the phone, only to have my case closed so they can have one less open support ticket. I have requested to speak with someone higher up and am happy to have either a face to face conversation or even a simple phone call. I have already begun removing toast integrations and will continue to do so until either my issue is resolved or we end up replace Toast in the coming months.

Toast Loyalty & Curbside

When a customer signs up for loyalty, they are only required to enter either their phone number or email address depending on the settings set in the backend. When a customer creates a loyalty account with their email they are sent a welcome message and are allowed to view their points in their web browser; or Toast TakeOut app. If they click the browser link they are then prompted to enter their full name, birthday, and phone number.
From an analytic perspective, why does Toast not ask for this information during signup? Most of the time customers will sign up without clicking the link in the welcome email and we will miss out on that data. Often customers will ask how they get their birthday rewards and we have to explain the lengthy process of adding their birthday:

1. Go to our website and click “Rewards”
2. Enter your email, check that you are not a robot, and click “Find Now”
3. Open your email app and look for the “Reward’s Balance” email from Toast.
4. Open the email and click “View Rewards Transactions”.
5. If you are prompted with “Complete your profile” simply fill out the form and click “Save”.
   1. If you are not prompted, scroll down to “Ways to earn” and click “Complete your profile”

Now you might ask, why can’t your staff just add the information through the register? Great question, they are busy making food, taking orders, and doing tasks that make the business money. Also, have you tried searching for a customer using the POS interface? It is not the best user experience and most of my staff actually hate trying to use the loyalty accounts at the register.
There is no simple way to login to a customer loyalty account to view the profile or update the information. If a customer wishes to check points, or update their phone numbeemail the only way to currently do that is to follow the same steps above. Why do I have to “Look up rewards account”, and get an email about my reward balance, just to be able to view/modify my loyalty profile?
If the customer gets to the profile page they might notice another oddity with the software. Under “Ways to redeem” it states I can use my points to order online. “Create an online ordering account with the email or phone number linked to your loyalty account and log in to order.” Why does the customer have to create yet another account while they are using the same platform at the same restaurant? I have had multiple customers get confused and call us asking why when they try to login to our online ordering platform their email address is not recognized and are prompted to enter a phone number. I have to explain that the loyalty email address is different then the online ordering but they will both be automagically linked once they create a curbside account. If the curbside software can see the loyalty account after the curbside account is created, why can it not just search the loyalty accounts and use that customer data to start a new order? The process would be much more seamless.
The contrasting UX/UI throughout toast are most harshly felt by the customer. The loyalty interface is completely different from the online ordering interface and the customer data does not appear to be shared across the two integrations. Toast needs to have one database full of customer data that plays nicely across all the integrations and follows similar UX/UI design and principles. Maybe provide a single customer profile portal that allows the customer to view and edit their data across all of toast; possibly for all Toast equipped restaurants.
Let us continue our trek down with curbside. I opened a cased on 2/14/2023 stating the the Toast Takeout App was not properly showing items with nested modifiers. It is now 6/8/2023 and the app is still broken. Here is how their support described the issue: “he says that Modifiers are not working on the Toast Takeout App... They are working for Online Ordering though. You can test this by clicking our February 2-For-1 [BOGO], it is supposed to show two modifier groups, one called First Dog and one called Second Dog. These groups do not show up at all and when he tries to add the item to cart it says the modifiers need to be selected. Inherited Modifiers appear to be working though. If the modifier is inherited from the previous menu group it shows up just fine. This issue is happening only on the Toast Takeout App. it is not showing the First Dog and Second Dog modifier group on my "Heid's Daily Special" and "February 2-For-1 [BOGO]”
As you can imagine they “Closed” the case and all is still going well at Toast. We tell customers to delete the Toast App as it does not work correctly and simply use the online ordering link on our website. Feel free to test it out for yourself. Our restaurant, if you can see it, is Heid’s of Liverpool.
Both Order & Pay and Online Ordering integrations have the same issue. Pricing is incorrectly displayed for items with pre-selected modifiers. Basically, if you have a menu item, a burger, that costs $1.00 and it has a modifier, cheese, that costs $0.50, Toast will display the item to the customer as $1.00 but then when the customer clicks the item it will show the add to cart price of $1.50. This is extremely misleading to customers and a very simple fix. This problem has persisted since 2019 when we first started using toast.

