Counter height sofa table and stools

Got this part finished! It took some doin, but I got there. Anyway, let me know what you guys think, and I hope you enjoy. I'm not very good at these intros.
First / Prev / Next (Coming eventually)
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“-ck.”
David’s apartment wasn’t overly furnished to begin with. He lived with the bare essentials that came with state housing, but the fiks decided to make it more homy. Their idea of a home was converting it into a flophouse. Beds, cots, and pallets soon spread out along the walls while boxes and crates soon took up residence in the middle of the room. His coffee table, end tables, and small dining set were conspicuously absent.
He stared slack-jawed for a moment before a crash sounded from his kitchen. “Saa! No food!”
“Lie! How can human starve?” After a brief pause, “Saa! No food!"
David was about to investigate when a short…well, relatively short fik stood in his way. “Ah, David! Yes, yes, we come as soon as we could.” He was just a few inches taller than David and wearing more ornate garb. About as ornate as something stolen from a seamstress’ dumpster. He was also an albino. That was important to fiks, right?
“Am Wesh. Clan Ermin.” That sounded important, alright.
“Ermin? Are you the one in charge here? Tell them to stop ripping up my-“
Another clatter sounded from the kitchen. “Look, look! Hidden door!” Oh right, the pantry. Great. Now they’re in his walls.
With a content smile the Ermin said, “Yes, this will be good den. The wise clan lives close.” He illustrated his point by interlacing his fingers. “Builds strong bonds. And now with human! Wise human no less!”
“Wise? Look man, if I was wise, I’d be doing better than I am. Now, will you tell them-“
“Bah! Yes, human wise…Maybe David does not see. Or hear. Wesh hears wisdom you recite.”
“…You could hear me in the shower?” he asked sheepishly.
“Saaaaa. Yes. David sings song of fik! Sings of fik’s struggle in new world. About lies and hate fik suffer. But our fighter spirit keeps us going. Keeps us strong. You sing such wisdom without knowing?” He placed his hands on David’s shoulders, “Fear not! Wesh will hear and speak David’s wisdom. Even if David cannot see.” With a pat on the shoulder the albino shuffled away to the warriors who seemed at odds over sleeping arrangements.
“I guess it’s good to know they like Simon and Garfunkel.” He mumbled to himself. David summoned his courage to finally investigate what was happening in his kitchen when the door chimed, and the apartment went abruptly silent.
*****
Sarif didn’t need a canid nose to know something was off. The various tables and bits of broken furniture stacked up beside the building leading a trail of dust and debris to David’s door was a decent tip off. Another would be the small din coming from the building. Sure, any tenant could be having company over making a decent noise, but they wouldn’t stop after pressing David’s chime. But of course, she could also smell the small number of people who’ve passed by recently. It didn’t seem likely David would give up being a recluse overnight. What worried her was the smell of his pursuers from last night.
After a moment of silence, Sarif pounded on the door as a bit of anxiety seeped into her mind.
“Who’s there?” called David.
She let go of a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “It’s me. I’ve come to check on you, and…And apologize.” She struggled to get the last word out.
After a brief pause the door slid partially open revealing David’s suspicious expression. “Apologize?”
“Yes…Who’s in there with you?” She looked above him, but no one was in view. The place looked like a mess.
“Just, uh…Just some friends. Could you maybe come back another time? Now’s a bit…Busy.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Please let me in. It’s-“ She caught herself before saying ‘my job’ “Important to me that I know you’re safe.”
With a grimace David looked back into his apartment before relenting and opening the door. Her eyes quickly scanned the room looking for the intruders as she stepped through the threshold. The fiks were hiding in the doorways to the kitchen and bedroom. She caught sight of the impromptu bedding and realized this was an infestation.
She took a couple strides to put herself between as many of them and David as she could. “David, what are they doing here?” she demanded in a hoarse whisper. “They were the ones chasing you last night. You’re letting them move in?”
“I’m not letting them do anything.” He replied as hushed as he could. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m a bit on the short side. When someone twice my height wants to do something there’s not much I can do about it.”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked over her shoulder before leaning down and whispering in his ear, “Do you need me to get rid of them? If you feel in danger I’ll-“
“No! No. They’re fine. Just a bit…excited? Eager?” He sighed, “Look…Last night was a bit of a misunderstanding. I didn’t know all of this was happening until a few minutes ago. It’ll sort itself out.”
“You can’t let these people stay here. It’s not safe. They’re…”
It was David’s turn to squint, “They’re what?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t. Enlighten me.”
“They’re dangerous. They steal, they’re violent-“
“Violent? Violent? Everyone in this galaxy is violent. So far, they haven’t stolen anything, and have been polite with everything I’ve asked. Meanwhile the other high and mighty races have done their very best to make my life a living Hell. They haven’t beaten me. They haven’t starved me! They haven’t shoved shit in me without my consent like those fucking snakes or big fuckers did!” David shouted while pointing to the scar behind his ear. He realized he was shouting and leaned around Sarif to see a dozen or so eyes staring at the two.
Sarif closed her eyes and took a breath. “Look, I…I’m sorry. I’m sure they’re fine. I just…” She looked up and around, searching for the words. “I’m trying my best to keep you safe. I really am. Sometimes that…Sometimes that makes me come off a little harsh. You know the galaxy isn’t a nice place. So do I. I tend to see the worst in people.” She looked down into his eyes, “Will you meet me halfway? Help me, help you? I just want to help you however I can.”
The tension left David as he sighed and rubbed his forehead. He opened his mouth to speak when there came a rough knock at the door.
*****
Hilda took a seat at the bar in the Aimless Wind Café. It had mostly emptied out as the breakfast rush died down. She perused the menu on her comm then checked for any upcoming entertainment. Looks like authentic human music was a random flash promotion. After a brief wait, a black furred felinoid walked up behind the counter.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Yeah, I’ll take a tea and is the owner in today?”
She looked the taurian up and down before replying, “Sure. I’ll go grab him.” With that she disappeared into the back. A few minutes passed as Hilda looked around the restaurant. It wasn’t small exactly. The bar and stage took up a good portion of the room, but judging by the tables the place could seat just over fifty patrons.
“Well, if it isn’t our resident human wrangler. A bit wilier than herding troqs, huh?”
Is my accent that bad? The man rose to eye-level on the hidden step that ran the length of the bar. He was dressed in more conservative clothing with a handkerchief tied around his nubs holding his hair back. While he readied the kettle and dug out a large earthenware cup, Hilda cleared her throat.
“We grew nist, but yeah. I’m here to-“
“Learn what you can about our little music-man.” He set the cup down in front of Hilda and began wiping down the immaculate counter. “He’s been here a few times; engaging in his impromptu therapy sessions. Not much of a talker I’m afraid. What were you hoping to learn?”
Hilda went back and forth in her head about just how much she wanted to say, before deciding honesty would be best. “This is…only our second day with David. So far, we’ve only read his file, picked him up from the hospital, then chased him through half the station. We can’t get a word in edgewise because he doesn’t trust…Well, anyone. But, he kept coming here. I just want to see why. Maybe find something we can do to help him.”
The owner raised his eyebrows then leaned on the bar, “Well. I suppose things have nowhere to go but up, now. If you were looking for some great truth or revelation about David, I’m afraid I have none. All I can say is the man loves-no, needs to sing. I don’t know why. Maybe it distracts him from the here and now or takes him back to when life made more sense to him. Though, if I were to guess…I would say he probably always loved singing. Might well have been his drive before everything was stolen.”
She mulled that over. For someone without all the answers the man had a better bead on David than most of the evals in his file. “That’s as good a guess as any. I just don’t know what I can do with that Mr…”
“Rodrik, and it may be a bit selfish on my part, but it also may bring David a bit out of his shell. Maybe you and your partner could finally bring our bard to perform on that stage over there.” He pointed to the back corner. “I’m more than willing to accommodate whatever he needs.” Standing straight again he told her, “I’ll be here whenever if he decides to perform up there or in the back. I live on the floor above. For now, Shasa here will take care of you.”
Stepping back down, the man passed the felinoid and returned to the backroom. Hilda nursed her tea and thought when Shasa spoke. “I do hope you get him to perform again. I’m a bit of a fan now.”
Hilda eyed the woman. She realized her fur wasn’t solid black but covered in hazy, faint spots. A bit on the taller and bulkier side for felinoids she seemed a bit out of place, but she didn’t know why. “Have you spoken to David much?”
“Not as much as I’d like to. He’s adorably uncomfortable whenever anyone is…particularly friendly to him. But I do love a man with baggage. They melt in your hands once they’re comfortable around you. Lean on you for support. Oh, but you’re not here for that kind of advice. Or are you?” She smiled mischievously.
Squinting at the other woman, Hilda rose and paid her tab, “Thanks. I guess.” She left the café and headed for David’s apartment, learning all she could and a bit more besides. I’m gonna have to keep an eye out for that one.
*****
The room was silent for a beat before Sarif opened the door. She was staring at a leather clad chest before she craned her neck back and saw the single largest fik she had ever seen. I didn’t know they could get that big.
The fik woman seemed equally confused to see Sarif and looked past her to the other fiks approaching the door.
“Chief!” called a fik.
“Chief?” parroted David and Sarif in unison.
A grin split the chief’s lips as she bowled past Sarif and strode in to meet her clan.
“Hey! You can’t just barge in here!” cried Sarif as she rebounded off the wall and planted her paws.
“Why? Am chief. Chief can go anywhere.” The fik giant explained as if to a child. Ignoring the canid, the chief’s gaze wandered the apartment before settling on David, “You!” She took a couple quick strides before bending down and scooping David up in a bear hug.
Sarif launched herself with reckless abandon at the fik’s back with teeth and claws bared. The chief spun as she hauled David up throwing Sarif’s lunge off causing her to shoot past. She dug her claws in the floor and spun around. David was effectively a hostage and meat shield.
I’m gonna have to go low or else I’d rip David open with her. But what if she lands on him? That could be just as…Wait, what’s she saying?
The fik, seemingly oblivious to the attack was rocking David side to side saying, “So happy to finally find you! Humans so hard to find. Always hiding. Always running. But now I have you! You’ll be so safe and happy now!”
She blinked. That wasn’t quite what she expected, but violence still hadn’t been ruled out. She was plotting her next move when she noticed a sharp blade of some description enter her peripheral, threatening her to stay still. Right. The others.
Then the door opened.
*****
Hilda heard voices and a scuffle as she approached the door. Deciding she needed to get in there quickly she opened the door and stepped inside.
She didn’t know how to process what she was seeing. There were almost a dozen fiks around the redecorated room. One was just about her size, clutching a squirming David while another was holding a knife to Sarif who had murder in her eyes. And all eyes were on her.
The door slid shut behind her when she turned and glared at the big fik. “Put. Him. Down.”
A confused expression crossed her face. She looked down and saw the human struggling for air then released him. He dropped to the floor gasping for breath, bracing his hands on his thighs.
Her gaze settled on Sarif who was beginning to relax. “What happened?”
“These f-“ She glanced at David, “These people broke in and seem to be trying to move in.”
A white fik stepped forward, “There are lies! Fik was welcomed into new den. David is most gracious. Fik would not break anything!”
“I broke something!” Piped up a fik in the back.
“Silence!” the white fik yelled, spinning around.
“You about broke David’s spine!” Sarif growled and stalked up to the chief. “Where do you get off thinking you can just whip him around like that?”
She seemed unperturbed by the chastisement. “Human is fine. Sulta knows her own strength.” The argument carried on for another couple minutes when the door chimed again.
*****
That’s it! I’m ripping the chime off and bricking up the door! No more visitors! No more headaches! David had slipped out of the middle of the verbal clash in case it became more physical, but that put him closest to the door. With a roll of his eyes and a groan he answered it.
Standing in the doorway was a blue and red colored avian. It gave David a quick glance before handing him a slim paper package. “You must be David. Not a lot of humans running around here. Anyway, have a pleasant day!” he called before striding down the street.
David tried to get a question out but the avian’s long legs carried him away before David even knew what to ask. With a sigh he inspected the package. It was more like an old Earth manilla envelope, bulging with something weighty. It had his address and even a description of him, but no return address or even the name of the sender.
Frowning down at it he turned around and closed the door once again. Then looked up and realized he was once again the center of attention.
“Uh…You all keep doin…Whatever. I’m gonna go check my mail.” He shuffled along the wall until he entered his bedroom then shut the door. Thankfully he was alone.
He sat down in his desk chair by his comically oversized desk and pulled out the envelope’s contents. It held a pad and a card. He set the pad aside a read the card with someone’s face on it.
You are formally invited to attend the celebration of life/graveside service of Mortemer J. Albrecht.
A funeral? I don’t even know this guy. He quickly read the dates and brief life summary on the inside before setting it aside and powering on the pad. It blinked to life before displaying the front camera view. God, I look terrible.
It blinked a couple times before scanning his face, with special attention to the eyes. I wonder if I get to keep this thing. Passing whatever check, the pad displayed the directions to the desolate planet Mr. Albrecht was going to be buried on. It drew up a diagram of the landing zone, gravesite, and where the Guardians will wait.
Guardians? Plural? Realization dawned on him. Multiple humans in one place. They never did that. David never fully understood why. He missed that bit of collective trauma. In some instances, it made him feel more disconnected to humanity than he already was.
He continued reading the invitation. It seems Mr. Albracht wanted as close to a traditional funeral as he could have, but he had no surviving family. That’s where David and the other invited humans come in. He pondered his options. He really didn’t want to venture out. He didn’t want to meet people and see that all too familiar pity in their eyes. Especially other humans. He didn’t know if it’d be worse to see them looking as bad as himself or doing better.
On the other hand…He was lonely. It’d been so long since he’d spoken to another human. Another person with a shared background and experience. Someone who’d just understand. He thought about it for a minute before reaching a decision.
He opened the door, and it seemed everyone really went back to arguing and shouting.
“Hey!” Silence. “You.” He pointed at Ruk’sa, “Keep everyone from wreaking my apartment. You.” He pointed at Sarif, “Keep them from getting into trouble while I’m gone. You.” He pointed at Hilda, “Come here.” He stalked back into his room while everyone looked at each other.
Hilda followed him to his room. “Gone?”
David spun around and squinted at the towering taurian, “You and Sarif really want to help me?” She nodded immediately, “Then take me here.” He pointed at the uninhabited planet displayed on the pad.