Toast Order & Pay

Let us first start off by saying, simply duplicating Toast Online Ordering and adding a table numbering and mobile pay feature does NOT mean you should charge me MORE then the Online Ordering integration. Online Ordering is $50 and Toast Order and Pay is $69 + 0.5% per transaction! From the backend, they appear to basically do that exact same thing except one has some options for adding a vehicle and the other has options for selecting a table number. Otherwise, it would appear they copied the code for the Online Ordering module and went straight for the upcharge.
“We was able to review the information in the system under toasttab.com/ edit menu / sweet treats / Sundaes / Hot Fudge Sundae / scroll down to Default Modifiers, the sauce has a modifier select by default just like, works modifier has all modifier selected by default and working properly but sauce is not working, we try to toggle the configuration, no update, customer refer their is many bug in the system and need to bring all the issue with the system to toast attention.”
This issue was brought to Toast July of 2021… I have since removed the Order & Pay integration so I cannot verify if the issue still persists or not.

UX/UI Nightmare

Toast has an identity problem. It currently does not know if it wants to Toast 1.0 or Toast 4.0. Toast 1.0 had everything laid out in a series of nested links that mostly made sense while 4.0 has a hip new design that appears to be more touchscreen friendly. Sometimes you can complete a taste using only the new UI but often you are jarringly thrusted back into the old UI and have to take a moment to get your bearings as to where everything might be. Here is an incomplete list of daily annoyances:

1. Breadcrumb links, why do they randomly break and not actually show the trail you took to get to that page? Try this:
   1. Go to an item that has Modifiers
   2. Click on a Modifier Group
   3. On the Modifier Group Page, Click on a Modifier
   4. On the Modifier Item Page, click Edit Item
   5. Notice that the breadcrumb navigation is now wrong. This is a common occurrence on Toast.
2. Why are there 20 ways to check reports? Why do all these reports only seem to give me some of the data I want? Why do some of the reports only allow me to view the last two months worth of data? Why is it so difficult to compare two dates (month/day/yeaetc)? I could honestly write an entire book on how broken Toast Reporting is, but I believe that anyone who uses it already knows; I will leave it at that.
3. Double left side menu, who thought this was a good idea? I very frequently end up clicking the wrong link because I will accidentally slide my mouse too far left on the screen and the main menu will slide open and I will click a link on the main menu instead of the intended link on the sub menu.
4. On the POS, when a new order is pushed or someone publishes a change on the backend, why does the POS screen flash and pull you out of what you are working on. For example, Let's say I am on the payment terminal screen with an order selected partway down the list and I am about to click “Update Order”. All of a sudden someone sends an order to the kitchen, my screen flashes and now the top left order is selected on my screen. I don't realize this and proceed to the pay screen charging someone for the wrong order. This happens a not insignificant number of times a month and has led to some full refunds and apologies from our staff.
5. Why does the "Help" button in the top right of the screen randomly just not do anything? Currently, I click on it, nothing happens. I refresh the page, still nothing. Can anyone explain what I am doing wrong? I try to scroll down to the bottom of the page and the "Support & Training" link (button) does not work either.
6. We have had many instances of having employees, modifiers, or menu items that we are not able to archive. We either get an error or the website just simply does nothing. To this day no one can explain to me why this happens and we have to contact Toast each time so someone can come on and fix the item.
7. Ever since the update to "Toast Home", our team has noticed that on occasion we will lose access to features on toast. This happened to me today and I was able to include a screenshot (Toast 01 Screenshot); As you can see, I am "locked" out of "Edit Menus" and "Employees" when I should have full system privileges. A simple page refresh sometimes fixes this issue and the sections I am "Locked" out of will change sporadically. This appears to not just be a simple "Quick Actions" or shortcut issue as I have noticed error messages when trying to make updates via the website. I could get around these error messages by refreshing the page, however, I would lose any work I was trying to save.
8. I have this very common problem of Toast just not working when trying to go to the Toast "Home" (Toast 02 Screenshot); The whole page goes blank and I either need to refresh the page or click through to another page if it will let me. Sometimes the whole site hangs while loading after I pressed a menu link and I am forced to refresh the page. This issue persists across multiple computers and devices.
9. Our kitchen video monitor (KVM) will frequently have issues displaying the tickets. We have seen visual text errors such as fonts being randomly bolded or italicized. Tickets will appear with most of the order cut off and can only be viewed by clicking into the ticket for the pop-up.

Other Toast Integrations

I will keep this section short. Basically, if Toast has a first party integration simply do not use it. Every integration I have tried, from Toast, appears to have been half baked and still in beta; even though I was paying full price for the software.

The Cloud

For the most part, having our POS in The Cloud is normally not an inconvenience. However, we have had many times where either Toast or our internet would go down. This causes immediate headache with our staff as we can no longer use our Kitchen Video Monitors (KVM/KDS). Our kitchen is setup with three KVMs and one receipt printer. The expeditor has the printer while our grill and fryer each get their own KVM. If we lose connection to Toast, none of the stations can see what they need to make and our expediter now has to call out every item to each station.
If toast can print tickets to a networked printer during an outage, why can we not also send tickets to the KVMs the same way? Our registers already have a static IP and the local network is still functioning correctly, why can we not just send the ticket data locally to each KVM?

Toast Hardware

Recently, I have noticed an increase in the number of calls from my staff requesting help because one of the registers has stopped sending orders to the kitchen; won’t let the customer use the customer facing display; won’t turn on the chip reader; won’t turn on the NFC for tap to pay; toast crashes each time we try to open it; the ethernet just fully disconnects and refuses to reestablish connection; I could go on… but I won't.
95% of the time, my simple response is “turn it off, turn it back on again”. Why do we constantly have to do this? The time it takes to call me, restart the register, and get back online is all time wasted and not making the restaurant money.
Let's talk about hardware support. When we first started with toast, we had three Toast Gen1 handhelds. Within 6 months, one of the card readers stopped working. We sent it back under warranty. A few months later another handheld’s card reader stopped working and a third started power cycling. Coming up on the original 1 year warranty I realized that at the rate this hardware was breaking, I would literally need to buy a new handheld each year. I called toast and asked them to remove the handhelds from my subscription and find out how much it would cost to just get a standard terminal. The ELO terminals we had seemed fairly robust and didn’t appear to have any physical hardware problems like the handhelds. The representative I was speaking to offered to send me three new Toast 2.0 handhelds for free. Reluctantly I agreed to try them out. To their credit, they have worked well enough, minus the toast software issues, for the last two years.
It still stands, that if something were to happen to these devices, I do not actually have an easy way to get them repaired or replaced. Toast should offer either a lease program or a monthly protection plan for their hardware. I would feel more secure using Toast hardware if I knew I could send it out for repair or a replacement. If I drop my phone, I simply call my provider and they overnight a replacement the next day.
We have a combination of Toast branded ELO hardware and the newer Toast Flex hardware. The Flex hardware is full of issues. Both of our flex units in our Heid's of Liverpool kitchen had to be swapped with our older units when being used as KVMs due to how often they lose internet. For some reason, the hardware would randomly disconnect from the network and refuse to reconnect. This issue persisted whether we were connected via WiFi or Ethernet. Our current policy is to simply restart the device if this issue happens but it is wildly inconvenient when I have to perform this action during a busy lunch or dinner hour.

Final Thoughts… For now

From their hardware to their software, every aspect of Toast feels rushed and still in beta. Toast should have created the new UI and fully implemented it before pushing it as a major update. I constantly feel like I am paying $600 a month, plus ~$5000 in processing fees, for a software that is still in beta. We are currently talking with our managers about the possibility of switching to a new POS. I have already removed Toast Marketing and will be removing Online Ordering shortly. If I can simply get a response on my “Resolved” support case, we may reconsider. We have invested a lot of time and effort into this system and honestly I would like to keep it… but it needs to just work. Currently, if you are in the market for a new POS, I would NOT recommend Toast.

So, let me get a couple things out the way first:

• Yes, I know going in solo puts you at risk
• No, I don't mind getting killed
• I'm a decent player. By no means good, but I have wiped 3+ man squads solo, and when I'm with my team of 3 we usually win 7-8/10 PvP engagements.
• When I'm solo I play carefull, use the water a lot, scan/scout before I enter an area. Prox chat is an immediate disengage and get the fuck outta Dodge. If I do get shot at, my tactic is to run and gun, use cover and be a pain in the ass in the hopes off looking like more trouble then they're willing to get into
• Squad fill is marginally better than solo play. More often than not you end up with 3 guys who are each playing solo while part of a "team". So don't give me the whole "turn squad fill on, it's a choice" bullshit.