I married my husband last year, I moved from my home state to live in his state. I’m not entirely use to this change yet & 1 of his sisters lives in this state too. I use to not like her b/c of some comments she made in the past related to my husband & I b4 we married. & well now that we live sorta close by she invited us over a weekend for breakfast. She has the habit to leave the dishes on the table or sink and do them hours later & that day she went to sit down on her sofa & I decided to help her & wash them. Well her husband told her to do the dishes so I didn’t have to b/c I’m visiting & she invited us over… she responded to him with “No, it’s so she can get practice”. I got upset b/c I already fu*king know how to wash dishes, I do them at my house. Then she’s ended up catching COVID back last year & she had to be hospitalized. Her husband called us at 5AM if we could take her to the hospital bcuz he’s a truck driver & was far from home. We ended up coming to her house, my husband took her to the hospital & I stayed to take care of her kids…well I ended up catching COVID obviously and my husband too. Those days when she was in the hospital my husband & I had to stay at her house & take care of her kids, her husband was at the hospital w/ her & we were all sick. Well when she got out of the hospital she just thanked my husband. Like okay I guess I don’t get a “thank you” for watching your kids & cleaning your house for 2 weeks. Well now this year she recently had a baby. I’m currently pregnant but I’m due later on this year. But she had a baby & she breastfeeds. Nothing wrong about feeding her baby. She breastfeeds in front of all us that being her husband, her dad, her mom, her brother (my husband), her kids, her uncles, aunts, and her cousins. So we’ve all seen her breast & nipples, she’s not shy & has big boobs. But the thing that upsets me is her comments. I feel like she wants people to look at her boobs bcuz there’s time she tells all of us “look at how full/big they are”. Or “look my shirt is wet bcuz of how full they are” or there’s time she’s literally jiggling one of her boobs & then the other one. & I brought that up with my husband, I told him that idk why she says those things like… “okay your boobs are big… we get it”. & that personally when I have my kid I’m going to cover up so I don’t make anyone feel uncomfortable just in case. Well he got upset at me for saying all that & isn’t talking to me, we’re in bed rn & he just snatched the blanket so f me. Like I’m just giving my opinion & he gets mad. He’s told me before that he’s always going to defend his family (he told me that b/c I got upset b/c his other sister in Mexico was asking him for $$ to go to a concert and for drinks… she works so idk why she had to ask my husband for $$) Idk I feel like he puts his siblings over me at times, especially his sister. Like he defends her over me & I get it… it’s his sister but I feel like he cares more about her than me. Like I’m literally your wife & I’m carrying your baby. I’ve caught his sister behind my back before & there’s times I feel like she doesn’t like me. My husband doesn’t understand, he gets defensive when I talk about her but he’s talked about my sister saying my sister is ugly & I don’t get upset & ignore him like he does with me. It’s frustrating.

I'm in my early thirties and live in a big city here in the US and currently still live with two other roommates. Most people my age live on their own, but I decided to live with roommates because 1. It is cheaper 2. and I kinda always have done it and never truly minded. I only had one horrible roommate situation, but I was only there for six weeks so I left before it became really uncomfortable.
My newest roommate moved a few months after I came which is almost 2 years now-at first she seemed quite conversational and amiable. She even asked if she could borrow an item of mine to use. When I had bought a blender she said "oh, I have one too and you could have used that". So it felt like we were on good terms.
But then the situation in her home country has become bad and ever since then, I've noticed her attitutude towards us completely change. In the beginning, I tried to be nice and asked her if there's anything I can do to help, but she stopped talking to me completely and when we pass by each other in the halls, we don't even look at each other or acknowledge each other exist. I used to say "hey", but I noticed her not even responding anymore to me simply saying "hey" or "hello".
I also notice that she completely hogs the living room. I never personally was inclined to use the living room because I like having my privacy, but I probably would be more open to it if one person didn't hog that space. She also bought a giant couch without consulting either of us and just keeps her things there out and about all the time.
My mom came to visit and we were standing in the kitchen boiling water in my electric kettle. She comes to the kitchen and swings the kettle from us WHILE we were boiling it for our own thing to boil water for herself. We were both confused and my mom was getting visibly annoyed and I said "um....this is my mom". She just stares and gives a cold "hi" and then leaves. I go back to my room and my mom does too and says "who the hell does she think she is" but I told her not to say anything as there was a conflict going on in her home country and I didn't want to start a fight.
After that, I've just lived my life in my apartment dodging my roommates as much as possible. The other roommate and I are on good terms-we don't talk much, but we're nice to each other when it comes to splitting bills and understanding when it comes to shared spaces. I've noticed just this one randomly getting increasingly irate with us over the months. One day, she was cooking something and I go to the kitchen to wash dishes a bit of a space away from where she was cooking-I was doing that because I really needed to eat (I have a health condition) and wanted to eat in those dishes. She was like "You see that I'm cooking here and washing dishes in the same space that doesn't make sense. You can do that later. Come back in 30 minutes". I was annoyed at first but then I was like ok, maybe it does suck to be washing dishes while somebody is cooking. So I didn't really mind that too much and later realized she was mostly okay with me as long as we avoided each other lmao.
Recently, I've noticed her being extremely passive aggressive about cleaning. She's not a spotless neat freak herself and leaves stuff out all the time. Ever since I got an instant pot-I stopped using the kitchen stoves and notice they are always filthy with grease. It could be my other roommate, but there is always grease, dirty floors or a mess that I am not making and obviously when it gets too disgusting for me to walk on, I have cleaned the kitchen myself.
A few months ago, I assume my other roommate threw something in recycling that was dirty and she takes a picture and is like "whoever is doing this either has zero clue about recycling or does not give a shit. Put the right stuff in the right bins". None of us responded because honestly that felt so out of pocket for a small mistake. We've started a cleaning schedule, and this week it was my turn to clean.
I generally use a vacuum and then swiffer wet wipes to clean the floors to do the first layer of cleaning. Then I use a floor cleaner to clean the floor more deeply. Then I clean the oven, the counter tops, sink and surface of the cabinets and microwave. I admit the two things I did not clean were the inside of the microwave and outside of our garbage bin (I wasn't really thinking about that) and she messages me the next day saying I cleaned nothing except the floors and the oven and that I didn't clean the counters, sink, microwave or trash and that she does this and expects us to do the same. She also added that "all you did was clean the kitchen floor with wipes and have made the whole floor sticky".
This is where I had to snap because I told her I didn't just clean the floors and oven and if things got significantly dirty that happened after I cleaned. She then proceeds to take pictures of tiny specs near the sink and the microwave and trash (the latter I admit I didn't clean) and say "ooh must have really gotten dirty overnight". Then I told her that she's being passive aggressive and rude for no reason, that I've always been easygoing and that I can clean the two things that I admit I didn't clean as thoroughly but also went off how people leave the kitchen extremely disgusting and that everybody needs to start taking responsibility for their own mess especially when cooking. She then told me she was not being "rude", but honest and straightforward and that I'm being sensitive and that "we are roommates, not friends" as if that means common courtesy is not expected from a roommate. She did agree that we need to start cleaning up after our own mess and I closed the conversation with "thanks and I am not expecting us to be friends, but that we make sure we're on the same page with shared spaces in a constructive manner".
I know this isn't the worst roommate story, but I have noticed that with the other "bad" roommate situation I had in the past, it was always a roommate accusing me of not being clean even though I think about cleaning up after myself as much as possible and they themselves don't keep things spotless either. The past roommate situation I had got pissed because I put a blender in the kitchen (in an empty space) and kept my plates on an empty table because I was only planning to be there for six weeks and wanted to make sure they weren't mixed with other people's stuff-she wrote me a passive aggressive note in handwriting telling me I have kept the place filthy and when I wrote a long note back telling her that I always take responsibility when it comes to cleaning and if she can tell me what she didn't find clean so we can handle this constructively. I put my number at the end of the note asking her if she'd like to text me and instead of that, she unplugged a blender and put it on the table and stickies all over my appliances and plates with a sharpie saying "REMOVE THIS FROM HERE IMMEDIATELY!" or something. I was moving anyway, but cannot help but think that in both situations, my roommates have been white and I'm not (South Asian). It's not the first time that I have had white people make me feel I'm not working hard enough and me second guessing myself later, only to realize they were being over the top.

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I’m writing this because sometimes I am overly critical of my MIL, tho most of my complaints are spot on. So am I wrong to not see this as funny.
My MIL has done this to all my children as babies who are just meeting big milestones she acts like they should be further on. Like they are not even one yet. Once with one of my boys she called him lazy for not walking yet. I have gently asked her not to do this because I feel that it’s counter productive. It’s a baby and you are essentially telling them they are wrong for developmentally appropriate behavior or lack there of.
Two weeks ago I was at her house with my kids I had baby girl l(10 months at the time) in my arms and she asked if I’m still nursing her and yes I am. Surprisingly I have not had to use formula with her at all. She looked down at my 10 month old baby and started telling her that she is a big girl now and needs to stop nursing. This was a full on lecture which since she can’t understand only made me feel like I’m doing something wrong. I’m not and I know I’m not. I even quoted to her that it’s recommended at least till age 2 and kosher up to 5 years old. Then asked not to speak to my child that way.
So fast forward to today Memorial Day. They came to us for a BBQ. Today baby girl is now 11 months and has recently started using furniture to pull herself up and stand. We are so proud. Everyone but me, mil and baby is outside. She looks at my smiley girl sitting on the floor and starts in on her. You need to get up and start to walk. You are almost 1 you are a big girl. I asked her politely not to speak to my 11 month old that way. But she pushed and said “What are you lazy?” I had it. I slightly raised my voice and let her know that was unacceptable and that she is developing just fine. I also told her not to call an infant or my toddlers lazy. She looked at me said nothing and went about finishing helping with the table.
Ok so I know people say things to kids like they are adults “got a job yet?” I find that silly but not in a funny way. Int the words of Billy Dean, “Let them be little.” Am I over the top on this one? Do any on you talk to your infants like this. Or maybe your parents do it? Is this a mountain out of a mole hill?
I just don’t want my child who has no language to be shamed for things she should be doing.