Having said that: Popping an (advanced) UAV and immediately pushing a solo player is, in my opinion, a massive sign of weakness. Really? That's the one you're going for? We don't ever do that, it just doesn't feel right. Now, I know this is a personal preference, but come on man. Pushing a solo as a team has to be one of the laziest ways to go for it. Pick on a squad you're own size.
Second best is relentlessly pushing a solo across the entire map, after you've seen 'm disengage.
I'll be just minding my business on Ashika (I know, PvP central) on say a resupply run, get prox chat and get into the nearest body of water, or whatever else is available to GTFO. Team sees me running, pushes (which I can understand, I shoot on sight as well). But then proceeds to relentlessly push across the map. Even if I'm not actively reacting to that push at first, I'm just tryna get outta Dodge. So eventually, I come out swinging, try to turn a 3v1 into a 3 1v1's, and more often than not end up losing that fight. Mostly because I can't get to a position where I can take the fight to them on my terms, instead of reacting.
But again, come on man? The thing is, squads, as a rule, don't actively disengage in my experience. Solo's do. So when rolling with my squad we let 'm go, 'cause why bother, there's no sport in that.
So, yeah. If you're a squad who actively pushes solo players with an (A)UAV, or when they try to disengage; I think y'all are a bunch of pussies. Change my mind.
And I mean that. Tell me why you think it's not a massive sign of weakness.

Hi everyone,
I F22 am suffering from multiple health issues.
First would be ear pain from last year
Then neck, shoulder tension and left chest pain.
I also have right hand pain.
On Monday I had an ent appointment for night cough and throat irritation along with ear pain.
The ENT has referred me for a doctor dentist who would assess my face for possible TMJ.
Ever since then I have felt weird.
I have for the last week had migraines and intense right nose bridge pain near my right eye.
I have gone to the eye doctor and they said my eyes are healthy around a month ago.
I assume it’s pain from leaning on my right side with my glasses on.
Right now, I have aches on my right face. My cheek and jaws and nose bridge.
I also feel like my face isn’t symmetrical at all, which I know is normal but more like muscle strain or even weakness on the right side.
I have been under immense pressure for my degree show as a final undergraduate student.
Is there anyway I can lessen the pain?
When I smile the right side of my face feels stressed. My eyes are also quite sensitive as well with lights.
I do want to add that I haven’t been sleeping much and I have been overworked because of our degree show.
I also have been in the sunlight a lot the past week.
I’m not on birth control, no contraception ever. No medication at this moment.

This might be a bit long because I want to try to write all the necessary information.
I have a 5 year old, 30 lb terrier mix. I’ve had her for about 3 years. Also please know that she gets spooked by everything, for example I was walking her and a dry leaf flew by and she jumped when it made a scraping sound on the pavement.
About 2 days ago, I was in my room and she went to jump on my bed and let out a loud yelp as she was doing so, my back was turned so I didn’t see exactly what happened. I went over to examine her and it didn’t seem like she was injured. I checked around and couldn’t find anything that could hurt her on the floor. However she was stuck to me like glue for the next 10 min or so which is unusual for her. Her ears and head were down and her tail was tucked between her legs. The rest of the day she was very subdued, wasn’t interested in her treats (which she normally loves!) and very lethargic. I tried picking her up a few hours later to help her onto the couch and she let out a yelp again and stuck to my husband like she was to me earlier.
It’s been 2 days and it seemed like she was becoming a little more energetic so we were hopeful that she was feeling better. And then today she reverted back to how she was 2 days ago. I was feeding her and she got in the way while I was filling up her bowl. I went to move her away and she made this weird choking sound when I put pressure on her chest. I stopped and tried to move her again and she made that sound again. She started trembling after that, but she still came to me to get pets. I brought her into my office with me and set her in her bed. About ten min later my husband came home and she got up and went to step out of bed and made that weird choking sound again. I eventually coaxed her out of my office and checked her out again and didn’t seem like she was hurt.
Right now she’s lying in one place and won’t move from it. She’s stopped trembling but she just looks so mopey.I’m worried that she’s associating me with pain since she yelped when I tried to pick her up. Has anybody experienced this before? Is there anything I can do to put her more at ease? I’m really worried about her, any advice will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