This has been a topic of discussion bc of ash losing and I thought it was time to throw my hat in the ring when it comes to untangling exactly why I think the Kalos League doesn't work at all, and most significant criticisms of it don't miss the point. Not to say that the League is good and good arguments are not valid whatsoever, but rather that the most discussed criticisms are not valid ones, and tend to overshadow discourse surrounding the Kalos League as a whole and it’s place in the XY Series because people didn't get the story telling at all because of the writers own failure at making the story.
Introduction – The Story Thus Far
It’s important we start this with some context, the Kalos League is the culmination of the Kalos Gym Quest that has been going on throughout the XY series and it’s important we understand clearly where every relevant character stands before we proceed into the league itself, so let’s go through the main contenders.
Ash
After having unlocked the true power of Ash-Greninja at the start of XYZ, Ash had come up against a roadblock controlling the ability due to his insecurities over failing to live up to the image of himself that his friends and rivals had built of him, which he perceives as ‘The Ace’ a strong and capable trainer who always wins. This insecurity caused him to overestimate his responsibility for failures which ultimately lead to his collapse following a string of losses against Alain, Sawyer and Wulfric.
However, through the actions of Serena and Greninja, Ash was reminded both of the importance of partnership in a battle and that he had been misinterpreting the image of himself he’d been attempting to live up to.
Wins and losses weren’t successes and failures, and it wasn’t his loss to Wulfric that had made Serena scald him, but rather the way he acted afterwards whilst blaming himself for a perceived failing. He learnt that as long as he tried his best, never gave up until it was over and accepted both defeat and victory with grace, that was all his friends and rivals ever expected of him all along.
In addition to this, he learnt that he was not solely responsible for a win or a loss. The Bond Phenomenon was, at its core a partnership, and by shovelling all that pressure to succeed onto himself, he was denying the partnership and causing the transformation to break down.
By rejecting the idea of ‘the Ace’ as someone who always wins and by acknowledging the importance of his bond with Greninja, Ash was able to come to a more mature understanding of the reason for the results of his recent battles with Alain, Sawyer and Wulfric and how his relationship with Greninja factored into that, and with this newfound understanding he was finally able to finally defeat Wulfric, breaking his losing streak and claiming his final badge.
Alain
Unlike Ash, Alain has come to the Kalos League for one single purpose. To battle Ash. Alain was originally an assistant to Professor Sycamore who broke away from him to pursue his own journey and to more thoroughly understand Mega Evolution. During these travels he met Lysandre, the leader of Team Flare, and through his (false)teachings comes to believe that strength is the best way to protect people.
During Mega Evolution Special I, Alain meets Mairin and Chespie and they end up travelling together as Alain seeks out other trainers with Mega Evolutions to grow stronger (and Learn).
During his journey, on behalf of research for Lysandre Labs he is forced into battle with Primal Groudon, Primal Kyogre and Mega Rayquaza. Three Pokemon so powerful even his Charizard, who at this point can stand up to a Champion, was no match for them.
This only further convinces him of the need for strength, especially now he has grown to care for Mairin. He terminates his relationship with her for the sake of training. But during the resultant match, Mairin’s Chespie is rendered comatose after exposure to the energy of Zygarde. This greatly hurts Mairin and only further enhances Alain’s desires to become stronger as he, even with his strength, was still unable to protect Mairin.
His battle with Ash-Greninja upon meeting Ash convinces him that a fully mastered Ash-Greninja would be his ultimate opponent and his entrance to the League was done solely due to Ash’s presence. Other battles are all well and good but the battle with Ash is sacrosanct.
Sawyer
Sawyer is a new trainer and one who relies primarily on analytical battle techniques and writes down any and all advice in his notebook. His strategies and mindset rendered him a prodigy who through study and motivation was able to improve rapidly.
Sawyer has been enamoured by Ash Ketchum from the moment they met. His unpredictable strategies and quick thinking inspired Sawyer, motivating him to undergo his rapid improvement which allowed him to become a fully-fledged rival to Ash. His main one in fact.
This lead to him not only fully evolving his starter Pokemon, but also eventually claiming a Mega Stone of his very own.
His previous encounter with Ash was during Ash’s aforementioned period of difficulty controlling Ash-Greninja’s abilities and this lead to Sawyer’s first victory against Ash. Despite this however, Sawyer considered the victory illegitimate, as he was not fighting Ash as he had come to truly know him. He desired to face Ash at his peak to prove how far he had come and to experience a proper full battle against Ash.
He also wants to see if Ash has fully overcome the obstacles holding him back at their previous encounter.
With our three main players in place and their character journeys contextualised, it is now time to cover the Kalos League itself.
The Importance of Everett ( the Furfrou Guy also the importance of Alain vs Trevor)
The first two matches of the Kalos League don’t seem all that important at first glance. Alain vs Trevor is only shown in a cursorily with only the final matchup being seen (incidentally a mirror match between two Mega Charizards). Similarly Ash’s first match isn’t even a match in the League, but rather is a match against Everett, who’s mostly referred to as ‘The Furfrou Trainer’.
However there’s a reason both of these matches are presented at the beginning and consecutively and it’s to set up our first important trend across the Kalos League. The contrast between Ash and Alain.
Trevor and Everett are for all intents and purposes in the same role. They are woefully outmatched against an opponent they cannot defeat. Ash and Alain are the finalists of this League for a reason. But for one notable difference. Alain has to battle Trevor to advance, for Ash, battling Everett could cost him his position in the League.
Now Alain destroys Trevor, this should come as no surprise. It’s to the point that whilst Trevor sees Mega Evolution as his ultimate trump card. Alain merely sees Trevor as a hurdle on the path to Ash. Trevor’s dreams and aspirations don’t matter to Alain, only that final goal, battling Ash, proving he is better than ash winning. That’s all that matters.
Contrast Ash. Ash owes Everett nothing, he’s not even an opponent from the League, he’s someone who failed to get all Eight badges before the conference. Yet Ash stops, listens to him and battles him. He Everett’s dream and understands that in being in the League, in progressing in the League, he will be going up against other people’s dreams for the sake of his own. And rather than trample on that without a second thought like Alain did, he gives someone who he owes nothing to the respect he believes he deserves.
This sets up the two as ideological opposites, one driven by his own power and strength, the other by his connection to others.
This also invokes Ash’s prior arc, Alain is in some ways a dark parallel to Ash, having gone through a similar experience, he has chosen to prioritise winning above all else. Whilst Ash rejected that route, he embraced it.
Ash then goes on to annihilate an Altaria. Despite their differences, Ash and Alain are both really really strong.
Sawyer: Ash’s True Rival
Sawyer is a prodigy, I said as much above but this match ‘Sawyer vs Tierno’ serves to highlight exactly why that is.
Tierno has been set up through XY as an unconventional battler, he had a style that was uniquely his that Ash was entirely unable to replicate which he pulled off effortlessly.
Yet in no time flat, Sawyer counters his style, works out its benefits and detriments, and targets those detriments to easily defeat Tierno.
Remember Sawyer barely knows Tierno, yet in no time flat he counters Tierno’s style and is able to gain the upper hand with ease. This sets up the stakes for his match with Ash. Unlike with Tierno, Sawyer has been watching Ash the whole time, he even defeated him last time they fought.
Add that to both Sawyer and Ash’s reasons to fight one another. Sawyer’s to finally surpass the one he’s admired from the start and Ash to show Sawyer everything he’s got.
And with Ash vs Sawyer set up as the next match, we get set to go into it.
But first…
Alain and his 4 episodes which are called the Mega Evolution Specials
Alain vs Remo. This is rematch between Alain and an opponent he first faced in the Mega Evolution Specials. Remo has come to this match ready for a rematch, he’s pumped up and excited to face Alain again, determined to this time overcome him
Alain doesn’t care, and crushes him 2-6. This isn’t just some random either, this is someone he’s faced before and specifically wanted to face him again. And he straight up doesn’t care.
This would be an appropriate time to talk about the Mega Evolution Specials.
A point to be made very clearly here is the Mega Evolution Specials status as proper episodes. Despite the name of ‘Mega Evolution Specials’ they aren’t your conventional specials. They’re an essential part of the series and the viewing experience and shouldn’t be skipped. Despite this, the dub still refuses to acknowledge them as such but that is a fault of TPCi, not the original XY staff (But they also have fault at this by not mentioning Alain at all in ash's series)
Alain as a character originates from these specials. And they’re where much of his character arc is chronicled. Showing his descent from Sycamore’s Assistant to lackey for Team Flare and his growing obsession for power to the point of driving those who care about him away with Mairin in Mega Evolution Special 4 in a kind of dark parallel to the snowball scene from Seeing the Forest for the Trees. This event directly leads to Chespie’s current condition and drives him even further into a quest to be the strongest trainer ever. If he just gets that bit stronger, maybe he can undo the damage he did.
By the point of the League he no longer cares about anyone else besides Ash, his goal. He tramples across people he knew and people he just met alike with the sole goal of battling and defeating Ash and becoming the strongest (Even tho that wasn't Alain's true goal, his goal was only ash)
Ash vs Sawyer: The Culmination of a Rivalry
And the long awaited match begins.
It’s important to take a look as the competitors heading into this match as their mindsets make the match as much as the actual (fantastic) animation and battle strategy does.
And to begin, Ash knows ahead of time Sawyer has specifically engineered his team in this match to hard counter Ash. Every single Pokemon Sawyer uses is intended to neutralise Ash’s teams advantages.
He knows this. And yet he calls no subs. And uses exactly the team Sawyer had planned for.
Why? Well, this kind of thing has happened before, though the reasoning is different let’s also take a look at…
Ash vs Paul, the most important match at the Sinnoh League (besides ash vs Tobias) and one of the best matches (according to fans) in the anime period. In this match, Paul correctly predicts Ash would reuse his Lake Acuity Team. Ash was aware this would likely be the case. So why did he do it here? Simple, Ash believed his Lake Acuity Team deserved that win, because they were all there with him when he was crushed at Lake Acuity. He respected them enough to not sub them out even if tactically it would’ve been the better option.
Ash’s mindset with Sawyer’s match is similar, but this time, flipped. Ash used his Kalos Team because he respected Sawyer, and wanted to see all that Sawyer had. With both the Paul and Sawyer matches, switching teams was the easy way out. But for differing reasons, yet the same underlying mindset, Ash refused that easy way out and faced Sawyer’s best with his own even in spite of the inherent disadvantage.
I could go into the many reasons why this match is tactically brilliant, potentially even more so than the one against Alain (let's be real most of us accept ash vs sawyer the final of the kalos league). Sawyer’s analytical strategy and how he seizes the momentum of the match and the range of counters that Ash develops and employs mid match against Sawyer to overcome his analytical style are incredibly well construed.
But for now let’s focus on the character stuff.
For Sawyer, this his proper match with Ash, the last one didn’t count for him (the one were he won). This is it for real.
Similarly for Ash, this match is about showing that he is no longer held down by that insecurity and self-doubt. He trusts his Pokemon and his Pokemon trust him and together he can push them all, and Sawyer too, to even greater heights.
The match ends, Ash is victorious, Ash-Greninja overcomes Mega Sceptile when it previously fell against Sceptile. His strength is borne not from strength itself, but from the trust between his Pokemon and himself.
Sawyer is understandably frustrated, losing is frustrating, but he also accepts that this means he still has a long way to go and inspires him to keep aiming for the sky.
The two acknowledge the match and the outcome and accept one another. Their rivalry is not over, Sawyer still intends to one day surpass Ash, but it has reached a temporary conclusion that both are presently satisfied with.
Following this we are granted an intermission before the final match. Where Ash and his friends gain some insight into Alain, where Ash and his friends meet Mairin for the first time and where Lysandre begins to make his moves. Which is where we need to talk about.
Intermission: Team Flare and the Structure of the XY Series
Whilst the League is in intermission I would be remiss not to talk about the structure of the XY series as a whole as there are important differences between it and prior series that separate the two and factor heavily into how the final match plays out.
The XY Dub, in what I consider to be one of its most critical faults, separates the four Mega Evolution Specials into a separate ‘special episode’ list that excludes them from the majority of broadcast orders or streaming sites. This is a fault because said specials are utterly essential for the plot of the XY series (for the writers part and not the fandom because they didn't care at all). Whilst it seemingly starts the same as other series, XY’s central plot is not about the Gym Circuit in the way other series are (but for ash story the gyms ARE important not for Alain's story). That much is evident by the time of XYZ and this is heavily due to Team Flare’s and Alain’s setup during the Mega Evolution Specials. Greninja’s power, Alain’s loyalty, Olympia’s prophecy, Team Flare’s actions, all pointing towards an ultimate showdown at the end of the series.
Crucially, unlike with DP, who’s character arcs were centred on the Sinnoh League and Grand Festival, XY’s central character arcs are also centred on this showdown.
Ash’s reaffirmation, Alain’s obsession with strength, Serena’s confidence and independence, all come into play during or after the Team Flare Arc. The Team Flare Arc appears to be the (intended) climax of the series, not the League. And thus, the League’s decisions must always be made in consideration with how they set up the characters and the plot for the climax of the series. And thus the Kalos League ended being a fundamentally different purpose in the narrative of XY than in any previous or subsequent series.
but it is shown through Lysandre and Ash’s discussion during the League itself, that the series’s focus wasn't very clearly on the subsequent arc (because of things I will mention later will probably mention later if i don't forget) now Whether you conceptually agree with a series structured like this is up to you, but you cannot fault it for failing to execute a League centric series when that was never its intention, because of wanting to have 3 separated stories to begin with (ash, Alain and team flare stories respectively).
With that in mind, let’s consider…
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Kalos League Victory, Ash’s Ultimate Match
Ash vs Alain, the controversial climactic final match of the Kalos League and the thing the League had been building to. This match is super important for both characters and not solely because of their clash of aces in the final moments (Which we will discuss). A peak Ash is the one and only trainer Alain has been looking forward to fighting. The obstacles are out of the way now and his goal is at long last within his reach. Unlike with Sawyer, who controlled the momentum of the match but who’s team was substantially weaker in raw strength. Ash and Alain are nigh equally matched, and not only that, both characters are enjoying the match, which for Alain is a big deal given every prior match was merely an obstacle to be disposed of.
Alain even brings out his ace to take out Pikachu after he proves himself an incredibly dangerous threat to the rest of Alain’s team (which is kinda dumb considering the type disadvantage and that he could have lost thanks to that).
Even Goodra’s seemingly lacklustre performance is not as bad as claimed, after all, Goodra’s rain dance allows Greninja to take down Bisharp and to go into the final match undamaged (but let's be real goodra should have won against bisharp.
And down to the final matchup. Ash-Greninja and Mega Charizard X. The controversial result of which is enough to ruin the League for some (but people being mad is fair because the series wasn't good at telling the story).
Why the Loss Makes Sense (for Alain's character and not ash): The start of the Team Flare Arc
sadly thanks to this lose, Ash-greninja's arc ended being ruined because of Alain's character arc (will touch that in a bit), whilst Alain’s has lead him to desire winning and proving his status as the strongest above all else (when even Alain himself admitted that wasn't his goal).
And the climax ash character arc in the series was the League, now would be the perfect opportunity to grant Ash the win.
But it’s not, it never has been, and all the League does must be in service of the overall narrative of Alain's character arc and not ash charcter arc.
Ash’s loss doesn't makes sense for ash character at all, but it works for Alain's character arc, because for ash it was the ultimate demonstration of what he’s learnt, both how far he’s done since his loss in the Indigo League and what he’s learnt from Wulfric’s match. Winning isn’t everything, losing is just as valuable...at least some times.
like I said just above, the win means something for Alain’s character arc too. Alain wins, he does it, he attains his goal (beating ash), he proves he’s the strongest in his eyes (even tho he didn't wanted to be the strongest). He battles and defeats Ash at full power. He’s finally strong enough… right?
Of course we know that isn’t the case. The Team Flare arc begins and Alain realises he’s been helping Team Flare the whole time.
And it all comes crashing down. And whilst Alain is stuck there, frozen, unable to react in any way. Ash, the one who he beat, the ‘weaker’ trainer, is able to stand up for the sake of the world when he, the ‘stronger’ one was unable.
And it all comes crashing down, his worldview, his supposed strength. All he did, the heights he achieved, it was all meaningless.
And that’s how Alain realises it’s not all about power or physical strength, because Ash has something different that he never had, and that was the reason he was unable to save Chespie and Mairin.
So whilst Alain won the final league match. Ash ultimately proves himself to be the better trainer in the way that really matters (for Alain's character arc because we all know ash was going to stand up anyways). Strength of character, willingness to stand up for ones beliefs and friendship. His ability to lift others up and his respect for the dreams of others not his own allows him to stand up to Lysandre for the sake of all those people's dreams, which gives him a strength that Alain does not possess.
But together, Ash and Alain manage it, in a way Alain was never capable of doing on his own. They manage to stop Lysandre and save both Kalos and the world.
It’s wonderfully poetic and the perfect conclusion to their character arcs and it requires Ash to lose the Kalos League, this is factually wrong because it never was poetic and it wasn't a perfect conclusion at all (Unless stomping the main character is a way to end his arc)
If Ash Won (and why his arc was ruined)
Ok, so let’s say for the sake of argument, we give Ash the win instead. So Ash wins, great. We’ll set aside the fact his whole arc was about how winning isn’t everything and thus handing him the Kalos League win reduces the impact of that arc for some people but it really doesn't.
also ash winning doesn't completely demolishes Alain’s arc at all. Without the win, Alain’s already questioning his strength, Ash’s stand against Lysandre doesn’t prove anything to Alain because Ash is the stronger trainer in Alain’s eyes because he won and Alain will most likely stay at Lysandre side a bit longer.
Now some may argue that’s worth it, because the League wasn't the climax of the series, because the villain arc was (sadly this is true) and unlike OS-BW, XY’s climax sadly isn’t the Kalos League, it always was the Team Flare Arc (which hurts to admit it let's me real). Gutting the character moments in the Team Flare Arc for the sake of the League actually could work and it doesn't do damage to the entire narrative of the series.
I understand people’s disappointment in the result, in the wider series, Ash had already lost five times prior and the marketing did seem to imply a victory. But separating that disappointment from the narrative of alaons character and the xyz series itself is crucial, from what I saw in the series, I believe it’s clear the XY series wouldn't be narratively hurt by a Kalos League victory.
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Pacing: Why Astrid was Unnecessary
Now I’ve heard people criticise the Kalos League by arguing that it was ‘incomplete’ or needed more battles. Citing this one as an example of such.
I must preface this by explaining that the Kalos League would be in no way hurt by the battle were it added. My reply is not directed at those that would’ve thought the battle with Astrid would’ve been cool. Merely those who believe the league to be insufficient due to a lack of battles.
As I have explained above what I perceive to be the purpose for pretty much every single match in the current existent Kalos League. So I ask, what would a full Astrid match actually add that isn’t already covered by an existing battle.
I feel beyond giving Ash’s Pokemon more screen time there’s no benefit to the actual narrative of Alain's arc to be gained from this match and so, whilst it would be cool to see it, it is not necessary and the Kalos League isn’t ruined due to not having it. (This applies to other such proposals such as an opening ceremony or various other matches).
To put it simply, the Kalos League possesses every single element it needs to be successful and serve its function in the wider narrative of Alain's arc and team flare arc but sacrificing ash arc at the end
Conclusion
I hope I have explained, to the best of my ability of writing (because I know I suck at writing wall texts), why I believe the Kalos League works only for Alain's arc and not ash's arc and why many main criticisms of the League miss the very point of alain winning League in regards to its wider role in the XY series and the overall narrative of said series, like when people criticism Alain or ash when they don't get the arcs at all.
Again, this is not to say that the league is perfect and that it totally doesn't stomps on ash story of being a Pokemon master, merely that a main few criticisms are drastically overplayed and distract from actual discussion about the Kalos League and XY Series as a whole, including more legitimate criticisms, but all of this is mostly on the writers for not knowing how to make the story understandable for people.
post data: I most say that I don't want to make an argument with people and such I only wanted to explain things but if I left something out I can of course answer any question that I get (please don't hate me or ban me for this sub because of this)
Edit: I have to say that I don't hate Alain at all He is one of my favorites but I didn't like how they handed his character at all.

Hello, I've been working on revising an old magic system to fit with a new story, and I wanted to get some feedback on if my system works well or not. It's a long one, but feel free to hit me with any questions/comments/criticisms about it! Please excuse the inconstent capitalization though, I'm working on it.
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An Occultists’ Guide to Boundaries
All of reality is built on boundaries. A boundary is a metaphysical container for both the physical matter and the concepts defining an object. For example, imagine for a moment a ball sitting on a table. Now imagine an invisible skin, wrapped tightly around the entire surface area of the ball, encapsulating all the information and properties of the ball. Now imagine that invisible skin suddenly disappeared, leading the concepts that once filled it to just drift away. They might be infused into the table, making it ‘bright red’, or ‘round’. They could get into the air making it ‘bouncy’ or ‘safe for children ages 2+’. The stuff that makes the ball would still be around, but the ball itself wouldn't. For an object to exist, it must be distinct from the things around it. Without boundaries separating ‘thing’ from ‘thing’, the whole universe would be just one big ‘thing’.
This is the basis of Occult practices. Being an occultist starts with the manipulation of boundaries, as the space within them is where magic is performed. That is why, when an occultist begins their studies, the first power they gain is usually simple telekinesis, as manipulating the position of a boundary is good practice. We tend to call those who never move past that stage ‘espers’ or ‘psychics’ or something of the same effect, and even though they are just scratching the surface of what the occult can do, they can get to be fairly powerful.
A basic, widespread (but not universally applicable) law of boundaries is that they have a natural resistance to being manipulated, which is in most cases tied to the surface area of the object. An interesting application of this is that there is functionally no difference in trying to telekinetically move a cardboard box and a solid steel cube of the same size. However, when it comes to destroying a boundary, the difficulty of doing so is all in the ‘complexity’ (this is hard to define, but it will make more sense later) of the object. Stronger occultists will be able to destroy or create more complex phenomena at larger scales.
Since the creation, destruction, and manipulation of boundaries is a fundamental skill for occultists, many different exercises have been devised to help expand a beginning practitioner's skill in doing so. One popular one is trying to destroy the boundaries of small objects, such as playing cards or snack foods, and quickly capturing all the escaped concepts by creating a spherical boundary around them. This can lead to some delightfully non-euclidean objects, especially when you destroy and re-capture the concepts of two different objects into one boundary, but it is a very dangerous way to practice. One could end up not capturing the concepts in time and end up turning themselves ‘easily tearable’ or ‘appetizing to ants’ without the knowledge of how to reverse that.
The analogy of a weightlifter in training may be the most appropriate since an occultist’s ability will grow like a muscle over time, only one that doesn’t plateau in strength. But like any muscle, they will get tired if they go on too long, which will greatly increase their chances of causing an accident.
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Reality and You
Reality is everything that is real. Every object, entity, or phenomenon that exists and is not fictional is a part of reality. If you can measure it, it's real. There aren’t very many other ways to describe this, but humans generally have a solid grasp of what is real and what is not due to being real themselves. However, not all parts of reality are equal.
All magic happens inside a boundary wherein reality is measurably degraded. There is a special, magical, and incredibly complex machine that can measure the ‘level’ of reality within a boundary. The baseline level, the level wherein everything that isn't the occult takes place, was set to be 10 on the Non-Reality Scale (the NRS for short), and anything below that is magic.
But why would one want to degrade reality? Hypothetically, when someone is pouring themselves a cup of water, they would prefer a fresh, clean glass, to one that hasn’t been washed in years. This is because they want to avoid contamination. Spellwork has the same idea, where to pour what they want into a boundary, the occultist first has to ‘wash’ everything they don’t want out.
That is not to say that less reality is always better. A reality that is too low level can mess with spellwork, or cause a dangerous accident if the boundary is flawed. This is because to complete the final step of the casting, one must reintegrate their degraded reality back to the baseline (that is, if they want anything more than an intangible illusion). The extent to which one would want to degrade reality fully depends on what they want to do with the boundary they are creating. For example, one did not want to use it for drinking, but it would be perfectly fine to use it to water a houseplant. And most people would not be bleaching out a clean cup before drinking from it, even if it has a bit of dust in it. In the same way, in most cases, an occultist does not need to purge absolutely everything from their boundary, and will instead want to selectively degrade reality to a certain level.
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Mana, the Soul, and Concepts
A Concept is the abstract idea of the matter within a boundary. For example, the boundary of the ball I described earlier contains the physical matter of the ball, but it also contains the Concept of the ball. The Concept can be imagined as an index of every piece of information about the ball, with each piece being called an Attribute. Attributes of the ball’s Concept could include its weight, size, bounciness, flammability, or any other property that one could measure from the ball. Being a Concept and being an Attribute are not mutually exclusive, and it is relative to what the caster is referring to at the moment. Technically, all Concepts are Attributes of the Universe, which contains everything, so it's best to think of each Concept as a part of a greater whole, which is in turn made of smaller parts. With this comes the idea that a concept cannot be created or destroyed (of course, there are those annoying exceptions), only constructed and deconstructed.
The basis of spellwork is simple. Create a boundary, degrade its reality, fill it with a bunch of Attributes to form the Concept of the phenomena you want to create, reintegrate reality, and presto, you have a spell. This process is fundamentally the same for most spellcraft, making a well-practiced occultist very versatile. However, it is the complexity within each of these steps that requires research to understand, skill to navigate, and training to pull off.
Every living thing has a boundary, and every living thing has a Concept. Except for living things, we tend to call the Concept a ‘soul’. There is no real difference, and there is a constant debate over what has a soul. Bacteria are generally deemed soulless, robots and magically animated constructs have been rhetorically argued to have souls, and there is debate around what stage of birth or death does the soul of a corpse become just a Concept. But it is generally agreed that living humans have a soul, and within the soul, there is an Attribute called mana. Mana is the fuel that is required to perform anything to do with the occult. Manipulating boundaries, degrading and reintegrating reality, and working with concepts all require mana.
Almost everyone starts with a very low amount of mana. Most humans only have enough to perform small miracles in moments of great stress, such as a parent being able to lift a car to save their child or a firefighter obtaining enhanced perception in a burning building. Mana, however, can be grown over time like a muscle. After continuous depletion of one's mana reserves, the maximum amount that can be ‘refilled’ during rest increases.
There is a widespread standard for measuring how much mana one has. It requires a half-inch diameter, clear glass marble enchanted with a Concept that causes it to output light in a manner directly proportional to the amount of mana poured into it. An occultist can push as much mana as they can into it and measure the irradiance of the light produced by the marble with a photometer to find their maximum output.
Besides mana, the soul also contains Attributes for one's familiarity with other Concepts. Concept familiarity determines how well an occultist can summon, read, or build a concept. Familiarity is gained in several different ways. For example, an occultist skilled in the art of pyromancy may be a grad student who’s spent many sleepless nights studying thermodynamics and exothermic reactions, a person from an icy village who spent a lot of time near the fireplace as a child, or a serial arsonist who thinks fire is incredibly beautiful. All of these people would be familiar with the Concept of fire. In other words, research, experience, and passion are all equally valid ways to gain familiarity with a concept.
There are three ways to get a concept into a boundary. The first way is to summon it, using one's will to draw in a concept and use it directly during spellwork. This is generally considered the best method for any occult performance for various reasons, as its only real downside is that it requires a very high level of familiarity with the Concept one is trying to summon. However, it requires no material components to pull off and does not produce any backlash (an important idea that will be explained later). This is why most mages choose to spend their life within one field of similar Concepts, increasing their familiarity with a small group of Concepts, trading some versatility to be able to pull off Concept summoning efficiently.
On a side note, there is the popular idea of the ‘four elements’ system of magic. While the idea of earth, air, fire, and water being base elements of the universe has no real truth to it, the fact that they are things one commonly interacts with and are fairly visual makes them perfect for summoning.
The next way to obtain a Concept is through reading. This method takes an object that has a desired Concept or Attributes, destroys its boundary, and adds said Concept or Attributes into the spell. Reading allows an occultist to work with a Concept that they aren’t familiar with, although they should have some level of familiarity if they want to work with it safely. Unfortunately, reading requires you to destroy a material component and leads to backlash. The result is that spellwork done with Concept reading needs more preparation than summoning, and may require rare or expensive materials. The amount of material destroyed, however, does not matter when trying to read a Concept, so long as it is enough that the occultist can reasonably focus on it. For example, if one was trying to read the Concept of gold, the casting will be the same with a few specks of the stuff as with an entire bar.
The final method, Concept building, is the least. Building requires a mage to take several different Concepts and use them as Attributes to construct an entirely new Concept. For example, the Concept of ‘the superpower of human flight’, which doesn’t exist naturally, could be built using the Concepts of ‘weightlessness’ and ‘propulsion’ and ‘human will’. Building has all the drawbacks of reading compounded, so it is very rarely used and requires great skill. But the power to make fiction reality, even more so than any other type of magic, is incredibly appealing, and many occultists spend their entire life trying to bring a permanent concept into the world.
Concepts are not completely objective. For example, a modern person likely associates the color black with things like death, darkness, or despair. In ancient Egypt, however, the color had a more positive connotation, being associated with fertility and festival, since black soil, not white, is where one could grow the crops. Concepts work similarly, and different ones can have different meanings to different people from different cultures and backgrounds. It is completely unknown how modern magic continues to work with so many different ways of looking at the same Concept.
​
And Now for the Bad: Backlash
Once again, imagine a ball sitting on a table. Remember how I said destroying its boundary could lead to the table and air around it lead to the table and air around it obtaining some of its properties, or as we now know to call them, Attributes? This is also how I described some of the side effects of improperly doing the ill-advised boundary exercise from the boundary section.
Both of those are simplified examples of backlash.
When an occultist performs a Concept reading, they are picking out the Attributes they want and exposing the rest to outside reality. If left uncontained, the rest of the Attributes will diffuse into other nearby boundaries, giving the caster’s surroundings (and likely the caster themself) properties that they likely do not want. This is a backlash. Worse, as the free Attributes look for a new boundary, they randomly and chaotically deconstruct themselves into simpler Attributes (for example, the attribute ‘fire’ may deconstruct into ‘heat’ and ‘light’), multiplying the number of Concepts diffusing over time, increasing the scale and chaos of the event.
The resistance of an object's boundary to being destroyed scales somewhat on the complexity of the Concept it contains, and therefore, more complex objects that would cause bigger backlashes are naturally harder (as in they require more mana) to destroy. This acts as a sort of natural safeguard for the occult, stopping just any aspiring wizard from accidentally rending cities uninhabitable or wiping large swaths of land off the map.
Be they geometric shapes or runes in an unknown language, the main purpose of a magic circle (or any shape for that matter) is to contain and safely dispose of backlash. Over time, occultists have found ways to take common aspects and successfully break them down into their most harmless components, allowing them to be dissipated safely, and history has provided a good base for the backlash of just about any spell to be properly contained, with a bit of research. A very skilled occultist will be able to properly command backlash to harness it and enhance their spells, controlling the decay of Concepts to find simpler Attributes needed for the main spell or to set off smaller secondary spells to support the original.
Another way of dissipating backlash is with somatic action, or using one’s body in the same fashion as a magic circle. The danger of this should be clear, but it allows the caster to dissipate backlash without having to prepare a magic circle.
​
Reintegration and Types
The last part of any occult spellwork is normally the easiest. You just have to stop trying. For sorceries and rituals, firing off a spell is just like firing a bow. If creating a spell boundary is notching the arrow, and gathering Concepts is pulling back and aiming, then the final casting is simply letting the arrow fly as it will. There is some skill involved with the speed and grace of an occultist's mental disengagement, but for the most part, reality itself will do most of the job as it brings one's Concepts back to a level 10 NRS and makes the phenomenon ‘real’. This means that after one creates their fireball, all they have to do is bring it into existence and define its parameters, and throwing it costs no extra mana on your part. That also means that a fireball, once thrown, cannot be altered or taken back unless one creates a completely new boundary to counter it.
I mentioned sorceries and rituals. Those are two of the three ‘types’ (not to be confused with ‘schools’) of the occult.
The first is sorcery, the stereotypical form of magic. Sorceries use summoned Concepts and don't require materials or magic circles or somatic actions. If you see a wizard concentrate for a moment, and something weird happens afterward, you saw a sorcery.
Next are rituals. Magic circles, material components, somatic gestures, and multiple casters are all hallmarks of this type, and it includes anything that creates a new boundary but isn't sorcery.
Lastly, there is enchantment. Enchantment either creates an instant phenomenon on another material, or a permanent artifact meant to be used repeatedly. The idea is, that the spellwork one does is not within a completely new boundary, but is done by adding or removing Concepts from a pre-existing boundary. For example, an occultist could permanently add an ‘unbearably cold’ concept to the blade of a sword, or instantly change the enemy's skeletal system to be ‘highly combustible when submerged in blood’.
​
Schools and Applications
There are quite a few ‘schools’ of the occult, general categories occultists put spellwork into. Schools can include things like ‘divination’, ‘necromancy’, or ‘war artifice’.
An example of a specific school of magic is called ‘name sympathy’. Almost all human souls have a ‘name’ Attribute, as it is standard practice to name your children in modern times. One’s name generally is one of their most prominent Attributes, so it is not a difficult task to target a person by using just their name. This is where the school of name sympathy shines, using traces of one’s person to find out their name and affect their soul directly. Sometimes this is used for good and is especially effective when used in conjunction with the ‘healing’ school of magic. Most times, though, it's used for magical murder.
Immortality is not a school of magic per se, since it is just one Concept, but that concept is so hard to build that it takes as much research and effort as any real school. The thing about immortality is that it is very hard to balance. The human body is made up of millions of small parts, all of them living and reproducing and dying constantly. Sure, one could just enchant themselves with the Concept of ‘life’ and apply their mana, but that would immediately give them cancer in every organ. And since there are no real immortal creatures to read the Concept from, in practice, an occultist seeking immortality has to build the Concept from the ground up, and doing so has taken so long and has been failed by so many that most believe that it's completely impossible.
An occultist may completely copy a concept into another boundary. That is called conjuration, one of the other greatly researched struggles of the occult. In most spells, the physical material attached to the Concept within the boundary is left out. When an occultist tries to completely recreate an object with mass or energy, (for example, if you were trying to use gold to make more gold), they are trying to add more matter to the universe than there originally was. And they will accomplish this, thoroughly breaking the law of conservation of mass. However, reality hates when its laws are broken, and it will attack the conjured object, destroying it completely within moments. The whole problem with conjuration is trying to make it work long enough to be applicable for anything more than its primary use for split seconds of attack or defense in the middle of battle, especially given how mana intensive it is. A promising line of study has involved trying to create an equal amount of ‘dark matter’ at the same time as the actual conjuration, balancing out reality.
​
All About Artifice
Artificing is another application of the occult, but it is an expansive field that warrants a section of its own. It is generally defined as using enchantment to permanently imbue an item with a Concept.
Artifacts are the most accessible way to use magic. Unlike sorceries and rituals, which require magical knowledge and practice to use, the only real requirement for activating an artifact is to push mana into it yourself. And since everyone with a soul has at least a small amount of mana, anyone can pick up an artifact and use it with minimal training. A good example of this was the ancient Greek phalanx, which was not only the name of the military formation, but also what they called the combined magical gear used by the people in it, comprised of animated spears that automatically targeted vital points, shields that inflicted magical fear, and helmets that stopped arrows in their tracks.
Potions are another example of artifice, though technically they belong to its subschool, alchemy. A potion is any ingestible, magical liquid that gives a beneficial effect to the drinker when they apply mana to the unmetabolized quantity of it within their bloodstream. Solids versions of this concept are called boluses, and gasses are generally deemed too hard to work with. Potions can only be activated by the drinker, meaning there are not many ways to create alchemical poison without convincing one's victim to course mana through their own bloodstream.