I (19 F Druid) have become a local hero in our town along with my party. There are 4 of us total, Fighter (24 F), Wizard (19 M), Monk (30 M). For simplicity I will refer to them as their class.
We helped out the nobles of our moderately sized town, and managed to drive away a large group of goblins which have been terrorizing our town for decades. This made our town go into an economic boom, as trade routes are now safer. Not to mention the relatively unexplored forest that surrounds the town had a secret copper deposit. The nobles were overjoyed and offered to give us anything our hearts desired. My party received money and status. The rest of my party members also requested items, but I only asked that the nearby forest be respected and be allowed to heal. The goblins were mercilessly and drove many animals away, which unbalanced the ecosystem.
The nobles agreed and made sure the rest of my party received their items. But it became clear that they had no intentions to honor my request. Now, I have no problem with them clearing out some of the forest, as people came to settle into our town. But that wasn't the case. One month after I made my request, they cut down 20 acres of land to build a dog park. Complete with water fountains, paved trails, and a large fence with a toll booth. The fee to enter was 10 gold pieces, which meant only around 5% of the people living in town would be able to afford to enter. And of that 5%, only a small group of people would be able to do it consistently.
I would have been able to look over them ignoring my wishes, but after seeing the lengths they went through so that no one would be able to enjoy the park, I just couldn't. It was then, as I looked into their park, that I realized it. They all have small dogs. The biggest one I could see was about 5 lbs heavy (or about 2.2 kg for you fae out there). It was then that I began to make my plan. I was easily able to buy a falconry glove, and with the help of the birds that have slowly begun to return to the forest; I would run out from the nearby forest and with a panicked look, I would frantically look towards the sky and run around aimlessly. The looks of horror on the noble's faces was priceless! they would scoop up their dogs, and run away, Shielding their dogs with their bodies as they did.
After doing this a couple of times, I enlisted the help of the wizard (who had taken an interest in illusion magic) and together, we would make more elaborate parks. He would make a large, ominous shadow hover above dogs, complete with a hawks screech. Pretty soon, not a single noble was in the park. I had won! But not long after, The fighter (who is the leader of our party) approached me, and she scolded me. She said that my antics have begun to anger the nobles, and if I don't stop, the party will have to deal with the reproductions, not just me. After hearing me out, she understood why I did it, but said there were other more effective, and less destructive ways of going about this. Which I get, so I took her advice and later that day I went to talk to the nobles. I was planning on apologizing, and asking if we could make the park accessible to everyone. When I entered the meeting room, to my surprise, they had various blueprints spilled out on the table. Blueprints for water slides, for an extravagant inn, for an event coliseum, and for one giant "Hawk proof dome". I looked up at them, and their eyes were filled with fire. They meant war.
The conversation didn't go well, I will admit I didn't handle it well. We reached no compromise, and in front of me, all 5 nobles agreed to continue with their plans, and invite all of their friends and family to come and enjoy the attractions. They looked me in the eyes and said "We'll need friends and family, as the townspeople won't be able to afford our cheapest condiment." A started yelling, and I was escorted out. I am currently playing with the idea to sabotage their plans. But Fighter's words keep ringing in my head. I'm pretty sure I just blew any chance I had to come to a peaceful compromise, but I don't want to get my friends involved in this. This is important to me for various reasons. The forest is my home, as weird as this may sound, it took care of me after I lost my parents. I feel as if it's alive and in a lot of pain. The townspeople are my friends, and I've had conversations with them about how they can wait for this town to take off so they can begin a better life. Only for the town to slowly get turned into a playground for the rich, it's not right!
I have been avoiding Fighter, I can't face her after what happened. She will probably be angrier at me, because this affects her situation too (it's complicated, and I don't want to get into it here) and we're in this mess because my prank went too far. But now, more than ever I feel as if I'm in the right. So AITA?