Hey everyone. So I've mentioned I wanted to do a review of the older arcs some time now. For now, I think I want to just go back to one in particular (cuz it's the one I just binge watched), and I want to kinda go over why I think it works so very well. I kinda wanna keep this in the realm of positive, but comparisons to mod-ern SMG4 are going to end up being inevitable obviously. Afterall, the whole point of this was to go back and review this era of the show to contrast it with today, but I'm going to try and keep it constructive.
To make organizing this easier, I wanna keep this within four categories I've touched on before: Ideas, Story, Characters, and Tone. Some of these will be longer than others, but that's sort of par for the course. Just like before, I'll try to condense it into a tl;dr in the comments. So without further ado, let's begin.
Ideas: Here's where I think the Waluigi arc does something really well - it meshes very neatly into the show's core idea of being a skit comedy show about MEMES. Waluigi is one of the most memetically potent of the Nintendo cast, and this was at the height of the Smash Bros Ultimate memes where he got left out. So right off the bat, centering him as an arc gels perfectly with the show - it just feels like a very natural progression.
Story: I think the core idea of the story here is pretty strong - Waluigi is upset about his rejection and 'odd man out' status. It's one of those stories about feeling like you don't belong, like you're an outcast, and like nothing you do can get you acceptance. It's also about a struggle for identity, feeling like one has to stand out and be unique to matter. These are all things that are quite relatable, honestly, and it works for the arcs' benefit. You can relate to his pain and understand his escalation, while at the same time realizing he's become consumed by his anger. There's not a deeper lore or complex mechanics of reality, it's at its core a story about a sad, lonely person's desperation and anger metastasizing until it corrupts them, but it's also a story about friendship, brotherhood, and ultimately forgiveness and healing.
Something else I want to really touch on here is how the stories for each episodes largely revolve around either EXTERNAL threats or problems the gang has to resolve together, OR, the story is driven by competition and rivalry over simple things - not direct and persistent animosity and disagreement. This isn't just with Waluigi either: 'Stupid Mario Tennis Aces' involves Boopkins trying to join a tennis tournament, 'The Mario Hustle' gives the whole gang some time to shine while trying to sell rocks to people, 'Stupid Mario Paint' involves Mario ruining Toadsworth's painting and trying to replace it, 'The Mario Cafe' is the gang helping Bowser make his restaurant successful and them needing to work together as a team... I really think every single one of these, Arc related or not, are a big hit for that reason.
Characters: Get ready cuz this is the longest one. Of course it's the characters we all know and presumably love, but I think what really stands out is just... Everyone is nicer to one another? There is less inter-group conflict and animosity. In fact, very few of the episodes in this series have direct and real anger and conflict between the SMG4 crew and they instead spend the episodes HELPING each other. The most you have is limited to COMPETITION - Mario and SMG4 playing Smash Bros, or competing for tickets at the carnival, and then Tari and Meggy trying to one up each other at the shooting gallery. Even Bob is nice and gives Tari a duck from his prize counter even after she cleared him out - he didn't have to point out he had it and make her happy.
This is especially starkly represented with Mario and Luigi. Something that was mentioned lately is how mean Mario is to Luigi lately, and the difference between now and then is striking. Luigi actually used to stand up for himself, not immediately caving to Mario's demands. Mario also didn't ruthlessly bully him, steal his shit, and ignore his wants and needs. In fact, it's show multiple times that he deeply, deeply cares for his brother and is in absolute emotional despair and turmoil every time Luigi is in danger and he thinks he's lost him. Mario even directly helps Boopkins in the first episode of the arc, show real grief seeing his friends get t-posed, and never once acts like a manchild; a jerk sometimes, sure, but not a child.
I also got to give props to how they characterized Tari and her introduction in this arc. I really think they knocked it out of the park with her, and it's also why I was so peeved with how they presented her recently. Tari in the Waluigi arc is very introverted - she's shy, and doesn't have a whole lot of spoons for social interaction. However, she is also able to overcome that when it relates to her core interests - games. She is able to game in front of a crowd and stay focused in the face of Bob's trash talk, when Mario tries to grab her attention she's able to hang out with him despite her timidness especially since it relates to her core interest, she is also able to overcome it to help SMG4 feel better after Mario beats him at Smash Brothers. I honestly think that Tari in this arc is INCREDIBLY brave, actually, as she is both able to overcome her own social anxiety for the sake of others and even confidently risks her life twice to try and save Meggy, and then directly stands up to Waluigi at the height of his power! The fact she is such an over sensitive and cowardly wimp in the recent episodes is painful.
Something else too is that the cast feels way more utilized - both main characters and side characters. There is a society that these characters live in, whether they're interacting with the public (like in 'The Mario Hustle' or 'Mario the Scam Artist), watching a news broadcast (Like in 'Waluigi Apocalypse), or interacting with recurring background characters, it really feel like the world they're in actually matters besides a stage that centers them specifically. The simple inclusion of little side characters like Frankie, Wheelchair Koopa, Kamek, Jeeves, Toadsworth all add to the world, make it feel more rich, make it feel like things exist outside of the main cast's lives, and can provide outside motivation and assistance to drive stories. Jeeves does this in the first episode in the arc, Tennis Aces, and Toadsworth provides this in Mario Paint, and then Peach even is vastly different in that she actually saves the day during the T-Pose virus and shows herself to be a competent and intelligent ruler who takes her job as Princess seriously.
Tone: Finally, the last point. I really think the tone here is good. It's serious, but it's still goofy and fun. It's an escalation for the show, to be sure, but it also isn't so edgy and serious you cuz yourself on it. Melancholic moments are mixed very well with humor and levity, so the emotional beats are a part of the show not apart from the show, if that makes sense. There's actual stakes shown, and faced down, but also it ends happily with no one actually dying, while their victory and celebration afterwards feeling entirely well earned.
Phew... Okay, sorry, this was way longer than I originally intended for it to be, but I am chronically inclined to be comprehensive. Again, just like before, I'll get it trimmed into a tl;dr in the comments. So what are the take aways here? Well, again, I think the show could benefit tremendously from a show bible, but more directly I have a couple points:
-Arcs revolving around big memes fit with the core idea of the show. Building upon existing characters as antagonists can be better than bringing in whole new ones. -External threats and problems the cast has to solve together are far better than threats and problems caused directly by members of the cast and stoke animosity and bad blood. -Interpersonal drama either needs to find resolutions or it needs to be in rivalry and competition. -Giving everyone time to shine, either in small cameos or skits in an episode, or giving them more focus in their own personal ones, helps to keep the show fresh. -Dwelling on the greater world and society helps to give context to the character's lives. -Recurring minor background characters add spice and make the world feel more alive.
Don't know how to sign these things off. Go ahead and add your own thoughts and ideas about this, offer constructive ideas, and try to keep it a little positive or at least frame critiques within the context of other examples.

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Hi. I'm a casual player that just plays with friends. IDK how competitive enchantments are but they are a common sight at our table.
Why can only 2 colors remove them? (I'm gonna be honest I'm not counting black. As feed the swarm has gotten be killed numerous times by attempting to stomach the 5 damage I just took. And saccing isn't really targeted removal)
Creatures have 4 colors that wipe them off the board. With green killing fliers but having to battle creatures.
Planeswalkers have 5 colors of removal. Maybe a bit more in black. But all planeswalkers can be swung at.
Lands can be blown up in any color due to things like stripmine.
Artifacts have specific removal with red. But also strong removal with white and green. However black cannot hit this (IMPORTANT). Blue can sorta interact with it.
Enchantments? White or green. Red can disrupt with Enchanters bane but that's it. Blue can counter but... It's blue. Blue can interact with more then any other color which is kinda blues thing.
This leads My deck building. Or my favorite color combo (rakdos) just blown out of the water at points. So. TLDR

1. Why is there such little hate for enchantments.
2. Will black somehow become more of a juggernaut then it already is if it could remove enchantments. What about red doing it?