Since no one has posted anything about these and I recently got them, I will post my thoughts/review on each of them. I might update this post to add pics of the product.
Tambourine:
Works with only 1 game and it's made by SEGA. It works basically the same way as the Dreamcast samba controller. It uses ultrasonic sensors. 1.5 shoulder width bar is connected to PS1 and that bar has a slot for the tambourine. The tambourine can be used with left or right hand. There are slots at back to position the wiring to match the hand you are using.
Game has you either tapping a button with your other palm, shaking it once per note or moving while shaking the controller in a set direction. The detection is mostly good except for when you're shaking towards a direction and the height isn't detected right away (it's for bonus points iirc, so it's fine). If you own a MiSTer, you would need 7.5V power as the default 5V is not enough if you are tall. The music is pretty much a kid centered versions of Morning Musume style songs (The 4 girls are affiliated with that group) with some of their hits. I would rate it 8.5/10. The mat isn't needed. I wish there more songs since 17/19 (can't recall which) songs isn't enough imo. The game gets a higher score because it has multiple difficulties.
Maestro Music controller
It's a conductor stick that connects to the PS1 directly. It has a long enough cord. It works with 3 PS1 games and I think 1 PS2 game. This requires 7.5V for MiSTer users or else the detection would be pretty bad. Gameplay is pretty boring. You just move your hand up and down. Faster you do it, the faster the music plays. The harder you do it, the louder it plays. Game devolves with you adjusting speed and loudness to classic music.
I would rate it 6/10
Martial Beat Controller
This was meant to be a fitness game by Konami. It uses DDR songs and you try to do kicks and punches based on the video. You attach 4 CR2032 powered straps to your feet and arms, with a base that connects to the PS1. The game literally asks you to put in your name and it's a pain to do it with these controllers. Like Right leg is OK and it's super sensitive. The left and right arms are for moving up/down/left/right and it's not consistent on how it is read.
The game itself (2 games, practically 3 due to 3 discs), not very intuitive specially the first 1. The 2nd game improves it by having the moves and timing shown on screen but it's in kanji and the controller detection is bad (did a song perfectly since I did it 3 times and I got a lot of misses). I suggest just playing the game with a controller and just punch/kicking along. It's probably much more fun that way. The songs are too short to be a good exercise and following along is a bit difficult on hard songs because there's no visual cues specially in the first game. Difficulty is fixed per song, which is a bummer but they're videos, so it makes sense. They probably should have just used DDR models and animated them like those boxing games on Wii.
I would rate it 5/10.
V-Pick
It works with 2 Japanese games that are English games that can be probably played by the Westerners. The controller is a guitar pick that's connected to the PS1. Annoyingly, it requires you to make a fake guitar because it needs something to strum on. It literally has a picture of someone using a tennis racket as a guitar. I used my Rockband 3 Pro guitar to test it. It feels like a lot more effort is needed to activate the V-pick compare to a real guitar pick, like I was tired after 2 songs.
It's kind of awful. It can't detect the difference between a strum up and down. I feel if you like the music in the game, then maybe it will be fun. I didn't like it since it was just boring and the detection was off sometimes.
I would rate it 3/10.
I also have the following controllers, if you are curious that maybe I might review

1. Knockoff PS2 compatible that's a mix of a jogcon and negcon
2. Ascii fishing controller
3. Pop'n Music

Note: TLDR and Tips at the end.
I found out that I passed the PE Civil Structural a few weeks ago and as much as I wanted to post my results in celebration I felt compelled to provide a much more detailed response to my fellow engineers (especially those in the structural depth)! When preparing and doing research I had so much anxiety about the test. If you are like me, I tried to gauge the difficulty of the test based off of feedback and forum posts... However, you will hear everything from "Test is easier than xyz" or "It is much harder than xyz". Hopefully I can shed some light on this subject, give others a better sense of direction, and help you prepare so you crush it! (No I will not share with you anything even remotely close to what problems I saw on the test, this would break the NDA. I worked too hard to get here and so will you!)
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My Background

I graduated from University of Portland, Oregon in 2015 with a BSCE and a good GPA of ~3.75. My civil friend group definitely helped me achieve that GPA by doing homework together. After graduation I did some additional studying to take the FE. I took it a few weeks after graduation at a Pearson Vue Center (turns out I would be back to the same one to take my PE) and passed it on my first try. Then I began my job search.
I applied to so many structural firms but had a hard time landing a job because they all wanted master degrees. Almost 4 months after graduation I landed my first job (remote) at a structural engineering software company that also provided consulting services. I can't help but laugh because the specialty/focus was on post-tensioned concrete (definitely did not learn any PT in school). I spent a few months learning the company's software and the basics of post-tensioned concrete. In fact a couple of the months I was in the customer support department.
Eventually I transitioned into the consulting department. We were typically subcontracted out by the EOR to do post-tensioned slab designs. I would say over 90% of my work was gravity design of two-way flat plate podiums. Oh.. and did I say I was remote? This made the job and learning curve so much more difficult. I could not simply hop over to my bosses office to ask a question and rarely did I get feedback on the work I did. I had no/little idea if I was doing things correctly. I honestly felt more like a drafter than an engineer because I would do the model creation, set up preliminary tendon layout/quantities based on 125 psi pre-compression and that was about it. Later on I got more understanding of what to look for when designing these systems (top and bottom stress limits, tendon sweep, deflection, crack mitigation, etc.) but the focus was still primarily the slab design.
About 3.25 years in (including a few months where I switched over to our licensing department to pick up slack) I was DONE with consulting. I was hating the long hours, the mediocre pay, and the lack of appreciation. One day the owner informed me that the consulting department was closing down. He gave me 3 months to look for another job. Fed up with consulting I asked if there was a different role I could take, his answer: Sales. Yuck... I just pictured a used car salesman. Talking with my colleagues and weighing the costs/benefits I decided to take the leap into a sales role. Part of this very difficult decision involved giving up on my dream of becoming a PE... I simply did not have the 4 years experience required.
Things changed about 1.5 years later and my new boss at the company approached me last year and asked if I was ever planning on getting my PE. I told him how I was short on the experience side of things and from there he put me in a position where I was using engineering (worked in the support team for another 6ish months and began the technical presentation side of my career).
In October of 2022 I signed up for the School of PE and schedule my test. I took the PE exam (CBT) May 16, 2023; 8 years after graduation and being out of consulting for almost 5 years. May 23rd I found out I passed!
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Schedule and Resources

I allotted exactly 12 weeks to study with 1 day off before the test (which I did not actually do). After all was done I averaged roughly 25 hours per week; 300 hours total. Below is what my schedule looked like:
Week 1 - Week 8

• 3.5 hours of class with School of PE (M, T, W, R)
• 3 hours of rereading class notes/writing notecards on topics I felt needed consistent review (F).
• 4 hours rereading class notes/writing notecards (Sa)
• 3 hours rereading class notes/writing notecards (Su)
• 1 hour (re)doing class problems only using reference manual (Su). When I got to the structural depth part of the course, I spent this hour going through the codes to familiarize myself and honestly did not do any problems. (Su)
• Any spare time was spent doing School of PE flash cards and my own flashcards.

Week 9

• In place of class hours, I did as much of the breadth problems as I could from School of PE: Quizes and the Workshop Problems. (not the "Build your own exam/quiz").
• I took the NCEES practice exam at the end of the week as if it was test day (started at 8am, timed myself, took the 50 min break, etc.). I expected to completely fail the Depth section since I had only really attended the class and did not work problems yet. However, I really wanted to gauge the difficulty of the test so I new what/how to study moving forward. I scored 56/80. 34/40 morning and 23/40 afternoon. I spent about 3 hours on the morning took and then spent 5 hours on the afternoon. I ran out of time and had to blind guess on about 5 problems, which I got all wrong by the way. (this is where googling feedback about the NCEES practice exam difficulty got bad for my confidence).
• Did flash cards while riding in the car, waiting for food at restaurants, etc.

Week 10

• Reviewed and reworked all problems I got wrong on the NCEES practice exam. Looking at my schedule I did not hit my typical hours for the week (I did 0 studying the day after taking the practice test).
• Did flash cards while riding in the car, waiting for food at restaurants, etc.

Week 11

• Solved Structural Depth problems (no timer) from: https://amzn.to/3qidEnV. I found this an ok book to use. It has some errors and mess ups. Also, the wording/clarity of the questions was not to NCEES standards. However, the concepts and procedures helped a ton with learning the subjects. I found these rather challenging and got over 20 of them wrong going through it the first time. I never touched the breadth problems from this book.
• Did flash cards while riding in the car, waiting for food at restaurants, etc.