Hi. I'm a casual player that just plays with friends. IDK how competitive enchantments are but they are a common sight at our table.
Why can only 2 colors remove them? (I'm gonna be honest I'm not counting black. As feed the swarm has gotten be killed numerous times by attempting to stomach the 5 damage I just took. And saccing isn't really targeted removal)
Creatures have 4 colors that wipe them off the board. With green killing fliers but having to battle creatures.
Planeswalkers have 5 colors of removal. Maybe a bit more in black. But all planeswalkers can be swung at.
Lands can be blown up in any color due to things like stripmine.
Artifacts have specific removal with red. But also strong removal with white and green. However black cannot hit this (IMPORTANT). Blue can sorta interact with it.
Enchantments? White or green. Red can disrupt with Enchanters bane but that's it. Blue can counter but... It's blue. Blue can interact with more then any other color which is kinda blues thing.
This leads My deck building. Or my favorite color combo (rakdos) just blown out of the water at points. So. TLDR

1. Why is there such little hate for enchantments.
2. Will black somehow become more of a juggernaut then it already is if it could remove enchantments. What about red doing it?

from tkinter import * import tkinter.ttk as ttk import sqlite3 #create main window root = Tk() #create title root.title("FBI Database") #size of window root.geometry("1000x800") conn = sqlite3.connect("criminals.db") try: c = conn.cursor() c.execute('''CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS criminals( first_name TEXT, last_name TEXT, sex TEXT, age INTEGER, offense TEXT);''') print('table created successfully') except: print('table already exists') conn.rollback() #close connection conn.close() #add function to clear entry boxes def clearFields(): firstNameEn.delete(0, END) lastNameEn.delete(0, END) sexEn.delete(0, END) ageEn.delete(0, END) offenseEn.delete(0, END) #add function to add and display records def addRecord(): #connect to database # use placeholder variables and dictionary conn = sqlite3.connect("criminals.db") try: c = conn.cursor() c.execute("INSERT INTO criminals VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?)", (firstNameEn.get(), lastNameEn.get(), sexEn.get(), int(ageEn.get()), offenseEn.get())) conn.commit() print("One record added successfully") except: print("Error in the add operation") conn.rollback() conn.close() clearFields() def displayRecords(): for row in tvCriminals.get_children(): tvCriminals.delete(row) conn = sqlite3.connect("criminals.db") c = conn.cursor() c.execute("SELECT *, oid FROM criminals") rows = c.fetchall() for row in rows: first_name, last_name, sex, age, offense, _id = row tvCriminals.insert("", 'end', text=_id, values=(first_name, last_name, sex, age, offense)) conn.close() clearFields() def updateRecord(): # connect to database # #use place holder variables and dictionary conn = sqlite3.connect("criminals.db") qry = "UPDATE criminals SET last_name=?, sex=?, age=?, offense=? WHERE first_name=?" try: c = conn.cursor() c.execute(qry, (lastNameEn.get(), sexEn.get(), int(ageEn.get()), offenseEn.get(), firstNameEn.get())) conn.commit() print("One record updated successfully") except: print("Error in update operation") conn.rollback() conn.close() clearFields()
def deleteRecord(): conn = sqlite3.connect("criminals.db") qry = "DELETE FROM criminals WHERE first_name=?" try: c = conn.cursor() c.execute(qry, (firstNameEn.get(),)) conn.commit() print('Record deleted successfully') except: print("Error in delete operation") conn.rollback() conn.close() clearFields()
def show_selected_record(event): clearFields() for selection in tvCriminals.selection(): item = tvCriminals.item(selection) _id, first_name, last_name, sex, age, offense = item["values"] firstNameEn.insert(0, first_name) lastNameEn.insert(0, last_name) sexEn.insert(0, sex) ageEn.insert(0, age) offenseEn.insert(0, offense) #create label widgets firstNameLb = Label(root, text="First Name") lastNameLb = Label(root, text="Last Name") sexLb = Label(root, text="Sex") ageLb = Label(root, text="Age") offenseLb = Label(root, text="Offense") #create entry widgets firstNameEn = Entry(root) lastNameEn = Entry(root) sexEn = Entry(root) ageEn = Entry(root) offenseEn = Entry(root) #create buttons addBt = Button(root, text="Add Criminal", command=addRecord) updateBt = Button(root, text="Update Criminal", command=updateRecord) displayBt = Button(root, text="Display Criminals", command=displayRecords) deleteBt = Button(root, text="Delete Criminal", command=deleteRecord) #specify where the grid is for the label widgets firstNameLb.grid(row=0, column=0) lastNameLb.grid(row=1, column=0) sexLb.grid(row=2, column=0) ageLb.grid(row=3, column=0) offenseLb.grid(row=4, column=0) #specify where on the grid you're going to add the entry widgets firstNameEn.grid(row=0, column=1) lastNameEn.grid(row=1, column=1) sexEn.grid(row=2, column=1) ageEn.grid(row=3, column=1) offenseEn.grid(row=4, column=1) #specify where on the grid you're going to add the button widgets addBt.grid(row=7, column=0) deleteBt.grid(row=7, column=1) updateBt.grid(row=8, column=0) displayBt.grid(row=9, column=0) # treeview widget #specify tuple columns columns = ("#1", "#2", "#3", "#4", "#5", "#6") #create a treeview widget specify the columns tvCriminals = ttk.Treeview(root, show="headings", height="5", columns=columns) #specify the heading the corresponding heading tvCriminals.heading('#1', text='First Name', anchor='center') tvCriminals.column('#1', width=100, anchor='center', stretch=True) tvCriminals.heading('#2', text='Last Name', anchor='center') tvCriminals.column('#2', width=100, anchor='center', stretch=True) tvCriminals.heading('#3', text='Sex', anchor='center') tvCriminals.column('#3', width=50, anchor='center', stretch=True) tvCriminals.heading('#4', text='Age', anchor='center') tvCriminals.column('#4', width=50, anchor='center', stretch=True) tvCriminals.heading('#5', text='Offense', anchor='center') tvCriminals.column('#5', width=200, anchor='center', stretch=True) #bind the treeview to the function show_selected_record tvCriminals.bind("<>", show_selected_record) tvCriminals.grid(row=10, column=0, columnspan=2) #call main loop root.mainloop()

Hi guys im creating a UI with Tkinter and whenever I run my code, my UI is just a black screen. Thank you for you help. here is a screenshot of my problem.
https://imgur.com/vqzNNZS
final project
from tkinter import * import tkinter.ttk as ttk import sqlite3 #create main window root = Tk() #create title root.title("FBI Database") #size of window root.geometry("1000x800") conn = sqlite3.connect("criminals.db") try: c = conn.cursor() c.execute('''CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS criminals( first_name TEXT, last_name TEXT, sex TEXT, age INTEGER, offense TEXT);''') print('table created successfully') except: print('table already exists') conn.rollback() #close connection conn.close() #add function to clear entry boxes def clearFields(): firstNameEn.delete(0, END) lastNameEn.delete(0, END) sexEn.delete(0, END) ageEn.delete(0, END) offenseEn.delete(0, END) #add function to add and display records def addRecord(): #connect to database # use placeholder variables and dictionary conn = sqlite3.connect("criminals.db") try: c = conn.cursor() c.execute("INSERT INTO criminals VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?)", (firstNameEn.get(), lastNameEn.get(), sexEn.get(), int(ageEn.get()), offenseEn.get())) conn.commit() print("One record added successfully") except: print("Error in the add operation") conn.rollback() conn.close() clearFields() def displayRecords(): for row in tvCriminals.get_children(): tvCriminals.delete(row) conn = sqlite3.connect("criminals.db") c = conn.cursor() c.execute("SELECT *, oid FROM criminals") rows = c.fetchall() for row in rows: first_name, last_name, sex, age, offense, _id = row tvCriminals.insert("", 'end', text=_id, values=(first_name, last_name, sex, age, offense)) conn.close() clearFields() def updateRecord(): # connect to database # #use place holder variables and dictionary conn = sqlite3.connect("criminals.db") qry = "UPDATE criminals SET last_name=?, sex=?, age=?, offense=? WHERE first_name=?" try: c = conn.cursor() c.execute(qry, (lastNameEn.get(), sexEn.get(), int(ageEn.get()), offenseEn.get(), firstNameEn.get())) conn.commit() print("One record updated successfully") except: print("Error in update operation") conn.rollback() conn.close() clearFields()
def deleteRecord(): conn = sqlite3.connect("criminals.db") qry = "DELETE FROM criminals WHERE first_name=?" try: c = conn.cursor() c.execute(qry, (firstNameEn.get(),)) conn.commit() print('Record deleted successfully') except: print("Error in delete operation") conn.rollback() conn.close() clearFields()
def show_selected_record(event): clearFields() for selection in tvCriminals.selection(): item = tvCriminals.item(selection) _id, first_name, last_name, sex, age, offense = item["values"] firstNameEn.insert(0, first_name) lastNameEn.insert(0, last_name) sexEn.insert(0, sex) ageEn.insert(0, age) offenseEn.insert(0, offense) #create label widgets firstNameLb = Label(root, text="First Name") lastNameLb = Label(root, text="Last Name") sexLb = Label(root, text="Sex") ageLb = Label(root, text="Age") offenseLb = Label(root, text="Offense") #create entry widgets firstNameEn = Entry(root) lastNameEn = Entry(root) sexEn = Entry(root) ageEn = Entry(root) offenseEn = Entry(root) #create buttons addBt = Button(root, text="Add Criminal", command=addRecord) updateBt = Button(root, text="Update Criminal", command=updateRecord) displayBt = Button(root, text="Display Criminals", command=displayRecords) deleteBt = Button(root, text="Delete Criminal", command=deleteRecord) #specify where the grid is for the label widgets firstNameLb.grid(row=0, column=0) lastNameLb.grid(row=1, column=0) sexLb.grid(row=2, column=0) ageLb.grid(row=3, column=0) offenseLb.grid(row=4, column=0) #specify where on the grid you're going to add the entry widgets firstNameEn.grid(row=0, column=1) lastNameEn.grid(row=1, column=1) sexEn.grid(row=2, column=1) ageEn.grid(row=3, column=1) offenseEn.grid(row=4, column=1) #specify where on the grid you're going to add the button widgets addBt.grid(row=7, column=0) deleteBt.grid(row=7, column=1) updateBt.grid(row=8, column=0) displayBt.grid(row=9, column=0) # treeview widget #specify tuple columns columns = ("#1", "#2", "#3", "#4", "#5", "#6") #create a treeview widget specify the columns tvCriminals = ttk.Treeview(root, show="headings", height="5", columns=columns) #specify the heading the corresponding heading tvCriminals.heading('#1', text='First Name', anchor='center') tvCriminals.column('#1', width=100, anchor='center', stretch=True) tvCriminals.heading('#2', text='Last Name', anchor='center') tvCriminals.column('#2', width=100, anchor='center', stretch=True) tvCriminals.heading('#3', text='Sex', anchor='center') tvCriminals.column('#3', width=50, anchor='center', stretch=True) tvCriminals.heading('#4', text='Age', anchor='center') tvCriminals.column('#4', width=50, anchor='center', stretch=True) tvCriminals.heading('#5', text='Offense', anchor='center') tvCriminals.column('#5', width=200, anchor='center', stretch=True) #bind the treeview to the function show_selected_record tvCriminals.bind("<>", show_selected_record) tvCriminals.grid(row=10, column=0, columnspan=2) #call main loop root.mainloop()

Hello everyone,
I'm currently renovating my basement and I'm finally at the electrical breaker box. This house is a mess and this box is no exception.
Regardless of how messy the wiring is in it, I'm at the stage where I must now put it back on the wall.
Currently, it's sitting on a little table I made for it when I tore down the wall, but it's 90% holding because of the pipe that goes through my basement wall for the main power line.
All house wiring come either from left or right side of the panel, requiring me to leave space around. The main come from the back of the unit and the second ground is on top.
There is one 100a that is left and very hard to move. I even wanted to reroute it cause it goes very weird way but I abandon that, these cable are too tick, I have a hard time moving them.
The mounting hole are 4 holes in the back. I currently have about 3/4in spacing between my insulation and the back of the unit. I though about putting 1x6 across the stud at the height of the mounting screws behind the stud (I have some spacing between the studs and the insulation because basement wall aren't straight). Then, I would screw on the 1x6. But is 1in powerfull enough to hold the electric panel?
Thank you
Reference https://imgur.com/gallery/C7m6c1T

For clearity the oc is from a fanfiction based on Sicario/sicario: Day of the Soldado and takes place after the movie ends
It has been a few years since Alejandro’s death, and I was doing my best to cope with it, as I couldn’t waste away because of it. The government wouldn’t let me even if I wanted to. Instead, I went into the FBI as a new field agent wannabe. I had special treatment due to my ‘ability’ and field history, so I was placed in a different room than the others.
I sat at the center table, straight and unwavering as any agent should be, awaiting further instruction. It was only when I heard the doorknob turn that I allowed my attention to waver. “Ah, you chose the table instead of the couch in the corner.” Said a deep male voice as he closed the door behind him. “As an agent you are to keep on your guard at all times. Comfort too easily allows your guard to drop unconsciously.” I said.
“Very true, but we haven’t even begun.” He said. “No matter. My name is Harold Cooper I am the Assistant director for counter terrorism in the FBI.” he said, extending his hand towards mine. I took it, and gave a firm handshake in return. “My name is Adeline Smith.” I replied. “Pleasure.” Harold said as he sat across from me, opening a thick file folder in front of him.
He took his time reading some parts and turned past many pages. “You have quite the...history with working on the field. A lot more than we came to expect. Good for you.” He said as he was still reading further. “Thank you.” I said curtly. I watched his expression shift and his eyes briefly dart towards me in curiosity before turning them back to the page. “I find some of this...a little disbelieving.” He said.
“Lemme guess, the whole “I can shapeshift” part?” I said, sighing. Harold sat up again, and thought for a moment, his hands under his chin. “Give me a reason to believe it.” He said. I sighed under my breath. “Seeing as I didn’t write my own file, is there any reason for another person of high authority to lie on it?” I offered. “You make a valid point, and one, if I wasn’t so interested to see it I would have accepted. But seeing as I am now curious, I would like to see a demonstration.” He said as he motioned towards the open space in the room. “Don’t worry, there are no windows or cameras in this room so no one else will see.”
That came with little comfort as I got up and shook myself out in preparation. I kneeled down and slowly felt movement under my skin. After many years of having to do this transformation, it became painless and I could hardly feel any of it. Silence filled the room, safe for the cracking and forming of bones and teeth and fur. Once the transformation was complete, I turned to look at the bewildered expression of Harold who looked like a child seeing anything for the first time.
“Y-y-you can still understand me right?” He asked, as he changed his seated position to talk down to me. I rolled my eyes slightly and nodded my large canine head. “Good…” He said, before regaining his former status. “You will begin as the FBI’s...guard dog. I don’t usually say this but you will be working with a Blacklisted criminal and for reasons that should come as no surprise, we need extra...protection so to speak. Feel free to listen in on everything as well. You are apart of this team after all. You do not have to stay in… this form forever, but I request that you stay in this form as long as you are present to the criminal...for now.” He explained.
I nodded and stood there, waiting for my next task as he finished up with the file. “I know you are wondering and it is just that your young appearance would most likely prompt unwanted banter between you and him, and, not knowing how you deal with that sort of thing yet, I would rather stick with safe than sorry.” He explained as he stood up. “I think you are trained well enough that I don’t need to buy a dog leash for you.” He chuckled.
I let out a rough growl and he dropped it. “We will need to place a leash on you whilst we are in public though, no matter how uncomfortable it is.” He said which I fully expected. I nodded as I followed him out of the door. In the hallway he began to brief me on the situation at hand.
“Recently, Raymond has asked to see a specific person who we didn’t even know yet. Agent Keen. She is scheduled to interview so to speak raymond. I want you to be there with her. Listen to them talk, watch body language, that type of thing. Any hostility from him, remind him that you are dangerous. Remember, he can’t physically do anything to you, he is heavily and securely restrained, but you won’t be. He is a well-trained manipulator, keep that in mind.” Harold said as he walked us into another room, where another woman was sitting patiently waiting.
There were other agents seated in the room as well, but the room was silent. All eyes went from Harold, then to me. But I sat next to Harold’s desk and listened. It was like my interview a bit, a little deeper though. And after a handshake and congratulations, she was in as well. She glanced at me many times. “Sir, why is there a canine unit here if I may ask? Is there some sort of...Bomb threat or something?” She asked.
“No, she is here for overall protection, as are the guns. She will be going in with you when you talk with Raymond. She is an excellent judge for body language and can detect hostility from a mile away when some people cannot.” Harold said, giving me a look that told me that he had set the bar for me to reach and surpass.
“Of course, I have a dog of my own. They sense things we cannot.” Agent Keen said as she smiled down at me. “Alright, if you are settled, two agents will also accompany you there. Good luck.” Harold said as he opened the secured door and we were led out into the wide open space.
I walked closely behind Agent Keen and smelled around. Nervousness was coming from almost every agent except one person. Oddly, I was getting no nervousness from the criminal himself. I was getting Excitement. The encagement around Raymond was getting removed as Agent Keen and I were walking up and I could feel the look of the criminal on me.
“Ah, I’m touched. I warrant a K-9 unit. What is it? A german shepard mix of some sort?” He asked, before making a kissy sound, attempting to grab my attention. “What she is, is not important. You asked for me, I am here.”
“Agent Keen, what a pleasure.” Raymond said, with a smirk playing on his lips. I could tell Agent Keen was not accustomed to this sort of job and she was doing a good job of hiding her anxiety. Raymond continued on with ‘proving he knew her’ by commenting on physical changes to her looks. I let out a deep growl to get him back on track.
To my surprise, he didn’t seem startled or taken aback, but his attention switched and his mouth paused long enough for Agent keen to ask a question. “Tell me about Zamani.” She said,
With a deep sigh, Raymond opened his mouth again. “Within the hour, Ranko Zamani will abduct the daughter of U.S. General Daniel Ryker. There'll be some kind of diversion, communications will be scrambled, then he'll grab the girl. He wants to be out of the country within 36 hours. If you don't move quickly, she will die. That's what I know.” When he finished, silence came into the room. We were afraid of how serious to take this, despite how detailed his tale was.
“How do you know this?” Agent keen asked, afraid of the answer. And for good reason. “Because I am the one who got him in the country.” For a while, there was silence. Agent Keen looked from me then back to Redington. “And we are supposed to believe you?” She asked incredulously. I flattened my ears in caution. Despite how forward he was being, I didn’t think this was a matter to take lightly.
“Of course not! I am a criminal. We criminals are notorious liars. Everything about me is a lie. We only lie, until it is strategic for us not to.” He said. “I know so much more about you than anyone else in this facility. I mean, you’re an open book. Abandoned by a father who was a career criminal, a mother who died of weakness and shame. And yet here you are, about to make a name for yourself, about to capture Ranko Zamani. I am going to make you famous, Lizzy.” He said with the widest, smuggest smile.
I let out a growl and pulled on the leash to say, “we are done”. And agent Keen soon followed as Raymond was being locked up once again. I could feel the anxiety dripping off of her as I rushed her inside, closely followed by pairs of armed guards. “How did he know those things?” She cried hysterically.
Harold looked confused to say the least. But she pushed her point that they needed to take the threat as it was. A threat. Before she left the room, on the verge of tears. I looked to harold and, seeing as he had no orders for me right then, I went to follow. By the time I got out there, she was already on the phone, so I silently sat beside her as she seemed to be discussing...adoption?
“Put on a great show there. You better pull yourself together because you just called in the cavalry.” Agent Ressler said as he walked swiftly around. Jealousy and attitude lacing his tone. I let out a shrill bark and a growl, flattening my tail. He jumped and seemed to slow down. “Can I just have one minute?”
“We don’t have a minute. Come on.” Ressler said. I left Agent Keen to finish her phone call up and hurried up to Ressler. “Don’t you growl at me.” He said, looming over me, trying to intimidate me. My hackles rose and I bared my teeth and growled. He raised his hand to give me a swat when Harold grabbed his arm. “You will not lay a hand on her.”
Douglas gave me a glare that said all that was necessary, but he left to board the car. Harold also gave me a stern glance as he pointed to the car as well. Luckily, Douglas was in a different car and I watched Agent Keen sit next to me. The ride was silent and swift as we made it to a ballet school of dance. “Gotta be on your best behavior, bud.” Agent Keen said as she looked down at me and patted my head. “Don’t want to frighten the children.”
I followed close behind as Agent Keen and the rest of the guards and agents walked towards the practice space. Agent Keen told me to stay with Douglas while she went to fetch the kid. It didn’t take long, to no surprise, but as soon as she saw me, she screamed. “Puppy!” And ran towards me.
I stayed perfectly still as she rushed over to me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “Puppy is going to come with us! Let’s go for a car ride.” Agent Ressler said, patting my head. I sighed. He better not get used to this.
I laid in the back with the girls on the floor, getting gently petted by the little girl. Elizabeth was gently talking to the girl. “What’s the doggie’s name?” The girl asked.
Elizabeth looked to me and then back at the girl. “I don’t know, they never told me.” she responded by patting my head. Just then the cars were called to a stop. I raised my head. “Construction, we have to reroute.” Douglas radioed in.
We started pulling around when out of nowhere, a truck plowed directly into our side door. I covered the child as I leapt up and put my body in between the car and the girl, just as gunfire began. This was the diversion Reddington was talking about. I leapt out of the broken window to assess the situation.
It was a gongshow. Trucks everywhere, disguised as dirt loaders carrying men with guns instead. They were pouring gasoline on the road as men in yellow hazmat suits shot at the vehicles. From the voices I could hear, they were speaking russian. These were definitely Zamani’s men.
I lunged at the men, taking their attention away only briefly getting kicked away shortly. That only made me angry. As I got up, a shot ran through my shoulder and I got knocked out. When my consciousness came back, the child was gone and so were the men.
When I fully came to, Agent Keen was running her hands down my back and telling me it was gonna be okay. I was no longer on the bridge, I was back at headquarters being rushed to the infirmary.
Harold was there of course. “I’ll take it from here, you need to pry Reddington’s mind for more information. There is something he’s not telling us.”
I looked at Harold as Agent Keen left. Once the people in the infirmary got the bullet out, he brought me to a secure office. “I need you to tell me what happened.”
I took a deep breath as I began shifting back to my original form. “They gassed the car but gave the child a gas mask.” I began.
“Then they’re not planning on killing her. Not yet at least. Which means we got time. This was just a diversion just like Reddington said.” Harold said, thinking. “What does he want?”
Just then, Douglas knocked on the door before walking right in. We both looked to the door. “I think the meaning of knocking is to wait until you are given permission, Agent Ressler.”
“I’m sorry sir but Reddington wants to look at the evidence… to help. Who’s she?” He said, looking at me briefly.
“An agent, you don’t know everyone on the force” He said briefly. Douglas dropped it and walked back out, giving me one last look.
“We will properly introduce you soon, but in the meantime, come out once you’re, well… a dog.” He said.
I felt relieved this wasn’t going to be too permanent and began the transformation once more. Harold placed a sling around my injured leg and we walked out. He gave the order to release Reddington into standard handcuffs as he was being led into the evidence room.
When I got there he was already getting touchy with the evidence photograph. No one was happy with this but we were making progress so they let him. I was listening, understanding even less of it but I was sure I was going to be enlightened soon enough.
They soon figured out the motive. Revenge for a bombing with another bomb in D.C. Reddington finally caved and told us about the chemist and such, only after getting a deal to be released under supervision.
“You will be watching Reddington closely.” Harold told me. I cocked my head. “You will act as his dog. We can't put an agent in here, but we can bring you. Listen to everything he says, especially when he meets Zamani.”
I couldn’t say I didn’t see this coming. “Come, we have to drop you both off.”
We went back to Reddington. “Reddington, this k-9 unit will accompany you, and to anyone outside of the FBI, she is your dog.” Harold said, giving my leash to him.
“Lovely, it's been years since I had one. I’ll be sure to take good care of her.” He said, looking down at me with a smile. I averted my gaze but my hackles were raised.
“Play nice you two.” Agent Ressler said.
I rolled my eyes and my few days as Reddington’s dog was rather uneventful. Of course they put cameras in his hotel room and were practically right there if need be. However, this wasn’t exactly what I signed up for. Over the course of the day, he would randomly feed me table scraps, and make me food which was… more than I expected him to do, but maybe he was just holding up his part of the deal.
In fact they were right next door. They gave me a break as I needed one rather badly and I went with Agent Keen to get fresh air. She was going home to see her husband and she told me to play nice with her other dog. The drive wasn’t long and Agent Keen spoke to me about the adoption and her husband along the way.
When we arrived, I had a sense that something was wrong. I could smell someone else. Someone I hadn’t met yet. I slid my way in before Keen and sniffed. There were balloons on the ceiling and a baby basket. She had come in moments after and began celebrating, and I sculked around the house, smelling the trail of the stranger.
“You’re probably smelling my husband, it’s alright.”
That's when I wandered down the hall and walked straight into a man. Not just any man. Zamani. “How many dogs does she have?” He said before grabbing me and shoving me into a room and closing the door behind him. Inside the room there was another dog. I growled and barked at the door to no avail. I could smell blood, and soon the shriek of Keen led me to believe she found the source, no doubt her husband.
I was fighting against transforming and going out but remembered that Keen was an Agent herself and should know the protocol. I could barely hear their conversation so I sat and waited at the door, growling every once in a while. Keen’s original dog came to sniff but overall did nothing.
I heard more screaming, and then I heard footsteps. Agent keen was talking but the man had seemingly left. She was on the phone. “Agnes! Where are you?” That's when I noticed, the dog’s name. I barked along with her behind the closed door and she rushed to open it.
“You probably smelt him…” She sighed, rubbing my shoulders. “And then bumped into him while searching huh, girl?”
I whined, looking at the mess he made of her husband. I couldn’t do anything about it. Emergency vehicles were pulling up, and I watched as they took him into the ambulance. I went with keen to much dismay of the doctors who normally wouldn’t allow dogs inside. I placed my head on Keen’s lap as she stroked Tom’s hand while sedated and in a coma.
“We got to make a visit to Reddington.” She said before we both left the hospital.
Once back at the hotel, I followed Keen as she stormed into Reddington’s room and began demanding answers. As she was yelling, she began attacking Raymond as she punctured his carotid artery. Angrily she walked away and took me with her back home.
Once the FBI were done taking crime scene photos, she was told she was allowed to begin cleaning the mess that had just taken place. She cleaned a little but passed out on the floor. I slept beside her, keeping her company. In the morning she continued cleaning to little or no avail.
Agent keen gave up on cleaning for the time being and told me we had to go to the hospital once again but this time, to talk to reddington who was thankful for the investigation, was still alive and in stable condition. I was not allowed in the hospital this time, and with that came the play of a lifetime.
I saw Reddington scaling the wall and began running after him. “Oh, you’re here…I thought you were still with Agent Keen. No matter, come. I have to meet with an old friend.”
I had an inkling of who he meant and got a little nervous but I felt that Reddington wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I followed him to the Lincoln memorial where he sat next to Zamani.
“That dog… was at Keen’s place. Are you a double agent, my friend?” he said, looking at me briefly.
“Ah no matter, my dog must have followed her home.” He said as if it was nothing. “If I was with the FBI do you think I’d be walking around without a chaperone?” He said.
Zamani gave me a look then returned his focus to his friend. “It is only a dog, I guess. Dog’s cannot speak.”
I followed them as they walked by normal civilians who were none the wiser of the criminal’s true identity. I tried to listen as best I could but they spoke softly in hushed voices. Once Zamani and Reddington split ways, reddington called Agent keen.
They spoke for a few minutes before he turned to me. “Now, I need you to go to the zoo and meet Agent Keen. It isn’t far from here, just up there and turn right. She’s gonna need your sense of smell to find the girl.”
The girl was alive, so before I could question taking orders from him, I rushed using the directions he gave me. Sure enough I caught up with Agent Keen. “There you are. Now,” she said, taking off the bracelet the little girl gave her. “It might be faint but it should still be there. Find her.” She said.
She and I rushed into the zoo, my nose to the grindstone as I found it surprisingly enough. She recognized me clearly. “Puppy!” She cried as she knelt down to hug me. I barked and howled to try and alert Keen. I kept the child distracted as agent keen looked at the backpack the child was wearing.
Keen backed away and called Reddington. Apparently he already knew of this and had alerted his bomb friend to stop it. He came about 45 seconds later. Agent keen instructed the girl to keep focusing on me, and I played a good sport as she hugged me tightly around the collar.
A russian exclamation was all we heard when the bomb was dismantled safely as the man left and took off with the now dismantled bomb. “I see you found the girl in the nick of time” Reddington said as he soon joined us.
That was all he could utter before several agents; FBI and others started running into the park.
“Daddy!” the little girl cried as she ran off to her father who had joined swiftly after hearing his daughter had been located. “The doggy helped find me!” She said, gesturing. The General for that was his ranking, came over and shook Keen’s hand, thanking her for helping his daughter before bending down and pinned his badge of bravery on my collar. I was shocked and went to lick his face.
“She’s a brave one. If she hadn’t followed her scent we wouldn’t have found her in time.” Keen said, rubbing my ears.
“If only we all had the scent of a dog. I can’t believe how relieved and thankful I am to you two.” He said, patting my head and shaking my paw.
We cleaned up and went back to headquarters, discussing Reddington’s own list of criminals. Essentially he was planning on revealing them one by one for an ever growing immunity deal. I laid down at Harold’s feet, still wearing the General’s metal on my collar.
Once we were done there, Harold told me to go home with Elizabeth as we were going to be working together a lot from now on. I happily got into her car as she drove home. She almost seemed to forget the mess that was still half cleaned in her dinning room.
I continued smelling around, the reak of blood still roominating. Until i smelt something else… underneath. I began digging at the carpet, lifting it up and Elizabeth and I both saw a little hatch on the floor.
Upon opening it, there was a small wooden box. Elizabeth looked confused as she slowly opened it, revealing bundles of 10,000 dollars, passports, and a gun… all seeming to belong to her husband.
She furrowed her brow and sighed. “What is happening?”
This is a work in progress