Week 12

• Took PPI Structural Depth test 1 with a 4 hour timer: https://amzn.to/3Ne6ZnO. (25/40)
• Repeated problems that I got wrong from the David G book (over 3 days)
• Took PPI Structural Depth test 2 with a 4 hour timer. (31/40)
• Retook NCEES morning test. (40/40!!!)
• Did a School of PE make your own quiz, breadth topics only. (18/20)
• Reviewed NCEES PM questions. Took another school of PE Breadth quiz (16/20)
• "Day off before exam" I panicked and review topics that I struggled on or wanted to refresh (roughly 3 hours). You will actually notice I did not fill in my schedule that day because I was in such a panic. After studying I tried to take it easy as much as possible. I ate well, took the dog on a walk, got some good sunshine, etc.

Test Day

• My anxiety was so bad the night before that I slept only about 3 hours (and that is being generous). I found myself struggling with basic math due to the lack of sleep.
• My first 2 problems were rather scary. I definitely panicked thinking the whole test was going to be that difficult but it just so happened to be the first 2. I think I was uncertain/skipped about 10 morning problems. I finished the breadth section, including a brief 30ish minute review on flagged/skipped problems, in about 3.25 hours. Note: you might not get a perfect 40/40 split on the questions.
• Depth problems went super quick at first. I finished the first 20ish problems in about 1.5 hours. This left 3.25 hours for the last 20 problems, I thought I was golden on time, however, the last quarter of the test ate up a ton of time. I recall spending well over 15 minutes on a problem simply because I grabbed the wrong equation (thanks lack of sleep). I ran out of time and blind guessed on about 5. I had probably 25 flagged/skipped.
• I left the test knowing I did not get a 100% but also that I did not get 0%. Based on the number of flagged questions and potential mistakes my gut told me I probably got at least a 60%.

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TLDR and Tips

If someone out of school for 8 years and not in a "traditional" engineering role for 5 years can pass this test, so can you! Not only that but I only Commit, work hard, and conquer! As test day approaches focus on all that you have done and all of your successes. This will help build confidence which is key. I would have loved to solve more problems and study more topics but the thought of what I didn't know overwhelmed me and definitely did not help with my anxiety.

• Set a schedule and stick to it as best you can. I honestly wish I had roughly 1 more week to do a final polish on topics I wanted to review.
• Save some PTO for those days you want to take practice exams/need a break. I took 3 days of PTO. I studied my normal amount on those days but then had the rest of the day to myself to exercise, play video games, do chores, etc.
• I honestly would not bother with the School of PE Depth problems too much. If you have extra time then go for it. They were simply way too focused and lengthy that they are not a good use of time IMO.
• ABSOLUTELY do these depth problems with a 4 hour timer: https://amzn.to/3Ne6ZnO
• Do the Depth problems from: https://amzn.to/3qidEnV
• Solve problems as if it were exam day; only use the resources available, remove the cover from your calculator, use one computer monitor. After doing this for a few days, I found myself making silly mistakes over and over again. I actually created a notecard for me to drill the process into my head (I even brought it with me on test day to read it before I got out of my car. Obviously I could not bring it in with me). The notecard read:

1. Read the problem CAREFULLY
2. Write down the variable AND units you are solving for
3. Solve (read table footnotes, watch conversions, verify correct table and variables)
4. Check math
5. Read problem AGAIN
6. Check units AGAIN
7. Answer

• While studying, review problems that you get wrong! I cannot stress this one enough. I even marked problems so I could come back and try them again a 3rd or 4th time if necessary.
• Ask for extra booklets and extra pens at the testing center if possible. The booklets are larger than I thought. This means you do not have to erase your work if you move on from a problem. I wish I would have known this going into the test. I also recommend turning it landscape rather than portrait.
• Try and bank some time for the afternoon.
• Do not get hung up on a problem. I really only took extra time on problems that I KNEW I would get right even though it took 10 minutes.
• Use the index for the codes on problems you do not know, even if you think the problem is a conceptual one. Search key words. You might find something that can help. If I would have done this, I probably would have gotten a few more problems correct.
• Pack the night before (lunch, calculator, snack, water, glasses cleaner, etc.).
• Sleep, exercise, and fit in fun. My reward each Saturday was going out to lunch with my wife and friends after studying. I would also play video games, go to a movie, or do something else on the weekends after I finished studying.

Some other resources that I was recommended but did not get the chance to use:

• Breadth Problems: https://amzn.to/43RP5N1
• https://civilengineeringacademy.com/breadth/

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