Long story short: over 40kg of pot...and MUCH more coming... and we gotta sell it all.
So obviously this market is oversaturated right now in a politically unsure future, but my team lives in the presence so let's get on with it. I'm trying to open a cafe that serves coffee to pay the rent, but to also sell our indoor grown cannabis at stupid low prices. Where can I purchase decent quality furniture at low prices?
I'm in need of:
Sofas
Dining tables
Utility sink with someone to install
Furniture assemblers
For location purposes, the name of my shop is Yodbaimai located next to Golf Hub East Pattaya
https://goo.gl/maps/T4bJAtjj4GLJRmtL8?coh=178571&entry=tt
​
​

It finally happened to me! I was able to see my new strength (that I didn’t know I had) in real life.
I was able to lift a 50lb bag of sugar above my shoulder height to dump into a container on a table sitting at waist height. I wasn’t able to do this at the end of February. I’ve been with OTF for a couple months now and it’s maybe silly but I’m proud of my new stronger body.

Previous, First, Next
As I don't really know how to properly describe how tall or short people are from a pov shot besides "He towers over me like a tree" or "This little guy is practically a pillow" thus, so I don't struggle with finding the right way to describe size, I'm just gonna put it here for those who are curious;
Jessie (Average, normal Protectron) is 5 feet 6 inches Even is 6'3 Taxxik (who for the record suffers from Dwarfism) is 3'2
Also, as I have no knowledge of how the Translators work both in and out of the NoP universe, I'm having it as a implant in a place under the ear yet above the neck. In terms of it, words are translated to the best of its' abilities but noises and sounds are the same. "I'm gonna go hit the hay" Human saying. "I'm gonna go hit[Punch, Claw, attack?] the [Cut and Dried Grass stored for animal feed?]" what the translator thinks they have said. This is pretty much my explanation on why the Translator implanted in Even explained what a Arxur is to him. This is the translator that is in Even.
As for Taxxik and many other ailens, their translators have two parts. A secondary implant "Voice box" near the vocal cords to help speak a different language, in the event another person doesn't have a translator or if a new species was found. The machinery in the Translator implant would work hard to decrypt the words said by the new species so that the user would be able to both hear and speak via the Voice Box implant.
----------------------------------- Memory Transcript: Taxxik, Venlil search and rescue pilot.
Date: [standardized human time]: September 7, 2287
The logic of Predators having Exterminators of their own isn't lining up that well... but imagining it this way is managing to trick my emotions to not freak out around the towering meat eater... At least, not succumb to fear whenever I'm around him.
At the moment the predator went out, I still feel the shakes his growls sent to my core. The translator said he was out scavenging. I try not to imagine what that entails as I sat in thought. The automaton, Protectron... whatever... was keeping an eye on the Tilfish I rescued, after seeing the death machine of predatory engineering downstairs. I couldn't help but laugh at the idea of being scared of this machine.
It was a little annoying at times, stating the same phrase every now and again. Protect and Serve. If the predator was out, I figured it would bring the machine with it... I reach up to rub at my neck, mulling over the annoyance it is to have a busted 'Voice-box'.
This planet, Earth. Rotates faster than many planets I've visited... Gonna be difficult finding the proper times to sleep. Glancing around the room, I try to spot something. Anything to keep my mind occupied. When my eyes find nothing, I look back to the Protectron... I stared at the bags on its' back, tied to its frame... if my Voice Box wasn't busted I would order it to let me look through the bags.
As if it would even obey me, it probably wouldn't even label me as a hostage.
Taking my time to climb off my chair, I did my best to stay silent as I made my way to the automaton. Funny how I've always cursed my small size, if I was just a little bigger even these careful steps would be too loud.
I couldn't reach two of the packs on the automaton. But manage to stick a hand around in a lower hanging bag. The moment I felt my claw grab something, I pulled it out and did my best to hide whatever it is behind my back.
the Protectron, Jessie. Questions as it turns to face me. "Oh, just trying to find you're deactivation switch" I blurt out with as much innocence as I could muster in my body language. Knowing it couldn't understand me made things a little fun...
That said, that fun was swiftly gone the longer it stared at me in silence. that red glow behind it's glass unnerved me... I hesitantly gestured to the Tilfish with my tail, that seemed to get a message across the machine as it turns back to her.
I felt myself deflate as I silently expelled a deep breath I was holding onto. It thinks I was just worried about her... wait... This machine made by Predators 'hopes' that hearing she is stable eases my worries? I tilted my ears in bewilderment as I slowly went back to my chair near the stairs. After a quick glance to make sure it wasn't watching. I checked the object in my claws.
What... is this?
It seems... like a photograph... There is the Protectron, The Predator Even. And a couple other human Predators. Brahk, I should've looked for my holo-pad in the ship to try and translate these words... Okay... Going from what I see, Even is sitting atop a... I don't think I want to know what that is... looks insect in nature, it has a long tail and enormous claws. Given the eye placement and the claws, this must be a rival predator of some sort. I suppose this is proof that Exterminators and these Minutemen at least share the same concept.
Even was standing, his odd weapon resting on his shoulder and his arm wrapped around the head of a shorter human. He must be the exception to how tall they are with the other humans being around the same height as Jessie. This one had a darker colorization of skin, and had fur all over its' mouth, Its eyes are hidden behind eye-ware of some sort. From the tools on its belt, I believe this must be the maker of Jessie. Or at least, the closest these Predators have to a mechanic.
Looking to the two on the other side, I had to take a double take as one clearly wore something strikingly similar to the hazard uniforms I've seen some Exterminators wear. And in its' hands... okay, that MUST be a flamer. Only bit of its body I could make details out was the odd shape on its chest and its head. It had a color tone similar to Even but had red fur atop its head. Quite a bit of it, enough that I almost mistook it for a tail. With the gear it wears, I felt like a pup again. Staring at a Exterminator in the hopes of one day being one of them..
it is a exterminator. They HAVE exterminators.
And the last one. It's appearance sends shivers down my spine. It looked as if it was roasted over a fire... did it get roasted over a fire?... It must be the victim of a Predator attack. I nearly scold myself of that thought but stopped myself as I thought on things more... They are Predators but have exterminators, this is proof of it... And Even handed me a Mutfruit. A plant, why would he carry plants on him if he ate meat?... did... we make a mistake somewhere when we first found them?
​
The logical side of my brain tries to make sense of what have happened the past claw. I crash land on Earth, and while unconscious, get rescued by a preda-!... by a Minuteman. This photograph is proof that humans have predators on their planet and on top of that, they have their own Exterminators who deal with them... what if we are missing something?... Besides their planet being treated like the Arxur raided it, there are some things that are so similar it scares me... I glanced back to Jessie in thought. It has moved over to a window, seeming to have moved to keep watch.
Humans aren't the Arxur... they are... different. What in the universe are they?... Turning back to the photograph, I notice something that I wasn't sure what to think about. Even if I hated how it felt like they were all staring at me. Their eyes... those horrible, predatory eyes are so... different.
The mechanic, I'm dubbing to call it. Has its eyes hidden, but judging from the red-furred one and the last one, whom I fail to find the words to describe. Even isn't natural... at least, his eyes aren't... With a reference to other humans, I could better see the differences between his and theirs.
Why are they different?
--------- Memory Transcript: Even Winter, Minuteman(?). Alien rescuer
Date: [standardized human time]: September 7, 2287
"IT'S CALLED SHOOTING STRAIGHT RO-!"
Pew!
I lower my rifle as I watch the final Raider fall to the ground, I've half been thinking on what I learned earlier. Half focusing on my duty as I left my cover to search the trio for any gear that could be be used by the two back at the building.
We would've been extinct if the Great War didn't almost do it... all because we have a different diet than the aliens AND because of our facial features. 7 Caps, a handmade Pipe Rifle, single-fire. A handful of ammo for said pipe-gun. Too big for Taxxik, gonna require training but the Tilfish could maybe use it.
Was The Great War because of humanity? Or did the aliens do it. Taxxik said they were coming up with plans to glass the planet before the first bunch of detonations, then send a investigation fleet the second time... but what if that was a lie? I move to the next Raider corpse
Raider armor, a fire-axe. 10mm pistol. Two mags of 10mm rounds. And 5 caps. Taxxik may not be able to use the axe but armor is armor... and this pistol might be a little heavy but could be usable for him, unlike other weapons.
If the aliens caused the Great War, then they wouldn't have to use their own supplies to kill humanity off... it'd be a cost efficient plan... maybe Taxxik says they only sent a investigation fleet because he was worried I'd hurt him for what the Federation did to humanity... from how he looked at me, I could already see it... They thought humanity were like the Arxur... Looking at the final Raider body, I suppose they are right... but this is ages after the great war... surely we were better before the world gone to shit.
Metal armor, broken Laser pistol, 18 fusion cells, 18 caps. -Found the greedy one-. And a... Dress?
"Well, someone wanted to look pretty, eh?" I chuckled at the corpse as I looked the red dress over, it looked stainless, not even a tear even after our firefight... Probably will fetch for a lot of caps, next time I find a settlement. -
"How many times do ah hav' ta tell ya! he ain't a synth! he just needed his peepers replaced aft'a a close call with a deathclaw!" Lu shouted at the bartender, defending my rep as they didn't quite like how my new eyes looked
- ... I sighed, no matter where I go. People will hate me simply because of my eyes. Mentally I prepare myself for next time I run into a settlement and start heading back to base. My haul hanging from my back. I had managed to pick a few wild Mutfruit and good bunch of wild Carrots during my scavenger hunt.
I'll have to watch what I eat around the two... I could eat vegies and fruits like them but if I'm to keep my strength up, I should eat somewhere away from them. So they don't have to see a 'predator' eat...
Looking up at the night sky, I let out a low chuckle as I recalled something Tulip said during our time together. War never changes. "Heh, guess you were right Tulip. War really does never change" I snickered aloud as I continued my walk back.
If more aliens were to come here, they may tell others... and that, would lead to a real extinction of the human race. Or worst.
No matter the planet, or universe. War does not change.
The sad truth of reality... I need some tunes. Turning to the small radio in my pack, I turn the knobs and get searching for something to enjoy. When I find the right song I smile somberly as I turned my full attention back to my travel. Softly singing along to get the gloomy thoughts out of my head "Hardly spoke to folks around him~ Didn't have much to say~"
I gotta find me a "Big Iron" someday. ------ Half a hour travel later ------
I step past Aeon, and made my way upstairs. "It's me" I called out, more as a gentle warning than anything else as I walked slowly up the steps.
I hurried my steps when I heard a small thud. By the time I round the corner, I nearly had my rifle raised. On the ground was Taxxik. Who looked up at me with that same fear in his eyes. In the corner of the room was Jessie, staring at the Tilfish.
I released a sigh of relief as I went to help Taxxik stand back up. "Sorry if I spooked ya" "I-it's nothing" Taxxik responded as he took my hand, I could feel his hand shake in my grip as I helped him stand.
"So, you were 'search and rescue', right?" I asked as I went over to a nearby table, placing the weapons I 'found' on top of it. Taxxik hanged back a moment, For a moment I thought his hands were holding something but must've been my imagination. "Y-yes?" his higher pitch noises made me melt somewhat inside. But I stayed standing as I gesture for him to come over. "Did they teach you how to use a weapon?"
"N-no, not really... unless you include ship weaponry" "Heh, well then. That won't do. Here... we're gonna fix that." I declared as I hanged him the 10mm pistol. And for a split second I swore it looked like he was gonna fall the moment I let go of the pistol. With a huff, he raised it with both claws. "H-heavy"
"Yea, I figured. But until we find something lighter, it will have to do as far as range attacks go... and I don't think you'd want to bring a knife to a gun fight." I snickered softly as I hand him a magazine. "I got some bottles we'll use as target practice. But right now, I just want you to get used to the weight of the gun." He held it like it was a rifle, and for a moment. I was about to correct him when I thought more on the difference of size of it and him. I suppose it does count as a rifle. At least, a rifle to him. Reloading will be the biggest problem he'll face if he can handle shooting it. "I-I'm not sure but... n-no, you're right. In a place like this I n-need to know how to defend myself"
He followed me downstairs, and outside -steering clear of Aeon on our way out-. I set the bottles up, using a mostly destroyed fence to hold a couple of them. Then I went behind him and got ready to hold my hands over his ears. "Keep the front and rear sights leveled with each other, brace yourself for the recoil. Only fire on empty lungs, and squeeze the trigger, don't yank it." He seemed a little confused on that last bit but said nothing as I covered his ears. He changes his stance a little bit, took aim at the closest bottle. Changes his stance again to brace himself. Finally, he takes a deep breath, releases it. And -BANG!
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Might be a little shorter than my last two chapters, apologies for that. family things have been dampening my mood a little bit. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. If anyone spotted any errors I made, feel free to point them out